As tomio said, we usually try to write about positive things, but we are only human. Part of being human is having weaknesses... it's how you handle the weaknesses that determines where you end up.
This is very difficult for Me to write, because, well... it's really hard to go through it all again. I am really more of a get over it and move on sort of woman, but this does need to be shared. If only to help someone else get through it.
My reality is that I live a bit of a dual life. I am Me, the control freak Domme, lover and owner of tomio on one side and on the other side is the upright, professional woman with a warm smile and a quick laugh. Part of that duality means that I must mislead some people in My life to keep them away from this side and to keep the guise of My public life. I am comfortable with this, because it keeps the drama out of My world and I like it that way.
The person that I have never mislead, the person who knows all of My truth, the good, the bad and the ugly is My tomio. He is My confidant and My sanity. He lets Me be Me more than any person in the world, and for that I am entirely grateful. So imagine Me, sick, feverish, congested and just needing to sleep for a week so I can get better... imagine Me calling sweet tomio to get My loving goodnight so I could curl into bed for the night. What I got on the other end was not My sweet tomio, but instead an angry, mean, somewhat crazed man who was screaming at Me. I could hear his teeth gritting and hear the struggle in his voice. I was confused to say the least. My mind was racing, what could possibly have happened to cause this? He was not making sense, making accusations that were only half formed because he was so upset, and just going on and on, anger pouring out off him like lava from a volcano.
I felt like I had been blind-sided, then sucker-punched. Nothing he was saying was making any sense to Me... Stop...stop...STOP just fucking STOP!
The details of the fight are not important to anyone but us. What is important is what we did about the fight itself.
The biggest problem on My end is that his reaction terrified Me. This was not just anger, it was RAGE, white hot rage and it was terrifying. It was the first time that I was actually GLAD that there was distance between us. That is very hard to admit, even to Myself.
The second issue is that I was feeling guilty for something, and had no idea what it was. Obviously I had failed him somehow and I needed to fix it....but I did not even understand what it was that was wrong, and he had made some pretty painful accusations.
So what do you do? How do you address a train wreck like this?
The bottom line is that you talk about it. You talk and you talk and you talk, honestly, openly with with good intentions. You dig into all of those dirty corners and discuss every little thing until you can't talk any more. Then the hard work starts. You have to rebuild trust, because love is a wonderful thing, but it cannot fix everything.
After we had discussed everything and agreed that it was a giant misunderstanding, we set about making it right. In the type of relationship we have, trust is paramount. He needs to trust Me and I need to trust him and we both need to relax into the dynamics of what we have and what we want to continue to have. That was when he realized that I was afraid of his anger and because of that fear I was hesitant to be with him again.
Everyone has baggage. What do you do when all of a sudden you are wrapped up in someone else's baggage? The truth of the matter is that often we unwillingly wrap the ones we love into the mess made by other people. Its not fair, but we do it. So you start by separating the guilty parties from the innocent ones. You pick through the details of the wrongs and you look long and hard at them. My tomio has a lot of baggage. I knew that going into it, but the ugliness of the past can taint the beauty of today if you let it. We dug through it all, detail by detail. It was hard and it was ugly. But in the end it was worth it, because in the end we were closer.
It started to get better. Things were feeling better and there was joy returning to our lives. Then it happened again. Tomio did not mention that part. He did it again. He blew up at Me a second time. I was torn to shreds again, and again I was glad he was so far away. Apparently everything was not resolved and it was going to take a while. The second blow up had a slightly different flavor to it, but the affect was also different.
I am a very controlled person. I keep My emotions tight to My chest and present a strong front at all times. But that second blow up stuck with Me. More than I had realized, it had gotten inside. I developed a fear reflex every time we started to talk about deep things. At first I did not realize it but then it hit Me. I was demanding reassurance that he was not going to blow up before I could call him at night. And finally I had to admit it to him. "I feel like you have given Me a form of PTSD and I can't handle it!" Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is complicated and far more serious than My own issues, but I needed him to understand how big it was. He was very quiet.
I am a strong woman and it is hard for Me to admit when I can't be strong. So I opened My weakness up to him. I could not do it alone. That was hard, so very hard to do. Why was it hard? Because I am Dominant in our relationship. Deep down in the dark places in My heart, I was feeling like I had failed our dynamic in My own way. I was not able to be strong enough to get over this one the way I needed to... and it was eating at My confidence. Both times that he blew up, I was weakened by either illness or stress or exhaustion. I was feeling like I could not show weakness or I opened Myself up to another attack. It was ugly.
We talked, we cried and in the end we were still the same people. I was still Dominant. He was still submissive and our dynamic was intact. I told him honestly that I was not sure that I could survive another blow up, and that he had to talk to Me long before it got to that point again.
He agreed that he would talk to Me and he understood that if he continued to blow up, the damage was likely to be big. Not to say that he was not allowed to be human, quite the opposite. He was just not allowed to simmer any more.
There are still times when I need to check in with him about how he is doing and get reassured that there is nothing under the surface brewing. Its going to take time. He has asked Me what it will take to fix it entirely... and time was the only answer.
We are human, and flawed in our own ways. Communication cannot ever be replaced with lust. Love does not conquer all, but it makes it worth the struggles. I know it does.
