Rejected

Steve

She's shown you who she really is.   Would you really want to spend your life with someone so callous and uncaring.

Value yourself and be determined to love your life without a cruel person inhabiting it.

You would be more lonely living with such a loveless, vile person than being on your own.

V.

Oh my goodness I am shocked! However it doesn't seem like the actions of a wife who was happy and still in love with you when you had the operation in the first place. Seems like she just used that as an excuse! To be fair to her it IS devastating for women too as it also means the end of their sexual life when things dont work out, even though they may still be relatively young and healthy. But to throw that "real man" stuff at you loses any sympathy I might have had for her. 

My man had RP in 2016. One nerve spared. We managed to resume relations after about 2 years using a pump. This September we had our first non pump assisted "bonk". His T went through the floor after the surgery and is only now recovering. Sadly we have had a biochemical recurrence and are facing our last "bonk" probably ever, this weekend. He is starting HT on Monday after SBRT didnt work and has been told it's for life. I am just over 50....still not in menopause myself and will never get to make love to my darling husband again. (He is an all or nothing guy so I know what way the land lies). But we will still love each other and have cuddles and hopefully a good few years of joy, as well as this awful pain, before he has to leave us as I know he will. I wouldnt dream of looking elsewhere and he is still and will always be, my man, my real man. 

Your wife has been a complete b***h and you deserve better. It's not your fault you got this awful illness. You have had successful treatment and now you must embrace life. You must be broken hearted to be treated so callously. But it seems to me this was probably in the works anyway...I do hope you find solace alone or meet somebody who will love you as you are and understand better what it means to be a "real man". I am so angry with her on your behalf...what a "nasty woman". I would give anything for my husband to have had a successful outcome after surgery. She doesn't know how lucky she is! 

I "only" had a prostectomy back in March this year i.e no HT. I was very concerned that ED might be a possibility but I think we did a few things

1) We talked about it and definitely didn't let it get in the way of being close. 

2) After the consultant said at the consultation week 4 that I could start taking viagra I was straight down the chemists ( the 50 mg tablets are available over the counter) Its absolutely no big deal taking a pill. And we were able to give it a go at that stage. Not my best performance but at least we were giving it a go!!!

3) We used "aids" and being able to satisfy my partner one way or another was important to me. 

Personally, I think he is being selfish. Yes, its an emotional thing but it is for both of you, not just him. Has he said why he won't take the vaigra? I think you are being supportive and more than reasonable. Maybe it time for you to talk about some of your needs in the relationship?

Well done for hanging in there @Brooke's. I hear your love and care and concern and willingness to take actions - firstly to save your relationship and also to get what you need. That's only fair and I encourage you to go ahead. I think the main thing is for you to firmly let him know what you want (blushes and all) and let him know the consequences if he doesn't collaborate. For me as a man, I like my messages direct, i.e. not dressing up sexy and trying to get me to want it, just telling me straight what you want. 

And thanks to all those who have spoken out so compassionately for him as he faces his own demons. I am one of the lucky ones who has been able to talk and joke about it with my wife, and in fact benefited hugely about ten years earlier when I had a short bout of ED - that she compassionately said to me, let's make love even if we can't f***. Wow, that was a gift for me. 

My 2 cents worth on the male emotional journey (different for every man) - what I found was that I did have months of feeling like avoiding any kind of sexual situations with my wife, about 3-4 months post surgery. It all just seemed to be getting worse, not better. The idea of sex for me then kind of carried the hammer behind it of "you will be disappointed at the end." Also, it was much easier for me to get some sexual pleasure alone through masturbation than with my partner, I feel a bit embarrassed to admit. It's still a bit like that for me after 8 months, although the vacuum pump has given me back some erectile function. The huge learning for me and my wife was how much we are wired to f*** and how big of a rewiring it needs to do what I so glibly advised above - make love without any erection. It's emotionally scary and my wife and I can testify that it is possible.

I will be as blunt as some of the others here; I don't believe him if he is saying he feels no desire at all. Removal of the prostate may cause erectile function but it doesn't directly cause loss of libido. Loss of libido can be caused by the fall-out from prostate cancer (fear of failure, a sense of no longer being a man, mental health issues as a result of being told you have cancer, etc) but all of these are within his gift to do something about; professional help may be needed. Maybe when he was diagnosed, he knew that ED was a possibility but didn't understand the difference between libido and ED? But to make no attempt at all to address this is selfish on his part and does not bode well for the future and, as CJ says, if he has had no engorgement at all for 2 years it may be too late to recover proper erections and so other ways of making love will become important.

This thread may help https://community.prostatecanceruk.org/posts/t9839-One-wife-s-story-of-ED 

Edited by member 03 Nov 2020 at 13:56  | Reason: Not specified

I'll be more blunt than others, he's been feeling sorry for himself for too long now and is just not trying he needs to snap out of it before your relationship deteriorates. Shameful lack of understanding of your emotions and desire for intimacy. I'm on HT, had chemo, radiotherapy, ejaculation of pure blood last month for weeks....God yes I felt down and sorry for myself at the very start but crying into my pillow every night isn't going to change anything. I have no libido at all but I still desire my fiance and want to be intimate with her. I was proactive, ED clinic,pump,cialis,viagra, I got a cock ring to help, we've bought loads of 'toys' if I cannot focus enough to stay hard. It's hard to focus and remember to be tactile, hugs kisses cuddles because HT takes that feeling away but you just have to want to make it all work but if hes not on HT then he has no excuse. You two need to sit down and you need to say what you need from him, if all you want is oral and toy play with no pressure for him to perform then let him know that, lay in bed together and take his hand and put it where it feels nice for you with no pressure on him. You need buy in from him or your going to start resenting him very quickly.

I know I'm blunt but it makes me so mad when some blokes feel sorry for themselves for too long and forget or totally disregard their wives/girlfriends feelings and needs.

Brooke's,

It's not clear to me quite what his and your collective situations are. He may have tried to masturbate and found he couldn't get an erection (indeed, that's highly likely shortly after the procedure). He may have a sense of failure and dread at even trying that again, never mind sex with a partner. To prevent getting into that situation, he may have put up a barrier to being intimate in any way. (A lot of "may"s and guesswork here - I could be on completely the wrong path.)

I think there are a couple of things to try here.

Try to restore the intimacy, but with the pressure to have sex removed from the equation for now. You could do this in a couple of ways. Depending how well the two of you are communicating, you could discuss it as a plan, and agree sex is off the table for a month or two, but you want to get back to kisses, cuddles, stroking each others shoulders, arms, hands, etc, whatever you might have done in the past, except sex. Even if you both find such a session starts heading towards sex, don't go there - you need to get your intimate bond back fully working, and not at this stage try anything which might fail and knock it back. If that level of communication isn't operating, you could start by trying intimacy in circumstances where sex can't happen, such as in public, walking hand in hand, arms around each others' shoulders, having a good snog, etc. This might help you improve communication, but you'll need to work on that too.

This brings me to a communications activity I suggest for couples to try and help communicate again when communications have been damaged by distancing caused by loss of sex. Each of you go off separately with a sheet of paper and think of the following things to write down:
Think of a question to ask about how prostate cancer has affected your partner.
Write down an activity the two of you do which is important to you staying physically close.
Write down an activity you would like to do to make you physically close.
When you've both done this separately, come together, and discuss your answers one by one.
You can repeat this again in a week or two (decide and put a date in your diaries so it doesn't get missed), and you have to come up with 3 different points next time.

If you can get intimacy (without sex) going again, and communications going again, you should be able to come together and both understand each others' issues, and start formulating a plan. If you've wanted to continue on to sex during your month or two of intimacy with abstention, you should now be in a position to discuss if it's time to give it a go, or to understand why it isn't going to work (e.g. ED), and talk about what you might do about it. There are ways to have sex without an erection, and there are ways to get an erection with assistance, but you won't be able to talk about these or have the confidence to try and risk failure until you are back fully communicating freely again. You need to handle failure sensitively, as far as possible by maintaining intimacy, such that any failed sex isn't seen as intimacy ending in failure, but the intimacy continues.

Wishing you the best of luck.

Thank goodness for Andy’s reply to Brookes situation. A well thought out suggestion taking into account how Brookes OH may be feeling  

The he’s selfish, man up comments were very insensitive as none of you know what he’s going through. We are all different in our responses to this bloody disease and that has to be respected.

I hope it works out for you and your OH Brookes. I also hope the OP of this thread is ok

Bri

Edited by member 05 Nov 2020 at 22:03  | Reason: Not specified

Thank you Stalwart! You captured it - all this paraphernalia, works sometimes but not others, hard to focus - and so easy to compare with "before" when it all came so naturally.

I honour you for just persisting, trying each different way, staying with your core love and desire even though it manifests differently. I am on a similar journey and I yearn for the simple pleasure sex used to be - but like you it is still worth adapting for the sake of loving connection. And you're right that it takes a bit more conscious effort to be tactile, hug and kiss - I find that my uncertainty about my own body's responses makes me less confident of connecting with my wife. Still worth the effort!

Hello there,

thank you for your post.  I appreciate your encouragement, but  Personally an

open marriage is an oxymoron to me. ❤️