Disheartened - Cyber Spouse

My wife and I for the longest time was pretty open with each other.. Admitting we had these deep desires of the D/s lifestyle but we never really explored it until we was running into problems with our relationship and my addiction to internet cyber.

She and I both couldn't understand why I was so consumed by internet cyber.. Actually she is the one that introduced it to me as she had confessed having a relationship online with someone else during our marriage before I even knew what it was hehe.

I told her I didn't mind her having this relationship online.. I thought it was great that she was exploring her sexuality so I decided I would explore that route as well and sure enough I found it incredible.. Shoot early on we assisted each other, having sex behind the scenes while she cybered, etc.. It was a wonderful advancement in our relationship in that department.

Somehow over time I would spend less time with her. Early on she stopped doing it altogether. Shoot I used to tie her up and do all kinds of things .. We had great 'adventures' in the bedroom. I think what fascinated me most about the online relationship was I expressed things about myself I couldn't in RL and got the same in return. Like getting to know the inner person first. My wife and I struggled with the issue of cyber for a couple of years and I just couldn't put my finger on were my thinking was going wrong to prefer it over intimacy with my wife.

I think she felt left out and probably jealous and of course me feeling like the dog because I couldn't tear myself away from the cyber. The cyber had went from a wonderful means of getting off with several different people down to a relationship with just 1 at a time for long periods of time as it became something more intimate to me than just getting off.

Finally it got to a point where I was about to loose her.. we couldn't resolve this issue. Me thinking how could something like cyber or intimacy online become such a critical issue in our marriage. I couldn't believe it was such an issue that it would actually break up the marriage. I understood her view points on it but I also understood how she originally felt about it and I wanted to tap into that first impression she had of it to insure her that it was innocent compared to the type of relationship she and I had.

So abstractly we sat down, looking at the marriage from a larger picture and found out that we had both been reading up on BDSM and knew alot about it. She admitted to being sub and I admitted I was more a dominate. So she decided to trust me and turn herself over to me as my sub.. Purely her choice. I didn't coerce directly (unless this cyber stuff did indirectly bring her to this point as a last resort to win me back -in her eyes). We had a list of things, a negotiation of sorts when we outlined the needs of both of us.

My goal as Dom was to look at her in all areas of her life, not just the sex and concentrate on nuturing those things so there wasn't any hardlining effort on my part to beat her down into submission or anything like that.. It was more nuturing.. I tackled areas such as her stress levels, how her professional life affected her,, how much energy she would need to make it through the day and gauged how much stamina she had before we even considered any sex activities.. Sex at this point was very low on the priority list.. Yes she needed it for release but she didn't need alot of burden during off hours from work to deal with so my main goal was to try and provide a relaxing atmosphere for her at home until she built up her strength to handle the stresses at work.

Well it turns out that I still had this addiction to online intimacy and sure enough we addressed that issue in consideration for our D/s lifestyle and it was agreed that I wouldn't stop it.. My goal here was two fold.. 1. I needed to determine why I was addicted to it and 2. I needed to make her realize that she was most important in my life and that this cyber stuff was something I could take or leave (shrugs).

I am getting long winded here and believe I am starting to loose the point of this thread.. So I will try to bring it to conclusion real quick like.

Basically I failed as a Dom, whether that was due to lack of trust on her part or not I don't know.. But there was a sincere effort on my part to make it work and on her part as well.. She loved wearing a collar..

I am still trying to pickup the pieces to this and learn the lesson.. Loved that woman more than anything and now she is gone and she isn't happy where she finds herself now..

Looking back I see a mistake I made. She turned herself over to me completely and I was blind to the fact that her biggest need was my attention (maybe not the right word). I deprived her of that by keeping the cyber as a staple to our relationship.. I believe in hindsight I could have easily gone without the cyber or online intmacy if I had just taken a moment to realize the depth of pain she felt that I was involved with it. I was hoping to turn it all around so that the cyber was just a passing thing that we enjoyed together from time to time and I was really excited about exploring my Dom side with her but I just had to keep part of that cyber in the relationship... I kind of hoped that the D/s relationship would tear my desire to cyber away so I could concentrate fully on our relationship but it just didn't work..

So now what I am faced with is cyber only and the lack of a companion by my side.

I am still trying to figure out why I chose to make cyber or online intimacy such an important part of my life to the downfall of our marriage. It's just wierd.. I need to learn the lesson from this before I continue in this lifestyle or any relationship for that matter so any feedback is appreciated.

thank you
i hope you find healing

I believe your first mistake was not being honest with yourself. And in turn with her.

You only half heartedly admitted your addiction. And yes it is an addiction. At one point you state it as an addiction, but then you turned around and stated you could "take it or leave it. (shrugs)"

Addictions don't work that way.

The alcoholic can't just take or leave alcohol. Nor can the smoker just take or leave cigarettes.

It's a battle you must fight with yourself. And from what I read above, you never commited yourself to that battle.

And so in the end, your addiction won out.

If I were you, I'd cut yourself off from cyber cold turkey and pour your efforts and energy into trying to win back your wife. If she's not happy with her current situation like you said then you may have a chance.

But you have to be honest with yourself. You can't have your cake and eat it too in this situation. That's the most dangerous lie of all because it underestimates the strength of your addiction.

I hope you make it through this. And I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but after you come to your conclusions, I hope to not see you again for a long long time. The computer and the internet is something you will have to gain control of. And to do that you'll have to unplug it.

I wish you and your wife the best.

I certainly appreciate the response and it showed me how hard it is to put an entire marriage and D/s issue in one post hehehe.


But while I did use the word addiction ( I should have used another term) I have analyzed the issue enough to know I am not in denial and in no need of a 12 step program :) <--- does that statement have denial written all over it ? lol.

If anyone else has input that can look past it being a cyber sex addiction issue please post.

The elements I present in the post are:

1. I found it necessary to confide my intimate thoughts in someone besides my wife. <--- this is the most important question I needed to answer for myself. I never hid any of this from my wife and like I said she initiated this whole concept into our marriage hehe. She had her own version of this but without the 'sex'.

2. What once was a mutual acceptance between us changed.

3. a D/s relationship is established which could be construed as a sub trying to control the situation. Hence the lack of trust that we would work through that issue while addressing the whole spectrum.

4. Stubborn to not fall for that control in favor of loosing my marriage. It was a gamble and I lost. (I think this might answer my question of why I kept the online stuff an element in the relationship). hmmm.. Early on in the marriage this was acceptble and as I mentioned, I didn't think in our relationship it should have become such a paramount issue and one of my goals was to put it back into perspective if even to the point that we did it together again.. She told me numerous times she didn't mind it so much as long as she got the attention. To be honest, I was rather sick of cybering early on, hence going to a one person type relationship online.. She had the same thing , a close friend she talked to about things I wasn't privy to, but for her there wasn't an emphasis on sex. Shoot he sent her gifts and stuff all the time hehehe and I swallowed it not letting it make me jealous and realized she had every right to have a vey close friend,

I think what happened is the cyber relationship exposed a communication issue between my spouse and myself that we couldn't reconcile. But I feel I realized that to late. This was the part that was confusing for me, why on earth would I want to talk to someone electronically (no cams, just chat in a game no less) when right in front of me is a real life person with pretty ears.

Does any of that make sense ? or does it sound like I am trying to fool myself ? hehehe.

It's true that if I thought she would have actually left me rather than trusting me as Dom to work through all of those issues in addition to everything else then I would have dropped all of it. Actually after she left I packed up the computer, put it in the trunk of her car on the way out and told her to smash it , give it to a friend or whatever and I didn't touch a computer for over a month and actually up until recently I haven't cybered and I don't have the same circle of friends on the net either. I have recently become intimate with one person on the net who is very familiar with everything that has happened and she is wanting to be my sub but I am not ready yet. I have made new friends and am trying to wrap up this lesson in my life before I get into another commitment :)

My wife won't come back, I say this because there is just to much emotional pain for her and it's been several months.

I hope this forum is appropriate to discuss this , as I see it, it does touch elements of BDSM or specifically D/s and seems to be within the scope of the forum title.

Pandora's Box, I sincerely appreciate your feedback. If I knew of a way to get her to come back I would do it in a heartbeat because I truly don't have a problem cutting myself off and going cold turkey, I have already done that.
The problem she tells me is she doesn't trust that I will keep away from it and not sure how to convince her.. She doesn't have the trust and if she is keeping her distance then there isn't a way for me to show her trust I don't think.

BTW if this is a PM type issue and someone wishes to discuss it with me feel free to let me know..

I'm very sorry to hear about your failing/ed realtionship. I'm not quite sure of your goals here, are you wanting your wife back or are you wanting to move on but not repeat mistakes?

As an impartial outsider here's my 2 cents worth.

To be brutally frank, SERIOUS alarm bells are ringing about the two of you having your primary intimate relationships with other people, on or off line. Imagine for a minute that the cyber element did not exist to perhaps see what I mean a little clearer.

Questions in my mind are, Who did you like the most, your wife or your internet partner? Did you really love your wife or did you feel you could be happier with someone else ? How much of your internet partner did you really know and how much did you imagine to fill in the gaps, perhaps more favourably than would really have been the case?

Otherwise I would have to ask if you have any strong relationships that are not internet based (the irony that I am having a highly personnal discussion with a man who admits to having a non-cyber-intimacy problem is not lost on me) ?

I hope that I am not out of order asking you such personnal questions. Best wishes. AB