assumptions

We don't have a contract and have in fact never discussed any but one overarching limit (no other people - his hard limit, hence also mine).

We have grown organically, so to speak, and over time have come to where we are - I am His - which means that in the end - I am not my own.

I know this lax, informal approach to ending up at M/s or O/p must seem irresponsible, or illegitimate, or just hard to fathom to many.  To have stopped, tried to spell it all out, and then re-started our lives would have felt - well - hard to fathom i suppose.

We've been together a very long time - most of the time i know what to expect at decision points.  Sometimes he surprises me, occasionally i feel overruled, thwarted, and frustrated.

We married in the first place in large part because we respected each other enormously - we saw in each other a person with the values, outlook, and way of being that we wanted to be with.  Over time we have shaped each other also, learning, expanding and protecting the ways of being that we value and unlearning the traits and behaviors we find less good.

I know that a big part of our ending up where we are - sans negotiations and contract - involved an awful lot of unspoken assumptions on my part.  I could agree to the whole package because there are many, many things that i knew in my heart the package wouldn't ever include.

And there are still areas in which i make those assumptions, things i'm so sure he won't ever want or ask of me or insist upon that i just don't worry about them.  Why get bogged down in hypotheticals that are just not ever really going to happen.  

Maybe....

The other day I showed him a post by a woman discussing why it was virtuous of her to turn her ballot over to her husband and let him vote for her.  I expected indignation or scoffing from him - suffice it to say he deeply values equal rights, civil liberties, independent thinking, and people being engaged and responsible citizens.

Instead, his response was along the lines of, "yea, so?"   He pointed out bluntly that if he asked me for my ballot, or told me how to vote, i would need to oblige.  I  think he was joking or making a point or something of both.  But he didn't relent and he didn't budge and he didn't explain.

It is the tiniest bit uncomfortable.

Over the past few years, he has made some things to be ways i wouldn't necessarily have predicted; they aren't what i would choose but i can see the reasoning.  He has asked some unexpected and challenging things of me, things i couldn't have predicted just because they are random things i never thought of before.  We have been at a few impasses where we both felt strongly and i did have to follow (give in).

He has not, up to this point though, run counter to any of the assumptions i hold on to in order to be comfortable with all of this. It is hard for me to actively imagine him being so different from what i think i know about him in order to imagine him violating those assumptions.  And honestly, i wonder, at least about the important and real ones, which would be more difficult: seeing him make a decision that shatters my image of him, or facing the need to go along with something i thought i was safe from.

why is sex so important anyhow?

As i'm sitting here - my cunt is twitching and fluttering, my clit is swollen, i'm leaking juice, the slightest touch or movement across my nipples sends shockwaves to my pussy - my abs contract to try to absorb the feelings that have nowhere to go.  Deeper in my psyche, i want to be overtaken, completely stripped of control, tormented, hurt, used in the most base ways.  i long to see that hunger on your face - the look that makes me afraid and draws me in, the look that is you but not you, the look that is you on the edge of your own control

I texted that to him as he was at one son's soccer game and i was getting ready to go to the grocery store.  It had been that way all day.  It started first thing in the morning with him coming all over my chest.  It's a silly thing, but something about him coming on me arouses me insanely.  He painted my breasts and nipples with it and i nearly came with no other touch.  But he left me there.  He left it to dry and be worn all day and me to go through the day on that very high edge. 


I think this was partly him having fun with his toy just cuz he can, partly him re-establishing or reminding us of our dynamic in a very effective (and not too onerous for him) way.  Maybe there was a whole lot more behind it for him - maybe not.  The communication about the feelings and motivations and mental processes about the whole thing are pretty one way here: i am expected to share, he isn't. 

Like i suppose a lot of people, we started with D/s in the bedroom, but honestly, looking back, it was impossible that it would stay there.

Recently a friend of mine was complaining about a thing she had been asking her husband to do for some time, she said she had finally decided to withhold sex until he took care of the task.  I think that is the way i had seen sex fitting into marriage.  I had actually never thought to use it to manipulate him, i think i never gave it even that much weight in my mind.  But it was, for me, a very small, very discreet and separate little component of our whole life. 

But it isn't small, or separate, or discreet (in the "entity unto itself" sense; we do try to keep it discreet in the "out of the public view" sense). 

He has control of my body and its responses.  No matter what bad feelings or negative emotions or rational argument i have against him at any moment, it is impossible for me to deny to him or to myself that i am His.  Even at its most subtle, his reminding me of that fact is incredibly effective at re-orienting me. 

We can't or don't live our roles so overtly day to day; they are there, but not for all the world to see.  Sex is always dominance and submission.  It is where we can establish and reinforce our positions and feed our individual needs for those roles.  It is where the greatest opportunity exists to add other elements: bondage, control, pain, humiliation, containment, to further reinforce and really feed our needs.

For the gentler, more positive spin on it - when we are connected sexually, no matter how subtly, i am more open to him, i listen better, i imagine he is more attuned to me as well.  As a friend put it to me, "It is so much harder to get mad and fight when one is always on a sexual edge, compassion is higher, emotion heavier, empathy stronger... and then everything else is easier - parenting, work, paying the bills..."

It is also a very non-cerebral thing.  All of the good stuff, what i've written about above, happens without my reasoning it out; in fact, it usually happens in spite of my trying to reason around it.  [And yes - i do see the irony of all this navel gazing in order to post about it]

not even wondering

I've had trouble writing here lately, to the point that i've had trouble even responding on other peoples' posts.  When i read others' posts - i feel what they are saying, i see a response in my head, fully formed and complete - but i can't focus on it long enough to get it out my fingers.  Likewise, as things happen to me or i have thoughts that would be put here - i see the whole thing, done, fini, without the thinking and exploring and wondering I've grown used to.  It passes from fleeting thought to filed away and forgotten before i can even look at it.  

Probably this is an overly dramatic view.  Really - my mental energy is being pulled elsewhere.  Usually i can do the things i do and have enough background processing power left to run the fun stuff too.  Not so much lately.  Or i'm getting old and the processing capacity is less - but i'll keep telling myself that's not it - it's just  a phase.

I do know what subjects have come up, been noted, and then, apparently, resolved and filed without the usual due process.  Maybe i'll be able to pull them out and think about them eventually.  Maybe it's where i'm meant to be - learning things and accepting them without all the noise.

Either way, some random things i've come to realize lately......

I really, really love my husband.  

When he comes home, lying in bed with him finally, i am different, my body relaxes and melts into him; my mind does the same, there's a warmth that flows....  It didn't used to be that way - I used to be glad he was home, and glad to have him next to me.  This is more palpable, more overwhelming.

Sex is very important.  Not as in the advice columns in the grocery store magazines, that a couple should have sex regularly to maintain closeness and intimacy.  I mean that his ownership of my body and especially all the sexual aspects of me, means that, whether blatant and overt, or only implied and subtle, sex has become a very important channel and connection point between us - all the time.  He communicates with me through it, and he moves and controls me with it.   

He likes my pain.  

I have a great deal to learn about the service and giving of myself aspects of all of this.  When i am quite honest with myself, i often don't put him first in my actions; my first thoughts are often for myself; and i'm not even sure if or to what extent i ought to move that, or how he feels about it.  

I'm not sure it has anything at all to do with being submissive, but... I've realized more recently is that i  hold myself back. In cases where i can and should step forward and do bigger things, where i am capable and ready and ought to take on challenges, i sometimes remain comfortable with good enough. I don't think it's a fear of failure, or even a fear of being wrong, i'm sure i have both of those in play too, but this is different - i underestimate myself sometimes and it's not a good or useful or even benign thing.  

Likely most of these bear more thought, especially the last two.  Maybe someday i will be able to do that.  

Gumby I am not

Sadly - i will never be able to cross my ankles behind my head, no matter how much he may like to..., well - anyhow, not happening.

But that isn't the kind of Gumby-ing I'm talking about.

So many outside forces push and pull.  Work, lots of projects, other people wanting things of me. Kids needing to be raised, needing to get to and from.  The house, the car, other family, all the other people and things in my life that are good, but come with ought to's.

And for a brief moment I think i've got it all laid out, then it all changes, their needs, their schedules, my requirements.

And I have to adapt, bend and stretch, rearrange.

It's life - I know this.  It's not just a mom thing, or a work thing or a wife thing, it's just life and everyone has to do it.

Part of the adapting is his constantly changing schedule, and I do sometimes come to resent that.  I flow as much as I can, but it's my stuff that gets re-prioritized.  And if I keep flowing and don't tell him I can't flow anymore (read - I fail), then I get behind, really behind, and stressed, and other not so pretty things.

These things come and go, it will get better, we are learning to manage it better, i am learning to speak up sooner - it happens to everyone, it's life.

I've noticed a funny trend (or two) though when this does happen:

I do tend to view being the adaptable one as my role.  My job has much more flexibility than his, and almost no travel.  And i tend to view this as "service".  Our dynamic doesn't fit into neat categories, but  "service" in that sense is only a small component.  And - honestly - stuff needs to get done no matter what you call it.  Viewing what i do as helpful to him can feed into a submissive mindset, but it's both helpful to him and necessary overall no matter how i choose to view it.

The advantage of adding this perspective to things i would need to do anyhow is that, when it's good, i feel better about it, i have a glad heart, i am happy to help.  The risk is that when things go badly, i feel like a failure on more levels.

You would think (I would think, I'm pretty sure He does think) that all-hell-breaking-loose would be the time to back off a bit, loosen up, relax and give me some room to work, since not enough room to work is the issue.  But in fact that makes me feel even worse. If I suddenly feel him less, the frustration or resentment or whatever turn into distance and plain old sadness, maybe a touch of despair.

This would be one more time that i'm happy not to be the one needing to find the perfect balance for things.

And now - i'm off to do some much needed catching up.