A bumpy road

I read an interesting text on Fetlife a few days ago, and showed it to my Owner who also liked it. It was about abused and emotionally scarred dominants, and how that can play out in a relationship. A lot of the discussion about emotional problems centers around abused submissives, and how they are to be treated and what is expected of them. If the question is ever lifted regarding dominants, it tends to be simplified into "a dominant must be stable and healthy, otherwise the relationship is abusive" and be left at that.

In many ways, that of course is true. If either party in an intense relationship is severely unstable it will be very detrimental to all parties and the relationship as a whole. And my personal belief is that it is more damaging with the same amount of "trouble" if the troubled one is the dominant part, as in the one holding the whip, holding the money, making all the decisions. (That's not to say a submissive partner with serious issues can't make some real damage too.)

But the thing is, it's a continuum. Everybody has issues (as everybody knows) and how messed about is it ok to be as a dominant? Is nothing but perfect good enough? Because then we're in trouble. I guess I might be hanging with a fairly messed up crowd (like attracts like?), but of the five dominant persons I know more intimately (one of them my ex) four I know for sure has some sort of emotionall problem (anxiety, depression) and/or a bad childhood. That's no different from the submissives I know, or the vanilla people I know, it's par for the course in my social circles. But that's my point. Dominants are no different in that regard.

And neither is my Owner. She's not always emotionally stable, and not alwasy rational from my point of view. I can't trust her to handle every crisis with a clear and cold head. I can't expect her to always give me the benefit of the doubt, to be fair and reasonable, to always excercise good judgement. She often doesn't calm me when I'm uspet, or diffuse intense situations, or see things in proportion.

Rather the opposite, actually - she sometimes seriously freak out. She has scared me, in the past, I have been physically afraid of her because of her temper, and not in a sexy way. I've actually only ones for real believed she was going to strike me in anger (a long time ago) but that one time still happened, and is still a part of our history together. Since then, the only things she's been violent towards is herself and stuff, but to me, that's bad enough.

I really really don't like it. She knows that, of course. She doesn't like it either, and she's worked very hard over the years to overcome it. And succesfully, too - it's much, much better. Not enough better, however, for me not to get a stomach ache every time she's in a bad mood. (We are a poor match in that regard, though, since my history on the other hand has made me almost affect phobic, in the beginning unable to cope with any kind of outward signs of anger from anyone, including me. I've worked on that too.)

My point though, is that I belong to her. Unconditionally. I'm hers, not in spite of her problems, certainly not because of them, but totally regardless of them. I'm hers, and however much I sometimes wish I wasn't, sometimes wish that my ultimatums "never again or I wont stand it" had some sort of real meaning, I know they don't. They just don't. I can't not submit to her as long as I'm in her life, and I can't stand the thought of not being in her life.

Submitting to her is my way of loving. It's how I'm wired, it's how I want to be towards the person I love, it's my way of expressing myself. Any other way, and I would be maiming myself. We talked about that, and she confirmed something I hoped for, and have begun to believe, namely that she feels the same way. Owning me is her way of expressing love, and not doing it would not be really possible.

Personally I think she would have liked to express this level of control in her previous relationships too, only the partners didn't function like I do. For me, that's a happy thought, because one of my fears, one of my trust issues, is that I was the one who initiated the BDSM-aspect of our relationship, I was the one who said "I function like this, this has to be in or I'm out", and it's been very easy for me to sometimes convince myself that it's really only me that wants it. That she's owning me to humour me and placate me, catering to my needs, not because she wants it herself. I don't really believe that anymore, though, not even in our darkest moments. I genuinely believe this is how she ticks too.

Again, what point am I making? Maybe that it was nice to read something that indicated another solution than "get the fuck out" if the dominant is something besides totally emotionally stable. That there are ways of making it work, and not necessary a recipe for disaster. I felt validated in that regard, for the first time ever, perhaps.

For me, my Owner is my soulmate. She's my best friend, the center of my life, my teammate, my missing half. I'm Robin to her Batman. She really is. I know it sounds corny, and so I don't often say it, but that's the way it is. That people were jerks to her when she was a little girl and destroyed stuff for her - well, that makes me want to go and piss on their graves. For real. I'll do it someday. It doesn't, however, makes me love her one bit less.

And my love is expressed as submission, as wanting to belong to her body and soul, as never saying no and never refusing, as obeying and deferring to her. That's true no matter what. It's no less true simply because the road is bumpy sometimes.