I ain’t dead yet

I’ve taken a serious break from blogging. I think it’s been over a year since I wrote here. We’re still around, stuff has been happening, and I’ll try and catch the Interwebs up on what’s been going on with my relationship, and my dick.

Someone was kind enough to leave me feedback:

It’s been more than four years. Can we get a quick update? I’m a straight male, but I so enjoy reading about your dynamic. Thanks!

That dynamic really is the core of why I’ve not been blogging. I’ve been increasingly frustrated with it. It always felt like I was just not “getting enough”, and then I second-guessed myself, and so it went. Part of my issue was that I had absolutely no-one to model M/s for me, at least not the type of M/s I have in mind. The team-based, collaborative kind, not the adversarial “beat up on the slave” kind.

For the tease and denial, I kept failing every few weeks or so, having a ruined orgasm without permission, and that brought me down, too.

Negative energy all around, and something needed to change for the better.

The below is going to be the short version. I won’t retell every moment of frustration or hope here.

Mistress Sky (she’s got a web presence) released her “Unequal Partnership” book in April. I read it, and I knew that this was what I wanted. I reached out to her asking her to mentor us in D/s, and Bear said he wanted a chance to read the book first. That took us to September before he was through with it, and we started talking to Mistress Sky.

It’s been a real eye-opener for me. For the first time, I have someone who can model M/s for me, and where I can learn what a good, functioning M/s relationship can look like.

In a nutshell, the leading partner or Master or Dominant or whatever you want to call that creates a framework, “holds” the implementing partner / submissive / slave, and is particularly invested in long-term planning and constantly checking the health of the relationship.

That is, in a nutshell, not Bear. I, at this point, just want him to get to his truth. If he wants to and can be that, I’d be ecstatic. If he can’t or won’t, I’ll love him no less for it – and I’ll have to figure out how I get my needs met, then.

We’ve had one couples session so far, Bear has had one session with her, I’ve had two “submissive training” sessions with her, and we have another couples session coming up.

She had us read another book, “Building the team” by Raven Kaldera and Joshua Tenpenny. It’s a gem, really full of wonderful ideas.

Out of that came Bear telling me that he had never understood what I meant by wanting to be equal partners and having a D/s relationship, but that he got it now, and that this was part of why he had always been so reluctant to commit to D/s. Now he tells me, 18 years in, right? Oy gevalt. And, positive thoughts, hope, it can only get better from here.
Edit: I want to add to this. The “oy gevalt” comes across as me being solely on the receiving end here. And I’m not. I’ve chosen to be with Christopher for 18 years, because I had things to learn, which I learned and am learning in that relationship. And I am looking forward to how our relationship will change, even as the prospect of change can be scary.

One of the slightly jarring things that came out of my last session with Mistress Sky was her flat-out stating that she could not teach Bear how to be a Master. He is standing in his own way, and until he moves past (or blasts through or whatever) and is able to be “fully present” – her expression for engaging emotionally without reservation – she won’t be able to teach him Mastery.

We’ll continue the couples sessions with Mistress Sky though, we’re seeing our vanilla therapist again, and I’m hopeful that Bear can get to me. He is my beloved and I am his, I have no doubts about that at all. He’ll just have to let himself step in front of the mountain of fear he has erected.

I’ll probably blog a little about the concepts Mistress Sky taught me, or will teach me, in my sessions with her. I’m not sure how much of it is still going to be submissive training while we work through relationship stuff. She tells me she wants to “continue to show up for” me, and I am immensely grateful for it.

She had us watch two TED talks by Dr. Brene Brown, and I am seeing the “shame” dynamic in particular everywhere right now. In our relationship, in our relation to our kids (heartbreaking, that), in Bear’s reactions to being questioned, in my own reaction to having trouble with a difficult task or being in a group of strangers. Shame shows up and says “you are not good enough” and “who do you think you are anyway”, and while those are not new concepts to me, right now I’m at a point where I can really hear this and can make changes based on it. I highly recommend watching these. One on vulnerability, and one on shame.

One of the concrete changes I’m making is that I will be clear in wanting to establish community. I never really engaged with the local D/s or kink community, despite sending out feelers, mainly because Bear was very reluctant. I am going to change that. Community is important. I’ll always invite Bear to be part of this, and I hope he will be. We’ll be at Bound in Boston and the Spring Flea, so if you’re going to either one of those and would like to say hi and connect, please do! I’m on Fetlife as “Schnoff”.

I’ve vowed to be better at communicating my needs, in a way that doesn’t set Bear off. I’m making progress. Mistress Sky is helping us with that.

Bear has been way more engaged in relating to me as his submissive partner than he ever has been in our time together. It’s making me happy and giving me a lot of hope. I’m calling him Sir way more often in response.

On the orgasm denial side of things, I’ve asked Bear to please help me out. Being obedient is something I can do for a few weeks, and then my willpower runs out, and I have a ruined orgasm. I said that a couple paragraphs ago, didn’t I.

To my delight, this time around, he said yes. He likes the idea of a chastity device, now. I’m over the moon. Imagine being able to obey and not needing super-Schnoffan willpower for it! I reached out to Dietmar and will be ordering a Securo-Cage 2, essentially a bell for the bell-end, just as soon as I can figure out exactly what I am supposed to be measuring, here.

I think that does for a quick catch-up. Lots of stuff happening. Lots of good stuff. Also scary stuff, because this puts the exact form our relationship will take up in the air. This change is good, though. Way better than me killing the relationship in pain and confusion and fear.