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stephiegirl -> RE: Limits vs. Needs (6/17/2014 9:03:09 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: leadership527
quote:
ORIGINAL: happylittlepet
To me, as soon as resentment would crop up, it's my responsibility to communicate that. By the time I feel resentment I know that I should have communicated sooner, e.g. that I found it difficult to do or not do X but didn't want to say so (for any of a myriad of reasons). And that indicates that I kept something for myself that I wasn't supposed to keep for myself. Communicating that something is difficult doesn't mean I don't have to do it. That is not for me to decide.
By the time I would decide that a desire now has become a need (if that is even possible), and has become the reason to leave, I am fooling myself. I started with the breakdown of the relationship the moment I stopped communicating in an honest way with him and myself.
WONDERFULLY stated. I like it all, the bolded part is just the icing on the cake.
I'm updating this thread because I want to tell the story of how this problem played out.
happylittlepet's assessment of a sub's responsibility to his/her dominant is spot on. I stopped reading replies to my thread after I posted my update way back in 2011, but I would have gained some important insight from that post. I was in a hurry to put the unpleasantness between my Master (Obis) and me behind us, chalk it up to sleep disturbance and medication, and get on with our relationship. But as you can guess, the relationship still had the underlying problems of bad communication and differing positions on what were acceptable limits for me to hold. Life events interrupted our process of figuring those things out.
We were still in the process of articulating what we both wanted out of the relationship when I was diagnosed with breast cancer in June 2011. We put those conversations on hold and concentrated on doing what we needed to to save my life. As it turned out, our conversations about my hair, both in terms of how much was acceptable to be pulled out and whether or not I would dye it as he desired, had been helpful for me to disentangle my identity from my hair. February-2011-me was justified in taking a stand against bodily harm in the form of excessive hair pulling, but June-2011-me benefited from all that rumination over how important it was for me to be in control of my body. That control was taken from me when I elected to get a double mastectomy and endure six rounds of chemo, leaving me without real breasts or hair.
Maintaining emotional or sexual intimacy after suffering these losses was incredibly difficult, and made more difficult by my Master's chronic depression. It is hard for a depressed person to take care of another depressed person who has cancer. I did not feel, as other women testified, that my partner loved my body after these changes. He confessed that he was scared of hurting me in my weakened state. When my hair was growing back, he joked about how I looked like Justin Bieber, which didn't make me feel very desirable. His lack of ability to deal with my emotions and our difficulty communicating with each other led to the demise of the relationship a few months after I finished treatment. I stopped acting like a slave and wearing my collar because I didn't feel like I was taken care of as a slave should be. I loved him desperately, but it became clear that this relationship was not good for me, and my growing resentment of him was not good for him. We parted ways, he moved out, but we stayed close friends. His depression worsened and grew intractable.
Fast forward to 2013. I moved out of town, started a new stressful job, and lost my father to cancer abruptly in November. Obis was engaged in a process of reflection and renewed self-knowledge during this time, but I couldn't participate in that process with him because of my grief. He grew weary of struggling against his depression and feeling like he couldn't emotionally connect with people. In February I called him and left a message about my new diagnosis of metastatic breast cancer. He didn't respond. For the month before my diagnosis he had been making arrangements to kill himself and leaving letters and instructions for his loved ones after he passed. Two days after I called him with my diagnosis, he committed suicide. It's still surreal to type that.
I'm doing better health-wise, but am so angry at him for removing himself from my life when I wanted his companionship during my illness. It's selfish of me, but I still feel it. I know he heard my message, and he knew how traumatic losing my father had been. I guess it's a sign of how strong his desire to die was, that he would go through with his plans even knowing how much it would hurt the people he loved. But he's no longer suffering and I have to keep reminding myself of that.
Obis was in many ways an excellent master. He listened when I talked, he calmed me, he wanted what was best for me and tried to improve my life in many tangible ways. We all have our failings as partners and our failings happened to make our relationship an ongoing challenge. His depression made him retreat into himself. My depression made me need him more. He didn't talk much because from his perspective, things were fine. I didn't talk enough because I was scared to disappoint him. I think we both grew a lot in that relationship and I'm so glad to have had him in my life for almost five years. I wish it had turned out differently, but it's not up to me.
I'm not sure what the point of this is besides unburdening myself of this story, which the CollarMe community has a unique insight into. I also wanted people who were familiar with Obis on these boards to know what happened to him. I believe that he helped many people here over the years. At his memorial, there were so many people whose lives he had touched, and I wish he could have seen that. If people online had been able to attend, the number would have been far greater.
I guess what 2014-me would say to 2011-me is this: Have the courage to take a stand about who you are and what you need, and what is not acceptable. Have those difficult conversations. They will bring you closer, but they carry the risk of finding out that you are incompatible as partners. But just because you can't maintain a romantic relationship with someone doesn't mean that you can't care for each other deeply in other ways. You can love someone intensely and at the same time deserve a relationship that honors who you are and want to be. Both things can be true.
There's plenty that I want to say to Obis, but he's not here, so I'll indulge my urge to communicate with him in the form of a journal. I won't ever get to text, email, call, or speak to him again, so the things I left unsaid will have to be written for a different reader than I intended: me, alone.
No responses are needed. Thank you for listening.
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