Need help to accept submission with joy

[steve_submits]

I am in my mid-50s, married over 30 years, and came to BDSM only within the past few years. My wife and I have had an extremely vanilla relationship for most of our marriage. About four years ago I discovered BDSM on the Internet and realized through reading and chat experiences that the sexual passivity I had demonstrated through most of our marriage was the result of a deeply submissive nature. I had cyber affairs with several Dommes I had met online and agonized over the fact that I was betraying my very loving and devoted wife. Two years ago, to my amazement, my wife, most unexpectedly, finally allowed her natural dominance to assert itself and we quickly and happily transitioned to a very exciting D/s sexual relationship. We both discovered things about ourselves that we had never suspected, and our marriage became incredibly exciting. But...

My wife is extremely comfortable with herself in her role as Domme. I am not so comfortable as a submissive, now that I am a sub in real, rather than cyber, life. As her sub, I abandon all inhibitions and, and while this is extremely satisfying sexually to both of us (I think she gets as much, if not more, pleasure over her ability to make me lose all control and put myself completely in her power as she does from the orgasms I am able to give her), I am left afterward with a lingering sense of shame and embarassment for my totally "shameless" behavior--my total lack of sexual restraint and the fulfillment of dark fantasies and the shocking desire to fulfill even darker ones. This has resulted in some strain in what had been an unbelievable rejunevation of our marriage.

I am the product of a very repressive childhood and adolescence in which sex was not even a concept much less a reality, so my new-found sexual abandon is hard for me to accept. Indeed, I was brought up to think of sex as something shameful and I was certainly ashamed by the very active fantasy life and compulsive masturbation that I was unable to control. So the kind of orgiastic (not literally) play my Domme and I have enjoyed over the past few years is a total dissconnect with the sexual repression I had been conditioned to believe was the norm.

I am hoping that more experienced dommes or subs might be able to give me some advice as to how to overcome feelings that I suspect are caused by the conflict between my true sexual nature and the conditioning of family and society that is preventing me from accepting with full joy the miracle that has occurred in my life when my vanilla wife became my Lady of Pleasure. I am open to any suggestions....

steve

[Ruby]

Dear Steve,

You are a grown-up. It's time to put away the childish definitions you grew up with and accept yourself for what you are: a loving, sensuous man who is making his wife very happy.

To address the shame or guilt of your new found freedom of expression, ask yourself a few questions:

Are you harming anyone?
Are you giving your wife pleasure?
Does what you do when you play bring yourself pleasure?
Are the boundaries and safeguards between the two of you protective and loving?
Is she asking you do to do something you don't want and can you say no?
Does she respect you any less or more because of your gift of submission?

The more you look at it as what goes on between the two of you and not the rest of the world, then it's easier to remove any lingering doubts. It's your relationship, however, you define it, and if its healthy and working for both of you, then continue.

If you need to forgive yourself for stepping outside your childhood boundaries, then do so. With forgiveness comes acceptance.

Ruby

[RubysPet]

steve, I feel you should approach your situation not as a problem but as an opportunity. Your wife has given you a wonderful chance to explore not something you have become, but something you always were. You should be forever in her debt for helping you to discover this essential truth about yourself. Think of all the other male subs who are not so fortunate as yourself. The majority of them suffer in silence, unable to find a Lady to serve. Others, like myself, are so blessed in having a wonderful Miss, but she is on the other side of the ocuntry, and our relationship remains a long distance one. You, on the other hand, are living with your Lady, and even married to her! Rejoice in your fate, don't bemoan it!

Miss Ruby is correct is counselling you to relax and put your past behind you. Your body will tell you the right course of action. You already know what that course is...submit!

[steve_submits]

RubysPet,

I think that one of my problems is the difficulty I seem to have had accepting what I am and always have been--a male submissive. It (1) flies in the face of how men are supposed to see themselves and be seen by women, other men, and society; and (2) it explains much about the mutually unsatisfactory nature of the past history of my marriage. My wife and I had both accepted the labels we had been given by parents and the world. To be a good wife, a girl was taught (at least when my wife and I were growing up) to be submissive to her husband and a boy was taught that he must be assertive, aggressive--a dominant alpha male. Well, I am not sexually assertive while my wife is, and for years she felt that my lack of sexual aggressiveness was lack of interest in her--that was the farthest thing from the truth. I was simply constitutionally incapable of being the kind of male that was expected. As it turns out, it was my wife is the "alpha woman", the sexual dominant, and it was I who had to submit to her--We had been struggling over this for years. And you are right--I am in her debt because if she hadn't had the courage needed to understand the truth about our relationship and act on that knowledge, I never would have discovered the truth about myself and would not have come to understand much about my life that had been so confusing.

Also, it had not occurred to me that what I saw as a "problem" others would joyfully accept as a wonderful gift--a Domme who loved me and to whom I was actually married. Both you and Miss Ruby have helped me very much understand and resolve this conflict that I have been struggling with for so long. And, of course, when I relax and allow my body and my inner voice to guide me, they tell tell me what you (and I) already knew I must do--submit to my incredible Lady.

I truly pray that your relationship with Miss Ruby will ultimately cease to be a long-distance one and that you will finally be united with her.

Thank you and best wishes,
steve

[her_Joe]

Steve,

it sounds to me like you've got your head on straight except for when the old demons come out to play in your head .... and what Ruby and her pet have told you seems to make some authentic sense to you too and you're not having much trouble accepting their commonsense advice while you're here.

But you and we all know that some night when it's late, they're going to trundle out that old guilt bed again --

one option is to ask your lovely wife to punish you for what you've done wrong. But I don't think that will work nearly as well as the next:

print this thread out and read it for a reality check every time you get thinking crazy, mixed up thoughts.

her_Joe

[Ruby]

Steve,

It was my pleasure to be of service.

I agree with Her_Joe, this is something to print and review, often. :-)

Ruby

[steve_submits]

Joe,

Ruby and Nathaniel's advice was excellent and has been well assimilated. But you are correct--the old demons refuse to die no matter how often they are killed. (One of Ruby's sexy vampires perhaps?) Your advice is well taken--I am saving the thread for future reference.

As for punishment, unfortunately, Lady L does not believe in inflicting pain--she is into pleasure and sees her sub as her pet who she is reluctant to make suffer. However, you are correct--this sometimes misguided sub might benefit from a few well-directed strokes when he misbehaves or strays.

Steve

[steve_submits]

Dear Mistress Ruby,

Thank you so very much for your wonderful and sensitive post. You are absolutely correct, that by my submission I have made my wife very happy. However, by my questioning it, feeling guilt because of the pleasure it gives me, she has become less so. It is, indeed, high time to accept myself (50-something) as a sensuous, loving adult whose task is to make his wife as happy as possible and to give her as much pleasure as possible.

Your questions are extremely insightful and have enabled me to put my feelings about my submission and our relationship into perspective:

Are you harming anyone?--ABSOLUTELY NOT
Are you giving your wife pleasure?-- ABSOLUTELY YES
Does what you do when you play bring yourself pleasure? ABSOLUTELY YES
Are the boundaries and safeguards between the two of you protective and loving? --TOTALLY PROTECTIVE AND LOVING
Is she asking you do to do something you don't want and can you say no?--She is not asking me to do anything I don't want and I can say no whenever I choose
Does she respect you any less or more because of your gift of submission?--I believe she respects me more because of my gift of submission.

And you are, of course, correct that I am judging myself from the perspective of the outside world and how "different" and, yes, somewhat "kinky" ours is. We have discussed this issue, and she is completely OK with it and completely comfortable with herself as my Domme and completely accepting of me as her submissive. She has told me several times, I think to reassure me, that each relationship is different, no one knows what goes on in anyone else's marriage/relationship, each relationship has its own dynamics based on the needs of the partners--and this is the one that works for us. She has told me that her greatest pleasure is derived from seeing me released completely from all sexual constraints through my submission to her. It is ironic that it is my submission to her that has freed me from the psychological bondage to those inhibitions and fears that have so long blighted my life and our relationship.

Thank you so much,
steve