Insecurities related to girlfriends past d/s

KinkyGuy1 said:

Divingjoy, thanks again.

I will try but I get the feeling she drip feeds me information for fear of putting me off. She said as much in the early days & I think she change stories a bit because she knew I was a bit shocked by some of her past.

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I get why she stopped the information train. You subjected her to judgments. Deep ones. I'd have clammed up, too. Dang...

And you want to build a life with this woman, yet you call her a whore (and as another poster said, not in the good way). And let her know how "disgusted" (your word) you were with it all??? Again, dang...

KinkyGuy1 said:

I get what you are saying. When it comes to affairs of the heart, I'm scared of getting hurt.

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This is, in its essence, the source of your issues with her. Not her sexual preference or her past. The complexities are centered around your insecurities which stem from you getting cheated on in the past. You're making her carry your old baggage. So not fair. Or healthy. For either of you.

You say it's only 1%, but that 1% can rip it all to pieces. Or it can make it all pretty fabulous.

Best wishes.

In terms of worrying about whether you're 'enough' dominant ... this is a similar experience I had with a current lover. When we first talked about sex (which we did a LOT, because our initial relationship was only online/phone), I explained how I liked pain and had what I guess one might call some submissive tendencies. He said he'd done that sort of thing with previous women, but it didn't really rock his world - he was mostly just indulging their desires. I don't like guys doing that - I want them to be totally into whatever they're doing with me themselves, no to make me happy. So we sort of mutually agreed that we would be unlikely to indulge in any of that sort of behaviour.

How fucking wrong we were. BUT I also know I'm never going to want to go to the extremes of previous girlfriends he had, and fairly early on I brought this up with him, in the context of a 'I don't want you to get bored with me' conversation. He explained how some women would do anything - like, ANYthing - but did it with this sort of disinterest that just made it all a bit dull and clinical. Whereas other women were really vanilla, but SO into the vanilla sex they were having that it was totally awesome. At that point, he put me somewhere in the middle of the vanilla/barbed-wire-suspended-from-the-ceiling scale, probably more to the vanilla end (although that's probably changed since then), but obviously I utterly loved everything we did together.

So the point of all this is often it's not the WHAT you're doing, but the HOW, and the WHO. Over time I've come to realise that, while we're exploring a lot of stuff, what makes it really exciting is that we're doing with each other, not someone else - it's the actually relationship we have that makes the sex awesome, not the sex itself. He could have a women who's way more sub, or way kinkier than me. But he wants me. Yay! Once I worked that out, everything else became sort of irrelevant.

You just are who you are. Apparently, that's who she wants to be with, and really, we all make a few compromises to be with the people we love. If she ends up wandering off with someone else, that was probably always going to happen - no amount of upping your dom game is likely to make a heap of difference. (I may be wrong here, of course - no one really knows how this shit works - but that's my 2c's worth.)

Part of a dom's duty is to read the sub's body language to determine their mental state

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And I strongly disagree with this statement. Safety is not the duty of one side. How, and if at all, safe play can be achieved must be agreed upon and no dominant with a sane mind would agree to:"Well, you just read my body language whether everything is okay or not."

This is why true non-consensual contact, or lack of communication before and after the session is VERBOTEN in mature D/s relationships.

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This does not even make sense, because how could you objectively determine a "lack of communication before"? If there is a lack of communication, both partners are to blame, if there is someone to blame at all. Nobody does no mistakes.

As many others explained, you forcing the breast play is BAD D/s etiquette. You don't know if she's really resisting because she really can't stand it,

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The amount of people agreeing to the same thing does not mean much - look at Trump supporters.

Seriously, first your dominant is supposed to be able to read her body language to determine her mental state - and then he is not allowed to use it to determine what kind of play is going on - and when he acts upon his skillset, it becomes wrong. Forcing the breast play was a decision made by the dominant partner and the call was right, even if this violates your views of how a woman should be treated.

Primalex said:

And I strongly disagree with this statement. Safety is not the duty of one side. How, and if at all, safe play can be achieved must be agreed upon and no dominant with a sane mind would agree to:"Well, you just read my body language whether everything is okay or not."



This does not even make sense, because how could you objectively determine a "lack of communication before"? If there is a lack of communication, both partners are to blame, if there is someone to blame at all. Nobody does no mistakes.



The amount of people agreeing to the same thing does not mean much - look at Trump supporters.

Seriously, first your dominant is supposed to be able to read her body language to determine her mental state - and then he is not allowed to use it to determine what kind of play is going on - and when he acts upon his skillset, it becomes wrong. Forcing the breast play was a decision made by the dominant partner and the call was right, even if this violates your views of how a woman should be treated.

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Doms are psychic mind-readers, yo.

ToPleaseHim said:

Doms are psychic mind-readers, yo.

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Well, some are - but you know how I hate to brag.

Primalex said:

Forcing the breast play was a decision made by the dominant partner and the call was right, even if this violates your views of how a woman should be treated.

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I think I was talking about experienced dom rather than a regular guy who doesn't quite know how to deal with his sub-ish GF but would like to becom a dom to satisfy her.

If he was a experienced dom, then yes, his skillset/experience would determine that pushing the breast play would be within his sub's limits.

But if you read OP's original post, he's NOT an experienced dom, AND the sub was not a cooperative sub that can verbalize needs, not participate in debrief. This makes gaining experience from such a sub nearly impossible.

So I apologize for my awkward wording, what I *really* meant to say is "inexperienced dom + non-verbal sub = potentially volatile combination", so "tread slowly". Pushing a breast play by an inexperienced dom on such a sub can have unexpected and potentially bad consequences.

You need to inject a bit of wisdom here. If I were in charge I'd suspend the risky (fun) play until she started being more honest. That's not going to happen though, until you stop judging her past behavior. You've got some cultural hangups about fringe behavior that needs to go. You don't have to like it, and you can be totally disgusted at the thought of doing it yourself, but letting that change your estimation of a person's value as a human being is not helping.

And consensual non consent really should wait until you both can trust eachother to be open and honest. How can you know she's not really feeling violated in a bad way? Can you trust her to speak up about that? From what I gather from what you've said, she seems the type to freeze under duress, so I don't think you can know yet, until she learns how to communicate these things to you.

I'm sorry, but I'm going to be a blatant bitch here--she's not ready for a healthy relationship. She's having issues communicating what she needs from you, she's had abusive, asshole ex's. The constant is her.

She needs to work on herself-she needs to figure out why she picks losers, and why she cant/won't honestly communicate w you, a self-admitted 'nice guy'.

You've said you've been cheated on in the pass. If this is a constant, you need to figure out why you're drawn to these type of women.

I'm guessing she's smoking hot? So you are willing to over look all this?

tiny_wet_panties said:

I'm sorry, but I'm going to be a blatant bitch here--she's not ready for a healthy relationship. She's having issues communicating what she needs from you, she's had abusive, asshole ex's. The constant is her.

She needs to work on herself-she needs to figure out why she picks losers, and why she cant/won't honestly communicate w you, a self-admitted 'nice guy'.

You've said you've been cheated on in the pass. If this is a constant, you need to figure out why you're drawn to these type of women.

I'm guessing she's smoking hot? So you are willing to over look all this?

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I've been lurking here and there is awesome advice being given.
I had to respond now simply to say I LOVE your username.

Carry on.

We've turned into a bit of relationship advice here.

But let's start with op. I find tiny_wet_panties observation right on, but I'll tackle that in reverse order.

1) OP said he had been cheated on before, and wanted this relationship to last. This in turn, lead to his desire to bend to his current GF's needs, and he had determined that GF's a sub so he needed to learn how to be a dom to accommodate her.

While OP's heart is in the right place, the approach is wrong. Relationship is not merely bending to the partner's needs, but rather, constantly reinforced through interaction and building of trust. I sort of explained that before... "care and feeding" of a sub is not something to be undertaken lightly, even a low-level relationship (1 or 2 on the 5 level scale, 5 being total power exchange, and 1 being just for one scene or 1 night)

In fact, it's NOT unheard of that a housewife can have a loving relationship with her husband, even in bed, but once a week, seek out a dom for certain... itch that she needed to scratch to get through the week. Or the gender-flipped version of this. Husband needs to go see a dominatrix every once in a while but is still alpha and breadwinner of the family.

The love, sex, and the kink do NOT have to come from the same source.

Which brings us to the other observation:

2) OP's GF is simply not ready for a healthy relationship.

>>She's having issues communicating what she needs from you, she's had abusive, asshole ex's.

In other words, she's been treated like a doormat, derives some pleasure from serving but she really has no idea what she wants, for no dom had ever actually explored the topic with her. I don't know about her psyche, but a decade of being doormat? She probably expects you to treat her like a doormat too, because that's pretty much all she knew and expect! That's not healthy for her, or for you.

You can probably keep her for another 8 years or whatever by treating her like her abusive ex's, but I am guessing or hoping you are too considerate to be that much of an asshole.

And she needs help, maybe not psychiatric help, but at least she needs to talk to some experienced D/s people on how a HEALTHY D/s relationship should work, as it sounds she had never been in one, and I don't think any one can train you do be a proper caring dom with a "Dom for Dummies" course (which obviously does not exist). She had a lot of bad habits to unlearn before she do a healthy relationship.

If you really want to take on this project, may want to start with 20 questions, or make that 100, or more, because you need to help her figure out what she really wants (as many items as applicable), and it cannot be "whatever you want". That is not an answer, but a conditioned response (i.e. she "learned" it from her abusive ex's)

OP, be careful of what you ask of her. She's probably been conditioned to say yes even when in her heart she's not sure or thinking no. And you risk damaging her if you push her at the wrong time, and you don't know when's the wrong time yet, and that takes a while to learn. So, tread lightly. And Good luck.

tiny_wet_panties said:

I'm sorry, but I'm going to be a blatant bitch here--she's not ready for a healthy relationship. She's having issues communicating what she needs from you, she's had abusive, asshole ex's. The constant is her.

She needs to work on herself-she needs to figure out why she picks losers, and why she cant/won't honestly communicate w you, a self-admitted 'nice guy'.

You've said you've been cheated on in the pass. If this is a constant, you need to figure out why you're drawn to these type of women.

I'm guessing she's smoking hot? So you are willing to over look all this?

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I'm probably jaded but... when an older guy is with a significantly younger woman, a lot of the crazy issues seem to be overlooked. Perhaps I'm generalizing but I'm speaking from the anecdotal "evidence" I heard during my single, dating days.

The other issue that I think CutieMouse brought up is.... she's had 16 years of D/s experience. How old are you? How old is she? I'm hoping you're 60 and she's like 35. Any younger and you're getting in to some pretty icky territory.

cookiecat said:

I'm probably jaded but... when an older guy is with a significantly younger woman, a lot of the crazy issues seem to be overlooked. Perhaps I'm generalizing but I'm speaking from the anecdotal "evidence" I heard during my single, dating days.

The other issue that I think CutieMouse brought up is.... she's had 16 years of D/s experience. How old are you? How old is she? I'm hoping you're 60 and she's like 35. Any younger and you're getting in to some pretty icky territory.

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He's in his fourties.

I never called her a whore to her face, nor would I! I didn't mean that in the way it sounded either.

She actually isn't one for telling me much anyway. Right from the start, she was reluctant to tell me anything. She told me a good dom would know what to do. That didn't help me one bit. Straight away I felt like a novice & out of my depth! Eventually I told her I wasn't a mind reader & ordered her to fill out a bdsm check list & interests list.

I think she wanted me to take off from where her previous partner left.

I know you may judge me but there are plenty of reasons why I got insecure. I just haven't got the time to write everything down. She came from a d/s life to a relatively vanilla guy. She hit me with everything she had done early on. In fact, some of it was in a book in all it's detail.

I thought a lot of her but I was at first a bit overwhelmed by what she told me & what I read. For her, it's nothing. She's been doing it forever. For me, it was difficult to digest. My problem yes. I have stuck around because I think the world of her.

I am less insecure now. Just now and again, I get a pang of insecurity & thus my posting. It was my way of dealing with it. Thanks to a lot of you great people, I've got a grip on my feelings & rationalised them to a degree. I may get a pang of insecurity again, if I do I will refer back to this thread. Hopefully with time, I will accept everything completely. I have a past too, not so graphic perhaps but I've had a lot of partners & so I'm no angel!

Some very wise words people, thanks

clistenovena said:

I get why she stopped the information train. You subjected her to judgments. Deep ones. I'd have clammed up, too. Dang...

And you want to build a life with this woman, yet you call her a whore (and as another poster said, not in the good way). And let her know how "disgusted" (your word) you were with it all??? Again, dang...


This is, in its essence, the source of your issues with her. Not her sexual preference or her past. The complexities are centered around your insecurities which stem from you getting cheated on in the past. You're making her carry your old baggage. So not fair. Or healthy. For either of you.

You say it's only 1%, but that 1% can rip it all to pieces. Or it can make it all pretty fabulous.

Best wishes.

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She's very naive, and flat out wrong if she really believes a "good dom" would know what to do. Not every d/s relationship is the same. Not everyone clicks in the same way. Every relationship is unique, and REQUIRES both people communicate their needs and wants if its to last.

KinkyGuy1 said:

Right from the start, she was reluctant to tell me anything. She told me a good dom would know what to do. That didn't help me one bit.

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Wow, hold on. This is a HUGE red flag. I can see why you'd suddenly decided to look for a "dom remedial course". But the problem here is NOT YOU. THE PROBLEM IS DEFINITELY HER.

She's demanding the impossible. A D/s relationship is a LASTING relationship that stems from long experience of reading each other's verbal and body cues. The fact that she somehow expects someone she met recently to just slip into a telepathic dom role suggests she's even more... wounded than she suspects. Her expectation of a dom is NOT POSSIBLE. It is a FANTASY.

And the fact that she used it to make you feel inadequate, whether with intent or not, is affecting you.

Straight away I felt like a novice & out of my depth! Eventually I told her I wasn't a mind reader & ordered her to fill out a bdsm check list & interests list.

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Good, that's a good start. 20, 100, more questions. But you need to help her fill it out. Make it a scene, if you will. Play it as an interrogation scene is one idea, but make sure it's what she wants.

I think she wanted me to take off from where her previous partner left.

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Yes, but I'm sure you've heard of the "battered spouse syndrome", where the battered spouse went back to the abuser because they've reasoned that the familiarity of abuse is somehow better than... nothing. Not saying she's abused, but she's definitely treated like a doormat, by your description. And I'm sure you want to love her, not abuse her, and treating her like a doormat was NOT healthy for her... or for you as it goes against your own nature.

The trick is to get her to open up. To use a bad analogy, her spine had been stomped out of her long ago for being a doormat so long. Your job that you've volunteered is to help her develop a spine again.

Again, be careful where you tread. Rehabilitation is a long-term project. Good luck.

I'm still curious how someone "much younger than you" (in your 40s) has been in [ethical, consensual] BDSM relationships for 16 years.

Because, yes, you've gotten lots of good advice on how to develop a D/s relationship, communication, etc... but if her history of D/s is abusive, coerced, non-consensual (different from CNC), etc? IMO the relationship would be better served by a different approach.

So I apologize for my awkward wording, what I *really* meant to say is "inexperienced dom + non-verbal sub = potentially volatile combination", so "tread slowly". Pushing a breast play by an inexperienced dom on such a sub can have unexpected and potentially bad consequences.

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That doesn't make it better, that's a tautology. It doesn't even change if you replace "inexperienced" dom by "experienced" dom. Making unwanted assumed-wanted sexual advances is not a tunnel game that you can't stop once it started. This even happens in non-BDSM relationships.

If he tied her up and blindfolded her and fucked her while she was screaming:"Noooo!" and then came up with:"Well, I was sure she secretly enjoyed it." then you might have a valid argument about the approach being fairly risky - for every new relationship, no matter the experience level of the dom.

Now, whether her mental health is suitable for any kind of relationship is a completely different topic and has nothing to do with BDSM and the effects of it cannot be mitigated by "experience". Experienced doms are not qualified psychotherapists.

And...if we remove women with a background of abuse or other mental issues from the acceptable BDSM submissive partner pool - then this is going to be a very lonely party for the dominant people.

A D/s relationship is a LASTING relationship that stems from long experience of reading each other's verbal and body cues.

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..No..

@Primalex

Your point is taken. A general relationship problem that happens to involve D/s as an interaction dynamic is indeed a very murky or gray area.

That's why we're talking about it. Thank you for sharing your views.

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With regards to your first paragraph, she has given me some information in way of check lists & bdsm interests. What she seems to have trouble with is giving me hints as to when she's up for d/s. I might be getting better at reading the signs though.

I would hope that she would tell me as such in a verbal fashion. She also hasya safeword which I wouldn't dream of ignoring! I even gave her a red safeword so that she wouldn't need to use her safeword as she doesn't like using it for fear of letting her dom down .

SpunThings said:

You need to inject a bit of wisdom here. If I were in charge I'd suspend the risky (fun) play until she started being more honest. That's not going to happen though, until you stop judging her past behavior. You've got some cultural hangups about fringe behavior that needs to go. You don't have to like it, and you can be totally disgusted at the thought of doing it yourself, but letting that change your estimation of a person's value as a human being is not helping.

And consensual non consent really should wait until you both can trust eachother to be open and honest. How can you know she's not really feeling violated in a bad way? Can you trust her to speak up about that? From what I gather from what you've said, she seems the type to freeze under duress, so I don't think you can know yet, until she learns how to communicate these things to you.

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One suffering from anxiety, depression or self harm tendencies would actually be very well served by a relationship full of trust, open communication and acceptance with a Dominant who can serve as a rock in turbulence of the world.

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Yes, a football player would be served well with a chiropractor as partner, too.

I think this is belittling mental illnesses by reducing them to something that is merely a matter of circumstances and good will. If you have a mental illness, you are well served by having it treated professional.

Nobody would come up with the idea:"Uhm, I broke my leg, but I don't get treatment for it - I rather seek a partner who brings me the food to the bed." A dominant person likes to dominate people, this does not automatically include the desire to sacrifice his/her own well-being for someone else. You mix up wishful thinking of a perfect partner and dominance.

Yes, a partner can mitigate symptoms of mental illnesses. If your depression prevents you from cooking a decent meal, the partner can do this and reduce effects of unhealthy eating habits. But this is for sure not the job description of a dominant.

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DivingJoy said:

>>>>I think this is belittling mental illnesses by reducing them to something that is merely a matter of circumstances
>>>>and good will. If you have a mental illness, you are well served by having it treated professional.

Various studies indicate that 1 in 12 to 1 in 10 women suffer from some level of anxiety. Even if health services were capable of treating such large number, and they are not, only minority of them are actually in the category which can be treated.

Majority can only develop coping strategies. So your reference to then being bettered served by a professional is not very helpful and based on false assumption.

It is medically proven that having high quality relationship is very beneficial to those who suffer from anxiety.

>>> "Uhm, I broke my leg, but I don't get treatment for it

This analogy is wrong. Broken leg can be healed. While anxiety in majority of cases can only be coped with.

>>> A dominant person likes to dominate people,

Well again I disagree. To me Dominant seeks to exchange power with submissive. While you can dominate people with force, exchange of power can only be willing.

>>>> Yes, a partner can mitigate symptoms of mental illnesses.

I am of a view that Dominant can provide stability and confidence to the submissive and therefore help with causes NOT symptoms of depression and anxiety.

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What on earth does 'some level of anxiety' mean?

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