I Want...

"M", over on "Submitting to Her", wrote a post on his wife "P"'s ordering dinner for them. It clearly was an intense moment for him, and he reflected on it.

He said, in so many words:

I want her to get so used to...
I want her to realize...
I want her to never consider...
I want her to demand...

This is what I find so difficult about this kind of relationship. Is it about what I want? Or about what she wants? Or about what I want her to want?

And there's nothing wrong with it being about what I want, except that this is so at odds with the outer form of the relationship - her being in charge, my doing what she wants.

It's why I've found this kind of relationship so confusing in my own life. Perhaps for "M" and "P", she does want all these things, and his expressing his wants is just a way for them to communicate about them, and achieve some kind of "shared language" around what they both want. (From some of her earlier posts, it certainly seems like this could be true.)

But for some of us, where it's pretty clear that what my beloved wants is for this all to "go away", I don't know how to resolve the dynamic.

...

And, "Yes", I will explain the hiatus. When I have a minute...

Wanting, Being, Getting, Needing

It's finally occurred to me that these four things are related in some peculiar ways. When my beloved said she'd explore this with me, several things happened.

The first was Being: she was saying it was OK for me to be as I am. This is big. HUGE. I've been this way - wanted these things - since I was about 11 years old - yes, I remember the night. And it's never been OK to want them. Never been OK to be the way I am.

Even when I explored these things with other lovers (before we were married) or even when we explored them together, in our halting and flawed attempts early on, it still wasn't OK for me to be this way. It felt more like it was OK for me to be not-OK, to be deviant or "sick" or whatever model we were using.

This is the first time that I've been in a place, and we've been in a place to have a conversation about this, and the overwhelming feeling I get is one of relief: I can be who I am, we can talk about "this stuff" (thought that's harder than I thought). And it's not because we're "working on my problem." It's because this is how I feel and she's willing to hear that.

What I realized this week, is that wanting and being are totally independent from getting. What I mean, is that I may not even need to get what I want, if it's OK to want it, if it's OK to be as I am. I'm not sure I entirely believe this yet, and I'm not entirely sure it's true, but it's occurred to me as a possibility. (I wonder if akin to what Strong And Submissive has realized, and has kept him in his relationship. No matter, just wondering.)

I also wonder if this kind of asymmetrical relationship is really what I want, or whether I just want the idea of it. I may not ever know if my beloved doesn't decide that it's what she wants, and maybe that's OK. I certainly don't think I'm very good at this - I leave too much undone, or too many offers un-made. I'm too lazy for it. Aside from the titillation value (which is considerable), I think that's what I like about Her Knight's experience with his Princess: She is unbendingly rigorous in her expectation of perfection from him, and without nagging, she never lets him forget it.

I don't know if I could succeed in that kind of relationship, or if I would enjoy it. But I know I can't succeed in what we have now, where I just need to be good enough to do all the things I know I ought to want to do, or that I just plain ought to do to keep the wheels turning in our house. What's hard, is if I don't my beloved just picks up the slack, to the point where she gets frustrated about it.

I'm so tempted to say "It would be so much easier if she would just tell me what she wants," but I think I know that: for all of this to go away and for me to be "normal." Early early on, I wrote about that possibility, in the middle of "(Two to Tango." Certainly at that point (and at the point at which those experiences happened), I wasn't ready to let go of "this stuff." I don't think I am now, either.

On the other hand, maybe it's not important in this life that I get what I want. I think it is important that I'm OK wanting what I want. But once I get OK with that, the answer well may be that I don't get that in this life. There are more than a few things I'm not going to get in this life, and I seem to be OK with those. Why can't this be one?

And Then She Makes Me Wonder

Exactly a week since these events, but the set enough of the stage to be worth posting anyway.

Holiday season and tedious house-guests meant we didn't have much time for each other, physically, emotionally, or in terms of just plain old minutes. So I was a little surprised when we were at a friends house and she put a pillow down on the floor by her feet and motioned me to sit there. It was a natural thing to do in the context, and I might have sat there anyway, but it was a pleasant surprise that she suggested it.

Later that evening at the buffet, it didn't occur to her that I'd be glad to serve her, and I couldn't suggest it or just do it without making a big show of things, so I didn't.

Even later that evening in bed, we had quite the sexual good time, only hers ended in an orgasm and mine didn't, which was fine with me, as it wouldn't have enhanced her pleasure at that moment, it seems.

The next day or two after getting really worked up (it had already been a week) are usually a little difficult and I have to stay focused in order not to get crabby. I'm not sure I entirely succeeded, but I don't think I failed too spectacularly either.

Another Shoe that Sort-of Fits

After a downer in the last post, I was going to tag this on at the end. But decided it merited a (brief) post of its own.

On the bright side, the last half of Kathy's post on A Quick Note about Mike is so totally about me that it makes me happy to know that someone out there understands me, even if she doesn't know me. Though slightly more galling because she wasn't in to this either but got there by exploring with her husband. (I'll take all her posts at face value, it gets too complicated if one doesn't.)

It does remind me that I'm not very good at this, however. I don't know if I'd be better at it if I were really interacting with my beloved about it, or if I'm just a lazy sot.

I'm Just Playing the Game

We have some extremely tedious (youthful) house guests lingering from the holidays - long irrelevant story, but it's the right thing to do.

But as a result, everybody's been a little stressed and there certainly hasn't been any time for intimacy on our part, either in the bedroom or out.

A long time ago, as what I've come now to realize that I was regarding as "starter rituals", I suggested that when I arrive home and she's working, I just sit beside her until she's ready to interrupt what she's doing and say hello. It was a hot day in the summer, and she suggested a glass of water too.

So yesterday I arrived and went over to her and she said, "Where's my glass of water?" - it was a moment of moderate pandemonium in the house. I said, "Sorry", and she smiled sweetly and said, "I'm just trying to play the game, here."

Cut me to the quick.

What can I say? I don't appreciate your "playing the game"? It doesn't count if you don't really feel it? Clearly not - she's a saint for "playing along" with me in the desire for me to feel better. I can't make her feel any particular way, I can only hope that she does.

Certainly, recently I haven't been under any illusion that I'm going to start doing things and she's going to wake up one day and say, "Oh, this is kind of fun. I wonder if I can make him do more?" (No thanks to Her Knight's Princess, who seems to have decided just that.)

I think I was hoping that my beloved would find that my service was sort of useful, and that she'd come to expect it, and come to see it as part of our relationship, rather than something she's doing for me.

As it is, the whole thing right now seems kind of akin to a "mercy fuck," only a fuck with my head rather than my body.

It would explain why our little going to bed ritual seems pretty hollow to me - I do it now out of self discipline, rather than because there's any joy in it. I'm not as dumb as I look - I think I pretty well picked up on the fact that it touched the merest surface of her mind and emotions. I think she was genuinely happy early on when I told her how much I appreciated doing it - how good it felt to "be me".

But of course what I've finally realized is that all that "submission" was to myself, not to her. Interesting and profound philosophical questions aside (like to whom can one ever submit, etc), this isn't very satisfying. I can have fantasies lying in bed by myself; does it matter if my beloved is complicit with them? It is certainly better in terms of relationship if she knows about them and if the secret and shame elements are gone.

But fundamentally, if she's just an actor or a walking prop in my fantasy, that's not very satisfying.

It reminds me of when I was a teenager. My parents would go out for the night leaving me by myself, and I would hurry to enact all sorts of submissive fantasies, chiefly motivated by whatever TV show I happened to be watching. I went so far as to get and pin and the rubbing alcohol out, convinced that I was going to pierce my nose that evening. Never did though. But the point is, those were me acting out fantasies that were entirely in my head. Better than nothing? Maybe, especially since, at that age, they always ended in orgasm, which was big news when I was a teenager.

But this exercise seems only a slight advancement from that, with all the good-will that my beloved is putting in to accommodating me.

Sorry to start with such a downer post for the new year. Perhaps things will improve. I sense another conversation in the offing, though I can't exactly figure out how it will evolve... "You're being really nice and doing this thing for me, but it feels like dust in my mouth?" Not very promising...

Too Close for Comfort

Facing My Obsession, in the Flesh

This isn't exactly me, but it isn't exactly not either. Anyone who's taking the time to write or read a blog like mine, or like those linked on the right needs to read this article and ask themselves some hard questions.

I know I am.

Only you can tell yourself if you're satisfied with your answers.