Husband's ED not getting fixed...advice?

Hello, I am new to this group and am looking for advice. I am the wife of a husband with ED. Our background: We met in May 2019 on an online dating site. Liked each other after meeting so we started dating. He wanted to keep it from getting sexual for religious reasons and I was impressed by that even though he made me hot as hell...even though I was 63 at the time. Looking back on it now...I think he was afraid of losing me due to the ED so he pretended that it was for religious reasons. I had my guard up emotionally due to failed relationships in the past but then he started talking love and marriage in September of 2019 so I let my guard down and let myself fall in love with him. In Dec of 2020 I started noticing him hiding what he was doing on his phone. Then to my dismay discovered that he had joined a dating site with black women on it and he was perusing these women while sitting right beside me! Then he confessed to me that he had had a wild and wonderful weekend with a black woman back in 2004 and still yearned for that. I was devastated, freaked out, and told him I couldn't see him anymore. He fell apart and begged me not to break up with him, saying that he was being a jackass and he was sorry and he really loved me and wanted to be with me the rest of his life. After awhile I forgave him and we got married this past July 2020. Problem is...we have not been able to consummate our marriage, as he has ED. He has only been able to achieve penetration a few time in the 6 months we've been married but he always goes soft right after. Our counselor says he really doesn't want an actual rel. with a black woman...that it's just his fantasy. We have seen a urologist and nothing is physically wrong wit him. It's psychological. We've tried vacuum but he fumbled around with it then wouldn't try it again. We tried Cialis...he didn't like the side effects. He is now taking natural supplements...Vitralis, DHEA, and Pycnogenol....but nothing is working! Actually...I would be ok without it....but I absolutely cannot stomach him thinking about other women, especially black women and then not being able to function with me. He's been known to flirt with black women at work and I've seen the way he looks at them at times and this whole thing is driving me mad!!! We pleasure each other orally but I really miss actual sex!!! It is killing me wondering if he would actually be able to function with a black woman and even though I've never had a racist bone in my body...now I am filled with bitterness and anger every time I see a pretty black woman, especially if I see him looking at her! He assured me that things would be the same...that he would still have ED even if I looked like a movie star, but I am still stressing over whether he could function with someone else. How can we overcome this in our marriage? Can it survive? We have a great relationship otherwise. He actually divorced his last wife due to this problem and has lost other relationships as well. He used to masturbate to porn but does not view porn anymore. Any advice?

Hello and welcome!

I have some issues that are mostly psychological in nature (despite my avatar I'm bio male) and I think that it wouldn't matter, he'd still have a problem. Once performance anxiety gets in your head, it's really hard to get it out. I can only speak for myself, but I'd think if he ever got with a black girl, it'd probably be even worse, because it'd be just that more pressure to perform. It'd be like OMG I can't blow this! which would immediately do just that. If you hadn't run into anything like that, try not thinking about giraffes. Well, you just did, right? So... not thinking about not being able to get it up just about guarantees it's going to happen. Actually not thinking about it is really super hard, because you have to truly just forget to think about that little problem. It's a pretty vicious circle.

Unless a person marries for solely some non-sexual reason, it doesn't matter if he has a thing for this or that, he's with you. I sort of have a 'thing' for black girls- I sort of have a 'thing' for a lot of 'things', but they're just 'things'. It's... irrelevant, I'm with whom I'm with, and that's how it is. Although sitting there looking at the dating site- that was... boys are real dumb sometimes.

As far as the ED I don't know maybe some therapy would help, if he could see someone that specialises in that kind of thing (I have no idea if people do but I would presume there are professionals that do)

Thank you so much for your reply and advice. The counselor we have seen in the past is actually a sex therapist, so I think I am going to suggest that we go in to see him again. Is there anything else you can suggest to help my husband with this problem?

Trying to think of something, anything else, sometimes helps. Sometimes.

I try to think about zebras. Why zebras? Why not?

I am not exactly normal either, but I would not put up with what he is doing at all.

I can really relate to what you are saying. when i first met my partner I had a lot of sexual confidence. He wasn't honest with me at the start about the ED. he is 17 years older that me, i was 35 when we met. i still felt highly sexually charged and vibrant. I didnt really have an issue with pornography when we men, but i noticed he just couldn't handle penetrative sex for very long and couldn't come inside of me. I guessed there was an underlying issue, but I naively thought I am pretty hot and very sexually confident, sure i can fix this. Then I started to resent the porn, I dint realise that he was using it so much and I thought that was the problem. So he says he completely stopped. Not sure i entirely i believed it. Then he made a few offhand comments about my weight. Not knowing I had anorexia as a teenager and a few issues remaining about body perception. I was about a size 8 when we met and you know falling in love can add a few pounds, the shared dineers etc. I probably increased to a ten and that's when the comments came up. My self esteem took a massive hit. Was I just not as attractive as the porn girls. Things improved for a bit when he stopped masturbating so much. It was always leaving me wanting more, but generally he was a good guy, so the relationship progressed. We moved in together, still hit and miss and still feeling like i was "less than" compared to a porn star, even though if I look at it objectively, I am not. I got very resentful. I tried losing the weight, but with various lockdowns etc and doing a desk top job. It would only work so far. He would lose his erection and it would turn me off. Yes I could get him off with blow jobs, but sometimes I just wanted to be ###$, to put it bluntly. I pulled away a few times because I lost interest when he lost it. He then confronted me with the truth, that he had suffered this all his life and used Viagra. Facing the reality, even though I knew deep down, made me feel like thats it, my sex life is over. It got really bad between us for a few months, anger arguing etc. I got help with my bosy perception issue and am I feeling a lot better about myself, but eventually we stopped having sex for quite a while. I moved into another bedroom, cause it just got so sad for me that I would never be touched, even though we slept in the same bed every night. We still argued out it, he blames me a lot of the time saying things like you don't touch me right or whatever. Every time we even try and have sex, it just ends up in an argument the next day. Honestly my self esteem is on the floor, I have lost all my sexual confidence and 2 1/2 years ago that just wasn't me. I like him as a person, but i resent being held to supermodel standards and being blamed for a sexual dysfunction he has had all his life. Dont know what to do. I like the companionship of the relationship, but am I ultimately setting myself up for misery