Hello I am looking for insight on this issue. So recently I have been having issues staying hard. When we are kissing I get hard but then before penetration I get soft . I know it’s 100% mental block because I continue thinking about the thought of me going soft or am I hard enough. Sometimes I can get past it but then I ejaculate way too early. I can literally feel a huge weight of stress on me. Makes me not want to have sex at all and I can’t stop thinking about it . I have tried the breathing method trying to be in touch with my sensations but it won’t go away. The thoughts linger. I try to let them pass but they just stick with me . My partner say they don’t care that it’s fine but it doesn’t satisfy me. I have never had this problem before and it’s getting worse. I have had a few wins where we just go at it but the thought still persists . Any other tips you guys have tried besides breathing techniques
Hello, this sounds exactly like my current situation so you’re definitely not alone, if anyone could provide an answer to this that would be great
This is/was the initial reason why I joined this app, to find a solution to the inner critic’s self sabotaging talk. When I joined a couple months ago, it helped to type everything out with my coach and also to open up to my
partner about what I was going through (I even let her know about the app). I also wrote to intentionally address and shift my literal narrative. My wife was very supportive and my issues slowly went away. I got more consistent using libido boosters like erotic audio or erotic stories (removed porn more than a year ago), and was able to perform.
However, literally tonight, my inner critic came back and fucked my shit up. I was hard, we were fucking at my pace, and then I slowed down to not cum, bc she wants to cum together. But once we slowed down, I started to lose my rhythm and the pressure to stay hard got to me. She got out her vibrator but she just barely moved as she was more focused on just getting off instead of reconnecting to a unified rhythm. Everything went downhill from there, got in my head, and lost the erection. She asked me why I was in my head and I just said I needed more emotional connection. But after, I felt the shame again.
But I know I’ve overcome this before and I recognize that for like the past three weeks or so, I have not been diligent about my libido boosting, not making an effort to truly connect and be present with my wife bc we’re so busy, and not writing. So all these things gave time for my ego to grow form again. I recommend being confidentially vulnerable not only with your partner but also yourself — or more like confidently accepting. We’re human, complex creatures and it’s ok to be a man and not have it all figured out. Fuck what society says. Fuck what the ego says. Get back to the love you cherish with your partner, focus on the pleasure and connection btw you two (like the feeling when you two start kissing), and lean into that as it grows. Take it slow and invest in time to be intimate again; foreplay, affection, and being present physically. Anyways, that’s what I’m planning to do now that I’m back in the same boat as before. Hopefully that helps. Good luck!
Confidently* vulnerable, not confidentially
Hi, the long comment to your post is exactly the answer. I have had almost identical issues, I seem to dance this fine line of staying hard and coming too quickly, or getting in my head, spectatoring and then losing the erection. Stopping the thoughts of “am I going soft”, “will I stay hard” etc etc and concentrating on the affection and arousal is the only way to get past the performance anxiety, it’s totally worked for me. (Haven’t unlocked coming too quickly yet though, seems a far harder task, if you will excuse the pun
). Might sound stupid, the biggest thing that has helped my is to try and trust your arousal. Naturally, from a body point of view, if you are aroused, you probably will get hard. If you stay aroused (ie not in your own head and concentrating on the part of the sec that turns you on) you will probably stay hard. Might sound simple, but it has had success for me. Another thing I struggle with (any advice well received!) is if I spend too long on foreplay on her, I find it difficult to keep the erection hard enough for long enough to be able to go in for penetration as soon as she has come. That’s my next “challenge”!! Hopes this helped.
Thanks for sharing. I have been struggling with the same issue and I only joined the community this week. I couldn’t stay hard a few nights ago and I just blurted out “I am such a fucking loser.” To my husbands credit, he stopped me and went through all the sexy pics we took and told me how amazing I was.
Know that everything is in my head and I am ready to do the work to improve my sex life.
Hi, love this post. I, like you, have had some successes and then bang, suddenly in my head when she is doing something that really turned me on and got me super hard before, and literally the millisecond I think it, I have started going soft and that’s it. It’s frankly scary how fast it happens.
The shame and “underdog” feeling is quite overwhelming.
The connection is really the only thing you can work on, am going back to try and train my brain to concentrate on the feeling and senate when we are initiating sex and try and get back on the wagon so to speak.