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Past Article of the Month
Originally Published 10/01/2007
COPING WITH INFERTILITY WITHOUT COMPROMISING YOUR SEX LIFE
By Jana Frances-Fischer, Ph.D.
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Infertility can challenge and strain even the most healthy and happy of partnerships. For many couples, sexual intimacy is a fundamental aspect of their relationship. When faced with infertility, couples often report that their sex life goes down the drain, gets put on the back burner, and has become focused on baby-making, not love-making. What was once fun and spontaneous is now an arduous, sometimes even dreaded task. Timed sex, intercourse in prescribed positions, refraining from sexual relations during certain times of the month, and infertility medication that can make women feel bloated and undesirable, can all add up to near disaster in a marriage.
Romantic encounters might become stale or lack imagination because having sex becomes equated solely with being able to conceive, achieve a viable pregnancy and produce a healthy full-term live birth. Sometimes a couples sex life does not recover from prolonged years of medical treatments, and the emotional roller coaster of dashed hopes when cycle upon cycle, month after month fails and no pregnancy occurs. This long process can feel devastating for even the most committed of couples. Mutual sexual desire and satisfaction may become a low priority for men and women whose emotional reserves are taxed and stretched to the limit during infertility treatment. It is common that men and women feel that while undergoing infertility and medical treatment everything else, but not sex, is a priority at this time. Couples might even believe they have failed at sex because they feel very unsexy while working hard to have a baby, and they have no children to show for it.
There are some couples whose sex life was never really that important or satisfying to one or both partners prior to their infertility struggles. In these cases, infertility and subsequent treatments can highlight these sexual shortcomings, tensions or problems and intensify couple conflict or further distain of sexual relations, whether recreational or procreative. A trip to Europe, or even to the movies, might seem more enticing or exciting than sexual relations at this point to couples who are experiencing sexual tension, frustration and/or disappointment, heightened by their brushes with infertility.
What can couples do? Re-connecting and re-exploring each other in a sexually intimate way does not necessarily mean the result always ends in sexual intercourse. Taking the pressure off and perhaps enjoying a bubble bath together, a mutual massage or a long, warm cuddle can be both a satisfying and a bonding experience. Many other activities and forms of emotional and physical expression can still be fun and meaningful as well. There is no one size fits all in terms of self and/or partner sexual satisfaction in a relationship. It is helpful if you and your partner can openly talk about sexual needs, desires and feelings. Sometimes it can be freeing and less stressful to recognize that men and women might not have the same level of sex drive and that meanings attributed to their own sexuality and/or that of their intimate relationship might differ.
Also, it is commonly acknowledged that sex lives can and do change over time for most couples. Typically, the longer partners have been together, the frequency of sexual encounters tends to lessen. In addition, the longer a couple pursues infertility treatment, the greater chance sexual relations might suffer. To keep sexual intimacy and even passion alive in a relationship, concentrated time, effort and energy from both parties is often required.
Trying to take care of yourselves and your relationship both emotionally and physically can help abate emotional damage done by the infertility process that can be exhausting, draining and put undue strain on any intimate relationship. Therefore, it might be beneficial at some point in your infertility journey to seek professional assistance from a counselor or therapist. A therapist might be able to help both of you vent your anger and frustration caused by infertility. At the same time, he or she can help you to explore your former and current sexual relationship and work towards helping it regain its former vitality and importance in your lives. This reconnection with your partner on an intimate level is very crucial, regardless of the outcome of infertility treatment.
As mentioned earlier, infertility can create havoc down to the very core of even the strongest of relationships. And certainly, sexual intimacy is one aspect of a marriage or a relationship that can become deeply stressed and even devastated by infertility. But all is not lost. With open and honest caring and understanding for each other, and a commitment to on-going communication and respectful problem solving, who knows, your relationship might come out even stronger and more solid. Dont let a temporary or perhaps lengthier sexual glitch during your struggles with infertility have a negative, long-lasting influence. You both deserve better and for each other to be happy and satisfied in the various aspects of your relationship---you can do it!
<i>Jana Frances-Fischer, Ph.D. is currently completing her postdoctoral psychology residency at University Counseling Services-Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA. She plans to return to her family home in San Diego after twenty years of living in Southern USA. Dr. Frances-Fischer will pursue private practice with interests in the areas of infertility and other reproductive trauma, adoption, third party reproduction, sexuality, spirituality, mind-body wellness, and parenting. She has written numerous articles, a book chapter in The 2007 Complete Women's Psychotherapy Treatment Planner, and has presented papers at both national and international conferences on various aspects of the psychology of the reproductive process both to professionals and to the general public. E-mail <a href="[email protected]">[email protected]</a></i>
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