Are you avoiding sex with your partner? You might be having the SAD disorder

Mary made a most unusual request when she visited the sexology clinic seven years ago. 

She wanted help on how to make her husband continue having sex outside marriage and not at home.

Although she described her husband as a Casanova and a serial womaniser, she said she was more comfortable with that than the man coming home to ask for sex. 

At first, I thought this was because Mary feared getting infected with a disease from her perceived promiscuous husband. However, she vigorously shook her head in disagreement, leaving me confused.

“He knows nothing about sex. He has no clue about the female anatomy. He causes me pain when he touches my erotic parts and I dread having sex with him!” Mary blurted out and suddenly went into tears. 

Her whole body shook and she suddenly became nervous and anxious. There was no doubt that the imagination of having sex with her husband made her get a panic attack.

On further questioning, Mary said that she dodged going to bed before James, her husband, fell asleep. While in bed, she always felt tense, imagining that James could ask for sex.

She did not fall asleep until the wee hours of the morning and would sleep for an hour or two then jump out of bed. She would rush out of bed at the earliest opportunity in case James woke up and made advances.

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“And when he catches up with me once in a while and we have to do it, I freak out and helplessly let him do whatever he wants as I pray to God to give me strength to endure the agony,” Mary explained, tears rolling down her cheeks as she blew her nose.

She said she felt sad, hopeless and dirty after sex.

I concluded that Mary had sexual aversion disorder (SAD), a common problem in many families that is often neglected. SAD is a morbid fear of sex. It can exist from the start or develop at any point in a relationship. Affected relationships become sexless and stand a risk of separation or divorce.

If you ever feel anxious, fearful and tense at the thought of having sex with your spouse, this could be a pointer to SAD. Many people also avoid situations that can lead to sex. For example, they stay away from bed for as long as their partner is awake and find a reason for this, such as watching TV, doing office work or just staying out late with friends.

While in bed, affected people will behave in a way to put their spouses off sexually. 

They may be clad in clothes that do not allow for skin-to-skin contact; they ensure that there is space between them in bed so that their bodies do not touch; they sleep facing away from their partner; they bring difficult conversations in bed that draw them away from intimacy; they may even feign or sometimes actually feel sick when everything fails to keep the partner away.

In case sex happens, they do everything to make it short to be set free. They feel no pleasure and endure the whole process of sex. In the end, they feel angry, sad, useless and hopeless.

“Okay, doctor. You are right about your description of my situation but you cannot blame me for it,” Mary interjected.

“My husband lacks skills on how to handle a woman sexually. This has made me dread having sex with him! Any sane woman would do that than endure pain in the name of intimacy.”

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Well, there are many causes of SAD. It is true that if your spouse continuously mishandles you during sex you can develop SAD. This is because your mind gets conditioned to suffering as part of the sexual experience and so, instinctively, it finds ways to deal with it by making you evade sexual situations. 

Further, you may develop SAD if you suffered sexual assault at any point in your life. Some people also develop SAD due to fear of pregnancy or disease.

However, negative attitudes to sex do have a big role in SAD. These could have arisen from religious or cultural formations in your family. Relationship problems further help fuel SAD. 

“So for me, it is the poor sex skills of my husband. But I also fear disease and, of course, our relationship has been bad in the recent past,” Mary said.

Although treatment of SAD is possible, your spouse has to commit to support you.

Mary’s husband agreed to learn sex skills and committed to fidelity as a starting point. He also committed to supporting Mary through sex therapy till recovery from the aversion.

It took four months of intense sex therapy for Mary to overcome the disorder. As happens when couples commit to supporting each other, intimacy tremendously improved between Mary and James.

Today, James called to book an appointment because, as he put it, Mary is now more sexual than he is. He needed help to boost his libido.