My wife and I are new to the lifestyle, less than a year in with only 3 swapping experiences so far. Everything has been amazing in our personal sex lives for well over a decade (long term married couple). I’ve not ever had any issues performing, in fact sometimes my body was a little TOO eager to go off…but last night with our third experience, it finally happened to me: erectile disfunction struck.

I could get it up, but the second that the condom went on and I started playing, it would only take 2-3 minutes before I’d “deflate” and have to pull out and receive oral or manual touch to get going again. It was stop and go like that pretty much the whole time. Sure, I took moments to reset and go down on her, and play in other ways. The other woman was very patient and generous, but after about 40 minutes of trying, I could tell she was tired of trying, and I gave up. It ended up being a big ego bruise, which I’ll get into more below.

Lots of potential reasons are in play: 1) It was a very beautiful woman and I really wanted to perform well (pressure/anxiety) 2) Other than about 20-30 minutes of small talk, we didn’t get a chance to really know the other couple well, and human connection is important to me. 3) I’m not use to using condoms, so they are really distracting to me, and I had a hard time staying hard without really feeling anything like I normally do.

The ego bruising came because after watching my wife orgasm (while using a toy) with her husband, I was eager to return the same favor to his wife. It didn’t happen. Instead, while I took a break to re-inflate my non-compliant member, her husband came over, and while he banged his wife, she used a toy to help finish herself off. Then the other dude went back to my wife and finished himself off inside her while I just sorta hung out.

After they left, even then, I was really in my head and confused about what was happening. I felt like I had been a spectator to everyone else’s pleasure and was third wheel. I felt like I had failed, and another man had to step in. It has really messed with my head and caused me to question my abilities to please a woman, and I’ve never had that issue before.

When we got home, it was super late. My wife was trying to be kind and comforting and reassuring, but she kept saying things that made it worse like: “We don’t have to keep doing this, I’m happy to stop.” But I don’t want to stop, and run away from failure, I want to address it head on (pun intended) and improve or fix it. I told her it was really important for me to reclaim that night, but literally in the middle of me saying that, she was falling asleep, making me feel like she didn’t understand the pain and humiliation I felt. I woke her up, and we did end up reconnecting. Everything suddenly started working, and we had great sex that pleased both of us, and then we fell asleep in each others arms.

I don’t hold any hard feelings towards my wife or the other couple, but I do still feel the sting of a bruised ego and not being able to please and feeling like a cuck while watching another man please everyone.

I know that ED is fairly common, and some say that as much as 80% of men in the lifestyle have had it happen at least once. How do you handle those moments? How do you get over the embarrassment and humiliation?