Ouch is never the word that you would normally hear someone use to describe sex.
Sex is not supposed to hurt.
It just isn't.
But it does. A lot. And usually I say more than ouch. I am usually bawling in tears because the pain is so intense and awful.
To which my husband refuses to continue on and then I feel like I am a failure as a wife.
Why am I telling you all this? Because someone wrote a book about her experience with it and it challenged me to open myself up and be honest. And the amount of hope that I found through her book, just by knowing I wasn't alone, was incredible.
We have tried everything.
Hours of foreplay, tons and tons of lube, no condoms, condoms, thin condoms, the list goes on and on.
With no luck. Sometimes I can get to the point that it isn't painful, but usually it is after I push through an enormous amount of pain.
And sometimes I can't push through the pain.
And I know it breaks my husband heart.
If I wasn't so stubborn we would always stop and never have sex.
I am so tired of hearing, babe we can stop, it really is okay, I can't hurt you like this, we don't have to do this, let's stop, we are stopping.
That is generally the order that his words go in and if we get to the point that he says, we are stopping, I am usually in so much pain it is difficult to breathe.
I hate it.
I don't hate sex. I don't resent my husband or fear having it, I don't avoid having sex. I am generally the one pushing for it. Because I want it to stop hurting and I figured that having more sex would eventually help it stop hurting.
The main reason I hate stopping is because of how I feel afterwards.
I have completely failed, as a wife, as a partner, as a lover. I have failed. My body has failed. I am failing my husband. And that is what I hate. I hate feeling like I am failing him.
There is something wrong with me. And unfortunately things take a while in military life and in Hawaii, so I haven't been able to see a doctor yet. It is the most frustrating experience of my life.
Mostly because I have been hiding my struggle. I have been hiding what I am going through because sex is an uncomfortable topic. It is all flowers and cupcakes when it is great, easy to talk about. But when it is bad and painful, a certain amount of shame comes into the mix.
I shouldn't be having this problem. No one else is having this problem. There is something wrong with me as a wife. Maybe I am not doing it right. Maybe I am the problem.
Another thing that I am tired of hearing is, "Try more foreplay."
Oh yeah because we haven't been trying that already. Duh! Don't you think that would be the first thing that we would try?
The problem with telling women to try more foreplay is the fact that it puts so much pressure on them. Pressure on their bodies that they have to get to a certain point before they can enjoy sex. So they spend the whole time in foreplay forcing themselves to feel aroused forcing their bodies to react in a certain way, instead of just enjoying themselves.
Funny thing I have learned, it doesn't always matter how much foreplay you have. Sure sometimes it matters but at times I can be more aroused from simple little quick things than I can from an hour of kissing and touching. Foreplay is not generally the answer for excruciating sexual pain in my experience.
And funny story, doesn't matter how aroused I am, it still freaking hurts like a freight train.
I was starting to get really discouraged. There is only so much of feeling like this that a woman can take before her self-esteem in her sexuality is down the drain and you are left with nothing more than sorrow in your heart and a deep sense of sadness and frustration.
And it doesn't matter what your husband does, it won't change how you feel. I have the most patient sensitive man, who is more than willing to lay down his desires so that I am not in pain. He is always encouraging and gentle in words and action. There is nothing that he says or does that could make this any easier on me as a woman. I have heard the words, you are not failing me, you are not a failure, and I do not need sex to feel happy and satisfied with this marriage, more times than I care to admit. But that doesn't stop how I feel.
I was under no impression that sex was gonna be super awesome right away. I had no preconceived motion in my head that we were going to have mind-blowing sex in the first few months. I was more than prepared for it to be a little painful the first couple times.
But I was not prepared for sex that made it hard to breathe from pain. Sex that left me in tears more times than not. No one talks about their struggles with sex so you assume that no one has them.
Well, one book changed everything for me.
Unveiled Wife is the name of the book and it will be a book I suggest to every married and about to get married couple I know. It will be a requirement for all my girlfriends to read before they get married.
Why?
Because she is open and honest. Because she puts her struggle on paper. I found that the frustration and feelings of failing were completely normal. She understood where I was at in this moment of my life.
And she gave me hope. I read the book in 4 hours and I will probably be reading it again starting tomorrow. And I will probably read it out loud to my husband.
She talks about how they were never able to have successful sex in their marriage for 3 years. How they were headed towards divorce and how God changed everything for them, He gave them a fresh start.
Thank God that she wrote that book. Because I can stop our cycle before it gets to years of the same thing. Months into our marriage we can try to turn things around.
She suggested cutting parabens out of the products that you use. She had been using a face wash for years that had parabens in it and after doing research found that it can add unwanted and unneeded estrogen into the body. After she went paraben free, she no longer had painful sex after about 3 months.
Just reading her journey, her pain, her struggle, for her to then share her success...
It gave me hope. Hope that this won't last forever. Hope that this isn't my fault, hope that we can overcome this.
It gave me courage to share my struggle. Share my heartache. Open my heart and soul instead of hiding away. Because maybe someone else will get hope from what I did, hope from knowing that they are not alone in this struggle.
Love forever,
Mrs. Kiki
