what's real? what's important?

Two steps forward, one step back - or is it one step forward, two steps back - most of the time I would be thrilled for the two-to-one plan - quite often i have to count myself lucky to be at one-to-two and not worse. 

I don't know why I am susceptible to such bouts of irrationality, but when they happen, they completely skew my perceptions and my thinking.  Rather than stop and question why the world around me would have changed so suddenly to something so different than it was, I choose to believe the new way I see it all.

This happened last week, and by the time it all came to a head, I was convinced that my husband was finished with anything to do with D/s, that he had in fact never wanted it; I was prepared to go back to "just plain old married," and put everything else out of my mind.   He talked me off the ledge, but not at all by reassuring me on the things i was so upset about.  He was (to me, at the time - brutally) honest about his feelings about things.  He has, in fact, always been honest; his ideas and opinions have evolved, but not really changed. 

It forced me to look hard at how I view things, my expectations, and the way I operate, and it turns out, they all had some serious flaws.  In fact, it was a fairly perfect storm of screw-ups and serious mis-understandings on my part.  I've talked with a few people who have helped me regain perspective, and my husband and I talked about what happened over a few days and I think i'm starting to see both where I went wrong and how to try to change.   At the risk of seeming too much like a  grade school essay, there are three big areas in which I went wrong:
 1 - not paying attention to what he says and does to learn what he wants
 2 - thinking that the only real way to do this (or anything of consequence) is the way i think of it 
 3 - being reluctant to express my feelings/wants/wishes/fantasies

And what is obvious now but had to be pointed out to me is that all three have to do with letting go of control and cedeing it to him.  The leap I can't seem to make sometimes is that I don't trust he's going to pick up the control.  Of course, he's not going to wrestle me for it, so I have to let go first. 

He is an odd mix, or maybe not, but he is steadfastly who he is.  He has always known I would do what he asked me to, but has always reserved that for the things he feels are most important.  As far as I understand what he says, he has strong ideas about what he wants from me: he wants to see that I am happy, that I excel at the things I do, that I am confident (a big issue for me).  He also feels strongly about having a warm, inviting, peaceful home, that is a refuge for our family and lets us thrive.  He wants me on my toes and he wants me to keep him on his.  He wants to guide me and doesn't mind manipulating things to push me.

Something I have always admired about him is that he has a vision of what he wants and is able to keep that foremost in his mind and make sure that all efforts are towards that end.  What i hadn't realized was just how much I factor into his vision.  I hadn't realized that he was invested in or really gave much thought to me as an individual, beyond my roles in the family.  I'm still coming to terms with this.

I had gotten very caught up in how i thought our relationship, our dynamic *should* look.  I was upset, disappointed, and frustrated that he wasn't picking up on what i was saying, particularly that he wasn't implementing what I wanted.  Somehow i believed that the ideas i had were, if not the only way, then at least the best and most obviously right way to be.  He let me in on his vision and some of the things he has been doing recently towards the goal of a happily humming along wife and family.  These looked very little like my mental preconceptions, but had worked really, really well towards his goal.  And I had been so wrapped up in my own internal dialog that i had mostly missed it. 

I had trouble seeing that what i thought i wanted, craved or desired were really fantasies (well - maybe much more mundane daydreams or reveries than terribly interesting fantasies).  I think i will write separately about that part of my learning this time around.