Dating after Prostate Cancer

I really need some help here!!! I have been dating a man age 55 that is a survivor of prostate cancer. I know it takes time...but is there anything I can read to help me communicate better with him...or any suggestions???

Post Edited (nc28238) : 8/3/2014 6:01:44 PM (GMT-6)

Inspector 13 said...
......... I wouldn't be surprised if your man doesn't really know how to deal with how the after effects of treatment would affect your relationship. Honestly, I don't know how I would deal with a new relationship if I had one.

That's kind of what I'm thinking. Depending on what type of surgery ( wait- did he have surgery? ) and how long it has been, it is fairly likely that he is totally impotent except maybe if he injects himself. ( though he might recover part or all later, maybe) If that were me, with a new relationship, I would probably be really anxious about how to let a person know this before things got intimate. I can see where a guy would just avoid getting to the point of even having to discuss the problem.

But where there is a will there is a way, and he can probably have sex again with the right woman, which might be you. Actually, with the right couple, there are possibilities for pleasure even without the good old erection. Have you ever had any discussions about any problems he might have?

Nc28238–

Welcome to this forum.

Those of us who are regular posters and readers here have found it to be an excellent source of information on all things related to prostate cancer, both medically and relationship-wise.

We don't give out specific medical advice (that's for the physicians to do), but virtually all of us here, both the men who have had or are currently dealing with this illness, as well as their caregivers, can offer a great deal of real-life experience on how to deal with and live with the issues of prostate cancer, including those that impact relationships .

Yes, I did say caregivers in the above paragraph. A number of the regular and valuable forum members here are the wives, daughters, and girlfriends of the men in their lives who have been diagnosed with and/or are living with PCa. So please do feel welcome here, as a woman yourself, and hopefully some others of us here will continue to respond and try to help you if we can, including some of our mentioned caregivers.

I myself decided to post in reply to your question because I am someone who is sort of in the position that your man is in: I'm single (a widower), a PCa survivor, and while I'm not seeing anyone right now, perhaps because of my situation I might be in a position to understand what your man is thinking right now.

The first thing that came to my mind is the good point that Inspector13 and BillyBob made in their posts above. You said your man is a PCA "survivor," so I assume that means that he has received treatment, perhaps surgery or radiation? If so, then there is a good chance his sexual ability has been or is being affected, especially his erection ability. Has he already discussed this with you? If not, that may be what is bothering him, that he is reluctant to admit to you that there may be a problem in that area, as has been mentioned, and you sense it in that he seems to be pushing you away.

Also, how did you discover that he was a PCa survivor? I assume he told you about it. If he did, how much information about it was he willing to share with you? Did he seem uncomfortable telling you about it at all? In my own case, if I were mentioning this fact to a new friend, I think I would have to play it by ear as to how much I should be telling her, depending on her reaction as I kept on talking about it. In this light, maybe he feels awkward now that he told you as much as he did, that maybe he said too much? Something you might check into with him.

Being reassuring with him about his post-treatment situation, whatever it is, is very important.

Of course it's always possible there are other issues on his mind, some not even related to the PCa. Only you can judge that.

As for your question about sources of information on how best to relate to a man who is a PCa survivor, there are lots of them on the web. Googling "prostate cancer forums women" should retrieve a few. A good one is:

www.hisprostatecancer.com

You say you feel he is pushing you away, but if he has already seen you for nine dinner dates, that would seem to say that he does have interest in continuing to see you.

If you would like to share some more details about the situation, that might help us to provide some more specific advice.

It sounds like you do want this to keep this possible relationship going somewhere, and if any of us can help you to accomplish this, then I hope we can.

nc28238,

That's a hard question to answer without a bit more information about you and him. Since some of the comments have responded to things your edited post no longer seems to say you seem to be headed in the wrong direction, telling us less and less. Hopefully we can turn that around so we can help you understand where he is in the recovery process.

What I can tell you without knowing more is that prostate cancer always takes a bite out of a man's life and his confidence will have been damaged no matter what sort of treatments he has had. Prostate cancer is a disease that starts in a man's reproductive organs but seldom makes that much trouble there. Aggressive disease, left untreated, tends to move to other parts of the body where it does make trouble, causing a great deal of pain and sometimes killing the man. But with modern medicine the percentage of men who die of their cancer is small. The cancer, by itself, doesn't usually do that much damage to a man's sex life. But the treatments for it do. A typical man diagnosed with prostate cancer today has never had any symptoms. He was diagnosed by a blood test and a biopsy but he goes into the process as a young-feeling, sexually active, middle-aged man, and it is easy for him to think of himself as healthy enough to shrug off the side effects of treatment. Then, when the treatments are over and he finds it much harder than he expected to recover his ability to have sex, his problems can tend to feel like self-inflicted wounds. He chose the therapy himself, and it's hard not to second guess himself. It's not a comfortable thing for him to think about.

So, there's your problem. Before you can help him get over his difficulties you will need more information from him and the first things you need to know are the last things he is going to want to talk about.

My advice would be to go slowly, let him set the pace and don't push him. Once you are fairly sure he is comfortable enough with you that he won't flee if you ask uncomfortable questions, you can ask about his cancer, his treatments, and his side effects.

Here are some things you will want to know (so we can tell you what it means):

His "Gleason Score" which will be a number that is the sum of two other numbers. That will tell how aggressive his cancer was or is. From least aggressive (best) to most aggressive (worst) the ones we usually see are GS6(3+3), GS7(3+4), GS7(4+3), GS8(4+4), GS9(4+5), GS9(5+4) and GS10(5+5).

His PSA reading (Prostate Specific Antibodies) before treatment and now.

His treatment(s): the usual ones are surgery, external beam radiation, radioactive seeds (brachytherapy), hormone therapy (also called androgen deprivation therapy) and chemotherapy. These can be combined every which way (more aggressive cancers often require combination treatments) and they have different side effects, although almost all of them can cause erectile dysfunction. If he had surgery you'll also want to know if his nerves were spared.

His current therapy: what drugs he is taking now. If he is on hormones then any sort of sexual activity will be problematical for him. If he has erectile dysfunction he may have pills, injections or a vacuum device that he can use but he'd probably rather stick his hand in the fire than talk to his girlfriend about it.

Good luck, We'll be here if we can help.

I was "set up" on a date with a friend's coworker. He was all about how he had explained that I was a survivor. She was cute, and the first intro was good. But at a group party the next week, she got upset that I "checked her out" as she walked in. It turned out she wanted a sugar daddy who, because of what she read about PCa, couldn't possibly be interested in sex. When she realized that I was wounded, but not dead, and not the least bit rich, she dumped me like a stone. The "friend" has also gone missing since then, as he screwed over his wife, which doesn't sit well with folks like me.

And from that, as well as some other bad endings, I tend to find new friends at places I want to be.

I tend to be tired of the routine. There really isn't anything in looking for a woman for me these days. One of these days the girl at the next lane at the range will offer a beer for clearing a jam, or the girl at the store, or ...

I've not given up, but I quit trying to find the girl I'll fail with. The ladies in my circle know about my situation, and they know where the trimix is in the freezer.

I think its irrelevant that he had or still has prostate cancer. Just love him for who he is. All the best!

I have the same issue from the male perspective, how to explain my lack of libido to my loving spouse.

The best resource I have found is Todd's blog

toddseals63.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2014-01-13T20:26:00-08:00&max-results=7

Todd is a poster here and his user name is Todd1963.

Another suggestion would be to contact Sonny Wolfe poser name Sonny3 since his new bride (first year anniversary last week of Sept) Sherry married Sonny after having buried her former husband who died of PCa. So she knew what she was getting in to.

If you are at all able to travel to Rochester the last week of Sept, you can meet them in person at a gathering known as GFMPH Good For a Man's Prostate Health

www.healingwell.com/community/default.aspx?f=35&m=3132396

Both the man with PCa and his partner/caregiver are eligible to attend, and at the last one Sonny & Sherry hosted in FL, Sherry led a session for the caregivers while the men were having their PCa business meeting.

LupronJim