Loss

I have been trying to decide whether or not to write for awhile now.  I started a post on New Year's Day, forgot to save it & lost it all when I got interrupted.  I was so frustrated & decided to just wait-and here I am five months later finally trying again.  I thought we were at a very low point on New Year's Day, but it was nothing compaired to where we are now.

In my last post I gave an overview of the struggles we were dealing with & that I had withdrawn consent but I ended with the part where we had decided to go back to DD.  We did, and all the talking & planning & "things we had put in place" to help, just slowly went away & inconsistancy & anger returned.  They grew & I finally lost it & screamed, yelled, pushed & finally got punished & cried buckets of tears & asked him over & over if this lifestyle was really what he wanted & he insisted that it was.  I had started reading blogs again but not commenting very much but at that point I stopped reading unless it was one I had subscribed to via email-those ones I still read because they came to me & I didn't have to go looking.  I had brought up boot camp many times but I brought it up again & asked if he thought it would help, he wasn't sure.  I brought up marriage counseling & said I thought we should go back, we went for awhile several years ago & it had helped but then we went through a really tough time financially & needed to stop for awhile & then found our way to DD which seemed to work even better (for awhile at least) than the counseling.  He agreed that we should go & I asked that he, as HoH be the one to set up the appointment, again he agreed.  I found a list of people that took our insurance & sent it to him, that was before Christmas.  We did not have our first session until February, and I was the one who eventually called & set it up.  He kept saying he would call & "forgetting" to do so.  I was considering withdrawing concent again when he decided he wanted to do a bootcamp weekend with me.  So I did it, we prepared-we read through everything in the packet we got and we tailored it more to ourselves.  Our youngest is still nursing so we made arrangements for the kids to be with family close by so that she could come home at night to sleep in her own bed & then go back the next day.  Unfortunately this didn't work out exactly as we had hoped (she came home much earier than planned) so we modified things again & finished up the main physical part of the bootcamp after she was in bed.  It was very challenging-we had been intimate early in the day, but we both felt the need again & that part was great.  We felt so connected, the homework assignments were especially helpful & we felt really great about how the weekend had gone.  But by the next weekend his inconsistancy & my bad attitude were back. I asked again, was he really sure this was what he wanted, that I didn't want him to do this if it was just for me, he swore to me it was what he wanted & that he believed it was the right thing for us.  He asked me (again) to please bear with him-he knew that it had been taking him a very long time to put in the real effort, but that he was really going to try harder this time.  I believed him because I wanted it to be true.  That is why I have always tried to believe what he says to me....

A few weeks later was my birthday, it was also spring break for our oldest & so we asked that he babysit so that Clark & I could have a night to go to dinner & a movie without worrying that we were inconveniencing anyone by having to pick the baby up late.  We went to my favorite place to eat, I have a certain dish that I always get there because it's just the best!  We also always get the same appitizer every time-I know this might sound boring but we don't really get to go often so it's not really boring if you only go 3-4 times a year ; ).  Anyway, we got our regular appitizer & I had a little but felt extremely turned off to it & couldn't have anymore.  When it came time to order I actually decided I wanted to try something new.  Clark was very surprised & asked me several times if I was really sure, but I was.  I loved the meal I ordered & didn't regret my decision one bit.  When dinner was over we headed to the movie theater.  We got there just as the movie I wanted to see was starting-when we went to buy the tickets the boy behind the counter told us that the heat in the theater our movie was playing in was not working well & said we could go in & check it out before we bought the tickets in case it was too cold for us.  So we did-it was freezing so I told Clark I didn't want to stay.  We went and got a Redbox movie instead (I honestly do not remember what the movie was).  To take one step back, my birthday fell on a Saturday this year & Saturdays are a maintenance day in our house.  A little over a week before I had asked Clark if we could skip maintenance on my birthday & his response was "we'll see".  I was very upset & hurt by this response, we had been struggling with Clark doing what we refered to as "power tripping" from time to time & that is what I felt this was.  I felt like I wanted to blow up but I didn't.  I let it go for that moment & brought it up again later when I was feeling calm & could talk about it and explain my feelings without anger getting in the way.  Maintenance was something we had been doing on Wednesday & Saturday nights but the consistancy at that point wasn't there.  I was always left wondering if it would happen or not until right before it did or didn't.  In many cases we would be in the basement (where we conducted all spankings unless we were the only ones home), and he would be getting ready to lecture and then say, that we would just do a "fun" spanking rather than maintenance that night.  We had gone from doing only playful spankings as foreplay up until we found DD & then to only punishment & maintenance & then had recently decided that we wanted to bring the "fun" ones back.  I felt like I should have been happy when he would change his mind & do a fun one instead, but I felt let down, and a bit confused.  I didn't want to discourage him though & so I tried to just follow his lead & trust his decisions.  Anyway, I didn't think that asking respectfully if we could skip maintenance for my birthday would be met with a "we'll see".  I talked to him about it & explained my feelings & he said he was sorry for "power tripping", he said that when I asked he just thought that if he said yes I might think that I had a "free pass" for the day.  I assured him that this wasn't the case since there have been other special days when I have been punished (like Christmas for instance), so I wouldn't assume I could just break our rules intentionally or otherwise & get away with it.  He then said once more that he was sorry about his first response & that of course we would skip the maintenance for my birthday-but we would do a "fun birthday" one instead.  So fast forward back to my birthday, we got home with our Redbox movie & all the kids were up since we were home a few hours earlier than we had planned, so we did bed time with the little ones & the oldest went off to do his own thing.  We finally put on the movie, but I was really having a hard time staying awake.  This is not really like me, I'm a total night owl, but I just could not fight it.  So when the movie was over Clark woke me up & brought me upstairs to go to bed-to sleep.  I was disappointed, but I was really too tired to do anything else.  I was doubly disappointed because I expected my monthly curse the next day.  But, it didn't come, so we made up for missing out on "birthday sex" the next day (but it was minus the "fun" spanking, there was nothing talked about, it just didn't happen).  By Wednesday, Clark was a bit concerned that my curse still hadn't come.  I thought it was most likely just delayed by stress, but when he said he was going to get a pregnancy test I said ok, thinking that there was no way it would be positive anyway.  To provide a little more understanding-we tried for a few years to get pregnant with our youngest, but in the end had to do several (heartbreaking) rounds invitro fertilization (IVF) in order to finally have her.  The doctors that we dealt with during that time estimated that the odds of us getting pregnant on our own were between 1-2 percent.  Our plan had been that Clark would have a vasectomy after our last child was born so that we would not have to worry about birth control once our family was complete.  However, based on that information as well as the fact that we had tried for so long on our own and had no luck at all Clark decided that a vasectomy was not necessary.   When he told me that he didn't think it was necessary I said that if that was the decision he wanted to make I was ok with it, BUT, if I ever did happen to get pregnant, he needed to know that HE would just have to be ok with that, because there was no way I would ever terminate a pregnancy, not even if things might be tight financially for a bit.  He said he understood & that of course he would never ask me to do that.  So you can imagine my surprise, shock, and hurt, when Clark looks at me and says "so, if you are pregnant, are you going to go through with it?"  I sat there for a minute not saying a word because at first I was honestly confused by his question & then it finally clicked to me exactly what he was asking and I said very calmly, "are you joking right now?  I really hope you are, because you already know damn well what my answer to that is, and I cannot believe you even asked me that."  He looked at me and said "I figured that is what you would say, but I just wanted to make sure, sorry."  I really tried to let it go & not dwell on it, but it was very hard for me.  The next morning I still thought it was a waste of money to do the test, but I did it & was TOTALLY shocked to see the bright blue plus sign. I texted Clark & he came running into the bathroom.  I was shaking looking at the positive test.  He looked like he had just had the wind knocked out of him, but he hugged me & said "everything will be ok baby, why are you crying?  I'm not mad at you."  Mad at me??  I thought, why on earth would you be mad at me???  "I am very shocked", I said, "I didn't think you were mad at me at all, I mean what exactly would I think you would be mad at me about anyway?"  "Oh, I don't know, I just wanted to make sure you knew I wasn't."  I went back to getting ready for work & so did he, we went about our day, he had said that we shouldn't tell anyone about the baby for awhile because he was worried about how people (his family) would react.  I texed him later in the day to tell him that I needed to talk about it with someone & since our oldest was home for a visit I wanted to tell him.  He took it well & was funny about it, he joked with Clark about it later that day and the tension around the news seemed to ease just a bit.  The following week I had some spotting & called the doctor, they sent me for blood work & my numbers looked great, so they sent me for an ultra sound & I got to see the flicker of the heartbeat.  I was so excited, Clark wasn't as excited as I was but he wasn't being negative about it anymore.  We went to our marriage counselor & shared the news.  I also shared my hurt & anger about Clark having asked me if I would go through a horrendous & painful ordeal to kill the baby & Clark got a little defensive asking why I had to
say it that way?  Why couldn't I have just said that he asked me to terminate.  I said "because I do not sugar coat the facts".  The counselor said "So Scarlet, is it true that you want Clark to communicate his feelings with you?"  I had a feeling I knew where this was going but I answered "yes" and the counselor went on "but when he did, you thought he should have kept those feelings to himself?"  "Yes," I said, "in this case I do think he should have kept that to himself.  There are some things that are better left unsaid, hurtful, awful, unhelpful things that are only going to cause problems, and this is one of them.  If he needed to freak out & say he was scared or tell me that part of him was disappointed because this means our "weekend away" clock is reset I could understand & I would have listened & even commiserated with him, but what he chose to "share" was not just his feelings, it was a request for me to do something that he already knew I would NEVER do, something that is awful & against my religious & moral beliefs (for me-it is not a judgement on anyone else's choice).  So, if he needed to say that, I wish he had said it to someone else, because they could & would have told him not to say it to me, because EVERYONE who knows me knows I would never say yes to that."  I know it's the therapist's job to make us see both sides of each situation, but I felt like my feelings didn't mean anything.  And later, towards  the end of the session, there were some other things said that made me realize that I was not facing facts about our DD journey & so later that night after the kids were in bed I told Clark that I felt it was time to put an end to DD because I just didn't feel like I could continue to leave myself open to him in that way since the communication & honestly was not where it should be between us.  I also let him know that in addition to DD, I was no longer open to "fun/playful" spanking or any mention of anything to do with that dynamic at all.  He made a few weak attempts to say that he didn't want to give up on it, but after listening to everything I said to him he finally let it go. He threw up & then came back & started apologizing for not doing a good job as HoH & also for not telling me sooner that being HoH was too much for him because he needed to work on himself & get to a place were he is being honest & communicating consistently & then he thought we would be ready to go back to DD.  I told him that I am not able at this point to hold out hope for that happening.  I felt (still feel), completely betrayed, hurt & angry at him, but at myself as well.  I am mad at myself because I continued to trust his words even though his actions didn't match up.  I am mad at myself for opening myself up they way I did & letting myself get hurt so deeply.  I am mad at myself for sharing that part of myself that I can never quite cover up again.  I unsubscribed to all of the DD sites, I just cannot handle reading about it at this point.  I deleted all of the "secret" pictures & txts & DD related lists & reminders I had set up for myself, and as I did this I felt parts of myself disappearing along with it.  Like I mentioned before, spanking had been part of our foreplay almost from day one-but that is all gone.  Me feeling like I can depend on him is all gone.  We had experimented sexually quite a bit over the last 3 years but I relate all of that to the dynamic & so all of that is gone for me as well.  I have always been very attached to music, I love to sing, I love to dance-I can almost never sit still when I hear most kinds of music, but I haven't been able to listen in weeks because so many songs remind me of us & what we no longer have.  He began to be the "super nice bend over backward for you boy" that I just cannot handle.  I began  working on rebuilding the  protection walls in order to keep myself safe.  And then in my ninth week of pregnancy I had some very light spotting.  The Doctor sent me for an ultrasound, and they were unable to find the baby's heartbeat.   The Doctor went over my options with me (none were great), I ended up opting for a D & C just due to issues with time off from work, as it seemed like it would take the least time & the recovery was not too bad either.  But it was horrible walking into the hospital where I had my last baby knowing I would be walking out that day without my baby.  I was under anesthesia for the proceedure so I didn't feel any physical discomfort, it was just a terribly emotional thing to endure.  Clark has been trying to be nice to me, he has been trying to be supportive.  But loosing DD & then loosing my baby was just so devistating that I am really not able to be comforted by him at this point.  A few of my IRL girlfriends have been checking on me via txt and I am trying to be honest that I am still having a tough time, but that I just need time & prayer in order to get through it.  I just don't want to hear all the "everything happens for a reason" and "be happy with the healthy beautiful kids you have" lines-I know all of that!  I really do, but it doesn't change the pain in my heart, or make my guts feel any less wrenched out.  I really do just need some time to greave for my lost baby, as well as the loss I feel of the intimacy that I had with my husband. And there is no one to talk to about this part of it.  My family (extended-parents & siblings etc) can see that I am depressed but they only know about the baby & some may know that Clark & I are having a tough time, but they don't really know or understand why.  I can't even talk to my therapist about it, because I can never let anyone know about the physical aspect of DD without worrying about Clark possibly getting arrested.  I have agreed to work on our marriage, and I will but I am just not going to get my hopes up about returning to DD in case he isn't able to make the changes needed to be HoH.  I am so hurt right now that I can't even imagine putting myself back into his hands in that way even though I am missing the sense of security I had on & off over the past 3 years.  We have agreed to give ourselves a year to see what happens in the baby department, but other than that everything else is up in the air.  So, that is where we stand, which leaves me feeling like I shouldn't even be writing here since I am not a Submissive wife anymore-I just really didn't know where else to turn.
Scarlet