Yep. Thanks. Now, uh, would you mind responding to what I posted in response to TokyoPlayer? (The bad thing about socializing on a message board is that you get very little feedback on what you say. I really do want to understand your relationship and I also just in general want to be told when I’m wrong or being an ass or something. Social skills are not my forte.)
Sorry Supergoose, I didn’t even see those few posts. (About to Pit simulposting, it makes having a coherent conversation damn near impossible.) I try to give as much (and as good) feedback as I can, but it ain’t easy!
You’re absolutely right, we are mostly playful. Ya gotta have a sense of humor in life, and if we took everything super-serious all the time, we’d probably both end up bitter old crabapples before too long. Now, that’s not to say that we are never serious. I mentioned The Look, and believe you me, it’s nothing to laugh at! There’s also The Voice That Drops An Octave, which is, while slightly more rare, no less effective. I do have more to say on this, but perhaps it’ll be seen as backpedalling or attention-whoring, so I’m gonna post it in my own thread. Back in five minutes!
Wow. Total battered woman syndrome. “It’s all my fault. I was pushing his buttons.” Fuck his buttons. Man up, already. Your kids need to see you as a mature adult, not as an emotional child literally grovelling like a dog for approval from a sadist.
You’re absolutely right, Dio, The Look is exactly the same as battering someone. Jesus your intelligence astounds me.
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
freekalette, I’ll discuss the Wii with you all you want, but this thread (and your whole lifestyle) is completely out of my depth. There’s nothing anyone can say that will ever convince me that this kind of response is the mark of a normal and healthy relationship.
Oh shit-my dad totally abused me when I was a kid! I’d act up, and he’d give me “The Look”, the one I KNEW where I was in deep shit! Damn, I never realized I was abused.
:rolleyes:
You’ve already said that your first husband was abusive. You still have the syndrome. self-blame is part of the syndrome. Your need for approval from this louse (especially when he’s mad? WTF) is part of your syndrome. Grovelling to this guy like a dog in front of your kids is not a sign of emotional health. Your children do not need to see that.
You’ve also said that you sometimes incorporate your children into this dynamic by making them serve him drinks or food. When you make your kids do that, is that still part of the “play” (in which case, enlisting the children is horrifically inappropriate)? You said you tell them that he’s entitled to be waited on because he earns the money. That’s also an inappropriate thing to teach your kids and goes beyond game playing into actual, no-kidding subserviance. Your fucked up notion that his being the breadwinner entitles him to give orders is also part of your syndrome. That is actually NOT a legitimate justification for an unequal relationship. Either you’re telling us you sincerely believe that he has a right to give you orders, or you’re enlisting your own children in your sexual role-playing. Which is it?
Edited. Too harsh.
The part that reminds me of battered woman’s syndrome was the self-blame, not the “look” (although her notion that he has the right to tell her what to say is part of it too).
Who said their relationship is normal? I think we can all at least agree that their relationship differs greatly from the norm. Whether it is healthy or not is clearly debatable (as it is currently being debated).
Diogenes Up until that last post, nothing you’ve said in this thread had made me question the respect I feel for you. But, that was a low blow and a cheap shot. I expect better from you.
ETA On posting I see that you agree with me and have deleted it.
The chorus of people who are saying that there’s nothing wrong with this relationship are the ones adding normalcy to it. You should ask them.
I’m saying there’s nothing wrong with it. I never said it was normal.
Functional =/=Normal.
Please show me where anybody else said it was normal.
Well, what is normal? Fuck normal. Fuck normal after bending it over a leather-upholstered ottoman that’s been fitted with wrist and ankle cuffs.
Last post in this thread tonight, I swear (and the main point is bolded, if you don’t feel like wading through the entire post).
I’ve been thinking about the nature of abusive relationships and what makes a relationship abusive or not. I am by no means an expert on the subject, or even fairly knowledgeable, and I want to make it clear that I am *not *dictating which relationships qualify as abusive and which don’t - if someone feels they are being abused, I’m certainly not going to insist otherwise.
I also know that things are rarely so simple as this, but it seems to me that what separates an abusive relationship from one that might in some ways mimic one but not actually be one, is the presence or absence of fear. She can correct me on this, but it seems clear to me that freekalette does not fear her husband or his punishments. They might behave in ways that *seem * from the outside to be a response to or intended to cause fear, and would be for most of us, but in actuality, for them, are not.
Now, it can be argued that it doesn’t really matter which it is in terms of how their children would perceive and be affected by it, but I see no indication that there actually is fear in their relationship that the kids could pick up on. I can see how that could cause concerns about what the kids are being taught is or is not appropriate behavior in any case, and that’s a subject I don’t know enough about to comment on. I just think that the question of whether or not freekalette’s relationship is abusive or not is more or less inapplicable.
Normal secretly likes this sort of thing, but prefers naugahyde for that frisson of unctuousness you get after grinding away on it for half an hour or so.
HAAA! Agreed! You kills me, you know that?
Well, this is gonna be my last post too. I have gotten so caught up in the drama that I actually tried to get a poster to tell me what Dio edited out of his post. Yes I am ashamed of myself. But before I go to bed, I must echo once more…Fuck normal…fuck normal over the ottoman.
ETA: Is it the ottoman that is wearing the cuffs??
I would argue that the appearance of abuse to the children is all that matters. The conceptions of the adults are irrelevant. Do the children see fear? I don’t know. I know theys see their mother grovelling like a dog in front of their stepfather. WTF is that doing to their heads?
I think the difference is, you were a kid. She is a 28 year old mother of 3. I can’t imagine thinking I was in “deep shit” if I was mean to my husband. My mom, yeah, but my husband? I would feel regretful when I realized I was unduly nasty, but the remorse and apology would come from within, not from some externally imposed source of punishment. Can freekalette not realize when she’s being a bitch without Joe’s “Look”? If not, why not? Isn’t that governor inside a pretty important part of being a functional adult?
In the other thread, she said that her husband keeps a notebook all day long of her good and bad behaviors so that he can dole out punishments, including hanging out with his friends instead of her on purpose to make her feel sad, later on. If you didn’t call it a D/s relationship or associate it with a sexual kink, you would just think this was the behavior of an overly controlling asshole, wouldn’t you? Picture your best girlfriend, married to a man who records all her actions in a little book so that he can use them against her later. I’ve known people like that, who used the (stated or unstated) rationale, “you were mean to me, so I went out with the guys to show you who’s boss.” It’s not because they’re a dom, it’s because they’re vengeful for perceived slights. To me, that’s much more distasteful that some dog collar she wears. It seems so… petty.
Again, I am brought to the realization that I just don’t get it, and wondering if the whole D/s thing in this case is just a cover for freekalette to wallow in her low self-esteem. The sex aspect is completely an aside and is a distraction from the real issue. I can understand being turned on by physical pain, but I can’t understand taking pleasure from someone keeping a list of everything I did all day so they could passively-aggressively get me back for them later. How is that D/s and not just being a dick?
So I lied about not posting any more tonight.
Usual disclaimer - I could be completely and utterly off-base about this, and aside from the op, none of us really has enough information to say anything for certain.
As I understand it, in her head, she thinks of it as serving him. IN HER HEAD. Not in her actions. Think of it as an exercise in imagination and playfulness.
Action: kneeling on the floor. Head: she’s acting subservient.
Action: “Here, give this plate [of food] to Daddy.” Head: she’s being forced to serve him.
I think the bottom line is, her emotions and actions don’t match up quite the same way the most of ours do. It makes her happy to consider behaving respectfully and politely to one another as being the result of a Dom/sub power split instead of an equal power split. As long as her actions don’t change as a result of it, is it really so terrible?
And the reality is that her children are being forced to serve him.
When she brings the kids into it, yes.
That’s a really good point and one I should have made myself. He is not her parent, he is ostensibly her partner and her equal. I might give my kids authoritarian “looks,” but I don’t give them to my wife.