questions - on both sides

I don't understand why I suddenly returned to the obsessive, frenzied, overwhelming place I had been when submission was new to me.  But I did, except this time around, the focus was pain.  And suddenly there were very intense and dark fantasies where there never had been before. 

We have, since we started ttwd, played with pain.  We have both enjoyed it a great deal, not as punishment, but erotically, as emotional release for both of us, and for the incredible connectedness of it.  The larger world often dictated when and how much we could indulge in this kind of thing.  That was ok, we both missed it, and I noticed an edginess and craving when it got to be too long, but really, not a big deal. 

But this new thing has me out of balance, off track.  Playing 'a little' left me irritated and wanting more, and as time between grew longer, I grew even more off balance, unfocsed, distracted, daydreaming and unpleasant.  I have explained all I can to him about how I feel, what I think, how I have reacted in the past and more recently, how i think i may react in the future, particularly the fact that i think I want (need?) to move beyond my previous comfortable boundries with this.   


He explained that he is not sure: he very much likes the play so far, but isn't sure how he feels about really ramping that up, he isn't sure about being able to maintain what is needed given our lives and schedules, he's not sure what it means for me, or for him, to go deeper into this, something neither of us really understands.  I think, I'm guessing, that he needs to decide how he feels about really hurting me, about the idea of following that path over time, and maybe how he might react to himself in that case. 

I explained that, just as he makes decisions with my wellbeing in mind, I am so glad he is considering the rightness of this for him.  There is a voice in me that says this is not a very submissive way of looking at things, that I should consider only how to follow him and not concern myself with whether he has gone about it the right way or not.  But, submissive or not, I do want him to do what is good for him, and I don't want him to do what is not good for him. 

I told him that I will follow his lead - but explained that the ups and downs of hoping, expecting, waiting and then nothing happening have been very very hard on me emotionally - and have me very off balance.  I asked him to consider not playing in this way at all until he feels he knows how he wants to proceed.

So, for now, I am trying to just put it all back in the box and leave it.  It is a very odd thing to recognize that I have been fighting to control a thing, to be ready to start to relinquish that control, but to need to maintain it unto myself nonetheless.   He recognizes this, and other types of containment he has imposed - physical and more abstract, erotic and mundane, all help.  But we are in a strange place right now. For all the explaining and discussing, I think we are both left with more questions and fewer answers.  It has also left us both feeling a bit of uneasyness, trepidation and maybe wariness.