When we talk about the side effects of hormonal contraceptives, we discuss them in terms of women: mood swings, depression, headaches, PMS, period pains, lack of sex drive, and, in the most extreme cases, blood clots. But the other casualties are men, and more specifically our relationships.For many women the Pill is liberating - allowing them to take control of their fertility, periods and sex lives.That's not always the case. I first went on it when I was 19 and it was a car crash.I was diagnosed with depression after two months. But the worst part about the whole thing was how it took a toll on my relationship.Gone was the happy-go-lucky teenager with an astronomical sex drive. Something that had been a bond between my boyfriend and me, something that made us happy, vanished.It's painfully ironic that a medication you take so you can have sex with spontaneity and intimacy can be so damaging to relationships.I'm not alone in this experience. Rachael (not her real name) found her experience of hormonal contraceptives just as agonising."At one of the GP appointments to renew it, the doctor asked whether I had migraines. She said that even though I'd had one years ago, I was at risk of stroke by being on the combined Pill and should come off it."She recommended the Mirena coil. Getting it in was awful. But then - no periods, no stress, no skipped heartbeats at a missed day, no timing issues. For two years I had a blast."But Rachael had her coil removed after suffering persistent thrush.She told me: "I also started getting dry. Painfully dry. Unsexily dry. I felt like I was a disappointment to my boyfriend. My libido plummeted. I felt cold and dead from the waist down."Then my boyfriend said, 'Let's just use condoms. At least we'll actually be having sex.'"So we did. But I hate condoms. I find them rubbery, expensive and a passion-killer. I know he does, too."Rachael's boyfriend said the thought of her having a coil was "weird" and "when she started losing her libido it was really frustrating. Condoms are fine. But it's not like we use them much. Then that has the added pressure of a pregnancy scare. There were none of these issues with the Pill. But she can't be at risk of stroke."Whatever birth control we're using, so many of us live with worries of what hormones might be doing to our bodies.It's a haunting kind of paranoia that's never more than 30 days away. No wonder 27% of 1000 women surveyed admitted that they felt ''anxious" at the thought of what their contraception was doing to them.Sometimes it seems like we're being punished purely for having a sex drive. And our partners are suffering, too. ..