quote:

ORIGINAL: leonine
I find it useful look at it in terms of the Transactional Analysis model. BDSM roles can often be seen as the classic TA Parent and Child models: but if you're supposed to be in Parent (Dom) mode, and something evokes your Child mode instead, the interaction is going to go off the rails. That's what happens to me with invalids, and it sounds to me, from your description of your helpless feeling (helplessness is a typical Child response,) as if it's what's happening to you. Something in the situation puts you into Child mode, and (just as importantly) makes you approach your wife as Adult or Parent, and acting like a Dom in that situation is literally unthinkable.

These problems can be very tough (I'm still struggling with mine,) but I can suggest some approaches. Immediately, you could perhaps kluge round the problem by doing BDSM in Child-Child mode. You say your wife is analytical and verbal about it, which is a Parental pattern of behaviour. If she could find a way to be playful and un-intellectual about it for once (maybe by getting a bit drunk!) it wouldn't matter if you went into Child mode, if you could relate to her as another Child and play without feelings of responsibility.

For a longer term solution, try to find what it is about her behaviour or the situation that evokes your Child, then try to eliminate that from the situation. For example, if it's something in her tone of voice or use of words that hits the wrong button, try having her put on a gag before you approach her. Or if she looks too much like some key person from your childhood, try playing in the dark. You get the idea. If once you can have a few successful scenes, you may start to overwrite the program that's stopping you, and not need awkward workarounds to make it possible.

You say this feeling of helplessness is a recurrent problem in everyday life, so it sounds as if your Child is way too near the surface of your everyday consciousness. A TA-oriented therapist might be able to teach you ways to overcome that, which would benefit you in vanilla situations as well as helping with this.

quote:

ORIGINAL: SimplyMichael
First off, RELAX. Me, you, lots of us go through this when we start. You are a nice guy, that is a rare quality and a valuable one. So, tell her to wait for the after action report and do some thinking on what parts of it really fuck up your head. Voice, style, tone, body language, etc. Maybe make,her write it, or only tell bad stuff if its major etc.

quote:

ORIGINAL: SimplyMichael
Also, what books on,kink do you,have? Buy a copy of screw the roses

quote:

ORIGINAL: Dyfrynt

What jumped out for me was when you said the following in your second post "Where I fail is when we branch out away from a pre negotiated scene and get into the more pervasive D/s relationship dynamic. That's the point where I start freezing up."

Is this a trait that is true for you beyond BDSM? That is, are you more comfortable with a scenario in everyday life where the steps are a known quantity. And that when you are unsure what is supposed to happen next, you feel anxiety and discomfort? The answer is important because that tells whether your "hangup" is BDSM related, or is a deeper manifestation of how you view the world.

If it is the latter, that is a matter of retraining yourself as a person to become more comfortable with spontaneity. That training could involve self help books, professional counseling, etc.