SAVAGE LOVE

0

Dear Dan: My wife and I have been together for more than 10 years, practicing some kind of nonmonogamy for more than seven. We tried different things — open, dating others, FWBs — but after a bi threesome with another guy a year ago, we knew that was our thing. For a while, everything was great, but roughly a month after that defining threesome, I came down with a bad case of mono. In a couple of months, we resumed our bi sexdates with our FWB, and I noticed I had a hard time getting horny and even had a hard time getting (and staying) hard. More foreplay was needed and fewer distractions were acceptable. I even resorted to pharmaceutical help. We assumed I was still recovering and that diet and exercise would make it all better. Then I had a work-related crisis that lasted until March (and blamed stress from that, since things didn’t really change), and finally in March I got shipped off to a war zone. And I still don’t have the drive I had a year ago. My brothersin-arms ogle every female who happens to be around, and sometimes they hook up even though they’re not in open relationships — unlike me, who is in one but has no desire to hook up with anyone. I rarely masturbate these days, and if I do, I need sexts and naughty pictures from my wife (and our FWB) back home to get in the mood. I just recently started to get morning wood again, and I blame all this on the stress of being in a war zone. But I fear these are just excuses, and I may have to accept the fact that I’m just getting older and this is how my libido is gonna be from now on. I’m turning 30 in a few weeks, so that doesn’t help, either. What are the chances that this is just an unlucky chain of events, and when this is over, I could go back to being my old horny self?

— Currently Occupied Mostly By Arms Though

Dear COMBAT: I asked a doctor — Dr. Barak Gaster, a physician at the University of Washington and a regular (if sometimes mortified) guest expert around here — if mono could damage and/or diminish a guy’s libido, his ability to stay hard and his masturbatory routine for nearly a year.

“Mono is a viral illness for which there is no real treatment other than the tincture of time,” Dr. Gaster says. “Mono is a pretty insidious illness in that it typically causes really severe fatigue, which can linger for a long time. Other common symptoms are muscle and joint aches.”

Could fatigue and aches still be affecting mood and interest in sex?

“They could,” Dr. Gaster says. “It would not be typical, but they could. The duration of mono symptoms is typically around three months, but they can persist to some degree for one to two years in more severe cases.

None of the effects of mono are typically considered ‘permanent.’ So it would be important to reassure someone that the effects of mono that are still present after 12 to 18 months could still likely resolve as more time passes.”

You came down with mono less than a year ago, COMBAT, so you’re still in that one-to-twoyear symptoms-could-persist window.

You also dealt with a work-related crisis before being shipped off to a combat zone — that sounds extremely stressful, and not everyone reacts to stress the same way. The stress of being in a combat zone could make the guys around you horny while having the opposite effect on you.

Be reassured, like the doctor said, that things — your dick included — will most likely right themselves in another 6 to 12 months. The fact that morning wood is returning seems like a good sign, as is the effect a few dirty texts from the woman (and FWB) waiting for you back home has on your dick.

Come home safe — and props to you and your wife for continuing to grow together sexually. That’s probably why you’re still together, and still in love, despite having married so young.

Send questions to mail@savagelove.net and follow @fakedansavage on Twitter.