I’ve been in a bit of a cave recently. For a while now I’ve felt like I wanted to write something, but I haven’t really had the words. It can take me a long time to get the words, but once I do I tend to ramble on. I suppose this will be one of those. I’m sorry about that…
I’m going through some huge transitions right now. I’m trying to remain calm and focused, and I’ve mostly refrained from using this blog as a place to vent and work through things. My focus has been very internal. Master and I jumped off a cliff when we married K. We made decisions quickly and are now going through all of the adjustments you might expect – growing pains if you will.
For those of you who are wondering, yes it has been difficult for me. I don’t adjust to change easily. I like things to be stable and I like security. Having to let go of every single thing I thought was happening in my life to make room for something new isn’t an easy process. It may be rewarding, but it takes a lot of effort to get to that point.
Here is what I know:
I am a strong and capable person. I have faced many emotional challenges and come through them. I jumped into adulthood with little to no preamble. I went from being a pretty pampered kid (an only child from a middle class family) to a step parent of two (and later three) challenging children in what now feels like the blink of an eye. I entered into a very complicated relationship structure without having any real experience with relationships, and have made it work to varying degrees for eight years now. That is longer than most marriages today. I have faced judgement, intervention and criticism from my parents and friends. I have worked to navigate the often confusing and conflicting experience of being a Christian and being a kinky, poly, submissive, deviant person. I have sacrificed the things that I want in this life to make room for the people I love. I have done this again and again for years. It’s part of making things work.
Sometimes I wonder -Those of you who judge me for sticking around when things seem less than ideal, what is your track record with relationships? On what basis do you assume I should be doing something else? My grandparents were together for 70 years. My own parents have been together just over 25 years. I’ve seen stability and commitment modeled in my life and I’ve made decisions to pursue that. No, I won’t just walk away from people I love because it is hard for others to understand.
Here is what else I know:
I deserve to be happy and achieve the things that are important to me. We all do. I have dreams and desires and goals. I have given my “best years” in the service of others in the hope and expectation that we were building something together that would include my needs and desires. Not all of our goals and dreams and desires seem to be compatible, and I don’t know where that leaves us.
I know that I love my family.Master has been my rock for a long time. He has been the single most influential person in my life. He is a huge part of who I am today. I like who I am, so that is a good thing. I know that I belong with these children. They are challenging, but they deserve to have people in their lives who will love them unconditionally and help them become good and productive men. We are together by choice, and they need me. For all the pain they’ve caused me, I know we need each other. I know that K brings her own unique contributions to our family. We fell in love with her hard and fast, and we all jumped off a cliff together. We don’t know what things will look like when the dist settles, but we chose her and she chose us.
It’s time for me to start finding a way to give to my family and be where I am while still moving forward on the things that I want and need. We are in a period of change. K’s coming stirred a lot of things up. For all that it is painful, it is also an opportunity. Maybe that means giving a little less and putting my foot down on some things. Maybe that means asking for more help. Maybe it doesn’t mean any of those things. I don’t have the answers.
I read somewhere (in some self help book) that women make a shift in their later 20s from giving away themselves to standing up for their own needs. Developmentally I’m right on track. My grandparents turned this corner together in their own relationship, I know there is a way to do it myself.
I’m going back to my cave for now. I’m around and I will probably have some more to say here and there. If you want to do something, keep me in your thoughts or your prayers. Try to refrain from judging me. If you have experience making this transition, by all means share. Just know that I’m sort of a shitty friend and correspondent right now because I’m a bit… distracted. It doesn’t mean I don’t value your wisdom.
I’m here. I’m hanging in there. I have no idea beyond that.
Kinky Little Girl 
Nov 16, 2011 @ 22:01:03
Bridget,
The expression and maturation of our womanhood in our twenties might be easier than menopause, but it’s still a very important part of our adulthood. I think it’s one of the main reasons that when (even now) we talk about the nebulous grown-up future of our daughter with her, and she says something adorably lovely like “I want to get married and have babies!”, I always remind her that if she wants to spend time with those babies and support them, she needs to plan to finish school before marriage and children. I haven’t managed to work out how to convince her that she will be better prepared emotionally and psychologically at, say, twenty-seven than she might be even at twenty-two. Men are much the same only on a different timescale, and I suspect the historical tendency to commit and marry early (i.e. in our teens and very young twenties) has direct consequences in high divorce rates among first marriages. After we pass through to the next stage of our lives, we change less and there is more stability to our personalities, making those long-term relationships easier. Maybe what we need from our partners at twenty-two changes, and are early-20s-partner doesn’t change with us, then there is a schism … leading to the dissolution of our first important relationships and the creation of new ones.
[I’m not convinced, but I wonder if SOME of the reaction you’ve encountered over the years by others regarding your relationship(s) is a direct consequence of the age of the commenter. I am not suggesting that all of those attitudes were correct and you were wrong at all, only that some of those reactions were from women who have been through a relationship transition in their late 20s.]
Speaking for myself only, I became almost desperate to have a child (done!), I actively sought out a defined punishment and D/s aspect to my relationship with Chris and acted out to make him enforce it for awhile before he said, “Hey, you asked for this so suck it up.” (Okay, not in so many words, he wouldn’t actually speak to me that bluntly.) I also became almost desperate to leave where we were physically for … well, pretty much anywhere (and we did that a year or two later). If we hadn’t turned those corners, I’m not sure how our lives would look right now, or if Chris would have thrown up his hands at my temper tantrums, petty jealousy and crazy devotion to my work … and especially once the girl was born, how and if we would have survived.
Shalom, dear one. Walk in peace through the days and make quiet time for discernment and contemplation.
Apr 18, 2013 @ 09:00:16
wow I would me love for you to spank my ass