A tale of an unusual problem, written in UK English, AKA English. For example, 'a check' is something you do when you think something may be wrong. 'A cheque' is a means of passing money from one person to another.
Sally and Harry Maxwell had been married for 14 years, she was 35 and Harry 2 years older at 37. After 8 years of marriage, their issues started, Harry had travelled for work to North Africa for 6 weeks, approximately 4 months after he returned home, he felt increasingly listless and Sally eventually prevailed on him to go and speak to their family doctor, Dave Millar who was also a friend of the couple.
Doctor Dave ran a few tests and it threw up some minor things that could all be more or less explained by Harry's family history and the doc started Harry on some preventative meds such as aspirin and perindopril for his heart's health and a statin like seemingly most of the western world, but there was nothing specific that may have come from his travels, nor an explanation of his fatigue and generally just not feeling 'quite right'.
Sally started to notice that Harry was having trouble maintaining an erection, at first it was just that he has not rock hard but increasingly it was becoming more noticeably soft even as they went at it vigorously. Sally was not certain that he was either aware of it or if he was that he was able to confront and deal with it. It was starting to concern her and it was growing pretty cold in the bedroom. She decided he couldn't not be aware, so clearly was not willing to face up to it.
One Saturday morning Sally decided to take the bull by the balls, so to speak, and woke Harry up with a blow job, something that hadn't been part of their 'routine' rather vanilla sex life in the last couple of years. Back then they had been thinking of starting a family but with what was happening with Harry's changed and flagging libido, that looked a long way off. Harry could just about get it up but when she try to mount his cock it shrivelled, melted away like an ice-cream on a summers day.
Over the next couple of years, things just got worse, with it being obvious that Harry was now a full-on sufferer of erectile disfunction and he point-blank refused to go and speak to Doc Dave about it, far too embarrassing he said. It was no longer in any doubt, their sex life was on life support, Harry willingly went down on Sally and she had a few sex toys but Christ she longed for a good hard fuck. Sally was starting to grow doubtful that she would ever become a mother and as a young woman with a healthy libido she was at her wits end. She loved Harry and the last thing on her mind was cheating but she was getting to breaking point.
In sickness and in health is the concept, but how far does that stretch when the party who is 'sick' completely refuses to seek help? Sally knew she needed to say the four words and talk they did. It was now 6 years since Harry's problems had first started and 4years since they had last managed to enjoy intercourse more or less.
Sally told Harry how much she loved him but that his refusal to seek help was driving her crazy and that at her age, lack of a proper sex life and even more importantly the lack of a family was really driving her to think of desperate measures.
Harry amazed her by saying that she should just cheat on him, that if she did that he wouldn't blame her, wouldn't divorce her and that he thought she was a saint if she hadn't already cheated BUT he could not bring himself to talk to Doctor Dave about it and he could not think of raising any kids that were not his.
That left them no closer to settling on a course of action, indeed Harry's suggestion she just cheat just seemed flippant and just pissed her off. She told him fuck no, I will not cheat, you need to stop being selfish and get yourself checked out, go to another doctor out of town if you are so fragile talking about it to Dave, but get it checked. She warned him that she would divorce him before she would cheat on him.
Harry of course hadn't really thought through the 'just cheat' scenario, he knew Sally was no cheater and she had more respect for their marriage than he seemed to have, 'divorce', well that really messed with his head, he loved Sally more than he had ever thought possible, even her reply to his bullshit cheating suggestion made him respect and love her even more.
He knew that for a healthy woman in her sexual prime of mid-30s, it must be killing her to have to deal with a limp dick. Harry resolved that he needed to man up, literally, get his act together for his wife's sake and his own. He also craved a family and if there was any way to get things sorted out he owed it to them both to stop being a wimp about it, still...... not Doc Dave.
Harry was an engineering consultant and through a contact he got a recommendation for a specialist in Chicago for a consultation, even then he couldn't come clean because he knew Sally would want to come too, so he passed it off as a business trip. He was a way for 3 days and nights and would have to wait for a further three days for a full report from the specialist.
The report was mixed, the good news was that Harry's sperm were viable and there was no good reason he could not father children -- other than that, the bad news, his delivery system was just not performing. The specialist had been astonished when Harry admitted that he had not tried Viagra and prescribed a course, but he decided that almost certainly Harry's problem with getting a hard-on was psychosomatic. Not quite 'all in your head' but that was a significant player in his issue. The specialist recommended that a sex therapist may be able to help, he also suggested that a range of sensory experiences, may help. Sensual massage for example, visual stimulation, creation, or recreation of any fantasies no matter how extreme.
When Harry first showed Sally the report, she was initially furious that he had not consulted her, that he had completely excluded her, but then delighted that after all these years he had finally done something about it. What she read encouraged her that a family was eminently possible and that if Jimmy worked at it there could be a resolution to his ED. For certain she wanted to try everything that the specialist had advised they might benefit from. The biggest plus was that they could have a family as soon as they wanted albeit, not quite naturally be certainly with them both being the natural parents, that was something she'd almost given up hopes of.