SEX AND AGING: GLENN’S STORY

The physical changes that come with age do not necessarily cause sexual performance problems. However, as can be seen in the example of Glenn and Lois, sexual problems do often result from anxiety caused by uneducated reactions to the sexual aging process.
Glenn was fifty-two years old and his wife, Lois, was fifty-seven. Glenn had undergone coronary bypass surgery at age forty-eight and had recuperated with no physical complications. Glenn's contact with me came after Lois was referred for help with depression. Her referring physician assumed that Lois's sad mood, withdrawn behavior, and general lack of zest were related to the empty nest syndrome created by the relatively recent marriage of her only child.
As I got to know this couple, several things quickly became clear. The marriage of their daughter certainly did begin a new phase of life for Glenn and Lois; they loved being parents, and they missed their former close contact with their only child. However, the empty nest had little to do with Lois's depression. More bothersome to her, marital intimacy had steadily dwindled in the preceding three years. She and Glenn had once been openly affectionate and spontaneously loving in their relationship. Now their marriage had turned into a relationship of tense distancing and avoidance of physical touch.
The difficulties began when they noticed that Glenn, who had typically been the sexual pursuer in the relationship, began having less firm and less spontaneous erections. In the past Glenn could become aroused and erect merely in reaction to the sight of his wife dressing or undressing. Beginning around age fifty, however, both partners noticed that Glenn required rather prolonged manual or oral stimulation of his penis by Lois before he could get fully erect.
This absolutely normal change in sexual responsivity frightened and confused this couple. Lois quietly wondered if her long-standing fear of losing her attractiveness to her younger husband was finally justified now. Glenn began to obsess about his fear that the atherosclerosis that had resulted in his need for coronary bypass surgery might now be blocking blood flow to his penis.
All this quiet worry and fear led to mutual tension about sex. This loving and open couple became progressively more withdrawn from each other and began avoiding the topic of sex. They soon became caught in a vicious cycle: the more they quietly worried, the more they avoided sex and physical affection. The more they avoided the more anxious and worried they became. As they both became more anxious, sex drive and sexual response were further squelched for both of them. In addition to distancing physically, each began to assume that the other was being quietly critical. Tension and irritability replaced their typical comfort when they attempted to communicate. Subtly and progressively, what had been a healthy, intimate marriage deteriorated into a relationship between two lonely and anxious people. Like many couples, Lois and Glenn were caught in the unfortunate trap of discomfort that results from misunderstanding the natural changes in sexual response that occur as the body ages.
The tragedy of the story of Glenn and Lois is that their difficulties would never have occurred if they had had a clear and realistic understanding of the basic facts about sex and the aging process. Knowing what to expect as the natural result of aging would have prevented the problems that were now threatening their happiness.
The main fact to remember about sex and aging is that, as we age, we need more direct and more prolonged stimulation of our sexual body areas in order to progress through the sexual response cycle. It is as though the hormonal changes that happen for both men and women beginning around age thirty-five result in a prolongation of the sexual response cycle. Whereas you used to be able to progress rapidly from non-arousal to arousal to orgasm, it is likely that you will need to be more patient, attentive, and physically loving of each other as age diminishes sexual hormones and slows your sexual responsivity.
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