So I’m on mobile and this may be long so I apologize ahead of time.
I’m coming here because I know if I post in the mommit subreddit, it’s just going to be them tearing men apart and that’s not my goal. I really want to get a men’s perspective.
So my husband and I have two toddlers and we’ve been together for 5 years. We don’t fight, we get along great, we’re two peas in a pod except for one thing. His kinks.
He is not really big into porn and prefers “sexting” while he plays with toys himself when he wants to have alone time. Before anyone asks, yes we have a goodness life together but this is just his alone time. Well given the fact that we have two toddlers, I don’t have the energy to “give it my all” when it comes to sexting and it’s just super awkward for me anyway. There’s also things he’s into that I’m just not so I really don’t even like to incorporate it. So a couple years ago, I thought “maybe it would be easier if I let him message OF models but have strict rules in place so it’s easier on my heart”. So that’s what I proposed to him and he said he’d ONLY do it if I was 100% okay with it. I thought I would be. I didn’t say anything for a while but after so long I really wasn’t okay with it because I felt it was interfering with our sex life. He doesn’t get on the OF site, he only messages through instagram and there no pictures or videos, I have access to the account so all messages also come to my phone. Anytime I have an issue with something, he stops whatever it is. We’re both home 24/7 so there’s nothing else going on at all. For me, it’s that I feel like I’m in constant competition with these other women and it affects my mental health. We’ve started and stopped this little agreement a few times over the years when it started to cause problems. A few months ago, he stopped for good.
Well a week ago, he talked to me and said he wanted to start it back up and it would give me a break because he had been wanting to do the sexting/toy thing every single day for two weeks straight prior to this and to be honest I was a little burned out from it and I made some comments that I just don’t want his kinks to be the only thing we talk about. I told him that before he starts back up we need to have a serious discussion about what it’s going to look like, how it’s going to be different because I don’t want problems starting up again, etc. he said okay. Well he went ahead and downloaded instagram and the next night he said he had found a few. I got upset because we hadn’t discussed anything yet so we talked and I reluctantly agreed because I’d rather make the sacrifice than him. Well several more days go by and he’s setting stuff up with them, getting the details of what he wants out etc.
Here’s where I think the problem started. I was quiet and pretty much kept to myself because I was dealing with my own emotions about it. I didn’t want to fight and didn’t want to “hold him back” from getting off essentially so I was just working through the thoughts of inadequacy on my own. I know he loves me and he’d do anything for me but this makes me feel super inadequate. He tries to do a “session” and it ends up not being a match because she wasn’t doing what he was wanting (which is focused on him and toy play) so he ended it. He was talking to me and asking why I’ve been acting the way I have been the past few days and I told him I’m fine. He didn’t believe me so I just said I’m working through some stuff. He asked if me working through stuff was about the sessions and I said it’s part of it but he is not responsible for my feelings but I feel inadequate and I feel like I’m competing against other women for my own husband and it sucks. He said “im just going to delete it if this is how it’s going to be between us because of it”
It’s been a few days now and he’s been distant, quiet, not really having much to do with me, when I talk he doesn’t really respond or seem interested in conversation. He HAS invited me to play video games with him and he’s watched a show with me in the evenings here and there but for the most part he’s distant. I asked him why and he said he hasn’t been and that I was for a few days but he hasn’t been distant and he invited me to play games and watched shows with me etc. I told him that he was being distant and I know I was but I was working through stuff and he said well maybe I’m working through stuff. I asked if he’d like to talk about it and he said no and I told him that I’m here if he changed his mind.
So, like, what is going through his mind? Am I being too insecure about this? Am I in the wrong here? How can I get him to talk to me and open back up?