How to handle partners with a fetish in a long term relationship? /u/throwaway865432186 Sex

My (38m) girlfriend (34F) have been in a relationship about 3 years, living together just over two. We just bought a house this past summer (house is in my name only). I don’t want to publicly say the fetish but my gf has been talking to “Mark” from this fetish community since before we were together. He lives about 2-3 hours away. AFAIK and based on the evidence I can see, they have never met in person, before or since. I knew about Mark when our relationship began and tolerated it. And I have no issue at all with her fetish and have tried, repeatedly, to participate but she was hesitant at best about it. About a year ago, she basically asked for a “hall pass” to be with him as she’s never been with someone from the community in person and never had a chance to make it happen with Mark when she was between “vanilla” relationships.

I sort of blew up and told her if she wants her hall pass then I get one too but I can’t guarantee the future of our relationship and what it means. This really seemed to affect her and she almost immediately cut him off and explained why to him, and then he removed her from social media. She told me she was sad about it, about losing her friend and fetish companion, which I understood. So far, I truly believe there was no contact.

My gf continued to be involved (at least as a spectator) in the fetish and almost exclusively masturbates to this fetish (she told me this). Our sex life is pretty great from where I stand – as much sex as I can handle (minimum 4x a week, usually more). She always complements me and tells me what a great job I do getting her off and orgasms multiple times before I do; I aim for 3:1 at minimum, usually more. However she absolutely shut down any discussion of the fetish or of me participating in it with her as part of our sex together.

Fast forward to Christmas day and she gets a message from Mark asking if she’s still in a relationship. She told me she said yes and that was the end of it, and that she was surprised she heard from him, and kind of acted a bit put off that he was basically looking for a virtual booty call (a normal reaction IMO). She asked if I wanted to see their convos but I declined out of respect.

Things have been a bit off so I snooped and sure enough I see a bunch of snaps between them, all sexual about their fetish with pictures back and forth between them (I can’t see the pics of course but I assume they are sexual/masturbation/fetish related). I’m honestly at loss what to do with this information.

Question for fetish people – is this normal behavior? How do your relationships work like this? Let’s say its amputee porn (its not btw)…obviously I’m not going to cut off a limb for her so how does she “get off” when she’s in a relationship? I’m trying to be respectful of this part of her but also I need to feel respected – right now I feel no respect at all and I just feel hurt, lied to, used and deceived.

I really want to hear from people in a fetish world and how they handle this stuff. I posted this same thing in r/relationship_advice and they basically wanted her hung, drawn and quartered. She’s not a bad person but she’s doing a bad thing and she’s really close to ruining an otherwise great relationship. Additional context is that we went through some rough stuff this year (miscarriage, job loss) plus stress from moving, etc. Also we have a pretty open (at least I think we do) relationship when it comes to sex so I’m very open to exploring things with her. To me this points to her wanting Michael more so than the fetish stuff (even though that’s a big part of it).

Help!

My (38m) girlfriend (34F) have been in a relationship about 3 years, living together just over two. We just bought a house this past summer (house is in my name only). I don’t want to publicly say the fetish but my gf has been talking to “Mark” from this fetish community since before we were together. He lives about 2-3 hours away. AFAIK and based on the evidence I can see, they have never met in person, before or since. I knew about Mark when our relationship began and tolerated it. And I have no issue at all with her fetish and have tried, repeatedly, to participate but she was hesitant at best about it. About a year ago, she basically asked for a “hall pass” to be with him as she’s never been with someone from the community in person and never had a chance to make it happen with Mark when she was between “vanilla” relationships.

I sort of blew up and told her if she wants her hall pass then I get one too but I can’t guarantee the future of our relationship and what it means. This really seemed to affect her and she almost immediately cut him off and explained why to him, and then he removed her from social media. She told me she was sad about it, about losing her friend and fetish companion, which I understood. So far, I truly believe there was no contact.

My gf continued to be involved (at least as a spectator) in the fetish and almost exclusively masturbates to this fetish (she told me this). Our sex life is pretty great from where I stand – as much sex as I can handle (minimum 4x a week, usually more). She always complements me and tells me what a great job I do getting her off and orgasms multiple times before I do; I aim for 3:1 at minimum, usually more. However she absolutely shut down any discussion of the fetish or of me participating in it with her as part of our sex together.

Fast forward to Christmas day and she gets a message from Mark asking if she’s still in a relationship. She told me she said yes and that was the end of it, and that she was surprised she heard from him, and kind of acted a bit put off that he was basically looking for a virtual booty call (a normal reaction IMO). She asked if I wanted to see their convos but I declined out of respect.

Things have been a bit off so I snooped and sure enough I see a bunch of snaps between them, all sexual about their fetish with pictures back and forth between them (I can’t see the pics of course but I assume they are sexual/masturbation/fetish related). I’m honestly at loss what to do with this information.

Question for fetish people – is this normal behavior? How do your relationships work like this? Let’s say its amputee porn (its not btw)…obviously I’m not going to cut off a limb for her so how does she “get off” when she’s in a relationship? I’m trying to be respectful of this part of her but also I need to feel respected – right now I feel no respect at all and I just feel hurt, lied to, used and deceived.

I really want to hear from people in a fetish world and how they handle this stuff. I posted this same thing in r/relationship_advice and they basically wanted her hung, drawn and quartered. She’s not a bad person but she’s doing a bad thing and she’s really close to ruining an otherwise great relationship. Additional context is that we went through some rough stuff this year (miscarriage, job loss) plus stress from moving, etc. Also we have a pretty open (at least I think we do) relationship when it comes to sex so I’m very open to exploring things with her. To me this points to her wanting Michael more so than the fetish stuff (even though that’s a big part of it).

Help!