What to do when your partner no longer shows an interest in BDSM (I haven't had sex in over a year)
My husband (27M) and I (21F) have been together since 2023. We met on a kinkier but not quite BDSM dating app known as FET. I was very upfront and honest about my interest in kink and the BDSM lifestyle. He expressed an equal interest as well and for a while we were involved in a casual relationship with a dom/sub dynamic (he was the dom, I was the sub). After a while he expressed a desire for a long term relationship not just based on sex, so we started dating after about 3 months. Unfortunately he is in the military and was relocated to a new base (I stayed in Florida and he moved to California). Despite difficulties, we had a very successful long distance relationship with him being able to visit a handful of times. We still maintained our dom/sub dynamic primarily over phone sex, with him showing very slight control in my personal life. After almost 2 years of long distance, we got married this January.
During the long distance, we both expressed the desire to be able to play out many different scenes that distance wouldn't allow. He has a primary interest in bondage and kidnapping, while I am primarily interested in free use, CNC, sadomasochism, and potentially a total power exchange. We got married this January after not seeing each other since November 2024, and I have been living with him in California since.
I have not had sex since November 2024. I have not had sex, with my now husband since Thanksgiving of 2024. I am going absolutely crazy. We almost had sex the night before our wedding, but unfortunately we were staying at his parents and his mother was somewhat hovering. We got close again the day after I arrived to California, but I was exhausted from travel and was also on my period. Aside from those two instances my husband has not attempted to initiate sex. We had a talk about this maybe two or three weeks after living together. He had been turning down sex any time I brought it up or tired to initiate. I know for men, performing in sex has a certain stigma. When we talked about his lack of desire towards it, I did my best to be understanding and compassionate. He confided in me that work was stressing him out and he was burnt out from it entirely. I am doing my best to sympathize with him. Sex is how I de-stress, but for him, he says sex and scenes take up too much energy.
I have attempted to give him back control in less directly sexual ways. He liked bondage so I offered just practicing rope ties for fun, but he showed no interest. Our dom/sub dynamic never had solid written rules (we were waiting till we lived together), including rules towards masturbation and orgasm control. I started asking for permission to masturbate, and use toys. He never said no and also just showed that he didn't care if I asked or not. If I casually say I'm horny, he just gives off the energy of "ok.. and?", or he'll just tell me to use my toys.
He's gotten me off twice via fingering. The one thing he's shown slight interest in is breathplay. We've done two spontaneous scenes involving him choking me, but despite his engagement, they both seemed like they were only done to humor me.
I love sex. I especially LOVE kinky sex and the different dynamics BDSM has to offer. I know I'm young, and I got into BDSM when I was pretty young, but the lifestyle is something I truly desire and something I think makes be a better person and makes my life easier. I thrive off of submission and a clearly defined standard. All I want is to please my partner and for my partner to desire me as much as I desire them. The way people treat 'smoking, or drinking, or doing weed' as "something to take the edge off", is what subspace is to me. I need it and am missing it really bad.
What put me over the edge is when I randomly asked my husband a few weeks ago the last time he jerked off. To my surprise he had done it one morning before work. I'm usually up the same time he's getting ready for work, so I asked why he hadn't just used me. He said he had just been in a hurry and I had been sleeping still. I've been bothered about it since because I've been clear that I'm ok with free use, somnophilia, even just watching him jerking off would have been fine. I didn't understand why he didn't just use me. His defense was that it just wasn't that deep. He was in a rush for work and wanted to get off.
The reason I'm concerned that my husband is losing an interest in BDSM is because while work is stressing him out, our sex life is the only thing that has changed. Everything else is the same. He still finds enjoyment in his other interests. My husband is ok with me finding a dominant female partner for sexual satisfaction. But finding a good compatible kinky partner is hard enough, and a lesbian femdom has proven even more difficult to find. I love my husband but I don't know what to do.
I know this is not even a year into our marriage so many things are still subject to change. He wants to leave the military and switch jobs this year, which might solve the problem entirely. But at the same time I'm scared this is something he moving on from. This is the first time I've sought out advice on this matter. I have no desire to divorce my husband. I just want to know if there are options that might get him excited about BDSM again or options that are just as good as BDSM for me (in case he really is over it).