Ruth, 51
But that’s because I had an episiotomy when I gave birth to my daughter, which means the doctor cut my vagina to make the birth easier. When Laurence and I tentatively began having sex about 12 weeks after the baby was born, I felt terrible pain when he penetrated me. The midwife told me I was being hysterical and making up the pain.
Lawrence is a very caring partner, but as the months went by, I began to worry that I was faking my pain too. The doctors were adamant that I was cured, and Lawrence began to suspect that I no longer wanted him. I began to avoid sex, coming home late from work or saying I was tired, because it seemed pointless to keep talking about the pain when no one would believe me.
Lawrence may have doubted me, but she never stopped researching my symptoms online, and eventually tracked me down to see a specialist about seven years after my daughter was born. She took one look at my scars and told me that my cuts hadn’t healed properly and that I needed surgery, called the Fenton procedure. It was an incredible relief for me.
Since I entered my 50s, I feel like I’ve gotten stronger and better at communicating about sex.
Although the surgery was successful, I would be lying if I said our sex life has been fully restored. It has been 15 years since I have felt no pain during sex, but I still tense up before penetration. Lawrence wants to have sex every day like he did before our daughter was born, but my libido has decreased. Sex has always been a tense topic for us, so it is difficult for me to say no without hurting Lawrence’s feelings.
Since menopause, my libido has decreased even further. Part of our problem is that when Lawrence feels rejected, he has less time to woo me. So it’s a vicious circle. I want sex less and less. On the positive side, I feel stronger in my 50s and I can communicate better about sex. I don’t want to say yes just to please Lawrence. I want to be true to myself.
Lawrence, 51
Before our daughter was born, Ruth and I were having sex about five days a week. I didn’t expect our sex life to continue at that pace forever, but I wasn’t prepared for what happened: after our children were born, we hadn’t had satisfying sex for seven years.
After her episiotomy, every time Ruth and I tried to be intimate, she described a sensation of internal friction burns. We engaged in extensive foreplay and tried to avoid penetration, but Ruth would often want to stop midway for fear of pain.
Doctors had repeatedly told Ruth that there was nothing physically wrong with her, so I began to think it was a psychological problem. Ruth’s mother had often told Ruth that women were not really interested in sex and only had sex to have children. As the years passed and Ruth continued to avoid sex, my mother’s words kept going round and round in my head. I thought that Ruth had gotten what she wanted from me and that I was no longer of any use to her. There were times when I lost trust in her, too. I wondered if she was having sex with someone else.
Sex acts like an airbrush in a relationship. If the sex is going well, the other annoyances are less noticeable.
Sex certainly improved after Ruth had her Fenton procedure. The psychological scars are still there, but sex is no longer a constant source of tension between us. My testosterone levels have also dropped a bit. I often think of sex as the airbrush in a relationship. When the sex is going well, other little annoyances don’t bother you as much. When it’s not going well, they come to the surface.
Now we are more playful and relaxed about our intimate relationship—Ruth often reads erotic books when we’re in bed, and we talk freely about our desires—but sometimes I wonder if sex will always remain problematic because of what we’ve been through.
