I’ve been in two other dynamics.
The first was solely online. I learned a lot from him and about myself. He released me because he saw I was falling for another person, someone who I was more likely to have an in-person relationship with.
Which I did. For five years. The dynamic faded before the relationship ended.
The end of a D/s relationship hurts both less and more than a “regular” relationship, I think. In power exchange, there’s so much more trust and honesty that has to go into it in order for it to work. With both of my previous relationships, I was young and naive and hadn’t invested as much into those dynamics as I have now with my current one. But I suppose that’s also just the nature of growing up and learning how to choose partners better.
When it comes to ending a dynamic, I know I took much of it as a self-worth issue and it took me time to separate the ending of the dynamic from what I perceived as a failure on my part. Sometimes relationships are only meant to last for so long and it’s not anything that the participating parties did or didn’t do. After my longer relationship ended, I got involved with my friends, got into the community more, and found support and myself through things I had skipped before for one reason or another.
I healed. And I’m in a wonderful deeper dynamic as a result of it.
