performance anxiety and lack of orgasms

I'm pretty frustrated right now and can't sleep, so this is sort of a rant that is hopefully not too scatter-brained. Basically, my boyfriend has a mild disability and performance anxiety that has made sex more difficult than it should be and I'm unsure who should accommodate whom at this point and if I could ever be able to have an orgasm from him or not.

Ever since I started having sex with my boyfriend, we've had issues with his performance anxiety (among other things). I guess the first time took him by surprise and he felt pressured because I was a virgin so he couldn't perform at all. And now if we haven't had sex in a while (like a couple weeks or something), he's too nervous to get an erection. If I encourage him to deviate from his "box" of foreplay tricks, he kind of freaks out and doesn't know how. I'm the most comfortable on my stomach and I've been trying to find ways to suggest to him how to give me oral or use his hand while I'm in that position, nothing I suggest is comfortable to him.

And here I'm thinking, after all these months watching me masturbate, you've seen me get off on my stomach what, maybe 90% of the time? I can only explain how to touch me in ways I have gotten myself off. I've never gotten myself off with just my hand while on my back, for example so I can't tell him how to touch me to give me an orgasm, only how it feels good (and maybe we'll get lucky).

And even if something is being done right, it's too painful for him to do more than a few minutes so I can never have an orgasm unless I masturbate next to him.

And intercourse…he's either too nervous and can't get it up or too excited and gets off immediately. But who am I kidding? His longest times are 2-3 minutes with an average of 30 seconds to a minute. And he's only comfortable with two positions and in one of those positions, he gets off before it starts to feel good to me too often. So we mainly have sex in missionary position. He's comfortable enough about the position so that he doesn't freak out about how to penetrate me, I'm in a position where I can help guide it in so it doesn't hurt going in wrong, and I usually get to relax and feel something before he gets off.

And perhaps some of the performance anxiety is my fault…if I explicitly tell him I want to have sex with him it's too much pressure on him and he can't perform. And I find this out just when I was finally starting to feel comfortable having strong sexual desires for someone. Now I feel like a monster and a pervert again. Sure, I can express desire in subtle ways, but not being able to express it explicitly makes me feel like there's something wrong with me wanting to have sex with him.

Further complicating things is the fact that he doesn't really have muscle memory (cerebral palsy) so he has a very difficult time remembering how to touch me anyway and I've had to show him over and over. But it's usually within the context of how he's comfortable with doing things and I'm trying to get comfortable with just always being on my back even though I have a hard time orgasming on my back (and the orgasms aren't as good and sometimes hurt) since it's the path of least resistance.

But I sort of resent having to reteach my body how to orgasm in a different way. I'm not even sure how to do it…with a vibrator I can orgasm on my back, but I can't create that feeling with my hand. Not to mention it feels so unnatural on my back and it's difficult to motivate myself to practice having an orgasm on my back when it takes much longer and the orgasm is much less satisfying. Are they supposed to get better over time or is my body not made to have orgasms on my back? I haven't tried using just my hand on my back much…I have no idea how that would even work.

Apparently me getting an orgasm from him touching me directly would help him be less anxious but in order to do that it appears that I have to completely relearn how to have an orgasm in a fundamentally different way because he can't or won't do it the way that's comfortable and familiar to me. And it's so frustrating. Is it even possible to retrain my body like that?

I really want to find a sex therapist, but they're all an hour away and the only one that I know for sure takes our insurance is someone who specializes in women's issues. Which is great for me, but these issues are both of ours.

sex should be fun and relaxing, It shouldn't be stressful.

I suggest doing things together that will relax you both, and not putting pressure on each other to have sex, try relax first and see what happens.

There's not much that relaxes me though. We've tried giving each other massages, but giving a massage makes me anxious. It works alright if I give him a massage first, but it's still not ideal.

And since we only get to be alone together maybe once a week or so, there is pressure to have sex then. We're just too busy otherwise to have more opportunities right now. We spend plenty of time together, just a lot of it is in public. That should change on breaks from school or when we're both out of school.

I also have issues trusting men in general and in giving consent when I don't mean to give consent. There's never been pressure from him but I feel too guilty saying no. Also, I don't know how to explain to him how to get me to relax. I guess if he concentrated on me first, that would help. Intercourse feels better if I've already orgasmed, but it just seems cruel to make him wait that long to have his own orgasm. On the other hand, no matter how much he tries to stay engaged, he is at least partially checked out after having an orgasm. That's probably normal for guys though, right?

It is cruel to make him wait to have an orgasm?

Flip that around. Isn't he being "cruel" by giving you 30 second quickies?

Point taken. However, to be fair, he really can't physically help that he can only last that long when he's inside me. And it's not like he doesn't care. This actually upsets him more than me. So I don't think it's necessarily cruel that he lasts that long. It may be more cruel that he hasn't done anything significant to fix the issue on his own, but then again anxiety is preventing him from seeing a doctor and I understand what that's like.

Is he working through is anxiety? If not, then yes, I'd put some of the blame on him. Don't get me wrong.....its not his fault that he has anxiety, but if he's not willing to do anything to work on the anxiety issue, that's a bit selfish and he doesn't have a right to bring someone into his life and burden them with issues that he just wants to ignore. Just my two cents.

He was working on it and it was improving slowly but steadily but sometimes you take 20 steps back when dealing with anxiety. I understand that since I have anxiety myself and that's happened to me. We've decided to spend the next 3 or so weeks to concentrate on the end of the semester since he's under too much stress from school (actually, I am too). My only concerns are if he's going to be too anxious after taking that long of a break and he's not comfortable seeing a sex therapist until after marriage because of his Catholic upbringing. Hopefully we can come to some sort of compromise where we could see a therapist when we're engaged or he goes and talks to someone on his own (I have my own therapist already).

Perhaps he could just see a general therapist for anxiety. His anxiety around sex must stem from deeper issues, including his Catholic upbringing, that could be addressed with regular therapy.

That makes sense. I just don't know how to convince him to see someone on his own. I've suggested it before for other reasons. He perceives asking for help as a weakness and tends to get angry if I try to help him with something. And he was the one that strongly suggested that I go back to therapy for the sake of our relationship. But I need help and he doesn't apparently? I don't know how to convince him he's not a failure or anything for asking for help.

And because of his past (losing his dream job because of being a so-called screw up), he takes every perceived failure very personally, including sexual "failures". I would think therapy would help him process this and move on from losing his job which happened years ago. I know he went to a therapist when his job was at risk. Maybe because it didn't help him then he doesn't believe in it now? I don't know.

Maybe all he needs is a few week break from sex. If the issues aren't getting better over winter break, I'll see if I can convince him to talk to a therapist. I mean, since I'm required to, it doesn't seem unreasonable for him to as well.

That sounds good. Seems like he desperately needs therapy, especially because he feels like such a failure and gets very sensitive to the slightest sense of confirmation for him. It's not healthy for him, and it's not fair for you to have to deal with his problems when he won't deal with them himself.