Nunc Scio Quid Sit Amor – Now I Know What Love Is

I can't sleep. It's past my bedtime by at least an hour and my mind is doing laps around the Universe. I thought perhaps if I wrote some of this out, it might exorcise the demons. For the love of mercy, please don't expect this to be logical.

For several reasons too boring to go into here, I've spent a lot of the last few months reviewing the lessons of relationships past. It hasn't been a particularly easy exercise to undertake because it's forced me to doff the rose coloured spectacles I'm so fond of and examine my biography in detail. Other than that, I'm going to completely blame Green Girl and Spirited One for instigating this. You don't actually expect me to take responsibility for any of this, now do you?

Let's start with Green Girl's contribution to my hyperkinetic mind. She has the same 'problem' I have – a Dominant partner who considers her happiness to be the lead item of his priority list. Doing things for other people makes me very happy inside. Service to others is a huge part of my identity, my ethics, my values and my history. Even as a little girl, I took pride in being "Momma's little helper". It gave me a sense of belonging inside my own family.

I have a friend who did a lot of development work in Africa. He says that the number one lesson he took from Africa was the value of service to a person's well-being. In his words, "Africa has every problem that the developed nations have x 10: pollution, disease, poverty, trade, etc, with the exception of one. Africa does not have our issues of teenaged alienation. Children, no matter how small, know that they make important and valuable contributions to their community. No matter how little you are, you can still feed the chickens. You can still stir the pot. Even when you're little, your family is better off for your presence within it. African children grow up knowing that they count."

His words have stuck with me over the years and to a large extent, I've internalized them. I may not be rich, or powerful, or connected, but I can still do my part to make my home, my community, my world a better place for everyone. It's still an important thing for me. I like reaching out to others. I like the little acts of service I can provide the family whose apartment I rent during the school year. It gives me a sense of connection and it's something that has grown inside my romantic relationships as well.

Yesterday, I was blissfully happy all day. Michael had asked me to host his Super Bowl party. Since I returned to school, he hasn't asked me to do very many things for him and it was such a pleasure to be working for him, for a change. The house was clean from the housekeeping service but I still took some time to make sure things were "just so". I cooked and straightened. I made sure I looked presentable before his first guest arrived. The beer was cold; the chili was hot. When I was sent to bed after half-time, it was with the assurance that his guests were fine, the food had been great and my much appreciated services were no longer required. I slept like an angel last night, completely oblivious to everything until the alarm rang for several minutes this morning.

I know it sounds crazy but I love looking after Michael's needs. I love keeping house for him. I like organizing his home life. It gives me a sense of purpose and connection that neither school nor paid employment can provide.

So here's my question: if I understand my own emotional attachments to service, why do I have difficulties understanding his emotional needs in our relationship? If we're going to put a label on Michael's ego identification, it would be "Provider". He takes a great deal of pride in the fact that he's a 'good provider'. It's a big part of how he defines himself as a man.

When we first started dating, he was living in a dumpy sort of apartment. It had been chosen in haste because it was reasonably close to work and its best feature, in his eyes anyway, was his ex-wife didn't live in it. Now, it wasn't some rat-infested slum tenement by any means but it certainly wasn't the kind of place you'd associate with a successful professional. Perhaps it was the "early locker room" decorating style that made it more depressing than it needed to be. I don't think it was an accident that my first "girlfriend assignment' for him was decorating his bedroom and making it look like something other than a monastic cell. It's just today that I realize the why behind it all. He wanted me to be comfortable and feel at home and relaxed when I was sharing his bed. He didn't care about matched sheets, duvet covers, window treatments or accent pieces. All of that effort and expense was about making me happy and comfortable in that space.

Like Green Girl's hubby, he wants to take care of me. He needs for me to be happy. This is as important to him as service is to me and I need to stop fighting him emotionally on this. I need to start respecting his need to be both my provider and my protector.

Duh, this probably isn't a revelation to anyone with half a clue, but my excuse is I'm a natural blonde. Slow? Holy crap… don't go there.

And as for Spirited One, she's helped me remember that ex's are ex's for a reason. Would I appreciate all that Michael does for me if I hadn't been so demoralized and undervalued in my last relationship? Hopefully, she'll forgive me for snatching something out of her comment section but it really hit me hard the other day when I read her reply to my comment.

What's funny is I didn't even realize how bad things were until I left [emphasis mine]. Asha treated me so well right from the start and that was so foreign to me by that point. It happened gradually. Every time Asha did something or reacted in a complete opposite way to the way my ex would have it just clicked in my head how I had allowed myself to get into a mentally abusive situation without even realizing at the time that it had turned abusive.

I didn't even realize how bad things were until I left. Oh, sister, there is a mouthful there. When I left my ex – well, truth be told, he dumped me – I had no sense that I had been in an abusive relationship. None. In fact, I defended him for months and months. I would still be living in that bit of unreality if it hadn't been for the thoughtful intervention of a very kind American Dom who I had met online whom I call "Sensei" – Japanese for 'teacher'. Let's be clear, he's never been my Dom but he's always looked out for me. Our relationship has been non-sexual, very much a student/mentor one. In those first months, when I so vigorously defended my ex's treatment of me, he very patiently listened to me. It took about three months of just letting me babble before he held the magic mirror of truth up to my eyes and helped me realize I'd been abused for a long time.

Sensei encouraged, actually, he got damned insistent about it, that I seek professional counseling. He knew I needed to heal more fully before I'd ever be able to trust enough to submit again. As I think about my wonderful loving relationship that I have with Michael, I know that it was made possible largely due to Sensei. He helped me understand a lot about myself and on more than one occasion, kept me from making stupid mistakes with Michael in the early stages of our relationship.

And now, as my love and commitment to Michael deepens, I've come to realize what a very fortunate and blessed girl I am to know what true love is.

~~doll~~

Note to reader: This is a part of a writing assignment given to me by my boyfriend when I was struggling with writer's block. He gave me a list of Latin phrases and expressions to use as inspirational fodder. This is one from that series.