How to Overcome Sexual Pain (Dyspareunia)

The young couple had looked forward to this night for months. The groom carried his bride over the threshold, so beautiful in her stunning, white dress. It was their first night together as husband and wife, and it would be perfect. Or so they thought. Instead, it was so painful for the wife that they could not have intercourse at all. It would be a month before the couple could actually complete the sacred act and a year before the wife would be able to engage in intercourse pain free. They had attended weeks of marriage counseling to prepare them for marriage, but no one warned them about dyspareunia or painful sex. No one told them that sometimes the physical act of sexual intercourse is nearly impossible for some women. If this describes your situation, don’t give up. Below are six steps to help you find a cure and begin to enjoy sexual intimacy.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

Things You’ll Need:

• Willingness to work together as a couple until the problem is solved.

1. Refuse to accept shame! You are not abnormal, frigid, or alone. The media often makes sex look like a magic love potion, and it is easy to feel like a failure if sexual intercourse isn’t functioning properly. The truth is that a healthy marriage thrives only when a couple agrees to love each other unconditionally and work on the relationship, despite the obstacles. Search the sources listed below and you will see that these problems are common and solvable.
2. See a physician and rule out the simplest causes. Doctors can diagnose the most common reasons for dyspareunia with an exam and/or laboratory tests. Typical causes include a tipped uterus, endometriosis, infections, STD’s, hormonal imbalances, drug side effects, irritations from soaps and lotions, sores, cysts, or scar tissue.
3. If your doctor doesn’t have an answer, don’t give up. Conduct additional research and find a specialist if necessary. Some less common causes include:
   Peyronie's disease: a physical condition that causes a man’s penis to bend, which can create pain during intercourse (Tabisel & Ross, 2007).
   Vaginismus: the involuntary closure of the vagina to resist penetration. Vaginismus may be a physical reaction to past pain and/or a narrow vaginal canal (Tabisel & Ross, 2007).
   Dysesthetic Vulvodynia: when the vaginal walls are irritated and sting and burn during intercourse for no apparent reason. In other words, the irritation is not the result of an infection or other known cause. Dysesthetic vulvodynia can lead to vulvar vestibulitis, which is severe irritation of the entrance to the vagina. (Tabisel & Ross, 2007).
   Though these problems are more complex and often take longer to heal, solutions do exist. The woman mentioned in the opening paragraph suffered from vaginismus because her vagina was simply too small. After almost a year of frustration, she finally found a doctor who helped her. He gave her plastic cylinders of varied sizes to insert into her vagina to gradually stretch the walls.
4. Don’t give up. Talk to as many people as necessary until you find a solution that works. Then keep practicing.
5. Find other methods to keep each other sexually happy until the problem is solved. Sexual intimacy is important in marriage, but is much more than just intercourse. Men need to remember that many women need stimulation other than intercourse to obtain sexual satisfaction. Likewise, women must realize that their husbands have legitimate sexual needs.
6. Let the experience draw you closer together as a couple. Challenges such as dyspareunia can actually strengthen a marriage. It causes a couple to focus on their relationship as a whole, learn to love unselfishly, discover that intimacy is much deeper than sex, establish loyalty and commitment to one another, and develop that avoided word “patience.”
   
   
   The good news is that bad beginnings can have great endings. The young couple that suffered from dyspareunia followed the doctor’s suggestions, sought prayer from confidential, trusted individuals, and kept trying. The husband patiently waited for his wife’s body to adjust to him, never forcing her or giving up on her. Their marriage became stronger through their trials. They now have a healthy sexual relationship and a precious baby girl.