BubsMom,

I believe that I can understand what you are going through. Although I am a man, due to a back injury I have lost the sensation in my penis and I too am unable to orgasm through penetrative sex. It is also difficult to keep an erection as I am unable to feel most of what my wife is doing. There's no warmth, no friction, no tension...in the place on my body that is supposed to have the most nerve-endings, I feel nothing. It just means that even when I know I want to have sex, even when I know that my goal is the act of pleasure my wife through whatever means I can use, I still have an extremely hard time initiating. Right now there are just too many complications so that sex is no longer about the moment. I need to take a Viagra just to keep it up so that my wife can try to enjoy herself on my penis. The thing is it is hard to pull everything together at the same time. She has to be aroused, I have to take a Viagra, I have to get aroused and get it up, we have to be uninterrupted, she has to feel romanced...in the end this becomes a pressure with lots of expectations, which itself diminishes the desire to initiate.

My wife has told me that she doesn't want to initiate because she sees my frustration after we have sex, from not ejaculating or from ejaculating without an orgasm. I know that she probably feels that she is protecting me from "pain" by not trying to have sex.

You say that you have been together for 8 years, though I don't know how old you are or if you have kids. We are in our mid-40s and we have two "grown" girls (15 & 21). We both have a lot of reasons to distract us from being intimate, and many reasons to justify it to ourselves.

The only real advice I can give, based on our situation (which isn't working either) is to talk. Perhaps your husband doesn't initiate because he thinks that since you don't orgasm, you don't want sex. Maybe he thinks he is using you if the actual sex is mutually fulfilling. You both need to know how each other feels and thinks. He might be right or might be wrong. If you are willing to have sex with him, even without an orgasm, he needs to know. I've told my wife this, and it hasn't made a big difference...but at least I've tried.

Hugs...I hope this helps knowing that you are not alone and that it isn't limited to just women. Good luck, I hope things work out for you.