Opening doors

You don't find a lot of introspection here at Exploring Surrender, which is odd since the title seems to imply that you will. To be honest, self-examination of that kind makes me feel intensely vulnerable, especially since my husband reads here and honest-to-goodness introspection often makes me feel like I've just opened up my head and let all the less attractive parts of me hang out right in front of him. 

Kitty recently wrote a post that set me thinking. When she begins the interlude, she is steely, resistant to her husband's advances, even though they had planned to be there together at that time.

As much as I want to submit to my husband and crave pleasing him, I do this too. I'll sometimes have a steely attitude that will often wind up discouraging him, and nothing happens even though I'd really, really prefer that it did, and then I get sad. At that point, he's in an impossible situation.

I've turned this over in my head for years, but it wasn't until I started responding to Kitty's post that I began to see what goes on in my head.

It's probably fair to say that many submissives who bring the concept to their husbands wind up second-guessing themselves, wondering if he's really into it, or if he's just doing it to humor them.

Our relationship is amazing, honestly, it is, and I know it. But the second-guessing just does not go away. I don't have a nice little window into his head like he does into mine. He becomes more confident by the day, as I write about my feelings and how I experience our experiences. But I don't.

While I always want to be there with him, I sometimes may act as if I don't - because I feel he may not want to be there, and I am trying to open a door to make it easier for him to get out.

He may say a million positive things about our dynamic, but as soon as he says something that can be construed as less-than-complimentary, my heart sinks. I can go from laughing, happy, delighted, to deeply saddened, the spark of joy within me stilled along with my breath, my inner laughter quieted. It actually feels as though a silencer has been applied to the happiness within me, a huge wet blanket of misery blacking out the memory of hundreds of joyous experiences.

There's a large part of this that's tied up with trust - trusting him to do what is best for both of us, trusting that the things he says to me are true, and trusting that he is getting more joy out of the things we do together than he is putting effort into them.

Why is it that I can trust him to hurt me, talk dirty to me, invade every part of my being, but I cannot trust that he is where he wants to be?

It's because I know how much he loves me and wants my happiness.

I need to stop trying to open doors. If I was visiting someone's home and they kept holding the door open saying "Are you sure you want to be here?" I'd eventually feel unwelcome and leave, no matter how much I'd initially wanted to be there.

I'm just not sure how to stop. Maybe if I have to open doors, I should open doors to inner chambers rather than the exit ones, and strive to banish steely-me from our bedroom.


I haven't done a lot of this since I had my lightbulb moment on symbiotic relationships and angst having no place within them. Our "us" is so very close to perfection that it feels like blasphemy to even give this so much airspace. But when it does happen I can feel his frustration as surely as I feel my own inner self go quiet and still. Surrendering to the truth of things he says is every bit as important as surrendering to his will. I adore him, and want him to feel his words are taken for truth, that I don't think he is a liar.

I wouldn't even grant this so much time, but I thought someone else out there may be struggling with the same thing.

Vanilla is the finest of the flavors

I was talking to a friend recently, and he told me that his ex had enjoyed watching Monk with him, but he wasn't sure if she really liked it or if she just liked it because he did.

I told him that it's a greater expression of love to like something because the other person does than to just like it all on your own.

When I said it, I remembered how long I've struggled with my husband's intrinsic vanilla. I longed for him to want kink for himself, on his own, independent of my desire for it. The man will do anything for me, truly, anything. Why on earth did I ever feel the need to sully that?

I like vanilla, it's the finest of the flavors.

It intensifies everything from chocolate to raspberry. I have the biggest bottle of vanilla in my cabinet, because I use it in everything.

My husband is the excellent sort of vanilla that you add to everything to make it more intense. Kinky girl + fine, pure vanilla husband = intensely hot kinky stuff.

I wanted it to be about him, because I wanted to submit to him, yes. He does get off on dominating me, even though it may be more about how much it turns me on. But what does it matter why it gets him off? It just does, and that's enough. It's more than enough, and lately it's become even better to me, because he gets off on dominating me because it excites me. I'm not a submissive woman he's chosen because he needs a kinky girl to match his own kink. He chose me for me. My submission was a part of that all along, but it wasn't a deal-breaker one way or the other. I am his submissive woman, and he knows he can have me do anything he wants. Mostly he just wants me to be happy. Why would I struggle with that? Silly, silly submissive girl. What the man really, truly wants is for you to be happy. Submit, already!

I struggled because it didn't feel like submitting, to just be happy, to enjoy him, us, the way we are together. To just offer myself to him, with no fight, no rules, to present myself for spanking, or flogging, or sex. To even take over in bed sometimes, to lavish affection all over his body with my hands and mouth, show him just how much I adore him, how much I desire him even if he doesn't lift a finger, even if he doesn't hurt me, didn't feel like submitting, but it is. I know he could change what I'm doing at any time, make me stop, tie me up, spank me, anything. That's how he's still in control.

Is that what submission looks like? That's what mine looks like, and it's good. We're blissfully happy.

Some switch in my head flipped (yeah, another switch), and I'm softer to him, more submissive, more compliant to pretty much any whim of his. You want some chocolate, love? I think I can get you some chocolate.

He wrote me this, among some other things, in a letter he sent me for my birthday last month (quoted with his permission):

I really dig your devotion to me... I suspect it may potentially be inflating my ego on occasion, but it feels really, really special to be loved and desired so much. I may feel a tad bit awkward reading your blog about our activities, but I can't deny it's incredibly hot and flattering as well. On that note, I really love pushing your buttons and am delighted we have the wonderful sex life that we have. 

Did I mention you rock and I am very much in love with you? Being without you always has a sense of loneliness attached to it. The only way I feel completely at peace is with my body pressed against yours. Makes everything better. As you know I'm a big fan of our morning snuggle moments and feel sad when we miss out on them.

[...]

I love you and I hope you enjoy your birthday my beautiful, thank you so much for being mine and being so good to me.

 Yours forever,

 husband

Writing doesn't come easily to him, so I can only imagine it took him some time to write that, along with everything else he put into that letter. But he did it for me, because he knows how much I value the words. I write for the joy of writing - he writes for the joy the words will bring me.

He serves me by letting me serve him, by doing delicious, incredible things with our bodies, by pushing all the right buttons at all the right times. His ability to press those buttons, to take me to those places, just makes me love him more, be more devoted to him, trust him with every fiber of my being, and want him forever. He brings that trust and that love into every single thing we do together, whether it be making dinner or writhing in ecstasy or building a house. He is present, he is mine, and I am his.

And that, by jove, that, is way, way better for me than if he had come dominant, if that was just the way he started. He's dominant because that's what I need. Like the empathic metamorph Kamala, he became my perfect mate. What's not to like?

---

Apparently March is question and answer month in the great realm of the blogosphere. I'm compelled to answer any questions you want to put to me, right out here in public.

Unless it puts me at risk of outing myself, of course.

Not buying it

I was throwing a fit, basically. Not intentionally, I just wanted to get away, to not be reminded of what wasn't happening, of my own inadequacies.

It's so frustrating to want something, but only on certain terms.

He fell asleep. I finally felt more or less okay, just a stray cough here and there, and he fell asleep. I moved to get up, to come use the computer in the kitchen. He stirred and told me to lie back down; I refused. I got up, walked around the bed, and I heard him get up too. Not wanting him to follow me, I stopped in the alcove at the bedroom's entrance, bracing my arms on the walls to either side of me. He came up behind me, wrapped his arms around me.

"Get back in bed," he whispered against my hair.

"No, husband." I responded sadly. "You get back in bed."

"Let me fix it, baby. I can't fix you being sick, but let me fix this. Get back in bed."

"It won't fix it. It'll just make it worse. It's so frustrating being me." My voice broke on "frustrating," tears dangerously close. I laughed a small laugh at the absurdity of it all.

He responded to the laugh with one of his own. "I know." His strong arms started prying my hands away from the wall. I resisted, squirming away, planting my hands more firmly against the wall.  A ridiculous struggle ensued, but then he had my hands and he held me against his chest.

"No, husband," I whispered against his shirt. "No, no."

"I told you to get back in the bed. Now do it." I shook my head stubbornly. He got behind me after another struggle, his arms wrapped around me, keeping my arms from bracing against the walls again. "Move."

"No, no, no."

His knees bent into the backs of mine, forcing my legs to bend. He lifted my bent leg against his, forcing it forward. Two of his steps and we were back to the bed, where he practically threw me. "I said get in bed."

I whimpered, sad, defeated, resigned to this thing I had forced into happening, but determined not to respond to it.

"I have to punish you now, you know. It's one thing if I have to tell you twice, or three times, but by the third time you really should obey me." He took off my clothes, then held the blanket up for me and ordered me under it.

Then other things happened involving a flogger, and hot sex with a lot of throat holding. Followed by more sex in the morning. My resolve not to respond to any of it pretty much dissolved with the first blow of the flogger on my breast. If he's not for real, he's very, very convincing.

Ideal, really, and the sex (both times) was awesome. I'm still not sure how I feel about all of it, though. I tell myself it shouldn't even matter as long as we both enjoyed ourselves, but I'm not buying it.

What do you want?

Sometimes, I have to suppress the urge to clean out the "toy" drawer, to take them all and toss them.

Sometimes I think my husband would be just fine with no sex at all.

I do my best to remain positive in every aspect of my life, but some things wear me down. My mom is constantly, constantly taking everything I do the wrong way, the most insulting way, while not saying anything until she has stewed in her own juices far past the point of my making any sort of amends. My husband has no desires for anything at all. No, really. I tell him we can do whatever he wants, even if what he wants is to play video games until 2 in the morning or watch TV and eat popcorn - but he doesn't actually want to do anything with me. He senses that I get irritated and then he tries to come up with something, but honestly, seriously, he doesn't want to do anything with me, not specifically. He's perfectly happy with the two of us coexisting, doing separate things on our computers across the room. If I leave the room, he objects, but as long as I sit somewhere he can see me if he chooses to look over he's fiiine.