I couldn't satisfy my wife, then I found out why and how
A man is expected to be strong; ours is a society where proverbs like "a real man doesn’t feel pain" exist. Being brave is considered a quality imparted with gender. But all that is far from reality. Man is emotional, burdened and often this expectation prevents him from expressing himself on delicate matters.
The toughness stops men from addressing issues that really matter and they just cringe inside at the agony of not being able to vent.
My friend Agnivesh Talwar was a charmer, the stud of the college and only settled down when he met his wife, Sangita. Men usually change after marriage, extravagance isn’t allowed any more and there is an outer sense of carrying oneself with more responsibility, but Agniv, he had transformed into something else.
I couldn’t help notice it, but he kept evading the subject. Eventually, one night when we were at the club with glasses of whiskey in our hands, I sensed an opportunity to shoot the questions I’d had for so long.
As soon as he was a few pegs down, I asked him, “What’s wrong, Agniv?” He said nothing. I was not leaving it, though, and on persisting he gave in and told me that he was in trouble. His life, which seemed to be on a dream track, had all of a sudden stagnated and he believed that things were out of his control.
He wasn’t able to deliver at work. He avoided social appearances. His married life had suffered a great deal and he just wasn’t himself. As we’d been friends since teenage he gave in and told me all about it.
“Dude. I am not able to satisfy my wife in bed.” He almost stammered while saying that.
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| I convinced him to quit watching porn. |
“What?”
“Yes, I am not strong enough to fulfil Sangita’s expectations and it’s killing me. I don’t want to lose her. But I don’t know what I should do!”
“Did she tell you this?”
“No, but I know; our intercourse has never lasted longer than a few minutes and I have friends who tell me they can just keep pumping for a good 20-25 minutes while their partners have multiple orgasms and I have seen in porn how they go on and on. Lately I have not been able to meet Sangita’s eyes. I had promised her everything and I am not able to...”
I sensed he felt a lump in his throat.
I asked him if he ever tried to actually talk to her about it. After all, she was his better half and would understand it and they could together find a solution. “How can I ask her that? I think she is having an affair and is planning to divorce me.”
“Whoa, dude! So many assumptions. Is that all? Is that why you have transformed into a sulker of late?”
“You are talking as if it’s no big deal.”
Though he’d always stood as the wisest among us, with better grades and job, this time I was the one explaining to him.
“First of all, be realistic about sex. It’s subjective and cannot be the same for everyone and porn is not real, it’s a performance by a professional and you cannot match it.”
I convinced him to quit porn. I encouraged him to openly talk to his wife about sex and her expectations, to focus on the foreplay. Get to know her feelings and to tell her what he thinks and ask for her support. Make it an experience, don’t consider it a task which had to be done a certain way, and most important, visit an expert and clear all doubts about sex and understand the intricacies.
He eventually did; medically he was perfectly fit and once the fog cleared in his head his life improved. He was often seen at social gatherings and was back to his lively self. Sangita had always been worried and had never planned to leave him. They are a happy couple now.
(Names have been changed to protect identities.)
(This post first appeared in Bonobology.com)