Anxious Man

How to deal with performance anxiety

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No pressure

I sit with couples every day who are trying for a baby, but the thing that I see more and more is that when you do start trying for a baby it is exciting, but then when you have been trying for a few months it is not uncommon for your sex life to become mechanical. The big thing that I see between couples and where their relationship suffers is the pressure that is put on – particularly to the man around the time of ovulation.

Don’t panic

This additional pressure can cause performance anxiety but rest assured that it is a perfectly normal and natural feeling. The way in which some women constantly track and monitor their fertility can put pressure on their partner, especially around the time of ovulation. The woman focuses on her fertile time, her anxiety goes up, she tells her partner to ‘come home immediately’, his anxiety goes up, and so on. Sound familiar? As I said, this is common and understandable, but can unfortunately cause a lot of upset, frustration and arguments within the couple.

Top tips

Here are my top 5 tips to help if trying to conceive is giving you performance anxiety:

  1. Focus on the sperm not the egg, because the egg lasts for 24 hours and the sperm lasts for 3-5 days.
  2. Don’t feel like you need to tell your man every little detail about your cycle – at the end of the day, it’s a passion killer!
  3. Take the pressure off one another! Try talking to each other properly about how you can get past this hurdle together.
  4. For a man to be able to perform, he needs passion, and scheduling your sex life and giving him specific times when he needs to be home can ruin that. Try to come up with a plan together on how to keep this time fun and romantic.
  5. For many men with performance anxiety, it’s present for a short period of time such as during the time that you are trying for a baby. But for others, it can be a sign of something underlying. Don’t be afraid to go to your GP, just to make sure everything is okay.

It is really important that if trying to conceive is negatively affecting your sex life that you communicate with one another and you work out how you can get some passion and fun back not only into your sex life, but into your life generally as well.