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The original was posted on /r/relationships by /u/Brilliant-Beat1742 on 2024-01-23 13:32:10+00:00.
I [M32] am recently (like three weeks ago recently) married to my wife (funnily enough) [F32] after being together 8 years. We love each other, have great sex (for me at least and I'm pretty sure her) semi frequently, and generally support each other to get what we each want out of life pretty well. So I'm very lucky and everything's pretty great. But I've been feeling very sad and existential the past few days. I am worried that I've seen a glimpse of a life too full and beautiful to ignore, but that I cannot live it without ruining the life I've got, still want and value.
When I was growing up, I remember being so bitter at a sex education textbook in school. It was talking about how masturbation is normal, almost everyone does it growing up etc. But then it said "boys often stop upon reaching socio-sexual age" and the fallacy of the book’s point aside, what upset me was the term "socio-sexual". I was bitter at my own sexlessness. I was so horny but I felt completely isolated from any kind of social sexuality.
I’ve only ever been with 2 people sexually. I lost my virginity at 20 to my previous partner. I stayed in a relationship which in hindsight was no good for who I am for 5years.
I grew up believing sex was a distraction and I never talked about it with family or loved ones. Never really with friends either except for the odd tentative probing question. I have a quite domineering dad and l've had a bit of a hard time being assertive at all or even confident growing up. So sex was a painful absence until going to uni away from home. For two weeks I excitedly felt confident, independent and attractive. I started my first relationship and then I gradually lost those good feelings of sexual and social liberation and exploration. She was a strong and somewhat domineering personality. We fell in love and I eventually felt trapped by my own unassertiveness and cowardice. Eventually it took a serious depressive episode I had for me to break it off.
My current relationship has felt worlds better. More sexual in general and I feel less scared to communicate things I'd be afraid to before, like how I genuinely feel about things. Early on we talked about each other's sexualities. Limits and things like that. She does not like the idea of me with other people because she gets jealous. I'm the opposite, I want to see her explore anything that takes her fancy even if I get jealous, though I'm not a particularly jealous person.
I usually masturbate about once a day on average and my wife's happy with that, we both get shy around showing each other the porn we each watch but we do occasionally. We still have things we want to try with each other too.
I don't want an open relationship. I don't want to cheat on my wife behind her back and against her wishes. But I yearn too much for a social kind of sexuality. Flirting and playing around with anonymous sexting on Reddit made me feel that possibility again.
We only just got married. I've only started sexy online flirty chats since we were apart on route to our wedding. So for a couple of weeks and I couldn't masturbate. I got so horny just started sharing thoughts as an outlet in random chats on reddit and horny IG meme accounts. But it started sexual conversations, actual sexting.
I want to be able to share this kind of stuff with my wife. That I'm having these experiences without it hurting her. I'm scared to talk to her about this. I don't want to hurt her unnecessarily. I'm still coming down from wedding stress and moving house. Am I just overthinking a trifling temptation, amplified by my past regrets? Or is this only going to get worse unless act on it now and confront it with my wife? or is it something I can avoid if I cut the temptation from my life and refocus on my life?
Thanks so much if you've slogged through all this whinge. Grateful for anything anyone's got to say
TL;DR: I started using horny reddit and IG and it awakened a desire for social sexuality in me, but I’m afraid to talk to my wife about it?
Also posted to r/Advice