When it comes to men dominating women or vice versa, the lines and limits won't hold still long enough for me to learn the rules. I enjoy ravishing my wife as much as the next guy, but I'm terrified that I'm going to cross a line and make things worse. And it's obvious that she's trying to lead me to her fantasy, but she just keeps asking about mine. I want to say, "Look, I told you about my fantasies. If you want to act out your fantasy, tell me what it is. I won't say no." She just puts it back on me.
Here again is a similarity in our situations, but do keep in mind that I don't really know you, your wife, or the details of your relationship. So please take my comments here as just that: my $0.02 only, which may not be really applicable to you.
If your wife is a typical sexual submissive -- dominant school teacher by day, but wanting YOU to take the reins by night -- then she will be very, very reluctant to talk about what she wants sexually. She may not be able to because doing so, in essence, ruins it for her, and generates the guilt that she's trying to unconsciously avoid.
There are multiple reasons why this may be the case (go read Michael J. Bader's book on Arrousal for the full story), but *one* of the more common scenarios is the fact that our western culture is very good at linking guilt and shame with sex, especially for women. They get hammered with the message that Nice Girls don't desire sex, Nice Girls don't enjoy sex, Nice Girls guard their 'virtue' and if they don't they're a slut/whore. Sure, the caveat is always added "until you're married," but by then, the guilt/shame is ingrained. One way of unconsciously getting around that guilt is the common fantasy of being 'taken' or 'ravished' by a more dominant male. The situation then becomes: Nice Girls don't, "but he made me do it" or "I couldn't resist him". Note that this is NOT a conscious decision --> most people don't know why their sexual fantasies work for them, they just know that "this is what turns me on."
So what's a guy to do? Be patient and loving and earn her trust, to begin with. At some point, she'll need to clue you in somehow as to what direction she wants you to go in, even if she can't tell you directly. You already know a LOT about what she's wanting: my wife spent years keeping things to herself in that regard, until I put forth the effort to rebuild our marriage and gain her trust again. If your wife wants you to be more dominant and 'rough,' as you've already indicated, then you need to have a serious talk about setting up some guidelines for maintaining BOTH her safety and yours. Establish a safe word, some short word completely unrelated to anything in the bedroom, that she can use to stop the action if needed. Establish a firm bond of trust between you: she is trusting YOU to stay in total control at all times, monitor her physical safety, and *halt* if the safe word is ever uttered; you are trusting HER to monitor herself and her own enjoyment level, and if any limits or personal boundaries are even approached, she should let you know immediately. Establish some clear guidelines with regard to what is OFF LIMITS -- she may not be willing to say what she wants you to do, but she ought to be able to say what she absolutely *does not* want done. Finally, be patient, go slowly, be willing to forgive yourselves if things go wrong, be willing to laugh at yourselves when things get goofy (and the will...), be loving and communicate often. ALL of the above requires a special bond of trust between husband and wife that is hard for me to put into words.
Based on your posts, I don't think that this is the 'magic bullet' to solving your sex-starved marriage. As you've already indicated there are plenty of other contributing factors: the house, the bedroom, work exhaustion, body image, etc. I also don't think that your wife truly understands the vital connection between physical intimacy and emotional intimacy for a man (the Marriage Catch-22 mentioned in the SSM book). For her, sex is probably still just 'icing on the cake:' something nice, in addition to having an emotional connection with you, but optional. So a big part of her 'education' will be learning how extremely important maintaining a physical connection is to YOU.
Hopefully, the above will perhaps give you one more piece you can fit into the puzzle, however.
Take care,
Bagheera
Me 50, W 45, M for 26 yrs S25, D23, S13, S10 20+ year SSM; recovery began Oct 2007
