Pressure to have sex.

Hi everyone,

I'm new on here but so glad to have found this forum. I've had vulvodynia since I was 17 (I'm 26 now), and I've gone through the regular ups and downs, culminating in two of the best treatments or aids I've had - a vestibulectomy and post operation physical therapy with a wand.

My issue is that I've grown to associate sex with pain, and it's just not something I'm very interested in most of the time. My partner and I have seen a mindfulness sex therapist that encouraged me to live in the moment and that way, to invigorate a mood for sex. It's worked periodically, but for the most part it hasn't.

My partner was a virgin before he met me (he was heavily involved in church), and it seems that this inexperience coupled with my distaste for sex is undoing an otherwise happy relationship. I feel pressured to have sex when I don't want to. My partner seems to feel truly loved only when we sleep together. We aren't having very frequent sex at all, but he often rubs against me, makes sexual comments even after I've expressed pain earlier that day (having 'a bad day' as I call it), and yesterday he saw a woman on my Instagram feed and asked me 'Who is THAT?' in a very sexual way that threw me off completely. It was like he had forgotten he was with me and not one of his guy friends.

I was so shocked I didn't really say anything again, but I know he meant it the way I took it because he's since been overly loving, and even asked if he could help me with physical therapy. He's also become More vocal about other women's beauty, and he keeps sighing really heavily when people have sex in a movie we're watching, for example.

I'm scared that he doesn't know what he's doing is wrong. I can tell him but my opinion isn't altogether trusted because I've got something against sex. Then again, I feel like I'm going crazy for being upset and that it's not fair for me to complain. I just feel pressured and sad, and disappointed. Am I wrong to feel this way? I'm just so tired of sex having this negative role in my life. Will it ever stop? Do any of you have partners that don't do this? Or have any of you overcome these challenges?

Please help if you can.

Hey hun, sorry you didn't get any replies to this sooner. I hope you're doing okay. Your boyfriend may not realise how unhelpful it is to sigh when sex scenes come on etc. Those little things can be very hurtful. I hope your situation has since improved? Xx

alexvulvo, not sure if you still check the forum but just in case, wanted to extend my deepest sympathy for what you're going through. I've been there, down to having to hear sighing during sex scenes, and know the lonely painful feeling very well. I hope you are ok and have found some resolution through this situation. be gentle with yourself and don't do anything that hurts you or that you don't want to do, ever. I know it's easier said than done sometimes when you are under this pressure, and I hope that has let up. do you have a therapist or anyone you feel comfortable and safe opening up to and sharing this with? if not, I would encourage you to pursue that. I know it's difficult but you need and deserve that support. also, know that this can and will get better. I was in very much the same place and thought I would never enjoy sex or have a normal relationship, but even after dealing with this for most of my life (primary vulvodynia here), things turned around really quickly once I found the right treatment and a little added therapy/self-love and self-care to undo the years of trauma. I can barely even remember now what it felt like to be going through the worst of this, and I know the same will happen for you.

feel free to pm me anytime. hope you are doing well <3 hang in there!

I have been dealing with this off and on for seems like 20 years. It has caused me to have really negative thoughts and attitude about sex. It's to the point that I hate it. I've tried to like it for my husband's sake, but I absolutely cringe when it is "date night". He has been patient and kind, but trying other non vaginal sex has not worked for either of us and I am to the point that I would rather deal with the pain than trying other things just to get it over with. He can't understand why it is so problematic for me to try other things, but honestly it all just puts me off. He thinks I should want to make him feel good even if I can't.
I feel terrible that I want no part of it. It's such a big guilt trip, I constantly berate myself. I feel as though I can't escape it. Everything is so sex related in our society.
He thinks we should get counseling but that is not an option in my mind. We know several couples that went for sex counseling and it ended in divorce every time. I can't do it. I can't talk to a complete stranger about such an intimate subject. I know myself, I would completely shut down. We went to a marriage retreat a few years back that was totally about sex and it shut me down in the first 5 minutes. This kind of thing does not open me up to the conversation, it does just the opposite.
I am at my wit's end. I hate myself, the pain is unrelenting. If we have sex I hurt for 2 to 3 days after. So, we try to have sex only once a week, but that means for half the week I'm hurting. How long can you live like that, hurting for half of every week?
I don't know what to do. I've tried physical therapy, I've tried numbing shots. I'm skeptical of surgery because I've heard stories from people that say it was worse after surgery and I can't do worse, it's bad enough as it is. I'm just done.