The Culture that has been here all the time

Hello Friends,

My mood swings are under control now that doctors identified that I was bipolar under new guidelines: I knew it for a long time. Up everyone loves you and you are a great achiever down suddenly they say too bad you are depressed. Anti-depressants helped with the blues but not the ups. I am a creative person and most people just said,' "He's one of those creative types; A temperamental artist musician." That much was true I achieved a lot in arts and science but the downside is keeping it going. Short projects like poetry, songs, and paintings first well with moodiness but I have many longer works (manuscripts) left unfinished. Relationships? My wife was a doll she understood me like no one else. Alas, that was before her brain disease, and now the only thing of her for me that remains? A hug, a kiss, and a laugh when I am joking (sometimes at my corny sense of humor).

Will I ever find someone to love me like that again? Probably not. I still can hope but the odds are not in my favor I fear.

Hello Friends,

We were married in 1985 we both were previously married, me twice she once we both had a daughter and a son. She rescued me from single parenthood and I rescued her from single parenthood. I asked her to quit her job and stay with the home and children. That was the main pattern for ten years. After rough financial situations (I was laid off 3 times) and a chapter 13 to save our house she began a part-time job. We were Christians.

The first thing she said to me about our sex life? My body is yours and yours is mine. what we do in our bedroom is our business and what we do is whatever we like as long as no one gets hurt. It was from that point she taught me more than I could teach her. 

Now? She isn't interested in sex. Too bad I have gained much information that could have made her happy.

Too many drills and no actual sex has made me dull and sometimes I just feel angry. I get over it quickly as a caregiver I can not be angry it isn't a good thing. 

Lyrics always fill my head some are my own some come from other songwriters: Like poetry, they speak louder than the words themselves.

"It takes a worried man to sing a worried son . . . ." Worried Man Blues Song by the Carter Family 1930 during "The Great Depression".¹
 

1 from People Ask What is the story behind the song Worried Man Blues? 
 
"Worried Man Blues" is an American folk song that folklorists generally believe originated with African American singers. The lyrics describe the experiences of someone who is arrested for unspecified reasons and sentenced to work on a chain gang.

Hello Friends,

My brother and I share a trait that causes us to laugh at ourselves: As we are eating a meal we begin to plan what our next meal would be (LOL).

The real inspiration for this entry however is we humans seem to relish something to look forward to. We always hope that the results are up to our expectations. We can't wait for things like graduation, a party, a vacation, a trip perhaps a new relationship. I always looked forward to making love (sex) and it usually was good, sometimes fair or disappointing, or even great. If variety is "the spice of life" in this case I prefer the quality to be on the upper end of the positive scale. Sex is more than the fulfillment of lust, the desire to procreate or experience pleasure.

Sex is part of a natural process and function that is related to good physical and mental health. Lovemaking emphasizes emotional health also.

I can do without this only for so long then things begin to happen to me: First I grow anxious then irritable then angry. If I use my brain to rationalize my situation I come to terms with the absence of all the above and adapt so I do not drive myself crazy. I hope it isn't too late.

Hello Friends,

Hitherto I focused on Dom and Sub (and of course Switch) but then this question popped into my mind:

 from a Quora Sean Sanders post

BDSM educator and 24/7 practitioner of the lifestyle  · 4y

Do all people fall into the category of either a submissive or a dominant?

Nope.

Some people are dominant. Some people are submissive. Some are D/s switches (meaning they switch back and forth between dominant and submissive roles).

And there are people, even within the BDSM community, that are neither dominant nor submissive.

Then I wondered are there degrees of each? (probably my guess) Something like a scale of 1-10 could be used for example. Yet, humans are not static and they are always evolving and adapting so what applies today to you may not apply in the future.

The Cage Check List is very useful: 

https://thecage.co/magazine,150.html

Hello Friends,

I thank all of you who have read my blog and in good faith posted comments: All were very helpful. decadentEssence in Scotland UK, offered the most selfless comment: She told me if she was closer she would help with my wife's care as a friend. Something lacking here in the USA. 

The intense caregiving I perform for my wife with Alzheimer's/Dementia/Aphasia has had a severe negative effect on me and especially my social life: There isn't any. I am committed to caring for her until the end: "'till death due us part". 

Seeking a friend (woman friend) has been an expensive and futile effort from which I have learned many bitter lessons. In several situations when I expected a woman to just visit me and they did not, I was relieved because though my wife offered zero intimacy I still felt like I was betraying her.

I arrived here in The Cage because I was convinced a sub woman could become a personal companion by a Woman Dom. The definition of companion varied widely in my search. I explained that I had learned that my wife who is ill was a perfect sub in retrospect and took care of me like no other woman in my life (another reason not to abandon her). I did not understand that until I was introduced to the Dom/Sub Subculture.

As a man in the USA (maybe elsewhere) I was taught to have integrity, honor my commitments, and let my yes mean yes and my no mean no: What does this mean to me now? "Suck it up" and live the life I have been given. I chose to care for my wife and I should be mature enough to accept every consequence that is the result of that decision.

I will pick myself up, dust myself off, and start once again: Hold myself to that high standard (try harder to the best of my ability). 

Hello Friends,

If my wife were not suffering from a brain disease this is how a typical day might go:

Up in the morning first I feed the dogs and cat and get the dog out for a walk. I get stuff ready to make breakfast for her and me. Two eggs each turkey sausage hash browns cranberry juice. Coffee for me and tea for her. I put the news and weather on for a little while. Since neither of us works, we plan a ride through the country and have lunch at an inviting place. 

Afterward, we stopped by some shops for miscellaneous items and then to the supermarket for groceries. We get home unload our items and it is growing dark so I put on some lamps check the temperature in the house and make adjustments. I make supper this time pasta with tomato sauce, then feed the cat and dogs. Walk the dogs. When I got back I saw my wife had done the dishes and dressed in more comfortable clothes.

I check the emails and the mail sort out the bills for the next day and look at the television listings. We both like mysteries, especially from the UK so we decided to watch an ITV series Agatha Christie's Poirot episode, and sit together on the couch close to each other and at some point we dozed off so we shut the lights and the TV and go up to bed.

Hello Friends,

A friend of mine (Pierce Pettis) wrote a song with these lyrics:

Here's how life seems to me
Life is just therapy
Real expensive with
No guarantees
So I lie here on the couch
With my heart hangin' out
Frozen solid with fear
Like a rock in the ground

No guarantees. It can be frightening for sure. Yet I don't want a life that is all figured out with no room for serendipity, no room to learn from mistakes, and I do not want a romantic/sexual partner to be static unchanging, and unengaging. If love is an action word the romantic/sexual partner should be full of life learning, sharing, and teaching as well. 

The spirit of a Dom and the spirit of a Sub is not "Frozen solid . . .  like a rock in the ground." Each can respond to the other and become better at the role that they find themself in. How they arrived at their respective position is another story 

Hello Friends

I can learn and change and have demonstrated that in my life many times: I quit smoking, ten years completely sober as an alcoholic, objected to war but served our country, entered technical schools to alter course, went back to school, and won a full scholarship to Princeton (I turned it down because at 26 and married becoming a freshman and living on campus was not for me). was not religious but then embraced religion for 40 years (intensely religious) and now because of the disaster of my wife's early onset Alzheimer's, attempting to emerge out of the darkness adapted for a new life reinvented.

This new start emphasizes my artistic side and diminishes my technological past. I am determined that if this is to be the last phase of a long life, it will be filled with love and beauty. The cornerstone will be friendship. If I am to function in this new place with new horizons I need not only to adapt but to find a companion who will understand where I am, why I am, and where I am going, and willing to become a fellow traveler sharing and creating this journey together.

Hello Friends,

I few posts back I wrote about an open relationship and Polyamorous possibilities for me. That was altogether wrong. Those of you who questioned whether I and my wife could agree to have an open relationship were correct: She is not cognisant of what that means and if she is asked if she is married to me, she says, "No." Her mind is totally or nearly totally compromised. To have a truly polyamorous relationship she would need to be in total agreement and an active partner. So I was completely wrong about this.

It has been a year since I set out to find a lover or even a friend to partially fulfill what my wife is incapable of doing: Being a Partner and a lover.

I failed miserably. In actuality, it cost me a great deal financially because I believed several scammers were going to become the FWB I sought. I was recruited by a Dominatrix to be trained as a Master Dom and that has had dubious results. Allegedly I have two girls provided by her to help me take care of my home and me but that has not materialized. Circumstances according to her have led to delays in getting them here to help me. But all was not lost.

I learned in retrospect that my wife (who is impaired) of 39 years is a submissive woman and I was wrong to give her too much freedom because she interpreted that as my lack of loving her. So the Dominatrix introduced me to aspects of my past that were there and I didn't recognize them. 

So I now know what M/S is in BDSM means and I am making adjustments in my life accordingly. I will not replace my wife (or end my caregiving for her as long as she is alive) that is impossible. When I meet the submissive woman who can fill the voids in my life I will know it, and plan to work on a relationship with her accordingly.

Hello Friends,

The Young Woman Who Lives Across the Street made my day. As I walked my dogs she was leaving for work and she waved to me.