Sometimes things can go off the rails between a Dom/Domme and sub. Maybe the Dom screws it up. maybe the sub reads the signals wrong.
Or even worse, maybe limits got pushed or violated.
It is worse if trust got badly bruised or even broken. When that happens, as with a broken bone, healing can be a long term and iffy thing....
We don't talk much about when something goes wrong between a D and an s.
But maybe we should.
All us humans make mistakes, even in the closest of relationships. They can be anything from careless, to inadvertent, to callous or deliberate.
The hard part is the attempts at putting Humpty Dumpty back together again!
Of course, the first step back is to acknowledge doing something wrong. For some Doms of a more arrogant persuasion, this is almost unheard of. They just want to power past the problem, or shift the blame, or refuse to discuss it.
For some subs, it can feel like unacceptable groveling.
But a successful Regrouping almost always has to start with one or both freely admitting to a mistake.
Once a mistake is owned, it becomes much easier to take the next step, which almost always required one or more apologies.
This can get sticky if resentment makes accepting an apology too hard for the other party.
Once there has been apology, and it's been accepted, the issue is still only part way to being resolved.
Why?
The offended injured party need both reassurances about not happening again, and more important needs to feel those reassurances are for real...
Now time to heal enters the regrouping. If a D-type has ignored a limit, especially if the s-type feels frightened, injured or really angry, it is going to take some time to feel some trust returning. Way more important in our fetish world, where actual physical dangers are much more in the mix of where trust is critical than between vanilla partners...
Here's another pitfall -- The one in the wrong, who has gritted out an admission of wrong, made an abject apology, and give all those reassurances, is now feeling it should be all in the rear view mirror --pedal to the metal once again.
IF not enough time has passed for the wound to heal, there's a fair chance they collide and go off the rails all over again !
In sort, nothing is going to be easy regrouping after some damaging mistake hits a relationship...