Moving on from BDSM

[HB1965]

I don't know that I can add anything more to this converation because so many above have said what I would say, but I really think this here is the root of all this:

My master passed away, and I just couldn't see being with anyone else

I understand how you feel even though I've never been through that because I've met someone who I know has the potential to put me in that position.

The one thing though about that which is part of our nature. We can deny it for a long time, but the need to do it always comes back.

 

[LittleJade]

first, I am so incredibly sorry for your loss... I can't fathom losing someone I love like that.

Secondly, no, I don't think your BDSM days are necessarily over, in that I don't think it's impossible for you to experience BDSM willingly, again. However, possible or not, you may simply choose not to go down that road again, because such a specific, special part of your heart, of yourself, was dedicated to someone in that way. So long as you find joy, what does it matter, if you end up kinky again?

For myself, I know that, when my heart breaks, I push away things that relate to the person who broke it... when I left my first Daddy, I became anti-submissive, anti-Daddy, anti-BDSMish. Not completely, but I kept it very much at arm's length. I was devastated, but I had to leave him, and I coped by holding off the things that reminded me of him. My situation isn't nearly so ... heavy... as yours... but I hope that the comparison illustrates my point. Sometimes, we build walls to keep ourselves from breaking again... and over time, we can chip the walls away.

I hope that, whatever you do, you find joy.

 

[doveofserenity]

First off, i am so sorry of your loss. But you will, eventually; get past it. The memories will be there, but you will proceed on in life.

My Beloved MasterB. died after 6 beautiful long years together, of a nasty car wreck. i didn't want to go on. i didn't talk to family, friends, or therapists. i had a friend of His, another Master; come over and take all the toys and other items because i couldn't deal with them. Seeing them, feeling them, making decisions as to where they were to go, etc.

i agree 100% with what Netzach said, because that is what made me want to continue in life.

Music does make this place worth sticking around sometimes, or the right art or book.

Music became such an important part of my life, that is why today i have to be hearing music of some type or other all the time.

It took a marriage, and a divorce after MasterB's death, to get me to the point i felt comfortable enough to once again start exploring within the Lifestyle i had once loved, and have found out i still do. The shock of His death buried the pleasure and love of BDSM so deep within me.

So eventually, the love and need of some BDSM will show itself to you again. Maybe not as strong as it was before, but its still within you. But until it does, go with what feels best for you.

my prayers and hugs are with you,

dove

 

[shy slave]

SSP This thread has made me cry.

Like everyone here I am sorry for the hell you have been through.

Grief hurts. It doesn't matter what other people say or do to try and make it better, it is a personal hell. No-one can feel it the way you do. Everyone goes through a grief at some point in their lives, but theirs will never be as yours is.
Grief may have stages but it is unique in how it affects each person.

When my son died I struggled to express my grief. it came out at the wrong time and in the wrong way. I spent so many hours telling people I was ok I damaged my jaw through clenching it prior to speaking.

I am glad that you are coming to terms with it, but equally saddened to read you have put some aspects of who you were aside.
I do understand why though. There are days when I just wanted to be held, loved, cared for. As if any BDSM activity would break me. Days when I felt I was made of glass and the slightest touch would make me fall into a million pieces.

I hope you find a sense of balance in the coming time. A way of feeling that your choices are right for you, right at this moment in time.

No-one knows if your BDSM days are over, only you can discover that.
Maybe it will take more time and meeting the right person to help you know if they are or not.
Andante helped and supported me through every aspect of my grief, I will love him forever for being an amazing tower of strength when I needed him.
The fallout from that was that our combined grieving (for different people) aided the end of the relationship.

I would like to think that, regardless of whether your BDSM days are over, you are learning to love the person you are now.

A poem about grief describes it as 'a new country' I know for me it has taken two years to know myself again. There were many days when I did not recognise myself. Now I am in the slow process of learning to re-like who I am.

With Love
shy slave xx

 

[shy slave]

First of all, ssp, I am sorry for your loss. I have wondered what happened to you and I certainly understand the absence.

I'd like to take this thread in a slightly different direction. What if one moves on from BDSM while staying in the same relationship? That's pretty much what's happened to me. It's been over the course of at least the last four years...it's been waning, and waning, and waning. C's interest is not at all what it used to be, it's just not. But I'm not the type who can fall out of love with someone just because the sex isn't great; if that was the case I wouldn't still be married either.

I tried for a long time to force em to dominate me more, and e just didn't understand what I wanted. I think eir head just stopped being in that mindset. It still makes me sad to think about, especially when e says "you're MY pussy" or whatever during sex, because I know e doesn't really mean it...e talks the talk but hasn't walked the walk for a long time.

I've gotten out of the habit of expecting it. We still do the occasional breathplay and choking, and I am usually expected to do whatever sexual act I am told to, but that's about all there is. No domination, no feeling of really being eir slave anymore. I know a lot of people would run for the hills, but it's just the course our relationship has taken. I don't think it makes me ANY less of a pyl, it just means I don't get to exercise that part of me in any of my relationships. *shrugs*

What do y'all think?

Etoile
You are an amazing woman, I have thought that for such a long time for so many different reasons.

Your post touched a nerve with me, it reminded me of how Andante and I slowly came to an end. I was too cowardly to end it, it went on too long and finally he called it a day.

When he and I started to go horribly wrong I wanted so much to believe it would return to how it had been. I was needy, clingy, desperate and stressful to be around. I did terrible things in order to gain his attention and try to make him dominate me. None of those things worked. It only served to push us further away.

I wish I had been more accepting, as you are being, maybe things would have worked out differently.

I have tried dating since then. It has not been successful.
I keep wanting them to be him and I end up disappointed when they are their own person.
It is such a struggle to re-learn how another person reacts or acts, I seem to be surprised each and every time I get it wrong.

I ended a relationship recently. He was new to D/s, a lovely man, but so very different from me, and from the clone I wanted him to be.
It wasn't being fair on either of us if I just kept wishing it (and he) were different. It was not his fault, his being new to D/s was nothing to do with ending it. How can I blame him for his inability to be the person I wanted him to be? That would not be right. He is just as he should be, his own person.

Andante and I went through a great deal of grief and joy together, in so many ways I am grieving for the loss of the person he was before things started to go wrong.

I am now starting to realise that he was right to end it. I could not have lived in a half light of what we once had, anymore than he could.

I admire you so much for staying even though it is not the relationship it was. I admire the fact that you feel you can put aside a part of who you are and what you need because another person no longer has the opposing needs.

Whether you stay in the relationship or change it, I would want you to be happy with your decision and feel it is the right one for you. Not anyone else, just the right one for you.

 

[A Desert Rose]

I'm not sure how popular this thread will be, given that when I was into BDSM I would have had no desire to read this thread, but I'm just curious, I guess. When I last posted here regularly I had a master and thought I'd be a sub for life, thought it was all I wanted, didn't get off on anything vanilla, liked being extreme, ect ect. Now it's a few years later, I don't have a master, and I no longer fantasize about the extreme things I once did (rape play, being 'kidnapped', slapped, hit, kicked, cut, choked, ect).

Maybe some would say I was never really a sub, then... but while I was into that stuff, I was truly really into it. Things just...change, sometimes. My master passed away, and I just couldn't see being with anyone else the way I was with him. I know I'll never open up to anyone the way I did with him - he got complete honesty out of me but it was a fluke - I only told him certain things because I thought in the beginning I'd never talk to him again, that it was going to be a short term thing. Little did I know, I was going to fall madly in love with him. So he knew that side of me, a side no one else knows or ever will know, because it's not really something you can bring up in casual conversation. But anyway - I was happy with him - things weren't perfect, but they were very, very good. And then he got cancer. He didn't want to stick around as a shell of his former self, and as much as it hurt, I understood. When he went off chemo I asked him once to go back on, and he said no, and I left it be.

After he passed away, I was bereft. My whole world looked different, I felt spaced out, like I was in a trance. I spent three months pretty much in my bedroom, in my pajamas, staring at animal planet. I couldn't bear watching people interact with eachother. I didn't think about sex, didnt go on the internet. And then one day, three and a half months after he passed away, I went online. Some people were talking about bands, and they mentioned a band called the Libertines. I'd never heard of them, but I decided to download some of their music, and I fell in love with it, completely. I started coming out of my shell a bit, listening to music, going out with friends once a week or so, and in a way it was like being reborn. The thing is though - I didn't really have any bdsm desires anymore. I don't know why, I just didn't. It's been almost two years since my master passed away, and what I'm looking for now in a relationship is nothing like what I had. I want someone who'll be gentle with me, respect me (I'm not saying doms don't respect subs, I'm just explaining what I want), love me. I just dont desire the rough stuff much. It's not totally gone though - sometimes I imagine being held down a bit or having my hair pulled, or someone just being a bit rough during sex, but honestly, that's it. I wouldn't want it to go further than that. All the choking/hitting ect that I used to find so hot, just leaves me cold.

I'm honestly not sure why I'm writing this - I guess I'm wondering if anyone else has felt this way, and if so, was it just a 'phase' - did you get back into the stuff you used to like? It's been two years, and I don't find myself 'escalating' (for lack of a better term). I don't find myself wanting rougher and rougher things, like before. When I fantasize about sex I imagine a gorgeous guy from an indie band, in skinny jeans with messy hair - maybe we can't wait to have eachother and we do it up against a wall in an alley - he's passionate with me but not rough, and actually makes a point to kiss me and be gentle. That gets me off immensely - I don't need to fantasize about anything rough to get turned on.

I've dated a bit but nothing really serious. Had sex but again, nothing too serious - and not as much as I used to, as I just feel less inclined to share my body unless I really have feelings for someone.

I guess I'm just asking what you make of all this. Are my bdsm days over, do you think?

thanks in advance if you've read all of this - I know it was just a tad long

It's not at all unusual for our sex lives/desires to change and that's a good thing. Because your desires are no longer what they were 2 years ago, or 6 years ago is a commentary on the fact that you're still alive, that you're intouch with your desires (at some level, even through your grief.) Those things that you (rhetorically speaking) couldn't get enough of at first, are no longer the things you have to have now. Desires change for lots of reasons, not just because of the grief.

The important thing is that you embrace whatever changes have come into your life and for whatever reasons they have come.

Be true to yourself, accept yourself as you are now and know that next year you will be a different you. What you want in your life and what you want out of life is not static. The great and sorrowful loss of the man you loved is the best illustration of that. That loss has helped make you the person you are today and the person you'll be next year or in 10 years.

I'm not the person I was 18 months ago. I know that I'm a better person than I was 18 months ago. I experienced a life altering event and it's altered a whole lot of things in my life.

You have, too. What you've gone through and what you are going to go through is special only to you, no one can ever know the reality that is yours. But I know that you will come out the other side (as you are emerging even now) and be a most amazing woman for it.

Know that you are and have been in my thoughts for quiet some time.

 

[Kkirara]

I don't believe there is anything unusual about a person's desire for BDSM evolving or changing, especially in light of the experiences you have been through.

When I was 20, all I wanted was M/s and BDSM. I wouldn't even CONSIDER dating a 'nilla guy.

Now I am almost 25 and my desires have changed a lot...I still adore the extreme sexual end of things, but have completely lost interest in M/s or even Dom/sub. I just mostly consider myself a "bottom" now, with almost no interest in BDSM outside the bedroom.

I honestly feel now that I could probably make things work with a relatively 'nilla guy as long as he was willing to try new things and maybe think about getting into some of my kinks on a moderate level. I can deal with leaving the extreme stuff to my fantasies.

Chalk it up to growing older, maturing, or dealing with some bad experiences...I'm not really sure what caused it, but the change happened and such is life...

I feel for your loss, and I wish you the best in days to come.

 

[Pure]

hi sigsauerprincess,

that was a very moving posting and i'm sorry for your loss. your grief has changed you, but you seem to be pulling out of it.

maybe after a while you'll find out is youre a bottom by circumstance or by inherent tendency. keep us posted.

two points come to mind: some people get into SM out of depression and it's hardly surprising if they disappear when the depression lifts. that's one kind of situation.

it's also possible that SM represents something that occurs when the basic needs are met, for love and sex. IF that's the case, then were you to settle 'vanilla', at some point the little green shoots of SM must turn up.