Forgive me for being sad when my intellectual side says I should be joyful. Joyful that my husband is fighting hard to push PCA out.
Unlike some, I am blessed to have my husband of 26 years beside me but my life is irreparably changed It has been a little over 14 months sine my husband and best friend’s PCA diagnosis.
Before then everything just seemed to be a given...our plans for a lifetime together fully set, a time where a glance across the room in that ‘come hither’ way of his could make my tummy drop like a school girls first kiss, a routine so predictable some may say boring but I say it was my rock .. my comfort.
Fast forward and today I feel barely a glimmer of my old self. I miss feeling like a woman, being desired..I pray the effects of the drug therapy, radiation and RP will heal and some part of our former lives will return.
I know that there are other ways to intimacy but one cannot manufacture a desire to engage when nothing about me triggers my husband sexual desires. If a physical interaction was all was after I am sure that need could be satisfied but today in some other means. However for him it all feels more like a chore which hurts even more..
Ladies, How do you cope? Where do you turn to? I could never share all this with my friends nor even expect them to understand the depth of my sadness. So instead, I hide ever so skillfully behind my forced smile, put myself into my work as best to the point of physical and mental exhaustion. This so when I sleep.. I avoid the reality of my selfish loneliness ...
Written by
JosephineS
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I feel your pain. Your post is honest and raw and it punches me right in the gut. I could have written it myself a year ago.
The loss is profound.
Of course we are grateful for life saving treatments. Of course we hurt for our partners and the pain and loss they’re feeling, but that doesn’t mean we don’t mourn what we’ve also lost. It’s real and it’s enormous.
You do not detail how your husband is fighting his cancer, but whether the treatment his is undergoing is surgical or Hormonal, there are ways to deal with the "side-effects" of treatment. You should join a local support group or a local Hospital sponsored group.
Those who have been through this journey can provide advice on how to deal with it. Hormones effect people to varying degrees. Over the last 15 years, I have been through a number of types of treatment. For me,
Hormonal treatment (Lupron) never decreased my sexual desire, but it can in many men.
There ARE ways to remain physically intimate (including intercourse)
despite the treatments. Read my other posts on this site, or search on-line for details. If you need more info, ask.
. It’s impossible to explain to women with healthy husbands, what life is like in a marriage where prostate cancer Is an unwelcome travel companion.
The no physical interest part is crushing. It does seem to get better as time passes, but it is important to express your feelings. If we don’t allow feelings to move through us we become very stuck in the pain.
I cannot speak for the "ladies" but I can report to you some of the themes in our support group for men with PCa. We have partners who sometimes attend the meetings so that we can address these kinds of concerns. We have both female and male partners as sex drive aims in many directions. We have men who lament the effects of hormonal therapy as it wipes out any vestige of drive and desire, and what they see in their disappointed partner's face. We lament along with you the absence of an erection. We lament the loss of semen. Some of us feel embarrassed at being so tied into our penises being a source of our identity.
In that environment we explore the other ways that "intimacy" can be realized. Yes! couples may have to find new ways of intimacy, where that couple is hetero or not. The challenge in talking about it. The challenge is letting both partners express the grief and deep loss that they feel. The challenge is exploring new ways to be intimate and to be sexual. These are not the same thing. And talking about them -- prostate cancer or no prostate cancer -- is a rare event in most couples. It can be done; it needs doing.
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