Hi, everyone. I'm new here. I've read through a few threads (which I think show off the smarts and supportive nature of this community) in the hope of finding some relief, but I'm still losing sleep (and feeling sick to my stomach).
I think my wife might be masturbating at night when she thinks I'm asleep. I'm 41 and she's 44. I hate to use the word "confront" to describe the way I recently brought it up, but I have to admit that no matter how I try to broach subjects like this, she feels that it's a confrontation, or that I'm accusing her of something. I try very hard to avoid this, but I think I am failing at it. Talking about her own masturbation (which she claims almost never to do) makes her uncomfortable. So I get right away that she might be feeling defensive.
At any rate, I asked her about it and she denied it. In fact, she sort of laughed at me for even thinking such a thing.
To back up a little, we had a conversation a couple of months ago about masturbating in bed. It's something that I'll occasionally do openly in bed at night if we don't have sex (I tend to have a stronger libido than she--or at least we've agreed that that is the case). She said she doesn't mind that I do this and is in fact encouraging of it. (I still feel a little embarrassed about it, but...oh well.) I told her in this conversation a couple of months ago that if ever she were awake while I was doing it, I'd be more than happy for her to join in, or to simply "be with me" while I masturbate. She agreed readily. (She's very generous about trying to meet my sexual needs.) I also added that she should feel free to masturbate, too, in bed at night, since I know she doesn't have a lot of free time between her full-time job and our seven-year-old daughter and other stuff. I told her it was a huge turn-on for me to see her masturbate and that I also like hearing her tell stories about when she masturbates. (She's usually very reluctant, however, to share these.) She nodded agreeably at this but didn't seem terribly interested, so I let it go. We'll masturbate in front of each other sometimes as a part of sex, and this seems to go okay, though it takes her much longer to climax, than with any other kind of sex. Her private masturbation is definitely not something she likes to talk about. So, okay. That's cool.
Last summer I started developing these little fantasies that she was masturbating in bed next to me. Sometimes it'd be a sound or a movement--the air conditioner whispering the way a limb does when it moves under the sheets, for instance, or the actual kick of a leg (she occasionally has periodic limb movements as she's falling asleep). I say "fantasies" because that's all they seemed to turn out to be. I couldn't ever tell, and it always seemed that, in the end, she was asleep. A couple of times I'd get so turned on, though, that I'd masturbate, which I guess I did without her noticing (or at least responding). Then this all kind of faded away.
The last couple of weeks, though, something is definitely up. I'm a very light sleeper and will even wake sometimes if the cover sheet shifts over my bare skin. She's a very heavy sleeper who doesn't usually move around all that much. Lately, though, she's been awake in the middle of the night. A LOT. And very, um, restless.
She's also been making a lot of comments about her being awake while I'm asleep, which is unusual. (I think she thinks I'm asleep more than I am--usually I'm trying to GET to sleep and, either way, I'm extremely easy to wake.)
Anyway, at first I started listening, my heart beating, hard, way up in my throat, trying to distinguish between pleasuring and the settling sounds of her legs. I can't even begin to describe the excitement and the turn-on I was feeling (was that the sound of her gathering saliva at the tips of her fingers and shifting her hand under the sheets?). At the same time, I was trying very hard to not let my imagination run away with me, because I didn't want to be up all night with all sorts of sexual energy. I told myself I crazy for keeping myself up listening, when I have such a hard time getting enough sleep as it is. Plus I guess I didn't think she'd do it because she wouldn't want to risk my waking up and catching her. Still, I'd lie very still and try not to "interrupt."
One night, though, I turned over to maybe get a glimpse of her and I found her on her stomach, with her arms under her, which didn't seem like a very useful position for masturbating. "Okay, she's just sleeping," I told myself. I settled my head on my pillow. But then she pulled her arms out, lifted her head, and said, impatiently, "You're still awake!?" She sounded annoyed and I was thinking to myself, "What? We both know I have a hard time sleeping!" The next morning, I asked her about it ("What was that about" I said), and she laughed sheepishly and shrugged and said, "I don't know."
On subsequent nights I noticed that I would only hear noises and feel movements when I faced away from her. As soon as I turned over to face her, everything would stop. If I let my imagination run free, I'd even think I heard her pajama bottoms' or her panties' waistband snap against her skin as she jerked her hand out. "But you're just being crazy," I told myself. "Stop being so obsessive and try to get some sleep." I even thought one night that I heard her squeeze some lubricant out of the pump bottle we keep on the headboard shelf. Or maybe I was hoping she had.
One night there was a lot of activity that didn't seem to resolve in any way. Again, I told myself to stop imagining things, but I was so turned on that I wanted to masturbate, myself. I'm a little embarrassed to admit this, but I uncovered myself all the way and masturbated in full view, without hiding any sound or movement--thinking that I'd show her that it was okay, it was nothing that had to be hidden. (Such hubris!) She was very quiet during this, as if asleep. And then as soon as I finished, cooled down, and rolled over to face away from her, all her activity started over again. After a while, it felt as if she was spreading her legs and lifting her hips into the air. This was accompanied by the sound of vigorous stroking that seemed like--what else!--an orgasmic frenzy. I thought my heart was going to explode and my mouth got all dry. This ended her activity for the night. After a while she turned over and shifted in her pillows. The sun was coming up. I got so turned on again that after a while I reached over to touch her. I guess I was expecting her to be more wet inside than she was, so I didn't feel like I could tell, positively, whether or not she'd masturbated. I brought her to a vaginal orgasm with my fingers and then she reached for me, but I directed her hand back on herself while I masturbated.
After we finished I asked her if she'd been masturbating and she said yes. But it turned out that she meant what she was doing when I placed her own hand between her legs. I asked her if she knew that I'd masturbated (I meant earlier that night). Again, she referred to what we'd just done. I asked her if she'd been masturbating in bed lately, and she laughed. No, she said. What about that vigorous stroking? I asked. Oh, she said, she'd just shaved her bikini line that day and was scratching an itch. Okay, I said, but what about the lubricant? Oh, she said, I probably mistook that for my glass of water at first--they're close together. Okay, I thought, I'm imagining things. I told her that it was of course okay if she was masturbating. I was in fact turned on by the idea of it. I find her incredibly attractive and I love it when she has pleasure. I just told her that I'd probably want to to be reminded every once in a while that I was doing/being everything she needed from us sexually (or helped to understand how I can make anything better). Again the not-entirely-interested-in-pursuing-this-conversation nod. "I'm not masturbating in bed at night," she reiterated, "unless I'm doing it in my sleep." We both agreed that this was pretty unlikely. And I do feel that it is, given how she's so aware of my own movements and so confident of our sleeping statuses at any given time.
I'm feeling lately, though, that I don't believe her when she denies it.
On vacation last week, we slept on a very bouncy mattress in a beach house and I swear she was up almost half the time doing SOMEthing. And then stopping when I rolled over to face her or to get up and use the bathroom. I was getting hardly any sleep (and she was claiming not to, as well). After sex one afternoon, I jokingly asked her again about it, and she shook her head and laughed.
Then last night, the same kind of thing. A bunch of activity. Complaints/comments about my being awake. My lying absolutely still for well more than an hour, my arm fallen asleep under the pillow, while her "restlessness" shivers the bed; imagining that I hear her pulling her pajamas and underpants down, that I hear her bring the lubricant bottle under the sheets with her; my heart pounding now in a way that feels more like stress than excitement; no longer sure how to bring this up or what to do, except to say, "Hey, whatever you're doing at night is keeping me awake." Feeling less turned on than resentful. And then feeling bad for feeling that way.
Whereas before I really wanted her to be masturbating in bed, thinking I was asleep, now I hope she's not. Because that'll mean she's continuing to lie to me, even if I do understand her reluctance to talk about certain things. But if she's not, then it'll also mean that I'm obsessive and crazy. (This, I guess, is your cue to chuckle at the escalation of obsession and crazy that is this post.)
I feel like I check in regularly about our sex life: Are there things she'd like to try? Fantasies she'd like to play out? Ways to shake things up? Is she happy? etc. She has a vibrator, but she doesn't seem to use it very often. Never any substantive reply beyond "everything's fine." I worry sometimes because my libido is stronger than hers and so the focus is often more on me and my needs, but when I check in with her, she says it's fine--she's happy with the way things are. If she's not, I don't know how I'll ever know.
When we got together twelve years ago, she struggled with having orgasms of any kind. Now she has them every single time I go down on her, and her vaginal orgasms (mostly achieved manually) are absolute gushers--they make basketball-sized wet spots on the sheets. I try to be attentive to her stated need for occasional nonsexual intimate contact between us, but, you know, other than that, I'm not really sure what else to do when I can't get any information out of her.
This is where I (lamely) complain about being brought up to be open and honest, sensitive and communicative in relationships and how I feel like it's kind of actually not working for me.
I know that masturbation's tough, that most of us are made to feel bad about it when we're little (especially when we're, like my wife, [ex]Catholic) and that it's a lot to overcome. I also get it that people have varying privacy needs, and I try to respect hers (though it's my sense that she does not always feel that I do). The problem is that I'm just not the sort of person who feels comfortable always having to be the only forthright, open, honest party in the relationship, the one with the needs, the one who knows less about what's going on. It's that old "power resides with the one with the least interest" sort of thing, I guess. And I'm definitely not comfortable with being lied to, not after I've worked like crazy to achieve what I thought was a healthy, open sex life with someone who struggled with her sexuality for many, many years. I try to give her a break, I really do, but maybe I'm not? Or not enough?
I want so badly to avoid being a jerk about this.
I need to maintain a sense of trust in what my wife tells me in order to feel comfortable in the ways that my own sexuality makes me vulnerable.
I don't want to be obsessive and crazy.
And I need sleep--way more sleep.
Of course, I haven't verified or proven that anything AT ALL is going on. So I could be crazy. It could all be in my head.
Is this all in my head?
Thanks in advance for any and all help.
I think my wife might be masturbating at night when she thinks I'm asleep. I'm 41 and she's 44. I hate to use the word "confront" to describe the way I recently brought it up, but I have to admit that no matter how I try to broach subjects like this, she feels that it's a confrontation, or that I'm accusing her of something. I try very hard to avoid this, but I think I am failing at it. Talking about her own masturbation (which she claims almost never to do) makes her uncomfortable. So I get right away that she might be feeling defensive.
At any rate, I asked her about it and she denied it. In fact, she sort of laughed at me for even thinking such a thing.
To back up a little, we had a conversation a couple of months ago about masturbating in bed. It's something that I'll occasionally do openly in bed at night if we don't have sex (I tend to have a stronger libido than she--or at least we've agreed that that is the case). She said she doesn't mind that I do this and is in fact encouraging of it. (I still feel a little embarrassed about it, but...oh well.) I told her in this conversation a couple of months ago that if ever she were awake while I was doing it, I'd be more than happy for her to join in, or to simply "be with me" while I masturbate. She agreed readily. (She's very generous about trying to meet my sexual needs.) I also added that she should feel free to masturbate, too, in bed at night, since I know she doesn't have a lot of free time between her full-time job and our seven-year-old daughter and other stuff. I told her it was a huge turn-on for me to see her masturbate and that I also like hearing her tell stories about when she masturbates. (She's usually very reluctant, however, to share these.) She nodded agreeably at this but didn't seem terribly interested, so I let it go. We'll masturbate in front of each other sometimes as a part of sex, and this seems to go okay, though it takes her much longer to climax, than with any other kind of sex. Her private masturbation is definitely not something she likes to talk about. So, okay. That's cool.
Last summer I started developing these little fantasies that she was masturbating in bed next to me. Sometimes it'd be a sound or a movement--the air conditioner whispering the way a limb does when it moves under the sheets, for instance, or the actual kick of a leg (she occasionally has periodic limb movements as she's falling asleep). I say "fantasies" because that's all they seemed to turn out to be. I couldn't ever tell, and it always seemed that, in the end, she was asleep. A couple of times I'd get so turned on, though, that I'd masturbate, which I guess I did without her noticing (or at least responding). Then this all kind of faded away.
The last couple of weeks, though, something is definitely up. I'm a very light sleeper and will even wake sometimes if the cover sheet shifts over my bare skin. She's a very heavy sleeper who doesn't usually move around all that much. Lately, though, she's been awake in the middle of the night. A LOT. And very, um, restless.
She's also been making a lot of comments about her being awake while I'm asleep, which is unusual. (I think she thinks I'm asleep more than I am--usually I'm trying to GET to sleep and, either way, I'm extremely easy to wake.)
Anyway, at first I started listening, my heart beating, hard, way up in my throat, trying to distinguish between pleasuring and the settling sounds of her legs. I can't even begin to describe the excitement and the turn-on I was feeling (was that the sound of her gathering saliva at the tips of her fingers and shifting her hand under the sheets?). At the same time, I was trying very hard to not let my imagination run away with me, because I didn't want to be up all night with all sorts of sexual energy. I told myself I crazy for keeping myself up listening, when I have such a hard time getting enough sleep as it is. Plus I guess I didn't think she'd do it because she wouldn't want to risk my waking up and catching her. Still, I'd lie very still and try not to "interrupt."
One night, though, I turned over to maybe get a glimpse of her and I found her on her stomach, with her arms under her, which didn't seem like a very useful position for masturbating. "Okay, she's just sleeping," I told myself. I settled my head on my pillow. But then she pulled her arms out, lifted her head, and said, impatiently, "You're still awake!?" She sounded annoyed and I was thinking to myself, "What? We both know I have a hard time sleeping!" The next morning, I asked her about it ("What was that about" I said), and she laughed sheepishly and shrugged and said, "I don't know."
On subsequent nights I noticed that I would only hear noises and feel movements when I faced away from her. As soon as I turned over to face her, everything would stop. If I let my imagination run free, I'd even think I heard her pajama bottoms' or her panties' waistband snap against her skin as she jerked her hand out. "But you're just being crazy," I told myself. "Stop being so obsessive and try to get some sleep." I even thought one night that I heard her squeeze some lubricant out of the pump bottle we keep on the headboard shelf. Or maybe I was hoping she had.
One night there was a lot of activity that didn't seem to resolve in any way. Again, I told myself to stop imagining things, but I was so turned on that I wanted to masturbate, myself. I'm a little embarrassed to admit this, but I uncovered myself all the way and masturbated in full view, without hiding any sound or movement--thinking that I'd show her that it was okay, it was nothing that had to be hidden. (Such hubris!) She was very quiet during this, as if asleep. And then as soon as I finished, cooled down, and rolled over to face away from her, all her activity started over again. After a while, it felt as if she was spreading her legs and lifting her hips into the air. This was accompanied by the sound of vigorous stroking that seemed like--what else!--an orgasmic frenzy. I thought my heart was going to explode and my mouth got all dry. This ended her activity for the night. After a while she turned over and shifted in her pillows. The sun was coming up. I got so turned on again that after a while I reached over to touch her. I guess I was expecting her to be more wet inside than she was, so I didn't feel like I could tell, positively, whether or not she'd masturbated. I brought her to a vaginal orgasm with my fingers and then she reached for me, but I directed her hand back on herself while I masturbated.
After we finished I asked her if she'd been masturbating and she said yes. But it turned out that she meant what she was doing when I placed her own hand between her legs. I asked her if she knew that I'd masturbated (I meant earlier that night). Again, she referred to what we'd just done. I asked her if she'd been masturbating in bed lately, and she laughed. No, she said. What about that vigorous stroking? I asked. Oh, she said, she'd just shaved her bikini line that day and was scratching an itch. Okay, I said, but what about the lubricant? Oh, she said, I probably mistook that for my glass of water at first--they're close together. Okay, I thought, I'm imagining things. I told her that it was of course okay if she was masturbating. I was in fact turned on by the idea of it. I find her incredibly attractive and I love it when she has pleasure. I just told her that I'd probably want to to be reminded every once in a while that I was doing/being everything she needed from us sexually (or helped to understand how I can make anything better). Again the not-entirely-interested-in-pursuing-this-conversation nod. "I'm not masturbating in bed at night," she reiterated, "unless I'm doing it in my sleep." We both agreed that this was pretty unlikely. And I do feel that it is, given how she's so aware of my own movements and so confident of our sleeping statuses at any given time.
I'm feeling lately, though, that I don't believe her when she denies it.
On vacation last week, we slept on a very bouncy mattress in a beach house and I swear she was up almost half the time doing SOMEthing. And then stopping when I rolled over to face her or to get up and use the bathroom. I was getting hardly any sleep (and she was claiming not to, as well). After sex one afternoon, I jokingly asked her again about it, and she shook her head and laughed.
Then last night, the same kind of thing. A bunch of activity. Complaints/comments about my being awake. My lying absolutely still for well more than an hour, my arm fallen asleep under the pillow, while her "restlessness" shivers the bed; imagining that I hear her pulling her pajamas and underpants down, that I hear her bring the lubricant bottle under the sheets with her; my heart pounding now in a way that feels more like stress than excitement; no longer sure how to bring this up or what to do, except to say, "Hey, whatever you're doing at night is keeping me awake." Feeling less turned on than resentful. And then feeling bad for feeling that way.
Whereas before I really wanted her to be masturbating in bed, thinking I was asleep, now I hope she's not. Because that'll mean she's continuing to lie to me, even if I do understand her reluctance to talk about certain things. But if she's not, then it'll also mean that I'm obsessive and crazy. (This, I guess, is your cue to chuckle at the escalation of obsession and crazy that is this post.)
I feel like I check in regularly about our sex life: Are there things she'd like to try? Fantasies she'd like to play out? Ways to shake things up? Is she happy? etc. She has a vibrator, but she doesn't seem to use it very often. Never any substantive reply beyond "everything's fine." I worry sometimes because my libido is stronger than hers and so the focus is often more on me and my needs, but when I check in with her, she says it's fine--she's happy with the way things are. If she's not, I don't know how I'll ever know.
When we got together twelve years ago, she struggled with having orgasms of any kind. Now she has them every single time I go down on her, and her vaginal orgasms (mostly achieved manually) are absolute gushers--they make basketball-sized wet spots on the sheets. I try to be attentive to her stated need for occasional nonsexual intimate contact between us, but, you know, other than that, I'm not really sure what else to do when I can't get any information out of her.
This is where I (lamely) complain about being brought up to be open and honest, sensitive and communicative in relationships and how I feel like it's kind of actually not working for me.
I know that masturbation's tough, that most of us are made to feel bad about it when we're little (especially when we're, like my wife, [ex]Catholic) and that it's a lot to overcome. I also get it that people have varying privacy needs, and I try to respect hers (though it's my sense that she does not always feel that I do). The problem is that I'm just not the sort of person who feels comfortable always having to be the only forthright, open, honest party in the relationship, the one with the needs, the one who knows less about what's going on. It's that old "power resides with the one with the least interest" sort of thing, I guess. And I'm definitely not comfortable with being lied to, not after I've worked like crazy to achieve what I thought was a healthy, open sex life with someone who struggled with her sexuality for many, many years. I try to give her a break, I really do, but maybe I'm not? Or not enough?
I want so badly to avoid being a jerk about this.
I need to maintain a sense of trust in what my wife tells me in order to feel comfortable in the ways that my own sexuality makes me vulnerable.
I don't want to be obsessive and crazy.
And I need sleep--way more sleep.
Of course, I haven't verified or proven that anything AT ALL is going on. So I could be crazy. It could all be in my head.
Is this all in my head?
Thanks in advance for any and all help.
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