The Last Time I Had Sex: The Woman Who Finds Sex Painful Every Time

Jane, 34, is a teacher from Cardiff

We did it against doctor’s orders. We were only meant to be touching each other, penetration was strictly off the table. Afterwards, I was elated. Not because it had been mind-blowing sex. It was fairly straight, married-for-three-years sex. But because we’d done it, and it hadn’t been agonising.

For the first time in over two years, I felt a glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe, things could get back to normal one day. Three months ago, I was diagnosed with a condition called vestibulodynia. Put very simply, it’s a persistent pain at the entrance of the vagina. There’s no definitive cause, but doctors told me it may be down to oversensitive nerve endings. It can betriggered by thrush, and can also have a psychological element to it. Who knows why I have it? I just wish I didn’t.

It destroyed my sex life, left me depressed and, if I hadn’t finally been diagnosed after many months of my GP insisting I ‘just’ had recurrent thrush, who knows what the long- term effect on my marriage would’ve been. It started in late 2016, eight months after we married. At first I did indeed think the pain I felt was a bout of thrush, but no matter what my GP prescribed, it never went away.

For over two years, I was in, at best, discomfort, at worst, severe pain. All the time. A burning, stinging, stretching pain, so intense it could reduce me to tears, and made me feel sick at the thought of sleeping with my husband when the pain would be at its worst. We went from being a once-a-week couple, to every few months, to not at all. He stopped initiating sex, not wanting to pressurise me.

A few times I initiated sex. I knew it would be horrific but I felt guilty that because of me, our marriage was sexless. Each time it was a disaster, ending with me in tears and both of us traumatised. Until we stopped trying, sex was the elephant in the room we couldn’t talk about. It was only after a new GP referred me to a sexual health clinic that a gynaecologist there finally put a label on my pain. Then came the news that the condition is not always treatable; some women have to ‘manage’ the condition with drugs and psychological therapy for the rest of their life, with varying degrees of relief.

I’m now taking medication to block the pain signals to the nerves in my vulva, a local anaesthetic gel which I apply every day, and I’m on the waiting list for therapy. In the past, I’ve experienced sexual violence, as well as growing up in a very conservative family where sex was strictly taboo, and my doctors believe that could be contributing to my condition.

Three weeks ago, my husband and I were doing our ‘homework’ – touching, to build up confidence without the pressure of having sex. For the first time in ages I felt relaxed, so one thing led to another. It hurt when he entered me, but the pain faded and we both climaxed – I don’t know when that last happened. There’s still a long way to go, and I’m trying not to get carried away just because we managed to do it once. But now, I have hope.

For more information, visit vulvalpainsociety.org