I Apologize... @artemishisalways - Tumblr Blog

10 signs you’re in a healthy relationship

Sometimes it worries me when one of my more sex-based writings is making the rounds, because a lot of people are seeing that without the context of a deep and caring relationship.

My Monsieur and I have a strong and fulfilling relationship. But the kink moments are the exception, not the rule. Most of our life together is managing a household, raising a kid together, and helping each other through work and life stresses. Most of it is super, super normal. You wouldn’t really know we were D/s, except the occasional “yes Sir”, a bit of rule compliance, and the fact that I often sit at his feet when we are alone.

Yes, he can take whatever he wants from me sexually. He can pull me away from whatever I’m doing to fuck me or hurt me or have me do a task for him. And I will do it without question. And yes, I need our relationship to have these moments. But they aren’t the foundation of our relationship. They aren’t the substance we rely on. They aren’t what makes him a wonderful partner or even a wonderful Dominant.

He listens to me. He puts my needs first. He never asks for what would be unhealthy for me to give. Servant leadership is, in my mind, the only way to lead a healthy, sustainable long-term D/s dynamic. It’s what frees me to become his property without feeling used or devalued.

This morning he pinned me down and fucked my ass just as I was coming out of the bathroom. He edged himself inside me, showing no regard for my pleasure, until he decided he was ready to cum. Then he ran me a shower. When I got out, I noticed he had refilled my pill container and laid it out prominently so I would remember to take my pill. Then he brought me coffee in bed. He doesn’t do these things as some sort of exchange for sexual control; he does them because it is his responsibility to take care of me. Because that’s what ownership means for us.

If you’re new to my blog and want a glimpse of what our D/s is really like, try these writings:

Things I Got Wrong about D/s

Coffee Service—from a Dom

Sometimes the Decisions are Mine

Benefit of the Doubt

Snapshots of Our Relationship

sssynchronicity

I love that I've been seeing a bit more talk about how D/s isn't really this big crazy thing. I mean, maybe a vanilla person would read this post and think it was odd, but maybe not. It's important because it's a way we show love. There are beautiful moments like this, and then most other times it's just an undercurrent.

cherishedproperty

Honestly, if you’d told me 5 years ago that I’d be living a pretty much “normal” relationship and it would be a satisfying D/s dynamic to me, I’m not sure I would have believed you. But what about the rules and protocol? What about the cuffs and collars? What about the spankings??? And it’s not that those things are totally absent. But when I see people twisting themselves up in knots because they don’t like butt plugs or want more kink, it all feels sort of…small. What most people want is connection—to love and be loved in the way that resonates most for them. Maybe for some people, a daily butt plug routine is The Way they feel most connected. But I’m willing to bet that most people will find those sorts of things play a bigger role in establishing a power dynamic than they do in maintaining one.

sssynchronicity

I 100% agree. It's almost like a more subtle form of sub-frenzy, in my opinion. I think it comes down to a couple things. I definitely agree with what you said about those things establishing a dynamic, as opposed to maintaining one. I had never thought of it that way exactly, and it hits the nail on the head.

The other thing is a little harder for me to articulate, but I think a lot will relate. Needing D/s was a huge part of leaving my vanilla relationship. So to feel like I don't "need" it as much now (I do, it just looks different than I had imagined) makes me think back to that time and analyze it a bit more.

D/s or not, that wasn't the relationship for me. I didn't really realize all of the other ways it wasn't until afterwards. But I needed D/s bad enough that I had to leave, and it is a really deep part of me. It's something so small and so big at the same time. I have such a hard time putting that into words.

cherishedproperty

I totally get this. I went through a very difficult period a few years back where I felt like maybe I wasn’t submissive anymore or my need for D/s had dissipated. For a while, I thought I’d destroyed my marriage and my daughter’s home for nothing. And then I realized that the problems in my marriage were way deeper than D/s. They were about the fact that I felt he only loved certain parts of me and refused to see the rest. He also shied away from conversations about our relationship until it was about to end.

I did hang onto the outward signs of D/s as Why I Left for a long time. But when Monsieur and I got together, we had a lot of conversations about the type of relationship we wanted to build—in and out of D/s. And I began to see what healthy communication and acceptance really look like. Sometimes the D/s connects because it is a pathway to something deeper. Though that doesn’t make power exchange less important in its own right. I can’t imagine connecting to another person without that element in place.

amysubmits

Such an interesting conversation! I gotta join in.

I 100% get why people new to D/s (or a relationship that is new to D/s) need more of the super "official” D/s stuff. I think I really need to know in my bones that CD needs to lead our relationship, that he needs my submission in certain ways - and having really blatant D/s stuff early on helped show me that. But once I was fully confident in that, it wasn’t as vital to have perfect consistency anymore as far as rules or protocol. Instead it’s more about really deep vulnerability and intimacy that we maintain no matter what..and part of what is knowing each other’s core needs, so it’s D/s related, but not really the stereotypical idea of D/s most people hold. I’m sure some of that is the hell that we’ve personally been through these last few years, with my dads cancer and the pandemic and losing our dogs and more...we needed to be highly flexible at various stages, but because we had our D/s well established prior to that, it’s been fairly easy to adapt, really. We can sit down a lot of the ‘official’ stuff if life is too crazy, and we still maintain our dynamic in terms of feeling like we are connecting as dom and sub and prioritizing each other’s needs...it just happens way more based on instinct and nature and a deep understanding of each other vs being a bunch of pre-planned, consistent rules or whatever.

I don’t know. Someday I need to find a way to talk about how our dynamic has weathered various changes but I haven’t found the right way to explain it yet. I’m hope this at least halfway makes sense.

the-smoking-lilly

soberscientistlife

50shadesofbeau-deactivated20220

justfvckintyler-deactivated2023

i wanted to feel loved without feeling like i was begging for it

zeromeaum

submissive-bunni

I’m wearing the smile you gave me! 😊❤️

getnaughtee

thatlittlepix-deactivated202102

tordenvejr

why are you repeating a pattern you want no part in? remember who you are.

pleasurewhore-deactivated201802

Trust

We all know how essential trust is to a successful D/s relationship. It’s become so commonplace for me to trust my Sir that there are some things I can trust without question. I trust he has my best interest at heart. I trust him not to cheat on me, and even as insecure as I am I do not worry over this. I could go on, but there are a thousand ways trust is woven into our relationship.

But the truth is that trust doesn’t always come easy. Trusting when he says he loves me as much as I love him, isn’t as easy as trusting him to stop when I say our safeword. Trusting when he says we’ll find time to connect when our schedules seem determined to tear us apart, isn’t as easy. Trusting when he asks me to believe the hard times aren’t permanent, well, you guessed it…isn’t as easy.

I have to remind myself that this isn’t a blind faith. This trust was earned. I force myself to bypass fear and insecurity and see the reality. How can I trust that he won’t lie to me? I look back and I see a pattern of him coming to tell me even the hard things. How can I believe when he says he loves me but the words seem flat? I look to the actions. I let the thousands of actions speak when the words seem hoarse.

Some days are darker than others. Seeing these things through a haze of insecurity can be difficult. But I chose him to lead. I trust him because he showed me I could. And I’ll try to see past my fears because it’s unfair to to ask him to lead unless he can trust that I fill follow.