Therapy…….. (REALLY? She’s STILL on that topic?)

My husband pointed something out this morning that I feel a bit silly now for overlooking in my 

“Need help?”

P.S.A.

He said I neglected to point out WHY the non kinky partner should consider a kink aware therapist.

I said I read everything I could get my hands on…..I was doing that long before he dropped the idea of “FemDom and D/s” on me.

No secret here if you have been following the meanderings from this keyboard:

 I have been juggling the fact our own “kink natures” don’t mesh so well and sometimes out right full blown clashed from the git-go as his life  partner.

By the time he dropped the FemDom notion on me……I was a mess because things were beginning to spin out of control over his kinks. We don’t agree on WHAT sent things so far out of control at that point…but we do agree…….things were on a snowball slide to hell……. for us as a couple.

The more I dug thru the stuff he wanted me to read, the more overwhelmed I felt  because I knew I couldn’t “be” what he was looking at–what he had imprinted on. (*Note: I didn’t say for.)

This morning he reminded me of something I said more than once to him:

 I wished I could talk to someone “like him” so I could have a conversation that didn’t feel combative and if I got rattled the person I was speaking to wouldn’t take me being anxious by the BDSM world as me confronting them and haranguing them for their urges.

I don’t know how long those words bounced around the universe before Karma saw fit to drop me in the cyber lap of someone who was not only willing to talk to me and answer my questions…..but gave me a calm non defensive view of what it felt like to be my husband.

She did show me, help me understand that……. for my husband ……this wasn’t “just about sex”….yes it is about his sexual needs…but it does go deeper than that……and this is a circle in a circle that needs to be addressed on its own…..so I’m begging forgiveness for blowing past something that is key to understanding but really needs its own spot.

(That~ it-is-but-it-isn’t-about-sex” conundrum is a bitch of a bug-a-boo to grasp for those of us on the outside looking in and even once we brave stepping through the BDSM looking-glass…it’s one many of us may never appreciate.

Me………I don’t get it…..it looks like it just about sex……and  my husband and I will go round and round over that one til one of drops dead…….but hell that’s the least of my problems on this side of the looking glass.

We joke often we are married ‘til death do we part…..the question is…who will do whom in first!)

To the “non kinky partner…and note I say partner…because this goes both ways, there are women who would like to introduce a FemDom life style to their husband/boyfriend and don’t know how…..and there are ones who have and it didn’t go well.

Not all men want to be in a FemDom D/s FLR relationship this isn’t just a “only guys asking” issue or topic.

The idea behind talking to someone who understands the kink nature isn’t about having them “explain it to you” it is more about being able to express your own fears about the lifestyle and ask questions…say things that if said to your partner…your partner is most likely going to take far to personally. Talking to that neutral party…who has the understanding of the kink…but no vested interest in getting you to perform or participate in the kink gives you a freedom to be more vocal about your own qualms without being afraid of fall out for speaking your mind or the potential for hurting your partner’s feelings and doing more damage to a relationship that is probably already in a rocky place.

Don’t think of seeing a kink aware therapist as someone who is going to try to talk you into doing what your partner asks…..….if they do…don’t walk out of the office…….RUN…..because no one has a right to talk you into something you aren’t comfortable with.

No decent therapist is going to try to talk you INTO any type of lifestyle.

That’s not their place—ever—at all.

Their job……..is to help you find some peace and calm in the whirlwind you are caught in; to give you a safe place to be exposed, scared and confused without feeling defenseless.

Understanding what is going on with your partner, their “base” hard wiring as a sexual person….. can take a hell of a lot of ego crushing angst self-worth smashing out of having the kinks clash and overwhelm you. Trying to understand….doesn’t mean you have to do what your partner is asking for….it just means you are trying to get answers for YOU so you can make a sound decision about what path you will take…with or without your partner.

If you choose to stay and work with the person then that third-party is going to give refuge when you feel overwhelmed. I hate to do it…but it’s got be done ………the flip side of the coin:

Walking away from someone you have invested your heart, body and soul in……doesn’t come without serious scars, you owe it to yourself…you deserve to walk away with as a few scars as possible and if you feel like you have to walk away….that third party can possibly help you both come to terms with why things won’t work and do so in a manner that lets you both move on and not drag the baggage of this into your next relationships.

Consider this:

You aren’t looking for counseling in a sense of “adjusting something in your life”…..you are looking for someone to help get your bearings, so you can make choices about how to pursue counseling that will help you and your partner find some level ground ( not common…that’s gonna take some time….start put just trying to get level first;)    ) .

My husband wouldn’t go with me to counseling….

Yes it pissed me off and frustrated me to no end…

But……. that didn’t stop me from going.

In hind sight I understand why he wouldn’t. That doesn’t make it right…but I understand.

To be honest there are things that were said by one counselor that if my husband had been with me…..I would have had to punch her…cuz well……..she was way off base about my man and I am  glad he didn’t hear what she had to say about him and men like him, it wouldn’t have helped us get where we needed to be…in fact it might have set us back….and tore us completely apart to the point of walking away from each other…..hating each other.

One thing that always came up when I talked to the “not so aware of kink nature” therapist…they all told me he was a sex addict.

He’s not. THE END. He does not exhibit what are the “standardized examples” for what classifies a sex addict.

I won’t deny (and neither will he) that a couple of his quirks in his personality that are  addiction styled “bents” to some of his behavior… looking  at the whole picture the difference between his nature and that of a sex addict is distinguishable.

~MHO–ONLY -MHO~

The science of sexuality is a very gray science and is open to interpretation to the point it can totally fuck someone over……..the history of how it has evolved pretty much proves no one can get a “set strata” and if the one involved in doing the research are of a mind-set any kind of kink is deviant…then the strata is screwed.

(Hell Freud and Jung couldn’t agree……..and in my undereducated opinion… as a lay observer…….they started a  spiraling of events that trends up…….or down………..depending on the belief system  of the persons in control of the spiral……. when researching kink.)

It’s why I think it is important to find someone who understands the nature of people who “kink”, someone who is open-minded to the concept of kink and can be impartial with the subject and the ones trying wrangle it.

*insert grimace and eye roll * here

The word  “Kink” is  so ambiguous…so easy to misconstrue and often poorly used …..hell I am guilty of all that myself…….that one word alone can set off a whole cascading mess of issues if both people don’t have the same definition of the word…and ‘nother topic for another time.

We have tackled these issues as any addiction would be tackled…we dealt with them the way ANY addictive behavior would be dealt with…thru behavior modification and NO we did not use “BDSM or FemDom to make the modifications and the responsibility was his……to use what was the compulsion would have made me an enabler…hell as it was before I got the info I needed I WAS being unmindful enabler.

I had things I had to change to…and I had to step off and cut him slack sometimes and take the time to see where my own behavior was enabling his compulsion.

Damn…

*bug eyes*

Wall of words here and I hate that…

SO….ummmm…….

If you’re not the kinky partner and you are feeling overwhelmed….or maybe  not overwhelmed but not sure how to discuss the topics without it getting a bit heated and messy….

Consider finding a therapist who is kink friendly/aware and just sit down to have a chat with them so you can get your questions answered.