I've been thinking about why i only seem to post once every two weeks or so recently.  It's not that our dynamic is in trouble and dying a slow death.  Nor is it that we are blissfully happy and riding off into the sunset.

A lot of the usual things apply - we are busy, life is going a zillion miles an hour, far less time together alone....my mental and emotional energy are going elsewhere, by the time i sit down to write, my brain just shuts down.

I think the biggest thing is that we are discovering that we need to talk directly with each other more than ever.  Life has been putting up challenges and knocking us both back on our heels.  We are learning that the only way we can stay stable is by not hiding from each other - in different ways, but both of us are needing to open up even more.  By the time i start to write, it's already been thought out and said.

It is harder for me to be all that he wants when i'm ovewhelmed and very much harder to accept his suggestions (orders) with any grace when i'm stressed, but i'm really trying.  It's also harder for him to attend to all the details when he's overwhelmed and harder for him to not shut down when he's really stressed, but he is working at it also.  And it is like it has always been, when we can make our dynamic work better, everything else flows better also.  

We are still here.  Still not getting everything perfectly right, each of us falling down sometimes.  But also finding the sweet spot sometimes too.  

strange train of thought...

I read something a Domme wrote recently about her very difficult childhood and how her mother expectd her to fall in line and do what people told her to, etc., and how that was clearly so unlikely to happen.  The implication was that she has a dominant personality, is dominant (??), and this played a big part in her resiliance growing up.

This writer doesn't know me, doesn't know of me even - so couldn't possibly have been referring to me, of course.  But i heard it as an indictment anyhow.  The implication that came through for me was that submissiveness and submission are weak and undesireable and, by definition not strong and not acceptable ways to survive.

I guess i partly agree - i don't think that going along to get along is always a great strategy and i think it has to eat away at one's self respect and inner strength to kowtow all the time.  I survived my childhood (also not exactly rainbows and unicorns) not through dominance or rebelling but certainly with resiliance and strength and i guess independence.

I would love to discuss with D-types how they honestly feel about s-types sometime - a discussion beyond how they meet their sexual or relationship needs, beyond "i admire the strength it takes to submit," beyond yin-yang.

Because i honestly wonder how you hold in your mind both the unshakeable belief that you are better than she (he) is at all the things/so many of the things and also that she or he is not less than you in some way.  Or - conversely, and more to the point for me- how does one hold in mind both a belief that the other person deserves to lead/should be deferred to and also a belief in her or his (my) own self worth, value, competence,  etc...

By the nature of it, by definition, or by assumption dominance/dominant is higher, in charge, stronger, righter, more capable, pretty much most of the positive superlatives.   You would expect someone who was all that to have some disdain, or at least pity for the people who are lower, weaker, not so right, less capable, etc, etc...

Whether a domineering ass or with refined gentility, or somewhere in between, a D has to have confidence, a certain amount of arrogance; has to believe he or she is right, capable, and deserves to take charge.  I prefer my confidence with a certain amount of humility - but the fact is, by the naure of being D, they believe they ought to lead.

Us s-types, in at least one primary relationship in our lives - believe we shouldn't lead, that the other person is more something than us.   We look up to our D.  We look up to them, we respect them, we admire - even adore them.  We rely on them, often even for things we could absolutely handle ourselves, we defer to them, we submit to them (duh!)   What is there in all that for them to respect, admire, or even desire?

I couldn't explain how it all really works (and for us it really does) to anyone else.  I'm not sure my husband could answer these questions.  But the contradiction is there - at least for those like my husband who doesn't believe i am less than - and wants me to know that also - but does believe he is who and where he belongs in our dynamic, and that i am also.

I've always wondered...

What happens when M/s has to take a back seat?  When it just does because that is the way you (both He and me) have prioritized things -

I've always figured that it took a certain amount of resources to make M/s really feasible - not money resources, but time for sure, and the possibility of privacy - and also just enough spare mental energy on each side to put into the dynamic and do the work it needs - and i firmly believe it takes work on both sides.  I recognized that we had that - not a ton - but we had pockets of time, some privacy.  And we had the spare mental energy and emotional reserves.  We could do the work, risk the lows, weather the hard parts.  And it fed itself: the work and the risk made things better which led to more mental energy and emotioanl reserves.

Anyhow - those resources have all been reallocated for now.  They have to be - his choice - but also mine.  It is what is right.  But i have to figure out how to be with this.  How to be what he wants, what works, to be strong and still submissive, to be hopeful and not resentful, to hold onto the intimacy without the same connection, to keep it alive when we can't really feed it enough.