Right now, I’m a bit at a loss. My usual interest in guiding someone to “make him a better person" is no longer here. I think I’ve finally understood that people need to do their emotional work themselves—that it’s not my job to save or fix anyone. That realization has shifted something deep inside me, and I’m not entirely sure where it leads me when it comes to Female Led Relationships.
I feel like—at this moment—I’m not taking over anything for anyone anymore. I’m not carrying someone else’s baggage anymore. Yes, I could still do that, lol—my scanner personality makes it easy for me to find solutions in record time. My whole professional life is built on that ability, after all. But in my private life, I just don’t want to do that anymore. Not right now. I’m still in the process of figuring out what that all means for the future and where I want to go from here.
Part of why I feel this way is because the men I was usually attracted to did not always do their share of the heavy lifting in real life. They pretended that I am their Queen, and that they would love me—and on some level I’m sure they did—but far too often they used my strength to feel comforted and cared for without giving back equally. This imbalance slowly wore on me, and it has made me question what it means to truly lead and support in a Female Led Relationship in a way that feels healthy and reciprocal.
It’s a strange place to be, but also a freeing one. I guess I’m learning to let go a little, trusting that things will unfold as they should—even if it’s not entirely clear yet.
I totally get where you are coming from. As a man who enjoys submissive things, I know that it's hard to turn those kinds of sexual feelings into a lifestyle relationship. So much else is needed first. I think many people think they can do it but don't really know what's involved when making that decision. And then feelings get really damaged when people's plans don't align with what they are truly comfortable with.
ReplyDeleteIt seems you have run into relationships like this over your life. I feel for you. I hope you find your happiness and peace going forward.
Thank you. It feels good to be understood. Now my focus is on myself and my growth. We will see where that leads me to in regards to female led relationships etc.
DeleteNot intending to speak for anyone else, viewing your experiences through the lens of my own life, what you have found puzzling and unsatisfying about the “submissive” men you encountered does not surprise me because of my huge internal conflict around it. I developed heavy “submissive” sexual interests before puberty in response to overwhelming fear I felt towards a number of women. The threat of being hit was omnipresent. I sexualized the fear and the fetishes associated with it became more and more powerful. At the same time, real intimacy with women was something I believe I was subconsciously terrified of because I had been conditioned to feel and believe that they would hurt me and abandon me. Fast forward to much later when I start seeing “pros” I start develop attachments to them as I am literally paying them to recreate the nightmares of early childhood in what was certainly “Freudian repetition.” At this point, the fear and the fetish and the trauma are inextricably intertwined. So, feeling the persistent loneliness that comes with being this way, I try to get closer to them and then meet one who sort of allows me to do that, but she also used my desire to be close to her to hurt me (by offering it sporadically and taking it away with she felt like it). At the same time, she is doing this all “for real.” She has an arsenal of vicious paddles and told me stories about what she did to her boyfriends that horrified and really upset me. I was constantly trying to cross examine her hoping she would see her cruelty, which she really disliked. But she is the one person I know in real life who does what your blog is about and she is also without question the most frightening person I have ever met. She so cavalierly described the suffering she inflicted it made my blood run cold She hurts guys for real and she truly enjoys inflicting intense suffering. The point is that when this stuff became “real”, the trauma that formed the sexual interest got seriously activated, and parts of my system saw her as a real-life threat. But the rub is that, the submissive desires were not associated with any feelings of caring. The inciting events were existentially terrifying to a young child. So, the model you have of being caring and supportive but really spanking someone to truly punish them is 100 percent impossible for me. To my system it does not compute. My submission needs to be tightly controlled or the turn on becomes the trauma. I’m not saying anyone else’s story is mine, and this understanding comes after years of very difficult therapy. Most people I encounter with these interests don’t look behind the curtain. However, it does seem like the guys who have frustrated you have some sort of internal conflict around their submission. I definitely relate to that conflict and the resulting ambivalence about submitting because when I role played this stuff, whether she knew it or not, the woman was not playing some supportive, caring disciplinarian (a concept that is oxymoronic to my system). Instead, she was playing a monster. The one who made it “real” made it terrifying. Objectively, the adult in me I could have easily overpowered her, but she was with the scared ten year old who felt powerless and couldn’t understand why someone who was supposed to care about him would hurt him, not the adult man who could defend himself.
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