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relationship management

Conversations Around Mental Health

November 22, 2020 By Christmas Bunny 3 Comments

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These times, am I right? If you’d asked me five years ago, I couldn’t have imagined the person I am today, let alone that this is what my daily life would look like. That’s a difficult thing for just about anyone, let alone overplanners like me.

I’ve always been someone who is pretty even-tempered. Most of my friends have never seen me angry, and I’m often the cheerful one. My partner and I don’t have many areas where friction is likely to occur, and on the off chance that some does, we have systems in our D/s that are designed to handle them.

It’s a good life.

I set this up not to brag, but to make it clear that my struggles with mental health issues since March have been unexpected and completely new territory for us as partners, and for us in the larger framework of our poly sphere. This isn’t to say that I haven’t had issues in my life which needed addressing, but anxiety, depression and other spectres which can be treated chemically were virtual unknowns.

The pandemic has been a learning experience for me, for us, in so many ways. I have the ability to work remotely. It limits my income and my hours, but I made that transition mid-March, shortly after spring break, when my partner also made the transition. We went from seeing one another a few hours every day to sharing office space every single day. That feels as though it requires emphasis. Every. Single. Day.

I’ve read articles that say part of our (as a society) difficulties in relationships are partly because of high stress levels which make people more agitated and partly because when we never leave one another, we can’t miss each other. We don’t have those times to reminisce about the good qualities our partners have, just the constant annoyances.

I’ve been lucky in that area. My nesting partner has few qualities I find obnoxious, so my main struggles have been with fear. I fear the unknown, I fear him contracting the virus and dying, I fear death, and I am afraid of what tomorrow will look like.

In the beginning, that made getting out of bed difficult. I found myself trying to sleep more, or burying my head in a mindless phone game to avoid having to think too much, since thinking always led back to the inevitable unknown. It was a pretty vicious cycle. I devoured news articles since for me, knowlege tends to help me feel more in-control. My partner saw that I was not okay. He began limiting my news intake by making me take time off from those things, hoping to help me find a more even keel. I was having small anxiety attacks when I grocery shopped, so he began finding delivery options that limited my interactions outside of the house. His other partner was isolating for weeks before coming to see him to make sure she wasn’t bringing deadly germs into the house. iMy anxiety levels were off the charts and I had no idea what to do. He saw that I was less productive, but it can be difficult enough to admit to ourselves when we’re not fine, let alone finding the words to admit it to someone else.

It wasn’t until the dam broke that I reached out for help. I had made it through a month and a half of the stormy seas of heightened anxiety when we learned that my daughter would have to return to work in a job which required her to come into physical contact with other people. I started crying and I couldn’t stop, and finally called my general practitioner seeking some kind of medicinal intervention. He prescribed a stopgap, and I finally had to sit down with my partner and try to put my feelings into words.

We moved out that weekend, into a living situation which better lent itself to isolating. We collected the vulnerable members of our family and shored up against outsiders. We left my daughter in our house, and I only had to take the anxiety meds when I left the house to collect groceries. We waited for any word that masks were effective, finally running across a test case of live exposure with the potential for superspread, only to have it bumped from the news. We searched for weeks for more information, relieved beyond measure when it came. It was finally safe to return home.

Going home didn’t mean my anxiety was gone. It meant my partner had to keep an eye on me for signs that I might need to medicate. I explored other possibilities, such as counseling, but talking about my anxieties only served to exacerbate them.

My partner began scheduling time for us in a friend’s pool. It was the most human interaction outside of one another that we’d had for months. We’d go swim, and it was like the stress and anxiety melted away, giving us back our humanity for just a little while. It was like lancing a wound – the poison seeped out. It wasn’t healed, but it improved dramatically.

We’ve had to find ways to steal pieces of “normal.” We’ve found that being able to do so safely has been hugely important to my mental health. As it got cold enough that the pool was less attractive, we moved to the occasional indoor game night with those friends, who were also isolating. We added two other friends to our QuaranTeam, our Perv Pod, and we made arrangements to attend our local dungeon together. The space seemed awfully empty, but before too long, the delicious sounds of four bottoms screeching at non-regular intervals and the cracks of whips and sounds of other impact filled the space in ways our physical presence could not.

Our vacation was cancelled, unsurprisingly. So we made plans with that same group to rent a house on the water down south, drove in a caravan, stopped for groceries, and spent a few days taking turns with cooking, playing board games, and fishing off of the back deck of the house. We are finding ways to regain our joy.

I still have to take my anxiety meds. My Dominant makes sure to keep track of how often I need them, and if it starts becoming more frequent, to check on my mental state more regularly. He’s relaxed some rules for the duration of this – I’m allowed more stuffies in the bed as long as the pile stays on my side, and he let me get a new wardrobe of super fluffy pajama pants to work in.

I still don’t know what tomorrow will look like. I try not to think too hard about that. We’re tentatively planning Thanksgiving with our Germ Pod. Even though I cried when I realized the rest of my family wouldn’t be able to join us, it’s better than it could be, and better than it was back in early June.

I know it can be hard to admit it, but it is so important to ccommunicate mental health challenges to partners. There are so many resources out there, help is available. It just takes sliding one foot forward for that very first step. ‘


Christmas bunny has been exploring kink since she was legal to do so.  Her serious writing started in college, where she accidently got some of her papers published in educational journals.  She has recently expanded her writing to include her kink journey.  She began writing in the physical realm, but shed some of her inhibitions and began sharing those entries with others.  She now keeps an active blog of her personal growth and her relationship with her Master / Daddy Dominant and writes helpful educational posts on a variety of subjects.

Tagged With: aftercare, bdsm play, bdsm relationship, bdsm scene, boundaries, communication, mental health, poly dating, poly family, poly relationships, polyamory, relationship management, solo polyamory

24/7 D/s Relationships are Like a Layer Cake

August 3, 2020 By Will Hunt 8 Comments

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via stock.adobe.com

24/7 D/s relationships are a lot of work. The title alone should be the give away, and I don’t mean the 24/7 or D/s part, those only come after the really tricky bit, the relationship. For some of us our sense of self is so tied up in the dynamics of relationship that we can forget which follows which.

Our dynamics are layered upon those parts of us that make up functioning human beings. We are a top, a bottom, a switch after we are a person. Those needs which are fulfilled by those dynamics are valuable. Often they can be very comforting, allowing us to choose the manner in which we engage with the people around us with clearly set terms of engagement. Within our relationships it can provide clearly defined expectations and responsibilities. However, we need the stable foundation of a relationship upon which to build.

We will all have times when we will struggle. Perhaps the urge to serve it strained, or the desire to tell someone what to do waines? For some reason that which came easily and we thought was core to our relationship, to our very sense of self, becomes difficult. It can be a source of panic as we try to diagnose the problem. Do I need to be more dominant, double down on the rules, forgive no trespass? We become so obsessed with the symptoms that we fail to diagnose the root cause of the issue. 

The D/s aspect of a relationship is often the most emotionally vulnerable part of a relationship as it rests on the very top. Seen each and every day in the way we act, the way we talk, so any break in that pattern is very obvious. Often the D/s parts of us are the most extreme representations of us, the most vulnerable, the most self indulgent, the most us that we can only truly manifest when we feel safe. It can be the canary in the coal mine of troubles we aren’t even aware of. 

Dig Deep

If we are finding it hard to connect in a kinky way I believe it is worth working up through the layers of the relationship, rather than backwards from the fault. If we no longer feel safe enough in the relationship to be uniquely vulnerable in the way that D/s allows us to then we need to understand what has changed. 

There is a risk that if we spend all our time struggling to work out why we aren’t enjoying the rules and making up new rules, or altering existing ones, then we are not exploring why the rules have stopped being fun. Layering more plaster over a crack in a wall won’t solve the problem. We need to work out why the crack is there in the first place. Stop the root problem, then repair and plaster over the crack.

If there is a problem on the top level of the relationship, the D/s aspect, then we should explore the foundations of the relationship. By starting with the fundamentals we can test each of those things that are essential to a healthy relationship.

The underpinnings of a relationship are not D/s, they are care, affection, love and much much more. You kink compatibility may be what brought you together, but it will not be what keeps you together. 

What may have brought you together is not necessarily the same thing that keeps you together. I have been fortunate enough to have had some wonderful scenes with people. Our kinks were compatible, we enjoyed our time together, but a relationship was never a prospect. Kink compatibility does not naturally lead to relationship compatibility. So why would we focus on the kink aspect first rather than that which makes up the underpinnings of the relationship if there is a problem?

If there are uncomfortable things that we need to confront about our relationship we can be prone to distraction. It is easy to mistake activity for progress. 

Foundation Stone

Recently the D/s aspect of my relationship had to take a backseat in order to focus on my partners needs. She did not need a dom at that time, she needed a partner. Everything but the most basic levels of D/s had to be put on hold. She still wore her collar, had to ask permission for the same things as always, but apart from those few things our focus shifted almost exclusively to taking care of her. 

My role as Top in our relationship had to shift, changing from an owner, an enforced of rules, to far more of a carer. Our relationship became almost vanilla! Gasp, shock, horror!

Fortunately she felt better after a few weeks of care and we were able to start bringing our rules back to the forefront of our relationships. Shifting back to the D/s heavy nature of our relationship. However, there was a problem. I was really struggling. I found it hard to just turn the switch back on. Everything told me I enjoyed our kink dynamic, I wanted to get back to it in full, so did she. Everything we were thinking about our shared kink told us we should be right back where we were a few weeks ago.

Our mistake was in only looking at the issue from the kink layer of the relationship. We were so fixated on getting that back to normal that we didn’t even consider that there could be an issue on another level that we were totally missing. 

For a few days we struggled. We were doing all the kinky things, and just not feeling it. It felt just like we were going through the motions. A horrible thing to feel in a D/s dynamic where our joint commitment is so integral to the relationship working. 

After a few days of it just not working we had a long conversation. Forcing ourselves to verbalise what we were feeling, what was frustrating us and what wasn’t working. We didn’t have to come up with a solution, we were just diagnosing the problem. Neither of us pretended something was working that wasn’t, neither of us attributed blame (after all we both wanted the same thing). What we did was work up from the fundamentals of our relationship, asking the hard questions as we went. Did we still love each other, did we still enjoy being with each other, did we still excite each other…

It is important to ask these hard questions, because it is the answers that will help us. Fortunately after the talk we were able to understand why we weren’t clicking, it was as simple as the fact that I needed to feel confident that she really was okay. I needed to feel safe enough to be myself in full with her again, and to recognise that needed to give myself a couple of days to recover from being so focused on caring for her. 

The spice of life

Kink is a beautiful, thrilling, erotic addition to a relationship. In my case it is so pervasive that it could easily be mistaken as the relationship in its entirety. If I am not careful I can make that mistake myself.

While kink might bring many of us together, and even form the language of intimacy that we use to grow emotionally close, it needs to be built upon a healthy relationship. We cannot mistake activity for achievement or conversation for construction. We need to ask the hard questions, to put each other first and build our relationships on a foundation of love. 


About the Author
Will Hunt has been involved in the UK kink scene for the last 10 years; running clubs, teaching workshops, performing and generally encouraging naughty behavior wherever possible.

Tagged With: 24/7, D/s, relationship management, Will Hunt

Poly Hierarchy

April 17, 2017 By Jenn Masri 3 Comments

Want to know the right way to do poly? I have the answer.

The answer is…….there is no right way! Sorry.

There may be a right way for one person, however, that may not be the right way for another, or anyone else for that matter. One part of “doing poly” is how you describe your poly. What words do you use to describe various partners, metamours, or yourself?

It seems that the hierarchical terms of “primary” and “secondary” were pretty accepted universally (back in the day). This acceptance seems to be changing. Many poly folks do not like these terms because it makes it sound like a “primary” partner is more important than a “secondary” one. So there have been a few solutions to this. One is finding different terms. One I like is “anchor partner” or “nesting partner” (yes these would take the place of various types of primary partners). Others do away with terms altogether.

I would like to state my personal opinion, however, which is counter to the popular one. I am, personally, not offended by the use of primary and secondary. I was in a relationship triad where I was the secondary partner, or “third”. For me it helped form my role within the triad. I knew what to expect as well as what was expected of me. I never assigned a “less than” meaning to it. It was more of a descriptor of my role. In my current relationship status I have an “anchor” partner, or primary, and I am with someone to whom I am a secondary partner and she is my secondary partner as well. She has her own primary (or nesting partner) – since they share a home. Our relationship is different than my relationship with my primary and it’s different then her relationship with hers. Different is ok. It doesn’t mean we aren’t important to one another. If I need to go to the hospital, my anchor partner is most likely the one to take me. If I need to discuss financial issues, etc – I am more likely to discuss it with my anchor because it effects his life more that hers. It just is what it is. I also see my anchor partner almost every day, while my secondary partner and I see one another when we can, however, due to our schedules and distance it’s usually only 1-3 times a month on average.

My opinion is that if it acts like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck. And that duck is no more or less important that another swan in the pond – only different. I also realize that some poly tribes honestly have no hierarchy – no life crossovers (finances, kids, shared household, etc.) and so hierarchical terms don’t fit anyway. I also understand that many people don’t like the terms because it sounds like they imply better or worse.
My opinion is that words hold the weight that you assign them. I have never attached value to these descriptors – only used them as an easier way to explain the situation and relationships I’m in.

Just like everything else with poly – come up with and use words that work for you and your people.

Jennifer Masri is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, specializing in Alternative Lifestyles for individual and relationship issues. She also teaches the BDSM 101 class series at Sanctuary LAX in Los Angeles every Monday evening. Read more about Jennifer on her blog, A Kink Shrink.

Tagged With: multiple relationships, poly dating, polyamory, relationship management

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