Have a sit, grab your popcorn.....this will be a long one!
When we first moved to the big city we sought out a MAsT Chapter to get involved in our local BDSM community.
We met them there. At the time they were a submissive with her Daddy Dom husband and her more strict Master.
We were there when the Master was expelled from their lives.
We were there when they moved from one side of the city to the other as we helped them.
We met regularly for meals and comraderie.
I made friends with him and her. She stated her demisexual nature, and their personal struggles in a 30 year marriage of his supposed 'emotional immaturity'. Her and I talked (emailed is more honest) regularly about any and everything mentally stimulating. I enjoyed the challenge her questions proposed. Her husband and I enjoyed fishing together. Chatting about construction (as we both are in project management).
Time passed where Amethyst felt estranged. She never felt quite allowed to voice her perspective when we were all together.
Amethyst did a writing mentioning her jealousy over the type of conversations her and I would have. That it pressed on some old wounds. Not calling her out. In fact, not about her at all. Just Amethyst stating where she was on her journey.
The fallout was not pretty. The submissive took it personal. She felt attacked and summarily pushed Amethyst out of the circle.
While I still had conversations with each of them, I no longer went over for regular meet ups. If Amethyst was not welcome, why go?
Oh, I went for the occasional birthday or moments after he and I came back from fishing. But nothing intentional otherwise.
She was the leader of the local submissives group. She had been for 7 years. Encouraging newer submissives to take it slow and helping others to see red flags.
A year went by and the couple began talking about including a third again. She wanted more than what her husband could give. Stating she needed more emotional connection. Deeper intimacy.
After speaking with him, he stated his concern over her desire for a 'performance' in their intimacy. She wanted things to be just so.
He voiced his trepidation over adding a third.....and as a friend I encouraged him to sit with if he truly felt he was poly. If it is what he wanted or was it what he wanted to give her? Either choice was not wrong..... whatever he chose was ok. He confided in me that he wanted her happiness. And felt this was his only option. In my true fashion I asked him about his happiness. Does he deserve to be heard? What about what YOU want? Because you are allowed.
The difficult conversations between them were had. She too came to the realization that she really was not poly by the definition that she had subscribed to in the past.
They were left with a very difficult choice. End a 30 year marriage so she could find what she was looking for in a partner......or continue with both of them feeling unmet and unsafe.
They both agreed to an amicable separation. They were very good friends, and they always would be. They discussed everything from how navigating this new space would look moving forward, to when would this all take place.
They both agreed to not date anyone while they were still together.
They both agreed that she would get all of her healthcare needs taken care of while still on his insurance.
They both agreed he would pay off all their debts currently to give her the cleanest start possible.
They agreed that within 3 months she would have a job, a new place and an agreed upon $750 a month alimony from him.
See, she has not worked in quite some time. She stayed at home and raised their son. Homeschooling him. Taking care of the house. Making a home.
Their son is now 28. They would not have to worry about custody on any level.
Shortly after they agreed to separate she asked to have a conversation with me after our return from fishing one afternoon. In this conversation she proceeded to tell me she had feelings for me and wanted to know how I felt for her. I assured her I felt nothing but friendship for her because I stated from the outset of our communications that I would NOT engage in ANY emotional conversations. Most certainly not about any of my own on any level. It is a boundary I hold for myself with ANY woman.
Now I would like the reader to note something......this conversation happened in HIS home. While he was asked to stay in the bedroom so she could have this moment of privacy. She also dropped on me that she had been feeling this way towards me for approximately 9 months prior to this revelatory conversation.
I succinctly told her I felt nothing for her other than friendship. That I would never express to her any feelings I had around anything because I believe that is a recipe for disaster. That if she could not control her emotions please tell me and the friendship would end. I did not wish to see her struggle.
This was on a Saturday. On Monday I called my friend and apologized to him for any disrespect he felt I may have caused him. And honestly asked him if there is ANY thing I have done that would have been unbecoming. I reiterated the importance of he and my friendship and assured him I had no feelings whatsoever for his wife. He assured me he did not believe I was anything but honorable and transparent and he believed it was simply his wife's desire for that elusive 'more'.
6 weeks later she reached out to communicate with me as we had always and asked if I would have some time after fishing this weekend to simply have a brief chat. As she put it, "Nothing major." She reached out on a Thursday. I did not respond until Friday morning. On Saturday afternoon again her husband was relegated to the bedroom and this time she professed her love for me. That the 6 week distance only made those emotions more pronounced. She expressed how upset she got that I did not respond until Friday morning. How she had figured I just kind of blew her off. I pointedly told her that is a red flag. She should not allow herself to be feeling ANY kind of way towards a man she truly does not know, let alone while she is married and living under her husband's roof!!!
She proceeded to try to convince me we would be great together and how she wanted to be my slave (trying to play on my ego). I told her no. Period. That just because I feel like strangling my coworkers sometimes does not mean I act on those emotions! And this is a case where the same truth applies!!!
We parted that afternoon and have not talked since.
At this moment i want the reader to hear my heart here.
I think she is a good person.
I am not here to crucify or vilify her. She is a human being that is hurting and lost. That's all. She deserves and gets my empathy for the pain she is operating under. I know some of what she feels and why.....I have navigated spaces just like it.....of course from a dominants and male perspective. I write these things because I believe it is important for others to see what pain looks like. And how in that pain our actions can destroy us and the individual we purport we desire to be.
She was a leader in the community. Respected. Valued for her wise encouragement of other submissives to take their time. To be choosy and not rash.
She left her post as the submissive groups leader of her own free will and determination around the same time her husband and her decided to get divorced. She felt she needed the time to focus on her.
This woman purported to be demisexual. She said all the right things around being an emotionally intelligent human. She used her intellect as a way to show her value and to reiterate her boundaries and healthy limits.
That was a year ago.
She is still in her husband's home with no job.
She now has a dominant that is her son's age.
This dominant has recently been banned from the community for a consent violation with another submissive. She stays steadfast at his side.
Her husband gets to sit and watch her become this completely other person whom she has spoken in the past warning other submissives not to become. She has no ambition or desire to find a job, support herself, or move out. She will not file for divorce or do the things necessary to prepare for a life without her partner of the past 30 years.
He has paid off all their debt. Continues to pay all the bills, groceries etc cetera and STILL gives her an allowance. To his credit he recently got his own bank account and started having his paychecks deposited there so she can not get to it ......much to her frustration. As he puts it, "He is done funding her social life."
She goes out nearly every weekend to munches or play parties. Playing recklessly with her health and consent, with those whom she barely knows or can trust.
Time and decorum would not permit me to expound upon all the ways she uses and manipulates her estranged husband. It is awful to watch.
But that is not the point of this writing......
This writing is to draw attention to the pain and what it causes us to do.......
Her stance for needing 'more' in the way of emotional connection is a lie. Her actions today prove it. Meaning, the gaslighting she has and still does to her estranged husband over his inability to be emotionally available is a crock of shit.
I know this man. I have spent 4 years getting to know him. He is not an emotional powerhouse by any stretch of the imagination and he will tell you so. But that's just it!!! He will tell you so!!! THATS EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE!!! He knows himself. VERY well. He is more emotionally intelligent than he gives himself credit for. He is very wise. INCREDIBLY kind hearted and patient. I have RARELY met a man who is so emotionallly available as he is.
Imagine how challenging it must be for him. She has drilled into him that he is not emotionally available. So much so that he has believed it! He has, in the past, accepted that HE is the reason why they needed a third. And why she wants a divorce (which oddly enough she says today is his decision. More gaslighting and projecting).
And I would like the reader to notice......this is what pain looks like within ourselves. She is SO scared to look at herself she projects. She has done so for possibly decades. It appears innocent enough. It shows up as simply a need that she determines her husband cannot fulfil. When he has absolutely tried to meet her as she outlines she desires....she moves the goal post and he is still a failure.
It reminds me of Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown......."Come on Chuck. I won't do it again. You've got this." As she pulls the football away once more.
Rather than admit her husband is so emotionally in tune that he was getting too close to her and that caused her panic, she creates a fiction where no one can possibly measure up. Because the second a person gets close to doing so the goal post is moved.
"That is good but I also need......."
Something she has said on repeat to her husband.
You see, when they first got together 30 years ago he was a very detached man. He had some AWFUL things happen to him that bruised him so horribly that he withdrew. He became an unfeeling-cold-asshole. So much so she threatened to leave (and did for a while) 10 years ago. Since then he has crawled back with help from Emotions Anonymous, a 12 step program for the emotionally challenged. He is not close to the man he was back then. In the 4 years I have known him he has only grown as I have witnessed him!!
The point?
She chose him because of his emotional immaturity those 30 years ago. He was safe. He did not expose or press on all that which she does not want to look at. And today he does.
If she wanted to truly look at her pain as she purports she wants and says she does she would begin by realizing her actions and how they are affecting those around her.
When she professed her love to me......not once did she take into consideration how that profession would make me feel. How it would affect me. How it would make her husband feel. How it would affect him. How it would make Amethyst feel. How it would affect her. She saw someone in front of her that she felt would distract, manage, take control of, fix, stop that pain. And we all know.....that is an inside job. Nothing external will make that pain cease.
You know how I know???
Because if it could, we would interact with that thing once and our pain would no longer exist.
And we all know that's not real.
We would get drunk/high/ BDSM/online games/online chat/work/shopping/exercise WHATEVER just once and then no longer have to do it.
The honesty is......our pain remains. And because anything we extend our focus to so intently as our savior because it 'makes us feel good' in a moment that does not last is so enticing.....we continue.
Her actions today prove it.
All the things she warned other submissives about for 7 years not to do she is doing today. Ignoring all the red flags. Getting lost in sub-frenzy. Ignoring others in an attempt to just stop the pain.
Is she evil? NO!
She is human.
I absolutely know I have done the same thing in the past. This is NOT a judgement on her. I actually feel great sorrow for her. Because I know some of what she is feeling. I know how lonely it is. How unwilling you can be to look in the mirror. How scary it is to not know how to stop and find a safe space to navigate this pain. How terrifying it is to even consider looking at the pain even if you did have a safe space!
We ALL have those things we are frightened to look at. I am honestly no exception.
What I hope we take away from this writing is what fear can do to us. I have not used that word yet in this writing and it was intentional. I have used pain as it's substitute. Because the result of our fear is pain. Pain within ourselves. Pain that we subject those around us to when we do not resolve to navigate our fears.
I have caused pain in Amethyst and my connection because I was too afraid to navigate my fear of trust. That pain was not such that it threatened our dynamic. Gratefully we are aware enough to have those crunchy conversations and work together to support one another as we navigate our fears. And it sucks!!!!
But the alternative is what???
30 years from now, if left unchecked, that fear grows into a monster that controls us and we feel out of control with.
That is not to say that fear is impossible to be navigated!
Something I have noticed with fear that I would like to leave you with as an encouragement:
We all feel so overwhelmed by our internal pain at times. Like it is insurmountable. Or we have no clue where to begin. Fear can absolutely feel like a monster we cannot overcome. But it only takes one action. One step towards bravery. One courageous choice to stop the cycle. It maybe that you have no clue where to start.....that is ok. It only matters that you do! Because YOUR peace is worth it!!!!
Can you imagine the hell she must be in internally????? How scared and how much running within from herself she is doing??
While where you are may not be the same. While you may comfort yourself with the thought that, "at least I am not living that life in my pain." Are there other areas where you run and hide into things that 'make you feel better' but never truly bring you peace??
Conversely, my friend, while in deep obvious pain.
Sits and supports his wife in the safest way for himself he knows how.
He does not go out and seek the solace of another woman's arms.
He does not go out to the bars.
Or take drugs.
Or gets lost online.
Or works himself to death.
He comes to me, and others, and speaks his pain. He courageously takes a step and bravely says, "I am in pain and I am afraid." It does not heal the pain, that is not the point of courage. But it DOES bring healing.
How can YOU begin to heal today????
If I can encourage you, please, for YOU, find someone you trust to hold a safe space for you and speak your pain. Give a voice to your fears. It will not solve them, but it WILL be a courageous act that shows your fear you no longer wish to be controlled by it.
We say all the time, "Communication in a relationship is vital and the key." This is just one reason why! A very important reason!
I truly hope each of you finds your voice and peace today!!!
Namaste
Drago and Amethyst
