This is where it gets hard

As I initially began learning about D/s, I formed opinions about what must be included for a relationship to be D/s out side of the bedroom, to be 24/7 so to speak. I figured we were never really going there because it all just didn't seem like useful or feasible transformations for our lives. I came to see, over time, that there were so many different possibilities, and potentially a lot more depth to it.

This all started for us because I asked my husband if we could incorporate D/s into our sex life, not because I had always fantasized about such things, but because that was the part of our relationship that didn't feel right and loving and connected. We never made a one time conscious decision to expand things beyond sex; it just progressed naturally that way, very slowly, sometimes easily, and sometimes more fitfully. Now when I look at our relationship, it is "just us". The changes have been, for the most part, so gradual that I don't necessarily recognize it as any different than it ever was.

Until something big happens. And this week something has happened that has highlighted just how different our relationship is now from a year ago. He has moved into my mental space, my privacy, my mind and thoughts; and it is intrusive in a way that I would never have tolerated before, and which wouldn't be in vanilla relationships.

We have never discussed an overarching structure for our dynamic, never spelled out consent for certain things but not others, never talked about limits for the reach of his involvement in my everyday life. It continues to just evolve as seems natural, useful, or needful. His involvement is not so much in logistics, but in behaviours; not in presentation, but in underlying beliefs and motivations; not in asking me to change to his specifications, but to examine and consider my choices. While i think i might chafe a bit at controls on my external self, i am finding his insinuation into my underlying self to be confusing, difficult, uncomfortable, disturbing and at times painful. It takes self control and determination to make changes to ones habits or appearance. I am finding it takes a different kind of self control, one with which I am much less familiar, to accept and work with this sort of intrusion.

His probing my mind has compelled him to be brutally honest with himself at the same time. It is this process that is responsible for each of us learning about ourselves more thoroughly and honestly than ever before, and more importantly, knowing each other differently and more deeply. And this is what leads to us finding more joy and connection with each other. The ends are well worth it, but the cost is not negligible.