When Vanilla says...

I'm not married, however my view is that like anything in a relationship communication is essential.

If you have a unfulfilled NEED which requires fulfilling, state this in a non judgemental way, once stated if no magic positive response is forthcoming then ask the partner how they could see fulfilment being achieved, get a conversation going.

At end of day you have to decide whether it is a actual need or rather a like.

That's really something that you should have sorted out before you got married. At least if it's really important to you it is.

ChardT
That's really something that you should have sorted out before you got married

I'm not being funny, but that's not a particularly helpful comment. Yes, of course in an ideal world it should be out in the open and discussed before marriage. Unfortunately, many people aren't in a position of self-acceptance at the time of marriage, or they think they can suppress it, or 100 other reasons.

35 years married. She has known for at least 25 years. Maybe, just maybe...

It is all very well saying that this should be sorted before marriage. The issue often is that people change and a spouse who was prepared to "go along with it" in those early, heady days changes his/her mind later. Another problem can be that someone who will "go along with it" may be unenthusiastic. You may "go along with that" for a while in those early days, possibly in the hope that they will become enthusiastic with practice but that tends not to happen. Result--a relationship with someone who either won't do it or with whom it is painfully apparent that their heart isn't in it. Spanking games need two enthusiastic participants and of course, this doesn't only happen with spanking, it can be sex generally.

My vanilla wife knows about my kinky side coz I told her about it before we married. She does not mind as long as I leave her out of it and don´t rub her nose in it. I am satisfied with my marriage. My wife and I have been happily married for eleven years now.

I empathise with the OP.

Up to now I have always pursued my spanking interests outside of relationships. Fortunately, I don't need to combine my interests with sex which makes it feel better. I also don't mark easily and played at lower intensity when necessary. I experienced a marriage of 23 years where I did not feel able to admit to my spanking interest and that was tough.

I am now in a relationship again with my first love after a break of 35 years and I am taking a different approach. I am being very open about my kink and see it as a conversation that will take time. I think any attempt to drive the conversation to a conclusion will be perceived as unwelcome pressure.

It has also been about developing a language of intimacy so talking more about quite vanilla fantasies and laughing a lot. For example, there was a wonderful song by the late Victoria Wood called the ballad of Barry and Frieda. Rather than honing in on the line "spank me with a rolled up women's weekly" , we laughed about the line "spread an avocado on my lower portions" as my new partner is highly allergic to avocado.

In a couple of months, the conversation has moved from revelatory to my partner asking me occasional ad hoc questions about spanking. She wasn't sure if she had ever spanked me in the early 80s when we were together(she didn't) but that felt like a positive small step forward. Similarly she had a dream about me bending over her lap thinking I was going to get a spanking but she just wanted to sew a patch on my trousers. So, all light-hearted conversation and letting it just become a small part of our chat. It could prove very tiresome for both of us if it starts to dominate other aspects of other relationship.

My final thought is that there may be a middle way. In our case, I like to be quite mischievous and she has taken to admonishing me playfully by addressing me as "naughty Ricardo". It gives me a thrill and I have told her about the effect it has. Maybe it will lead to play one day, maybe not. The main thing is that it is not an issue that divides us, even if we may be circling around it to some degree.

Someone commented that the experience of others is not always a guide to what one should do but I share it in case it helps. I am a spanko to my core but there is so much else in life as well.

I realised quite early on that, however much I was attracted to a girl, or she to me, if she wasn't into being spanked - or at least prepared to give it a try - there was no future for us together. So I always made a point of mentioning my kink if things looked like getting at all serious. It was only fair to us both, after all.

I may well have missed out on some promising - if vanilla - relationships. But it's been a joy to find out how many females - far more than I'd ever have dared imagine when I started out - are willing, and indeed sometimes eager, to have their sweet bottoms spanked. To all of them, my love and gratitude.

RosieCheeks, well put.
Curioserto, great news that you got back together with your first love after a very long break, that happened with me too. I think you both will find a way to make it work.

Although I would be delighted were my husband, who has always been vanilla, to develop an interest in TTWD (I didn't know what it meant before reading this thread, either), I don't expect that to happen anytime soon if ever. However, we do have an open marriage because he knows about my interests. We knew about each other's feelings on this before we wed. I told him I would only get involved with other women. He is nor interested in having relations with either other men or women.