He requested my permission! Part 2

So I emailed him the link to "I rescinded my permission! Part 1". Although it wasn't Part 1 at that time. His e-mail spammed it. It detected a problem and spammed it. Fortunately, he checks his spam folder every couple of days for emails he should have received and found it. As it was, I waited for two days in frustration and hurt, thinking he was never going to respond to the e-mail. He still couldn't read it. It wouldn't open.

Saturday morning, I opened the post for him and let him read it. When he finished, we immediately went in to the "that's not what I said", "Yes, you said...." kind of game. It wasn't heated, yet. It was only a few back and forth and then he quickly stopped it. We both realized we were heading no where like this and we had to drop his car for service anyway. The 15 minute drive to the dealers gave both of us some time alone to think.

When I picked him up, he wanted to go have coffee somewhere and talk. We went to our favorite coffee spot, got our coffee and found a table on the patio.

I don't remember everything that was said. Somethings are crystal clear in my mind and others have become hazy.

As before, his lines are in red, mine are in blue.

"You don't treat anyone else the way you treat me. When you are stressed you take it out on me. Never would you speak that way to anyone else."

"I agree"

Huh? I just stared at him. He has never accepted responsibility for this before. I exhaled and for the first time in days felt maybe everything would be all right. I was stunned and a little moved by this.

"You are right. I will try to be more aware of this.  I will work on not doing it any more."

"I know you have been under a lot of stress and I know it came from that, but I am afraid to ask you anything any more and I need to be able to talk to you about things........."


We were suddenly talking about everything going on lately in our lives. His illness, his father's illness, my relative's illness, his work and then there is Dd(sigh).

His illness is making everything so much more difficult. He can't focus. He doesn't have any energy. He feels like he is physically deteriorating.

His father's illness, we saw signs this summer when we visited them. When we asked, we were told he was just getting old and slowing down. We discovered the truth with this recent crisis. He has Alzheimers. He acknowledged to me that the next time he sees his father after this visit, he is afraid his father won't recognize him. I think this is breaking his heart.

My relative's illness, well the burden has always seemed to fall on me, and from me it falls on him. We both recognized the reality of the situation a year ago. No one else agreed. They are now being forced to face some truths, but are still resisting. We know there is going to be a real struggle, hard feelings, and a lot of pain to deal with before it is settled. The thought is exhausting in and of itself.

This trip he has made to see his father will cause a six month, maybe even a year delay in a project he has been working on.  There is a situation going on right now for him, I thought he had already made a decision on how he was going to deal with it, but he confessed he is conflicted. He is questioning if it is morally correct. He will always take the losing end of something (basically losing a lot of money) than to cross a moral line.  I do not see any moral conflict in either of the options he has before him and we discussed this, but it is his decision to make and he has to be confident in his choice. This I discovered is causing a lot of stress.

Trying to start Dd with all of this........he fells like he has failed me. Which is not true at all, the only time he fails me is when he stops talking to me or turns away from me. I have told him this many times since starting all of this.

Most of all this I already knew, a few details were new. The way he talked about everything this time, I realized how much pressure he was putting on himself. This is a lot to deal with, especially when you are sick.



Just before we got up to leave I told him I had realized something by our responses to each other right after he read the post earlier.

"I think we are always misinterpreting each other, not just our words but our body language. I know you are stressed. I know how you sometimes react to me when you are stressed. I was so nervous about asking you if we were going to stop or try to do Dd long distance, I was incredibly tense. I think you read my tension as me needing something more from you. I think you felt pressured by a perceived expectation. There was nothing, I just wanted to know what you wanted to do."

"Yes, I think you are right"


We got in the car to leave and he said:

"We still haven't discussed the one important issue right now................Do you still want to do Dd?

without hesitation I answered "Yes"

"Good, because I still want to do it for one reason and one reason only. I saw a change in you. You were happy. I would do anything to make you happy. I want you to be happy."

What girl wouldn't just love that?

"but we can't do it the way we were doing it..."

"What do you mean?"

"You have to do your own research."

He let out a big sigh and turned away his head "I don't have the time."

"Don't tell me that. You spend hours every night researching things on your phone. I am not asking you to spend all your time researching this, just twenty minutes once a week.....he sighed.........just listen to my reasons first.............he gave in and nodded his head..........The first one is, I don't think you understand how much it has hurt me, that you research everything.....what kind of vitamins and supplements to take, the effect taking your prescribed medications will have on you, the best flat screen TV on the market (seriously people he spent two years researching before he purchased one), the political situations around the world..........but you won't research this, something that we are trying to do to change and improve our marriage."

He sheepishly nodded his head, "I want to do this (Dd), but I don't really have the will, the drive to do it yet."

"When you read these articles and post, there will be something that clicks and makes you see things in a certain way. What causes something to click for me may mean nothing to you. I don't know what will click for you. That is something that you have to find."

"The last reason is......you are supposed to be leading us............ I am having a REALLY hard time trying to be submissive, when I feel like I am leading you. It is incredibly frustrating." 

"All right, I get it. I won't make any promises, but I will try my best."

If he says he will do it, I know he will do it. When he refused to make any promises he was escaping the burden of guilt if it takes him longer to get to it then he planned. Yes, I will probably have to remind him of this conversation at least once.

I hope no one read Part 1 and thought, "wow, what a jerk he is". The truth is we have been married for eighteen years. That is a long history we have created together. A long history of patterns and behaviors and misinterpretations all tangled up that will take a long while to unravel and work through. We both share responsibility. How am I responsible for the way he speaks to me you ask? I have allowed it to happen. In the past, I have allowed him to take out his stress on me verbally, as he has allowed me to do the same with him, without calling him on it. The problem is, before I had my walls to protect me and now those walls have become weak and crumbly, in some areas they are completely down. We both recognize now how unhealthy this is and are taking steps to change.

I have come to understand that communication truly is the most important tool in this lifestyle. Even the discipline or spankings, they are just another form of communication and not the most important form. When you are first starting to live this life, EVERYTHING needs to be discussed. Every thought, every feeling from both points of view. We feel, perceive and interpret things very differently. We are now discovering each others depths.

The week of officially not practicing Dd for me was incredibly painful for many reasons, some I have already stated. One other reason, I discovered I couldn't just shut off my submission. I have become a different person, someone I like much more. I was desperately afraid that if we never returned to Dd, I would slowly loss this new person. In some ways I had already started to mourn the loss of my new self,......... it was painful.

I am grateful that it came from him this time and that we are restarting Dd. When he gets back, we plan to begin. It kind of makes me wonder, did we really ever stop?





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