Does Your Power Exchange Support You…Or Enable You?

By RedWarrior

It’s been a ROUGH month. Work has been absolute chaos with long days, nights, and even weekend work. I’m also moving at the end of June and all those preparations have me stressed. And, and, and.

It got me thinking about what support looks like in my current relationship versus previous ones.

Support is an essential piece of any long term relationship. What are we to each other if we can’t reach out to each other for support and comfort when life gets hard? In D/s or M/s relationships, this is also true, but I find there can be different nuances to it.

My previous relationships were 24/7 M/s high control TPE relationships. My current relationship is more of a long distance D/s relationship and has less control or formality. I’ve received support and comfort from my partners in hard times in all these relationships, but it looks very different in my current relationship and I think that may be a good thing for me where I am now in my journey.

In my previous TPE relationships, my problems were their problems.

This can feel really good. When things were going well in these relationships, I never felt alone in a problem. I simply told my Master what was going on and they were with me in the problem, ready with solutions or questions. Sometimes they even rescued me from my problems.

Sounds awesome, doesn’t it?

And it most often was, except when I didn’t think the solution was the right one. Because it was TPE and I’d agreed to that, this meant we would go with my Master’s solution and then, if that ended poorly, I had to do some slave work to let it go. I don’t think any of this was inherently bad or meant my Masters were doing TPE wrong. We’re all human and it also gave me a lot of opportunities for growth in letting go of attachment to an outcome or dealing with disappointment.

It also meant that I got very used to never facing my problems or stressful situations alone.

I got used to immediately turning to my Masters with any little thing. That was what they desired from me as a slave, but it also meant that when I was released, I had to relearn how to face things on my own. I often felt panic or anxiety because those individual coping mechanisms had become atrophied like a muscle so hadn’t used much in the relationships.

Contrast that with support in the relationship I have now

In the relationship I have now, my partner admires my strength and resilience and his base assumption unless I ask for some specific support is that I can handle anything that life throws at me. When I let him know life threw a sucker punch, he’s emotionally there with support and encouragement, but it is not in front of me, placing himself between me and the problem, but behind me, supporting me as I face it.

He offers solutions…if I ask…and rarely are those commands. He wants me to keep the responsibility for tackling whatever I’m facing. He cares about me even as he leaves ownership of the problem and its solution with me. He’s there to cheer me on and comfort me, but he isn’t in the boxing ring with me. He’s in my corner reminding me of my past victories and psyching me up for my next round.

At first, after what I was used to, this felt almost like abandonment.

I felt alone facing the punches of life. I wasn’t sure he cared about what I was going through because he didn’t jump in front of me or tell me how to face them. Slowly, though, I began to see how empowering his approach to support really was. He was giving me the space to face my problems head on while he cheered me on and as a result, my confidence grew with each victory instead of my dependence growing each time he solved things for me.

I don’t think either approach is “wrong,” but I do think they’re a different fit for different people and situations.

The way support was handled in my TPE M/s relationships worked well for the style of relationship we had and the goals we shared. In both relationships, we wanted a lot of interdependence and a tight bond. We wanted to face the world as one unit. This furthered those goals in a way my current partner’s approach would not have.

The goals for my current relationship, at least in the foreseeable future are very different. There needs to be independence and self reliance. We each live with about an hour and a state line between us and he wants to know I can handle things if he’s occupied with his other obligations. He also really enjoys the pride of building me up so that I don’t need him, but want him.

This kind of relationship has already helped me grow in so many ways that I usually only grow in if I’m single, but in this case, with the support and comfort of a partner who still has my back and is cheering me on. It feels like exactly what I need in this next phase of my life.

Pick your poison, I guess?. 💀