Why Don’t I Enjoy Sex With This Cheat?

Will Dorothy ever be able to enjoy making love with her cheating husband again?

Dorothy Writes:

I am a woman of 50, and married to a 32 year old Jamaican man. We have been married for four years and he has been unfaithful several times. We have split up on a number of occasions. The last time we parted, we were apart for 11 months.

I got pregnant when I was 47 (first time) but sadly miscarried. He already has a child back in Jamaica.

To cut a long story short, since finding out how he used to cheat on me, I am unable to orgasm. I do enjoy sex with him but I find that I cannot get that old feeling back again. I am unable to let myself go. Also, I feel a bit older and not able to make love to the extent that I would wish to. I lack energy.

He is good about it and tries to help me achieve orgasm after sex but I find I can do it better on my own with a vibrator.

I feel terrible and cannot tell him this and keep thinking that he will go elsewhere again if I cannot satisfy him.

What can I do?

Andy Advises:

It’s hardly any wonder that you can’t relax and achieve orgasm with a man who has cheated on you in this way. If you can’t trust him to stay faithful to you, how can you expect your subconscious to react warmly towards him during the most intimate act between a man and a woman?

You also admit that you can’t tell him your deepest worries and most intimate fears. The bottom line is, if you can’t talk to him openly and honestly, for fear of his reaction, then how can you expect to have the warm, fulfilling relationship you enjoyed so much when you believed yourself to be the only woman in his life?

If you can’t talk and really communicate, you are in the wrong relationship! You say he is ‘good’ about it. After the way he has treated you, and all he has put you through, I think he ought to be ‘marvellous’. I suppose, my biggest question is, why do you constantly take him back and leave yourself open to the fear that he’ll walk away again if you don’t behave as he expects you to?

You are probably experiencing physical problems with love-making that are experienced by many of us at your age, either on the verge of, or going through menopause.

Your whole body is changing so as a first step, I suggest you visit your GP. A short course of HRT might right your feelings of lethargy, tiredness and lack of libido. But of course, only a doctor or gynaecologist can confirm this and then only after taking a full medical history.

As a second step, I think you might talk to your partner about getting some counselling from Relate. Relate offers advice, relationship counselling, sex therapy, workshops, mediation, consultations and support face-to-face, by phone and through their Website at http://www.relate.org.uk/.

Through the website, you can not only find your nearest Relate but book on a course for yourself and/or your partner, buy books and consult our experts online.

Good luck and please let me know how you get on.