How To Do It: Years Ago I Made a Huge Mistake, and It’s Ruined My Sex Life

[minoanmiss]

I feel like this needs a content warning but I don't know how to write it. So proceed with caution. (I'm open to suggestions.) Content warning: body-shaming re:vulvas. With thanks to likeaduck



Dear How to Do It

My wife and I have been together for six years. I love her dearly and go out of my way to make sure she knows how much I love her every day. The sex in our marriage has been consistent but awful. When I first met my wife, she was very open sexually and very confident. In one of our early lovemaking sessions, she asked me why I never went down on her. The honest truth was I had never gone down on any woman before and didn’t have an experience with giving oral sex. When I did go down on her the first time, her smell was very foreign and off-putting to me. I told her she didn’t smell so fresh down there and gave that as the reason why I never went down on her. This was obviously a huge mistake. Years later, when I finally got her to talk about it, she told me I destroyed her confidence and that’s why she’s never giddy about sex now. She has never been the same sexually since.

Over the years I have come to absolutely love her feminine smell, and I constantly ask to go down on her, but she never wants me to and always tells me that she feels dirty. She’s even caught me masturbating with a pair of her panties held to my nose and now has started changing her panties constantly so as to not leave an odor on them for me to find. The only times I’m ever allowed to go down on her now are right when she’s fresh out of the shower. She has also lost, for the most part, all of her sex drive. When we met, she would masturbate on her own, and now she never does. I think I just ruined sex for her in general, and when I look back, I cringe and feel like such an asshole. Is there any way to earn her trust back and for her to get her sexual confidence back? I tell her constantly how beautiful she is and how much I genuinely love her. I’d do anything for her, including having boring, passionless sex for the rest of my life to stay married to her.


—Willing to Do Whatever It Takes

Dear Whatever It Takes,

Have you told her that you feel like an absolute jerk for what you said to her and regret it every day? Have you told her that you’re worried you ruined sex for her and regret your words deeply? Have you apologized for sniffing her panties—after demeaning her vulva’s taste—and the shame and confusion you likely caused in her?

Ideally, the two of you should find a couples counselor to work through this. I think, at this point, you need to have an expert in the room to help you dissect this hurt and communicate effectively. If she’s willing to go to counseling with you, and willing to work on the sex issue you’ve caused her, you’ve got a chance of saving the situation.

In the meantime, you might want to work on your phrasing and thinking. “I’d do anything for her, including having boring, passionless sex for the rest of my life to stay married to her” is fairly sulky. Maybe “I’d do anything for her, including backing off sexually until whatever time my wife feels comfortable being sexual with me to stay married to her.” Or “I’d do anything for her, including the work of being vulnerable and apologetic and accepting that she may never be over what I said to her to stay married to her.” “Beautiful” isn’t a great compliment, either. It can feel like anything from “I like looking at you,” which is pretty meh as far as praise goes, to “Your looks are the best thing about you,” which sucks. And she might have a strong reaction to anything sexual coming from you. I suggest you focus on her intellect, sense of humor, and other personality qualities for your compliments moving forward—something that has to do with her, not just genetics. Good luck.

Comments

[minoanmiss]

There's something I noticed about what LW said to his wife on that fateful day 6 years ago.

The honest truth was I had never gone down on any woman before and didn’t have an experience with giving oral sex. When I did go down on her the first time, her smell was very foreign and off-putting to me. I told her she didn’t smell so fresh down there and gave that as the reason why I never went down on her.

Instead of 1) admitting his inexperience or 2) taking responsibility for his reaction he 3) told her she had not done enough to keep herself clean. He turned it into a situation of blame and assigned her the fault.

So. We all have things in the past we wish we hadn't said. No one is born perfect. But what I would have added to the advice above is to point out where he assigned responsibility/blame and that he needs to be proactive and explicit in apologizing for the blame he assigned her for a blameless situation rather than admit his inexperience.

Also "including having boring, passionless sex for the rest of my life to stay married to her." made me curl my lip, I must admit. Wouldn't you like for your wife to have her joy in sex back, dude? Why is that not a possibility to be considered?

(Honestly I don't know how she looks him in the face every day after having heard that.)

[shirou]

Wouldn't you like for your wife to have her joy in sex back, dude? Why is that not a possibility to be considered?

Not considered? As I read it, the entire letter is about how he wants his wife to have her joy of sex back. LW says he feels like an asshole for "having ruined sex for her in general." Not just for him/them—for her. I think in the last sentence he's saying he loves his wife and wants to stay married even if it means having boring sex for the rest of his life, but I can't find any reading of that sentence suggesting he considers that a desirable outcome for either of them.

[topaz_eyes]

I'm frankly surprised that LW's wife allows him to touch her at this point.

Couples' counselling is definitely in order, but LW needs to shut up and listen carefully to what his wife says. Imho it's clear he does not understand just how much damage he inflicted with his comment. LW needs to accept that his wife probably never will fully recover from it and will likely never fully trust him again, even if he is sincere in saying he's willing to put in the work to win her back.

[cereta]

Possible TMI: My spouse doesn't go down on me, precisely because he doesn't like the taste. It has nothing to do with "freshness" or cleanliness: he just doesn't. Fortunately, it doesn't do a whole hell of a lot for me, either, so it doesn't really bother me. There are things I won't do because I find them unpleasant. We both try to find other ways to please each other.

I definitely think counseling is needed here. The biggest thing the LW has to make clear is that their reaction that first time was about them. The mistake wasn't in expressing a lack of enjoyment. It was in phrasing it as if there were something wrong with her. It's going to take work to unravel this twisty knot, and that's probably not going to happen without help.

[conuly]

Putting aside his first mistake, the fact that he's been sniffing his wife's underwear without her knowledge or consent is also inappropriate. Like, dude, that's two serious errors here, maybe you need to really thank your lucky stars that she'll even talk to you.

(And honestly? I'm a little side-eying his idea that it was exactly one comment that made her feel excessively dirty at all times and stop masturbating, etc. It's possible, but it sounds to me more like he said a lot of things over a long period of time, just like now he's been hounding her to let him go down on her when she already told him never again.)

[julian]

on re-read, I'm seeing more missing information than I did the first time. Like, you don't just lose your sex drive over the one comment, no matter how pointed and profoundly it hurt. It seems as if there's more going on here.

So yes. Couples counseling, in which he *tells her* he was new at all this and confused, when he said his VBT, and then he shuts up for awhile and they try and work *together* about it, rather than him keeping pushing, which is more and more what this sounds like.

[likeaduck]

Is the warning you're looking for some variation on "body shaming re: vaginas"? or is it panty-stealing? or both?

[jadelennox]

Like, you don't just lose your sex drive over the one comment, no matter how pointed and profoundly it hurt.

I don't know, I can see it.

Content note: discussion of every kind of self-loathing related to bodies. Also implied discussion of my own sex life.


** space **


I fight so much internalized body shame (the smells and bodily fluids of an AFAB body; the physical features of a body that doesn't conform to western cosmetic standards; self fat-shame; self chronic illness and disability shame; general internalized misogyny) that -- even though my partner has never shown any hint of sharing a single iota of my distaste for my body! -- fighting it off is a constant, ongoing, active process. I am pretty sure if I'd ever had the vibe that my partner thought I smelled dirty, I'd go into an anxious depression spiral that absolutely could kill my sex drive (barring a lot of therapy). So that really might be all it took.

[minoanmiss]

Some variation on "Body-shaming re:vaginas", or, more specifically, vulvas. Thank you for giving me a preliminary phrasing. :)

[julian]

Well, Ok, yes. Bad sentence or two there.

(Me too, honestly, with the body shame and the internalized everything.)

I think what I really meant was, there's a lot missing in this guy's narrative, and there's a lot that needs to be untangled. And if they *can* untangle it, good. But I get some feeling it may be better for *her* not to.

[jadelennox]

Oh god, yes, good point. Like, couples therapy would be good for him. But maybe she needs something different, though I hope, with or without him, she regains any joy in herself she's lost.

[julian]

I very much hope so as well.

And it's possible he's just being really clumsy in a few different directions. But there's the possessiveness, and the ignoring boundaries, and the pushing for stuff...

Anyway, it was his letter, not hers. But I worry about her.