Folks were quite riled up when excerpts from an interview with Peter and Cynthia from Life and Stylewere published. The take away was that Peter admitted that had Cynthia not taken care of her fibroid issue their marriage wouldn’t have lasted another year. He even said that he had contemplated taking a trip where he planned on cheating. All of it sparked a debate about commitment in a marriage and certain vows. But I think in all of that the issue of what fibroids can do a person and the people around them was lost. So, it’s a good thing Cynthia Bailey sat down with Dr. Tiff and the crew on HLN to discuss her condition and the toll it took on her marriage from her perspective.
Cynthia: The fibroid thing had taken over my life…I literally felt like a pregnant lady all of the time that never delivered a baby, which kind of sucks.
Dr. Tiff: For a lot of women there’s a lot of bleeding involved.
Cynthia: I was anemic as well because of the heavy bleeding which meant, even if I did– well I just never felt like doing anything, let alone having sex.
Dr. Tiff: A period is seven days on fibroids. How did that impact your relationship?
Cynthia: I knew it was really a problem when Peter started feeling like low self esteem about our relationship. He started to say things like I feel like you’re not attracted to me anymore. You never want to do it anymore. I feel like when I snuggle up to you, you’re like ‘Please, please. I can’t.’
Dr. Tiff: And what was the real, what was the truth for you?
Cynthia: The truth is exactly what he said. That’s how I felt when I was dealing with it. I wanted to be left alone. I wanted to sleep when I could sleep. I did not have a high sex drive. And my husband is very attracted to me, he wants to have sex with me. And I wanted to have sex with me as well…
Dr. Tiff: How did you guys turn this around? And I’m sure you guys went into this in your new book Carry-On Baggage
Cynthia: You know our joke is, ‘honey I want to have sex with you, my fibroid doesn’t want to have sex with you. Because this thing was really sucking the life out of me. And I had a very embarrassing accident at a huge Bravo event where I bled all over the place basically. And it just was–at that point– like I was embarrassed but Peter was mortified because he’s like ‘Babe, you can’t keep living like this.’ And even just mentally it was starting to be really depressing. So, finally I was just like I’m not going to do this anymore. I have to find an answer to this because it’s really taking over everything that I do. And I have to work. I don’t have time to sleep and be off.
Dr. Tiff: So you had the procedure so how are you now?
Cynthia:There was just a little procedure at the end. The recovery time was like 3 days. I felt better almost two weeks later. It was the best thing I ever did my only regret is that I didn’t do it sooner.
Dr. Tiff: How is the sex life now?
Cynthia: Oh, we’re doing it all the time now. He’s probably going to get some when I get home.
I have to commend her for speaking so candidly about this. I’ve heard several women talk about how they themselves or women they knew were living with fibroids but I never knew how serious the condition is. It’s great that Cynthia, in her position can talk about how it negatively affected her life, the embarrassment and how she ultimately found a solution.
Cynthia talks about having to get a little ratchet during the upcoming episodes of this season’s RHOA on the next page.
