37M + wife 37F. Never had any issues, been together for 13 years. Suddenly, I have erection problems due to anxiety and need some help. What can I do?
Throwaway account for the specific info provided.
Love my wife, I find her incredibly attractive, and have never ever suffered any problems in bed, save maybe once or twice due to being extremely tired in the past.
From what I read online, my case seems to be textbook anxiety ED. Everything starts wonderful, then I feel these stomach butterflies, my body burns up, I'm not concentrated, I fail. Sexual desire is there one moment, and it's completely syphoned away after a couple minutes. This of course has an origin, and I'll get to that, but now it's more like a vicious cycle of "I have to make it! I'm scared I'm not gonna make it. I didn't make it..." which is worsened by the fact that every failure has a great toll on both me and my wife who suddenly feels unwanted. So every time we try kinda gets worse and worse, and of course this isn't helping in the slightest with anxiety.
This has been going on for roughly a month and we managed to do some stuff thankfully, but it's 50/50 and some times I have to take time off to fight the anxiety and retry, with the risk of causing a double dissatisfaction. When things worked, I was still very anxious, but somehow I didn't reach the "fight or flight" status that drains the blood from where it's needed. I cut off all masturbation, but it didn't help (and never was a problem)
Now, for the underlying cause, because of course there is and it's not small: we started trying to conceive a baby. We're not in our prime, it's late, it was a joint decision and it's something we both want. I proposed to fully utilize the fertile days and bang like rabbits. For one month we did, yay. Problems started the second month. I'm doing soul searching, and I think I was probably not in the mood, but forced myself because it was "that time or never" and had trouble performing. From there, the vicious cycle, because the next day WE HAD TO and nothing.
Of course now this has transformed into a terrible situation where she thinks my heart is telling me I don't want children, I don't want her, but it's not like that. We of course decided not to try this structured way and have a more laid back experience, but I'm still stuck in this loop and I feel like I can't afford more failures
It's such a strange feeling. I'm not someone who's ever suffered from anxiety, panic attacks, depression and so on, it's a new world for me. And I don't know what the next step is. Therapy? Meditation? A pill so that I can fight my anxiety at least until I feel calm enough? So many cases seem to deal with performance anxiety with new partners, but not much is said with someone you've been with 10+ years.
Posted Mar 5, 2026, 11:34 AM UTC