Goodbye June, Good Riddance

There’s been a dozen abortive attempts to write about June, and three deleted posts thus far. Particular for me it’s been a real test of my endurance and resilience because I feel like it nudges up against something I have as a personal challenge, but also because it’s something that you have to let digest before running off and making rash commentary.

And yet, a lot of what makes other dom writers valuable is not just talking about the minutiae of safe rope ties and punishment ideas, but spilling their guts about their relationships. From Ferns frustration that finding a good match is hard; to watching Bitchy Jones go from ecstasy to agony as things almost worked but fell apart; to D’s bitter-sweetness in finding what she wants with all the transitory limits that implies; or even the non blogger but frequent Fetlifer mod, Carolyn, sharing older person married life, these people help us decide how it works realistically.

For me,  June presented a chance to look at a place where I’m soft and delicate and downright fragile.

June was, for work reasons, extremely stressful. Unfortunately it was also an extremely bad month for Strong, for work reasons. This is to be expected- adults have crap months, and on the balance, 2013 has been pretty awesome. But, retrospectively, I can point to things that were mistakes and things that were made a bit more awkward by miss-communication.

There’s a lot of ache I take in stride and actually enjoy- post kinky sex ache, missing him ache, that goad from behind to work a little harder to make the space for him bigger and better. What is for me, a lot to swallow is the vulnerability of loving someone the way I’ve found myself loving, essentially getting my needs met from another person. It becomes from my general interactions with the opposite sex “Well, that was pleasantly diverting” to “ZOMG, I needs him and I needs him to be my sub NAOW.”

Being able to have someone actually do it for me also adds the possibility that they can stop. Realistically this is something that anyone who gets what they want has to deal with. But it means that my fussing an maternal streak kicks up into overdrive because there’s this massive internal pressure to protect this sudden preciousness.

So, when it’s bad for him, I have the overwhelming urge to follow Strong about trying to fix him, when actually, he’s much better suited to work on things himself. One of the things that first attracted my to him was that he was relatively self contained with his ability to take care of himself and I know logically that he just needs space and a reminder that I’m here and he’s allowed to be human. But I find myself trying to patch things that I shouldn’t out of some sort of bizarre impulse on my part.

Unfortunately, Strong’s first impulse is to try to coax me that if I get super awesome feelings from him, since no human can be on the ball 24/7 I should find backup partners and go forth and enjoy the world. This tends to lead in two directions: 1) “Who are you calling needy?! I can meet my own needs just fine! Aaugh!” and 2) “Why are you assuming any idiot can do what you do for me, oh my god, I don’t want to lose you, I have to think about all the people who are a waste of time now!”

This probably reflects the roles we each took in our relationship pretty well. For me, the worst thing is losing his submission to me, for him it’s me being unhappy and not getting what I want or need. Realistically, he’s made a commitment to stick like glue and my happiness is something I got good at internally manufacturing. So you end up, with a layer of externally applied stress pressing on you, in these odd little non-arguments. The kind where you’re actually on the same page and you both want nothing but the best, and you won’t even allow yourself to have a real argument but whoop- you’re so stressed out that something must be wrong, right?

That sort of thing happens to everyone, vanilla or kinky. Where it gets a lot more complicated is if you’re doing power exchange you’ve got a lot of ego tied up in your ability to fill your half of the equation. Whether it’s obeying or getting results when you want something to happen, that’s some of the mutual vulnerability of D/s.

On the other hand, it’s an exercise in self reliance. Comforting myself sometimes means taking a bit of a step back and trusting that Strong will live up to his namesake, and sure enough, he has. No fundamental rule was violated and if the biggest thing we argue about is making me happier, we aren’t exactly that unlucky as far as problems one could have.

4 thoughts on “Goodbye June, Good Riddance”

  1. there’s this massive internal pressure to protect this sudden preciousness.

    This doesn’t have much to do with the rest of your post (I hope July is going better for you than June did), but what you said about your drive to protect may have finally gotten me to understand why so many people in the scene are drawn to this idea of having a “proteector”. For the most part I still think mentoring and protecting are douchebag code for “I think I can talk you into putting out if I pretend I’m interested in your welfare”, but in the context of a relationship the idea of protecting someone can be this beautiful expression of how important they are to you. I actually really like the idea of being someone’s safe space, the place where they can be vulnerable.

    Reply
    • It’s funny you should mention that because it’s been one of the very odd little funhouse mirror like facets of my current relationship. We’re both fairly nurturing people, so there’s very much a back and forth about protectiveness, both the traditionally masculine (him rescuing me in games and getting mileage out of walking out with me and seeing the local creepers melt away) and me creating a safe harbour for him.of my own. But we both come from the background of being responsible adults in the face of parental whoopsies, so I think there’s more than kink going on.

      Reply

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