Wifely

I've been having a lot of trouble of late with 'shoulds' and 'musts.' My brain is all about 'you should be having sex with your husband a lot more often than you are choosing to have sex. You are not a good wife if you do not do this.' The other part of me is feeling exhausted, unhappy and frustrated and is sitting there saying: This hurts. It does not make sense to do something that hurts you. Plus, I feel like by now I hate sex- I hate everything about it- the fact that it's like a chore I'm supposed to do and I hate the stickiness and I just hate everything.

I've also been trying to figure out what exactly the pain is about. What I've discovered is the pain specifically happens upon initial insertion/ penetration and sometimes also when my husband withdraws (especially if he's still hard when doing so). It's almost like there's a ring of something there that really hurts. We've also discovered that different lubricants make a difference. KY Jelly and plain olive oil really work well for us; Astroglide is awful.

Anyway, I made an appointment with the pelvic floor therapist but now I am frustrated because they have this rule that I need to be referred by an MD. So that's annoying because this is a private situation that I am dealing with and it's very upsetting to me that I potentially have to reveal what's going on to yet another person just so that they can write me a stupid referral. I think that is unfair. Hopefully I can just get in touch with my gyencologist and have her refer me, but it's still very annoying.

But then comes the good times, after all this complaining...the times when I'm not exhausted and feeling like this is a chore I'm supposed to do in good wifely fashion, the times when I'm actually excited and aroused by my husband, the times when we're both in tune and those times go well...except for the initial penetration part of the scenario.

I think a major issue for people in my situation is that we have no idea what it is to look forward to. I'm expending all this effort and energy just to try to get sex to not hurt. I have no idea what it's like when it's actually enjoyable. And it's hard to keep working on this when you have no idea what you are working TOWARD. What am I trying to get to? What is an enjoyable sex life like? I have no idea.

But at least I do know what shared intimacy and love is like, and hopefully that's enuogh to buoy me up in the meantime.

Detachment

It was my mikvah night. I got all made up, put on sexy lingerie, pretty jewelery and so on. But inwardly I'm cringing.

Not the start of this pain....again, is what I think.

But I go home and then suddenly I slip into a role. I'm role-playing. I feel detached from myself, from my body, from my actions. I watch my hand touch my husband's shoulder and I feel like I'm seeing someone else do it. The sense of wanting, of yearning, of creating a connection with him through this action- was totally not there. Instead, I felt like whatever I was doing I was doing by rote and I was doing it because I had to and because it was expected of me. I trailed my hand over his body because I had to and kissed him because I had to and basically watched myself do things, not because I wanted to but because I had to.

My husband, Hashem bless him, realized that I was somewhere very far away and distant from where I should be and didn't push me. We cuddled and I fell asleep. I woke up and noticed the candles were still burning so I blew them out.

And suddenly there in the fuzzy half-sleep I was in, everything was back. The emotional connection? Whoom. The wanting my husband? Also whoom. Back to my normal self, not the detached self. So we took advantage and as usual penetration hurt. I've been trying to get in touch with a pelvic floor therapist but she hasn't been returning my calls. It's frustrating.

But the whole detached, role-playing, I'm doing this because I have to and not because I want to scenario that started off our evening? That sucked. That was bad. I don't know what that's about but I didn't like it.

Astronaut

Everyone wants a husband who loves them to the moon and back.
I'm lucky enough to actually have one.

So when I sit here thinking and considering, I want to thank God for my blessings as well.

This painful sex thing may suck and it may be a royal drag, but the godly person that my husband is comes shining through because of it. How many other men would curl around their non-functional spouses and whisper sweet nothings in their ears and mean them, too? How many other men would stick around for this soap opera? How many other men would agree to do whatever it takes, whether it means visiting doctors or therapists or reading sex books or whatnot in order to help me out?

How many other men would deal with being really aroused and having their wife turn them away? And do it with good grace and without turning it into a blamefest?

My man has such a deep, pure, loving heart and for some reason it's easier for me to trust it, to see it and to feel it when I'm alone at home just thinking quietly. It's so much harder to do when I'm actually with him. But that will come with time.

It might also have to do with having an audience for my embarrassment. It's hard to be totally out there sexually or otherwise when the one you're with knows of this deeply personal and embarrassing failure on your part to have a normal sex life. And also knows the problem isn't with him but rather, with you. If I were a man, I'd be feeling emasculated. Since I'm a woman, guess I'm just feeling de-sexified.

How can I think of myself as the free spirit that I was- trusting, open, laughing, free and sexually adventurous (within the bounds of Judaism, obviously)- when the person my body is making me be is so much more withdrawn, shy, upset and worried that I'll just never be able to make this whole sex thing work and be pleasurable? It's a conundrum I don't have the answer to. There's the confident me and then the totally undone-hanging-off-the-hinges version.

My husband claims that he still sees me as a sex goddess, which might be him just trying to make me feel better but also might be the truth because it seems like no matter what I do I am still cherished in his eyes.

It strikes me that we are living a very private and very twisted version of a love story, where the enemy isn't Romeo or the Capulets but my own body. And when we win we'll have triumphed over it. Weird.

Ouch

So while the consummation of our marriage was a great first step, I'm getting tired of sex always meaning pain. Either it means pain that comes from inserting the dilators before we have sex, or it means the pain of my husband inserting his penis and moving it around when we ARE having sex. (Oh, by the way, that was a big step- we graduated to being able to have sex without prepping with dilators first. My reasoning was, if it's going to hurt either way, I'd rather we had the spontaneity part still and you can penetrate me rather than a piece of plastic).

I'm looking into pelvic floor therapy. Maybe they will be able to help me to relax my muscles so that penetration does not equate with pain.

My poor husband feels horrible because he wants to be intimate with me but he knows that that means pain for me. He feels selfish. (I tell him he isn't and it's totally natural for a husband to want to sleep with his wife.) I feel like a horrible wife because I turn him away and we only get two weeks a month anyway to be intimate because of the whole Niddah thing.

This Rosh Hashana I prayed that we be able to fix this so that sex was not something I dreaded but rather a good and happy thing like it is in other people's marriages. I feel really down about this. Before I got married I was such a sexual creature. I loved petting and necking and kissing and all that stuff and was excited about going further. Who knew it would turn into a nightmare?

I just wish I could be a better wife to my husband.

Rivkah

So even though I knew it couldn't be helped, I had been feeling a little bit sad that a dilator, which is just a piece of plastic, broke my hymen rather than my husband. Obviously he is still my first and I gave that first experience as a gift to him, but I had been feeling a bit sad about it.

That was until I found the Midrash Aggadah Bereishit (Buber edition) Chapter 24. It's talking about when Rivkah saw Yitzchok and she fell off the camel.

סימן סד [ סד ] ותפל מעל הגמל . נפילה ממש, ובאותה נפילה איבדה בתוליה. הרהרה שראתה בעלה ולפיכך נפלה:

 סימן סז [ סז ] האהלה שרה אמו . שמצאה כשרה כאמו, ואמרו חז"ל כי על שרה שהיה ענן קשור על אוהלה, וכשהיתה מדלקת נירות בערב שבת, היו הנרות דולקות עד מוצאי שבת, וכן רבקה, וכסה הענן לאהל שרה, כשמתה שרה נסתלק הענן וכשבאתה רבקה חזר הענן, וכשם שהיתה שרה זהירה בשלשה מצות שהאשה חייבת בהם, נדה וחלה והדלקת הנר, כך היתה רבקה זהירה:

ויש אומרים שלא מצאה בתולה שחשד באילעזר /באליעזר/, אמרה רבקה חלילה שלא שכב עמי אליעזר, אבל מפני הנפילה שנפלתי אבדתי בתולתי, ונקום ונלך למקום ההוא שנפלתי, ואולי יעשה ה' נס ותמצא שם דם בתולים, וכן עשו, הלכו ומצאו הדם על עץ אחד, והיתה מוכת עץ, והדם היה גבריאל שומרו שלא יאכל ממנו לא עוף ולא חיה, ולפי שחשד לאליעזר על חנם, והוא עשה שליחות אברהם באמונה, זכה שיכנס לגן עדן חי:

Basically what happened here according to a Rabbi I asked who explained it to me is that when Rivkah fell she was wounded and bled so when Yitzchok had relations with her, she had no signs of virginity. Suspicion fell on Eliezer (that maybe he had slept with her and that was why). But when they went back to the place where she fell and they saw the blood that supported the fact that she had hurt herself, all was well and everyone understood that Rivkah had always been pure after all.

So if Yitzchok can marry someone who lost her virginity falling off of a camel and wounding herself and she is one of our Imahos, then I can definitely have "lost my virginity" to a plastic dilator and still be in good company.

Be In A Documentary!

So Anna Rodzinski at PSG Films is working on doing a documentary about virginity (exciting, right?) They've already filmed part of it and are now looking to focus on...you got it, unconsummated relationships. She is looking for a married couple in the US or UK who is working towards consummating their marriage but who have not done so yet to. They are specifically looking for a woman who has vaginismus or vulvadynia.

PSG Films is happy to pay for part of your therapy as you work towards consummating your marriage, so that's a bit of what you get (aside from making sure this issue receives further attention in the media) if you allow yourself to be filmed.

Her contact information is:

Anna Rodzinski
anna@psgfilms.com
206-660-4907

If you are able to talk about this issue publicly/ share your story via this documentary, I urge you to do so.

Happy

We figured out something that works, is enjoyable and that makes me feel sexy. The imagination is a wonderful tool.

-I took the advice of one of the commenters here who separated dilation completely from foreplay. I did my dilation for 40 minutes (20 with large dilator, 20 with the dildo) while my husband took a shower. Then I put on my lingerie/negligee, had him come into the room and so on and the good times began. The separation mentally between the two different states (off state where I relax and just dilate, on state with my husband) worked really well.

-I found that the addition of a pair of really high sexy heels to my normal outfit made me feel more in control and overall more dominant. The power rush was liberating. This heightened my ability to feel sexy as well. I'm sharing this only because it might work for someone else in my position.

-We also made sure the bedroom had candles, soft towels, delicious smelling body butters and other good stuff as always.

I'm (or I could say we're) quite happy with the results of our experimentation.