Hi, S&A. And Poet . . . I'm glad things are working. I don't think you're really caught in a Catch-22; I think you solved it. Now you're in a position to try to save the marriage, if your husband decides he can make that effort, or to get along without the marriage if he can't.
I probably won't join a Facebook group; I'm on Facebook under my real name. We'll see.
My wife and I had an interesting conversation the other night. I bought her a gift . . . a set of soft rubber bondage cuffs. We've been "experimenting" with such things for years, usually with a neck tie or whatever else is handy around the room. I thought she would like these, and they have the added benefit that although they look black and thick, they're soft and they feel like they'll pop apart if you really give them a good yank (either that, or they're just not made to contain gorillas like me.) You can also reach the buckles to undo them yourself if you don't want to wear them.
Anyway, I knew she liked to be tied, and I knew she liked to be dominated. We're still working out exactly how that works for her, so buying this was kind of an experiment on my part, but I was interested to see how she'd react. I hung them on her robe hook before I went hunting, and when I came home they were gone, moved to her "toy drawer." The next night, I asked her if she'd found her present. "Yes . . ." she said. "Good." I said with my arms around her waist. "We'll try them on tonight." "Well . . . we'll see." "Why will we see? Are you going to pretend you don't love being tied up? Have you forgotten last time?" "I do, I do . . . but putting those on, it's like you're doing . . . . you know . . . . like . . . . bondage or something." "Well . . . yeah, we would be. But you like bondage. You go crazy. Remember? What do you call it when you're tied up with a scarf and blindfolded?" "That's not bondage! That's just experimenting."
To her credit, all it took was a raised eyebrow at that point for her to laugh and realize how silly that was. We talked a little about why she thought it would be so wrong. She's at least starting to think about these things and how little sense it makes. Me dominating her is clearly an important part of her sexuality, and I enjoy it too, and it's frustrating. But at least we can talk about it now.
Long story short, she couldn't resist, and she was wild. I tied her up, I blindfolded her, I told her what to do and she did it . . . there was some spanking and some hair-pulling. At one point I said something like, "You did that so well I'm going to give you a choice now." Her response? "I don't want a choice. I want you to keep doing things to me. Any things you want." So I did, and we had a great time. It was absolutely fantastic.
But the next day, I again brought up the idea of sitting down to set limits and agree on a safe word, and you'd think I'd accused her of peeing on the carpet. So we don't have a safe word, nor do I really understand where the limits are. For now, I'm simply going to make it clear that if she resists me or refuses in any way, then the night is over. If she wants to be able to do those things as part of her fantasy, I'm game, but in that case we will establish a safe word. In effect, her safe word is "no" unless she's willing to change it.
She still can't seem to face her own desires in the daylight, but at this point I'm just feeling happy that I'm starting to figure out how to translate her garbled sexual messages. And at least she's now aware of the damage it does when she tries to pretend not to have a sexuality. It's hard not to take it as a judgment of me and my sexuality (and a finding of "pervert") when we do something she clearly, loudly, violently enjoys and then she goes right back to telling me she's not really into it. I'm tempted to record her sometimes, but I know that's not the problem--she already knows she enjoys sex and being dominated. She just thinks she shouldn't.
