sexual intimacy struggles, sexual struggles, Uncategorized
Vaginismus and Why Sheila Gregoire is Covering This Topic
Jan
Occasionally, I hear from women who have struggled tremendously with vaginismus, a condition that causes the vagina to tighten, making sexual intercourse extremely painful.
So you can imagine how grateful I was to open up my email and see an alert about a new post from my fellow writer and pal Sheila Gregoire.
Sheila recently did a series on vaginismus, and highly recommend you read the series!
Profound and needed information in these posts. (I included the links further down, so keep scrolling).
Not only did Sheila suffer from this condition early in her marriage, she also has heard from countless other women.
Some of these women are bravely sharing their stories in an effort to shed more light.
Even if you have never suffered from vaginismus, reading the posts could help us all build good empathy for women who do.
A big thank you to Sheila and the women who have shared for this series. Here are the links:
A Story of Vaginismus: 5 Things I Wish I Had Known
The Voices of Women with Vaginismus
Overcoming Vaginismus: 9 Steps Towards Recovery
Copyright 2016, Julie Sibert. Intimacy in Marriage Blog. Links may be monetized.
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Thank you sooooo much for covering this what I felt used to be “taboo” to talk about topic. I experienced vaginsmus as a new bride many, many years ago and in fact didn’t truly consummate the marriage until somewhere about 14 days later AFTER we got home from our honeymoon. We did spend the wedding night in “our bed” in our apartment where we were setting up our new home. I remember feeling bad that things were so painful as a virgin bride. Sadly, I think in his excitement, I didn’t think my discomfort mattered a whole lot to him, but even our our honeymoon I didn’t realize how bad the vaginismus was and had a hard time relaxing due to the pain and it was a very vicious cycle. Oddly enough, when we got home from the honeymoon, I saw my primary care physician as I didn’t have a gynecologist then and had done all the premarital stuff with her. She gave me some muscle relaxants to try even though she said they would have the side effect of making me sleepy. I was very surprised she prescribed me a muscle relaxer to help with this particular problem as doctors don’t just go around giving out muscle relaxers I know, but after taking the muscle relaxer I remember my husband’s joy when the marriage was officially consummated about 2 weeks later. Thankfully, I’ve not had any issues since during intimacy except briefly at the beginning of my marriage. Occasional pelvic exams are a different story, I still tense up and one new doctor even asked me “How do you have sex?” Fortunately I no longer struggle with this issue during intimacy, but I sure wish there was more information and more resources about it when I was a newlywed and I wish that at that time I knew that other women have struggled with this issue as well. Thanks again for sharing Shelia’s post!!! And thank you Sheila for sharing regarding this topic!!
Julie, thank you so much for sharing this series! I find the saddest thing is that many women don’t even realize there’s a “word” for this, or that they’re not freaks and they’re not alone. I figure that if we can raise awareness, then other women can help if a friend shares something with her. So important!
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