Peyronie's disease affects more than one person at a time

Any woman who lives with a man who has Peyronie’s disease knows that her life is affected – drastically and to the core.

Shortly after starting Peyronie’s Disease Institute in 2002 I noticed an interesting phenomenon that was very much a surprise to me.  Initially, I never imagined I would deal with women in relation to any direct aspect of Peyronie's disease, even though I knew that women are greatly and adversely affected by it in so many ways.  Knowing how my own wife had to struggle with my initial bad behavior and personal weakness that was brought to the surface by Peyronies, I knew full well how a woman’s life could be stressed deeply in this way.  But, yet, I initially thought that women would stay in the background in regard to designing a Peyronie's treatment plan and dealing with the many questions that come up during actual therapy.  I thought it would be rare that I would come into contact with these ladies.  How wrong I was.

Consistently, around 5-15% of orders placed for various Peyronie’s treatment products are placed by a woman.  As I began to offer online answers to Peyronies questions, I soon found that about 5-10% of first-time emails asking basic questions or ordering information was being sent by women. This is the way it has started, and continues to today.

Probably the best you can do is arrange for a consultation, woman-to-woman with the Peyronies nurse.

It is my first impression that there were a few possible reasons for the large percent of women who communicate with me about a totally male health problem:

1. The man with Peyronie’s disease does not have access to, or does not know how to operate, a computer.  Fair enough, he is computer illiterate and she helps him out because he cannot do it.  That makes sense.
2. The man is on the road so often, as with a truck driver, or his work is so intense, demanding of his time or so fatiguing that she again simply helps him out by communicating instead of him.  That is easily understood.
3. The woman’s work involves computers and she is far more comfortable than him, so she does it because she is just better at it. Perhaps her schedule is far more flexible also, in her career, so once again she pitches in and this also is easy to understand her involvement is one of simple convenience and ease.

While all of these are possible reasons, and they do come up, I have come to learn these reasons and explanations are actually the exception.  In fact, they are the rare exception.   While speaking to or emailing with these women who deal indirectly with Peyronie’s disease I have learned these women are only taking over because the man with the problem is so devastated by his bent penis, by his penis that has become smaller, or because of  Peyronie’s disease impotence that he refuses to engage in anything related to his Peyronie's problem.  He often will not talk to her about his problem, and will refuse to discuss starting or following a Peyronies treatment plan.

So deep and intense is his withdrawal from a problem he feels so shamed and humiliated, that he is often is not even interested in learning how to help himself.  Thus, it is his mate who will step forward to help in whatever way she can.  This, of course, exposes her to tirades of anger, bitter refusals, endless arguments and frequent rejections that circle around his idea that she does not leave him alone, that she is bothering him, that she does not understand, that she doesn’t know what she is doing, and endless tactics of self-sabotage and self-hatred.   I hear these things often, and I must admit I was guilty of many of these tactics myself when I was at the depth of my despair with my Peyronies.

Peyronie’s Disease Treatment Forum

Why do I now mention all this on the woman’s side of the Peyronie’s Disease Treatment Forum?   All of this background information and insight is mentioned here, so that any woman reading this will know she is not alone.  She will know she is not genuinely as much at fault as he claims she is.  That she will feel empowered to know she is doing what any good person does when the person she loves is in trouble; she pitches in, she helps in whatever way she can, and she forgives him for being a jerk because she understands he is greatly disturbed by the trouble he is in.  She stands by him as best she can, because it is the right thing to do, because her love for him makes her strong to do more than she thought she could do.  And, having read this, perhaps she will feel better and her burden will be a little lighter.

There is much more that can be said about this complex and destructive way that Peyronie’s disease reduces his interest in intimacy.  This takes up a large part of the second PD book that I wrote, “Peyronie’s Disease & Sex.”

Please accept my invitation to comment on this post, and to ask questions about the way that Peyronie’s disease influences men in strange and powerful ways that are often not pleasant.  I stand ready to assist any woman who lives with Peyronie’s disease.