What To Do When Your Partner Loses Their Erection: 6 Ways to Respond

Written by Seth Taylor, ALMFT

Intimacy is a vital component of a healthy romantic relationship, and sexual intimacy plays a significant role in many partnerships. However, it's not uncommon for individuals to experience challenges with their sexual health, including erectile dysfunction or difficulties with erections. If you find yourself in a situation where your partner loses their erection, it's important to respond in a supportive and understanding manner.

How do I deal with my partner’s erectile dysfunction? 

Here are some healthy ways to respond when your partner loses their erection:

Practice Compassion and Understanding

Is ED a reason to break up? It's crucial to remember that experiencing difficulties with erections is not uncommon and can happen to anyone. Erection issues can stem from a variety of reasons, including stress, anxiety, fatigue, medical conditions, or simply random occurrences. It's essential to approach the situation with compassion and understanding rather than judgment or frustration. Avoid blaming or shaming your partner, as it can worsen the situation and create emotional distress. Instead, be empathetic and let your partner know that you understand it's a common occurrence and are there to support them.

Communicate Openly and Honestly

So, how do people feel when they can’t get it up? Open communication is vital in any relationship, and it becomes even more crucial when it comes to sexual health. Encourage your partner to communicate openly about their feelings, thoughts, and concerns regarding their lost erection. Listen attentively without interrupting or making assumptions. Avoid making negative comments or belittling their experience. Instead, offer reassurance and express your support. Remember, your partner may already feel embarrassed or disappointed, so it's essential to create a safe space for them to share without fear of judgment. 

Reframe the Situation

When your partner loses their erection, it's easy to interpret it as a failure or a reflection of their attraction to you. However, it's important to reframe the situation and see it as a temporary setback that does not necessarily indicate their feelings for you. Remind yourself and your partner that sexual performance is not the sole measure of intimacy and connection in a relationship. Unless this is communicated, performance anxiety could escalate. Emotional and mental connections are equally important. Shift the focus from the physical act to the emotional bond and intimacy you share and emphasize that you are still connected despite the temporary challenge.

Offer Support or Solutions

You may wonder if a man with erectile dysfunction could ever satisfy a partner. If your partner is open to it, offer support and explore potential solutions together. However, it's important to approach this with sensitivity and respect for your partner's comfort level. Avoid pressuring them or imposing solutions without their consent. Instead, discuss options such as seeing a healthcare professional, trying different sexual activities, or exploring relaxation techniques together. Encourage your partner to seek medical advice if they are concerned about their sexual health, as underlying medical conditions can sometimes affect erectile function. Remind them that seeking help is a sign of strength and not weakness.

Be Patient and Understanding

Your partner is most likely already wondering how to overcome their ED anxiety. Dealing with a partner's lost erection can be frustrating and disappointing, but it's important to remember that patience is key. Avoid expressing frustration, disappointment, or anger towards your partner, as it can exacerbate the situation and create emotional distance. Instead, be understanding and patient. Reassure your partner that you are not disappointed or upset with them and are there to support them through this challenge. Be willing to step back from sexual activities and focus on other forms of intimacy, such as emotional connection, affection, and closeness.

Prioritize Self-Care

Coping with your partner's lost erection can also be emotionally challenging. It's important to prioritize your own self-care during this time. Take care of your emotional and physical well-being, and seek support from trusted friends, family, or a sex therapist. Engage in activities that help you relax and manage stress, such as getting regular exercise, practicing mindfulness, or engaging in hobbies you enjoy. Remember that taking care of yourself allows you to be better equipped to support your partner in a healthy and understanding manner.

Takeaway

Can erectile dysfunction ruin a relationship? Only if you let it. At the end of the day, sexual intimacy is a personal and sensitive aspect of any romantic relationship, and it's important to approach it with kindness, patience, and understanding. By responding healthily and supporting your partner through their challenges with erectile function, you can strengthen your bond, deepen your emotional connection, and foster a healthy and fulfilling sexual relationship.

Remember that relationships are built on trust, love, and understanding; facing challenges together can ultimately strengthen your partnership. So, be there for your partner, be understanding, and work together towards finding solutions that work for both of you. With mutual support, empathy, and patience, you can navigate this situation healthily and positively!

A Helping Hand: The Benefits of Sharing Porn and Erotica with Your Partner(s)

Despite the stigma surrounding erotica and porn, they can be healthy, helpful tools both for solo and partnered sexual enjoyment. There are a multitude of benefits to watching porn in tandem, like facilitating communication about sex and sexual preferences, stimulating responsive desire, and inspiring you to try new things in the bedroom. That being said, let’s break those down to understand why that’s the case:

1) Improving communication

There are several ways that consuming erotica and porn together with your partner(s) can improve communication. One, if there’s something you’ve been wanting to try but haven’t been able to ask for directly yet, consider finding erotica or porn representing that desire and, with consent, share it with your partner. Erotica and porn are not by any means accurate enough to serve as true tutorials, but they can certainly offer inspiration! Two, opening up a vulnerable conversation such as consuming porn together necessitates communication about boundaries: what you want to consume together, why, how, and when. Finally, keep in mind that when you do communicate about it, similar to any sort of sexual desire you share with your partner(s), it should be a question with the opportunity for the response to be no.

2) Igniting responsive desire

Responsive desire “means someone often needs to experience physical arousal before experiencing mental desire, [as opposed to] spontaneous desire [which] means someone often feels mental desire before physical arousal.” Many people are busy and overwhelmed with responsibilities that regardless of a person’s desire for sex in the abstract, they might not actually experience that desire without some sort of stimulation. That’s where porn and erotica come in! Especially for relationships where there’s a mismatch in partners having spontaneous versus responsive desire styles, using porn and erotica as a “jumpstart” can change the game.

3) Inspiring experimentation

Though as stated previously, porn and erotica should not be used as tutorials, they can certainly introduce you to new moves and techniques that you may have been unaware of. From there, you can explore how to execute that move based on more reputable sources.

Sharing porn and erotica isn’t for everyone but it can certainly offer a new sexual outlet in a relationship and provide all the benefits discussed in this article. Here are Embrace Sexual Wellness’s suggestions forSharing porn and erotica isn’t for everyone but it can certainly offer a new sexual outlet in a relationship and provide all the benefits discussed in this article. Here are Embrace Sexual Wellness’s suggestions for fantasy and erotica.

Navigating Sexual Health Conversations with Multiple Partners

Having safer sex with just one partner is one thing, but what about navigating sexual risk when there are multiple partners in play? Though there are certainly a few more moving bits and pieces to manage, with clear communication and the mutual goal of having informed consensual sex that is as safe as possible, it’s totally doable. It should be noted that transparency among everyone involved, including about STI status, is the difference between practicing non-monogamy versus cheating. This conversation is one that should happen regardless of how casual or serious the relationship is. 

There is no such thing as risk-free sex; all sex comes with at least a small risk of pregnancy and/or STIs. Communication and safer sex practices are the best way to mitigate risk, even if it can’t be completely eliminated. Here are some specific tips to help you navigate your sexual health and safety with multiple partners. 

1) Understand the full scope of risk

• Here are some questions you should know the answers to after discussing safer sex practices with your partners

  • How many people total are involved (all your partners plus all of their partners)? 

  • Has everyone been tested recently (see tip #2)? 

  • What is the protocol following an STI diagnosis of one of your partners or one of your partners’ partners? 

  • What types of protection are being used? 

    1. Who, if anyone, is fluid bonded (having unprotected sex)?

  • Is everyone involved fully aware that not all STIs are immediately detectable, nor do they all involve visible and obvious symptoms?  

2) Get tested often

• If you’re sleeping with other people, and especially if those people are also sleeping with multiple people, it’s a good idea to get routine STI tests. For most, it’s sufficient to get tested every 3-6 months, but if you’re worried about that being too much or too little, consider consulting a trusted medical professional who you can comfortably talk to about your sex life.

• It is really important to remember that it takes some STIs up to three months to be detectable with testing so even if all sexual partners test negative, there is still a nonzero risk of STI transmission.  

3) Be upfront about your boundaries without shaming

• Weighing the risk to reward ratio for sex is a personal decision so it’s possible you might not see exactly eye to eye with your partners. It’s important to assert what your boundaries are, while still being respectful of the risk they’ve chosen to take on especially since STIs are shrouded in so much stigma as it is. At the end of the day, you are at liberty to decline to have sex with someone if their sex practices seem too risky for your comfort, which is why it’s so important to have these conversations early in order to establish those boundaries on both sides. It’s possible to do so by explaining yourself and what you want without disparaging the choices someone else has made.

It can feel scary or intimidating to have these conversations and that’s okay! It might even help ease some anxiety to express that upfront. And if someone does take issue with you trying to have this kind of conversation, they’re not someone you want to be involved with anyway.