sub-burbs

Before I launch into today’s update, there’s a little piece of business I need to address.  I realized a couple of days ago that I’ve never referred to my wife by name (or even pseudonym) on this site.  Since it is getting increasingly awkward due to her central place in this saga, I need to fix that.  So, meet my wife Jacqueline or Jaci.  I will also be creating a "Cast of Characters" page today or tomorrow so that new readers can keep everyone straight.

Yesterday at work, I spent a good portion of the day e-mailing back and forth with my friend Jim.  (He is the friend I "came out" to recently and also left this great comment a couple of days ago.)  He has been cautioning me that, while my wife’s intentions may be pure, it’s just not possible to turn Domme overnight.  He also warned that you can’t decide to be that way – it has to be within you to begin with.

Since Jim and his husband parted ways recently over D/s (Jim needed it and his husband was too vanilla), I place a great deal of stock in his advice.  Since Thursday’s talk with my wife ended on such a hopeless note, much of our discussion was over whether you can find the deep emotional connection to D/s that Jacqueline seems to lack.  We both agreed that it didn’t seem likely and that if one member of couple had it and the other didn’t, neither would really be getting what they want out of the relationship.

I left for home that night with the intention of telling my wife I wanted a divorce.

When I got home, Jacqueline was there.  Her plans to spend time at her sister-in-law’s house had derailed and she ended up just staying home.  I mentioned that Jim and I had discussed a great deal that day and gave her the summary of what we talked about.  I also said that I thought we were too far apart to ever find our way back to the middle again.

Rather than the screaming match I expected, we starting having a really open and fantastic talk and made a few huge revelations about ourselves and our marriage.

First, Jacqueline said that she has actually been suppressing her own D/s desires.  When she was 14, she met Jason in High School and immediately had a connection to him.  She had extremely low self-esteem and this handsome, confident guy became a source of fascination and attraction.  Although he mostly refused to acknowledge their relationship in public, the two of them met daily in his bedroom, something that led to talk of sex and spanking, a specific passion of his. 

As time went on, Jacqueline fell deeper and deeper under his spell and eventually became his sub.  While the roles were never formalized, she describes reaching what we both agree was subspace and the emotional connection she had with their time together.  On more than one occasion, she said the pain of the impact play (which eventually grew from spanking into paddling, whipping, and caning) would force this cathartic release and leave her first sobbing and then completely floating free of thought.

However, Jason’s constant emotional abuse (making her feel "less than" and never wanting anyone to know about their secret time together) started causing some deep scars.  When their sessions ended after her and I started to date in college, Jacqueline’s guilt over her willingness to do anything to be close to Jason (and the degradation she felt about the spanking after their sessions) forced her to bury the positive feelings she had experienced.

The two of them remained friends, but Jason’s emotional abuse continued.  It wasn’t until almost 10 years later, after Jaci and I got back together, that they had a final falling out that would cause them to stop speaking.  Jacqueline was growing stronger as a person and was standing up for herself, something that caused Jason to immediately reject her in favor of the other footstep-worshiping people he typically surrounded himself with.  Jaci was understandably devastated and, lumping her D/s experience in with all the other negative aspects of their relationship, buried everything.

Unfortunately, this meant that when I first had my inklings that D/s was the centerpiece and key to my own emotional turmoil, she had become aggressively vanilla.  This, in turn, forced me to look elsewhere and not explore what turned out to be the source of my pain and longing.

If that isn’t an emotional connection to D/s, I don’t know what is. 

Next, we discussed my recent revelations.  Jacqueline agreed that she had been expecting me to navigate a catch-22.  She said I should have come to her as soon as I realized that D/s was this all-consuming thing for me before I "stepped out" with Mistress Trecia, but I didn’t understand that D/s was this all-consuming thing for me until  I became fully dedicated and devoted to Mistress Trecia.

During our talk, I realized much of my desire to bolt immediately from the marriage is because, now that I know the source of this pain and emptiness that I’ve felt so long, I want to run out and do as much as I can to fill it right away.  Jacqueline said it was like parking a starving man at a buffet.  I know she can’t give me what I want immediately, so I want to run away and get it from where ever I can.

It is exactly this type of behavior that caused me to make such bad decisions with the Dommes I new in San Diego.  I would trust anyone  who could scratch my itch without regard to their experience or my own safety.

Seeing that, I realized that I probably should slow down and not immediately try to immerse myself into a 24/7 sub relationship.  Between my first fantasies at age 8 and this new discovery at age 37, I think a step back and a few months to reflect and learn aren’t a huge sacrifice and will actually be a good thing.

This led us to a talk about our own expectations as a couple.  Asking Jacqueline to go from complete novice to lifestyle Domme overnight was incredibly unfair of me.  It’s no wonder I wasn’t feeling the connection – I put so much pressure on the relationship and impossible requirements on Jaci.  Our new plan is to step back in our D/s relationship and to not try to sustain a 24/7 lifestyle.  We are going to schedule sessions several times a week during which we will experiment and "play", something that will give Jacqueline time to plan new sessions and analyze her own feelings.

We also took some time last night and started the process of reaching out to local D/s groups and the Chicago community.  We requested an invite to the Leather SINS bi-monthly dinner, planned to attend the Midway Munch next weekend, and also an requested an invite to Galleria Domain’s next new member’s night.  (Galleria Domain is a play club that also hosts frequent educational sessions.  It’s member’s only, but they invite prospective members in once per month to meet the regulars and get a feel for the place.)

We also talked about the brutal fact that we are not in a financial position to split at the moment even if we both wanted to. We’ve mortgaged our house to the breaking point in order to complete the first phase of our insane remodelling project.  To make the house saleable at all requires us complete our plan to finish this first phase and refinance to roll all the costs to date back into the mortgage.  (The house value should climb high enough with our improvements to more than cover what we’ve spent.)

The process has taken 6 years of hard work, but we are actually within 3 -6 months of completion.  Faced with that reality, we both agreed that there was no sense in trying to break up until the house is done.  Therefore, we’re going to dedicate ourselves to explore and learn as much as we can about D/s and our places in it during that time and reevaluate once we’re solvent again.

Finally, I had a realization last night about my time with Mistress Trecia.  While I know I crossed a line by violating Jacqueline’s trust, I also believe that Mistress Trecia and I crossed a line as well.  When my relationship with Mistress Natalie drifted from D/s into romantic and sexual territories, it nearly consumed me.  Despite many talks on the topic with Mistress Trecia and an agreement that the sub should give their heart to the Domme, I think I let myself fall too far.  I blame myself and my inexperience for this and am ashamed at myself for getting in over my head again.

I know this was probably my "starving man at a buffet" reaction, wanting to submerse myself (no pun intended) as wholly and completely as possible into the role.    It still wouldn’t have been healthy in the long term and has made me realize that my inexperience and soul-crushing need for D/s are at odds with each other, which is just yet another reason to take a step back and learn more about this and myself before moving forward again.

We finally called it a night at 2 a.m., embracing warmly and kissing good night, both of us looking forward to the exploration ahead.

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I feel like I need to update the blog every 2 hours since my life and marriage seem to be in that much of a flux.

While I was writing yesterday’s post, my wife was on the phone with her good friend Cindy that is also a counselor.  (Well, she has the credentials, but is non practicing.)

Cindy told my wife that she should leave.  I’ve abused her enough, this was cheating (again), and she needed to go.

We talked after she got off the phone and she told me that, as more details emerged about my time with Trecia, the more hurt she became.  She was also shocked at the depth and detail of my deception.  (For instance, when pushed, I told her the BDSM furniture was being sold to a nice couple in Wisconsin that I met on-line to help fund my "counseling retreat" in Minnesota.  When asked upon my return, I told her I met them in the parking lot of the Home Depot just outside of Madison and even described them for her.)  

I’m going into work today, but my wife is packing some things and going to her sister-in-law’s house.  She’s planning to stay there for at least a couple of days, after which we’ll meet again and decide if we’re going to stay together or part ways.

My wife said the biggest reason she’s stayed around is that she can’t imagine life without me.  She asked if I had thought of life without her and told her I did.  I said it was a potentially lonely life, but that I figured out a plan for at least the near future if need be.

We also discussed "The Plan", our house-in-the-burbs-full-of-kids plan that is still unfulfilled.  We agreed that it would be nice to have all that, but I once again expressed my fear about bringing kids into this relationship.  After all our past fertility issues, our window for having our own kids is closing fast and we’re scheduled to start on another treatment course in June.  (That is one of the reasons I’ve been so hellbent on figuring this out definitively as fast as possible.)  She of the opinion that having kids and then splitting up is better than no kids at all, but I’m still trying to wrap my head around that one.

While part of me keeps agreeing to the conditions under which we would get back together, another part of me wonders if we can ever get back from this.  So much of D/s is embedded in trust that I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to fix this relationship to the point where it work as a FemDom marriage.

I met my wife when I was just turning 19 and we were married two years later.  We’ve been together literally half our lives, but we were such different people back then.  I keep wondering if we are both holding onto the ideals and people we saw in each other back then and not looking at who we are now.

The greatest guilt I’m feeling at the moment is at the idea of how much of my wife’s time (and life) I’ve wasted.

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Things have calmed down a little bit since my last post.  We both got a couple hours of sleep and started talking again.

I realized in that time that I have a number of fears and that me trying to bail on things was me not wanting to face them.

I’m afraid that my wife doesn’t really understand what she’s promising when she talks about D/s and wanting to Domme.  By offering to find a mentor and go to the munches, I think she is sincere in "knowing what she doesn’t know" and her willingness to learn.

I’m afraid that my wife is saying what I want to hear.  Again, I think she’s sincere and we’ve discussed being open about how the D/s is working our and agreeing to split down the road if we’re not getting our needs met.

I’m afraid that I won’t be able to accept my wife as a Domme.  We have a lot of history (and baggage) between us and I’m worried that this will diminish my ability to put her on that pedestal.

I’m afraid of my wife’s inexperience and what that might mean for her acceptance and understanding of the role.  We’ve discussed this in relation to reaching out into the local scene for help and it has only been two days, so this one is on me to be patient and see where things go.

Most of all, I think I’m afraid of our future.  For our entire marriage, I’ve been searching for the thing I need to fill this hole in my heart.  I’ve thrown sex, money, porn, swinging, and just about everything else I could think of into that hole, but it never seemed to help.  The peace I feel when I’m subbing and the happiness that I feel is proof to me that this  is what I’ve been seeking for so long.  These desires that first appeared so long ago and since kept locked away seem to be the source of my longing.  But what if this is just another thing on the long line of "sure things" meant to close the void.

We’re taking a short break now, but we spent three hours this afternoon going through my blog post by post with a great deal of my wife beating me up over my choices and my discarding of our marriage vows.  I’m trying so hard not to be defensive since most of what I did has no defense.  Seeing the day-by-day events over past four months through my wife’s eyes has shown me how much I abused her trust and was blind to the disrespect for her and our marriage.

My constant mantra was that my ultimate wish was to get Trecia and my wife together, but in what insane alternate dimension would that ever happen?  After our horrible swinging experience (and the fights/discussions that followed), she would never be comfortable letting another person into our marriage in that capacity.  I was blinded by my desire for subbing and my search for solace that I disregarded her feelings entirely.

As is stands now, we’re still going to attempt to move into a FemDom marriage.  Many of the things that have bothered both of us up until now (my wife’s control issues and manipulation, my selfishness and unwillingness to budge on certain household issues, and so on), would all be solved in the FemDom context.  Our troubles also closely echo those of Mrs. Claudia and her husband and their new roles really helped their relationship.

I know it seems really convenient for my wife to suddenly make the jump into FemDom, but I really do think she is sincere and does have the Goddess within her.  All we need to do now is figure out how to take what we’ve built up to this point and make it a stronger foundation for our new lives.

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The next morning, I woke up and put on a happy face. This was the "new me", the average Joe Husband, the perfectly vanilla guy who just happened to sneak off once and awhile to do secret assignments for his secret web Mistress.  Guys all over the world do it, so why not me.

I found my wife sitting in her room reading "Different Loving".  She told me she had been up all night reading and wanted to talk.

She apologized for our fight the night before.  She explained that she was insulted that I didn’t trust her, but that she should have realized it would be hard for me to accept such a drastic change of attitude without some concern. 

I explained that the title "Mistress" and the worshiping of a Domme is a sacred thing for me.  It is my religion.  When I’m in the service of a Domme, I have to give over my entire body, mind, heart, and soul or it just isn’t real for me.

My wife then took a deep breath and started to explain why she thought she was actually a Domme.  She has serious control issues, meaning that she has to be in control all the time.  She’s most comfortable when she’s calling the shots.  She already runs out house by managing the money and picking out our meals.  She is a master manipulator and can wrap people around her will without them even noticing.  (She hates that I’ve developed the skill to see through that.)  She has a devious and wicked dark sense of humor.  She adores "dress up" and fetish clothing, especially goth and leather (something I didn’t know until right then).

I started feeling her out further.  Would she be willing to go to local D/s support groups and/or gatherings in order to help her learn more about being a Domme?  She agreed, with the caveat that, at least at first, we not let the vanilla people in our lives (which she charmingly referred to as "muggles")  into our new roles.  Would she be willing to go to leather and D/s conferences to learn more about being a Domme and BDSM techniques?  She agreed.

She also offered up that she would call a mutual friend (someone we’ve known since college) who is in a D/s relationship with his submissive wife (something I didn’t know) to find out how they balance a family life with their daughter and their roles.

My wife admitted that this was a big step, but she thought that she had the makings of a Domme and realized that how important it was to me.  She then started to tell me the story of "Jason" (name changed to protect his identity) that she knew in high school and college.  I knew him, too – he actually introduced us and was best man at our wedding.  What I didn’t know was the depth of their D/s relationship.  I knew he used to spank her for fun, but had no idea how devoted she was to him and how much she really understood subspace and what it meant to be a sub. 

She then said that, while she did like being a sub in the bedroom once and awhile, there is no possible way she could live like that 24/7.  She also has grown quite a bit in the 18 years since they dated and now is much stronger and likes to be the one calling the shots. 

While she was telling me everything I wanted to hear, she was including enough detail and was so earnest and honest that all of my skepticism from the night before vanished.  My wife even did something completely unexpected:  she asked for a trial period.  We would give a Femdom marriage a serious, full-hearted try and, if it didn’t work out to both our satisfaction, we would part ways.  She said again that she understood how important this was to me and realized how much I needed this in my life and that she would walk away if we agreed that it wasn’t happening between us.

At this point, the reality of the situation dawned on me.  I was accepting my wife as a Domme and had to ask Mistress Trecia to release me.

During our talk, my wife had invited me to sit on the bed with her and over the course of the 4 hours I had scooted over so my head was resting on her leg.  Right around the time I made my realization, she reached out and started stroking my hair.  I immediately burst into a sobbing fit, already deeply mourning the loss of my relationship with Mistress Trecia.  My wife asked what was wrong and I told her, "Don’t worry – I don’t always get this weepy" which gave us both a much needed laugh.

Desperately needing a break from the talk, we decided to go to a favorite local diner and get some pancakes.  On the ride there, my wife said, "So, does this mean you’ll do the housework without whining now?"  We both laughed, but then my wife flashed me a wicked grin and said, "Well, I guess we’ll have to get you a little outfit or something.  I guess we’ll have to get drapes first.  Or maybe not…"

Then then unthinkable happened.

I blushed.

My wife had given me a little shove into my embarrassed subspace.

That’s when I realized that she was for real.  This woman I had promised to "love, honor, and obey" 16 years ago (almost to the day) was becoming my Goddess as well.  She was fulfilling the fantasy that secret subs all over world would have given anything for.  She was going to be my Mistress.

I choked back a new bout of tears.

After breakfast we returned home and my wife invited me upstairs again.  We talked a little bit further, mainly discussing titles.  She said that she was uncomfortable with "Mistress" at least to start with and asked that, if I were to address her "in scene" that I needed to call her "Ma’am" or "Miss".  As soon as I was up there, she told me to stop and hold still.  She then unbuttoned my shirt and dropped it to the floor, followed by my pants.

Just then, I remembered something important – she had no idea my penis was pierced.  Whoops.

Before I could say anything, she reached out to stroke my cock through my boxer briefs and got a handful of Prince Albert.   She was furious and stormed over the bed.

First, she said that I was a complete asshole for doing something so major without checking with her first.  She said that she would not take any further disrespect from me in our new roles and that I would start bowing to her will and not just force my own onto her all the time.  She then told me that I had ruined her surprise – one of the things she had been researching was penis piercings and she had planned to give me a barbell in a ring box as a gift in a few months. 

Finally, the curiosity got the better of her and she asked to see it.  Her mouth dropped open as my piercing was revealed and she stared agape for several minutes, eyes locked on my cock.  She then had a million questions.  Did it hurt?  What was it called again?  Where did I get it done?  How in the hell did I expect to get that thing inside her? Can I touch it?  And so on.

After the talk, she accepted the piercing but did say that she might want to get a different type of jewelry put in to make it more comfortable for her.  She then told me that I was not to get any additional piercings with her express permission and I agreed.  She acknowledged that she knew I wanted to get my nipples done, but warned me not to pester her any time soon.

With that out of the way, my wife told me to lay on the bed next to her.  I did and she started softly stroking my chest, then picked up the pace by scratching my chest and thighs with her nails and forcefully pulling on my nipples.  She then asked if I had any lube and, upon my saying yes, gave me a shove toward the edge of the bed and told me to go get it.  Back in bed, she poured a generous amount of lube into her hand and grabbed my cock.

It’s been more than three weeks since my last release, so it reacted immediately, getting rock hard and throbbing.  My wife started to stroke, varying the strength, speed, and stroke to put me in a frenzy but completely unable to even get to the edge.  Then, she firmly grabbed my cock right at the base and held her hand there.  I immediately started to buck just out of sheer need of contact, but she put her left hand flat on the center of my chest and said firmly, "Don’t….move".

I swear I didn’t mean to say it.  It just escaped my lips.

Yes, Miss.

My immersion into subspace at the hand of my wife was the only thing that didn’t keep me from bursting into another crying jag since I realized I had just violated my vow and commitment to Mistress Trecia.

After a moment, my wife said "I think that’s enough for now.  I’m not letting you cum as a punishment for not telling me about the piercing."

Later, after the subspace haze cleared, my wife and I discussed our mini-session.  She said that things would be better once she had more information about what things I liked and disliked in a session.  I told her that I had reached subspace and she expressed that she was relieved, mostly because she was afraid I wouldn’t be able to get there with her in the Domme role.

She also did something else unexpected – she invited me back into her bed.  We’ve been sleeping in separate rooms for some time now (over a year) and this was a big gesture on her part that things might be not only getting back to normal, but that were starting a new chapter in our lives together.  (I told her I needed another night or two as we settled in and she agreed.)

We then went out to dinner and came home, my wife heading up to her room and me to mine and she gave me a goodnight kiss for the first time in over six months. 

Sleep was not to come, though.  I laid in bed staring at the ceiling knowing that Monday I would have to face Mistress Trecia and ask her to release me.  I went through a bunch of possible scenarios (including throwing some clothes into a bag and leaving my wife in the middle of the night), but I knew that I could only serve one Mistress.  Anything else would be unfair to both Trecia and my wife.

Why does doing the right thing always suck?

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Today is my 16 year wedding anniversary.  It started out on a sour note because I had to do 4 hours of traffic school early in the morning.  Yuck.  It ended up setting the tone for the entire day.

When I got home, my wife was busy on the computer upstairs, so I spent most of the day downstairs watching TV and playing Guitar Hero II.  Not the most romantic of times.

Finally, my wife came downstairs and announced that she had been reading about D/s all day and realized that she might be a Domme in the rough and wanted to try a Femdom marriage.

My first reaction was shock, followed by surprise, followed by suspicion.

The night before, I was getting ready to ask her for a divorce.  It was obvious we weren’t going anywhere and I had even started to look for a job in Minneapolis so I could be closer to Mistress Trecia.  Then, my wife comes with this out of the blue.

It seemed really convenient.  A little too  convenient.  We talked about it a little bit and I asked her if I could process the information for a while.  Then, I got on IM with Mistress and sought her advice.  She, like I, thought it was a little suspicious, but she did say that I had to try if my wife was sincere.  She did remind me that I could not serve two Mistresses and that, if my wife and I started a D/s relationship, she would have to release me. 

So I confronted my wife and said that I was happy with her news, but suspicious if she understood fully what she was talking about. 

She exploded and what followed was one of our worse fights ever.

After about two hours of yelling (our neighbors must love us now), she concluded by saying that I took 18 years of her life away and that me leaving would basically mean that she would never have a child.

WHAM!

It was a dirty blow, but I knew she meant that and that it was completely true.  I decided at that point to shut down completely.  I was going to go back to our horrible life, let her have the kids she wanted, and keep seeing Mistress on the side.  I told her to "never mind" all that "silly" submissive talk, that I was full of shit and was being unfair, and that she’d never had to worry again.

I went upstairs to my room, buried my face in a pillow, and sobbed uncontrollably for over an hour.  Sometime after that, I fell into a restless sleep full of nightmares and visions of a future I didn’t really want to live in.

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