Introspection

The end of the year has me feeling nostalgic and the changes in relationships around me (and including my own) has me in an introspective mood. I'm a poly/kinky/dominant male, so this will obviously be from that perspective.

This has been a year of complete and total change and fluctuation for me. I hit the lowest of personal lows, but also had some incredible highs. I started out the year in a power exchange relationship with my wonderful partner, lost it (through my own bad decisions and probable minor depression), and now am working to regain it. I had relationships begin to blossom, then stall out. I went to some of the most amazing events and had  the most growth in my kink skills I have ever experienced to this point.

I go into the new year with new starts, second chances and a regained sense of self that has been missing for the better part of a year. The latter, I know, is the biggest contributor to the former ones. I am also blessed with the most supportive partner anyone could ask for. Her belief in me and continued insistence of my desirability have helped build the confidence to put myself out there and pursue new relationships and new opportunities.

Through all the hardships of the year the core of our relationship never left, but it was tested and battered by the storm of emotions around it. The core of all my relationships is trust, honesty and love. In the past I had a relationship that was tested and did not survive the failings of those things. I don't believe even for a second that the relationship failing was all my fault, but I should have done things differently. I betrayed a trust and was dishonest, but did my best to apologize, share my transgressions and try to rebuild the trust. Unfortunately both of us had different ideas about the relationship we wanted and the trust was unable to be restored. The resolution of the formal part of that relationship (even though it was mutually wanted) ended up testing me more than I thought it would. It left me emotionally raw, confidence shaken and wary to trust my own perceptions.

I’m thankful for and to the group of friends I have. The core holds for them as well. Honesty and trust are key for a strong friendship. Those we don’t trust are merely acquaintances. And I do love all my friends. Not romantically for all of them, but I don't personally think you can truly trust someone without opening yourself up to them and loving them in some way. These friends have been there for me. They have shared in these experiences and helped in their way when possible. As I (we) do for them. Some of them have been there from the beginning, some are new, but they all have earned our trust.

I have recently been given another chance to renew the power exchange dynamic with my partner. It is a very big leap of faith for her, and for me as well. I have failed and made so many mistakes in the past. But through communication and holding to that core our romantic relationship is stronger than ever and has enabled us to have the courage to try again. We are both fortunate to be experiencing new relationships and exploring the strengthening and growth of others. Communication is important, but you have to trust that your partner is communicating honestly and with love.

I am most likely not any person's idea of a picture of a dominant. I'm not tall, dark and handsome. I am not physically imposing, don't tend to be outgoing and don't talk at length about the things I am skilled in. I'm sadistic, but don't give off the obvious air of danger that most of these prototypical dominants do. I am unassuming, quiet and reserved. However, I do know myself well and what my strengths and failings are. I am honest, almost brutally so. I give absolute trust to a few people and they know they can trust me. I am slow to trust completely, but when I do trust you it is nearly absolute. I love. Much and generally openly. I have failings as well, and am open about those too.

The week of Christmas was a microcosm of the emotional storm I went through over the course of the year. Because of her absence during the holiday, I had an emotional low so deep it was physically evident to my friends. I also had some very intense and incredible times with new and evolving relationships. These moments served as staccato beats that only emphasized the depth of my love and desires for her. Our intimacy allows us to share ourselves with others even in the midst of redesigning and rebuilding our dynamic. Some of our friends were in need of openness and love and we opened our home, hearth and dungeon to them. We didn't even need to ask each other if it was an imposition (although we did, because, communication duh), it was the right and good thing to do. You help when you can, and we take great comfort and joy in being able to do so for those dear to us.

We communicate a lot. We make mistakes. We have miscommunications, but the fact that we absolutely trust each other and the knowledge that we will own up to our mistakes only strengthens the bonds we have. So even though the last year has been a roller coaster of record-setting proportions, I am more optimistic about the coming year than I have been about nearly any other in my life.

Blargh on the holidays

Dreary days. It has been some really odd weather the last few days. Overcast and no sun for almost 2 weeks now. It is really starting to wear on me, I think. It has added a dark tint to thoughts and thinking about the upcoming holiday.

This one is going to be tough. My girl is going back to her mom's for a week over the holiday and I have my kids off and on during that time taking them back to their mother on Christmas Day. My thoughts have gotten melancholy especially when I think of last Christmas and how badly that experience affected me and our relationship. Having had a lot of time pass since then, I think there was a great combination of things that combined to worsen my thoughts on it.

The fact that I had okayed an interaction that was enjoyed, I was more than fine with. But when I found out things were done that I had not been informed would happen I was upset. They were the parts she was surprised were approved and almost ended the scene over but continued because she assumed I had consented to them. I was angry they had been done without my being informed as well. I probably would have given my okay if I had known about them, but the fact they were done and were probably the most physically dangerous aspect of the scene really upset me. I think the piece that really did the most damage, however, was her defense of the act as being okay because she trusted him, nothing bad had happened, and that he didn't okay it because he probably assumed that I would infer it would happen because he uses it in those types of scenes. That part really stabbed me in the gut. Not the trust, because I can't control who she trusts, but the fact she defended him and saw nothing really wrong even though he had gone against my wishes and broken the trust that I had given him by me as her dominant.

At the time it was impactful, but I think the undercurrent of that continued on and partly undermined the D/s relationship going forward. It took looking back this week to see just how much of an impact that had on me and our relationship. I lost something pretty important that I am struggling to pin down. Partly trust that my wishes were paramount, partly the continued blind trust she puts in him even though he has broken my trust several times in the past, or at least stretched it to as far as it could be stretched. And a big part of it was excusing the behavior and defending him because "that's the way he is."

So these thoughts on top of spending the holiday alone, Christmas gifts getting delivered to the wrong address and possibly not being found, the weather, an important (to me) piece of jewelry breaking, and the lack of knowledge I have about her plans for the next week are combining to create quite a negative thought pattern. I would say at least I have a break from work coming up, but that just means I will have less things to keep me busy and distracted.

Science, I could really use a night of beating someone.

Moving day

This weekend was moving weekend. We spent the whole day on Friday combining two apartments into one house. It is definitely something to be excited about, but was a lot of hard work. Then the unpacking began and even more work.

It became quickly evident that we weren't in sync on how to go about this task. I wanted to get the whole thing done relatively quickly. We have a few busy weekends ahead of us and house guests coming in a few weeks. She was not nearly as pressed to get everything done. We were both feeling a bit of stress about all the changes, and she has many more than I to adjust to. When I am stressed working with my hands and getting tasks done helps me stay focused and lets my mind just work through the stress. She wants to just shut down. There have been a lot of little conflicts and differences of opinion which just feeds her mental state.

I've really been feeling the lack of power exchange and knew that had we had it there would have been much more acceptance of things and her mental mood would have been helped some at least. We are still working at things and introducing little rituals and things into our everyday lives that I hope will become part of the foundation for what grounds us into our relationship. I thought about introducing the idea of moving into D/s for the weekend to try to help, but it seemed to me like her mood was off and it wouldn't have been effective. Things came a bit to a head last night and we had a discussion about the weekend and what was going on with our headspaces and the concerns and thoughts we were having because neither of us was where we wanted to be. I brought up the thought of adding it in and she agreed that it would probably not be helpful and could make things worse at this point in time. I knew this was correct, but it still took some effort to not press a bit and try it to at least try it. I knew that if it didn't work it would set us back even farther and would require exponentially more effort to rebuild again, if at all. Sometimes it is better to use restraint rather that just jumping forward with what you want to do.

I'm hopeful that once we get things mostly settled and get into more routine things, we can do some focus on us. Do some good solid kink time and work on adding in more power exchange. At the very least getting out the rope and working on our connection with that some more.

Structure v. Love

"People have to make a choice over what comes first. The problem is when one person has one set of priorities different from the other."-Flagg

I have started listening to archives of the Erotic Awakenings Podcast on the drive in to work since so little of the talk radio in the morning appeals anymore. I am still listening to the very early episodes, and in Episode 10 they are talking with Flagg about many different things, but one part is contracts and power exchange and he said the above quote in the discussion. What is the priority for both parties? When push comes to shove and there is a conflict, will love be chosen over structure or will structure be chosen? His argument and one that I agree with, mostly, is that if one partner values structure over love they will see the actions of the other party as conflicting with what they desire. And vice versa.

I agree with this, but what happens when it begins one way, and it shifts? This is what happened to me over the last year as I began having greater and stronger feelings of love for my girl. She still desired structure and I wanted to give it, but there were so many things outside of our relationship that were taking vast amounts of time and energy to deal with I was uanble to give it the focus that was required. So after a few discussion and finally admitting to myself I was not able to give the power exchange aspects of our relationship the time and attention it needed, I chose to give the focus to our romantic relationship. It was incredibly painful for both of us, and it is something we are still recovering from and may not recover fully. But, I still think it was the best decision at the time and would have resulted in more hurt, anger and disappointment had we not taken a step back.

Things have started to come back in bits and pieces. We have had several successful evenings of power exchange that I am confident we have both enjoyed, appreciated and needed. We are not to the point of going into 24/7 and won't be for a very long time yet, but the interactions don't feel forced and feel like we are slipping back into our "natural" roles. Time will tell if it continues, but there is hope and it is more than fleeting for the first time in a very long while.

Coffee is life

Saturday morning without the kids around is a time for relaxing and often cuddles. I had woken up early like I usually do, or at least lately. I had gone out to get on the computer to kill time until my girl woke up for the day and she had woken up shortly after I. She was not ready to get up for the day and was going back to bed. I went with her to choose and get her back to sleep.

We had been laying there got a few minutes and she was headed back to sleep. She sat up suddenly and got out of bed, surprising me. I was unsure what was going on as she usually heads to sleep and there was nothing urgent. Shortly after I heard the coffee pot getting filled. She hadn't gotten my coffee ready the night before because we were planning on sleeping in. Coffee is her service that she always does for me regardless of if we are in an active power exchange. She gets actively upset if I make the coffee unless she is ill or incapacitated in some way. I have even noticed she gets a little upset if I have prepared my coffee pot for the next morning and she arrives unexpectedly to stay over.

Thinking of this and being so concerned about making sure I had this little comfort waiting for me is one of the things that makes this girl so special. And so loved. And one of the reasons I am striving to restore a dynamic for us so she can feel comfortable in service, or more appropriately, so I am more comfortable in receiving it.

The journey continues

Have had a really good couple of weeks. Some legal matters have been finalized (yay for being legally unmarried, finally!) and preparations are underway to move into a new house with my girl. It will be nice to just have a home to go to, rather than spending time going between two different places.

Have had some good progress on the return of power exchange to our relationship. We have had 4 nights of D/s in the last two weeks, and bits of it are seeping over even into the days we aren't "officially" doing it. It feels good to be back to feeling more like myself. And the interactions feel more "normal" than a traditional relationship. It always feels a bit like we are trying to force it if we are actively trying to make sure there is no power dynamic going on in our decision making and discussions of mundane items.

Been smoking more cigars, which is nice, but I keep thinking I should slow it down a little bit. It is an expensive habit and feels almost too indulgent. Not a lot of kink going on, but we have done a bit of rough body stuff. (And hair pulling, choking and biting are always a part of our love life.) Discovered a fondness for kicking in my girl. Gets her very wet. My leather shoes have a very nice lustre to them the day after they have been tongue washed following a good round of cunt-kicking. :)

You wouldn't like me when I'm angry...

The other day I had a rather great milestone that I had been looking forward to occurring for the better part of 6 months. I signed a lease with my wonderful partner and for the first time in our 2 year relationship (nearly one as primary partners) we will truly be living under the same roof. This has come about despite misgivings, questions by some friends, and the fact that I have children from a previous relationship that will be spending a significant amount of time with us and she never wants to have or ever imagined she would be living with kids. I was a little bit nervous, but mainly excited about the new place that we had found and at one point thought we had lost to another renter.

When that was finished we cooked a nice meal at her place and enjoyed a couple bottles of wine while eating and then I had an online meeting for a little over an hour. We started into a third bottle and began discussing some things...her upcoming date with a new guy she was excited about, rope group, and then for some reason I brought up our lased D/s and the thoughts on it coming back and the work we had been doing on it. I was getting frustrated because it seemed like the conversation was going in circles and was just a rehash of the same discussion we had the last couple times. This was partly due, I'm sure to some clouded thinking because after three bottles of wine split between two people in a 2 hour span who is really thinking clearly? Then it was like someone flipped a switch and I was done. I was angry at the frustration, angry that the conversation was going nowhere and angry that suddenly I felt like I had gone from pleasantly drinking to having had too much and intoxicated. Blargh. It was so bad, I got up walked into the bedroom and announced I was going to bed. I responded to her timid "Do you want me to join you?" with an of course if you want...but I knew I was just going to be asleep in very short order.

Slept restlessly and awoke after about 5 hours of sleep at a little after 4 in the morning and was furious. Angry at myself. Still angry about the inability to grasp a thought or idea that she thought was over-explained and should be brilliantly clear and I couldn't grasp. Angry that this thing which I could see and seemingly understand could not be grasped in a quantifiable way. I was angry that I couldn't get back to sleep. Angry at myself for my mixed feelings about my partner's date and the message she received that it might be cancelled. Angry that I had been awoken by my pillow being pulled on even though she was completely asleep.

I got out of bed after 2 hours of laying there getting angrier and angrier because of the negative feedback loop.  I took a shower, drank some coffee and began getting dressed. I stopped and tried to figure out what was really making me so angry. And realized that this was not helping. We have a little ritual. Not a big one, not a protocol, not D/s. I wake before her nearly always. When my alarm goes off, it wakes her up and she cuddles into my side and rests her head on my shoulder and I just snuggle her close until her alarm goes off about a half hour later to wake her up. When it is just the two of us, we rarely miss it unless one of us needs to be at work incredibly early, and even then we try to do it for at least a few minutes. And here I was out of bed and already showered and had shut my alarm off before it sounded. And I was still angry. She woke up when her alarm went off and realized I wasn't in bed. Knowing something was wrong she asked where I went. I crawled back into bed and held her but she could tell I was tense.

I tried to explain and in free flowing spurts told her how I was angry and everything seemed to be adding to it. I just held her and stroked her hair while I did this. It helped. It was the switch that allowed me to begin getting past the anger and move on. I wasn't myself when I left for work, but I was out of the negative loop and getting back to it. Even though she just listened, it was more than enough. Is it any wonder I love her more than any other?

I can't wait to truly start our life together.