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.
What you have developed over time here is something so uniquely yours. I think that is just the way it should be.
ReplyDeleteI think if there was any chance he would ask of you for things against your own values it's unlikely you would have accepted his control of you. That "knowing" makes it safe. But it does give some uncomfortable moments wondering about the "What if's."
Serenity - that sums it up perfectly - I accept his control because i know his values and i know he knows mine. I try not to wonder about the what if's unless i am suddenly faced with something uncomfortably close to one. This voting thing was like that. It didn't come to pass, and i don't actually think it will, but it forced me to see that all my assumptions are just that, and reality will be what he chooses.
DeleteWe dont use contracts either, never have, although i appreciate for some its useful, i have never thought of it as seeming irresponsible or illegitimate on the basis there is no 'set' guide to enslavement...it is in my opinion individual to each couple in their relationship.
ReplyDeleteIts funny but yes i read about the voting issue and being able to cast my own vote is important to me, and i would be horrified if my Master didnt value something so important but he does and he would be equally horrified if i asked him to tell me whom to vote for.
Of course thats us and the way we 'function' works for us.
tori,
DeleteI had a period of time where i thought i wanted to go through the process of working out a contract - not so much for the end result, but for the communication it would require. Eventually i realized we were already there - we were committed - and what i had been looking for was a way to force him to explain more of himself to me, something he doesn't do often.
His response to the ballot issue was part reminder not to get too comfortable in my assumptions and part a small little opportunity to mess with my mind a bit. Voting was the example that happened to present itself, it could have been any number of other areas where i feel i can count on his values - family, child rearing, work..... This just made me look at the fact that i hold these sorts of assumptions. On one hand they form the basis of the trust i have in him, on the other hand because i assume something doesn't obligate him in any way.
Thank you for commenting, i'm appreciating the deeper feedback on this one.
GG.
ReplyDeleteWe don't have a contract either. Omega is of the mindset that there are no real negotiations in consensual slavery. Go figure.
While mouse has been away from the blog-world -- for a while now it seems -- obviously she missed the whole handing over your ballot to your Master posts. No matter.
At first mouse edited her response but then thought..oh well...like ripping a bandaid off...do it quickly. Yes, mouse handed her ballot over to Daddy. We had many local issues that Daddy just knows much about than mouse does that he felt strongly about and these are mostly based on his personal interactions with some of the people. When it came to pick president -- state officials, congress...whoever else....Daddy did leave those for mouse to decide based on her own view.
But having said that -- control is a dicy thing.
Hugs,
mouse
Yes, i can see that negotiations don't exactly fit. For me, i thought i wanted the process, but even that was misguided in my mind (see my response to tori). As for the voting thing - that was just the example that came up in my world - it could have been anything - it was the thing that made me face the fact that i could have to face going a direction i've always assumed would never happen. And - honestly - i stay fairly well informed about national and major state candidates and issues, even some crucial local ones, but there are certainly a number of local candidates and especially the judges that i go into the booth knowing nothing about. I don't feel good about voting blindly or just leaving those blank. And yes - control is dicy - from both sides i think. Thank you.
DeleteWe don't have a contract either, but then we still evolving, and control has only just started to leak in, I realise, and then only in sexual matters. Orgasm control, for example. (I say only just. In the last 3 to 5 years)
ReplyDeleteThere are also things I that I don't think he'd ask of me, but I'm not sure that I've based this on assumptions, because it so happens that we can both talk the hind leg off a donkey and so talk about absolutely everything, all the time, sexual, control, limits, and otherwise. I have a private blog for his eyes only, and things I find difficult to vocalise I'll blog about, so he's informed and we will often then discuss it later.
One thing that has always been important to both of us is that we're a team. It is, very strongly, how both of us feel the relationship should function, and we both work at making it so. Having said that - we also feel WE can define and redefine how and what 'team' means and how it works. At the moment, we're both less switchy and he's mostly Dominant and I'm mostly Submissive.
Things have come up when we haven't agreed, (often) and haven't been able to hit on a compromise (rare), and neither had found themselves happy to change their mind (even rarer). In fact, I can only think of 2, maybe 3 incidents over nearly 18 years, which isn't bad! Looking back, we've roughly taken it turns to be the one to submit, because sometimes, a decision just has to go one way or the other!
Sorry to write a long woffely rambly comment, I found the post and all the comments very thought provoking!
mamacrow,
DeleteWe've been at this about 4 years now, some days i feel like a beginner, other days it't hard to remember when it wasn't us. It's interesting, because i think i assumed that most people do have contracts in place. But i've no idea why i assumed that. My interest long ago in contracts was precisely because my husband doesn't talk so much. He is judicious in what he will discuss. It is enough, but it's an area i've had to learn that i don't control.
We don't have many instances of deep disagreement either, not about things that really matter, about which we have deeply held values. I think we've always relied on knowing each other and having similar values when facing those sorts of conflicts. One of the assumptions i hold onto is that he will listen and take into consideration my views on really crucial situations.
(You have a new little one due soon? Already here? Best wishes for all of you!)
(yes, am 36 weeks and entering the tired cranky phase!)
DeleteI find interest in his doing things that you didn't expect, and your acceptance of those things.
ReplyDeleteI just wonder how much any of us is "his/her own." You have probably never read my blog, but I have been recently writing about the non-existence of free will and the idea (or fact) that our personality is simply a collection of habitual thoughts, and can be (with some persons, has been) entirely dropped.
malcolm,
DeleteI have not visited your blog recently. I will check out your writing. I'm not sure what it would mean to have no personality. I do have an idea of what you mean about habitual thoughts; as much as i often wish i could quiet the noise in my own head, the idea of entirely no inner thoughts conjures disturbing images of automatons or brainwashed cults or dystopian sci-fi. Without having read any definitions or background, i agree that we can not be individuals entirely self directed. On the other hand, i do believe that we make choices that effect change for ourselves and around us. That sphere of effect may be quite small, or may have larger reach. I will read what you have written, maybe it will make things clearer for me.
First, can I say that this post sounded like an answer to a question...
ReplyDeleteThe ballot issue would be a sticky one for me, but like you mentioned, it is not something that I feel like H would ask. We do have a contract, and no we did not negotiate that part, but now that you have mentioned it, I have to say that we didn't negotiate much at all. He wrote the contract and I basically agreed to it - cause he took me into account and proved himself to be thoughtful of me in our dynamic. I haven't worried about it since.
That is us though.
I don't have a problem with a couple that does do the ballot (type things) if that is comfortable for the submissive. The good dominants are doing what makes things comfortable, easier and happier for their lower case half. And if that includes taking voting off their plate, I am all for it.
(And twice during my typing of this comment, my son came in to tell me about daddy long legs and Jimmy Hoffa, so if it makes no sense whatsoever, I apologize. I think I have to go be part of the family right now though. LOL.)
kitty,
DeleteHmm - i think i write more when i have questions swirling around in my head. This was certainly one of those - but it was not a question someone outside asked.
I thought about what one does or doesn't negotiate with a contract. It started to seem ridiculous to try to include even the known situations, much less try to imagine what may come up in the future.
"cause he took me into account and proved himself to be thoughtful of me in our dynamic. I haven't worried about it since." that's perfect - i think that's all you can do, rely on what you know about the person to whom you are committing. And i think you sum up what i was trying to say bout my assumptions.
I hadn't thought about the voting thing from the POV of one person finding it easier or more comfortable to not worry about voting. I suppose many people must feel it's not easy; they just opt out by not voting, not an ideal solution at all.
To be honest, I am not sure I felt that way abou the voting thing until after I read mouse's comment above. mouse teaches me a lot about accepting other people's way of doing things. Even if it is not our way.
DeleteI have some thoughts about the majority of this post, but most of my thoughts have been very eloquently stated by the others who commented, so I feel like adding my own words would be redundant at this point, lol. I am in basically the same position you are in this matter...we don't have a contract because over the years we have communicated honestly enough with each other that we feel one is not needed.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I want to address this comment from your post: "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." From my point of view, it would be the first. Though it would be hard to "go along" with something I never thought he would require of me, I would do so fully aware of the knowledge that he has a reason for it, whether I know what that reason is at the time or not, and that it most likely has to do with helping me with an issue he knows I have that I have not even admitted to myself. My problem would be in my initial disappointment in him for requiring "it" of me (whatever "it" happened to be), because it was so far from what I expected of him.
Whoa....was I commenting or blogging? LOL! Sorry to take up so much space! Once I got started, I couldn't stop!
Cassaundra,
DeleteWelcome! That's the harder thing to trust isn't it - that him being apparently untrue to himself would be something he had chosen for good reasons? I know there is no point to running through hypotheticals, so i suppose i will face whatever comes as it comes. Thank you for your comment.
gg- This is a perfect example, I think, for me of the bizarre confusion this lifestyle causes me. You mentioned the vote and my head said: ick and my girl parts became moist. Sigh.
ReplyDelete