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Rules vs. Rituals & Stages of D/s-M
Sir and I are slightly different in our dynamic as we have been practicing D/s from the start. We never had a vanilla relationship. It was something I noticed in him on our second date. We were on the couch, and I wasn’t where he wanted me. He simply reached out and snuggled me into his side. There was no hesitation or question. It was a huge turn-on for me. I then struggled with how to say what I liked….I mean, we were on our second date! “I really liked that you put me where you wanted me…no, I’m not supposed to say that…thank you for showing me where I was supposed to be… it still doesn’t sound right… thank you for putting me in my place…no that one is definitely not P.C.” I stuttered through several variations, but this was the initial spark that showed both of us that we shared something special: his natural dominance and my natural submission.
I am so fortunate to have found this wonderful man! Our relationship has always been built on communication, trust, honesty, and respect. I look at it as a gift after such a miserable first marriage. I certainly know and recognize the opposite.
We have been through many ebbs and flows (as we realize the term for now – thank you, Mr. Fox). Things go super hot and heavy as we race, and then we stumble and fall. We have been so appreciative of all the support we have here and the tools we have discovered. Many of the falls would have been less awful if we had known about downtime!
After the zoom last night and processing with Sir, I realized my biggest
questions are 1. the difference between a rule and a ritual and 2. where exactly are we on this journey?So the first year of our relationship, we developed a toy chest, went over limits and safe words, started doing scenes, he started training me in his preferred positions, and he established some rules (as I would call them). My first rule was that I was to respond to his phone call or text within 10 minutes. Then he taught me how to open a wine bottle, and it was my job to bring him a glass of wine in the evening. The next rule was fun because it happened out in front of vanilla people, and they had no idea what was going on. When we went out to eat, I was to have three suggestions for him to choose from. Finally, he could take me whenever he wanted me. I will say he struggled with accepting that one, and it hasn’t been until recently that he has faith in it. That trust in it has ebbed and flowed.
In the second year, we attempted to add some rules, but most failed miserably. The one rule that succeeded was that I have to ask permission to orgasm. That stays to this day, and I can’t come without that permission. The biggest failure was that I was to ask if I could masturbate and if I could orgasm. It was going really well at first and led to some serious hot edging scenes. Unfortunately, one time when I asked, instead of just saying no, he got passive-aggressive, and then really defensive when I tried to talk to him about it. It ended in a huge fight and we haven’t revisited it. If only we had known about downtime! I would say we had a lot more hurdles and stumbling the second year. We discovered some skeletons in the closet about past relationships and worked really hard on clearing those. There are times that we both struggle with doubts that the other person really wants us and isn’t going to disappear. We have made incredible strides in that department.
We are now in our third year. We just established that I have a bedtime – dear god, I hate that one! And the second one is that I ask permission to get out of his bed. He goes to bed after I do, and I get up first. We are only a week in on those, and we will see. We found this site, which gave us some amazing new tools. We are both loving downtime! I did a formal acceptance, which went swimmingly and got him to accept that we had been doing this all along. He consistently had said that he didn’t want a 24/7 D/s dynamic, but we had daily things we did. It was confusing, but that confusion cleared up. After the FA, he has accepted his role as Dominant and accepted me in mine. I have been working on his confidence to help with any stumbling blocks and I feel we have really entered a new phase in our relationship.
So which of those are rules? Which are rituals? I really don’t know the difference. And I’m not sure where to gauge where we are in the stages of establishing this?
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1 Reply
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Ah! I found the two articles on rules and rituals. That helped out a lot!
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