Man, life has been a trip lately, a really intense one. You guys may remember that I went to a hormone doctor and found out I have (had, now) low testosterone, as well as low estrogen. It is likely due to many years of opiate abuse/addiction, opiates reduce testosterone production pretty severely in the short term when abused, and sometimes it doesn't fully correct. So I started taking twice weekly testosterone injections that were prescribed. After a month they upped my dose slightly. And the difference has been profound, I feel like I've come back to life. For several years I had had an increasingly low sex drive, general depressed mood, crankiness, low energy and motivation, and towards the end I was experiencing hot flashes and night sweats. I was also losing muscle mass, gaining some weight around the middle, and my muscles got tired so easily, plus my joints were hurting more.
Within a week of starting T, I found my whole mindset and mood changing back to what I recognized as my normal self. And it's steadily improved since then. I had no idea just how much it was affecting every facet of my life. My body is changing shape back to a leaner and more muscular form (and was doing so even before I started exercising again, it was crazy), my joints feel better (not perfect though, I am 40 after all, I guess), my sex drive is back (boy is it), and of course, best of all I feel so much happier and more alive, like some vital force had drained out of me and it's come back. I'm sure you guys also remember me talking at various times about my relationship... it was various factors, but it had gotten to where we just didn't really have sex anymore, I think it had been maybe 7 months since the last time, until recently. I was just fed up with her constant PTSD-induced anxiety and depression and stuff, because I felt she wasn't doing anything about it and just always telling herself that there was nothing she could do, it's too late, she's a victim, etc. That combined with her extreme fear of covid (still) and attempts to get me to stay home and inside for months at a time every winter since 2020, AND the virtual nonexistence of our sex life for the past few years, had me feeling.... not good about the relationship. I was resigned to either this being my fate, or leaving her, but I never stopped loving her and I didn't feel like I could abandon her on her hour of greatest need. I had virtually no romantic feelings about her anymore and it hurt, a lot.
After I started feeling better, we started having sex again, at least sometimes, and also when
@arrall came to visit, I saw her old self come out for that weekend, and I remembered how fucking cool and badass she is, basically the person I fell in love with. She topped it off with a rescue in the wilderness of our tripping asses after we went river hiking and had to go off the path and I was having a hard time finding the way out of the dense woods. Oh actually I think I did post about that, I had a profound moment of realizing the part I had played in the way things had become, and I cried and apologized to her and made a resolution to be there again and make an effort.
Well, I also started seeing a therapist, and so did she; she's seeing two of them actually, one is doing some technique called, like, somatic experiencing, or something, and the other is a talk therapist, the same one I'm seeing actually, she was recommended by a friend because she's a family friend and specializes in trauma, and he thought she's be great for my girl, and in talking to her when I was setting that up for her, she suggested I might need help to navigate dealing with my situation, and I realized that yeah, I really do. Well the therapist has been great for me, really helpful. She's helping me to make goals and find the best ways to accomplish them, mostly about setting boundaries and communicating my needs and not holding stuff in, and recognizing when something is a thing I should be understanding about and work to accept, and when something she's doing is a thing I should confront her about and establish a boundary and tell her what I need from her. 3 weeks ago, she made some comment that made me feel insecure, about how there were people from her past that she probably shouldn't be around because they're hot and were good fucks back in the day (ironically, we were talking about how jealousy is immature and I brought it up in the first place by talking about how I had been telling my friends that it was ridiculous and controlling of them to tell their SOs that they're not allowed to have any contact with anyone they used to date
). I legitimately don't have any problem with her being sexually active before me, that's absurd, the reason I got jealous/insecure is because I really want to have a healthy sex life again, and her sex drive is super low and has been for some time, but the way she said it, she had a glint in her eye and looked like she wished she could fuck those guys. So it made me feel rejected and insecure because it's like, what, are you not into me like that anymore? I would LOVE to be the guy you fuck right now!
Well, I was being moody and stuff for a couple of hours and finally she was like, you're mad aren't you? And I told her how I was feeling. She was really tired, it was shortly before bedtime for her, and I decided we had to talk this out. It ended up being extremely stressful for both of us, she was saying stuff that was not helping, but not communicating very well... I interpreted it as she was not attracted to me anymore and was bored with me (that's not what she was saying, but like I said, she was not communicating very well and also trying not to have a panic attack). I went to bed somewhat mollified but then I spent all night sitting there filled with really toxic jealousy and insecurity thought loops... I've never felt that way with her before, at all, I've always felt very safe and secure. I knew a lot of it was irrational but it was.... really bad. I got to where I was planning to shout at her and break up with her the next morning (tbh the only negative side effect I notice from testosterone is that I am more emotionally impulsive towards anger, possessiveness, jealousy, etc. I think it may be possible I need to slightly lower the dose, I'll find out in a month and a half when I get bloodwork, but also, the positive effects way outweigh it and I actually do need to be better at allowing myself to feel and express anger, because I'm a people pleaser and I'm also extremely good at not lashing out when I'm angry, so I've gone from suppressing the anger even to myself and convincing myself I'm not mad at someone who wrongs me, to feeling the anger and confronting them calmly but firmly by the time we actually talk... it's a win, I think).
Anyway the next morning I woke up still feeling those things. After an hour or so, she asked me what was wrong, and I just laid it out. I explained that I felt insecure and that she wanted other people but not me. I said obviously everyone is attracted to other people still when they're with someone, and I truly don't care if you have a dream about another guy, or think another guy is hot, or whatever, what I care about is whether you feel that for me or not, and I told her the things she said that I needed her to explain or clarify. And she did. Fortunately, the second conversation was much more productive and we both said things we needed to say. And the biggest thing I got from it was learning what she's going through, hormone-wise. She went to the hormone doctor too, and she has extremely low free testosterone, somewhat low total testosterone (but bound sex hormones don't work), very high estrogen, and very low progesterone. And, crucially, extremely high, off the charts almost, SHGB (sex hormone globulin binding protein, or something like that). Birth control pills cause SHGB to raise dramatically, and SHGB binds to sex hormones and renders them inactive. They basically fool womens' bodies into thinking they're already pregnant, hormonally, so that they can't get pregnant "again". This very often leads to a reduction or elimination of sex drive, in a sadly ironic twist. Generally it returns to normal within 3 months, but it's been 9 months for her and it hasn't. And a percentage of women report either a very long recovery time, or that they never recover. She explained the bitter irony of the situation.... years ago, she started getting really bad uterine and other abdominal pain, and it started to hurt to have sex, which is why our sex life dried up... it got so bad that she would be in pain, enough to cry at times, for 3 days after we had sex. But she still wanted to then, really bad. I mean before the birth control, and before the pain, she was insatiable, our sex life was amazing, and I loved it and I miss it so much, we had such a strong physical connection that is hard to even explain, it was profound (even outside of sex, just touch/body language/affection stuff in general).
Then she went on birth control after her gynecologist she went to see to help with the pain told her she likely has endometriosis (but it's hard to diagnose that), and that there was nothing to do about it except surgery or birth control. She resisted for months, and her doctor was pushing for it really hard and was like yeah I can't do anything for you unless you do birth control, come on try it for a year, if it doesn't work we can see if surgery will. She told her she was worried about the very side effects she ended up experiencing and the doctor said "they don't have any side effects, maybe a vanishingly small percentage of women get side effects, other than a slight chance of elevated stroke/blood clot risk". So she started on them. Within probably 2 months, her sex drive was gone and she was different, more apathetic. (And her boobs got filled out too and it was driving me crazy... lol
) Then like 8 months in, her doctor was like okay, here are a number of things we can try. My gf was like wait, are you fucking serious right now?? Why wouldn't you offer this to me before?
Well, one of the things was physical therapy, so she did that first, and it turns out, her hip was misaligned. She did exercises to strengthen the pelvic floor muscles, and align her hip, and within 2 months the pain completely disappeared, and hasn't showed up again since. But yeah, absolutely no desire for sex. She went off birth control, and hoped that after 3 months, she'd feel back to normal. Well, nope. 9 moths later and here we are, very little change.
It's insane to me that you can look online and it's absolutely filled with stories about how birth control erases women's sex drives and reduces pleasure felt during it, reduces orgasm strength, and can even make the clitoris shrink by up to 25%, as well as research supporting this... yet the medical gynecology community, by and large, seems to be set on insisting that sort of thing is exceedingly rare. But like, increasing the level of the sex hormone binding protein and maing your body always have the hormones of a pregnant person is obviously quite likely to have serious repercussions. It seriously makes me upset to think about too much...
Anyway, I did not know that she was experiencing all of this, or I mean I knew the separate facts sort of, but I was pretty disengaged by then and it didn't sink in. But now it has. It's.... really upsetting honestly. I'm having a hard time with it, but us talking about it turned my frustration from her and feelings like she didn't want me, into anger at the state of women's health care in America and also a desire to help her fix it. The hormone place offered her very small testosterone injections along with progesterone, but she doesn't want to go that route unless her other options have been exhausted, which I can respect, especially since taking hormones is what started the problem. But she does want to try supplements and anything else. She just feels overwhelmed and has a hard time with starting and planning this kind of thing.
So I did a ton of research and came up with a list of supplements clinically proven to modulate sex hormones in the way that's needed (ie, lower estrogen, raise progesterone and testosterone, lower SHGB). I presented my case to her after she got back from work the next day (now that I have testosterone again, the sex life issue is becoming a lot more of a problem for me again, and I wanted to start doing something about it ASAP). She thought it was a good plan. part of the plan included making some time to start purposely creating intimacy again... touching, snuggling, kissing, etc. And whenever she feels up to it, trying, like, making snuggling, touching, etc. Basically some women were saying that it was like their bodies and minds just told themselves the story that they didn't enjoy sex anymore, but it had become sort of like just something they were scared of or associated unpleasantness with, and when they started giving it a try again with their husbands/partners who were understanding and supportive, they found they actually could enjoy it again, albeit not as much, and it helped them start to recover.
And I made a promise to myself that I would lay in bed and snuggle with her every night again... we don't sleep in the same bed anymore usually, reasons being many, but only one of them was me pulling away... it's also that I snore, that our sleep schedules are very different, and we both sleep better in our own beds. So that night I got in bed with her and we snuggled and before she went to sleep she told me "you know, the best time for me to feel horny is like mid-morning, a few hours after I wake up, you should wake up earlier and hang out with me". Well I know a hint when I see one
). The next morning I got up early (for me), we were feeling really connected after a nice morning, and started making out, and went to the bed, and it was actually really quite good, especially considering I wasn't sure if we were maybe just gonna naked snuggle or something and it was gonna kind of drive me nuts but I was certainly going to take what I could get and consider it progress, but she wanted to do the whole thing. She took a little while to get into it but I was enjoying getting her into it and just enjoying the intimacy. She was obviously into it and enjoyed it and got off, though she said it didn't hold a candle to how good that used to feel (the orgasm I mean). The rest of the day we were both in great moods, flirting, laughing with each other... I couldn't even remember the last time I had felt so light and at ease with her. Then the next day she surprised me and we did it again, and it was like, REALLY good, some of the best I can think of, ever, for me, I think partly because I appreciated it so much, but also there were like 4 positions and we both had a lot of fun.
It sounds shallow to me when I write it out, or like people will find it shallow, but sex is important for romantic relationships, it's really important. I found myself feeling almost like the beginning of a relationship feeling of overwhelming infatuation and love when I'd look at her, I wanted to be there for her, I found myself wanting to hang out with her and talk instead of, say, escaping to my computer to come here, or do work on the weekend because work is fulfilling to me these days, or whatever. I've been feeling so connected with her, it's amazing what sex can do, and what chronic lack of it can do as well.
But, the the next day I left with my band to play a series of shows across the state. When I got back, her mom had just come to visit and she's too self conscious to do it while her mom's in the house (and weirded out by it). We did some making out at night most of that week, but no sex, but best of all, she was so happy that week, it was amazing to see her partially revert to the person I fell in love with. I was getting myself psyched for the first day after her mom left, but the night before, she started PMSing. And her whole demeanor and vibe changed on a dime. I mean that always happens, but it's really thrown me for a loop. I started trying a little too hard to be touchy feely, because I was insecure. I had been given hope again - and not just for our sex life, but for her mental and physical health in general, because she was finally DOING something about her issues and not just wallowing in anxiety and inaction. The hope and the powerful and rapid return of the romance and connection is so new, having her not want to be touched and moody and stuff, and the change happening overnight, is making me feel insecure about it, like maybe this thing was a fluke, and she'll go back to thinking nothing will work and she's just screwed. So this was the third day of PMS, and she said some stuff that made me feel kind of upset, not at her, but about the situation. It's that she may have mis-timed the "dutch test" that she took the other day, which is a really in-depth appraisal of your sex hormone levels including metabolites, that you use to develop a really specific medication/supplement plan to recover. It has to be taken within a 2-3 day window after ovulation, but her cycle is irregular these days and she feels like she's getting her period tomorrow, and if she does, it will have been too late and she will have to do it next month, and she doesn't want to take anything until the test so she has an accurate picture of her hormone levels naturally. From there, I just couldn't get the frustration/regret from my mind... I regretted that I hadn't reminded her on the day she was going to take it so she took it the next day. I was frustrated to wait another month. Even though, if I think about it, this past month was really quite good when she wasn't PMSing, if that's the sort of month we have to wait through this next one, I'm okay with it!
She eventually said you're mad, aren't you? I said yeah, not at you though. And then I tried to explain my whole headspace and said a lot of what this insanely long post did. I am trying to be really honest and open with her. During that, I mentioned that the past 2 years have been really bad and that I felt almost no romantic connection then and was withdrawn and annoyed and sad and frustrated and felt like we had almost become platonic friends, and she was like.... wait, what? I had no idea you felt like that. I assumed she MUST have been able to feel that from me, but nope. She was shocked and terrified that I was about to tell her I wanted to break up, and started having a panic attack. I tried to hurry on to my point, which was that I was so happy and grateful to NOT feel that way anymore. But the damage had been done, she felt really hurt and insecure. I asked her if she felt anything like that and she said no, nothing like that at all. She felt rather distanced but still felt the same about me and just thought we were both going through hard times, but had never questioned the connection.
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
I ended up saving it and I hope, turned it into something positive that can strengthen us, basically I thought she knew that, but even if she didn't, I think it's important to not be totally unaware of a significant period in our relationship. I DO have a hard time in general when she become all negative and cynical and like "fuck everything" (which is what PMS is like for her), unrelated to this specific sex drive-related issue, because it's the core of why she has just wallowed in victimhood her whole life instead of working towards taking control of her life and it's THE issue in our relationship, for me... it's the only issue, really. The only one of importance that isn't something trivial that annoys me a little or whatever. There is some stuff still to talk about in that vein, but one thing at a time.
I tried to reassure her, but for a couple of hours she was very, very upset. Like saying she felt like a piece of trash and worthless and undesirable and a burden and stuff. I feel bad, I wouldn't have just casually brought that into the conversation if I had known she was totally oblivious to it. But by the time she went to bed, she wanted me to lay next to her and just lay there being next to each other without touching, but almost immediately she put her leg over mine and ended up holding my face with her hand/arm and she fell asleep. So I think it'll be okay. She really does get totally intense during PMS, she can slip into really bad headspaces at the drop of a hat. But we actually had quite a few good times today, as well. Unfortunately I mirror/feel peoples' emotions really strongly, moreso the closer we are. So I feel like I'm on a rollercoaster too, It's really fucking intense, and it's become much more intense in a way since we reconnected because now I'm no longer resigned to it sucking, I want to help her fix it and I DON'T want to lose it again. I don't think I could or would handle it and it would probably be the breaking point. What I need from her is for her to continue to work on herself, even if it's slow going, if I'm seeing progress I'm gonna be right there and help and love and support her. Today made me feel like maybe the progress is stopping for a minute, and it made me react pretty strongly. I know what I'm talking to my therapist about on Tuesday.
Anyway, holy SHIT that was long, sorry. If you made it, kinda interested in any thoughts you might have.
Anyway, helping her get a handle on that, and other areas of her health. We've reconnected but it's been bumpy, too. But I'm feeling better about life than I have in quite a few years. Also work is wild, got promoted again and offered yet another promotion that I suggested actually be a different role than was offered, waiting on feedback about that. The band is picking up, too, we've been playing more shows and we're better than we've ever been with our new drummer.
At least for a little while.
), and that I am not sure how that would go, but I'd be willing to try it if that was what we needed to do. Then I asked her if she was trying to tell me that's what she wants, and she said "no, I was just asking. Anyway I'm not in a place where I would even want to fuck anyone right now". So it's like... is she chickening out and she does want that? Is she hoping she can pass me off to another woman for sex and have the emotional/stability aspect and maybe sometimes sex (she gets jealous/possessive of me when I tell her about girls who come on to me or something, too, though)? Is she getting bored with just one person (which I understand, honestly, newness is exciting)? Hard to tell what she really means with this stuff. Usually she's straightforward with her thoughts and requests but I'm not sure how to take this one.
And I am really scared that it won't get better, or that she'll think herself into it not getting better.
