Can sex be too good?

For the majority of my married life sex has been either very difficult or non existent in my relationship with Adam. Mostly, it's because of my problems with tolerating touch and my tendency to have disturbing images when trying to be intimate and also because of my lack of libido. It was also traditionally very painful although that began to change several years into our relationship when I 'learnt' to embrace the pain and try to think of it as a good thing. I guess not fearing the pain helped me not to be so tense and so the pain decreased, but that didn't mean I wanted to have sex or enjoyed it. It just became something I was physically able to do, even though inside I didn't want to and would never have initiated that kind of intimacy.

Recently though, things have been different. We have kind of gotten into a routine of having sex, not that often, but not rarely either. I can't recall how it happened or why it happened, but we had sex one day about three or four months ago when we were away and it felt... amazing. For both of us, it was amazing. I didn't want it to start, but then I wanted it to never end. It was possibly the best sex ever. So intense. So different.

And this brings me to the crux of what I wanted to ask you about today... after we had that amazing sex, it was like it was so good, it put me off sex altogether. I mean, every time I thought about it, I'd start remembering the intensity of how it was and it just felt so overwhelming that I couldn't handle it. I can't handle feeling that good. I'm not used to it. It makes such a contrast to the majority of feelings I generally experience...most of the time I am in some sort of pain, whether it is my joints or my head or something anyway. I usually feel either anxious or down or irritable or exhausted or nothing... but I rarely feel 'good'. So feeling good is something I am not all that comfortable with I guess. Am I the only person who is this absurd or can sex really be so good that you don't want it?

I think that's why I've often not wanted to have sex. I feel very uncomfortable when my body begins to be aroused. I feel the transition from feeling horrible to feeling lovely is a very huge one and it can be overwhelming. Maybe that's why the sex was so good on that day when we were away: I'd been in the swimming pool then sat in a jacuzzi and steam room and was so relaxed and feeling nice anyway; my body was more able to make the transition to aroused without it being such an ordeal.

So, after that momentous sex, most people would want to be doing it again and again, but Adam and I didn't have sex for quite some time. I had to block those feelings away because they were too big to handle. Eventually after a month or so, Adam got fed up and his hints became blatant statements of frustration that we weren't having sex and so I felt obliged to do something (that sounds awful, I love him a lot) and we started having sex again. It has been good too. Sometimes amazing too. But each time we start kissing and Adam touches me, I am so aware of the anxiety that comes with these 'nice' feelings and I often have to take a break and say: "It's too good!"

I think Adam understands when I express it that way. He says he wants to teach me to enjoy feeling good and to be able to tolerate being touched. In a way, I don't know if now is the right time for me to be learning lessons like that but it seems to be happening anyway.