And.. We're Back

.... again.

A few days after my last post knight was having some difficulties with accepting his place as my submissive. He wasn't being defiant, but he was questioning his desire to maintain a power dynamic. Nothing, major,  maybe it was a mild depression, maybe one of the more dominant guys he works with said something completely unrelated that put him off, maybe a random thought about his ex wife made him reconsider, heck it could have been a random dream. I'll probably never know. The result of this was that he told me he wasn't sure he wanted to continue the FLR. I took that to mean he wanted to stop the dominant/submissive dynamic and go back to a 50/50(Ish) arrangement. I told him I thought it was a bad idea, but that I'd respect his request. So, I started including him in decisions, letting him decide what we did in the evenings, letting him find, and plan his own writing time, and basically moving toward a more equal distribution of power and responsibilities.

Can you guess how that went?   Within two weeks he and I were arguing because he was forgetting and messing up things left and right. By week 3, knight was in obviously depressed. By week 4 the kids were angry with him for not following through. In short, everything went to hell.  During week 6, I pointed out to him that things went bad shortly after he decided to stop the FLR. By some great exercise of self control I didn't suggest a return to the power dynamic. I had decided that if we resumed FLR, it would be because knight
asked for it. I'm tired of the back and forth.. I needed him to see and understand that we do FLR for HIM... not for me. So, I simply let my words hang in the air. Knight ignored them.

Things got worse. By this time we were sleeping on complete opposite sides of the bed, and I think he even spent a night on the couch because I was so angry with him. My son (12) started making comments like "No, I didn't ask dad for help, he can't be bothered to help us any more." I don't allow the kids to be at all disrespectful of either of us, he was right. I could see how the kids felt dad was no longer paying attention to them. He'd checked out on us emotionally. Sure, he was physically here, and he still did basic things with the kids, like read bedtime book each night. But, emotionally, he was somewhere else. If I wasn't absolutely sure where he was every minute of every day, I would have suspected an affair, but I knew that wasn't it.

It came to a final blow up 2 weeks ago. My step-son is 13 and has Autism and PTSD. He's been having some serious behavior problems and I've been dealing with everything alone because knight has been so distant.  One evening before bed, I told knight I needed a break from The Kid because the stress of his constant behaviors was getting to me.  Knight said nothing. He just sat there. I gave him 5 minutes or so, and then repeated myself.

He answered with "What do you want me to do about it?"

I looked at him, "What do you mean by that? I want you to pick up the slack, and help me with The Kid, and all the stuff I'm not getting done because of the sheer amount of supervision he needs right now."

"I'm at work all day. Besides, it looks like you've got it all under control. Why don't you have the other two help out more?" He told me.

"It's not their job to take care of their brother. It's yours. He's your son. I need your help, " I said.

Knight said nothing for for the next 30 minutes. In fact, he took so long to answer me that we both fell asleep. Nothing changed.

Needless to say, I was incredibly hurt and angry that he had reacted that way when I asked for his help. It's been a major issue between us ever since. Yesterday, he and I were outside, I asked him if this was going to be our new normal; if he was happy with the way things had developed over the last couple months.

He looked at me utterly surprised. "Of course not. This is what you want."

Huh? I asked him how he figured that, and he told me that I had stopped writing his daily lists, stopped keeping track of what he was supposed to do, and I'd stopped "giving" him writing time.

"Well.. of course I stopped those things. You asked to stop the FLR.That means you're responsible for keeping track of your own crap. It's not my job any more."

"But.. "

"No buts," I told him, "You asked to stop the FLR dynamic, by definition that puts you back in charge of your own day, and your won time. You have to make decisions for yourself now. It's what you wanted, and what I gave you."

"You stopped those things, and I thought you were mad at me," he said.

"Why? because I gave you what you asked for? Because I respected you when you asked for a more even power dynamic? Because you asked me to drop the FLR aspect, and I did what you asked.. just like I promised? That makes no sense."

We spent the next couple hours talking on and off, between kid requests and other things.

Finally, knight asked me if we could, please, go back to FLR.

I told him that I would only go back to it if he could admit that we operate under FLR because he needs it. In the past he's always said that he follows FLR because it makes ME happy.  It doesn't. FLR doesn't make me unhappy.. but I don't need to be his dominant in order to be happy, content and fulfilled in our marriage. He FINALLY admitted that being submissive to me pushes some sort of emotional button in him, and just makes things work. First he tried to tell me that it was an "us" thing.. that "it" (meaning d/s) only works for us because of the people we are. I told him that I believe he'd be this way.. need this.. from any one he's with, and pointed out just how much he let his ex wife run things, even though she was seriously mentally ill and had no business being in control of anything.  "yeah.. I see your point," he said.

He's finally admitted that he gets something emotionally from our FLR dynamic... that he needs it to be happy. He's finally seen what I see.. that his attitudes about everything change when I am not being dominant. He was finally able to see that it's not me who changes when we take these FLR breaks. HE is the one who changes.


Over the course of the evening knight's attitude started to shift. The anger started to fade away, he closed the distance he'd created between us. He started to become my sweet knight again. I've missed him.

We have a lot of work ahead of us.. a lot of rebuilding to do. It bothers knight that he doesn't understand why this works for him. He made the comment to me that "I'm enough like you that this shouldn't work. I should hate it."   But, he doesn't. I thrives under my control.  He asked me if the tables were turned, if I'd agree to such an arrangement. My answer was "Oh.. HELL no. If you had suggested I become submissive to you, I would have left. No question, we would have been over."

Then I pointed out that I didn't pull this out of the air. I pulled it from his words in our journal. I told him things would have been so much easier if he'd simply asked me for FLR, instead of making me figure out what he wanted.

His answer? "I tried. You fought the idea."

See the confusion there? In one breath he says "I should hate this" in the next he says "I tried to ask you for it"