Help for the Partners of Guys with Erectile Dysfunction

ED is as much a relationship issue as it is the guy's personal issue. So I'd like to share three of the most important things I think might help you to know.  Most of what I'll talk about I've learned in the course of my client work, some comes from books like 'Erectile Dysfunction," 'Coping with Erectile Dysfunction' and 'The Wiley Handbook of Sex Therapy.'

And as I address you directly, I'm addressing the 90% of the partners who this applies to. There are definitely exceptions, but in my experience, what I'm going to say applies with the vast majority of partners of guys with psychological ED. 

1)  The absolute number one thing I'd say is this: it's not because he isn't attracted to you. Again: it's not because he isn't attracted to you.

Over and over again, I've seen situations where the partner feels like the ED is their fault for not being attractive enough. So they feel hurt.  And the pattern starts: the partner feels hurt and upset...that makes the guy feel that much worse about things...so he dreads sex more...and puts even more pressure on himself...and the more pressure he puts in himself the harder a time he has getting erections.  And when his erections feel, the partner feels hurt again and the cycle continues.

Again: it's not because he isn't attracted to you. If anything, the problem is the opposite of 'he's not attracted to you.' If he wasn't so into you, he'd probably be less worried about it...and if he was less worried about it, he probably wouldn't be having any problems with his erections. 

Believe me, I've actually seen this with clients.  They were fine with one night stands or dates they weren't really that into.  But when they were with partners who they really liked and were attracted to, they'd put pressure on themselves and have performance issues. 

So if you take nothing else from this video, please take this: He is attracted to you. You're fine. The more you can fully take this in, the more you can really absorb this,  the more okay you can be if he's having a hard time...and the more okay you are with it, the easier it will be for him to feel better about things.  And the better he feels, the better his erections will be. 

2) The second thing I'd say is that if you can take the pressure off of him, it will make it easier for him to solve the problem.

ou may not be putting any pressure on him anyways.  If not, great.  Well done.  But if you are...well, I don't see it too often... but the partners of some of the guys I've worked with have had  the expectation that their guys are supposed to perform like porn stars.  The macho stereotype of the guy who is always horny, always ready to go, who doesn't need any foreplay or care.   I had a client one time whose partner would strip, lie on the bed and say fuck me." She expected him to instantly get hard then she got mad when he didn't.  

Whenever a guy calls me for a consult, one of the first things I ask is how is your partner. If the partner is putting a lot of pressure on him, no judgement, but  that's usually going to make it harder to get things solved.  

That said, I get it. They had one client who had the problem for twenty or 25 years before his wife finally got frustrated enough to pressure him into taking action. Once he called me, it turned out to be a fairly straightforward thing to resolve. It just took him 20 or 25 years to reach out for help.

Still though, when it comes to actually solving the problem,, being patient and supportive can really off.  Much as the stereotypes are out there that guys are supposed to always be super horny and instantly hard, real life isn't like that. All the sex therapy books I've read and all my client experience point in the same direction: Sex is a cooperative experience. The more you can work together to create a fun, sexy, pressure-free time in the bedroom, the easier it's going to be for him to just naturally find he's getting good erections. The problem can solve itself.

3) The third thing you may want to have is a basic understanding of the biology behind ED.

It's pretty simple and it may help make the stuff I was just talking about make more sense. The body has two modes: sympathetic/fight or flight and parasympathetic/rest and digest/feed and breed.  The penis has muscles that are like a faucet and a drain.   When the body is in parasympathetic rest and digest mode,  the faucet muscles open and the drain muscles close, blood flows into the penis, it stays there and the guy gets an erection. All good. But if a guy feels pressured or threatened, the nervous system goes into sympathetic, fight or flight mode.  It wants to divert more blood to the "survival muscles," the arms and legs - so he can run or fight.  So it closes the faucet muscles opens the drain muscles. More blood for the arms and legs but no more erection. 

When guys are scared or putting pressure on themselves, they trigger that fight or flight mode. When they're in that relaxed feed and breed mode and they're getting some stimulation, they're probably going to be getting good erections.