A clarifier: This post mentions my relationship with my biological mother, who is exploring her rekindled interests in BDSM. Although Mum and I are both active on the BDSM scene in Bristol. Although we might socialise together we have strict rules in place which state that we will not play together nor share a partner, under ANY circumstances.
We didn’t play again on Friday and I feel a clenching rage in my stomach because of it. I’ve got some anger and tension that needs to come out and if it doesn’t come out in a safe and controlled way, then… that ‘then’ worries me. I need to let go. Not want, fuck ‘want’ right now. This is a need.
“I’m surprised you want again, after yesterday” Matt says, I sigh. This isn’t about sex for me, this is about play. This isn’t about fucking, it’s about pain and sensation and a loss of control. Sex is sex in my eyes, they are not one and the same.
Or at least not always, anyway.
I love Matt, and he is great at what he does, but if there is one problem in this relationship then it’s that Matt just doesn’t understand the need. Matt fixes his problems with a moderate drink, he fixes the world by texting his friends or by saying “fuck it” and ordering a pizza. That’s not a criticism of him, that’s just who he is. That’s Matt’s way.
BDSM is mine, and Matt doesn’t understand why drinking or drugs or loud music or chocolate couldn’t be what fixes me. Well. and to quote Christian Grey here, “because it’s the way I am”. I am drawn innately to BDSM in ways that even I don’t fully understand. For me, my submission is my lifeblood; it feels good, liberating, refreshing. There’s a certain peace in losing control every once in a while.
“By giving up control I felt free, from responsibilities…” yada yada. Thankyou, Mr Grey!
I want to tell Matt that I feel like I need someone else in my life, another Dominant – another one – but I hold back. I’m still very new at this polyamory thing, let’s not run before we can walk.
I spoke to mother again on Friday, and it’s just as eventful there as ever. I called her at 07:30PM to be told that she was eating dinner and could she call me back? I agree and then feel like smashing my head against the wall – I have plans!
Should have said no.
As it was then mother decided to eat her dinner and shower before calling me back anyway. It angers me, and it does so because it’s disrespectful of my time. She’s the same woman who rushes a girl if she needs a hot minute to activate the security alarm and lock-up before heading out with the family, but it’s okay if she calls me back at her leisure? Nice.
I decide that in future I’ll tell her that we’ll speak in the week. These little pops and changes do feel good.
“So what’s this affiliate thing then?” she asks.
“Well, I’ve been asked to review a product, which I get to keep in return for an honest review. If someone then buys that product from a link on my review then I take a cut of that pay.”
“Oh?” she says, “and how much are we talking?”. I smile.
“Well, the item is worth three-figures” I say, I leave all of the other details out. She has nothing more to add.
Talk turns to clubs and her weekend plans, and Mum tells me about a club she’s going to on Saturday night.
“It’s not cliquey down there” she says, “it’s more like two teams. Team Dom and Team Sub.”
“Soo… where is this club again?” I laugh.
“You’re not going down there, my girl” she says, I chuckle to myself. She feels threatened by me and I recognise that now. Still, how unsure in yourself do you have to be to try and block someone from a club?
I’m not bothered anyway, SLUTs (Subs Living Under Torment) had plenty of fun in our time.
We weren’t sluts, not in its truest form, but we were a Team Sub to a Team Dom. The Doms started collaborating, so then the subs started our own collaboration too. More importantly perhaps, we were also a lookout in the event that one of us started playing with someone new.
Still, I don’t feel like I’m missing out. More than anything I feel like I need to be more sociable for the sakes of my blog. Business, if you like, with a side of leisure.
I’ve hatched a plan – a very naughty plan – to start swooping down on a local munch. The weekends are a bit messy at the moment as there would be some collision between when the munch is and when we would normally see Andy. I’ve tried to hatch it so that we see him on the weekends when the munch isn’t, but it’s not always that smooth and that messes around with some other things anyway. Matt also wants to come with me, purely because there have been some reports of younger men failing to take no for an answer and I do have a few followers on Fetlife who, I am sure, only follow me in the hope that I might one day hit them up. The location is also a bit remote and by having my husband with me, such types are likely to think twice. Still, it’s going to take some thinking to finalise that plan.
Plus, I want to get some business cards printed before I go too. Hey, business is business, right?
I think my mother attends the munch also and so my swooping on in there will most certainly upset her applecart, but then I have as much right to be there as she. If the only way for her to be comfortable is to keep me away from such places, she needs to assess why that is. What is it about me in certain situations that intimidates her so? Is she worried I might steal all of the fun away? That’s not a me problem or something that I can change without becoming someone I don’t want to be. I don’t need attention, I command it naturally by simply being who I am. Men love a touch of mystery and class it seems, perhaps she could try it too.
Things have been a bit weird between Bill and I the past few days, but not a bad-weird just… a bit weird. It all started with ratcheting the tempo up a bit on Saturday, then I think we both felt a bit guilty. Poly guilt, perhaps, and possibly for the same reason: we both knew that Red wouldn’t fully approve.
We are still talking, even if it’s on a much more everyday footing at this time. I think that’s the key thing here, we haven’t abandoned one another completely.
In the immediate aftermath of our little rendezous I knew that Bill had to go and do other things, and that left me with a new feeling to get used to. Not abandoned exactly but sort of… shelved. A sort of here and there between Bill having his fun with me and Matt waking up. That was new for me.
I know that I had inflicted that feeling before and yet similarly, I also hadn’t meant for it to happen. I think it’s sort of a feeling that’s neither for one nor the other to solve. To be aware of, perhaps, and sensitive to also, but for each to take a shared responsilbity of. Polyamory means that you are an important part of a person’s life, but not their whole life, and that means acknowledging that your poly partner has feelings (and other people and interests) that are important too. Because of that, then as much as turnning to one another is good, we have to be able to self-soothe, too. Something like that, anyway.
I read something yesterday about push-pull relationships. I’d never heard of those before and so I was curious, how do they work?
Crucially, a push-pull relationship happens between someone with an anxious attachment style (the ‘pusher’) and someone with an avoidant one (the ‘puller). Someone with a fear of abandonment, and someone with a fear of intimacy. Fuck!
Where was this knowledge when I needed it a year ago?
I tried to solve things with my ex, really I did, but we just weren’t hearing one another. We weren’t hearing where the other was coming from and we were only ever hurting one instead. We went through this cycle routinely – the push-pull cycle.
Essentially, in the push-pull cycle, the ‘puller’ (avoidant) likes the ‘pusher’ (anxious) and the pusher likes them back, so then the pusher lays on the charm thick and heavy to secure the relationship and the puller gets spooked and flees, thereby reinforcing the pusher’s existing beliefs that they are unlovable. The pusher then grows critical of the puller, reinforcing the puller’s longstanding belief that they too are unlovable. That cycle happens a few times until the pusher gives up, at which point the two swap roles. The pusher then becomes the puller because they don’t want to be hurt again, and the original puller starts pushing, growing ever critical and wondering why their partner ran away. If not remedied it ends in an irreversibly broken relationship and two deeply wounded hearts still wondering where it all went so badly wrong.
I had no intention of leaving that relatonship, ever. I loved him and I know he loved me – love, even if not romantically, because I firmly believe that some things really are stronger than hard feelings and bits of rope. Neither of us left, instead we scared one another away. I hated him because he hurt me, and he hated me because I hurt him. I was never truly happy that we’d broken up in the end, I was just happy that we’d finally stopped fighting and hurting.
I still see myself as having three men influencing my life in some way, even if I know I shouldn’t. When all is said and done then you don’t forget someone who has changed your life for the better, even if they didn’t speak your language.
Whispers Of A Phoenix 