My name is Sue and I've been married to my husband, Tom, for 10 years, I always thought we had a good marriage. But don't all women? We tend not to look at what we don't want to see. Bury our head in the sand. Don't face facts. Even when the ugly reality is staring straight at us.

Our problems started with little things. One night out of the clear blue, he refused to handcuff me to the wall. Said he was "tired", bad day at work. Okay. I tried to deal with that. I'm a caring person. I understand when someone is tired. But in the back of my mind, it worried me nevertheless. A man doesn't just suddenly stop handcuffing his wife to the wall for no good reason. It's not normal. I knew our marriage was headed for serious trouble, but little did I know just how serious.

The next night he refused, just outright refused, to tie me up. He could see by the look on my face that my feelings were hurt, badly hurt. How is a woman supposed to deal with this kind of disappointment? It was becoming increasingly difficult for me to even comprehend the blatant insensitivity of a man who wouldn't even tie up his own wife.

He'd promised me just last month that we'd try out some new restraints, but he never bought them. It was always some excuse or other. The handcuffs he had always loved using on me were gathering dust, tossed in a corner. OH MY GOD, what was happening to my happy marriage? Where had the love gone?

The unmistakeable signs of a crumbling, deteriorating relationship were all around me. Maybe we needed counseling? I opened the Yellow Pages, desperately looking for anyone, anything that could help us. Surely, there must be someone out there, a professional, who could open Tom's eyes to the severe damage he was doing to ME, to US, to the entire future of our marriage! How selfish he was. How cruel. Sometimes men are like that. They don't know how wounding their actions can be.

A small, thoughtful thing like being handcuffed or tied up and he couldn't even take a few minutes out of his busy evening to do that one thing for ME? I took care of the house all day, cooked, cleaned, kept everything running smoothly. At the very, very least, I deserved to be spread eagled on the bed, my bra shoved up, my panties yanked roughly down to my knees while he finger fucked me. At the very least.

The hell continued. As I lay across his lap one night, my naked, beautiful bare ass exposed to his stinging hand, I squirmed in anticipation of his lovely slaps. Instead of swatting me repeatedly and hard, his formerly masterful, punishing hand was almost caressing. It was horrible! It was almost as if he couldn't bring himself to spank me, spank me like he loved me, like he really meant it - the way any caring, loving husband would spank his wife until her ass turned bright red.

I broke out in a cold sweat, realizing that I was sinking deeper and deeper into a pit of darkness and unhappiness. I knew we had to do something to change the path we were on.

"Tom, we need to talk"

"About what, honey?"

I gasped.

"Honey? Is that your name for me now? I've never heard a name like that before. 'Honey'? Where did that come from? This is serious, Tom. If we can't talk about our problems, if we can't COMMUNICATE, then there's not much hope. Please, at least tell me why you don't want to tie me up anymore. Don't I at least have the right to know that much?"

Tom wouldn't respond, staring down at the floor, silently.

I could barely take any more of his awful neglect. The final, hurtful betrayal came when he said he wouldn't be able to brutally rape me that night because his old back injury from high school had flared up. Oh my god. No rape. Now I could really see the end of my marriage looming on the horizon. My heart was pounding, my head spun, I could hardly believe what I was hearing.

If a man doesn't even care enough to rape his own wife, brutally and ruthlessly, while she's tied to the bed, helpless and defenseless and begging for him to stop, please stop, while he mercilessly teases her clit with a high-powered vibrator, it's obvious the marriage is over.

A marriage like that isn't even worth saving. I wasn't buying his back injury story, either. It was obvious he no longer loved me. But what was different? What had changed?

As things continued to fall apart, we still kept up a brave front for the family, of course. Still the happy couple. Laughing, joking, as if nothing had changed between us. As if Tom was still forcing me to have anal sex several times a week, like in the wonderful days of our courtship and dating.

God, those were sweet times. Only the two of us knew how bad things had gotten at home, behind closed doors. Day after day the coldness between us dragged on. Not being tied up, no forced, humiliating fellatio, the handcuffs gathering more and more dust, it was all beginning to wear me down. I wanted to cry for the beauty that had been lost between us.

I thought about the good times. The happy times. He wouldn't even call me his "slut bitch" anymore. Now it was a perky little "hi babe" or "honey" when he got home from work. One night he actually walked in carrying one long-stemmed red rose and a pink Hallmark card! Awful. Simply awful.

He knew how that hurt me, but he did it anyway. It was like he wanted to rub my nose in it. How I yearned for him to demand, in his gruffest, sternest, take-charge Master's voice: "Hey, whore, bend over, take my cock up your ass till you scream, I'm gonna make you hurt tonight!" It seemed like those days were gone for good.

It all boiled over at the annual family Thanksgiving dinner. I could barely stand to look at him, the selfish asshole. My mom and dad, his mom and dad, his uncle Buddy, my uncle Ned, everybody was there, sitting around the big old family dining table. I glared at Tom and he knew precisely why, too.

"Hey, babe, pass me the cranberry sauce, could you please?"

There was that sweet tone again! "Hey babe"? That did it! I threw my napkin down and watched it flutter to the floor. It was ON. I wanted a god damned explanation and I was gonna get one, Thanksgiving or no Thanksgiving.

"Tom, I'd really like to know what your problem is. You haven't tied me up in weeks. I've almost forgotten what it feels like to have a gag in my mouth. You know how much I was looking forward to being raped last week, but nooooooooooo, your back hurt. How many excuses do you have, Tom? A million? Do you know that I've had to spank MYSELF, just to remember the good times Tom? You ought to be ashamed!"