I'm reposting this from the emotional needs section, as the folks there suggested that I bring the discussion over to the infidelity section:

My wife and I have been married for three years, and I thought everything was going just great. I have always tried to be a loving husband and gentleman, taking care of her every need. However, my wife had been getting frustrated with her life because she felt stagnant - there wasn't a school with her desired field available as a major and so she was just working odd jobs. So we decided that she should go off to school in another state so she could study the program she wanted, and then I would try to find a job that would relocate me there. Again, I thought this was the right thing to do to meet her needs to grow and ultimately strengthen our marriage.

Well, she's home for Christmas and I made a rather shocking discovery on her laptop - she's been posting BDSM-type images to a guy that she's basically in a dom/sub (with her as the submissive) relationship with online. So when I confronted her about it, she basically told me that she was young and stupid when we got married... that she was looking for someone to take care of her at the time, but now that's not what she wants now that she's had a chance to grow and discover who she is on her own.

I kept trying to tell her we should try marriage counseling or if she can communicate her needs to me then I can try and fulfill them. Her response is that she just doesn't see any way for that to work. She just isn't attracted to me in that way - I'm like a good friend now. She wants that dom/sub relationship and says it's not about the bedroom... that it's a lifestyle, and since I've always been such a gentleman she can't possible see me fulfilling that role for her. In fact, she said that she respects me less because she felt like she was always manipulating me to get everything that she wanted.

She genuinely feels horrible about the pain she's putting me through, but I'm just in a state of shock. I mean, I love her with all my heart, and it is so painful to hear her say that she just isn't attracted to me like that and that she doesn't think any sort of counseling will change that. I keep telling her that I meant it when I said "for better or for worse" and that we can work on this, but she is convinced we should just go our separate ways. I'm so torn about what to do. Part of me feels very used and betrayed and wants to just kick her to the curb, but I love her so much I want to either make this work or end it amicably.

Thoughts? Advice? Is this just a case of how nice guys finish last?

She is having an affair. Your WW as other WW's will not let their BS fulfill their needs.
So it is not about whether you are genuinely willing to embrace her fetish.

Your WW will need to have NC with the OM. Until then she will not lose her feelings for him and redevelop feelings for you. You will need to relocate your job to where she lives or her to change to a school that she can commute to. You will not be able to reconnect living apart.

The best tool to end the affair is to expose her affair to her family. Do not give her advance warning.

1) If you are to have any chance of recovery you must live together! No exceptions. If she won't move home you must sacrifice everything NOW to live with her.

2) Call Harleys for counseling. Standard procedure for a BS like yourself is to implement plan A. But with her fetish plan A may backfire !?!

The fetish is a new twist. I have not read anything on these boards about such a situation. Maybe important to her needs. I would assume the tools and methods of MBer's will still apply. She has no right to go outside your marriage for her fetish satisfaction. Did she ever explore this with you or ask you to play those roles with her??

3) Ignore 99% of what she says. Difficult I know, been there. But as you will find out if you do enough reading here, most of these situations are not that different and the things the WW does and says come from the same playbook. Sort of standard operating procedures that we BS have all seen. Do a search on fog or fog speak.

Is she in a physical affair? You said it was online. Have they met in person? Please include more background and history of your relationship for more help. What needs of hers were you missing besides the obvious fetish? What did she complain about the most? Kids?

Hi all, sorry for the delayed response... we were actually in Puerto Rico for a week to attend my brother's wedding, so I didn't have internet access. It was a wild week emotionally, to say the least. Although I discovered the affair two days before we left, we decided that she should come, because we didn't want our drama to overshadow my brother's wedding. And we succeed as far as I can tell, other than I missed most of the reception because I was a bit of an emotional wreck. I'll address the questions asked in earlier posts first and then give you my impressions of the week to see what you think.

One of the first things I proposed was pulling her out of her school and transferring her to one where I'll be moving to, because I have not been able to find a job where she is at. She hated the idea. Said she would rather divorce and drop out of school to pay her own bills. That, plus the fact that she doesn't want to end the affair and that she'd find ways to continue to contact him even if she moved with me, and that she'd just completely resent me if I made her move.

As far as informing her family... wouldn't that potentially cause major trust issues with her? Or would the benefits outweigh the costs?

For our history, I was completely blindsided by all of this because I thought we had a wonderful marriage. She had expressed frustration that she was stagnant in her life in terms of school and career, which is why Chicago seemed like such a good idea, but never mentioned anything wrong with us. Now, shortly after we got married, her sex drive went through the floor. After being rejected by her several times, I felt that what she needed was some space and not pressure from me, while we tried to figure out what was going on (we thought it could be a medical issue). We got her off of the pill, the doc found she had hypothyroidism, and probably about 6 months later things seemed to be improving. We weren't having sex really often, but when we did it felt mutual - that she wasn't just going through the motions. She never brought up any indication that she had needs or desires that weren't being met. That is partly my fault, because I had just started assuming she had a low sex drive and thus didn't want to experiment with anything.

She uses that history as her justification for the "I've never been attracted to you in that way"... that she loves and cares for me like a brother, but does not have any attraction as far as being a lover goes. And since I'm such a nice guy, she doesn't think I'm capable of meeting her needs with this fetish, anyway. As far as the OM, they have never met, and she knows so little about him I fear for her safety even if the marriage doesn't work out.

The guy controls everything about her - she has to send him photos of what she is wearing before she can leave her apartment, she has to tell him everything she's doing and everything she ate that day for his approval. If she's home, she has to be naked except for her dog collar and have her webcam on so he can check on her as he pleases. And when I dug through her email when I first discovered this, she sent him passwords to all her accounts, including paypal and ebay, which really raised some red flags about this guy's intentions. But she doesn't see it. She says it's all about trust, and she fully trusts him and he hasn't done anything wrong. Yet she's never even seen a picture of him or knows his name. Apparently, though, he's in his 40s and has kids and lives in Maryland. That's all she knows about him.

But it's this sphere of control over her that concerns me the most about this whole thing. How am I supposed to compete with that? Everything she's accomplished in Chicago she attributes to him, and I can't make her see that she wouldn't even be in Chicago if it wasn't for my support. I'm telling her I'm willing to educate myself on this new world and do everything I can to meet her needs, but this guy is obviously a pro at manipulating her, so I don't know how I can win here.

Anyway, on to Puerto Rico. Her dom apparently gave her a vacation from him to figure out what she really wants, though she has been saying that this is what she wants, even if it's not with him. While in Puerto Rico, she made a definite attempt to distance herself from me in terms of any sort of affection, saying she didn't want to lead me on or confuse me. Other than that, you would never know anything was wrong - we had a lot of fun... which also kind of hurt at the same time... how could she just behave like everything was great when I'm all torn up inside?

Anyway, it all basically came to a head the day of my brother's wedding, because it was just all too much for me emotionally. I left the reception very early on, and after a while she came to find me. She told me that to see me this hurt is the hardest thing she's ever done. For some reason she had this image in her mind that somehow I would be OK with everything, I'd go on and find someone new, and then we'd still be great friends. So she ended up softening her stance a little bit to say that we can just take it one day at a time and see what happens, as long as I know that she intends to see where this affair goes. She admitted that she does care and feel for me, and would truly miss me if we parted badly and never did anything together, but that she thinks it's more like a sibling love than a lover's love.

I don't know if I'm reading too far into that, thinking that she's starting to get her head out of the clouds and see that we did have something great together. But I don't know if that's wishful thinking on my part. But the next day we had a blast together, and I could tell she was lost in thought on the bus ride back to our hotel... presumably trying to get things straight in her head, but she wouldn't tell me.

But then again, she also said that the week in Puerto Rico cemented the fact that she cares for me like a brother and not as a lover... so again I'm just very confused. I tried to impress upon her that she has more needs than just this fetish, and she agrees that in pretty much every other aspect I meet her needs wonderfully. But she's just putting the fetish above everything right now and I don't know how to change that.

As soon as I post this I'm going to do some more reading on the different plan A/B because I haven't had a chance to dig into those yet, but my basic idea at this point is that she is going to need to get a job and start paying for some of her own expenses in Chicago. Up until this point she's only been going to school and I've been totally financially supporting her. I'm thinking that will pull her out of her apartment more often so this guy has less influence or loses interest, plus get her to start thinking about how difficult this could get for her to try and make it on her own. Her student loans and apartment lease will end with the spring semester, so I'm thinking that is when I will need a firm answer on where she stands, because I won't continue funding her education and apartment if she's not comitted to me. I made it very clear to her that she will have no choice but to drop out of school and work full time to just be able to squeek by because of her student loans and other debt. Right now, she says that's fine with her, but I don't know if that's really sunk in.

Well, thanks so much for reading this huge novel... I hope that gives you the background you needed, but if you need more please ask. Right now I am very lost and don't know what to do.

Wow...

On the one hand, a lot of your wife's attitude is common-variety "affair fog". But the presence of this fetish stuff does put a different spin on things.

I would really recommend for you to call Steve Harley or Jennifer Chalmers and get some counseling/"coaching" to deal with this. I don't know if the board is going to be helpful under these circumstances, and I certainly know that working with Steve or Jennifer would be better for you than trying to do this alone, even with board support.

Good luck....

I second CC's suggestion.

Hey JC - I've been thinking about this a lot today. My W and I are into BDSM strictly in a bedroom perspective - we don't get into the public 'scenes' or other cultural aspects, but anyway that's part of why your post kind of grabbed me.

Anyway - first, CC and MiM are right - call the Harleys.

Second - it seems to me that identifying and exposing OM is a key to this whole problem. Right now he revels in his anonymity - if your WW is to be believed, all she knows about him is that he's in his 40's, lives in MD and has kids. How much you want to bet he's married?

So I suggest you do a full-out snooping effort. Crack the password on her laptop, install a keylogger that you can check remotely, get access to her phone records and texting records if possible. Do this without her knowing and before she goes back to Chicago.

You may find your WW doing some disturbing things and going to some disturbing sites. You may be able to get his username on some fetish dating site, or if you get his phone numbers you can do a reverse lookup and find his name. Once you have his real identity and expose to his family, work, church, and online communities, he'll fold like a house of cards.

Third - protect your finances. If WW is giving Master Bates passwords to eBay and PayPal, you need to stop that dead in its tracks. Change the passwords on everything and take her name off everything that is in both your names. This includes retirement, bank, credit card, utilities, insurance, amazon, ebay, and everything else. Lock her out of the marital bank account if possible.

Fourth - be ready to cut her off. Do not support her lifestyle while she gets naked for Master Bates! My problem is that I don't know how to advise you to phrase that without it seeming like a demand or an ultimatum. That's where you need to call the Harleys so they can help you. But in the meantime, make sure you isolate the marital finances so she can't drain accounts or run up charge cards, y'know?

Fifth - Figure out who you're going to expose to. This is not a violation of trust - having an online affair with someone is. You'll want hard evidence if possible. How is your relationship with her family and close friends? Again, I would consider Master Bates' family as the primary exposure target, but that's just me. Don't warn her or threaten to expose - when the time comes, just do it and do it forcefully. They call it a 'tsunami of truth' around here.

Good luck!

OK, I'll try giving them a call tomorrow to see what they have to say about the whole wackyness.

I would bet money the OM is married, or at the least has other playthings, so I desperately want to figure out who he is. Unfortunately, her cell phone bill does not indicate who she texts messages... it just says how many she's used. So I don't know how to find this guy. I'll be visiting her this weekend in Chicago, so I'm hoping maybe I can get a hold of her cell phone and check it for numbers, but other than that I'm not sure how else to find this guy.

As far as her family, I'm on great terms with them. Heck, I became the legal guardian for her sister when her parents divorced (it's since expired because she's 19 now). Speaking of which... I'm finding it an odd coincidence that her sister is also very interested in the whole dom/sub thing which she developed independently of my WW. Childhood issues?

Anyway, I definitely have been taking steps to isolate the finances, just in case. I just can't decide whether the solution is to quit paying for her internet to try and cutt that off (but then that also kind of cuts me off, too), or if she will feel so violated by me going to her family that it pushes her further away.

First, there is nothing wrong with BDSM. It doesn't always indicate that the person has baggage, only that they like BDSM.

The real problem is that your wife is into this type of activity and remotely engaging in this activity with another man.

This statement:
"So when I confronted her about it, she basically told me that she was young and stupid when we got married... that she was looking for someone to take care of her at the time, but now that's not what she wants now that she's had a chance to grow and discover who she is on her own. "

Pretty much sums up her feelings and she's not hiding anything. Appreciate her honesty for what it is, but it's time to tell her "Hey I'm into that stuff too, how about we start a remote BDSM relationship til you get back. I can be pretty demanding XD". She sounds like she wants to explore her sexuality. By telling her you are a willing participant maybe she'll want to explore it with you.

She might think you are too uptight to try things when in reality it could be a lot of fun for both of you. She's a wild one, and you getting wild with her might just be the ticket and make her realize you are everything she ever wanted and more.

If you are unwilling to help her do this or she continues to do it with another guy, you probably aren't meant to be together.

IANAL, but if she wants to contest, you may be able to claim abandonment since she does live in another state now. If you can afford it and the foregoing doesn't work, I'd stop by an attorney's office ASAP and start the process.

If my wife wanted to try new things, BDSM included, I'd be all over it, no matter how twisted it seemed (as long as it wasn't life threatening). You never know what will get you Nirvana.

She might just have the wrong idea about what you are willing to try <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

-Viz

It may seem strange, but she seems to like the demands that the dom gives her. Demands coming from you could have the same effect, and if not, who cares? Protect yourself, demand she stop all this or cut her off from everything - bank accounts, pay pal, anything. Do not be wishy washy. be a deciseve man, that is obviously what she wants.