Advice please?

A husband's ability to accept being cuckolded (in the fetish sense we use the term on this site) is based on his submissiveness. If he really is sexually submissive, as OS thinks, then he may be good material. I think moving him along might be a challenge for you because you do not yet seem to have the angle of insight into him that lets you see his submissive side. That will make it hard for you to feel your way.

It seems to me that your question is slightly off point. You are trying to do two things: (1) Resurrect a marriage that is pretty much dead while, (2) Keeping your extramarital affair going and open.

I don't suggest that these goals are at cross-purposes or cannot be reconciled, I just think you need to be clear with yourself that these are two big things that challenge most relationships tremendously that you are trying to do together. Think about it as judo, if you use the two things together properly, you may be able to make both happen more easily then if you only try to do one. Or, you might train wreck, but it seems from your posting that you're willing to take that chance.

You've been together 11 years. No offense intended, but it seems to me that all those years of insufficient intimacy made you, if not quite strangers, not exactly confidants either. He has accepted your terms and is willing to try. It isn't clear exactly what this signifies, but it clearly means at least one thing: He wants to make the marriage work again. You clearly have a lot of anger towards him (and yourself?) over how things have gone for the last decade, and you may well be justified in it. But one of the things it does is blind you to his perspective. I mean, he can't and hasn't masturbated in years? I'm not a couple's counselor, but I suspect he has his grievances too. Clearly, he is not satisfied with the status quo, either - and it is not because of OS, he is just the catalyst that has pushed this stuff out into the open.

The first thing you need to do is to get to know what makes him tick. He was happy when he went off to the movies, etc. Why? It is an oversimplification to say, "He liked the domination." Is it because something seemed to finally be changing in this wretched relationship and any change is good at this point? I suspect it was because you paid attention to him, worried about his appearance, etc. To him, that is an indication that you still care for him, the thing he has been very much in doubt of these last few months with OS in the picture.

Remember, the issue isn't you screwing around. You folks have been swinging for years, so he clearly doesn't have medieval notions of sexual fidelity. The threat of OS to him isn't the sex; it is all the phone calling and text messaging you talked about. It is the conversation you had with OS about your marriage (do not EVER mention that to your husband) and the ones he imagines you having. Indeed, it is about the fact that you stopped having sex with everyone else and focused so exclusively on OS. The way to fix your marriage and have a husband who is cool about OS is to pay attention to him and his needs as well and find the things that assure him that you truly care about him.

This doesn't mean all the stuff you "do for him," now. I'm not talking about housework, or bill paying, or c-h-i-l-d rearing. That is couple stuff, not stuff that touches your self to his. How much ice would it really cut with your heart if he said, "All the hard work I do to earn a paycheck is for you, and you don't appreciate that," or some such thing. It is the same deal the other way around. We are talking about a more intimate sharing of vulnerability here. As you've already seen, you can show you care through the ways you dominate him and the things you demand he does. You are asking him to do things he knows and feels he should do. That makes him feel that you want good for him. When he does it, he feels better about himself for doing it. (By the way, the fact he never does anything around the house without your repeated hectoring is a sure sign of the depression he felt about how your lives were going.) He then feels that you a good for him. He is more positive and happy (and more pleasant to be around) and more generous in wanting to give back to you. (Which you will want to channel by making being deferential to you - and accepting of OS - as the nice thins he can do for you.)

In order to do this, you need to know more about his psychological and emotional needs. The best way to do this is to ask him probing questions and listen with fresh ears and supportive (or at least non-judgmental) encouragement. The provisional dominance he has granted you (because, let's face it, this is a trial period for you both) put you in a good position to do this (because you get to ask the questions and structure the interview.) The main thing is to restrain yourself from the biases and baggage that have built up over the last decade. If this becomes an exercise in who is right and who is wrong, it won't work. You need to use the dominance he has given you to keep all that one-upping of victimhood crap out of the dialogue. Don't let him harp on it and don't use your position by venting too much. Keep it future focused and healing focused, with an "I'm taking control" edge.

I recommend that the place to start the process is sex. As a male, I can guarantee you that you will walk on water in his eyes if you can help him to masturbate again. (Think about the impact OS has on you because he can make you orgasm. This is similar for men.) The key to that is getting him to open up about his sexual fantasies. What is convenient about this is that you need to know a lot more about those to sustain your dominance over him anyway. It is always the most important clue to what makes a man tick. (Though not the only one. You will need to move on to emotional and self-esteem needs too. But if you can work on the sex successfully for a few months, you will find it easier to engage on those fronts.)

I suspect that, as open as the two of you seem to be about having sex, he has fantasies and feelings he has never dared to share with you. He may be so ashamed of them he always feared lowering himself in your eyes. If they are submissive fantasies, he may have feared that you would not respect him as a man or that it would lead to real life humil-iation. It may also be that his fantasies fill him with self-contempt and he is twisted up himself. It is going to be work getting him to open up, but you have an ally: him.

He wants to tell you. You just need to create the environment and mood that makes it OK by a combination of making him feel safe and making him feel compelled. On this first point, just remember that any reluctance he feels will be redoubled if he thinks confession will send you screaming into the arms of OS. You need to make sure that you do not show repulsion, disgust, or rejection at his fantasies. You can shame him about them playfully (if it doesn't get too raw), but he needs to feel that you are on his side, that he can trust you with his innermost being, and not have you throw him to the wolves. (You can probably see why this is so useful to rebuilding marital intimacy.)

As for the cuckolding, as I said at the top of the post, it all depends on his sexual nature. It is possible to be submissive in general and not when it comes to sex. And it is possible to be sexually submissive, without being into the cuckolding fetish. As you explore his sexual fantasies, you might find that he ripe for it. Perhaps he will become a happy cuckold, watching OS hump you silly, or whimpering at the door as he listens, or even playing clean-up boy. Or maybe not. If it doesn't turn your hubby on, don't try to for-ce him to be involved - forget cuckolding as fetish. But if he doesn't get off on it, it does not follow that you have to give OS up; it just means that you will have a polyamorous relationship rather than a cuckolding one. There are numerous support groups and advice resources for navigating poly relationships online and, probably, in you local area. As long as your husband is happy with the marriage (and one of the advantages of the current situation is that there is no way to go but up) he is likely to accept your outside interest with equanimity.

Good luck.
Pantalone, Wittol, oblate, abnegator, fellator, pathic, irrumatiophile,fop, epicene, cotquean, skivvy, thrall, and pilgarlic.