Ceasefire

 I said to my husband this morning, "I feel like I have been through something, and I feel like I have come out the other side of whatever that was". It's hard to explain it further because I am not sure myself how to put words around a feeling I had that I had been asked to be something that I simply cannot be.

I tried. I really did. I had been asked, as a form of marital therapy, to become more of the person who initiates; more independent and autonomous. I felt a big fat loser for failing to become the aggressor, the more self-directed person - until - I remembered something that Deity had said to me more than a few times...

'Can a kitten suddenly transform to a tiger?' (He didn't say exactly that but that's a fair example of the things he would say to me.)

To digress a little, he would also say, "can a table have thoughts or feelings?' but that's another story for another day.

My husband has been wonderful over the past few weeks sitting with me, over a late dinner, or together on the couch, listening, listening and listening some more.

He could see I was confused, discombobulated, far outside the state I love best, equanimity.

No-one's patience is eternal and eventually he started making observations and asking questions. 

"Do you think you are regretting some behaviours and decisions?"

"Do you think you are being fair in your assessments?"

Honestly, we navigated a lot of territory, so I can't remember all that much of what he said and what I said, except that I felt a whole bucketful of shame for being me; some great qualities, some not so great qualities, like us all, but as well, a sense of shame for wanting what I want; union.

Lately, I had realized that I was bashing my head against a brick wall, the way someone might do when the frustration overwhelms. I came to see that was a useless exercise. My head was hurting, and I wasn't getting the result I wanted. The brick wall was still a brick wall. My head had had no effect on the brick wall, and it never would. Something had to change but it wouldn't be the brick wall.

Then, this morning, as I lay there in the dark, silent, it occurred to me. The revelation was this. I am sick of trying to be better than I am right now. Sure, we can all grow, bit by bit, but I don't want to fixate on this right now. 

Instead, why not focus on skills - to be a better cook, a better writer, a better gardener. Why not focus on that?

The moment I did decide to do this, it was as if my mind did a rejig, the way a washing machine will rejig to get the clothes balanced, and I began to feel calm and settled. It was almost as if all the 'parts' inside my head breathed a sigh of relief at once and said, 'Thank God, she's going to give herself a break. She's going to just be herself. Put down your weapons. It's a ceasefire.'

For the past few nights my husband has come to bed at the same time as me and he quietly massages parts of my body - arms, lower back, shoulders. It's a piece of heaven for me. I fall asleep like this, and I stay asleep until morning.

I want and I need, his solidity. When I have that, I feel submissive down to my bones. I feel me and I feel authentic. I feel whole... I feel wonderful.

Needing more or needing less

I bought myself the book titled 'Healing Developmental Trauma' by Laurence Heller. In this book, it explains the various responses to early developmental trauma. From memory there are five categories, and I feel confident in saying that I fall into the 'attunement' category. I have a longing for connection, to be attuned to someone else.

This falls in line with my submissive nature, I believe, and with my desire for a very strong connection with my mate, perhaps stronger than I am going to find in a vanilla marriage. I felt this as a young woman, well, as a teenager actually. I saw 'The Story of O' and resonated on a number of levels. It was profoundly arousing to me, absolutely, but it also felt like a slice of heaven to imagine having that deep sense of intimacy with someone else.

I think my husband's developmental trauma fits into the Trust category and whilst I hadn't thought about it like this before, he struggles to be dependent on someone, the opposite of my response to early developmental trauma. He lost his mother as a teenager, it was a shock, and it makes sense that the unconscious mind should decide that he cannot afford to need someone who could be taken away at a moment's notice, again.

So, he does depend on me for consistent support and simply being here, but it would seem from that chapter, he doesn't want to be so dependent on me as a deep D/s structure would require. Depth, in and of itself, maybe is something that he somatically resists. This chapter made sense to me as I know him and as I know his history. In this way, there is only so far we can go in a D/s dynamic. 

His (undiagnosed) ADHD is a factor as well. He needs a lot of time alone. He would say he needs the time because he has a relentless pile of work to get through, but it's more than that. I have noticed this need for as long as I have known him and that's almost 50 years.

I took quite a bit of time to consider this. What exactly would be the point of insisting this not be so? Can I, frustrated with the weather, stop the sun from bearing down this February, or insist that the Rain Gods do their job?

I did a flow yoga class last evening, not especially good, I thought, until Shavasana, when you lay like a corpse and absorb the benefits of your practice. I was calm, enjoying the heat of my body starting to reduce, when I noticed that thoughts were almost gone and instead there was a white light in front of my closed eyes, a bit like fog.

There is a person in my life that I thought about, someone close to the end of their life whose face came before me, putting the fog in the background, sort of encircling the face. My mind seemed to stop, and then the face dissolved into the fog; gone. 

It reminded me of a thought I have often had; that all our little worries dissolve into the past when we are gone. The worries were some sort of illusion, the world didn't need them and wouldn't be hanging onto them. In that moment, it felt like the needing more had also dissolved. At least, I had a taste of it.