aromanholiday
Posts: 307
Joined: 4/12/2011
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Hi Darrc,
You are a smart person and that was a very impressive and articulate post. You seem to be quite responsible toward those you care for and regard as important and also clear-headed/practical about the things you are familiar with. These are all very great assets--many people do not have them. The only problem here is that you lack(ed) experience with this sort of situation (distance relationship), and did not, therefore, act with the same level of responsibility, caring, and clear-headedness toward it that you have in other areas of your life. I think that probably killed the relationship.
This is going to be long. Since you asked for this, I'll not mince words. First, the conclusion: If dominance and submission are important to you, you need to cut your losses with this one and let it go. I think you have lost her or are on the verge of losing her. If having a more straight/vanilla/egalitarian relationship with this particular person is more important, than you've got to get up there and see her, in the flesh, or find some way to move her down to where you are. And you need to do this soon. You are, indeed, on a timer now, but it is not one of her making: you made this one yourself. I do think, however, that the D&S potential with this person is gone.
Now the details. I've seen this sort of situation before. You made a few serious mistakes. If you learn what you need to learn from them, you probably won't make them again. The first problem was in taking a submissive before you were in a position to take her. You jumped the gun a bit with her. I know how badly this economy sucks, it's hurt so many of us, but you need to get your own life in order first before you can own or control another life. Things have to be in place, domination is not easy, and the first thing that needs to happen is to get your own situation into good enough shape that you can bring a submissive or a slave into it. For that to happen you may need to wait for the economy to get better, although you are young enough that, unlike your 50-something associates, you could at this point easily switch careers to an industry less dependent on/affected by economic chaos. While all industries were hit hard in the last few years, some felt it far more than others. Your particular niche was hit hard, and will continue to be hit hard each time the economy takes a downswing. Rather than suffer such future insecurity, if I were you, I would take the scary step of changing careers while I was still young enough and commitment-free enough that it would be fairly easy to do. But that's a decision for you to make.
Before you get involved with someone, it is pretty important to make a space or to see a clear way to make a space for her. Some submissives can tolerate a distance relationship and have the preservation to wait as long as necessary for it to become in-person. But I'd say they are in the minority. Most would find what you are asking your girl to do extremely hard. You cannot trust what someone says about this, particularly when you do not know them well in person. Sometimes people just do not know themselves very well or know what they are capable of. You need to learn how to read what people can tolerate, not by what they say, but by what they do or how they respond to various situations. Somehow, some way you must make a place for her, where you can have her directly under your eye and can control her, care for her, reassure her, and enjoy her. I know you say over and over that you want this. But my feel from everything you wrote is that you really did not give this a high priority at all. Anyway, there are probably many creative living situations you could come up with, even on a tight budget. You just need to give it some thought, and put some plans in place for her or for the the next girl.
It was very bad that she moved so far away from you. That hurt your relationship badly. I understand she faced a crisis in her life and that was her only option, but it made your ability to control her very attenuated. I'm sure you see that now. The important thing to learn from this is it is better to prepare first before you get involved with someone: have some plans in place so if the unexpected does happen, you have the ability to protect her or posses her more fully, not less fully. I think at this point she felt despair and also rejection from you, even though you weren't directly rejecting her. But you were the dominant and you couldn't take care of her, bring her to you, when she desperately needed it, when she lost a place to live. (Do you know how scary that can be--to be kicked out on the street? She is very lucky she did have some other friends who cared enough to let her stay with them. By the way, what would you have done if she hadn't had those friends--if she was made homeless and had nowhere to go? Did you have a plan in place?) She may not have admitted it at the time, but I believe your inability to help her in this first horrible crisis might have been the point where her loyalty began to flag.
The experiences she went through after the move, her illnesses, were profound ones. There was no way you could monitor them or stay on top of them remotely. This exact situation will probably never happen to you again, but in future long distance control relationships, remember this moment. This was the time when you needed to go to her. You needed to be there in person, monitoring her care. Yes, I'm sure her body was in competent hands in the hospital--although all bets are off when it comes to pneumonia--if that is what she had--a it is very virulent and often kills. But her soul would have been so much more reassured if you could somehow have found a way to get up there and been there for her, watching over her. One master/slave relationship I was in contained a large element of caring and loving from the dominant. It reminds me of the sort of relationship you're trying to establish with this girl. One day I got in a traffic accident. I hit a bus head on. The car was totalled but I escaped extremely lightly (non-serious head wound), although at the time they (medical personnel) didn't know that. As soon as my owner found out I was in the hospital (I am not sure how he found out--I guess someone called him) he came down there to see me. This was extremely hard for him to do: he was very handicapped, semi-blind, and not well. But he was there sitting by my bed when I woke up, reassuring me that all was well, making jokes about the accident, holding my hand. :) I think perhaps your girl, facing this extremely serious medical condition felt bereft and abandoned by you. Yes it's irrational, yes you had all the good reasons in the world for not being able to get up there and see her, but emotionally I expect it was experienced by her as a huge betrayal and a sign that she just wasn't very important to you. I think she learned from this experience and from the earlier loss of her home that she cannot count on you in a crisis. I think these experiences shook her trust and loyalty in you profoundly. In the type of relationship you are seeking, if you want to own someone or even if you just want to be her responsible dominant, you cannot do this sort of thing. Your loyalties can't be split. You've got to do what it takes to make her yours, and in this case it was getting up to Minnesota somehow, even if it meant hitchhiking there.
(FWIW, I normally don't give this type of advice. I'm personally interested in a very different sort of D&S relationship: one in which the slave assumes a great deal of responsibility, and typically that is what I will talk about here. But I have extensive experience with the sort of thing you were trying to build with your girl, and I know how these situations work--and also how they don't.)
OK. Mistake number three. Her loyalty and trust in you has already been badly shaken. It was a huge warning sign when she cut the communication with you, even after she had recovered. It was an indication that something was seriously amiss and had to be fixed--immediately. Your presence, being right there in her face, would have fixed it the best, but in lieu of that, you had to give her a feeling that you were there, watching her, keeping an eye on her, caring for her, controlling her. I understand that loosening control, getting lax about the rules seemed like the right thing to do at the time, but in actuality it was probably the worst thing you could have done at that point. She was already deeply disturbed by the lack of contact with you and she had just gone through the sort of experience (life-threatening illness) that can sometimes cause a person's entire personality, interests, loyalties, ideals, principles to change overnight. It's called "conversion syndrome" and it's a very real thing: read up on it. It often occurs when people are placed under tremendous physical or emotional stress. After that illness she was/is ripe for conversion to someone or something else. Had you been there for her, in person, in the hospital, this may have cemented her loyalty to you. She would have been so relieved to have you by her side in that alienating, scary place where she was so weak and ill. Remote contact does not help in this sort of crisis: she needed proof of your commitment to her, but as with the time that she was kicked out of her home (that, too, must have been terrifying for her), your family and your immediate life in Maryland was, quite clearly, more important than her. You let her down, and she was, in that vulnerable physical and mental state of exhaustion, ripe for extending her loyalties to someone, anyone, who was there and did show a bit more caring and concern for her than you did. I don't know if that has happened or not for certain. She is clearly not telling you if it has. But I wouldn't be surprised if she were now deeply committed to new people in her life, new friends, perhaps even a boyfriend. It's important that you two have a very honest talk soon, so that you both can decide how you want to proceed with your lives.
Anyway, about the rules. Had you realized that and were you a little more experienced with submissive psychology, you would have known that this was a time when paradoxically, you should have increased the control, increased her rules, become more demanding, and, in particular demanded she be accountable for daily, regular contact with you in which she reported her performance or non-performance of your orders. You desperately needed to strengthen a bond that was now frayed to its weakest thread and barely holding you two together. Many submissives find control reassuring, it makes them feel safe and contained. It means you like us and care for us, that you've taken a strong interest in us and care about our welfare. The structure of rules and control is helpful and reassuring, especially in stressful times. It not only gives one something to do, but makes the submissive feel proud and happy when she accomplishes the things she has committed to. I think that at the point that you loosened the rules, you lost her completely as a submissive. She probably experienced this in several ways: (1) it was yet another form of rejection, another sign that you were falling down on the job, that you really didn't want to own or possess her. (2) It gave her the idea (which she later tested and found to be true) that she could manipulate you just like she could manipulate a more vanilla man. That she could control you with her emotions, her mood. It's clear from what you've said that she is doing this now. She has the upper hand. You care more about this relationship than she now does. You let the control slip to her.
"She now says she is tired of typing. No more typing. She needs real time. I can respect how she feels."
There are times and there are places to respect what a submissive feels. This is not one of them. This is rank disobedience. You should have come down on that hard, if you were still in a position to come down on something hard with her. Due to her losing faith in you as a dominant during her crises, your forcing this may have resulted in a verbal showdown. I think you may suspect this and not want it to occur, but an honest confrontation, an honest coming to terms with who is control and whether she is willing to abide by that is what you two need right now. Anything else is avoidance, wasting time. She may not be ready or willing to be controlled by you anymore. I believe she has lost faith in your ability to lead her due to your letting her down when she faced two huge life crises: lost of a home to live in and an experience with a severe illness.
"I don't even necessarily blame her. I blame me for not being able to see her. I am down on myself because I feel like I have blown it. But circumstances have literally been out of my hands at times. Like, I just lost 3 weeks worth of work on an insurance job I had started because I was undercut by another guy. Times are tough and brutal. I was counting on that money because I was finally going to visit her. Now I have to scrap for something else. "
No matter how hard your financial situation, if a relationship is important to you, you find a way to make it work. You think outside the box. You find a solution. You get to her, and it may not be comfortable (like I said, you may have to hitch-hike) but you get there. I get the feeling that your submissive regarded this distance relationship as very real, but that you were the one that dismissed it as "only an Internet thing" and therefore not real, not important, not deserving of your complete focus of will and intention. That was your biggest mistake: how you framed this situation from the very beginning. I think she's seen repeatedly that you put other things, other people, other priorities, well before her. That she always comes last. How rejected she must have felt! :( In a few very rare types of relationships this dynamic works: it's what both parties consciously and intentionally want. But this clearly isn't one of those dynamics. She didn't come to you directly and say, "I crave being last in your life, Sir. I really get off on not being treated as very important."
"And what really burns me is the fact that I stayed with her the entire month she was unconscious in the hospital. Because this is online, who says I wasn't having doubts that she was just trying to ditch me? But I stayed true to her, and she came back when she got better. I wonder now if I disappeared for a month if she would have showed the same dedication... "
I am, actually, extremely surprised by her dedication to you. You had (maybe still have, although I doubt it) quite a prize here: she remained loyal to you despite the tremendous way you have let her down when she faced horrible crises and despite your making her feel at loose ends and controlless when you became lax with the discipline and demands for contact. Most submissives I have known would never have had the strength of character to last this long despite disappointment after disappointment. You did not "stay with her the entire month she was unconscious in the hospital." Please rid yourself of that illusion. Are you so fickle with all your relationships? Would you forget about and abandon your little sister if she were laid up with a serious illness in the hospital? What you actually did was try to contact her in a way that was easy and comfortable for you rather than do the very hard thing of going there yourself and giving her the reassurance that you cared for her and wanted her in your life.
"Because this was online..."
This may be your biggest blindness. Yes, it was online, but she is a very real person. That is quite apparent from your narrative. Only you seem to doubt this fact. Only you have treated her as if the online status makes her less than human, not worthy of the normal, simple care you would give any "real" person in your life you cared for. You are the one who trashed this relationship because it was "only online" and therefore not real and not worthy of the quality time and commitment it demanded. Being available online is easy. Anyone can do that by keeping their phone turned on and checking emails/messages. Being there, physically, for somebody who deserves your presence takes actual work. Work you were not willing to do with this person.
" I wonder now if I disappeared for a month if she would have showed the same dedication... "
You are angry at her for disappearing for a month. As if she had a conscious choice about this: "ha-ha, I'll go get deathly ill and be holed up in a hospital for a month! Yeah, that'll teach him a lesson!"
Your emotions are treating this as if it were not a stroke of bad fortune for her but an intentional deceit or betrayal. That is pretty screwed up thinking. You need to understand that you were the one who betrayed others here, you were the one who wasn't there for her, you were the one who regarded the relationship with such little importance that when two of the most horrible things that can happen to a person happened to her, you just stayed in your comfortable, safe remote little place and reassured her from that distance that everything would be all right. Easy enough to do when you aren't the one suffering such things.
I think you've lost her--for all the reasons stated above, the most important one being your own lack of care and commitment. You two may still continue to talk for a while, maybe even get together, but I think the D/s side is dead. Although I can't say that is a certain fact. She's shown remarkable perseverance through all of this, and she may, if you are extremely lucky, preserve once again. But I don't think it will be as your submissive. I don't think, once you've so thoroughly abdicated the role of leader in her life, that you can gain it back. She's seen you in all your weakness now, and I doubt very much she is going to ever be able to regard you in the same light of worship and loyalty and subservience that she once did.
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"Isn't it odd how we misunderstand the hidden unity of kindness and cruelty?"
My profile is not turned off. It is broken and I am too lazy to make a new one.
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RE: Am I reading this wrong? My fault? - 
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