I have spent the past month living in a mental fog of anxiety, numbness, and bewilderment. It hasn’t been pretty, y’all.
And for the past month, John Brownstone has gone through his own personal shit storm with a boss who was willing to fire him if he refused to take what they tried to sell as a lateral move but was really a demotion. Not because of anything he did (he’s damned good at what he does, thankyouverymuch) but because of budget cuts, and he was the one selected – out of the entire department.
So there I am in a mental meltdown with no end in sight and there he is feeling powerless and out of control at work. If you’re thinking that might have slowed down the kink a little, you’re damn right it did.
We muddled through. Hell, we managed to carve out time to play with toys, fuck, and get off a little. When it’s bad, it’s not always bad every second of the day. There’s usually a few bright points of light in there somewhere. But really and truly, it was more exhausting than good.
The thing that kept us going, and so far, has kept us going through every dip and lull in life we’ve shared together has been our sense of responsibility – to ourselves, to the other, and to our relationship.
When I couldn’t make myself shower and change into clean clothes for me, I could do it for him or I could get out of the bed and make his coffee or feed everyone dinner.
When he couldn’t bring himself to focus on anything difficult or stressful after a long day of work, he could go on Fetlife and ask local kinksters for the name of kink-friendly therapists (for me, y’all). He could hold me while I cried even though I didn’t know exactly why I was crying.
Life is settling down for us. I’m still in a weird mental space but I’m powering through. He’s adjusting to the new reality of his work life (while actively looking for a new job – but most of y’all know how “easy” that is these days). So when it was time to do the show this week, I wanted to talk about responsibilities and what we do for each other and how it works for us.
Because we’re not the only ones to go through tough times. We’re not the only couple (regardless of our preferred flavor of sex) to rely on our relationship and our love to see us through.
Some people may come to this episode thinking we’ll talk about how a Dominant is responsible for “taking care of your toys” – and yeah, we mentioned that. You might even think I’m going to say submissives are responsible for keeping their Dominant happy (and I might have said that a little). But there’s more to it than that…at least there is for us.
From the show:
- Responsibilities to your relationship aren’t a kink thing, they’re a people thing.
- Some responsibilities are definitely D/s, though.
- John Brownstone discusses his responsibilities in our relationship.
- Protection
- Helping me.
- Taking care of me when I’m sick.
- Financial responsibilities
- Helping me achieve my personal and professional goals.
- Taking care of his “toy”
- My responsibilities as a submissive are just as important.
- Making sure my tasks are completed.
- Making sure I keep myself healthy and whole – which at this point means I’ll be meeting with a therapist to deal with some of the mental gunk that’s been weighing me down.
- Communicating my needs and when something is wrong.
- Our biggest responsibility is to each other – to take care of the other in the best way we can.
- Those responsibilities are no less important when life gets stressful and hectic.
- In the crazy moments life throws you, sometimes your D/s relationship and sense of responsibility is the only moment of calm you have. Cling to it like a life preserver.
- Sometimes that responsibility is too much, and one or both of you won’t be able to maintain it. There is no right answer.
Listen to the show:
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