It's important for any man experiencing erectile changes to get a full health check.
OPINION:
As we say goodbye to 2023 and welcome in 2024, it’s a good time to catch up on the very best of the Herald columnists we enjoyed reading over the last 12 months. From politics to sport, from business to entertainment and lifestyle, these are the voices and views our audience loved the most. Today it’s five of the year’s top advice columns from psychologists and family therapists Verity Thom and Nic Beets.
Q. I’m in my first serious relationship since my divorce. It’s been going well; we seem very compatible and our kids get along fine. However recently he has started having difficulties performing in bed. It’s okay if he uses Viagra but I’m worried it means he’s not really that into me.
A. The short answer is that we don’t think it is likely that your partner’s erection issues result from him not finding you attractive enough or that he’s not really “into you”. Many things can impact men’s and women’s arousal, and in our experience, how “into” their partners they are or how physically attractive they find their partner isn’t a very common one. So we don’t think it would be helpful for you to focus on that idea.
It is far more likely (and research supports this) that his erectile difficulties (ED) result from the degree of his investment in his relationship with you and you becoming increasingly important to him. We will explain how this psychological/emotional effect on sexual arousal works in a moment, but there are a few crucial points about erectile issues to mention first.
Men’s erectile functioning has been referred to as “the canary in the coal mine” for many health issues. Erectile problems can be a warning sign of emerging health problems such as heart conditions or diabetes. It is prudent for any man experiencing changes in how their erections are working to talk this through with their GP and get a full health check.
If your partner has recently started taking a new medication, this can also impact their erectile functioning. Examples include blood pressure medication, antidepressants, diuretics, tranquilisers, drugs for irregular heart action, Parkinson’s disease drugs, and muscle relaxants. Heavy alcohol use can also cause ED, particularly as they age. The effect can be quite marked if combined with stress and fatigue. Read more >
Q. I was recently unintentionally involved with a married man. We were together for about four months and during this time I was under the impression he had separated from his wife of 20 years. It turns out this wasn’t the case and they were very much still together. They’ve decided to stay together and make their marriage work but he is still actively contacting me on the side saying he still has feelings for me. I still feel the same about him but I won’t do anything while he’s married. Do I tell his wife he’s still contacting me or step away from the situation entirely?
A. Like so many people, it seems that you have been miseducated about the nature of love. We are told online, on TV and in the movies that love is a feeling. Yet any relationship expert will say, “Love isn’t about feelings; it’s about choices and actions.” That’s not to say loving feelings don’t exist, but they are far from the most crucial thing in establishing and maintaining a long-term intimate relationship.
We are counselling you to be wary of overestimating feelings’ importance when deciding if a relationship is worth pursuing. If we need to feel loved, giving feelings more weight than they deserve is easy. We get dazzled that someone can feel that way about us, get overcome by the strength of our emotions and don’t think straight. People often worry they’ll never experience these feelings again, yet most of the time, they do.
Another way to say it is that falling “in love” is easy, but developing a solid relationship is hard work and requires good decision-making, trustworthiness and respect. Sadly, despite how you feel about this man, there is little indication these more critical factors are present. Read more >
Q. I‘ve been married to my husband for 25 years and we’d had a healthy sex life until a few years ago when it started to deteriorate. He’s said he has no interest in having sex anymore and I’m lucky if I get one kiss a day. He doesn’t seem to have a problem with this as he reckons it’s just what happens as people get older. It’s a huge problem for me though because physical touch is my love language and I feel like this could be the end of the marriage for me. What should I do?
A. Understandably, you are distressed at this change in your partner and anxious about the implications for your future. However, our first recommendation is for you to slow down. Before concluding that your only choices are celibacy or separation, there are many things to explore and understand.
It sounds like the two of you aren’t operating as a team. He made a decision on his own, and now you are contemplating responding unilaterally. That’s a recipe for hurt and frustration in what is supposed to be a partnership.
As we have mentioned previously in this column, people often pursue closeness (and how comfortable it feels in the moment) at the expense of true intimacy. The vulnerability of “into-me-see”, revealing what we honestly think and feel, is usually uncomfortable, so we avoid it. So conflicts remain unresolved, important aspects of our lives are not discussed, and negotiating our differences is left to our unconscious. The result is that our anxieties and insecurities dominate the relationship. It sounds like this is where the two of you have ended up.
There is so much you and your partner need to discuss. Although uncomfortable, these risky, deep, vulnerable conversations can often lead to a significant breakthrough in your being intimately connected. Read more >
Q. My partner and I had our first child a year ago and at the end of my maternity leave we decided it made financial sense for me to give up my job and be the stay-at-home parent. We have a shared bank account and I hate the fact that my partner can see every little spend. I’m probably at the supermarket or mall every second day and sometimes while I’m there, I will meet another mum for lunch or a coffee. Despite him buying coffee every day at the cafe near his work, and lunches sometimes, he’ll make little comments like “another coffee”.
A. The painful reality is that no couple can avoid tension about differences. We will always have differences in our approaches, priorities, preferences, wants and needs. When we can’t both have what we want (e.g. you can’t spend and save the same dollar), then that creates a necessary tension that will sit there until the difference is resolved.
It gets confusing because, for many of us, in the early phase of our relationship (the “honeymoon” or bonding stage), we don’t feel those tensions; our differences don’t matter. However, despite what the movies tell us, we can’t stay in that honeymoon stage forever. After a few months or even a couple of years, the “love drugs” wear off and we need to get on with the business of exploring and negotiating our differences as we establish the culture of our relationship. Sadly our society doesn’t educate us about the necessity of this.
When you’re starting a new family, tension over finances is a very common place for difficulties to arise. Both the demands and responsibilities have hugely increased, just at the same time as your financial resources have reduced. That means both your stress levels will have gone up. Meeting this challenge is a great place to start to develop new depths to your relationship and expand your understanding of what it means to be intimate. Read more >
Q. My wife and I have been married for seven years and have three young children. We’ve been through the usual ups and downs of marriage but haven’t had any massive arguments, which is why I was shocked when she recently asked me for a divorce. I told her no, I don’t want a divorce and think our marriage and family are worth fighting for, but she says she’s done. Where do we go from here?
A. It sounds like you have been badly blindsided, and your sense of shock is entirely understandable. It’s great that you want to fight for your marriage and family, but you must be smart and caring in how you go about that.
The first thing we encourage you to do is have the humility to recognise that there has been a loss of intimacy in the relationship. With hindsight, it is evident that there are crucial conversations you did not have. This has probably happened in one of two ways. Either one or, more likely, both of you have been avoiding difficult topics and “keeping the peace” or “letting sleeping dogs lie” to the detriment of your understanding of each other. The other likelihood is that your partner has been telling you of her dissatisfaction, and you have not taken her seriously. To make something constructive out of this crisis, you must commit to radical, compassionate honesty.
Whether you stay married or not, you will have a significant ongoing relationship as co-parents. So using this opportunity to learn to communicate better is worthwhile. Begin by inviting your wife to help you understand what has been going on for her and what has made her want to end your marriage. Make it clear that you know you cannot force her to stay (unthinkingly pushing for her to stay is likely to have the opposite effect) but that you are concerned about what you have missed or been blind to in her experience of the marriage. Even if this doesn’t result in a reconnection, it will help you to process, accept and adjust so that she and you can get on well as co-parents for the sake of your children. Read more >
Verity & Nic are psychologists and family therapists who have specialised in relationship and sex therapy for more than 25 years. They have been working on their own relationship for more than 40 years and have two adult children.
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