Long Story That has been Told Before

I've told parts of my story, or "history," here on the Blog, but I've always been careful to sanitize and soften the parts that related directly to my relationship with my ex-husband. However, not providing that part of the saga leaves real holes, so I'm going to try and give a fuller picture. I've written this, in a slightly different form for a correspondent who has a story similar to mine in some respects. What I've realized as I've done that, is that leaving the blank places in my history creates a skewed perception that may set people up for unreasonable or untenable expectations. So, for the first time ever, here is the story with all the gory details:

I met TJ while we were both students at the Colorado School of Mines. I was studying geologic engineering. He was two years ahead of me, and failing a course of study in mining engineering. He left the school as I began my sophomore year, and went to work in the oil and gas industry (without ever graduating). I finished that school year, and then quit and followed him. I was "in love" with him, and not "in love" with my studies. I was very, very young.

When I met him, I was a virgin - very naïve about men and sex and romance in general. I'd been a very intense, reasonably bright student, but never the life of the party, and I just didn't have much experience. He was my first sexual partner (and for 28 years, my only sexual partner). I was pregnant with my first child at the age of 19 - several months ahead of our marriage. By the time I was 23, I had two babies and a growing understanding of the trap I'd fallen into…

I really didn't understand, at that time, who I was - or what I would eventually come to "need" for my own sexual/erotic fulfillment. I knew I had fantasies about being controlled, and I knew that I'd used pain to "augment" my masturbatory experiences, but I'd never shared that with anyone, and was really terribly embarrassed about it all. Once I was married, and fully awake sexually, that side of my nature began to roar to life, and plague my imaginings and longings. My husband found it all quite appalling and mostly refused to have anything to do with it. When, upon occasion, he would try to humor me, it always went badly and I'd end up feeling dirty and ashamed.

All through the years of our marriage, I struggled to maintain our household and our family because the man I married was pretty sincerely incompetent. Not "bad," just not very capable. He seldom held a job for very long. He continually got himself into difficulties at work - often by being verbally or physically inappropriate with female co-workers. He could be charming in public settings, but was also capable of being socially mal-adept. I was forever in the position of explaining to strangers that he was really a good guy, just a little "strange." As a parent, he was hopeless. He'd crater at the least pressure, and let our children walk all over him. I usually ended up being the "bad parent" in the kids' eyes, because he would simply never discipline them if it was going to result in their being unhappy. Through nearly all of our married life, I earned significantly more than he ever did - and I was the one that paid to finally put him through college to earn his teaching certificate.

I held the control in our family because I knew that turning it over to him would be disastrous. Through it all, he continually lied to me about just about everything. He would lie about the simplest and silliest things - what he had for lunch, what he might be reading, etc. I spent huge amounts of time trying to sort out what was true and what was false in any conversation that he and I had. Frequently, he would convince me that I was the one that was "crazy."

I stayed in that marriage for 28 years. I worked and I raised my children, and I tried desperately to live up to the requirements of my marriage vows.

Shortly after we divorced, Master identified a disorder that is on the spectrum with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. It is called Alcohol Related Neurological Disorder (ARND), and arises from the mother using alcohol at a particular point in the early part of the pregnancy. It is our belief that my former husband exhibits all the characteristic behaviors and deficits of ARND. Knowing the name of his problems didn't change anything about our history, but it did give me some context for the struggles I'd faced with him.

I found DD about two and one half years before I came to be with Master and T. I'd put "spanking" into an Internet search and come upon several domestic discipline sites. I was amazed and relieved to discover that there were other people like me. I, timidly, showed what I'd found to my spouse, and he agreed to try it with me. Somehow, DD was more acceptable to him than plain old, garden variety BDSM. He made some attempts at being "in charge," but I struggled to keep him there, and was continually balancing between "giving" him control, and trying to keep us both on the path. He invested very little in the whole business. I wrote a whole lot on a couple of listserves during those years…first on 1Household Discipline, and then on 1Domestic Discipline. I go back and look at some of my writing from that time (I was "simandtue" on the list), and I can see how desperate I was to have him take the part of the Dominant. I was so needy in my own self, that I really never contemplated whether any of it made sense for him. Honestly, I was "starving" for what I'd wanted so long, and I really didn't care that it didn't fit for him.

The truth is that he wasn't a dominant person; didn't have drives in that direction; wasn't interested in it or motivated to do it. He was able to learn some of the technical skills, but simply never had the personality to pull it off. I understand now, much better than I did then, that my demanding that from him was unfair and exploitative.

Very early on, while I was "learning" and trying to figure out how it all fit into my world, I signed up on a list and chat site for submissive women. It was called "Submissive Women Speak," and was owned by Jon Jacobs. Jon has been dead several years now. He was a serious character and not universally loved in the BDSM community. He had strong views and he wasn't afraid to voice them. I didn't last very long in his realm, because I was just too mouthy and too opinionated to qualify as a good submissive in his view, but I did learn from him before he kicked me out of the place. One time, in a chat room with him, I was describing my life, my marriage, and my relationship. He was very blunt with me: "You are a submissive woman. Your husband is not a dominant. You need a dominant. One day, a dominant man will find you and claim you, and you will leave your husband and go with Him."I was appalled and furious. I was sure I would never leave my husband, and I was equally sure that no Dominant worth the name would ever "claim" property that belonged to someone else. I was all full of "shoulds" and "oughts" and "rights" and "wrongs." I stayed angry with Jon Jacobs, figuring him to be an arrogant know-it-all, for a really long time. It is only in retrospect that I can see how very right he was with regard to me. Clearly, when Master (who really truly IS Dominant), found me, the whole discussion became academic. There was a steady move into the place where I would become His, and my status as "linked to" someone else never really did change the course of all of that(although He worked really hard at making sure that the dissolution of my marriage was my decision, based on the realities of the relationship, and not about He and I).

Sometimes people tell me that I am "lucky" and "brave." I think there is some truth to those two labels. But I think the whole notion that this kind of life is only possible if you have great good luck, or great courage is misleading. I am very lucky to have a life that matches my dreams, and fits with who I am. But, I chose to act in ways that "made" that luck. I chose to reach out, find others who could help me and guide me and lead me along the path. I chose to move when the relationship I had was not exactly a match for the goals and longings I was pursuing. I chose to figure out who I was and what I wanted and needed, and then I chose to act on that knowledge.

Perhaps it is that choice to act; to do something with the awareness that I had, that seems like bravery to most people. After all, acting on my visions meant that I left my home (in a lovely place), my job, my children, my mother, my community of friends - everything that had meant anything in my life, and moved across the country to be part of the household and family of someone that I'd met online, chatted with some, played with a very little bit, and visited with a comparatively few times. I am quite sure that if my friends and family would have known what I was up to, they would have been convinced that I'd lost my mind. Probably, by most measures, they would be judged to be correct.

Along with all of my volition in making this happen was one simple imperative. Master gave a very direct command, "Come to me." It was not stated as a request or a dream or an imagined possibility that would be "nice." He, as the Dominant man that He is, wanted me, and made it clear to me that I would obey His direction.

I've never regretted those choices. I've been sad sometimes, but I've never believed that I made the wrong decision FOR ME.

So, that's the history. We (the husband and I) got here to live with Master and T, and within 4 or 5 months, it was clear that there were real irretrievable issues in my marriage. Things that I'd never really been able to make sense of were much clearer, and much ickier looking, once there were three of us to cross-check and verify his lies and silly games. It took another year and a half for me to bring the divorce to a conclusion - and then he was gone, no longer an issue.

Right from the first, Master and I were bonded in a way that I'd never experienced. I arrived here in June, and in the latter part of July, He was cutting His initials into my back. I know that I never really fully contemplated the seriousness of that particular event, but I have grown to revere and love that cutting and the reminders of it in my world. It was the first, and remains the most obvious, mark of my absolute devotion to Him - my desire to grow in my submission with Him as my guide. Step by step, I learned what it was to submit - not in the highly charged, steamy sort of way that is the stuff of the pornographic literature field, but in a thousand small ways, in the details, in the sound of my voice, in my simple being here, waiting, attending, and serving. Of course, we spanked. A lot. At intense levels that I can't even get close to anymore. I learned how to take a spanking from Him in precisely the way He wanted me to do it. Sometimes I was confident of my abilities, other times, I was shaky, and uncertain, and bitter, and resentful. Through it all, I remembered that I was traveling a path, and that I didn't need to be perfect, I only needed to figure out what I was up to, and then act to implement that in my life.

There are scary parts to changing your whole life, but then it is my belief that there is really no place in the lifestyle for "weenies." The prerequisite skill is the ability to see the direction you want to go and then move there, preferably without too much whining or fussing.

I do think that submission is an "art" in some sense. It requires a desire and a particular "personality," but there is a definite component that is simply about choice and practice. I do not believe that a person can submit, and engage in "talk" that follows the pattern of, "I'm submissive, but I can't submit because … fill in the blank: He's too inconsistent, he's too demanding, he's unreasonable, he's unfair, things aren't equal, I don't like what he likes, it is too scary, it is too hard, it isn't fun, etc. The beginning, middle, and end is in the relinquishment of control. If a person claims the label of submissive, then it is ALL (and always) about giving up the control. It is, therefore, imperative that a submissive person seek a Dominant partner with the skill, inclination, and integrity to be entrusted with that control. Knowing who you are giving control to, and believing in them at the depths of your being, is absolutely essential.

That is my story. Others follow different paths, but I honestly believe the decision points (isolated from the details) look very much alike. Perhaps the sharing of the journey is the most important gift we can give to one another.

swan