A little bit about myself: I'm 34 years old, was married once for a time of 6 years to a woman I met when I was an undergraduate. I divorced about two years ago and only recently tested the dating market again. My wife and I were happy most of the time but we had very different schedules and never found time to recapture the spark we used to have when we were newlyweds. Our relationship was very complicated and I learned, from a sexual therapist I sought out when I was trying anything and everything to cure my impotence, that my ex-wife and I used sex as a way of maintaining the relationship and we even used it to hurt each other. For instance, when we fought, either she or I would refuse to have sex for a period of time. This is obviously unhealthy for our relationship but since it was all that our relationship was, then its no wonder that we divorced after I began to experience erectile dysfunction.

I'm fit and healthy. When I was in high school and college, I participated in many sports from tennis and biking to volleyball and soccer. I avidly go to the gym and run or participate in pick up basketball games and I have a regular tennis partner who is much better than I. Needless to say he keeps me running a lot. I eat healthy too. I have never smoked and I don't drink that often. When and if I do, I usually only have a wine or a beer. So naturally I panicked when I began have problems getting an erection.

I was never very popular with the ladies and have only had four sexual partners in my lifetime thus far. I never had problems with erections before halfway through my marriage with my ex-wife. Even then, I thought it was a passing problem like the popular phrase goes: "It's not a big deal and it happens to all guys." I couldn't imagine that in a few short years, I would be completely impotent.

The first time I experienced ED was after a typical argument with my wife. After making up we would often move to the bedroom. This time, it was a little different though. I could only get semi-hard and I couldn't enter my wife. It was quite humiliating given the circumstances. We had just made up after fighting for what seemed like hours. After finally apologizing, I damaged my pride even more by being unable to even get an erection. I assumed my soft erection was being caused by the stress in my relationship with my wife and didn't worry too much about it. Then, in the last year of my marriage with my wife, she made a comment that really made me see clearly. She told me that she noticed it took me a lot longer to get hard and I would orgasm a lot more quickly, which was making the sex very unsatisfying for her. She said that my penis used to be a lot harder and the sex used to be much better. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that what she said was true. My erections no longer pointed up but kind of hung there, hard but not solid and firm the way it should be. I also realized it did take me longer to get an erection and if I didn't receive constant stimulation, I would lose the erection pretty quickly and take even longer to get it back. At first I denied it and said it was natural for men my age to slow down a bit. After my annual physical with my doctor, I gathered the nerves to ask him about it and he told me that in some cases it was normal but I was fit and healthy and still relatively young. My erections should still be firm and hard. Even after I heard that, I wanted to stay in my state of denial and I even got into a few arguments with my wife trying to defend myself. I finally admitted that I had impotence the first time I couldn't even achieve somewhat of an erection and I stayed limp.

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