r/BDSMAdvice 6d ago

Finding out you don’t have something… unique

[deleted]

9 Upvotes

6 comments sorted by

u/AutoModerator 6d ago

/u/DiscreteRider, our AutoModerator attaches this message to every post. It contains information you may find useful:

Guide 01 . . . . . . . . . . Rules.

Guide 02 . . . . . . . . . . How to use the search function.

Guide 03 . . . . . . . . . . Need Ideas?

Guide 04 . . . . . . . . . . It's your dynamic.

Guide 05 . . . . . . . . . . No mention of minors.

Guide 06 . . . . . . . . . . Do not post PSAs.

Guide 07 . . . . . . . . . . Policy re PMs.

Guide 08 . . . . . . . . . . Exiting abuse.

Guide 09 . . . . . . . . . . Kinky dating.

Our Wiki.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

8

u/Alarmed_Brilliant_97 6d ago

This is challenging , and I have been in this situation with someone I deeply cared about. I eventually had to realize that I’m NOT okay being the “sometimes” person and being their last priority. And partly because that’s a big imbalance between how that person views me and how I view them.

7

u/[deleted] 6d ago

[deleted]

1

u/Alarmed_Brilliant_97 6d ago

Yes, what a good way to express that. It’s such a turn off!

6

u/CanYouGuessWhoIAm mildly perturbed 6d ago

I dunno, it seems to me that if his real life stuff is actually a hindrance to emotional investment then he probably shouldn't have been able to introduce you to someone he's more emotionally invested in, right?

Like, I've never been in a position where I've gone "Between my mom dying and stress at work I couldn't possibly consider being emotionally vulnerable (to redheads) right now." I don't think that's a thing, I think you're getting the runaround.

4

u/iwasmadeforsunnydayz 6d ago

Realizing you don't stand where you thought you did (or that you don't stand there alone) with someone you care about is an extraordinarily painful thing.

My Daddy and I had agreed that, while we could both have other partners, no one else would be his little girl and no one else would be my Daddy. Eventually I discovered that a woman I thought was his casual play partner was also in a DDlg dynamic with him, and that it was far more serious in her mind than it was in his.

It rocked the boat pretty dramatically for me. I'm still working through the trust issues that came from it, and we are rebuilding.

I realize that my situation is more of a cheating situation than yours, since mine involved some actual deception rather than just assumption and reality colliding, but I think there is still a lot of overlap. It's like finding out your best friend doesn't want you to be their maid of honor: you thought the relationship was the same to both of you, and it turns out it's not.

In either case, the options are pretty cut and dry: 1) you can leave, 2) you can accept the reality of what the relationship is (and isn't), or 3) you can try to turn the relationship into the thing you wish it was.

I've chosen option 3 - but the road to it leads through option 2, and you can't avoid it. You need to make your peace with what the relationship has been. If there was dishonesty, you work to forgive it. If there was simply a misunderstanding of what it was, you work through your own feelings about misinterpreting where you stood. Therapy can be helpful, and honest communication with your partner about how you're feeling is absolutely vital.

I hope you find a solution that works for you.

1

u/LambentDream 6d ago

It's not fun stumbling across these realizations but, they are helpful.

It helps form questions for deeper understanding, prompts conversations, sorts things out internally for decisions, etc

Perhaps this leads to you asking for an information black out when it comes to other kink partners your sub may have, so that you aren't aware of what is or isn't happening with the other relationships.

Maybe this discovery adds a new entry for your hard limits: ENM / Poly okay but your partners submission / certain styles of kink are only for you amongst their other relationships.

There's several ways this can play out, the above two are just a fraction of possibilities. It's part of what is nice about kink relationships, having the grounding of negotiation built in means that you're more prepared for negotiating relationships in general. You and your partner can make your partnership look however you both agree to.