Me- looks fine on the outside, all tangled up on the inside.

There’s been quite the flurry of communication in this house as we further explore some of the outside stressors that are taking their toll on our sanity. One of the topics that came up was His continuing interest in swapping with another friendly couple or with a female, preferrably bisexual, but not necessarily required.

That topic, of swapping, always leads to interesting reactions on my part, because it is absolutely loaded with implications, fears, insecurities and nightmares for me. It makes even the most mundane comments from Him make me tremble with suppressed rage or sob quietly in the bathroom.  It’s quite the fucking mental minefield, for sure.

The more direct consequences of the swapping I’ll discuss later on in a different set of posts. This post will be a multi-post series on how an open-bedroom policy has an affect on how I serve Him in the O/p relationship.

Being His slave is my life. It sounds awful, and even now a part of me involuntarily grimaced at typing that, but it is. This house, the kids, Him – it’s all I know how to do. It’s all I have done for the past 5 years. Consequently, much, if not all, of my perception of self-worth is directly related to my being His slave, and doing it well. This is fine for 90% of the time, when there isn’t much that challenges my perception. It’s that 10% of the time where I start to examine things, I start to panic, I start to get uppity in fear and self-preservation.

Part of the 10% is when He expresses His desire to bang other women. On the surface, I’m all good about it. Theoretically, I can understand the drive, the hunger to know another body in a purely sexual way. Emotionally, a part of me starts to shut down. Because in the scenarios He’s described, the girl would be sleeping in the bed with Him, getting up in the morning and eating breakfast with Him, looking at my house, my stuff, touching my things…

(I realize how absurd it is for a slave to be bitching about someone else touching her stuff. I am fully aware that in the basest sense, I own nothing, nothing is mine. I am referring to “mine” as thing normally allotted to me, that I have forged important connections with, like the house, which I have spent a great deal of time trying to make not only livable but lovable; the bed, which is my refuge from the world; and most of all, my service to Him.)

…and I imagine myself laying next to the other half of the swapping couple, wondering if she’s spooning with Him the way I often ask to, if she’s falling asleep listening to Him breath His dream breaths like I do, if she’s making Him breakfast with the love I try to…

Can’t imagine why I am not jumping at the chance to swap.

I fear being replaced. I’ve had nightmares about it. Imagining the girl doing everything that I use to define my worth to Him is enough to make my hands shake. I fear being abandoned after narrowing the focus of my life down to pinpoint accuracy of life with Him.

This inner turmoil brings on large amounts of self-doubt and self-hatred. I hate that I am not able to take my Owner’s word as gospel when He says I am not replaceable and that He’ll never leave me. I hate that I place limits, even if unwillingly, on His future actions because I am not strong enough to get over myself.  I hate myself for not being able to place His desire, His wants, over my inability to get a grip on life as a slave.

I just want to move on to acceptance. I don’t want to have to push through all the pain and fears, the old hurts and new terrors, to make it to the fabled El Dorado of kinkdom: gracious and calm slavery. Especially since this is something I have to do without much assistance from Him. He can’t kick my ass through it. I have to force myself every inch of the way, snuffling and sobbing, until I can finally look in the mirror and be absolutely sure that I am the one He will keep, I am the one He truly knows and desires, that I am the one that has earned the title of His slave.

Only then will I not stand in the way of His wants and desires. Because even though now I wouldn’t stop Him from sleeping out, wouldn’t begrudge Him from finding some sweet thing to enjoy, a part of my soul would commence bathing in acid. I’d kill myself inside to serve Him, all the doubts and fears and insecurites eating me from the inside out until I was nothing but a shell of the woman He loved.  I know all the poly sayings and theories and truisms. I know why my thought processes are false. That is what is so frustrating about it.

A good example would be this song by Tracy Lawrence called Time Marches On.

And most of all, even as I’m beating my breasts and gnashing my teeth about how it kills me to be an impediment to Him, I’m so very very thankful that He restricts Himself to guard the safety of my sanity until I am strong enough to know that Him sleeping around doesn’t mean I am not valuable to Him.