Infidelity and BDSM

[Ragoczy]

But let me confess something here - it WAS cheating. We stayed loyal, we stayed honest, we "preserved" - but it was still a BETRAYAL.

Thank you for sharing such a difficult and personal situation.

I'm going to express my opinion on what you described for purposes of this thread and hope I say nothing to offend you, because that's truly not my intent.

You've characterized this as cheating and betrayal, and, as I've said before, whether something is or not is wholly between those involved, but my opinion on this specific situation is that it was not. The sequence of events, as I read them, seems to have been:

You were operating within an agreed upon set of parameters;
Something unexpected happened, which you had not actively and consciously sought out;
Rather than pursuing that behind your husband's back, you and he worked to come up with new parameters to deal with the different situation;
You moved forward within the agreed upon parameters;

I'm sure the reality wasn't as ... tidy as that, but I wouldn't react to it as infidelity. If my kitten came to me with a similar situation, I'd be angry and hurt, but more at the situation than at her. It would be difficult, but not in the way that actively pursuing and hiding it would be.

What you described sounds like how mature adults would handle a situation like that: "oh, shit, what do we do now"; rather than selfish children: "I will hide it and get what I want no matter who it might hurt".