[cshorts] My (our) journey

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[cshorts] My (our) journey

Post by cshorts »

For years I've been wanting a more sexually submissive role -- at least some of the time -- with my wife. She has not been interested. We have an excellent vanilla sex life, but I've been frustrated by my unfulfilled desires -- they are getting stronger over the years, not fading away.

I became more aware of chastity early this fall, and started learning about it. Felt an immediate and strong inclination when I started reading about the experiences others had.

I decided to explore it further on my own. I felt that things with my wife had reached the stage where asking for more activity that she would experience as kink would not succeed, and likely would damage our relationship. I figured I'd give it a try discreetly, and then if it worked, would let her know I wanted to engage in voluntary, self-imposed chastity, and not ask her to participate. This was consistent with the view I'd been developing that I needed to try to enact some of my kink desires on my own, rather than give up on them (or expect my wife to change). (I'm not interested in going outside the marriage -- unless that's what she wants, which it isn't.)

I started obsessively obsessively seeking out info: found ChastityMansion and Chastity Forums and info on some vendor sites. Discovered chastity blogs and Tumblrs. Decided to get a device and give it a trial.

I started chastity (in device) on 3 October 2018, so the first several entries on my journey are retrospective. I'll break them into chunks.
Last edited by Tom Allen on Mon Nov 19, 2018 6:52 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Subject line formatting.
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Re: [cshorts] My (our) journey

Post by cshorts »

This covers 1-10 November 2018

During this time I was away on a trip for 10 days. Took a key but only used it once to wash cage and wash myself thoroughly.

During trip I continued to read obsessively. Early I found ChastityMansion, then Chastity Forum and info on some vendor sites. As a sub with a taste for BDSM, ChastityMansion was intriguing and stimulating, but I’m much more comfortable here in Chastity Forum. As Tom says, this is a site about male chastity in the real world — and that’s definitely what I’m trying to figure out. Then, from the forums I discovered chastity blogs and Tumblrs.

Blogs by key holders, especially aimed at helping get women partners comfortable with a vanilla male chastity relationship, really caught my attention. As I mentioned, over the years I’m gradually been giving up on interesting my wife in non-vanilla activity (except for some nipple tweaking and an anal dildo a couple of times year). And more recently had pretty much concluded that if I wanted kink, it would have to be on my own. But the advice from some key holders made me start re-thinking this, and gaining hope that with vanilla male chastity my wife and I might find a win-win. I started to think about trying to engage my wife and got two books by keyholders to learn more about their perspectives and how they advised getting partner involved. I particularly liked Be Careful What You Wish For: The Ultimate Guide to Male Chastity, by Sarah Jameson. She writes clearly and frankly. She seems to be quite sensitive to human motivations and fears and communication issues (is she a therapist? That thought crossed my mind.) I also learned from Male Chastity: A Guide for Keyholders, by Lucy Fairbourne.

So, I became convinced I should not just talk to my wife about my solo engagement in chastity, but ask her to participate. I became convinced that chastity could have major advantages for our communication and sex life and closeness. Communication: because we’d haveto talk about it, and because it would feel safer to me to talk about than my BDSM desires, which I already knew turned her off. I felt that despite our problems with kink, that had mostly been around BDSM involving pain and domination, and that vanilla chastity should not be as distasteful, nor trigger bad associations for her to earlier kink/BDSM failures we’d had. Sex life because I’d get to engage in a subbish kink, but vanilla and non-threatening to my wife. And, perhaps, for the reasons so many posit: that with orgasm denial I’d become more attentive to and giving to my wife. (I’m already pretty giving, I think: much of my sexual excitement and satisfaction comes from giving pleasure and seeing my wife turned on. But it couldn’t hurt to be more so, could it?) Closeness: because with better communication, my wife would understand and accept me better. And I’d less often feel rejected or uncared for. And we might have something new and fun that we would share (rather than my going my separate — solo — way with my kink play).

While on the trip I also teased myself nightly. Without orgasms I was turned on all the time. I often masturbate nightly when I’m away on a trip, but this was different: there was no let down, no feeling I was wasting my time and should have been asleep.
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Re: [cshorts] My (our) journey

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Nov 8-11

From Be Careful What You Wish For I got the idea of writing my wife a letter as an ice breaker or conversation starter. The author, Sarah Jameson, provides a letter from her to give one’s partner, but it didn’t, of course, perfectly express *my* feelings, and I didn’t think it would go over well to just hand my wife something written by someone else. So I decided to write my own. I knew, of course, that we needed to talk to one another, but I had known for some time that it had become increasingly difficult for me to talk to my wife about our sexuality. Her not liking my kink taste made me uncomfortable — I don’t think there’s anything morally or physically wrong with consensual kink play, but I think it felt like I was putting a burden on my wife, asking her to try to meet me half way — which is to say, asking her to change — to help satisfy my needs. And since after a couple of decades, we really hadn’t found much common ground on this issue, talking about it had just become frustrating and uncomfortable, so I found it harder and harder to talk about. And not just kink: she didn’t want to tell me about her fantasies or desires, so that also became a fraught topic. And generally, though we’ve always had sex at least once a week and it’s fun for and important to her, she generally doesn’t like talking about it, nor thinking about it as much as I do, so I felt that I often got a negative, “do we have to?” reaction when I tried to start a conversation about sex. All reasons — mostly my own insecurity and neurosis, not trying to blame this on her — that it had become really hard for me to talk about sexuality, particularly in areas that touch on kink.

So I thought a letter would be a good way to start. I could take my time to write it carefully, giving thought to expressing what was really on my mind without the stress of a face-to-face conversation. I also wanted to be as clear as I could that I was on about *my* issues and problems and desires — that it was about me, and not a criticism of her. And, since conversations about sexuality seem to make her uncomfortable too, I thought a chance to hear my initial thoughts when she was on her own, without having to respond right away, might be easier for her, especially if her initial reaction was to be defensive — she’d have some time to take a breath and realize that I was very specifically writing about me, not about her.

I worked on the letter for several days; it ended up being 6 pp. Much of it was about my difficulties communicating about sex, and about my growing frustration about unfulfilled desires — not that it was her responsibility to deal with them, but that I was experiencing frustration and I wanted to figure out a way for me to address it. Then I got to a suggestion: that we try male chastity together. I explained what “vanilla” chastity was, separating it entirely from BDSM activity that makes her uncomfortable. I explained why I thought it might help me address my frustrations. I also explained why I thought it might help my problems communicating about sex (because we’d *have* to talk about it, negotiating the parameters and making decisions and adjusting as time went by, and because it was a less fraught topic for me because it didn’t trigger past issues we’d had about BDSM). Then I discussed what I thought she might get out of it (more attentiveness from me due to my heightened, unsatisfied arousal, better communication and more intimacy).

I completed my final revisions on the plane on the way home. I planned to wait a couple of days to give it to her — we often have a bit of tension after one of us has been away on an extended trip, and we’d also been without sex for two weeks and thought we likely would want to engage in regular sex, and didn’t want to interfere with that without warning.
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Re: [cshorts] My (our) journey

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[Note: Feels awkward and inappropriate to just refer to my wife as "my wife" -- for one thing, that's not the beginning and end of who she is! From now on I'm going to start using, much of the time, an abbreviation for a pet name we use -- SL -- to refer to her.]

Nov 11-13

When I got home we had lots of cuddling and making out. No intercourse which somewhat surprised and hurt me -- was "off schedule" (not Sunday morning) but it had been 2 weeks, SL thoroughly enjoys our vanilla sessions, and we were being cuddly and romantic. Ah well -- an unintended chastity experience! I went down on her each of the first two nights, we both had fun, but she showed no indication of giving me pleasure. Disappointed, but also an interesting "trial" of pleasuring her while being denied. And we made out and cuddled much more during those two days and nights, which was great. I was in near constant state of arousal, and enjoying both the arousal and the frustration.

I left the letter for her as I left for work Tuesday morning. I figured she'd have the day to contemplate and get past any initial emotional reactions, with time to think about my careful statements about communication, kink, and vanilla chastity. Then we could start talking that evening.

Thought she might text or email me some acknowledgment during the day, but wasn't too surprised she didn't. However, not getting any indication of her reaction, I came home from work with some trepidation.
Last edited by cshorts on Wed Nov 21, 2018 9:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: [cshorts] My (our) journey

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Nov 13

Well, that was a disaster. I got home from work and it was clear SL was in a bad mood. I hadn't been home very long when she exploded. Began what felt like three non-stop hours of yelling and cussing me out (there were breaks, and at the end it was more silent treatment than yelling).

I wish I could say I now fully understand what made her so angry, but I don't. That's on me. She tried to explain, and I tried to listen, but It is still something of a mystery to me. I do understand that one of the biggest issues was writing her a letter rather than talking to her directly -- or at least, leaving the letter and going to work for the day so we couldn't talk right away. Despite my efforts to be crystal clear in the letter (including editing it over a few days), there were things (of course!) she didn't fully understand. After all, I'd been thinking constantly about chastity for many weeks, and had done a lot of reading -- this was all new to her and so some of the ideas weren't familiar. And other things I said in the letter -- about my kink desires, for example, and past events that I used as illustrations -- she understood differently than I intended. And since I was gone for the day, she got to stew and get more and more upset without me there to talk with and clarify.

She was also surprised at just how much difficulty I admitted to in talking about sexuality, and thus how much goes on in my thoughts that she doesn't know about. *I* was surprised that she was surprised -- I thought this much had been evident for years -- but given that this came as a shock to her, I can understand how upsetting it was. She said she wondered if we were much less close, knew each other much less well than she had previously thought. And I do understand how that would be upsetting.

From what I could tell, she wasn't so much angry or upset at my asking her to participate in male chastity with me, as she was at how I communicated and about other things I said. I also think some of the very strong emotional reaction came from her feeling attacked and defensive. I had done my utmost to write in a way that was not about her at all --and thus not accusatory. I used all "I" statements, not "you" statements. I took responsibility for my communications problems. But I know that it is hard for her not to feel criticized when I am unhappy about something. I thought that writing this out in a letter and giving her time to absorb it might help with that -- give her time to see that it wasn't about her, wasn't critical. But that turned out to be a dumb hope on my part.

We went to bed not speaking, sleeping as far apart as we could in the queen, no goodnight kiss. I was feeling a mixture of despair, sorrow and anger. Anger, yes. I had done something very hard for me: communicated with her very frankly and in detail about my sexuality, which has been very difficult for years. I was making myself vulnerable and asking for understanding, and instead got anger and criticism (and some very mean things designed to hurt me: she's always had skill at that when she is angry). It was clear that much of her anger originated from my leaving her a letter -- but the whole point is that I have for years had trouble talking to her -- could she not be empathetic and supportive? But my hurt and anger was mixed with the sorrow. Things were said -- some very hurtful (and specifically about my sexuality, which was the very topic on which I was so vulnerable). Would we ever get past this? I wasn't thinking about whether we might be able to move forward with chastity: I was wondering how we'd be able to have sex at all without being overwhelmed by the memory of the anger and hurtful things said.
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Re: [cshorts] My (our) journey

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14 November

I slept poorly, waking up frequently consumed by thoughts of how badly things were going, and continuing anger.

Wednesday at work was pretty miserable. I had trouble concentrating. I worried about what was happening in my marriage. I dreaded coming home to more anger. (I have always been a conflict avoider, and had a primal fear of anger: as best I've been able to figure out, with help of my shrink, when someone I love -- partner, family member -- gets angry with me I think it means they will stop loving me, so I go to great lengths to avoid or quell anger.)

Came home to a surprise: SL greeted me with a warm hug and a smile. I was in self-defense mode, and so distant and wary. She asked me to co e talk on the couch -- I said I should make dinner. It she asked again, so I agreed. She told me she was sorry she had reacted to the letter so angrily, and that we could talk about it, including chastity, if I was ready, but that understood if I needed some time! What a loving and thoughtful expression from her! I told her I appreciated it, but did need some time - that I had been very hurt and needed to heal some. She said she understood, that she was sorry she had said such hurtful things. I told her one of the things that had hurt the most, then I cried in her arms for a while as I let the pain course through me. I thanked her again for how she was treating me this evening and for her offer to talk, then went off to make dinner. The rest of the evening was pleasant but a bit awkward -- I think we were both nervous something could go wrong, but glad to be back in a better place.
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Re: [cshorts] My (our) journey

Post by KittensBoyToy »

Sounds like you are in a better place now. Take it slow and easy, letting her lead the conversation.
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Re: [cshorts] My (our) journey

Post by wishful4 »

Don't feel too bad. My first attempt at communicating my interest in MC pretty much exploded in my face, too. I had read and research well on the subject, as well as ordered a CB-6000 in anticipation. Then I dumped it all in her lap, thinking she would understand it as well as I did. Her first statement was, "don't you want to have sex with me anymore?" I was dumbfounded, thinking, how could she have came to that conclusion? It went downhill from there for a period of time.

Thinking back on it, how could I have been so stupid? I should have included her in on MC from the very start.
It would have been as simple as saying, "I have been reading about something that really turns me on. I'm not completely sure why. Would you read about it and tell me what you think?" We could have learned together, asked each other questions and discussed our feelings, and then maybe I could have asked her to help shop for my first device. She eventually caught up with me and found something in male chastity that she enjoyed. She made that effort because she loved me and wanted to please me and knew this was something I was interested in. It all worked out in the end, but I think it could have been so much easier had I done things differently. Guess I really never know, though.

Try not to dwell on mistakes made in the past. Go slow and take your cues from her. Don't withhold your feelings from her because you are afraid of what she will think about you. I was especially guilty of that. If this is who you are, she needs to know about it, all of it. Hopefully, it will all work out for you, too.
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Re: [cshorts] My (our) journey

Post by cshorts »

wishful4 wrote: Fri Nov 23, 2018 10:35 pm Don't feel too bad. My first attempt at communicating my interest in MC pretty much exploded in my face, too. .... Try not to dwell on mistakes made in the past. Go slow and take your cues from her. Don't withhold your feelings from her because you are afraid of what she will think about you. I was especially guilty of that. If this is who you are, she needs to know about it, all of it. Hopefully, it will all work out for you, too.
Many thanks, wishful4. It helps to hear that others have experienced similar things, and to learn from your experience.
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Re: [cshorts] My (our) journey

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15 November

But of course, nothing so deep and complicated just fixes itself in one evening. Today I was feeling much better at work, optimistic about reconnecting and maybe even moving forward toward engaging in male chastity together, as a couple. I looked forward to coming home and starting to have a genuine conversation about the various issues (not just chastity) in my letter.

But, not to be. Last night, SL had been feeling warm and open and ready to talk. Tonight I was...but she was in a blue mood again. Had a headache, difficult day, irritable with me. During the short conversation we had she again expressed her bad feelings about the letter (this time though, with sadness and resentment, but not raging anger). So I didn't try to start a conversation about my feelings and issues -- it didn't seem like a promising time to focus on me, or to try to have a calm, productive, adult conversation about sexuality. I got sadder as the evening went by and went to bed feeling discouraged and lonely.


16 November

Today we did a bunch of weekend re-scheduling. A surprise party for a family member had come up and that required changing several things around. My SL suggested we have our regular weekly sex on Saturday rather than Sunday morning. I was pleased to learn that she even wanted to have sex with me at this point. I was feeling partially healed and had returned to my more usual cautious optimism, despite the rollercoaster of the past few days, so I thought I would like to have sex, and was encouraged that she wanted to and had raised it.

I had been out of my device since Tuesday evening -- the night of the letter disaster. Just seemed like a terrible idea to be indulging in self-chastity while we were having such a rough time even figuring out how to talk about it. But I was hoping we might try again to talk about it tonight and so I put it back on in case SL wanted to see it on me --though I'd had it on 24x7 for five weeks leading up to the letter, she not yet seen it on me.

We did have a very good discussion. Calm, two-way, open and frank. She asked me about what I thought I'd get out of her being my KH beyond whatever I'm getting out of self-chastity. She also asked da bit more about what changes this might mean, if any, for the way we have sex when we do. I answered both as well as I could (making clear that since we hadn't tried it yet, I couldn't be sure!).
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