The uninformed wife's reaction to a husband with an established problem of premature ejaculation also is relatively type-cast. During the first months or years of the marriage the usual response is one of tolerance, understanding, or sympathy, with soft-voiced expressions of confidence that the problem will be overcome with patience, love, and mutual cooperation.
With due passage of time and with her husband's rapid ejaculatory tendency not only continuing, but frequently becoming worse, the wife's sexual frustrations rise to the surface. She verbalizes her distress by accusing her husband of just using her as an object for sexual release; in short, of being selfish, irresponsible, or simply of having no interest in or feeling for her as an individual.
These wifely complaints are legion, couched in individually self-expressive terms but reflecting in general rebellion at being used sexually rather than loved sexually. The "just being used" is the part most difficult for wives to accept.
Although they complaint of premature ejaculation have been referred to the clinic after as brief an interval as one year of marriage, generally this particular syndrome is not presented for therapeutic reversal until after five to twenty years of marriage. Usually the problem is ignored or tolerated by the wife until children are born.
With distractions provided by the demands of the new family, the prematurely ejaculating husband is accepted. But once a family of desirable size has been achieved, and the youngest has reached some level of independence, the wife's sexual frustrations, enhanced by her increasing psychosocial freedom as the children mature, reach the breaking-point.
She spotlights the problem by insisting on professional guidance for herself, demanding that her husband seek professional help, enjoying sexual release provided by another partner, male or female, or any combination of these three potentials.
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