Dominance

From time to time, I have read about a woman in a D/s style relationship who has lost her dominant, as in he died, or once or twice I have read about a dominant who has lost his submissive. I remember once telling a dominant friend that I was a little fearful of the dynamic because of the fear of just that - my dominant dying before I did, and the huge hole I imagined that would create in my life.

My husband, who has been diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer isn't your typical cancer patient and he is doing so many of the right things. He honors his intuition, is deeply engaged with the healing process, has released many of his repressed emotions through hypnosis and floods his body with positive emotions. He must go for treatment each month and each and every time he is praised for his attitude. They see him as one out of the box and wish all their other patients had such a strong life force. So, most of the time, I am engaged with his strong life force and certainly not someone who has dug himself a pit of negativity or any sort of resignation.

It's part and parcel of the way we have lived together, for nearly 50 years now. Something very difficult happens, maybe an investment goes pear shaped, or a child or a grandchild has an issue. He is subject to the normal ups and downs of this but ultimately, he rallies. He says something akin to, 'don't worry, we will rise from the ashes and rebuild'. It's our whole lives together that has been a training ground, like a dharma strengthening of character, so that when a heavy-duty dose of courage is required, one is conditioned in that virtue.

I think about our dynamic as one where, as Brene Brown says, it's not 50:50. Sometimes, I might be a 10 and sometimes I am a 90. When he is caught up in fear, letting his imagination run a bit wild, I feel that I can't and shouldn't rely on him for strength or leadership.

This happened late last night when I could see his imagination running wild, and without information that allowed me to decipher whether what he was saying was a major concern, or not, I knew that the best thing for me was to go to silence. This morning provided greater informed detail, and the issue brings with it, a need for careful monitoring, possibly a second opinion, but nothing that seems abnormal under the circumstances. 

My daughter in law, who is carrying their first child, who needs to get married fast (there is an Asian mother to satisfy) and who needs to find a house fast before the baby arrives, said to me on the weekend that she is close to overwhelm. I get it.

In my ideal fantasy world, it's the Dominant one who settles me down, assures me everything will be all right, and enables me to feel safe and secure. I read this blog, I don't particularly want to say which one because it is sorta extreme, and he has the talent of allowing his wife (I am assuming from his writing) to feel so very secure in his dominance. 

She knows the rules. She knows the expectations. She understands that the rules are for her good, and for the good of the marriage and the family. He punishes when she deviates from the good order his rules impose and by all accounts, she responds to the punishment well in that she seems perfectly happy more or less immediately thereafter. 

Of course, it's him writing, not her, and so maybe, like me, she has to sometimes settle him; put things into perspective; give her reading of the things that happen in their lives. Maybe he gets dispirited, or negative, or over-worrying and she has to be the one to pick up the pieces for him on a given day. It's the tango that all couples dance, isn't it?!

In my fantasy world, in my aroused state, it's all so completely set in stone, like in the blog. I read that blog because I like that world he writes about, where he has created this fantastic sense of safety and calm, and putting things right should they go off course. She doesn't, or has learned not to, let's say, argue the point but rather accepts that her ass will bear the brunt of her misalignments of his vision for them. It's just life, their life; the way things go in that household.

For a time, it was like that for us. Pretty close. My husband got sick, and things changed, and I remember how unsafe I felt. That's when I went looking for other ways to feel calm - meditation and breathing techniques and self-compassion exercises and such. 

Here's the thing: For me, nothing cures a sense of anxiety, of worry, or overwhelm, faster than experiencing dominance. It's an act of kindness really, though maybe not in the moment. It makes me feel safe, secure, calm, at peace. It is, I have to think, some deeply invested sense of femininity left over from the stone age that lodged in my body long before there was a body. It's the only explanation.

Anxiety

I am most grateful to have a place by the sea where I can go, sometimes alone, as I am now. I acknowledge that I can become anxious and the opportunity to be alone, and to garden at will, is both comforting and healing for me.

It's well known now that anxious types tend to have had a rather chaotic childhood, and then repeat that sort of situation in the partner they choose. That's certainly what happened to me. So, with plenty of drama and emotional expression swirling around me, my anxiety will rise. 

There comes a point when I know that, rather than just a yoga class or two, I need silence. I need to be completely alone. 

Everything becomes very simple. I buy the simplest of ingredients - fish for my dinners, salad, a potato or two; granola, yoghurt and dates for breakfast, and maybe something like a can of sardines on toast for lunch; a couple of apples.

I don't listen or watch media, although I did bring my lap top, and I felt moved this morning to try to figure out my state by writing something about my inner world.

Which leads me to say that anxiety is a somatic experience, primarily, and so one does need to relate to the body as soon as possible. For me, it's a fluttering feeling, between the neck and the heart; like butterflies all aflutter; restless.

Dr Russ (the Anxiety Doctor) encourages the anxious person, himself included, to look around for signs of safety. Here, they are abundant. The trees, the wind, the view of the sea which I created with much hard work and ingenuity, the birds, the plants in flower, all remind me I am quite safe.

That leads me to say that recently I have felt unsafe; possibly quite erroneously, but not entirely. It can be hard to get across to my husband some ideas that most people take for granted. I don't know why this is so, but perhaps it is his age; the era in which he grew up. I tried to explain that, given his cancer diagnosis, it seemed especially important that I know what to do in his absence. Where were the documents of our lives? What did we have, what did we owe? 

Being the very strong man that he is, I think he has it in mind to be here for a long time, so it doesn't seem something that needs to be on the top of his list. But I hear my friends say that they accompany their husbands to the accountant, and I think to myself, do we even have an accountant?

Whilst my husband can manage risk and is actually as comfortable with high risk as anyone out there, I am, and was brought up to be, a 'term deposit' girl, as was my brother. So, the investments that make up our eventual inheritance are as safe as investments can be. This makes us feel safe.

I think what I am trying to say is that everyone has a different level of sense of safety, in built. I happened to marry a man who can ride the financial roller coaster without a sense of alarm, whereas for me, it makes me pretty queasy.

I do wonder, something not talked about a lot when it comes to anxiety, if we anxious types look for a sense of control; feel centered when there is a sense of control about things. I have noticed myself being triggered by a friend whose husband is all about a sense of safety, which has enabled them in these later years to have more fun. The finances are not extensive, but they are sorted.

There's some sort of lesson here for me - some sort of letting go into the unknown. At the same time, it's the sense of personal agency in the past year or so that feels so good; an individual sense of agency where I can make some decisions for myself that feels so good to me.

I completely agree with the belief that before there can be a power dynamic there must be agreement, and it has to be said that my husband and I don't, and have never, come into agreement about how much risk one should take. Some marriage experts believe that there are areas of life in which a couple will never come into agreement. Maybe that's the lesson: to accept that, on this issue, we will continue to hold our own opinions, and we each need to respect the other's point of view.

Hunter types

 I see an acupuncturist around ten times a year and so over the last couple of years we have come to know quite a lot about one another. I have no expectation the work will be done in silence and it's surprising to me that this works for me because when I initially went to see him, that's the way I expected it to go. I prefer silence as a general rule.

We both like one another, that's clear. Although we come from very different places (he's American Chinese) there's so much we find to talk about.

Bit by bit, I revealed that I was experiencing some sort of transition stage in my life that was a struggle for me. This was no surprise to him since my pulses suggested a blockage (an emotional blockage) in the spleen/kidney/gall bladder area. He had said it so often and focused my acupuncture for those areas of my body that it just made sense to explain more about the confusion I was experiencing.

Interesting, that yesterday he told me the story - again - of one client who had transitioned from her banking profession to the healing world and was enjoying her studies. It was a subtle nudge to get creative about the next (final) stage of my life.

I am no stranger to the visualization of sitting on a mountain and looking onto an endless vista - a visualization he asked me to do at the end of our session last month. There's close to nothing another person can do for you in these transition stages of one's life. I know this, although I also know that the empathic practitioner will attempt to do so. The answer will come from deep within when it is ready to come and when there is but one and only one answer.

It was probably best that I didn't know the situation of my life at the time, over the many years, as I do now. After a great deal of investigation, I now understand that, without doubt, my husband has what some people refer to as a Hunter brain, and other people refer to as ADHD.

I mean, really, that's not news. It was a likely diagnosis in my mind for many many years, but I hadn't quite embraced it as fact; the repercussions of that kind of brain on a marriage, and in my marriage, being a woman with an innate slave mentality. 

If there is one characteristic required of a Dominant in a consensual power exchange, I would say it is consistency. Yet, for the ADHD brain, consistency is maybe the hardest thing. This kind of brain with inadequate dopamine receptors, requires spontaneity and ways to kick up the dopamine supply - in my husband's case, that would be news about the wider world, Trump, Putin, the Ukraine, the entire economic system of the world, information about the body.  Each article or video gives him a little hit of dopamine. Consistency, say, of addressing our Agreement, does not do this for him. His brain is expert at hyperfocus on the issue at hand, primarily a business issue.

In my reading, deep research into his condition, time for Hunter types is clearly a very big difference to the neurotypical brain, sometimes called the Farmer brain. We set up a weekend whereby on Fridays I ask for a couple of things to happen sometime over the weekend. But it didn't take long to realize that this a timeframe that offered too much variability and opportunity for the whole thing to be missed.

The only way this was going to work was for me to take the responsibility of making it work - looking out for a good time and suggesting it, or even saying something along the lines of 'would 7 pm this evening work for you?' and then reminding him at 7 pm that we had an appointment at this time.

Would I love it if I didn't have to do this? Sure. But what I am learning is that this is the only way a D/s exchange is going to be consistently present in our lives. Maybe, just maybe, it can be something else over time, but I certainly cannot rely on this. 

And only time will tell, if he actually wants this at all, if it is the ADHD condition that is preventing success, or if it is that combined with his prostate cancer and treatment, which means that his sexual desire has come to an end.

Two of my sons have a diagnosis of ADHD, but they were both gifted with a delightful sense of humor. It didn't weigh at all heavily on them in the main, mostly, I think, because they didn't fight the diagnosis in any way and played to their strengths. It's the denial that can make life tough, rather than seeing how immensely creative this type of brain is; the huge gifts this brain brings with it. People of my husband's age, of course, were not treated well, and this early conditioning is difficult to fix.

The therapist we have both spoken to, separately, being at a loss, did suggest to me that I open a dialogue with my husband about getting my needs met elsewhere. He was happy to help me through this situation. I can't see it myself. I think it would be endlessly hurtful and thus would lead to unhappiness and sorrow. I just can't go down that road; not after a lifetime together.

Do I sometimes say to myself, 'This is too hard, I give up'. Of course, I do. It's a mismatch of gigantic proportions. But then, there's the love, you see. I can't deny the love. And so, I go on.

Active Submission

 I heard a woman say on a podcast that she realized she was submissive when she identified with the submissive in all the BDSM/D/s/kink stories she read. It's the same for me and was that way from an early age.

In my marriage, I do, and always have provided service. I do this willingly enough. I am a pretty good cook. There are no complaints. I whizz through laundry and like to keep a house clean and organized. So, that's just the way I am.

When I was talking through a little detail for a written Contract with Daniel, a kink educator, he suggested I come up with something else, something more meaningful for the dynamic. So, we settled on me turning down the bed; that is, taking off all the cushions and extra pillows and turning down the bed. It's a small thing but I like to do it and he notices that I do it, what it represents, and he appreciates it.

Our lives didn't allow for a lot more add on, since pretty much all the service kind of activities of our lives are done by me anyway, and I am quick to help him with, say, stacking wood in winter, or gathering leaves in Autumn. This is especially the case now that he is on a chemotherapy type of drug which does sap his energy.

As I listened to the podcast of the 24/7 dynamic couple, I realized that we do pretty much all that they do on a day-to-day level. I am given tasks to do that I do well, and that he doesn't want to do or feels I could do better. We have been together so long that this developed into a groove that requires no discussion. 

I will ask his opinion about certain decisions and keep him abreast of matters but not always, because he doesn't necessarily want to know. Sometimes, he will say, 'why are you asking me this?' in a way that means, 'that is your province and I trust you to make the right selection.'

Daniel thought my husband should have a tracker on me. We both didn't see that as a form of communication that was ideal for us. I say when I am leaving the house and roughly when I am coming back. I might say, 'I am going to the supermarket' or I am going to Book Club'. I don't ask permission for these things, but I do inform. If I wanted to go on a girls' weekend or to a retreat, that I would definitely seek his approval to do.

Last night, I reached for some Kit Kat (a chocolate bar in Australia) and he asked me, 'Did you ask permission?' I smiled and said, 'May I please have permission for some more, Sir?' and he broke off a bar and handed it to me. I love this sort of thing.

This past weekend, he created a Friday rule too. That made my heart sing. I have to ask for something each Friday which becomes a weekend activity. He added in, 'If you don't come and ask, you'll get a beating. Got it?' I did get it. I have a love/hate relationship with spanking. I really do remind myself to be careful what I wish for.

Which leads me to say, it's just not enough for me to have this undercurrent of roles in our lives. I like to feel it more, in a literal sense. He knows this, and also that the feeling he provides, when he chooses to provide it, can test me.

My awareness of my own Self only grows, and I was aware on the weekend that I overreacted to being spanked hard and fast such that I couldn't get on top of my breathing. For the first time ever, I swallowed in some weird way where a sharp pain travelled up into my nose and I said, 'please, I need to stand'. He thought I was just being a whimp and said, 'no' but I said, 'please, it's my nose'. 

He consoled me and that should have been the end of the story, but my sense of Self, or ego, or my uppitiness or whatever you want to call it, got in the way and I became wordy and critical. So, he did too. 

This led to a waste of time back and forth which only ended when I said, 'Okay, I know I am bad.' 'Get that idea out of your head. You are not bad,' he said. This led me to say, 'I'm sorry. I overreacted.'

That night as we cuddled together just before sleep I said, 'I am sorry for today. You should probably spank me for it.' (This isn't a habit of mine - this is progress!)

He said, 'I appreciate your words, cindi.' We fell asleep in one another's arms.

I slept all night, but I was aware of my ass, in a way only a submissive can be. I woke aware of a sense of gentleness and calmness within me.

I know I need a period of training to get back into the lifestyle in a complete way and I do consider what happened just a bleep; not a setback, just me fully accepting my rightful place and associated behavior again. 

In another circumstance this past weekend I said to him, 'Please, Sir, could you go slower' and he liked that; made note to me that it was a good thing I did that.

So, I think this is a go-er for us, quite suddenly. I think we can build momentum from here. I am miles more aware and willing to be an active submissive now and for us, that's a good thing.

Transformational periods

 I have been listening on Audible to the novel 'Long Island', which I think of as being about 'middle age'. It occurred to me that in my lifetime 'middle age' has changed. It was once thought of as in the 40s of one's life, whereas I think of it now as being later, in the 50s or even in the 60s. We remain more active and fitter for longer now, we have our children later, so I think it is all combined with living in a different world.

So, in the novel Eilish and Tony, in the throes of bringing up their children, of living very close to Tony's family, and he busy working away at his plumbing business, and Eilish working as a bookkeeper, there's a single line that reveals that they have stopped making love.

The problem set up on page 1 is that Tony has fathered a child of another woman, and the Irish husband, knowing full well it is not his (so they stopped making love too...) is planning to put the baby on Tony and Eilish's doorstep.

Eilish refuses to deal with the problem and heads off to Ireland to visit her mother for the first time in twenty years, and the way is now paved for her to have an affair with a man she once thought she might marry.

Toibin, I believe, is interested in posing an event, and then seeing what transpires, and indeed he successfully showed how the ball rolled away in an unstoppable way.

But I am interested in what started the ball rolling and it's not the man coming to tell Eilish about the infidelity. It's the fact that they stopped making love. That set it all off, most probably.

It's in 'middle age', whatever those words mean to you, when the needs of people can sometimes not be in line. It was pillow talk, this novel, last night and my husband offered, 'but in middle age the man is still busy with his work and achievement and responsibilities, and the woman is not.'

I countered, 'Eilish was working. Many women are working. Yet it's almost scientifically proven that it's women who want to reinvigorate their sex lives in middle age, it's the men who are too preoccupied to give it the necessary attention.'

But I heard him. I think he is onto something. In middle age, maybe that's a time when a man is feeling burdened by responsibility and legacy and getting it all right to pass money onto the children, when health issues may crop up.

Maybe middle age for a woman is a time of transformation; a time when she doesn't so much want to reinvent the world, or even herself, but her marriage; looking for something more heavenly, more divine, more sacred; like the love being a river that enables the love of the whole world to flow through it. This is experiential for me, by no means all the time. However, once you have tasted it, you never forget it, and maybe, just maybe this is what women intuitively know is possible.

I heard a man speak about his new woman recently in an unusual way and I think he is an unusual man for doing so. He said something like, 'you are a powerful woman, and you don't need a man, don't need men. So, to love you is not to control you. I am like the banks of the river, and you are the river that flows between the banks. And yet, you want to surrender to the maleness in me and I am trying to figure out how exactly to do this, to hold you in this way. It's not something our mothers and fathers taught us, and I am still working this all out.'

D/s has never been a perfect fit for me and perhaps that's why I am thought of as needing it "in a particular way". It's the powerful piece and the wanting to surrender piece and how they marry one another. At the end of the day, I think of it as a mutual devotion. Since I have thought of it in this way, I have felt much more at peace.

Sexual disparities

 I have been reading a little on a site for people who are partnered with, and for people who identify as, asexual. There are really sad cases there where someone is married to a person who fulfills them in various ways - intellectually, for example - but does not fulfil them in a sexual way because that person has very little interest in a sexual life. In some cases, the married couple hadn't had sex for many years.

In all the cases I read through on the site, it was the women who were incredibly sad about this situation and the men who felt pressure to have sex. Obviously, this is only anecdotal and not evidence based.

My thoughts about asexuality are only just now formulating as I read on the subject. I used to think that it might be depression that led someone to feel that sex was an undesirable thing. Maybe, it was a body image problem, or anxiety or feeling overloaded or called upon to have sex when maybe they really wanted to explore some other interest; maybe they wanted to cycle or to work longer hours.

I am starting to wonder if just in the same way a person's sexual orientation is to be attracted to the opposite sex or the same sex, or to want to be in a monogamous situation or a polyamory situation, some people may want intense sexual experiences as part of their dynamic and some people would be happy to have sex, say, a couple of times a year.

Maybe, some people are content to have sex utilizing maybe three different positions and some people continue to explore different ways to have sex for a lifetime.

Maybe, quite naturally, some people want to have sex as 'equals' whereas others want to feel in control, whilst others again want to cede control to the other.

In my own case, my sexuality has been constant in terms of my fantasy life and what turns me on. The difference as I grow older is that the thoughts relate to ownership in a wholly comprehensive way. There's precious little I wouldn't do to express the ownership and in return I want to be that cherished and adored 'slave' who gets to feel owned by virtue of the instructions of an 'obedience is required' 'owner'.

There's a great deal of adoration in these scenarios that goes both ways. He's fulfilling my deepest desires, and I am fulfilling his deepest desires. There is symmetry.

That's the point. No matter what comes completely naturally to a person as the way to live, there does need to be symmetry or at the least a willingness to meet in the middle.

Let's say a couple have sex. This, for the man, ticks a 'to do' off his list. For the woman, it's a delicious aperitif, but she is still hungry. The problem arises when he feels they are 'good' for, say, at least a few months.

I have always wondered just a little about polyamory; not such that I would want to live in a combined household or to have a complicated life. But I do wonder if mismatches in desire can be reconciled if there is an understanding between the couple who love one another but who have very different desires for sexual expression, to compromise. What if someone who matched her needs was willing to meet, even once a month? 

Could jealousy be overcome? Could this sort of arrangement be seen as a gift; something far more satisfying than a piece of jewelry could ever be?

I only have the Internet at my disposal, popular culture such as movies to watch, to assess the lay of the land, but I am getting the sense that people are coming to their senses and being grown-ups about these disparities. If you love someone, don't you want them to be happy?

Space

 It's been glorious autumn weather - leaves turning colour and drifting downwards, morning sun that warms the face and lights the back room golden - such that I have made a habit of taking my coffee out and sitting on the wooden bench outside the kitchen to watch the day break open. 

From the neighbour's garden I can easily see two very tall, majestic trees. Each morning now, it is a little different and today I noticed the branches, close to bare; the birds that have made the trees their home, or their landing spot or mating spot. It has a hypnotic effect on me, and I often find myself spending far more time sitting there than I had meant.

I have had a thing about the word 'space'. When I was guiding meditations, I often found myself using this word, encouraging people to note the space all around them - above them, to either side of them and behind them. The word 'space' has so many meanings. I like to have space to myself in between spending time with others. I like for there to be not too much in a room so there is space to move.

Most of all I like to walk across parkland and look up into the sky and feel the endless space of the sky. Have you ever taken the time to be in awe of the sky above your head, that limitless space that in a way urges you to make space for yourself, to grow and to experience life in all its glory and messiness?

As I sat there this morning, I found the clouds quite glorious. Noting the Earth moving ever so slowly, the clouds moving quietly to one side, I closed my eyes to feel that movement. What a wonder, that we might sit on a seat steadily and yet the world is moving ever so slowly. As are we, moving, never completely still, as the breath demands that we move our bodies in and out in rhythm.

When I opened my eyes, it was as if I was seeing clouds for the first time, and I gasped. They looked just like huge pieces of cotton wool, softly tantalizing awe at the wonder of this planet.  I close my eyes for a moment. Ah, the birds agree.