Quote Originally Posted by skittish doe View Post
Please accept my apology for my exclusion of this pertinent detail.
I understand why it was painful to bring it up, but you can see that without it we were missing a big piece of the picture.

In my naivety, I really thought that he would become a Dom, once introduced to the concept. He even gave me a spanking before we shared our first kiss. It would be fair to say that he pursued a continuation of our relationship, cumulating in marriage, in spite of these (my) desires.
Tragically, far too many people still go into marriage believing that love (or habit) will fix sexual incompatibility. They may unintentionally lead the other on by going along with what sie wants "for now," assuming they can teach hir differently later. And sometimes, people do get lucky, and their partner discovers a liking to match theirs: but more often they don't.

In this case, with all due sympathy for your pain, it looks to me as if you both made the mistake of thinking your partner would come around once you were married.
He did not tell me about his intense distaste for my D/s thoughts until (recently) after we had been married for almost 7 years. He dislikes any references to BDSM and gets extremely upset when I state any verbal labels. Words like “Dominance”, “submissiveness”, talking about my “submissive side”, and any reference to a “scene” tend to set him off, and so I try to avoid mention of them.
It would be my guess (given that he married you knowing about this) that his distaste has developed over the years, because he expected you to get over all that and you haven't. He probably feels about your BDSM needs the way he would feel if you were still dreaming of an old lover he'd expected you to forget.

My first wife went into our marriage playing along with my needs so enthusiastically that I believed it was real, then had a breakdown from the strain and made me drop it all: but even when I was prepared to live completely vanilla, she went off me because, she said, she couldn't bear knowing that the BDSM stuff was still going on in my head when we made love. If your husband knows it's still going on in your head, it's no wonder he doesn't want to be reminded; it would be like you yelling someone else's name when you came.
With all that said, he does do things that (I think – as a newbie I don’t pretend to know) most folks would consider a scene. We also tend towards stereotypical gender roles. I do things like sit on the floor at his feet. I serve him his favorite drink, and generally wait on him. I ask him for permission for most activities.
The wonderful thing about D/s is that it can turn being brought a cup of tea into a hot scene, and I'm glad you are able to enjoy that much.

It may well be that he is a Dom at heart, but can't face it consciously because he feels, too deeply to change, that it's perverted and sick. In which case, it may be that he's happy to let you take some control during sex because it reassures him that the two of you have a "normal" relationship in spite of your "perverted" desires. If you ever were to achieve your original wish of acting submissive even in extremis, you might upset this and make him more resentful of your needs. Not wanting to paint the devil on the wall, as the Danes say, but you should consider that risk.

It could be worse. My ex-slave actually managed to turn her husband on to BDSM to the extent that he became a noted Dom in their local BDSM community... and then found she couldn't submit to him. She still loved him, but the D/s chemistry wasn't there, if he tried to Dom her she just got angry. Maybe you have to accept and enjoy what you have.