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stella41b -> RE: Helping negative people (10/18/2008 7:33:13 AM)
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To me one of the most damaging things is the dynamic of the relationship - an M/s or Mistress-slave one where Mistress has a successful relationship (I assume) with her partner. This is what I feel is trapping J in her own misery, and for all her 'enlightenment' and 'spirituality' totally negates any help she could offer her.
This was a lesson which took me some time to understand myself. I have never been a slave, I have never been collared, but this hasn't stopped me trying to enter into a relationship with a domme as a slave. Some of the more regular posters will remember my online relationship last year with Halley, a domme in Mississippi. When Halley first approached me in the spring of 2007 I had just got out of a short relationship with a UK domme who suffered from ME and Halley approached me wanting me to be a domestic slave in her house in Mississippi. I went for this, because I saw that I was getting a support system, home and a new life all in one. It was only when she got to know me that she changed and said that she couldn't collar me as a slave because she felt it wouldn't be for the right reasons and that she would prefer to have a relationship with me as her submissive. We got on, there was chemistry, but my experience in Atlanta prevented us from meeting.
But those several months of online relationship with daily contact, even though I was getting nothing done here in the UK and living vicariously in Mississippi were beneficial, she helped me find confidence in myself, she encouraged me to blog, to write postings on these message boards and to come out of myself. This was also how MistressEllieS with whom I also had a short online relationship saw it. Both these dommes were blocking my attempt to 'give up' and become a slave and encouraging me to move towards theatre. They both worked on my self-esteem and self-confidence building me up and encouraging me to work at finding my own self-esteem and self-confidence within myself.
My mistake always was, and I suspect that it is exactly the same here with the OP, that J is seeking the solution in the relationship, where she will never find it. My solution and key to finding my own self-esteem and self-confidence doesn't lie in my relationships but in my artistic work and creativity. These are the only two things I do really well, that is to write plays and direct them. My entire life hinges on two days, the 5th July 2000 when at a major festival 600 people came to a 90 seater venue to see one of my plays and also my success in Warsaw theatre during 9/11. Since that time I have supported myself successfully from my work in theatre - this is my stability.
This is part of the reason why, despite having interest from Dark Knight Entertainments (who managed Monty Python) and also having the opportunity to work alongside Kevin Spacey at the Old Vic Theatre in London I have chosen to start again from the beginning in a small South London pub called The Duchess. My plays don't belong in theatres, but in non-theatrical spaces, and now by default my theatre despite its momentary collapse has become a BDSM fringe theatre. I'm in my ascendancy and coming back after three years of not having a play on stage (I tell a lie, there's currently a production of one of my comedies on the stage in Italian theatre). My change of name and gender hasn't affected my reputation as fringe playwright, and for the first time ever in my life I'm coming out of myself and learning that I am worthy of love and am popular and loved by a great many people.
I am also not criticizing the M/s dynamic, for it works and there are numerous examples all around of very successful M/s Master-slave relationships. But these are built on solid foundations with people who have the right headspace. You don't have to spend long enough on these boards to become aware that this isn't something which is universal.
Rather I am of the opinion that quite often people skip the first friendship stage, the second command and service stage and they jump right in after the sexual attraction and kink stage and try and develop a successful M/s relationship on that basis, which is at best risky. You also find M/s relationships being formed on the basis of mutual exploitation - the dominant wants cheap or free domestic help in the home with someone who they can also play with and have sex with and the submissive gets a stable home and an immediate support network, but in the case of the OP it's somehow only taking the easy route out, the line of least resistance and there's no guarantee it will address any of the issues.
You see if the submissive is a slave in such an exploitative relationship the relationship isn't interdependent but codependent, and they will invariably see themselves as inferior because they are the slave. Many of the transgendered do seek out such relationships which provides a degree of security and comfort but it also puts the onus of support and rehabilitation on the dominant and many dominants just don't have the strength or the resources to cope with someone going through a very stressful gender reassignment process with emotional or psychological issues.
SimplyMichael is dead right, blaming each other is only going to make things worse. Where is the blame? The blame lies in the responsibility here and that rests very squarely in my opinion on both sides, wherein this is just one more example of people going into M/s without really knowing, understanding or accepting each other.
I see two possible solutions here, and both involve changing the dynamic. The first option is to go poly and both the OP and her partner reestablish a relationship with J as primary support partners. The second option is to work out some sort of salary and employ J to work in the house on the same terms as a normal housekeeper. This may or may not be acceptable, but to me BDSM should never be a valid alternative to therapy nor a source of cheap or free domestic labour.
The problem is of course that there are very few people prepared to form relationships with people going through gender reassignment as primary partners or significant others for various reasons, many of them valid ones. It goes with the territory and the whole process. This is why I have never sought to pass myself off as a natural born female but am quite openly transgendered. I'm not politically correct, it's perfectly acceptable for me that many people find me unacceptable for a relationship because I am transgendered and I see it as their preference rather than their problem.
This also brings up the issue of 'you cannot love others if you cannot love yourself'. Gender reassignment is a voyage of self-discovery, and to find many of the answers you need to have answers for you do need to interact and form relationships with other people. Though I am getting better at resolving my own issues I also admit there are times when I project my own issues into my postings (I also do the same in my plays) and I also go through periods of being emotionally needy. This starts a downward spiral because often there is no one around to address these needs and I get into this mindset that I cannot be loved and I am unworthy of love. This is of course bullshit. Why am I still believing it after 40 years? I wish I had a way of explaining this, I really do. The only way to get roubnd this is for me to reach out to others and push myself more into situations where other people accept me so that I can work on changing and modifying my own self esteem. Nobody else can do this, I am the only person who can do this.
But I will leave it here, hopefully adding some more points to ponder.
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