pixelslave
Posts: 1444
Joined: 8/19/2006 Status: offline
|
Another session I attended at SPLF was about Relationships, both starting and ending them. The session was very interesing for several reasons to me. First, it was led by a woman who considers herself poly, while I relate to others as monogamous. Yet that didn't prevent me from walking away from it with many insights which I felt worth sharing and worthy of further thought and disscussion. From her poly premise, she considered that no one person can meet anyone in particular's needs. In many senses there's some truth to that in that we have often have friends with whom we only share certain activities with. For me, the more intimate ones would be activities which I'd only want to share with my partner. Your mileage of course would vary and I make no judgements on your choices in the matter. The real gist of her presentation that I'd like to discuss is that she suggested we make lists of our "needs", our "wants", and our "desires". As presented, she considered needs as being non-negotiable. If a person couldn't satisfy your needs, then it was obvious to her that you should rule them out as a partner. When it came to wants, those are what she considered negotiable in a relationship, provided they could be balanced to the satisfaction of both. Desires of course were what I'd call "icing on the cake". I learned a long time ago that there'd be some activities which I enjoy that I'd readily do without when looking at the big picture in order to have an overal satisfactory relationship. While I do have a foot fetish, I've yet to meet a woman who didn't enjoy having her feet rubbed. Needs are things like emotional security, trust, honesty, commitment, chemistry, and many other things which are unique to each individual. Wants might be things like "services", kinks, kinds of play, amount of time for play, details of a power exchange, shared vanilla interests, someone who'd do the cooking, etc. Desires of course could be brown hair, blue eyes, slim, rubenesque, muscular, wealthy, "beautiful" (eye of the beholder kind of thing if you ask me), drives a ferrari, and so on. So my question to you, is how many of you have taken that kind of look at your needs, wants and desires? More importantly, does your profile reflect them and will it attract the kind of person who fits the balance you're looking for? If it doesn't, are you fishing with the right bait? Are you prepared to share this kind of information with a prospective Domme or sub? As a final part of her presentation, she shared her thoughts on how to end relationships more peacefully and on a more happy note. I think I leaned forward to listen to this part carefully. Her suggestion was to have a prenuptual or the equivalent for all of your relationships, such as a D/s contract that included such things! Her reasoning was that while you're still in a loving relationship, it's much easier to work those things out than when one or both of you is angry at the other and involving divorce attorneys or friends on how to split your assets. She also suggested they be reviewed regularly as things change and you're still in a loving relationship and able to divide things amicably. When I think of the money, emotional grief and legal expense it would have saved, my how I wish my ex and I had done something similar! As a result of doing that, she's been able to remain friends with all of her exes (previous partners as she prefers to refer to them). I thought that was worth sharing and would welcome any discussion it would generate. I remember one comment I made during her presentation was that I could envision where reviewing and adjusting a prenup for life changes when things were going well, could possibly in itself set off a divorce or othe conflicts. LOL! - pixel
_____________________________
Chivalry isn't dead! It's for those who have it in their hearts & are willing to be taught. It's a way of life, a code of honor; this one's armor still needs some polishing!
|