Male gynaecologist? Boyfriend will not allow it!

Hi, I have a gynae problem that requires I see a gynaecologist. My Dr has told me I need an operation. My boyfriend has told me that if I see a male gynaecologist our relationship is over. He sees it almost like cheating. I saw a female Dr this morning and the examination was extremely painful (hence the need for an operation) and he can't bring himself to look at me. He is making me feel ashamed that I allowed an examination to take place at all. I explained to the Dr that I would need to see a female gynaecologist and why, she got angry and before she could stop herself she exclaimed "Does he even care about you, you need to get better!" She couldn't promise that the gynaecologist would be female and in any case in the operating room it is highly unlikely that I could have an all female team. I do agree with her, I am desperate to have this painful condition operated on so I can get better. My boyfriend and I are unable to have a full sex life because of the condition and our relationship is strained which is another reason I am keen to have the operation as soon as possible. How can I make him understand that it is not a sexual thing, it's a medical thing? Has anyone else had this problem? How did you handle it? Thanking you in advance

he sounds way too insecure and controlling at the same time. You should bring up medical problems that may arise if this isn't taken care of soon. His selfish outlook shouldn't affect your overall health. And if he's too immature to realize that dr's see hundreds of boobs and vaginas on a weekly basis. He needs to get over himself.

Thank you for your reply vegasguy, I do agree with you. He is controlling in just about every aspect of our relationship and most of it is down to his insecurity. I just don't know how to deal with it. If he is shutting me out and making me feel guilty over a female dr doing a medical examination on me what is it going to be like if there is a male present in the operating room?

Yes, agree with everyone else. If his pride- and territorialism-based attempts (through you) to keep you away from any potential male usurpers (even professionals beholden to ethical rules and guidelines) means more to him than your health or very survival, and to the point where it impedes *your* ability to function normally, then he's got a problem that significantly affects his day-to-day functionality in this particular, important life realm, meaning, he's a candidate for psychotherapy.

I agree with you all

I was a little uncomfortable with my ex going to a male gynecologist, but she invited me to come along with her on one of her check-ups and the doctors were okay with it, and I felt better once I was more familiar with the process. I know it doesn't really excuse your boyfriend's controlling behavior towards the issue, but maybe you could suggest something like this.

Thank you altreal, he insists on accompanying me to the appointment. I do however sadly feel it will only serve to make us both feel uncomfortable. He was present during a previous examination a few years ago by a female Dr and he attacked me as soon as I came out of hospital because I allowed her to do it without discussing it with him (this was in an emergency room). I was admitted for a week hooked up to drips etc and he seemed ok about it until I came out of hospital. As it was an emergency situation I didn't think to consult with him, I was sedated and wasn't thinking clearly. How I can help him understand that is not in any way sexual? I just want to get better, the gynae problem needs to be sorted out. Not only is it painful but it is affecting our physical relationship and we seem to be drifting apart. Although actually seeing in writing how he treats me that might not be such a bad thing...

"he attacked me as soon as I came out of hospital because I allowed her to do it without discussing it with him (this was in an emergency room). I was admitted for a week hooked up to drips etc and he seemed ok about it until I came out of hospital. As it was an emergency situation I didn't think to consult with him, I was sedated and wasn't thinking clearly." So: 1. He managed to 'keep his powder dry' in front of everyone in the hospital, but then let rip at you for being nothing but normal/human the minute you and he were alone, did he? And behind closed doors? THEN THAT PROVES HE KNOWS HOW UNREASONABLE HE WAS AND IS BEING! 2. You're only 5 and dating your own dad? "How I can help him understand that is not in any way sexual?" One, teaching him about what's normal and perfectly acceptable and commonplace in life is not the job of a GIRLFRIEND (being that you're not his parent or teacher) and, two, it's unnecessary anyway. His response in this arena is *not* sexually-territorial because the threat is not in any way sexual so HOW CAN HE FEEL SEXUALLY THREATENED BY A THREAT THAT EVERYONE KNOWS ON THE WHOLE DOESN'T EVEN EXIST? It's just his choice of arena/medium, what he'd LIKE you to think - whether because [I DON'T KNOW!] or because he has baggage in that specific regard (medical exams, medical personnel, last girlfriend ran off with a doctor, little sister got raped by a med professional??) as has given him this huge chip on his shoulder in this specific scenario where concerns any gf of his or just you. But his major neurosis and how he's letting it let rip in the workings of this relationship is neither normal nor acceptable. My vote is the former compounded thus re-awakened by the latter. Plain, isolated experiential baggage that'd got pulled out of its grave and resurrected should only have him (as per Altreal) anywhere between asking and insisting on accompanying you and waiting anxiously outside in the waiting room, etc., for the first visit or three, whereas THIS chap *almost literally* wants you to be willing to die or become permanently damaged just to save his sensitivities and manage his neuroses(!!!). Doing that is *his* responsibility, not yours. He's seeking reassurance. But not the normal healthy amount of an emotionally healthy, self-confident male. Ergo, giving him a locket or telling and showing him 10 times per day that you love him or whatever else ordinary demonstrations you can think of re. lasting commitment or commit-ability on your part just wouldn't do the trick. He needs 50ft neon signs saying I DO LOVE YOU AMEN with bells, streamers, klaxons (and blood) to-boot. But evidence suggests not even those would suffice in terms of having a lasting enough effect. He appears to be horribly romantically insecure and in a way where you being however-much naked in front of another person, *including or especially* those with "no eyes" and no susceptibility plus all the restriction in the world to fancying or trying it on with you in the first place. Either that or, as I say, it's just a 'cover scenario' for his real problem of needing to lord it over you whenever you're in an especially delicate and vulnerable state. And whether this got sparked (and then somehow subsequently exacerbated) by that original 'failure to consult/inform' incident you've just mentioned, or triggered some latent, unresolved personal issue or event-based baggage, it's to a degree that is literally hard to believe, let alone live with. Who told him in the first place that a girlfriend has to consult with a mere boyfriend when it comes to giving her consent for an important or emergency, very personal or not procedure anyway? *Is* he your dad? Has he put a ring on your finger? Do you have kids and a shared mortgage? Do you have such huge say over *his* life minutae? Me, I would tell him either he confesses and explains his grossly unreasonable behaviour (and deals with it/gets it dealt with) or it's none of his pigging mere-boyfriend business WHAT you choose to do with your own body for whatever reasons, vital or non-vital, including a tattoo on your bum-cheek if that's what you fancied, and that if he doesn't like that fact then neither do YOU like the fact that he seems to feel himself entitled to the perks of a HUSBAND (*or father) before he's even done the work as earns him that status (*impossible)!..and that if he doesn't like that fact *either* then he can put up and shut up or sling his hook so that he can finally find a woman with holes for string in her limbs or a giant cavity up her bum, spine and into her mouth (- puppet)... I hear there are LOADS like that available on Mars! :-p Or just tell him, 'I'm not behaving in any way abnormally, whereas I and the whole world would agree you are. Deal with it, stop involving me and making *me* have to suffer for it'. And then go ahead with doing your FIRST life duty of protecting and maintaining your very existence or quality of existence, regardless. Then just sit back and watch whether, when 'forced' to, he deals with it (healthily) or not. Have you been drifting apart because of this current medical barrier to sexual intercourse or did the drifting apart precede it?

Right here goes, as far as I know nothing happened to him or his sister by a medical practitioner. He however has spent a very long time in hospital himself. He broke his spine in three places and was unable to move even slightly for 3 months while the surgeons decided what to do, eventually removing several vertebrae and putting a cage etc around his spinal column and bracing it. He was told he was very unlikely he would walk again (he was very lucky and he can walk). During the time he was unable to move at all he had to have a team of nurses do EVERYTHING for him. Maybe, he found it sexually arousing I don't know... He has been married twice before the first wife stole thousands from him and his elderly mother. His second wife was expecting another man's child when she left him... Now here's the thing, with both wives they indulged in swinging (wife swapping whatever you want to call it). When I started seeing him he wanted me to do it too, I refused and told him if that's what he wanted I was not the girl for him because I do not want sex with anyone else. However we are both naturists so me being seen naked is not a problem. I don't know if it is a family way of thinking because his brother nearly ended his marriage because a male gynaecologist operated on his wife. This whole relationship and his way of thinking and attitude towards sex has me confused. At first he wanted me to sleep with other people, I refuse. He practically forces me to tell me about my past sex life because he 'enjoys hearing about it'... yet he won't let a male dr perform a medical examination on me!! We are not married because I do not want to marry him. I am not completely stupid I know this relationship is damaging and not going anywhere. I have tried to leave him time and time again and he manipulates me into going back with him. He somehow turns things around so I feel sorry for him and even that it is all my fault. His favourite line is "I've done nothing wrong", he then proceeds to convince me that I am the one with mental health problems. Somehow everything that happens has to be about him, me being ill for instance. I am ill and he has turned it all around to 'poor him, he doesn't know how he is going to cope'. He hasn't once asked me how I am feeling be it physically or emotionally. He just expects me to help HIM through it and to deal with the pain I am in and apprehension about having an operation etc without complaint. I don't understand how or why I find myself in this situation, (maybe I AM completely stupid after all)... I have always considered myself to be a very strong woman and I have in the past never understood why women stay in relationships like this. Everyday I find myself wishing I had never met him. It's easy to say "Just dump his certifiable ar$e", in practice it is much harder.

"He however has spent a very long time in hospital himself. He broke his spine in three places and was unable to move even slightly for 3 months while the surgeons decided what to do, eventually removing several vertebrae and putting a cage etc around his spinal column and bracing it. He was told he was very unlikely he would walk again (he was very lucky and he can walk). During the time he was unable to move at all he had to have a team of nurses do EVERYTHING for him. Maybe, he found it sexually arousing I don't know..." No, it wasn't (arousing). It was HUMILIATINGLY INVASIVE. And he probably felt any protests of his were unmet, thus rendering him feeling very powerless and small. It *might*, for all you know, also have been a bit of a repeat exercise and exacerbation of some prior hospital stay. This boy has the right intentions (to protect you, his precious cargo) but is pinning onto them his baggage regarding the past, abject lack of dignity he suffered, whereby the result is OVERKILL. In other words, he's trying to protect you *and* 'his past self'...any poor individual in that same past boat but *particularly* someone he cares so much about (you). Any time you look like being headed for any intimate type of examination, he panics majorly...so much so that his worried enquiries and urging come out sounding like ORDERS ("Why didn't you warn me!", etc.). However, saying that, he COULD also just be naturally very bossy on top, meaning, put those elements together and you're left with - YA VULL, MEIN FUHRER! And you're not self-assertive enough, so, put THOSE together and you have YOU BEING BOSSED ABOUT, even in areas not strictly any of his business. He's a steam-roller ...and you're tarmac. ;-) You need to sit him down and tell him to stop being so damned silly and get things into better, healthier perspective. You need to start making him believe you are *not* this limp little lettuce leaf (- clearly not, ref this thread) liable to get blown wherever any wind so much as PUFFS at you unless he, (Herr) Tarzan, treats you accordingly (like a helpless, 'perfect victim' kiddie).

PS: He clearly has latent baggage from his marriages, though. But I see through his so-called invitation to swing. He was testing you out. And what better way to allow you the mental freedom to tell the truth - if the truth is Yes - than to frame his question to sound like HE'S partial. So, that you said No back then obviously earned you a giant Brownie Point....hence is now "too" into you. As for the 'enjoys hearing about it'. Why doesn't this guy just stop pretending he's not Mr Anxious from Anxiousville and admit he was actually just trying to suss you out, see whether anything about your background and history struck similarities with his stinky exes. He is definitely insecure, and definitely needs help to calm down...which, I'm sorry to say, you ending it then not ending it or un-ending it, will not help ONE IOTA when major reassurance is what he needs. So if you don't want to dump him, because his Sunny Side is so otherwise lovely, then - foie gras the b*gger! It's that or just ignore his constant wobbles whilst allowing your *actions* (not dumping him, still coming back for more despite having previously left the room out of his refusal/inability to talk civilly and rationally), in conjunction with *more time*, to reassure for you. ORRRR...get that tattoo (featuring his name) on your bum-cheek? ;-)