I'm 40-ish, happily married, with several teenage kids. I run a business in a conservative small town. And I'm so ashamed I want to die.
All of our kids went to summer camp last week. This was the first time in years that this has happened, and the feeling was extremely heady for me and my husband.
The business I run out of our home is handled 97 percent through phone, fax and e-mail. Very rarely do we have customers stop by; in fact, often weeks go by before we deal with a customer in person. So on this particular day, with the kids safely hustled off to camp, and my husband off to his real job, I chose to watch some Internet porn in the office.
This isn't something I do every day, or even every week. My husband knows (in fact, he pays for the subscription to the site I like).
My submissive nature is not a recently discovered thing for me, but it's something that I only recently shared with my husband, even though I know I've always been this way and even though we'd been married nearly 20 years before I said anything. He was, fortunately, intrigued, and luckily we've bonded even more deeply than we had before after I shared this information with him. I have no complaints at all there.
But now for the bad part.
As for many kinky people my age living a vanilla life, the Internet has been like a shot of heroin. I finally found out that there are actually people like me. That said, I don't feel like I'm addicted to the porn, but let's just say I pay rather rapt attention (with both hands) when I do choose to watch four or five times a month. During a lull one afternoon at the office, I got rather occupied, shall we say, when a good friend of mine knocked on the office door and then opened it without waiting for my response.
Since my back was to the door, and my desk is a long way into the room, I have no idea what she saw (or didn't see). Our dog was right by the door and started to growl while I sang out "just a minute" (frantically trying to zip back up).
My friend closed the door and I put the dog out before inviting her in (I was beet red of course) and used the dog as an excuse. She seemed nervous; I was nervous. I had, and have, no idea what she saw, didn't see, whatever. She may have seen nothing. She may have seen everything.
This woman has a child in the same grade as mine, and I've known her for many years. For crying out loud, we were den mothers together of all things! I thought maybe I should have tried a joke, like, "Well, there are disadvantages to having a home office!" or something like that.
Instead, we made strained small talk for 15 minutes, and when the phone rang she made a very hasty exit. I e-mailed her later that day with a detail about something our kids were doing and got a polite, normal e-mail back, but that still doesn't solve my problem.
My problem is now that I am so deeply ashamed over this that it's affecting my sex life. I was not raised to be ashamed of masturbation and I have no religious hang-ups that I know of, and frankly, I'm not that worried about what my friend might say. Something this, um, personal doesn't really lend itself to juicy rumor.
The real problem is me. Even though I've tried to reason with myself and I know I wasn't hurting anyone, I still feel like a terrible person now, as if I'd really done something to hurt someone. Although I like and admire my friend, and have invested a lot of time getting to know her, she isn't such a part of my life that if she couldn't meet my eye from now on and I lost her over this I'd feel utterly bereft.
And you could argue that she should've knocked and waited, rather than barging in.
But the shame and guilt are so deep that I'm having trouble enjoying myself in bed with my husband. I did tell him, by the way, and he doesn't think it's that big of a deal. But he sees how upset I am over this and wonders what I'm going to do.
Since OTers are so good at chunking down complicated emotional stuff into digestible tasks, I was hoping you might be able to help me with this. I don't know what would make me feel better -- to bring it up, jokingly, with my friend (who I'm afraid won't be able to look me in the eye now) or to just trust time to take care of this. I realize that if someone's going to live 80-plus years, there are going to be embarrassments -- but this one has been incapacitating.
I really can't overemphasize how much this has taken over my thoughts since it happened -- even though I've really tried not to think about it. I feel like the shame is poisoning me and I don't know how to deal with it.
~Regina
All of our kids went to summer camp last week. This was the first time in years that this has happened, and the feeling was extremely heady for me and my husband.
The business I run out of our home is handled 97 percent through phone, fax and e-mail. Very rarely do we have customers stop by; in fact, often weeks go by before we deal with a customer in person. So on this particular day, with the kids safely hustled off to camp, and my husband off to his real job, I chose to watch some Internet porn in the office.
This isn't something I do every day, or even every week. My husband knows (in fact, he pays for the subscription to the site I like).
My submissive nature is not a recently discovered thing for me, but it's something that I only recently shared with my husband, even though I know I've always been this way and even though we'd been married nearly 20 years before I said anything. He was, fortunately, intrigued, and luckily we've bonded even more deeply than we had before after I shared this information with him. I have no complaints at all there.
But now for the bad part.
As for many kinky people my age living a vanilla life, the Internet has been like a shot of heroin. I finally found out that there are actually people like me. That said, I don't feel like I'm addicted to the porn, but let's just say I pay rather rapt attention (with both hands) when I do choose to watch four or five times a month. During a lull one afternoon at the office, I got rather occupied, shall we say, when a good friend of mine knocked on the office door and then opened it without waiting for my response.
Since my back was to the door, and my desk is a long way into the room, I have no idea what she saw (or didn't see). Our dog was right by the door and started to growl while I sang out "just a minute" (frantically trying to zip back up).
My friend closed the door and I put the dog out before inviting her in (I was beet red of course) and used the dog as an excuse. She seemed nervous; I was nervous. I had, and have, no idea what she saw, didn't see, whatever. She may have seen nothing. She may have seen everything.
This woman has a child in the same grade as mine, and I've known her for many years. For crying out loud, we were den mothers together of all things! I thought maybe I should have tried a joke, like, "Well, there are disadvantages to having a home office!" or something like that.
Instead, we made strained small talk for 15 minutes, and when the phone rang she made a very hasty exit. I e-mailed her later that day with a detail about something our kids were doing and got a polite, normal e-mail back, but that still doesn't solve my problem.
My problem is now that I am so deeply ashamed over this that it's affecting my sex life. I was not raised to be ashamed of masturbation and I have no religious hang-ups that I know of, and frankly, I'm not that worried about what my friend might say. Something this, um, personal doesn't really lend itself to juicy rumor.
The real problem is me. Even though I've tried to reason with myself and I know I wasn't hurting anyone, I still feel like a terrible person now, as if I'd really done something to hurt someone. Although I like and admire my friend, and have invested a lot of time getting to know her, she isn't such a part of my life that if she couldn't meet my eye from now on and I lost her over this I'd feel utterly bereft.
And you could argue that she should've knocked and waited, rather than barging in.
But the shame and guilt are so deep that I'm having trouble enjoying myself in bed with my husband. I did tell him, by the way, and he doesn't think it's that big of a deal. But he sees how upset I am over this and wonders what I'm going to do.
Since OTers are so good at chunking down complicated emotional stuff into digestible tasks, I was hoping you might be able to help me with this. I don't know what would make me feel better -- to bring it up, jokingly, with my friend (who I'm afraid won't be able to look me in the eye now) or to just trust time to take care of this. I realize that if someone's going to live 80-plus years, there are going to be embarrassments -- but this one has been incapacitating.
I really can't overemphasize how much this has taken over my thoughts since it happened -- even though I've really tried not to think about it. I feel like the shame is poisoning me and I don't know how to deal with it.
~Regina
