Tanking libido in response to change in metamour situation?

breathemusic said:
Maybe it's worth comparing to a parent/child relationship. Sure, your kid is YOUR kid, you take care of them, you're the parent in charge, but they are also an autonomous human being. They're going to make plenty of their own decisions and as a good parent, you're going to respect that.

Such is with D/s and poly that there has to be an understanding that while yes, someone "belongs" to you, the fact that you have a mutual agreement as part of your relationship that they have autonomy in their outside relationships doesn't mean they don't belong to you anymore. It just means that they belong to you in a way that you have both agreed to.

I haven't read it yet, but it's on my to-read list: the book is Power Circuits: Polyamory in a Power Dynamic by Raven Kaldera. I can't give any reviews, but it was referenced in a different poly book a read recently and just made a note of.
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Thanks. The parenting analogy helps a little.


I have read Power Circuits. It didn’t help me, personally. The focus was much more on the submissive not wanting to share the dom than the reverse. It was interesting, but I didn’t glean any helpful insight from it.
 
Yeah, to me, there is no way for him to belong to me while he has independent relationships. But every time I bring up the idea of doing away with the D/s dynamic and focusing on egalitarian polyamory, he says that he sees no inconsistency and feels just as much “mine” as he ever does — even when he is with someone else. It breaks my brain.
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Maybe he thinks of it like "She says I am to date others. So I am doing it, because I belong to her and I do her bidding.

So then he doesn't see any inconsistency because in his mind, he IS executing your bidding.

Enjoying the other dating partners and their company but ULTIMATELY doing your bidding.

Or he says he belongs to you because he doesn't D/s with anyone else but you. Shares sex, yes. But not kink.

If what you need is to meet the people? Say so. Make it a requirement.

But if you don't want to do D/s any more? Stop.

Galagirl
 
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I know a couple in a 24/7 D/s poly relationship who get around this by the sub asking permission before going on a date with a new person. The Dom pretty much always grants permission but the sub has to ask. After the first date, the sub no longer has to request permission to see the person again. Of course ponytail would have to agree to ask.... and it may still not feel like ownership to you since you would always say yes.... but it works for some.

I also agree with Galagirl that if you want to meet his other partners, you could ask. If he and they agree, that might help you feel like you're "loaning" him out.

Blue is my doll. He doesn't ask permission to see other people or have sex with them.... nor do I have to meet his other partners., but he does have to ask permission to be a doll for any of his other partners. We consider that me loaning out my doll. It's only happened once in the six years we've been together, but we do have that agreement and it's worked for us.
 
MsEmotional said:
I don’t really understand what you mean. To my mind, there is an inherent one-sidedness to ownership. I give him a lot, but I have never given him monogamy because that has never been part of our dynamic. He has always wanted me to have control over him sexually — orgasm control, etc — and so this is a totally new playing field for us. I feel like he still wants me to control him but it’s like..... pretend now.
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See, I don't see it that way at all. He gives me his submission and I give him my dominance. There's an equal exchange of energy. Owning someone is not a passive thing, to me- it's an active one.
 
Vicki82 said:
See, I don't see it that way at all. He gives me his submission and I give him my dominance. There's an equal exchange of energy. Owning someone is not a passive thing, to me- it's an active one.
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I think we are in agreement — we are both saying that the dominant and submissive partners give each other equal but different energies and I don’t consider ownership passive either. You had asked how I can only feel like I own him if he is sexually monogamous, since I am having sex with two other people. My answer is that what I give him and what he gives me are going to be different kinds of energy, different kinds of actions, different kinds of words....so I don’t see it as inconsistent that my view of ownership involves sexual monogamy while his view of being owned does not.
 
GalaGirl said:
Maybe he thinks of it like "She says I am to date others. So I am doing it, because I belong to her and I do her bidding.

So then he doesn't see any inconsistency because in his mind, he IS executing your bidding.

Enjoying the other dating partners and their company but ULTIMATELY doing your bidding.

Or he says he belongs to you because he doesn't D/s with anyone else but you. Shares sex, yes. But not kink.

If what you need is to meet the people? Say so. Make it a requirement.

But if you don't want to do D/s any more? Stop.

Galagirl
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I think you are right. I think you hit the nail on the head. Certainly when he first started dating people, he was doing it *for* me. And that’s why it felt great at first. It is more recently — when he has been seeing them several nights a week and being all secretive about them — that it has felt kinda icky.
 
I have spent the last 12 hours feeling inadequate and down on myself. I have been confusing Ponytail and sending him mixed messages — because I am confused too. I want to have sex, but the second that I start making moves in that direction, I lose interest and just go back to feeling sad and frustrated.

I feel so awful. Last night I explained the feelings I am having around our owner/owned relationship feeling inauthentic and that I was having a hard time reconciling it. He reiterated that he didn’t really understand and that he felt as much authentically mine as he ever has.

I thought that maybe if we didn’t have that dynamic, that would fix things....and I told him so. He said that that would make him sad, but that he doesn’t want to force something that feels inauthentic to me.

And now I feel like I have made the issue worse. Because when I try to get in the mood for sex, my brain immediately goes toward owning him and then I chastise myself for wanting him to be mine, telling myself that if I indulge in that dynamic it will only make me more sad and that I need to learn to find other ways to be sexual with him.

Ugh. I feel like I am broken.
 
I'm sorry you are feeling so down on yourself!

It seems to me that berating yourself like that when you are dealing with emotions is counter productive. Could you think of positive things to tell yourselflike "He says he is mine so he is"?

It also looks to me like you might go to reprimanding yourself to turn aside other feelings. Are you actually a bit mad at him? It is Okay if you are. If you substituted "I am mad at Ponytail" for "I am mad at myself" you might be able to actually process the feeling rather than being stuck. Could you work that into your dynamic each time, like "I am mad that my ownership is challenged! I need (some behavior or words) to reclaim my ownership!"

Mainly Though, let yourself feel things without punishing yourself, then the feelings have a better chance to pass.

Leetah
 
MsEmotional said:
I thought that maybe if we didn’t have that dynamic, that would fix things....and I told him so. He said that that would make him sad, but that he doesn’t want to force something that feels inauthentic to me.

And now I feel like I have made the issue worse. Because when I try to get in the mood for sex, my brain immediately goes toward owning him...
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To me, being owned is a feeling which is bound more closely to what's happening right that moment, in the bed, in the scene, and much less to other actions.

I could probably feel perfectly owned (or at least taken) by someone with whom I'm for the first time - although that would be scary!

I can feel owned one day, and free the other - to some extent. Maybe Ponytail is also like that (or even more than me). His other actions don't influence what he feels in your relationship. Maybe ownership is a certain kind of intimacy that he still only has with you. Or maybe he's capable of feeling owned by two people, I don't know.

How is ownership for you, can you take him for the evening and let him free the other day?
Explore!

I never thought you should do away with the whole Ds dynamics. I just think it needs some kind of change. If the feeling of owning comes in bed, let it come!

He desires control, you desire to control - try his new boundaries. If you're a mean dom and try to interfere with his other relationship - like forbid orgasm while he's on the other date - will he abide, or will he talk back? (Yeah, I'm aware this could cause some conflict - why not try once ;)) In what ways is he still fully yours, can he tell you? If you do your favourite stuff in bed, will he still obey?
You try! Maybe some of the turn-off comes from the uncertainty of not knowing exactly where the new lines, the boundaries to your ownership, lie now.

Mourn your loss, and keep what can be kept. But for that you need to know what it is.

P.S. As you know, collars are also a great tool, as putting on/taking off of the collar can mark the transition between having more and less control. There's always a twinge of sadness when the collar comes off, but a manageable one :)
 
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MsEmotional said:
... I chastise myself for wanting him to be mine
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Likely because I'm mostly monogamous, but I have no earthly idea how a person can have the understanding of ownership and sharing that ownership at the same time. To me, the fact that you can't get your head, your heart and your libido around sharing ownership is just plain ole everyday normal. I've been exposed to poly every which way, and have had great experiences with it. I've been involved in kinky ownership relationships, too. Very cool. But there is just no way that I can begin to understand how the two exist together. It's not cultural brainwashing and all that BS, it's just the way I am. It appears to me that you're trying to contort yourself into someone who is cool with poly kink just because he is - or other people are. Jeez, to me, the whole point of ownership is that it's special and unique to one person. Owners are chosen specifically because not one other person will do. That's how my mind, my heart and certainly my libido operate - and no amount of discussion will ever change that. Ownership can be a beautiful thing, in whatever way we both agree. To give dominion to another is a sacred commitment between two people and in my eyes, allowing others to also have dominion just defeats the whole purpose of the connection.

So, no - you are not broken. It's totally possible to be polyamorous in all ways except this way. It's totally possible to be poly in this way and not that way. You can be poly any way you want to and just because you're fine with open love relationships doesn't mean that you have to be fine with open ownership relationships. Your body is communicating with you loud and clear about which choices are right for you. Don't try to overcome that. Listen. You get to choose.
 
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Thank you, Leetah, Tinwen, and FallenAngelina.

I’m slowly getting more information about what is going on. Last night I had trouble performing sexually with Glasses too— again, despite being excited and thinking that I was in the mood prior to us having sex. I am also realizing that the time previous to that that we had sex, I was focused on his pleasure and declined his attempts to get me off. And then the last time that I had sex with Whiskers, it was the same....I really only wanted to get him off and wasn’t interested in him doing anything to me. At the time I thought I was just being eager-to-please, but now I am wondering if maybe this is bigger than Ponytail or D/s....maybe it’s hormonal? Or something else psychological?

I actually think I have only had maybe 3-5 orgasms in the last 6 weeks or so. Thinking back, around that time was when Whiskers made his insensitive comment about my masturbation habits — which I thought I had been able to work past, but maybe it is still affecting me on some level? — and it was also about the time when Ponytail first started having sex with one of his other partners. So maybe there are multiple factors that are making me feel less sexy, less desirable, and less deserving of sexual pleasure.

Or maybe it’s hormonal. I have now had my IUD for 6 months. Maybe it is starting to affect my interest in sex?

I don’t know. I just feel so confused.
 
What about the idea of booking an appointment with a sex therapist? You seem to be experiencing a complex web of possible causes, which requires the experienced skill of an expert to unravel. We can keep giving feedback on this thread of course. I just mean maybe it's time to supplement that.
 
MsEmotional, are you able to set the processing aside now and get some rest, physically and psychologically?
There's also a possibility that you're just really, really tired and stressed at this point. It's been a lot of upheaval. It may just clear if you let your subconscious do its thing.
 
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Thank you Tinwen and Kevin.

I have an appointment with my regular therapist this week and so I will start there. In the meantime I am trying to relax and not stress about it. I don’t see Whiskers for awhile and Glassed and Ponytail both know what is going on and so I am not worried about this being an immediate concern for awhile, which definitely helps me put it out of my mind.
 
Sounds good, you will work things out a little at a time.
 
Update

Just an update: things are a lot better. Last night we (Ponytail and I) had sex and it was amazing — I initiated it, I was excited for it, I brought out the “extras” that made it fun the way it used to feel.

And I think I know what made the difference:
I was well-rested.

I know it sounds obvious, but I don’t think I had realized how perpetually exhausted I was — even in the morning. But yesterday Ponytail and I crashed for a 2 hour nap after we got home from a busy morning with the kids and Glasses took them out for the afternoon. I woke up, got some work done, made dinner, watched some TV, and still had energy...it just made it so much more natural to pounce on Ponytail when I was feeling....refreshed. I think that has often been my issue with sex, and it explains why I have been in the mood early in the evening or during the day, but lost it later....by the time we get around to it, I’m just too exhausted and emotionally drained to make it happen.

Anyway, I had a lot of fun. I think the next time this happens, I will take a nap and try again when I am feeling better.at least before jumping to the conclusion that there is something very wrong with me.
 
Tinwen said:
MsEmotional, are you able to set the processing aside now and get some rest, physically and psychologically?
There's also a possibility that you're just really, really tired and stressed at this point. It's been a lot of upheaval. It may just clear if you let your subconscious do its thing.
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Ha! Just re-read this. Tinwen it looks like you hit the nail on the head!
 
Yay! You found the missing piece, had great sex, and got the rest you needed at the same time. It helps a lot to get confirmation that the problem wasn't you, it was something anyone would struggle with. Thanks for that update!
 
MsEmotional said:
Ha! Just re-read this. Tinwen it looks like you hit the nail on the head!
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Glad to return the favour that other members of the forum have done for me at times :)
 
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