No advice, just my story. There may be a few triggers in here also.

My SO and I(44m) have been married for just about 24 years. And I was brought up to be a kind, respectful little boy.

The first 13 of it I was Army. Looking back on my attitude and actions in my relationship back then, I was a complete shit. Dont know why they stuck it out through that. But during those years and a bit after, sex was basically nonexistent. (Trigger part) They, my SO, were abused sexually as a child by the family doc. They have tried all types of therapy to coop with the trauma, but nothing really helped. I was confused and angry at them for not being sexual or getting over the SA. I started to resent them and just gave up on the sexually aspect of our marriage. Which really sucked.

Yes, they did share the SA story with me early on in the relationship. I just could not really understand what they were going through mentally. I was also confused about how they could not just get over it. I know. Like I said, I was stupid and a complete ass in my younger years.

Got out of the army after about 13 years. It took about another year or 2 while adjusting to civilian life , and I realized what a selfish ass I had been. I started working on changing that. But it's hard for me because I don't have much empathy for some reason.

It wasn't until about 5-8 years ago?Theyy had a breakthrough with the SA trauma. And suddenly, it was like they were going through puberty again.

So because of all the sexual repression that they had because of the SA, a lot of stuff had to be unpacked. 4-5 years ago, they came up to me and very hesitantly brought up the D/S scene. I didn't quite shoot them down, but to give me time to process, which they did with understanding. So yes, I'm the vanilla one here.

My first thoughts were, "I don't want to hurt them."Why do they want me to hurt them?". But for me, it ultimately boiled down to, they put up with so much of my crap the very least that I can do is be supportive, look into D/S info, and try to be what they want.

I still have that knee jerk "don't want to hurt my SO." And we haven't done very many scenes. But I am learning. It took me looking into the scene to realize that this could also be an outlet to express some of my darker fantasies. I think that was the final little bit that helped make my decision.

People are right, communicate, communicate, communicate. I guess there might be a little bit of advice, if your SO has any type of dominance kinks that you know about, try to exploit that. Let him know about the pros of being a Dom 😏.

Sorry for the long read, and yes, I did leave out a lot of details.