Husband lost interest...

Gee Husband, when you give it a sport analogy it does kind of make sense!! But I'd rather have 60% of something than 100% of nothing! Still, a guy at 60% isn't too good for much....sigh. So I get it. Men have to be at at least 95% to get any game into play while we women can be at 10% and fake it at the sidelines.

I really appreciate your feedback and yep, it did make me feel better. I do like occasionally to know "I still got it" so if you see me strut by could you throw me a whistle or two????

We actually talk VERY deeply about it all. He says he's just not interested anymore. We kid that I used him up. We've been together 20 years and he is a VERY strong man emotionally for me and intellectually so I get a lot out of the relationship that way. It would just be nice to be appreciated sexually again, especially as that was such a big part of our "entertainment"! We do know he has low testosterone (don't know if you read that far back) but we don't know if adding testosterone might change his personality to be more aggressive or angry or something. Also, it's pretty expensive. I've told him lately that I don't even have that "special place" down there anymore, so he doesn't have to worry about accommodating me!! We laugh about it. I used to say as I "begged" for sex that any man on the street would be blown away to hear him say "no" time after time. He did tell me he'd accept a "girlfriend" in my life, but I've never been there and now what the heck would I offer anyone anyway?? He's the guy that saw my breasts disappear so he has the mammaries (not sorry for the pun!) of them to hold on to.

Still appreciating your feed back and I bet a bunch of ladies who are reading and not posting (totally legit!!) are getting a lot out of what you are saying. It's so important for us to hear it from both sides.

Glad to see a husband here.can i ask a question how breast cancer change the relationship? I asked my daughter she s 15 that how did she feel during my chemo i was her mom she told me you lost ur hairs thats it. But i have no clue how husband s thinking changed by my desease. We are not sick anymore we are back to normal why a part of body is so much imp how about companionship etc. I read a book i realy liked the line that we saved a woman after mastactomy because breast tissue cant smile cant give happiness. Or this is the way god wanted to show us the real faces of some peoples? I never invited cancer twice so unfortunate to face disease and husbands moodswings.i dont know whom yo trust.

I would like to say that when I first started posting here that I started a thread called "Open Letter".



You should all read it. Barbe, if you haven't already----please read it. I will bump it up.



None of you did anything wrong.



You are a daughter, perhaps a sister, mom and/ or wife who had something happen to them.



You had something happen to you. That is all.



And you are recovering. That is all you can do.



The people in your life can either make recovery easier for you... or harder.



The prettiest things about my wife are her eyes and her smile. They always have been. They are exceptional. The things I need most from my wife is the sound of her laughter and to be able to hold her.



Breast cancer has changed none of that.



The physical stuff takes an adjustment----but I say moreso for HER. We ALL have always needed to feel good about ourselves to project sexuality.



My wife is someone I love who had something happen to her from which she is recovering. That's how I see it. Making the sexual thing work----for me----isn't a problem. This is the woman who I most desperately need to have and to hold--------so 'having her and holding her' is easy for me. I want HER to feel good about HER. She should. She's BEAUTIFUL. Everything else just follows in line.



If anything, BC has made me look at my wife as more than what she is for ME. She's a daughter. She's a mom. She's a sister, a sister-in-law, an aunt, a niece, a god-daughter.



I choose to look at her through the prism of her being a mommy and a daughter as well as my partner. And with that smile and those eyes and that laughter------how in the world am I supposed to NOT fall for her? I do every day.



I cannot relate to a man who wouldn't.



I have my tough days. Really, the last 10 months have all been tough days. But some are tougher. And that has nothing to do with what my wife did. It has to do with what HAPPENED TO HER. And we are recovering from that together.



And nothing that happenned to her can challenge my love.

Colt, I think what all of us want is a man, like you, who would just love us for who we are. Unfortunately, many of us have lost relationships, boyfriends, or husbands because they couldn't cope with what happened to us. Maybe they didn't even really and truly love us. But that doesn't take away the pain of being abandoned and it certainly affects our self-confidence.



I wish you and your wife the very best and hope that the toughest times are behind you and that you have many, many happy and healthy years to look forward to.

My surgery is scheduled in two weeks, its been (i guess) 3 months since my husband and i had sex, i also feel unconfortable to even change in front of him, feel like we did lose that connection we had before. I feel that he is not attracted to me at all (i gained little bit of weight ever since chemo started). And its us, who loved our sexual relationsip, were so attracted to each other. Now i feel ugly bc im bald and have extra 10 pounds, depressed, emotional about everything, we both 36, but whats going to happen after the surgery? If even now before the surgery there is no sex at all...

I think it's probably more likely that husbands are scared than they are worried about a 10 pound weight gain.



Baldness from chemo is temporary. Somebody who made a forever promise shoudn't be worried about temporary.



My wife's baldness was temporary.



But it bothered HER, because as she said: "Now I finally look like I'm sick".



I told her this: "The hair grows back. And the disease isn't causing the hair loss. The medicine killing the disease is what is causing the hair loss. Then the hair grows back. And it has. She finished chemo 4-25-13 and she has already had her hair cut and colored twice. Her hair is short, but it's all coming in.



The baldness might signal to a husband how SERIOUS this is, not turn them off. And we have to process the seriousness of this event. We're scared, too. Husbands might shut down a little because they're scared. Husbands might want to treat you delicately. You must communicate exactly what you want and need. Husbands may be more than willing to do anything you want any way you want it------but we just don't know what YOU want...



A lot of you probably have good men who are a little lost and scared.



Help them help you.

@hrf:

The loss of something that you can't get back (your breasts) is a real loss. There is no marginalizing that.

I had been an athlete. I was in a car accident and thought I had survived unscathed. But I did damage to my spine. 15 years later when I was 31 I had degenerative disk disease so bad that the ruptured disk between C4 and C5 was crushing my spinal cord and I was being paralyzed. I had lost the ability to walk independently and could not hold a pencil to write. I had pins and needles in my chest. I accepted that I may not walk again and prayed to God that I might have enough strength in my arms some day to hold a baby.

My surgery was such a success that I was able to walk again without adaptive devices and the strength in my dominant hand is near 100%. I have over the years been able to jog in short spurts----enough to run after a child, though truly sprinting or running long distances is something lost as is maybe 25% of the strength in my off hand. I lack the balance to play even competitively friendly basketball when once I was a dominant player.

I lost quite a bit of my physical self. It was up to ME to decide what that was going to mean. As a 46 year old man, most of what I lost is of little consequence now in everyday life. I don't have many opportunities to utilize a 40- inch vertical leap------even if I had one. I don't need a cross over dribble anymore. But I DO wonder what a weak off hand at 46 means for me at a later age or how my walking will be later if my jogging right now is sloppy. I've lost quite a bit physically. I lost part of my identity, part of my physical being. But I chose to make it not matter. Still, sometimes my deficits raise their head and I am forced to deal with a limitation I once did not have. Only I can come to terms with that. Nobody else. The loss of part of our physical selves is a personal matter. How we deal with it. I hope you all the best in that endeavor. I hope you all get to a level of self acceptance where it----all things considered----just doesn't matter all that much. But only WE decide that for ourselves, in our own time.

No question, Barbe. It's very different.

Perhaps the only similarity is the ultimate need to accept yourself despite being physically altered.



The consequences of my compressed spinal cord are more than athletics related, however. There is a loss of function as it pertains to everyday stuff and the fear of future issues. Though to someone who identified themselves with athletics, the loss is perhaps more personal.



I guess we are the only arbiters of how much that loss means and how big a part of us that 'part' is/ was.



I am not trying to compare losses, though. I'm not trying to say I fully appreciate and understand----though I'm trying.



I appreciate your insight.

@hrf:

I am grateful that you understand that I only wish to help.



I apologize if my methods are awkward.



I am sorry that anyone would be abandoned. I am so sorry.



I pray for you that the right people enter your life and stay.



God bless you.

Men! There is karma I hope! I havent told many people, but 2 months after my unilateral mastectomy, i caught my husband looking at porn. Porn, are you kidding me? Hello, I kept one breast being afraid of maybe it would help us intimately, thinking well, at least if I keep one maybe it would be ok. I felt so angry and betrayed when , he said he would be there for me, it wont matter how you look, you will still be beautiful to me. I couldnt believe that he would even consider doing that at only 2 months. It was depressing. Knowing he had been looking at beautiful breasts online, when I thought I was supposed to be still beautiful. It really did a number on me. We were intimate before surgery. Now its me who has no intrest. We havent had sex in 2 years. But he's there in other things in our lives. I should have listened to my instinct when I had surgery and had a bmx for myself, for my fear of recurrance. I never ever would have thought someone could be that unfeeling. I am so sorry that you are dealing with what you are, its just not right on any level.

Rosesark53,

I don't think him watching porn had anything negative to do with you. I think men just watch it. I remember when I was young, fit and perky and my ex husband and I were in the throes of young love and couldn't get enough of each other.. He still watched porn. Not every day, but he had a stash.. I couldn't figure out how he had the energy...lol..All of my friends say the same thing about their husbands or bf's.

It is a blow to your confidence I will admit. But regardless if you're the most beautiful and perfect woman in the world your man will watch porn... My ex boyfriend watched porn before my surgery.. But afterwards he just bailed. He didn't even try.. 

I think I was just in a recovery phase. It was hard dealing with loosing a breast so I was and still am very sensitive to it. I think the watching porn is normal in a way, but I very much agree with the other post that it can become very addictive, especially if your husband only want sex with you acting like a porn star. Which is why he and I have lost intrest. A little soft rough sex or even some harder is something some people enjoy. Its just when thats all they want and ignore you trying to calm it down , which was our problem. So with the first post, I understand when husband is not intrested and it can be a blow to you.

I have spent time reading the posts and responses to this thread with great interest and; honestly hope.  To all of you whom have been diagnosed and are fighting or may have already fought this disease--my hopes and prayers go out to you. 

As a husband of a woman who is BRCA1 & 2 positive, diagnosed at 35 with Stage 3 multi tumor breast cancer, survivor of a 3-year battle, bilateral mastectomy/hyserectomy I am submitting some of our story. 

It was honestly never a question of support, care, or love.  WE had the disease and I wanted/needed to do anything and everything I could to help her fight.  We lost track of intimacy between the fatigue and affects of chemo, we laughed together through the hair loss and she looked hot with or without the wig, then the bandages, drains, infection, open wounds, wound vac, and then radiation burns and fatigue.  All prior to three efforts at reconstruction, infection/circulation failure resulted in almost losing her after she beat the cancer.  For three years the timing, thought, desire, discussion of intimacy did not occur let alone any action on either of our parts.  I would hold her at night while she cried, bath her, clean her wounds and touch her entire body--but not with a sense of desire, but protection or task driven.

We are now two years after, reconstruction did not turn out well, but the thought of yet another surgery overruled the desire for appearances for both of us, they are breasts and neither of us NEED them.  So why in two years have we managed to be intimate just three times???  Why is it we can go through the day without a kiss or intimate touch?  I don't know and we are both pissed about it. 

I tell the tale above because I love my wife, I am still attracted to my wife, and I still want sex.  We just can't figure out how to make it happen....yea I know how , that is not what I mean.  I am afraid of saying, doing, or failing in the effort--the uncomfortableness of refusal early after the treatments still haunts me.  The scars still hold vivid memories of drains, fluid, and open wounds.  I changed the wound vac dressings, and the sound and visual is still in my dreams. 

I am not making excuses for those men who walk away or remain in denial of WHY they are struggleing, but it may be possible that there are some that need and want help.  My wife and I have been talking for the past couple of weeks, honestly I got a little drunk and opened up to her about the memories, smells, visuals, and detachment I needed to cope with the very potential that she would not survive the treatments.  That has started the discussions.  We didn't start to talk with the objective of achieving our sex life, but it is a very real possiblity now.  I apologize for rambling but there is hope and the chance is in the course of finding a way to get him to open up and be honest.  You are not repulsive, ugly, or un-desireable, I still see the woman I fell in love with, I just don't know how to turn off the switch I used during her treatments.  I can't imagine the pain each of you has endured or the frustration of an unresponsive partner----don't quit if at all possible some of us are really trying to be what you need us to be.

Shammer, as Paula says, it is SO helpful for us to hear a male's perspective. I find that comment about the "switch" to be very powerful. Thank you so much for your input!!!