Boxes

I love my relationship with my husband. Overall, I think we have a great one. Our relationship suffered for a few years as our sex life went to nil, but that was a symptom and not a cause. We’re having a lot of sex again, but that’s not why the relationship is better.

We’re better because we are intimate again, and I do not mean physically. True intimacy is being able to tell your partner anything without fear. I just finished binging the latest season of Grace and Frankie. There is a scene where Grace cannot get off the toilet, and instead of getting help from her husband, she calls Frankie. She and Frankie had a more intimate relationship. Frankie tells Grace that she should have told her husband, because isn’t that intimacy what a married couple should have?

Now, I’m not so old that I can’t get off the toilet, except perhaps on leg days when my trainer, affectionately known as Mary Hitler, is particularly brutal, but I have been guilty of not telling Tripp what I needed. I put Tripp in a box, and I put me in a box of expectations.

Tripp is a bottom and by nature submissive. When we first met, we had a Master/slave dynamic going. Tripp wore my collar. That sort of faded with time. But in my head, that’s what Tripp was and always would be. I boxed myself in as a Top with occasional sub tendencies that I would fulfill elsewhere and Tripp as someone not capable of being more than a sub to me.

Probably about 5 years ago, when I told Sir about the problems developing in my marriage, he asked me why I didn’t ask Tripp to be more dominant. I responded that Tripp could never do that. In truth, I just didn’t think Tripp could, and I didn’t want to ask him because I thought he saw me as only a Dom and I was embarrassed to ask him. I didn’t want him to think less of me. I created an image of what I should be in my mind, and I felt he would no longer want me if it were not true. I had boxed myself into a steel container and welded the top shut, and I denied myself the one thing everyone should have with their soulmate, true intimacy. I mean, if you can’t tell the person you’re married to your innermost desires, you’ve got a problem.

As you know, I eventually did ask Tripp to be more dominant, and he said yes. It took me a long time and a lot of anguish before I started to break down my box. I’m now absolutely (almost) sure I can tell Tripp anything and he won’t judge me. He might not want to go there, but he won’t judge me for wanting it. Funny, but I would never have judged him for asking me anything. The standards I put on myself are higher than I put on anybody else. That’s one reason why I hid my chastity cage from him for so long. I have friends who are into some kinks that I would never do, but I don’t think less of them, I just wouldn’t participate.

I’ve still got work to do, but we are in a much better place and I am getting more comfortable with that level of intimacy. If I ever do get stuck on the toilet, I’m calling Tripp.