u/Pandurable

We’ve been married 6 years and together 8. We have two kids and I’m pregnant with our 3rd. I’m a stay at home mom. Our sexual dynamic has always been sort of BDSM-adjacent. I take a more submissive role and he’s more dominant. We’ve messed around with orgasm control, bondage, free use, he calls me a good girl during sex, and other little kinky things.

He has always been really bad at communication and emotional vulnerability, it is one of the main sore spots in our marriage. There are A LOT of things I would be more than happy to explore with him sexually if he had just spoken to me about it first, but a lot of the time he doesn’t. This isn’t the first time he’s filmed me without permission. Both times he basically pulled out his phone and started recording while I was faced away (doggy/cowgirl) and then when I saw what he was doing he tried to drop his phone fast enough hoping I wouldn’t see. First time it happened I felt really violated but I made it clear I wasn’t okay with what he did, second time felt like a much bigger betrayal because he did it fully knowing I would not be okay with it. Now I’m wondering how many times he’s done this without me knowing at all.

We have had a lot of other issues in our marriage that are unrelated to sex, but this felt horrible. He’s been extremely apologetic and he’s promising he will go to therapy alone and couples therapy with me, he seems to fully grasp this time that he’s actually kind of a shitty husband despite being a good father and good provider. We’ve had a lot of talks and I can tell he’s trying to take initiative to be more communicative and considerate. He’s saying all the right things and giving me appropriate amount of space. He seems genuinely remorseful and has said things like “this has been very surreal, I feel like I’m actually seeing you for the first time, all your pain and all the things you’ve needed from me and all the times I’ve fucked up and I’m so sorry it’s taken this long for me to see how terrible I’ve been.” He’s finally saying and doing all the things I’ve been praying for…but something about this really broke me, I just don’t see him the same way anymore and my trust in him is so shattered.

I can’t stop fantasizing about being with someone who is an actually good Dom. Someone who leads and takes control with the utmost consideration for my needs and my feelings, so that I can just melt into submission and serve his desires from a place of love and security. A dom who cares about checking in on me and having talks about boundaries and safe words and provides copious aftercare. Someone who makes me feel completely safe and who would never dream of betraying me. I want to be able to be vulnerable and seen and cared for, I think everyone wants that in a relationship. It’s all I’ve ever wanted from him but he’s always been so shut off and cold and I convinced myself I was expecting too much. This incident has been extremely eye opening. I’m finally seeing how many times he’s been flat out cruel to me and it really feels like my whole world is crumbling.

I really don’t want to get a divorce but I will if I have to. Any semblance of a career that I had before becoming a stay at home mom is completely fucked. I was a bartender and Its literally the only profession I’ve ever held, but now that I’m a mom it would be impossible to go back to bartending because who would watch the kids while I work? Day cares/schools close in the afternoon right when bartending shifts start. I have no idea how I would support myself and I have absolutely no one to fall back on, no family or anything. I would probably have to give my husband majority custody at least until I found a career more suitable to raising kids. I feel genuinely trapped.

I guess what I’m looking for is hope. Have you ever been in a relationship with someone who actually changed and became the dom you wanted them to be? Or have you as a dom/domme ever had a coming to jesus moment where you realized you needed to make some major changes in how you treat your partner?