Husband’s desire for FinDom abuse confuses wife
➧ YOU’VE SAID THAT everyone is entitled to a “zone of erotic autonomy”. I was wondering if you thought that “zone” extends to sending thousands of dollars to a “FinDom”. I’m a 33-year-old straight woman and I love my husband and we have a great (or so I thought) sex life. He’s very dominant and controlling in bed and I’m very submissive, and I thought we were well-matched sexually. So it was a shock for more than one reason when I stumbled over evidence that he’s been sending money to a female sex worker who calls herself a FinDom. This has been going on for nearly three years! It seems clear from their messages (I have read them all) that they’ve never met in person (she clearly states that she never meets in person with her subs) but she sends him degrading personalized videos after he sends her money roughly once every other month.
The amounts are small, but they add up. We are more than comfortable, so the issue isn’t the money. And while my husband has never complained about what I spend on a personal trainer or my hair or body treatments (admittedly, a lot), this is obviously different because he’s masturbating over these videos. I don’t really want to degrade him, and I obviously couldn’t dominate him financially, as our finances are shared. My husband says he doesn’t want to be degraded by me, but he was nevertheless willing pay a complete stranger to heap insults on him? I don’t understand. I thought we had a great sexual connection. I also thought I knew who he was, erotically. I’m confused and don’t know what to do.
- Feeling Insecure Necessarily, Doubts About
Marriage Now
First things first: You actually have a great sex life (from the sound of things); your husband clearly loves you (if this is your only issue); and his dominance in the sack isn’t an act, FINDAMN. It’s just that having control isn’t the only thing that turns him on. Every once in a while, he wants to give up control. Maybe he should’ve come to you to get this need met and couldn’t bring himself to ask—for fear of rejection, for fear of spoiling your D/s dynamic—or maybe he sensed you wouldn’t enjoy degrading him and/or being degraded by you wouldn’t work for him.
Backing up for a second: you say you’re “more than comfortable”, FINDAMN, which is filthy-rich-person code for “we have tons of money”. So while I’m opposed to one person in a marriage spending significant amounts of money without their spouse’s knowledge, I’m going to climb out on a limb and guess that this isn’t money you missed. No mortgage payments went unpaid; no vacations were cancelled; no kids were yanked out of private schools. Even if your husband sent this woman $9,999 dollars over the last three years—the highest figure that keeps us in the “thousands” range—that works out to $278 dollars a month. I’m guessing the actual amount spent was far less than that, FINDAMN, and in no way impacted your comforts. (But here’s hoping Joe Biden’s tax hikes on the wealthy do!)
As for the seeming contradiction—your husband dominates you and submits to this woman—it’s not that hard to explain what’s going on. While you’ve probably never been to a big gay leather/fetish event, FINDAMN, if you should ever go you would meet dozens of men who have both Doms and subs. So the guy you saw being dragged around on a leash on the first night will be dragging someone else around on a leash the second night. Because very few people into power exchange are 100 percent dominant or 100 percent submissive; one guy can bring out a gay guy’s submissive side and another guy can bring out his dominant side. Similarly, you seem to bring out your husband’s dominant side—much to your delight—while this other woman brings out his submissive side. So it would seem your husband is a bit of a switch; in his case, FINDAMN, he’s mostly dominant but also enjoys being submissive too. And being submissive to an online FinDom once in a while doesn’t mean there’s anything inauthentic about your husband when he’s dominating you.
If you don’t want to degrade your husband—if you or if he or if you both prefer your roles to be fixed (which is common among kinky switches)—and your husband is willing to keep this connection 1. online only, 2. below an agreed-to amount, and 3. to himself (if you don’t want to hear about it) or shared (if you do), I think you should allow your husband to have the outlet. Again, you can spare the money and your husband hasn’t done anything stupid—he hasn’t given this woman access to your savings accounts or written her into his will. He’s paying this woman for a little dominant time and attention every now and then. And while what your husband did (basically purchased some interactive porn) does feel cheating-adjacent… I gotta ask: have you ever hired a personal trainer just because he was hot? Have you ever chosen a hairdresser because you liked to look at him? Have you ever gone out of your way to get body treatments from a VGL male masseuse? And then thought about one of those guys—or all three of them—while you were masturbating or having sex with your husband? If you can identify any small zones of erotic autonomy that you’ve carved out for yourself, FINDAMN, allowing your husband to continue enjoying the small zone of erotic autonomy he’s carved out for himself might come a little easier.