It’s not terribly unusual to see married submissive guys looking for a dom of their very own, and it’s also not unusual to see those guys get verbally smacked around while they act all confused about why it’s happening. There are also perfectly lovely married subs but they don’t need to be yelled at :). It’s really not that complicated, but I’m going to spell it out in the hopes it’ll keep somebody out there from acting like a dumbass.
First of all, we’re going to assume that if you’re married and looking for play outside of your marriage, you’re trying to cheat on your wife. Maybe that’s fair and maybe it’s not, but there are an awful lot of men who are in fact looking to cheat, so it’s not an unreasonable assumption to make.
What do you do about this? Well for starters, don’t cheat. How do you prove you’re not cheating? Be completely up front about your situation and ideally introduce potential doms to your wife. I realize that won’t work for everyone, but it really is the best way to convince a dom you’re not a cheating asshole. If you can’t introduce people to your wife, be prepared to get to know them really well over a long period of time before they’ll even consider putting play on the table.
We’re also going to worry that we’ll be treated like a dirty little secret. Some people do enjoy a bit of secrecy, but an awful lot of people are going to want to be acknowledged as an important person in your life. You don’t have to tell everyone you have a new dom and that you call her Mistress Lash (don’t do that, that would be weird), but what’s so bad about “This is my friend ____” or about just having coffee together with no kink once in a while?
What do you do about this? Talk to your potential dom like she’s a human fucking being, invite her to do non-kinky stuff once in a while, and treat her like she matters to you, not like some shameful secret no one can ever know about. If it’s really important that you keep your kink and the rest of your life separate, be honest about that and accept that it’s going to limit the number of people who will be interested in being your dom.
Be honest about what you can offer. You cannot expect good results if you say “Anything you want, Mistress” then follow it up with “Sorry, I can’t, that’s my date night with my wife.” We all know that people who say they have no limits are liars or dangerously unwell, but it’s extra annoying when we hear that shit from a married man. No you fucking can’t serve me any time I want, your wife is going to want to see you now and then.
Everybody has limits on the amount of control they can give another person, but married people in particular need to be completely open and honest about what they can give their dom control over and what they can’t. Things get a lot more complicated when it’s not just your limits but also your wife’s limits that your dom needs to worry about. This is also another reason your dom is likely to want to talk with your wife. Your interpretation of your wife’s words is just not the same as your dom getting to ask her directly if she’s cool with you getting marked up/with her choosing your clothes/with you texting her at certain times of day/and so on and so on.
What do you do about this? Have a lot of long conversations with your wife and don’t let wishful thinking cloud your judgement. Limits often change as people get to know and trust each other, but that can’t happen if you pull juvenile bullshit like telling your dom that a little bruising is okay when your wife said she wasn’t comfortable with seeing you with bruises.
Another thing to think about is who you’re approaching. A single dominant woman may be looking for a submissive boyfriend, not a part-time submissive who she has to share with your wife. The fantasy of having a dom all to yourself is great and all, but you’re going to need to be realistic if you want to find someone. There are dominant women married to non-kinky men too, you know. Maybe you’ll hit it off with one of them.
What do you do about this? Remember that you are not owed a hot dom all to yourself just because you showed up. The women you’re interested in have needs too, and they have every right to need or want things you can’t provide. Also, from what I’ve seen online (which is not be any means a representative sample) it’s not uncommon for married men who’ve finally had the talk with their wives and started looking for a dom to not exactly be spring chickens anymore. Do not go panting after doms in their 20s if you’re in your 40s, you are very unlikely to get good results. It’s bad enough when a single man does that, but it’s extra sad coming from a guy who has apparently been married for years without ever figuring out that women want things too or growing up enough to develop an interest in women his own age.
Guys, we’re not asking for that much. There’s no reason you as a married man can’t find a dom, but you need to not be a dickbag about it.
I’ve had a number of convos with married subs over the years, some were absolute self-absorbed a-holes, others came across as really sweet and great guys. Even with the best of them the conversation ended when I asked them if their wife knew. With rare exception none of them had told their wives, and the few that had didn’t work out for other reasons.
Guys, I totally sympathize if you are afraid that telling your wife you are kinky will break your marriage. That is a very scary conversation to have. But unless they are the rare dom who enjoys being kept secret, most of us are really uncomfortable being forced to act like a skeleton in the closet–dirty, shameful, and never to be acknowledged. With the added weight of “if I text at the wrong time and his wife sees it, it’s going to destroy their marriage.” Nope, not taking that drama on. It’s just not fair to me, not fair to most doms.
Me either. I think there are some situations where cheating is one of the less terrible options, but that still doesn’t mean I’m going to invite that sort of drama into my life.
Ms. S also brought up a really good point on twitter, that these guys should suck it up and go to a pro. If you need someone who doesn’t mind being a secret, doesn’t mind only seeing you on your schedule, doesn’t mind that you don’t have time to build a personal relationship, a pro is the person you’re looking for.
But of course people whine and cry about that (which Ms S also mentioned) because apparently we’re supposed to pour our time and energy into people who give next to nothing back just to prove that lifestyle doms exist.
My wife goes a step further and won’t play with anyone that isn’t single. She doesn’t want to be someone’s second even if the wife is ok with it. She was cheated on during her last marriage and let’s just say that her opinion of men looking to get something behind their wives’ backs is not very high.
In her situation in particular that absolutely makes sense. Feeling like you come second sucks, and being cheated on in a marriage would leave some serious scars.
Huh. You know, I never thought my one experience being cheated on affected me that much (it was in my late teens, the relationship was basically dead anyway, and compared to the years of tearing me down emotionally the cheating was basically a non-issue), but you know, it just might be part of my utter contempt for husbands who won’t bother even trying to talk to their wives about their kink.
In my case, if my ex had just asked me, I probably would have given my blessing to anything that would’ve gotten him out of the house where he couldn’t directly irritate the shit out of me. As it was, I knew something was up but I deliberately didn’t look that gift horse in the mouth.
I have a suspicion that at least a few of those wives, if they were ever actually asked if their husbands could try to find a dom of their own, would say “Does this mean you’ll stop nagging me to wear a corset and high heels and act out your fantasies? SOLD.”
I think it also says a lot about the character of a person who goes behind their partner’s back when they don’t get what they want and they know it may hurt that person (otherwise why hide it?). A pro or play partner may not care (if they know but it’s hard to hide if they don’t mention it), but they are enabling that guy to do something unpalatable to their partner. In a subtle way you are hurting that person too because they will likely find out somehow eventually.
Of course it’s easy to ignore those things if you want a relationship to work. Maybe she deserves it they think? How many men paint a sob story?
It also says something about what he thinks of his commitments. Is he going to violate your trust too? During play as well?
Exactly. The Polyamorous Misanthrope summed it up exceptionally well, so I’ll just quote her:
Yep. Even though I accept that there are situations where cheating may be the lesser evil (I’m thinking of really extreme edge-cases where divorce is just not an option, like if the wife who refuses to talk about her husband finding a dom has a chronic illness and needs to stay on his medical benefits/have his help as a caregiver), I don’t think I’d be able to reconcile personally involving myself in a situation like that with my belief that helping someone cheat is unethical.
It really irritates me when people say it’s only the cheater’s problem if he breaks his promise to his wife, as if they’re somehow a disinterested third party. Sure, the wife would be hurt no matter who he cheated with, but that doesn’t make it okay for you to be the one her husband cheats with.
“Or [not] growing up enough to develop an interest in women his own age.” This has stuck with me since reading it several days ago. I feel justly chastised! It’s completely right to learn to enjoy women one’s own age and not be stuck in some youth fantasy, which is mostly what we’re fed by media images, so not the easiest thing to overcome, but still- no excuse. I like your writing!