Just found my hubby's toys

I've just been putting away some washing and found my husband has just recently purchased  a fleshlight and hidden it away. Now dont get me wrong i havnt a problem with him having it. I own quite a large collection of toys myself. If anything he has always complained about them and even said that i wouldnt like it if he owned something. Like i say I dont have a problem with him having it. Our sex life has become very limited. Between both working shifts and two kids its a struggle to find time when we are both in the mood. So i'm glad that he has done something to help him, but why hide it. When i have suggested we jointly use something in the past he has always refused. He's always had quite a low sex drive compared to me. So if anything i'm quite shocked.

What do i do about it?

Do i respect the fact that it is hidden and he doesnt want me to know about it?

Do i mention that i have found it and let him know that i am ok with it.

Or do i buy him some lubricant and leave it with it but not say a word and let him come to me when he's ready.

oooh thats a hard one, hmmmm i think id put it on the bedside table with a bottle of lube and not say anything and see what would happen, and then if he didnt say anything to me by the time we went to bed and it really doesnt bother me like you say it doesnt bother you then i might say why dont we use your fleshlight togther and then see what he says/does?

Dxx

Hiya Lusty! Hmmm. . . .If he's only recently purchased it I would give him a fortnight to spill the beans as he may be going to let you know and then mention it to him if he doesn't.

SG69 x

i might just keep an eye on it and see how often he's using it. Like i said  i am really surprised he brought it. I wonder if it was just curiosity to see what it was like. He doesnt  look at porn or even the page 3 girls. He says whats the point in fantising about someone he's never going to meet. He's always been so straight laced. I have spent the last 10 years trying to get him to experiment more. Finally he might be willing to try out something new. I just dont want to scare him off.

Oh, that's a tough one.

I would be very upset  at the hiding of it, especially if , as you say,  you're not having sex as often as you'd like and he has a problem with your toys.  

I've shown my husband the vibrators I bought ( purely to spice things up ) and he does have a problem with them so out of respect for him I won't be bringing them into our sex life unless he is happy about it.

I would have to say something otherwise it would eat away at me,  I would try my hardest not to be angry, maybe just act very surprised and ask him when he was planning on telling you about it?

I know how hard it is on the shift work and family front - that's the biggest passion killer ever but I would personally be very worried if he has bought it to replace sex with you - we could go many weeks with no sex when my husband was on rotating  a shifts but he would never have even considered using a masturbatory toy.

Is he worried about his performance?  Is it one of the stamina trainer ones or a more "personal" one - I have a big problem with the porn star ones and the mouth / ass ones but that's just me, but you may not be peturbed by them at all.

You can't "unfind" it and if you say nothing you will be forever thinking about it - ask him and get it out of the way.

I would personally be very worried if he has bought it to replace sex with you - we could go many weeks with no sex when my husband was on rotating  a shifts but he would never have even considered using a masturbatory toy.

Is he worried about his performance?  Is it one of the stamina trainer ones or a more "personal" one - I have a big problem with the porn star ones and the mouth / ass ones but that's just me, but you may not be peturbed by them at all.

i dont really see why people have problems with the fleshlights ect what makes it such a differance then from him using his hand? its still just wanking! i esp cant see why a women who uses vibes would be even more offended/didnt like her husband having a toy but its ok for her to have one.

to me this really doesnt sound like his got a toy to replace his wife, as whats been said they dont have much time togther so maybe he uses his fleshlight or hand! when they are not togther and so cant have sex the same as when lustylou uses her toys.

i think the only porblem here is that he hasnt told you, but you dont know how long his had  it so like sexyget siad he might be trying to find the right way/time to tell you cos as you said his not noramly shown any intreast in them.

Dxx

well if you have a joint lovehoney account  and he purchased it here,you could probably track when he bought it and what type it is by going

your account and profile > track my orders

or something like that,

Sadly, there is still a lot of stigma attached to male sex toys. Whereas a lot of women can happily chat to their friends about their latest rabbit vibe or an erotic book they've read, men wouldn't usually dare to be so open with their mates for fear of being branded a pervert or sad or even desperate.

It's the same in a relationship. He may think that by owning a male sex toy, you'll think he's weird or dirty, especially if you've never discussed it at length before.

He may have hidden it because he was scared of what you might think - in his man-mind he's considering the worse possible outcomes - you could be angry, upset, jealous or in the worse-case-scenario even think about breaking up with him.

The best way to handle these kind of situations, in my opinion, is light-heartedly. Being accusatory or judgemental is only going to make him feel dirty and bad - and sex should never make anyone feel that way.

Maybe, when you have some time alone together, set the mood then bring it up in casual conversation - say something like 'so I saw you had a Fleshlight in the cupboard and I actually find it pretty sexy! How about we let it join in with the fun?'

Talking about a sex toy in the context of the bedroom, he'll be less likely to say no. With you, his gorgeous wife, reassuring him that using it is perfectly fine and actually quite fun, he'll be more likely to open up about these things and avoid hiding them in the future. Plus you get the fun of using it with him, if he responds positively.

If he doesn't seem keen, then at least you've got it off your chest and you can rest assured that he's not using it to replace you (after all you're the one he really wants) just to have a little fun imagining what you'll get up to the next time you're alone!

pretty sure its only come in the last few days. Just been checking emails as usual and found one from a company i didnt recognise saying his order was due to be delivered this week. It didnt even say what he had ordered. When i first saw it i thought it was my birthday present so didnt pay much attention. I've since gone back to look at it again and found it was an adult web sight. No birthday present for me then!

We have hardly seen each other this week. The time we did spend together this morning before he went to work we argued about nothing.

Like a said its my birthday this weekend so should be able to get a babysitter for a couple of hours. If i make the effort to dress up and try to get him to have some fun, he might open up about it.

lustylou wrote:

pretty sure its only come in the last few days. Just been checking emails as usual and found one from a company i didnt recognise saying his order was due to be delivered this week. It didnt even say what he had ordered. When i first saw it i thought it was my birthday present so didnt pay much attention. I've since gone back to look at it again and found it was an adult web sight. No birthday present for me then!

We have hardly seen each other this week. The time we did spend together this morning before he went to work we argued about nothing.

Like a said its my birthday this weekend so should be able to get a babysitter for a couple of hours. If i make the effort to dress up and try to get him to have some fun, he might open up about it.

You may be thinking too much into it Lusty. Just give him some time to come clean(no pun intended!) and you may be surprised. And the dressing up idea sounds brilliant, he's bound to be made up!

SG69 x

lustylou wrote:

I've just been putting away some washing and found my husband has just recently purchased  a fleshlight and hidden it away. Now dont get me wrong i havnt a problem with him having it. I own quite a large collection of toys myself. If anything he has always complained about them and even said that i wouldnt like it if he owned something. Like i say I dont have a problem with him having it. [...] So i'm glad that he has done something to help him, but why hide it. When i have suggested we jointly use something in the past he has always refused. He's always had quite a low sex drive compared to me. So if anything i'm quite shocked.

What do i do about it?

Do i respect the fact that it is hidden and he doesnt want me to know about it?

Do i mention that i have found it and let him know that i am ok with it.

Or do i buy him some lubricant and leave it with it but not say a word and let him come to me when he's ready.

I think that the circumstances as you describe them do sound quite shocking to me, and I personally would feel surprised and hurt, as I have in similar circumstances with my own partners.  I think that it's perfectly possible for you to be ok with him having that fleshlight, to be ok with him having his privacy, whilst at the same time regarding his dishonesty as absolutely unacceptable.  I think that these are separate different issues which have arisen in these circumstances.

The way I view the circumstances as you described them -

Your husband

• adopted a position of moral superiourity over not having any sex toys
• begrudged your pleasure with toys
• blamed you for enjoying sex toys
• tried to guilt trip you about your sex toys
• unfairly put words in your mouth about what you would allegedly say about him having sex toys
• abdicated responsibility for his own feelings about sex toys by blaming you for those feelings
• refused to share his exploration with sex toys with you
• after all the guilt tripping and refusals he gave you, lied to you about his own exploration with sex toys
• hypocritically indulged himself, silently acknowledging that your attitude about sex toys was right without telling you
• lied to you about 1) his change of heart, 2) his own exploration with sex toys, 3) his refusals to share sex toy exploration with you, and 4) his guilt-trippy crap about your sex toys
• set you up to fail (regardless of the fact that this is not about the toys, if you express any displeasure about this at all, he may try to use a straw man to distract from his own transgressions by claiming "I told you you wouldn't like if I got sex toys", )

In conversations in similar circumstances where I'd found out my partner had been lying to me, this is something like how my conversations went after that:

• I start by sitting down with him and telling him what I discovered about him, and how I discovered it.
• Then I listen to whatever he has to say, if anything, without interruption.
• If he tries to walk away, I emphasise that walking away from this is unacceptable to me, and to either discuss it now, or to name a specific future date and time when he promises to discuss it, and hold him to that.
• If he tries to blame me at this time for any past issue which he has not raised himself separately at the time (which has happened to me often), I listen without interruption, and make a mental note about it
• After checking that he's finished, I then ask him to hear me out, also without interruption.
• If he tries to interrupt, I calmly remind him of his promise to listen without interruption, calmly remind him that I had already extended the same courtesy to him, and calmly ask if he will allow me to finish (I may have to do this several times).
• I then emphasise that I respect his right to privacy just as I expect him to respect mine.
• I differentiate between privacy, honesty, and disclosure.
• I then tell him how I feel about dishonesty in general and from him in particular, remind him what I've said before about it, and remind him of his promise to always be honest with me.
• I then remind him of how I define honesty and dishonesty, and how I feel about what I've discovered about his behaviour.
• I raise the issue of his blaming me, and abdicating his own responsibility for his actions.
• If he is willing, we then talk it out until we achieve a satisfactory resolution.

In my experience, letting an issue fester without a resolution can only end badly, even if the ending badly happens some time later.

Sometimes my partner has insisted on ending these conversations by walking away in the middle before all of the steps have been completed.  In those cases I end my relationship with them, because I know that the heartache to come from that isn't worth it to me.

I acknowledge that my methods for dealing with this may not suit you or your relationship.  For me, the options you listed aren't as useful as my methods.  Having said that, of the three options you listed above, the one I think might be best is the last one, in which you buy some lubricant, leave it with the toy, and wait for him to come to you.

To me, that says

• I know about your fleshlight
• I'm ok with it
• I support you having it
• I respect your privacy
• I want to talk

If he doesn't come to you within a reasonable time frame (let's say a week or two), then I would suggest you raise this with him after that.  Having said that, I personally would try to address the issue sooner rather than later, because for me, dishonesty is one of my strongest limits, as is taking personal responsibility for oneself.

Of course, you must choose what you think is best.  I really feel for you in your situation.  I wish you the best of luck resolving it.

maybe he bought it, tried it once, didn't like it, so decided it would be pointless to tell you, as you might get your hopes up about using it together, when he doesn't really like it.

It might still be for your birthday... I'd wonder why he ordered it now.

There is still a stigma with male toys as Carly said, possibly male sexuality in general. Expressing and talking about his needs isn't what alot of men do and with such an issue, that is seen as taboo it might be even harder for him to express them.

I believe many men have the idea that their sexuality is portrayed as potentially dangerous or as pervy. Female sexuality on the other hand is often portrayed as fun and flirty. If he takes such a belief then to him what he is doing is embarrassing.

If its not for your birthday, you never know, he might just have found the confidence to feel sexy and express it to his partner, then personally I'd have a little chat. Tell him how sexy you would find it if you watched him masturbate. Maybe you could buy him a toy and tell him you'd like him to use it (and not let on that you know about his), doing that means that in his mind he might be reassured that men using toys isnt wrong and allow him to raise the issue.

Everyone is very different and for that reason it may be best to go with your gut instead of paying too much attention to advice (including this!).

Lubyanka suggested the best way to address the issue out of the 3 was to leave the toy out with lube. In my opinion, I think that could be the worst depending on his outlook and hang ups.

Far from saying I want to support you, I want to talk etc.. to me it says something completly different. It says what you are doing is so embarrassing I cannot talk to you about it so I will not confront the issue. Possibly I'm so upset I cannot talk about it, It could also say heres some lube, use that as much as you want if I'm not good enough. If he felt he had done something wrong he is possibly less likely to confront it. It is the least rational but emotions are not rational.

As I said it is probably best based on each person, addressing the root cause of his embarrassment/hang ups etc.. is unlikely to do any harm.

As a very very confident fella even I feel its very hard to feel sexy as a man usually, its easy with a supportive partner. Pleasing my partner makes me feel sexy but without some of the 'tools' women have (lingerie, make up, toys even media portrayals etc) it means I rely more on my very supportive partner. The point I'm getting at is that as a wife/girlfriend/etc I think you have a duty to make your partner feel as desirable as you find them. It might be hard to do with someone unresponsive or lacking confidence is a certain area but I think it is also upto you to make your hubby feel sexy and unembarrassed, you've already address that by asking questions but maybe the question you asked is the symptom of a larger issue he has.

Hope you find your own non confrontational way of dealing with this, get the issue resovled and get to watch him wank in his fleshlight!

Regards, W

 My interpretation of the relevant issues in the situation which lustylou described, are:

1. hypocrisy (by saying one thing and doing something else)
2. disparaging (about her sex toys)
3. guilt tripping (over her sex toys)
4. lying (about buying and using a sex toy)

I disagree that this is a sex or sex toy issue.  I feel that this is a trust, honesty, respect, and personal responsibility issue.  If lustylou's husband has disparaged her, guilt tripped her, been hypocritical to her, then changed his mind, got a sex toy, lied to her about it, and never discusses it with her, how is she supposed to trust that he has never enacted these behaviours about anything else, and will never again?  In my experience, these behaviours are never isolated single incidents, but happen as a recurring pattern of behaviour.

Even if he bought it, used it, and didn't like it, why did he abdicate his responsibility for disparaging, guilt tripping and hypocrisy by lying about it?  I believe that his lies have created this situation,and therefore he is responsible for making things right.  I believe that lustylou has no obligation to help him abdicate his responsibility for these behaviours.  If she wants to help him do so, then that is not her obligation, although it certainly is her choice.

I believe that lustylou has every right to query her husband about this in whatever way she sees fit.  If he feels uncomfortable about being held accountable for what he's done, then does that outweigh lustylou's entitlement to respect and honesty?

I feel that however lustylou chooses to address this issue, the onus is on her husband, not her, to sort this out.  He chose to enact the problematic behaviour, so he can choose to run and hide from it, or face it like an adult.  That choice is his.  In my opinion, according to the situation lustylou described, she has done nothing wrong, and so none of this is her responsibility.  If he has issues with her, then it is his job to raise them with her in a timely fashion, respectfully.  If he didn't, then that too is his responsibility.  If he blames her for his behaviour, then that's an additional issue.

Mind reading isn't something many of us can do, so none of us can be expected to act on what we don't know.

I appreciate that these are emotive issues, and I myself feel quite strongly about them.  I apologise if anything I've said sounds judgmental or unfair.  I did try hard to phrase my words respectfully.  If I didn't succeed, I am truly sorry.

W, you have made some very interesting points - it is far easier for a woman to show her sexuality ( when she finally plucks up the courage that is)     But when you've asked a man about his wants and desires and you get little or a negative response then it's disheartening to say the least.

It helped me enormously to buy sexy underwear and surprise my husband by parading about in a basque and stockings, I felt great and it did make me feel more confident and sexy.

My hubby still has difficulties expressing his sexual thoughts to me and I'm trying to encourage him to be as open as I have become in saying what turns me on etc.  

I tell him when I think he looks sexy or if he smells good, I tell him how good he is at touching me and that his kisses make my knees buckle , it must be working becausethis morning he came up behind me while I was washing dishes and started to play with my nipples, saying he wished he didn't have to go to work or he'd have me right there and then. He made me go weak with lust and that's fantastic after 25 years together. 

Honest communication is vital to a great sex life and a relationship as a whole.

If your cool with it, don't say a word. We all like to think our secret stash is better hidden than Where's Wally!  It's a man pride thing, like packing the car boot, BBQing & our great ability to state the obvious!

If you're not, super glue the fekker shut!

I would just ask him about it when no one else is around after all he didnt hide it very well, maybe he wanted it to be found? maybe its down to the fact that you have not spent much time together due to work/home life. i know thats a problem that me and my hubby have. i do know that before i met my hubby he used a rubber glove and towel to make a similar device as he was too tight to spend money on a toy! you never know what way it is going to go until you talk to him about it. goodluck

I hide my away because my oh is a bit funny about sex toys I have got a couple of toys for her and when i get them out  shes complains about the cost and its a waste of money funny that she enjoys them though.

I dont think she uses them when I'm not about.

I'm worried about what she might say if I tell her so at the moment its best hidden a way.

I guess he's not using it much as it takes so long to dry and you would find it forsure as I dont use mine because of this.

Give him some time let him tell you.

Im very highly sexed, and i bought a fleshlight, and i have had to keep it secret from my g/f.  She isnt into toys at all.  I use my fleshlight most days, but i still have sex with my partner 4 or 5 times a week, and sometimes 2 or 3 times in a night.  I cant see anything wrong in using toys to have pleasure from, just a shame not everyone see's it like that. 

Has anybody here besides Lady Lara and myself persisted in discussions with their partners until a particular topic no longer prompted uncomfortable feelings?

Holds up hand!!

Yes Lubyanka and its thanks to your very informative blog. Having read it by chance one day I was totally fascinated. Discussed it with hubby, and asked what he thought and firstly it was no way!!! That's a one way system thanks very much!

But during one love making session, well, we both got experimental and I did a bit of exploring of my own. This was not dismissed and we both enjoyed ourselves - BUT - the next day he was very quiet and withdrawn towards me. So i asked him...seems he had enjoyed the finger exploration...much, very much...but this had left him confused as he thought this made him 'gay'.

We have discussed it since, and had a little play in the prostrate area. He's not quite ready for the full experience yet, but we are getting there. So - yes, we have discussed things and he has listened to both me and hos body. He is willing to go further - when the time is right.

N40