Po Lazarus
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- Joined
- May 24, 2011
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Help me TMF, You’re my only hope (A cry for help from someone in sexual crisis – Advice very much needed)!
Sorry for the Princess Leia thing! I know, it still hurts about Carrie Fisher! But here’s the thing: I need some advice and I don’t know who else to ask, given that the situation in question concerns subtleties of the tickling fetish, being a fetishist in a relationship with a non-fetishist, and other things that I am not comfortable discussing with any of my real-life friends, none of whom know about my abnormality. If you are one of those blessed people who saunters through life being totally open and honest with everyone you encounter, or even have just a small number of friends who you have felt comfortable enough to talk about being a fetishist with, good for you! I’m honestly happy for you. But I am in the introvert camp as far as “Coming out” goes, and this means that I cannot talk about this with anyone I actually know, as I don’t feel comfortable talking about it with others. This is where I’m hoping the TMF can help me as it has done in the past (I am relaying this on a new account that I have made just to ask for this advice, the reasons for which will become clear as I spell out the issue I have, or can also be found here: http://www.ticklingforum.com/showth...15-years-makes-new-account!-Read-all-about-it!)
So, what follows is the backstory for the situation I am hoping some people will be nice enough to offer me advice about – I have always found the TMF a wonderful, giving place when it comes to offering advice/comfort/support to others in the community, and I am banking on that indulgence now. I am not going to sugar coat anything as that will achieve nothing useful for me or my fiancé, but if you are kind enough to reply please remember: you are entitled to your opinion, whatever it may be, but if it is negative or judgmental in any way, I am not necessarily interested in debating the finer intricacies of it. I am just someone in a bind – myself and my fiancé are – and I am asking for your help. I am particularly interested in the opinions of those who may have gone through something similar, although any comments or suggestions are welcome, as long as they are supportive in nature.
I am trying to get back into writing recently, so I have provided sub-headings to help the flow of what is a fairly lengthy story. Please don’t let this length put you off reading. Hell, you can source your motivation through sheer nosiness if you want to!! Also, after reading it back I can say that there is no small amount of drama too, so there’s that! I have tried to be as concise as I can, but bear in mind I’m discussing a near 12-year relationship, so it is a tad long, just please bear with me. I have called my fiancé “Marilyn”, because A) she looks a bit like Marylin Monroe (she’s stunning, we can’t ever go on a night out without her being hit on) and B) When we were first falling in love, I told her that she made me think of a nice quite I’d read about Marilyn Monroe, from Hugh Hefner: that she was the best sex symbol of the 20th Century because she combined sexuality with vulnerability, and that is how I think, and have always thought, of my Marylin.
Preamble
Marylin and I have been together twelve years this summer; we are in our early thirties. We have lived together for nine of those and got engaged last year. We were always going to do this, but we have never had the money to realistically be able to afford a wedding or even a ring – I received a small inheritance last year and was able to finally get the ring, and we should hopefully be married before the year is out, pandemic allowing. I love Marylin more than I have ever loved anything. Like that solid, deep love, when you just know that you never want to be with anyone else or do anything else but live with and spend as much time as possible with that person: they are ‘Your person’, and you are theirs, and that’s it.
Before we met (Towards the end of Uni/‘College’), I’d had a few casual relationships, and had a decent amount of sex, but I’d never done anything serious or long-term. I just knew, when we were building up to going out, that she was going to be ‘it’ for me. She was coming to the end of a relationship that was psychologically and occasionally physically abusive, and it was as if I delivered her from that, as it were (“Rescued her” sounds a bit patriarchal). We simultaneously realised after just two short weeks that we loved each other, and that has never changed; it’s only grown. It would take something monumental for it to ever change. We’ve been through a lot over the last twelve years and have had the ups and downs of any couple, but 90% of our time together we have been happy, and she is the best friend I have ever had.
If it sounds perfect, it almost is, other than the one inevitable troubling area: our sex life, which over the past few years has just gone from problem to problem, and has stuttered into near non-existence. I’ll try not to waffle, but I’d better start at the beginning. I have tried not to be too explicit, but bear in mind this is about sexual problems so has some sexual language etc.
Sexual awakening
Early in our relationship, Marylin ‘outed me’ about my fetish, initially against my will. I’d told her I had a fetish but wasn’t comfortable with telling her what it was yet, but she dug up some shit on my computer that gave me away. This sounds very sly and devious of her, and it was, but it also wasn’t. I was absolutely livid at the time: I kicked her out of my apartment, chain smoked about fifteen cigarettes and drank a shit-ton of red wine as I contemplated breaking up with her for breaching my trust, but I didn’t, because I was in love with her. So I gave her the chance to explain herself. And it turned out she had done it because she had been desperate to know what really turned me on, so that she could please me. She is that sort of a sweetheart; she’s an extremely giving person, and this extends to sex. She wanted our sex to be as fulfilling as it possibly could be.
What followed – particularly in that first couple of years – was a total sexual awakening for me. I’d tickled girls I’d been with, and I think one girl I’d been with before suspected that I liked her feet, but I’d never before been in a sexual relationship in which tickling was so much at the forefront. It was suddenly out in the open, and I didn’t need to feel ashamed or self-conscious about it!! This wonderful, beautiful woman had for some reason decided that my every whim and desire was to be fulfilled, for no other reason than she loved me. We were in our early twenties, happy, with few cares or worries, and we had some physical stamina. We made love all the time, and I tied her up and tickled her almost every time we did. It turned out that the fetish corresponded with two of her big turn-ons: being tied up, and being told “No”, when she asked me to stop, which drove her wild. She started taking care of her feet, which are sumptuous, to an almost unreasonable degree. Her feet are perfect: perfect size, lovely toes, lush, high arches – Oh, man!
We did all kinds of scenarios, types of bondage, different implements and intensities, had sex whilst watching tickling clips, foot jobs, even went camping on a remote beach once, and she let me bury her in the sand and tickle her feet for ages. This was all her idea, she drove it, like she wanted to explore the fetish with me as I discovered new, exciting things that I’d never thought possible before. She even set up her own TMF account, and interacted with the fabulous community on here*. The absolute pinnacle was when were making love and she, looked me in the eye, mentioned tickling and softly whispered in my ear “I love it”, in her high, sweet voice. She had successfully made me feel comfortable about something I’d never even felt 100% comfortable with even thinking about, something I’d always disliked about myself. It was incredible, and I still feel eternally grateful and fortunate for that extraordinary experience, the happiest period of my life. It was the kind of happiness that makes any prior suffering (Of which I’ve had plenty) worth it, like it was worth it to get to that happiness. Even if we never have sex again, I’m so lucky to have experienced that.
*This is why I’m posting under an alias. If I’d posted under my previous username she might see it, unlikely as that would be by now, and the situation wouldn’t be helped by the advice I am hoping I will receive, it would be made worse as she might be hurt that I’m choosing to share our story without her knowledge. I’m aware that it is duplicitous of me, perhaps even unethical, but I just want to address the situation in order that our sexual relationship will be healed. I have promised myself that I will be fully honest with her about what I’ve said on here once we’re back on track. But for now, total anonymity is my only option.
So, on to “The downfall”, such as it is. Our relationship went from strength to strength, and we decided after those first couple of years that we would move in together, so we did. We were very happy, even though there was the inevitable impact of domesticity on our sex life: I don’t care what anyone says, when you’re living with someone you love to be with, it is the best thing ever, but there are downsides too. You can’t be up for having sex every day of the week, and it wasn’t long before we’d slowed down a bit, settling on having sex once or twice a week, as most couples that cohabit do. We were both fine with that and accepted it as a standard consequence of moving in together. But then things started to go further downhill, and never really fully recovered.
99 Problems, of which tickling is (The Main) one.
The first, and perhaps worst, thing that happened, was an accident we had. It was 100% my fault. I won’t go into too much graphic detail about it, but basically, we’d smoked a joint before we started to play, and it made me a bit dopey, and possibly complacent as regards health and safety, which is something you don’t automatically consider when you’re self-taught at amateur tickle torture. In a nutshell what happened is that I tied her up, strapped an electric implement on her, and chose to leave the room to heighten the sexual tension for both of us. It seemed like a sexy, fun thing to do at the time, and she was initially playing along and into it. But unfortunately, I left the room for too long and the implement really genuinely started to torture her, to the point which some people on here might be into, but was far too much for both her and me. I quickly got the device off her, but she was very shaken by it, and I kept hearing her screams in my head again and again, I just couldn’t get them out of my mind. I was particularly beset with “What if?” scenarios in my head, and these took the form of intrusive thoughts in my stupidly over-wired, anxious brain. If I’d slipped and been knocked out, for instance, she might have ended up having a panic attack or not being able to breathe. That kind of thing. I beat myself up for years about it afterwards, and I think it was the moment where the dynamics of the fetish shifted slightly, in both our eyes. I don’t think of it that way anymore, as it was almost ten years ago and I now see it as a mistake made by someone who was just a foolish, young, and inexperienced fetishist. But it remains ‘problem/incident number one’. Of course, this isn’t just about me but about Marylin’s feelings and experiences too, and I know that it must have tampered the prior mystique of the fetish in her eyes.
‘Problem/incident number two’ happened a couple of years later and is in two parts, one of which is sadly predictable and does not reflect well on me, but I have to be honest. Firstly, we moved house, from our first place, to a terraced building with very thin walls. During the first few weeks we’d had an inconsequential but loud argument, and our next door neighbour banged on the wall. When we spoke to her the next day, she sympathetically said “I just thought I’d knock, because I could hear your conversation word-for-word”. This meant instantly that any form of play could only take place when we knew our neighbours were out, as we didn’t want to have to explain why there was loud, continuous laughter followed by the sound of us obviously having sex. So that didn’t help, as this hardly ever happened. We could still have sex, but had to basically do it with our hands on our mouths. Not particularly conducive to an unbridled, unchecked sex life, play or no play! We were sexually hamstrung, and tickling became a rare thing.
The next thing that happened was again completely my fault. Long story short, there was a girl who I worked with who was very physically attractive. I’ll call her Ingrid. She was only 19 years old and I worked with her in sales, which is a very alpha-male environment full of assholes and potential predators, and I took her under my wing somewhat, keeping her out of trouble. We got the bus to and from work together every day as we were on the same route. Marylin was slightly wary of her, but I honestly didn’t think of her in any overt sexual way. She reminded me of my younger sisters a bit, hence the protection. But she was undeniably attractive, and most people at the office drooled over her. Anyway, it was my birthday, and I invited her out with my friends. I’m not an enormous drug taker, but I was taking MDMA with a couple of my friends for most of the evening, putting me in a state where my inhibitions had totally diminished. At the end of the night we ended up going back to one of my friend’s houses (I was actually trying to set him and Ingrid up at the time) and during a moment of general giddiness in the room, when we were all either very drunk or very high – two of my friends had started to tickle Marylin, in a plutonic way, obviously – I reached over and tickled Ingrid’s bare foot for a couple of seconds.
Marylin hit the roof. She dragged me outside – to the puzzlement of everyone else – and asked whether she’d seen it properly and whether I’d just tickled Ingrid. I was honest, and said that I had. Here’s the thing: it wasn’t until this moment that I’d realised that Marylin would interpret this as a form of cheating, even though I can completely understand and appreciate now why she believes that to be the case. But in the moment, I went on the defensive: I told her that I didn’t think I’d cheated, that I was just being an idiot (Which I unquestionably am most of the time), that it meant nothing. I was jabbering, because I was high as a kite. It didn’t wash. Marylin punched me in the face, and stormed out of the house, going to her parent’s house in tears in a cab. On arriving, the only way she could justify her upset state to her parents was by telling them that I had actually cheated on her – even in her fury she was still (sweetly) considerate of the fact that the honest alternative would have embarrassed me so much it would have meant that I’d have probably moved to another country or something – and to this day, her parents and some people in her family think I did cheat on her, which isn’t great, but I only have myself to blame.
I honestly have to say that at the time, despite it clearly being a sexually associated act on my part, I did not think “I’m cheating on Marylin here”, and did it regardless; I was just messing around. I know that might sound like a cop-out, but why would I lie about it, unprompted, to a bunch of strangers on the internet? I never would have done anything sexual with the girl, never would have even thought about having sex with her, even if I could have somehow gotten away with it without Marylin knowing, because I love Marylin and wouldn’t do that to her. But it hurt her terribly, and was the closest we have come to splitting up. We eventually did make up, mostly due to me leaving the job almost immediately, severing ties with Ingrid, and doing a shitload of grovelling. Now that that incident has happened, we have very clear ground rules about ‘playful tickling’, meaning that I have to avoid it around other people, which I’m fine with. Writing this all out, it’s not difficult to see why it changed tickling for us, particularly for Marylin. I endeavour to be a good person, but I am imperfect, and I have definitely behaved like an asshole at times in my life, and this was one of those times.
The Downward Spiral
From that point, things got gradually worse and worse for us as far as tickling or sex goes. This wasn’t always related to tickling necessarily. Marylin was in a semi-serious car accident some time after the Ingrid incident. She wasn’t badly hurt at the time but developed trouble with her back which required quite intense physiotherapy, and meant she couldn’t work, drive, or do much of anything. As a result, she became clinically depressed. I supported her as much as I could, but she needed medication to deal with her mood. An effect of this was that her sex drive pretty much disappeared, which was compounded by her reduction in interest in tickling from the previous incidents. She did eventually start to feel better both physically and mentally, but as (Shit) luck would have it, I then became clinically depressed a short time after she had been (For a variety of reasons that have nothing else to do with the issue at hand, and which I won’t go into). With me, it was a bit more of a serious threat to my safety, and I ended up on even more medication than she had been and was almost totally withdrawn for a period of around a year. We had sex rarely, and it was usually without joy and out of a sense of obligation, rather than passion. It was a miserable period in our lives and our relationship both.
Thankfully, we pulled through it, and we are much happier people now: we’re closer for the experience, and a stronger couple too, I think. Unfortunately, that isn’t the end of the cavalcade of negativity engulfing our sex life, however. Even though we were both better and off any medication, our sex life never really recovered from the previous period. Marylin never really instigated any play, and I didn’t want to instigate it as if I did, I’d always feel like I was being self-centred or doing something that she didn’t have an organic interest in. Then, wouldn’t you know, the final problem began to develop…
I couldn’t help it, but I started to feel less excited by Marylin’s feet. This was chiefly for two reasons. Firstly: I’d always suspected that she was exaggerating her ticklishness (to please me, bless her heart). Once, before we were together, I’d heard her telling someone else that she wasn’t ticklish and she’d even done the ‘Look! I’m holding my arms in the air – try and tickle me!’ thing with them, so I’d always been slightly unconvinced, but I figured that she hadn’t been tickled properly before we started going out, so maybe that was it. But there have been times where I’ve suspected she may not even be ticklish at all. The girl I was seeing previously had deathly – and I do mean deathly – ticklish feet, so I know the difference from that experience. That girlfriend would jump in the air if I even touched them, even if she wasn’t looking or paying attention, and it would amuse me to stroke her foot whilst she wasn’t looking and see her jump up in the air at the sensation, surprised. On doing the same to Marylin, she would sometimes not notice I was even touching her, then would notice and start laughing/responding as she thought I wanted her to, not how she naturally would if she were as ticklish as she made out.
I appreciate that she was doing this for me, and I love her for it, and she can’t help if her feet aren’t all that ticklish, or maybe even unticklish. But as every person who is into tickling, feet, or both will know, it just doesn’t ‘do it for you’ as much if you know someone isn’t genuinely ticklish. Look at all the fuss people make on the TMF about some model’s perceived faking in clips, for example. Other parts of her body are definitely, confirmed ticklish, and during play I have focused on those, but ultimately, I’m a foot man. I know I’m risking sounding unappreciative here, but I can’t forge sexual desire. I felt like in the early days I was so taken with tickling being un-tabooed that I just pushed the non-ticklish problem to the back of my mind. But it is a problem, has been one since the very early days of our relationship, and has always been a point of dissatisfaction with me, if I’m honest with myself. And I feel like an asshole for feeling it, actually.
Secondly: rubbing and playing with her feet just became a bit too routine. Now, pre-Marylin, I’ve been the single guy who thought there was no hope for ever finding anyone who would let me touch their feet in that way and be cool with it, and I’d probably have felt, reading something like this, that if someone had managed that total miracle, with a beautiful woman no less, and they’d just gotten fed up with it, that they were an ungrateful prick. But let me explain. Ever since she ‘outed’ me, Marylin loved demanding foot rubs from me, and they usually led to sex. It was mutually beneficial for both of us: she got her feet attentively rubbed, and had it followed by sex in which I absolutely always, always, always made sure she was satisfied, and orgasmed. I got the thrill of having a woman satisfy my sexual urges, and got to have incredible sex afterwards. It was great.
But as the years went on and our sexual activity diminished, the foot rubs just became unexciting, for both of us, really, and became what I imagine foot rubs are to many ‘Vanilla’ couples. Still a nice, intimate way to care for your partner, but not a sexual preface in any way. It didn’t help that Marylin had another health problem and developed plantar fasciitis in her feet – for those who don’t know this is a crappy condition that causes intense pain in the soles of the feet, particularly after being on one’s feet for long periods. It may have reduced her ticklishness too, for all I know. This would mean that after long days at work (She’s a nurse, which I’m so proud of her for, especially now) she’d get home and be in agony, and I would pretty much be duty-bound to rub her feet for a long time, sometimes all evening, pretty much. This would have sounded like heaven to me when we first started going out, but it eventually just became a chore of sorts, particularly as it never led anywhere (Not that I’d ever expect it to after a long day at work or when she was in pain, but still I’m sure you can see my point). I was happy to do it out of love, of course, but it wasn’t sexy, it wasn’t the same. It didn’t help that I accompanied her to the doctor’s appointment where she was diagnosed with it, and the old, fat, male doctor said to me: “You’re going to have to step up the foot massaging now, I’m afraid!”. This was meant as an affable comment, of course, but it weirded me out about it even more, and made it even less of sexual practice.
The Present Situation
So, we have found ourselves, probably for a good 3-4 years now, being in a much-reduced existence sexually. Our relationship has gone from strength to strength in every other area: I’ve covered unhappy times in our relationship in the backstory, but that shouldn’t suggest we are an unhappy couple. We are even more in love than we were in the romantic phase of our relationship, and it has grown deeper, stronger, to the point where I cannot imagine my life without her, and she tells me she feels the same; as I said at the beginning, we are hoping to marry later this year, and we can’t wait for that. At this point (I can’t think of where else to put it in the saga) I should probably also say that the fact that I’ve mentioned casual drug use in relation to two unfortunate incidents shouldn’t infer that drug use was a big part of our life, or something to do with our sexual problems. We were casual potheads for a number of years when we were younger, but we were never reliant on it and we don’t take or smoke anything now and haven’t for some time, due to the damage it had begun to do to our mental health, which we take seriously.
Ostensibly, we are at a good point in our careers and in our lives. Things technically suck at the present moment, because my mother has terminal cancer, and due to her requiring care almost constantly and being extremely vulnerable to COVID-19, I have had to move in with her as her permanent carer, whilst Marylin has continued working, fighting the virus on the front line, and is living on her own with just our cat for company. So things are quite miserable as we usually could hardly stand a week apart, and have had to do six months like this. On the upside, it has given me time to think about our relationship and this one piece of the jigsaw that is missing: our sexual relationship, which is nearing extinction (present circumstances aside), but which I aim to revive.
I’ll hopefully be moving home some time this month (My Mum hopefully won’t need chemo for several more months, by which point she should be vaccinated, meaning I’ll be able to stay living at home whilst I care for her, the odd week aside). I know I should think of something to rekindle our sex life, but I do not know what that is. We have tried talking about it, have tried to ‘start again’ with it, but it’s never really worked, due to general apathy. I felt the final nail was in the coffin, so to speak, was not long before I had to move here, I’d mentioned tickling, and Marylin resignedly said “That’s your world, not mine.” This typified how things have gotten for both of us as regards tickling. But I don’t wish to dwell on the bad times. It may not sound like it, as I have been covering negative topics and events, but I do always try to put a positive spin on things, so I want to try and address it, if I can, whilst I’m here in the unfortunate situation that I’m in. This is where you, dear reader – if you have made it this far – can help.
I hope I’ve given a good account of the circumstances and accounted for my honest feelings, warts-and-all. My question is, what the hell do I do?! I’m aware of the “seven-year itch” effect and I know this is part of getting older, but the question is, if you don’t want to be consigned to the realms of the sexually unfulfilled, what can you do to combat it?! I am not prepared to just roll over and give up our sex life for dead. I don’t want to feel sorry for myself, or indeed us as a couple, because we won’t get through this by doing that. I’d like advice on what the hell I should do to re-kindle things, from a tickling perspective, and from a sexual perspective. I have to sort it out, not just for me, but for Marylin. I want to please and fulfil her as I once did; I want her to be satisfied, like she used to be. As I said at the outset, if you are reading this and you successfully overcame this problem yourself, it would be great if you could tell me what the hell you did, because I’m totally lost. And if you’re reading it and haven’t, but still have a suggestion, I’d love to hear it. If you fear embarrassment or don’t want to relay your own experiences in as bare a way as I have just done, shoot me a private message. Anything said will remain between us, I promise. If you’re not shy, do tell on this thread!
Either way: If you got to the end, Thank You for reading and above all, stay safe out there.
Many Thanks
Sorry for the Princess Leia thing! I know, it still hurts about Carrie Fisher! But here’s the thing: I need some advice and I don’t know who else to ask, given that the situation in question concerns subtleties of the tickling fetish, being a fetishist in a relationship with a non-fetishist, and other things that I am not comfortable discussing with any of my real-life friends, none of whom know about my abnormality. If you are one of those blessed people who saunters through life being totally open and honest with everyone you encounter, or even have just a small number of friends who you have felt comfortable enough to talk about being a fetishist with, good for you! I’m honestly happy for you. But I am in the introvert camp as far as “Coming out” goes, and this means that I cannot talk about this with anyone I actually know, as I don’t feel comfortable talking about it with others. This is where I’m hoping the TMF can help me as it has done in the past (I am relaying this on a new account that I have made just to ask for this advice, the reasons for which will become clear as I spell out the issue I have, or can also be found here: http://www.ticklingforum.com/showth...15-years-makes-new-account!-Read-all-about-it!)
So, what follows is the backstory for the situation I am hoping some people will be nice enough to offer me advice about – I have always found the TMF a wonderful, giving place when it comes to offering advice/comfort/support to others in the community, and I am banking on that indulgence now. I am not going to sugar coat anything as that will achieve nothing useful for me or my fiancé, but if you are kind enough to reply please remember: you are entitled to your opinion, whatever it may be, but if it is negative or judgmental in any way, I am not necessarily interested in debating the finer intricacies of it. I am just someone in a bind – myself and my fiancé are – and I am asking for your help. I am particularly interested in the opinions of those who may have gone through something similar, although any comments or suggestions are welcome, as long as they are supportive in nature.
I am trying to get back into writing recently, so I have provided sub-headings to help the flow of what is a fairly lengthy story. Please don’t let this length put you off reading. Hell, you can source your motivation through sheer nosiness if you want to!! Also, after reading it back I can say that there is no small amount of drama too, so there’s that! I have tried to be as concise as I can, but bear in mind I’m discussing a near 12-year relationship, so it is a tad long, just please bear with me. I have called my fiancé “Marilyn”, because A) she looks a bit like Marylin Monroe (she’s stunning, we can’t ever go on a night out without her being hit on) and B) When we were first falling in love, I told her that she made me think of a nice quite I’d read about Marilyn Monroe, from Hugh Hefner: that she was the best sex symbol of the 20th Century because she combined sexuality with vulnerability, and that is how I think, and have always thought, of my Marylin.
Preamble
Marylin and I have been together twelve years this summer; we are in our early thirties. We have lived together for nine of those and got engaged last year. We were always going to do this, but we have never had the money to realistically be able to afford a wedding or even a ring – I received a small inheritance last year and was able to finally get the ring, and we should hopefully be married before the year is out, pandemic allowing. I love Marylin more than I have ever loved anything. Like that solid, deep love, when you just know that you never want to be with anyone else or do anything else but live with and spend as much time as possible with that person: they are ‘Your person’, and you are theirs, and that’s it.
Before we met (Towards the end of Uni/‘College’), I’d had a few casual relationships, and had a decent amount of sex, but I’d never done anything serious or long-term. I just knew, when we were building up to going out, that she was going to be ‘it’ for me. She was coming to the end of a relationship that was psychologically and occasionally physically abusive, and it was as if I delivered her from that, as it were (“Rescued her” sounds a bit patriarchal). We simultaneously realised after just two short weeks that we loved each other, and that has never changed; it’s only grown. It would take something monumental for it to ever change. We’ve been through a lot over the last twelve years and have had the ups and downs of any couple, but 90% of our time together we have been happy, and she is the best friend I have ever had.
If it sounds perfect, it almost is, other than the one inevitable troubling area: our sex life, which over the past few years has just gone from problem to problem, and has stuttered into near non-existence. I’ll try not to waffle, but I’d better start at the beginning. I have tried not to be too explicit, but bear in mind this is about sexual problems so has some sexual language etc.
Sexual awakening
Early in our relationship, Marylin ‘outed me’ about my fetish, initially against my will. I’d told her I had a fetish but wasn’t comfortable with telling her what it was yet, but she dug up some shit on my computer that gave me away. This sounds very sly and devious of her, and it was, but it also wasn’t. I was absolutely livid at the time: I kicked her out of my apartment, chain smoked about fifteen cigarettes and drank a shit-ton of red wine as I contemplated breaking up with her for breaching my trust, but I didn’t, because I was in love with her. So I gave her the chance to explain herself. And it turned out she had done it because she had been desperate to know what really turned me on, so that she could please me. She is that sort of a sweetheart; she’s an extremely giving person, and this extends to sex. She wanted our sex to be as fulfilling as it possibly could be.
What followed – particularly in that first couple of years – was a total sexual awakening for me. I’d tickled girls I’d been with, and I think one girl I’d been with before suspected that I liked her feet, but I’d never before been in a sexual relationship in which tickling was so much at the forefront. It was suddenly out in the open, and I didn’t need to feel ashamed or self-conscious about it!! This wonderful, beautiful woman had for some reason decided that my every whim and desire was to be fulfilled, for no other reason than she loved me. We were in our early twenties, happy, with few cares or worries, and we had some physical stamina. We made love all the time, and I tied her up and tickled her almost every time we did. It turned out that the fetish corresponded with two of her big turn-ons: being tied up, and being told “No”, when she asked me to stop, which drove her wild. She started taking care of her feet, which are sumptuous, to an almost unreasonable degree. Her feet are perfect: perfect size, lovely toes, lush, high arches – Oh, man!
We did all kinds of scenarios, types of bondage, different implements and intensities, had sex whilst watching tickling clips, foot jobs, even went camping on a remote beach once, and she let me bury her in the sand and tickle her feet for ages. This was all her idea, she drove it, like she wanted to explore the fetish with me as I discovered new, exciting things that I’d never thought possible before. She even set up her own TMF account, and interacted with the fabulous community on here*. The absolute pinnacle was when were making love and she, looked me in the eye, mentioned tickling and softly whispered in my ear “I love it”, in her high, sweet voice. She had successfully made me feel comfortable about something I’d never even felt 100% comfortable with even thinking about, something I’d always disliked about myself. It was incredible, and I still feel eternally grateful and fortunate for that extraordinary experience, the happiest period of my life. It was the kind of happiness that makes any prior suffering (Of which I’ve had plenty) worth it, like it was worth it to get to that happiness. Even if we never have sex again, I’m so lucky to have experienced that.
*This is why I’m posting under an alias. If I’d posted under my previous username she might see it, unlikely as that would be by now, and the situation wouldn’t be helped by the advice I am hoping I will receive, it would be made worse as she might be hurt that I’m choosing to share our story without her knowledge. I’m aware that it is duplicitous of me, perhaps even unethical, but I just want to address the situation in order that our sexual relationship will be healed. I have promised myself that I will be fully honest with her about what I’ve said on here once we’re back on track. But for now, total anonymity is my only option.
So, on to “The downfall”, such as it is. Our relationship went from strength to strength, and we decided after those first couple of years that we would move in together, so we did. We were very happy, even though there was the inevitable impact of domesticity on our sex life: I don’t care what anyone says, when you’re living with someone you love to be with, it is the best thing ever, but there are downsides too. You can’t be up for having sex every day of the week, and it wasn’t long before we’d slowed down a bit, settling on having sex once or twice a week, as most couples that cohabit do. We were both fine with that and accepted it as a standard consequence of moving in together. But then things started to go further downhill, and never really fully recovered.
99 Problems, of which tickling is (The Main) one.
The first, and perhaps worst, thing that happened, was an accident we had. It was 100% my fault. I won’t go into too much graphic detail about it, but basically, we’d smoked a joint before we started to play, and it made me a bit dopey, and possibly complacent as regards health and safety, which is something you don’t automatically consider when you’re self-taught at amateur tickle torture. In a nutshell what happened is that I tied her up, strapped an electric implement on her, and chose to leave the room to heighten the sexual tension for both of us. It seemed like a sexy, fun thing to do at the time, and she was initially playing along and into it. But unfortunately, I left the room for too long and the implement really genuinely started to torture her, to the point which some people on here might be into, but was far too much for both her and me. I quickly got the device off her, but she was very shaken by it, and I kept hearing her screams in my head again and again, I just couldn’t get them out of my mind. I was particularly beset with “What if?” scenarios in my head, and these took the form of intrusive thoughts in my stupidly over-wired, anxious brain. If I’d slipped and been knocked out, for instance, she might have ended up having a panic attack or not being able to breathe. That kind of thing. I beat myself up for years about it afterwards, and I think it was the moment where the dynamics of the fetish shifted slightly, in both our eyes. I don’t think of it that way anymore, as it was almost ten years ago and I now see it as a mistake made by someone who was just a foolish, young, and inexperienced fetishist. But it remains ‘problem/incident number one’. Of course, this isn’t just about me but about Marylin’s feelings and experiences too, and I know that it must have tampered the prior mystique of the fetish in her eyes.
‘Problem/incident number two’ happened a couple of years later and is in two parts, one of which is sadly predictable and does not reflect well on me, but I have to be honest. Firstly, we moved house, from our first place, to a terraced building with very thin walls. During the first few weeks we’d had an inconsequential but loud argument, and our next door neighbour banged on the wall. When we spoke to her the next day, she sympathetically said “I just thought I’d knock, because I could hear your conversation word-for-word”. This meant instantly that any form of play could only take place when we knew our neighbours were out, as we didn’t want to have to explain why there was loud, continuous laughter followed by the sound of us obviously having sex. So that didn’t help, as this hardly ever happened. We could still have sex, but had to basically do it with our hands on our mouths. Not particularly conducive to an unbridled, unchecked sex life, play or no play! We were sexually hamstrung, and tickling became a rare thing.
The next thing that happened was again completely my fault. Long story short, there was a girl who I worked with who was very physically attractive. I’ll call her Ingrid. She was only 19 years old and I worked with her in sales, which is a very alpha-male environment full of assholes and potential predators, and I took her under my wing somewhat, keeping her out of trouble. We got the bus to and from work together every day as we were on the same route. Marylin was slightly wary of her, but I honestly didn’t think of her in any overt sexual way. She reminded me of my younger sisters a bit, hence the protection. But she was undeniably attractive, and most people at the office drooled over her. Anyway, it was my birthday, and I invited her out with my friends. I’m not an enormous drug taker, but I was taking MDMA with a couple of my friends for most of the evening, putting me in a state where my inhibitions had totally diminished. At the end of the night we ended up going back to one of my friend’s houses (I was actually trying to set him and Ingrid up at the time) and during a moment of general giddiness in the room, when we were all either very drunk or very high – two of my friends had started to tickle Marylin, in a plutonic way, obviously – I reached over and tickled Ingrid’s bare foot for a couple of seconds.
Marylin hit the roof. She dragged me outside – to the puzzlement of everyone else – and asked whether she’d seen it properly and whether I’d just tickled Ingrid. I was honest, and said that I had. Here’s the thing: it wasn’t until this moment that I’d realised that Marylin would interpret this as a form of cheating, even though I can completely understand and appreciate now why she believes that to be the case. But in the moment, I went on the defensive: I told her that I didn’t think I’d cheated, that I was just being an idiot (Which I unquestionably am most of the time), that it meant nothing. I was jabbering, because I was high as a kite. It didn’t wash. Marylin punched me in the face, and stormed out of the house, going to her parent’s house in tears in a cab. On arriving, the only way she could justify her upset state to her parents was by telling them that I had actually cheated on her – even in her fury she was still (sweetly) considerate of the fact that the honest alternative would have embarrassed me so much it would have meant that I’d have probably moved to another country or something – and to this day, her parents and some people in her family think I did cheat on her, which isn’t great, but I only have myself to blame.
I honestly have to say that at the time, despite it clearly being a sexually associated act on my part, I did not think “I’m cheating on Marylin here”, and did it regardless; I was just messing around. I know that might sound like a cop-out, but why would I lie about it, unprompted, to a bunch of strangers on the internet? I never would have done anything sexual with the girl, never would have even thought about having sex with her, even if I could have somehow gotten away with it without Marylin knowing, because I love Marylin and wouldn’t do that to her. But it hurt her terribly, and was the closest we have come to splitting up. We eventually did make up, mostly due to me leaving the job almost immediately, severing ties with Ingrid, and doing a shitload of grovelling. Now that that incident has happened, we have very clear ground rules about ‘playful tickling’, meaning that I have to avoid it around other people, which I’m fine with. Writing this all out, it’s not difficult to see why it changed tickling for us, particularly for Marylin. I endeavour to be a good person, but I am imperfect, and I have definitely behaved like an asshole at times in my life, and this was one of those times.
The Downward Spiral
From that point, things got gradually worse and worse for us as far as tickling or sex goes. This wasn’t always related to tickling necessarily. Marylin was in a semi-serious car accident some time after the Ingrid incident. She wasn’t badly hurt at the time but developed trouble with her back which required quite intense physiotherapy, and meant she couldn’t work, drive, or do much of anything. As a result, she became clinically depressed. I supported her as much as I could, but she needed medication to deal with her mood. An effect of this was that her sex drive pretty much disappeared, which was compounded by her reduction in interest in tickling from the previous incidents. She did eventually start to feel better both physically and mentally, but as (Shit) luck would have it, I then became clinically depressed a short time after she had been (For a variety of reasons that have nothing else to do with the issue at hand, and which I won’t go into). With me, it was a bit more of a serious threat to my safety, and I ended up on even more medication than she had been and was almost totally withdrawn for a period of around a year. We had sex rarely, and it was usually without joy and out of a sense of obligation, rather than passion. It was a miserable period in our lives and our relationship both.
Thankfully, we pulled through it, and we are much happier people now: we’re closer for the experience, and a stronger couple too, I think. Unfortunately, that isn’t the end of the cavalcade of negativity engulfing our sex life, however. Even though we were both better and off any medication, our sex life never really recovered from the previous period. Marylin never really instigated any play, and I didn’t want to instigate it as if I did, I’d always feel like I was being self-centred or doing something that she didn’t have an organic interest in. Then, wouldn’t you know, the final problem began to develop…
I couldn’t help it, but I started to feel less excited by Marylin’s feet. This was chiefly for two reasons. Firstly: I’d always suspected that she was exaggerating her ticklishness (to please me, bless her heart). Once, before we were together, I’d heard her telling someone else that she wasn’t ticklish and she’d even done the ‘Look! I’m holding my arms in the air – try and tickle me!’ thing with them, so I’d always been slightly unconvinced, but I figured that she hadn’t been tickled properly before we started going out, so maybe that was it. But there have been times where I’ve suspected she may not even be ticklish at all. The girl I was seeing previously had deathly – and I do mean deathly – ticklish feet, so I know the difference from that experience. That girlfriend would jump in the air if I even touched them, even if she wasn’t looking or paying attention, and it would amuse me to stroke her foot whilst she wasn’t looking and see her jump up in the air at the sensation, surprised. On doing the same to Marylin, she would sometimes not notice I was even touching her, then would notice and start laughing/responding as she thought I wanted her to, not how she naturally would if she were as ticklish as she made out.
I appreciate that she was doing this for me, and I love her for it, and she can’t help if her feet aren’t all that ticklish, or maybe even unticklish. But as every person who is into tickling, feet, or both will know, it just doesn’t ‘do it for you’ as much if you know someone isn’t genuinely ticklish. Look at all the fuss people make on the TMF about some model’s perceived faking in clips, for example. Other parts of her body are definitely, confirmed ticklish, and during play I have focused on those, but ultimately, I’m a foot man. I know I’m risking sounding unappreciative here, but I can’t forge sexual desire. I felt like in the early days I was so taken with tickling being un-tabooed that I just pushed the non-ticklish problem to the back of my mind. But it is a problem, has been one since the very early days of our relationship, and has always been a point of dissatisfaction with me, if I’m honest with myself. And I feel like an asshole for feeling it, actually.
Secondly: rubbing and playing with her feet just became a bit too routine. Now, pre-Marylin, I’ve been the single guy who thought there was no hope for ever finding anyone who would let me touch their feet in that way and be cool with it, and I’d probably have felt, reading something like this, that if someone had managed that total miracle, with a beautiful woman no less, and they’d just gotten fed up with it, that they were an ungrateful prick. But let me explain. Ever since she ‘outed’ me, Marylin loved demanding foot rubs from me, and they usually led to sex. It was mutually beneficial for both of us: she got her feet attentively rubbed, and had it followed by sex in which I absolutely always, always, always made sure she was satisfied, and orgasmed. I got the thrill of having a woman satisfy my sexual urges, and got to have incredible sex afterwards. It was great.
But as the years went on and our sexual activity diminished, the foot rubs just became unexciting, for both of us, really, and became what I imagine foot rubs are to many ‘Vanilla’ couples. Still a nice, intimate way to care for your partner, but not a sexual preface in any way. It didn’t help that Marylin had another health problem and developed plantar fasciitis in her feet – for those who don’t know this is a crappy condition that causes intense pain in the soles of the feet, particularly after being on one’s feet for long periods. It may have reduced her ticklishness too, for all I know. This would mean that after long days at work (She’s a nurse, which I’m so proud of her for, especially now) she’d get home and be in agony, and I would pretty much be duty-bound to rub her feet for a long time, sometimes all evening, pretty much. This would have sounded like heaven to me when we first started going out, but it eventually just became a chore of sorts, particularly as it never led anywhere (Not that I’d ever expect it to after a long day at work or when she was in pain, but still I’m sure you can see my point). I was happy to do it out of love, of course, but it wasn’t sexy, it wasn’t the same. It didn’t help that I accompanied her to the doctor’s appointment where she was diagnosed with it, and the old, fat, male doctor said to me: “You’re going to have to step up the foot massaging now, I’m afraid!”. This was meant as an affable comment, of course, but it weirded me out about it even more, and made it even less of sexual practice.
The Present Situation
So, we have found ourselves, probably for a good 3-4 years now, being in a much-reduced existence sexually. Our relationship has gone from strength to strength in every other area: I’ve covered unhappy times in our relationship in the backstory, but that shouldn’t suggest we are an unhappy couple. We are even more in love than we were in the romantic phase of our relationship, and it has grown deeper, stronger, to the point where I cannot imagine my life without her, and she tells me she feels the same; as I said at the beginning, we are hoping to marry later this year, and we can’t wait for that. At this point (I can’t think of where else to put it in the saga) I should probably also say that the fact that I’ve mentioned casual drug use in relation to two unfortunate incidents shouldn’t infer that drug use was a big part of our life, or something to do with our sexual problems. We were casual potheads for a number of years when we were younger, but we were never reliant on it and we don’t take or smoke anything now and haven’t for some time, due to the damage it had begun to do to our mental health, which we take seriously.
Ostensibly, we are at a good point in our careers and in our lives. Things technically suck at the present moment, because my mother has terminal cancer, and due to her requiring care almost constantly and being extremely vulnerable to COVID-19, I have had to move in with her as her permanent carer, whilst Marylin has continued working, fighting the virus on the front line, and is living on her own with just our cat for company. So things are quite miserable as we usually could hardly stand a week apart, and have had to do six months like this. On the upside, it has given me time to think about our relationship and this one piece of the jigsaw that is missing: our sexual relationship, which is nearing extinction (present circumstances aside), but which I aim to revive.
I’ll hopefully be moving home some time this month (My Mum hopefully won’t need chemo for several more months, by which point she should be vaccinated, meaning I’ll be able to stay living at home whilst I care for her, the odd week aside). I know I should think of something to rekindle our sex life, but I do not know what that is. We have tried talking about it, have tried to ‘start again’ with it, but it’s never really worked, due to general apathy. I felt the final nail was in the coffin, so to speak, was not long before I had to move here, I’d mentioned tickling, and Marylin resignedly said “That’s your world, not mine.” This typified how things have gotten for both of us as regards tickling. But I don’t wish to dwell on the bad times. It may not sound like it, as I have been covering negative topics and events, but I do always try to put a positive spin on things, so I want to try and address it, if I can, whilst I’m here in the unfortunate situation that I’m in. This is where you, dear reader – if you have made it this far – can help.
I hope I’ve given a good account of the circumstances and accounted for my honest feelings, warts-and-all. My question is, what the hell do I do?! I’m aware of the “seven-year itch” effect and I know this is part of getting older, but the question is, if you don’t want to be consigned to the realms of the sexually unfulfilled, what can you do to combat it?! I am not prepared to just roll over and give up our sex life for dead. I don’t want to feel sorry for myself, or indeed us as a couple, because we won’t get through this by doing that. I’d like advice on what the hell I should do to re-kindle things, from a tickling perspective, and from a sexual perspective. I have to sort it out, not just for me, but for Marylin. I want to please and fulfil her as I once did; I want her to be satisfied, like she used to be. As I said at the outset, if you are reading this and you successfully overcame this problem yourself, it would be great if you could tell me what the hell you did, because I’m totally lost. And if you’re reading it and haven’t, but still have a suggestion, I’d love to hear it. If you fear embarrassment or don’t want to relay your own experiences in as bare a way as I have just done, shoot me a private message. Anything said will remain between us, I promise. If you’re not shy, do tell on this thread!
Either way: If you got to the end, Thank You for reading and above all, stay safe out there.
Many Thanks
