I am what I am

It occurs to me that my circumstances bear a close resemblance to the person who comes to realize that he or she is gay.  I remember distinctly a gay friend saying to me, 'I didn't choose to be gay. Life would have been easier if I was straight, but I'm not. I am what I am.'

I didn't choose to be kinky and life would have been a lot easier if I was not kinky. If I had embraced my kinkiness by my late 20s I would have known to marry a kinky man. But, I hadn't embraced my kinkiness. I knew I was different, but I didn't know that I had any options. I didn't know there were other kinky people in the world and in any case I was doing everything I knew to hide my thoughts and desires, assuming they were detestable, unwanted and laughable.

It hasn't been easy for my husband, who is straight by nature, to face my relevations. He does what he can for me but it doesn't come naturally to him. He didn't seek a kinky wife. He took me at my word, how I presented myself to him, and that included being an independent woman and someone who could take care of herself.

If he had known that my heart and soul desires to submit to a man and be his 'property' and that this involves a certain amount of work and responsibility of the 'owner', would he have married me? I doubt he would have married me because it would have been very confronting and not something that made any sense to him at all. Over the years I have many times overheard him say to someone that the marriage works well because he has his interests and I have mine and we don't get in each other's way. This is what he wants, to be free to pursue his life at his own pace, such that his perfectionist personality may roam free.

I think it is worth saying that I take no issue with the long hours he wishes to work on two provisos. I want to enjoy some time with him. This really is up to me and he has always considered me to be "the social secretary", so if I'll arrange it he'll do it, generally. I understand the mechanics of this and that getting some fun into life is my responsibility.

The second proviso is that I need to experience dominance. I need to have my body 'used' and I mean that. I need to feel the physical dominance of my body. I don't know why I need this. I only know that I feel very tense and upset when this does not happen.

I seek to feel a man's desire for this outcome and to lovingly dominate me across the board - how I speak, what I achieve, what exercise I do, what I eat. I'd love to have him take an interest in these matters as part of the concept that I am his property, because in this way the whole of my life would provide opportunities to feel the (sensible) control that I crave. I do recognize, however, that this is asking for the moon given the circumstances of my life and that I must accept responsibility for these aspects of my life. For example, he's been encouraging me to get back to my writing and to establish a daily focus there, but I've been floundering around with it fairly aimlessly for the past several weeks without establishing workable routines. I know I am someone who can require  deadlines, expectations of outcomes, rules!

Since we will have more scope now to be alone and hopefully to enjoy one anothers company, there's a chance that we can rekindle the great times we had a few years ago when he seemed pretty comfortable with embracing my kinky nature into our lives in a relatively all embracing way. What has confused me is that he was so accommodating then, whereas now he seems quite removed most of the time. Perhaps 'burn out' and preoccupations are really the issue. He certainly says that it is not to do with me and that I shouldn't take it personally. Hard to do, alas.

I can keep trying to work the situation but so far there is little advance. I gave him Different Loving to read and underlined the key sentences so that he didn't need to spend too much time getting to the key factors of the relationship that I'd love him to consider, but that was months ago and he never opened it. I send him emails giving him ideas and topics to open discussion. I gave him the link to my tumblr which explains what I want through words and images. He reads there, noted to me that I am more direct in what I write there now, but still I see virtually no forward momentum on his part.

The strategies I use - the physical things I do to myself, and my rules that were devised for me, along with the rules I devised for myself - are my way of coping with my life situation. To have them removed for a two week period of time has taken me to the brink. This punishment has been so severe that it has left me with no way to cope. Intellectually, I know that the time period is almost expired, but psychologically, right now, I am fragile. The toy inside me feels frightened and confused.

Yet, I know now like I never knew ever before that I need the dominance, the rules and the rituals. They are like batteries for my soul and my mood and without those batteries I'm not functioning too well. I feel lost in limbo, aware that the vanilla world is not for me but unsure of my place in this other world now. Of one thing I am sure. I am what I am.