I’m in love with a ghost now.

It feels just like this. It’s a sense of loss like an intimate loved one has died suddenly and moved on. Without much notice, without any time to prepare for it. They’ve just taken off, been taken, or taken themselves out.

It was so sudden and unexpected for the most part. Matter of fact even, like someone giving you the news of her death. Just deadpan delivery of news. Almost like what I would imagine hearing about the death of my beloved wife, if I still had one and felt about her the way I felt about JJ.

I’m still deeply in love with the woman I knew. The woman before Sunday 9/25 at 4pm. She was my good girl. She was the girl who met every need and desire I had as a man. That’s the woman I still love today. But she’s gone. A new growing JJ needs different things than I can give her. She needs in Real Life. Not a LDR.

I know my memories of our times together can never be taken away by anyone, her included. I need to find a way to box them up and save them for pleasant memories and inspiration for the future. Thinking about her in light of having left me almost like dying seems to help honestly. That may be weird but it’s a finite endpoint with a woman who was before and not the one who came after. Somehow, that seems a bit comforting.

A rock is still a rock.

JJ and I got to know each as a submissive and a Dominant. After a few months of getting to know each other we wore those respective hats throughout our time together. I want to speak about how my role, as her Dominant and how now as a Dominant, I will continue moving forward in life being her rock.

JJ and I communicated significantly within an app called couple. One of its strengths was in creating shared lists. I created a list at one point that was a detailing of most of her strengths, blessings and capabilities as a person and a woman. It ended up tallying over 100. That’s pretty good.

Later in the day after she broke up with me she made a couple of changes to that list. You have to star the new item in order to get it to appear at the top. She only starred one thing and, honestly, I didn’t notice anything but the starred item. I wish I would have seen the other additions she made but since they were buried at the bottom of a long, long scrolling list, I just missed them, sadly. The single starred item hit me like a bolt of lightning and honestly I was too dumbstruck to move forward and look at anything else.  Her starred item was “steady”.

She evidently was pretty motivated to make sure that remained on top. Above even anything else I had ever ascribed to her. The meaning of “steady’s” importance is not lost on me. I felt like it was her last communication to me and one that she meant for me to see. I feel like she was asking me to help her be steady.

Steady. My role now as her former Dominant but still a Dominant is to help her achieve her “steadiness”. I have elected to do that by remaining on the sidelines moving forward. No initial contact from me. No reaching out in the middle of the night during a longing or needy moment of my own. No contact. I’ll speak with her if she ever calls or texts, no problem. I’m not going to engage on my end first. This is not a question of pride or showing weakness. It’s simply honoring her desire for steady.

Reaching out for her first might knock her or myself, off guard. It might unsteady her when all she really wants is to be steady. This is quite a challenge in and of itself to go from constant, running chat with her every single day, to cold fucking turkey.

It’s a strategy I’m going to adhere to though. No contact from me. I have some tools I’m using to help with this. I have unpaired from her within couple and deleted every picture from within our shared picture file there which had me in it. I don’t even know if couple is still on her phone anymore. I have deleted all emails between us. That hurt. Over 10,000 of them in total. I have blocked her from my tumblr blog and I have deleted all but 2 pictures of her from my pictures on my phone. I have deleted all text conversations between us from iMessages and I’ve deleted all contact info on her from within my phonebook except her address and email. I have unfriended her from facebook. I don’t know what she’s done on her end to help her be steady like this, if anything. I can’t control that. I can only control myself and bolster myself against slipping. There’s no need for me to make things any harder on her than they already are by calling, texting or otherwise communicating.

I can only control what I can control now. The reason for doing all of that is to do away with any chance of me reading these messages and emails or looking at those great pictures or even allowing her to see my blog and be touched. Touched enough to be unsteady. It helps me be strong to do this for her. It’s like being a drug addict and having easy access to the stuff. You know, just laying around easy. At some point, certainly in a weak moment, I could stumble. I don’t want to stumble for her. I want to be strong at doing what I can to be steady and help keep her steady.

On the face of it, all of this seems harsh, rash, arbitrary and cold. In a way, I suppose it is. The thing is and where I’m angry with all of this, is that this is what she chose. She dumped me. Plain and simple. I know she’s struggling with what her future is going to look like without me. I get it. Yet, this is what I have to do to survive. This is cold, hard treatment. I don’t feel like she gets to judge me for doing what I have to in order to survive and still be steady for her. I cannot be judged by her for doing what I’ve done here. That’s not fair and I won’t stand for that.

Steady for her, because of her and her wants with our clean break and what she called “going out on a high note” is my role today and will remain my role in the future, I think. Steady distance now. Steady.

 

Stepping stone.

Every relationship you ever have will fail until you find the one that doesn’t. This is truth for me. This is my experience and this has been my pattern throughout my long life. Some of those relationships can be defined as short term interactions, some as marriages (ugh) and some as stepping stones.

Stepping stones are necessary. They provide firmness and foundation across which you continue to move and journey through life. JJ called our time together as a stepping stone. I think she’s right.

My role for her over the last year and a half has been 3 fold primarily. Coach, cheerleader and teacher.

It’s like being in school. You have those certain teachers who play a substantial role in your life and who help coach, validate and teach you for a finite period of time. You remember those people. Probably more than one too. They are instrumental in your development as a student and maybe a person too. But, they’re only there for a little while. Maybe a school year or so. It’s finite in time and interaction. Now, maybe you have bittersweet memories for an old teacher who coached, supported or taught you something. That’s a good thing.

I’m in the bittersweet time right now with JJ. I didn’t know that this was eventually going to be my role and that it would end over time. I didn’t want that. But it is what it is. Sometimes you didn’t want to leave those teachers either just when the last bell of the school year rang to release you for the warm break of summer. You do it though and advance. That’s what she has done. She’s heard that bell in her head and now she’s on the bus to other things in life.

As a coach, I gave her lots of guidance on how to do many things. Most of which she accepted and worked with to her success.  Yay, good student. As a cheerleader I was always accentuating the positive and reminding her of the blessings she possessed even during her most dark times. Even as she broke up with me I told her she was worthy. Always had been and always will be. Destruction, judgement, criticism were never what I was about towards her. My daily optimism was what she knew to be who I was.

The teacher part is significant and will be the long lasting part of this for her. It’s also what will be the yardstick all those men who follow me will be judged by. We explored a great deal about her sexuality in the last year and a half and I showed her many things about her body she didn’t know. She has now come to enjoy much of it and seems more comfortable in her own pretty skin now, sexually speaking. Another man will benefit from the foundation there that I’ve uncovered and honed.

Her self worth and confidence  have risen because of this and my incessant validation and praise with most of the challenges she endured while with me have benefited her.  I’m hoping she hangs on to those lessons and truths in the future.

My thankful list for JJ.

These things are the good from my experiences with her.

• The deep connection.
• The long conversations.
• The exploration and acceptance of our pasts.
• Our meals we enjoyed together.
• Key lime pie.
• Tsing Tao beer from China.
• Shrimp slurp.
• Peanut butter waffles.
• BDSM exploration with many sexual firsts for her including multi orgasms, re-finding her g-spot, squirting, anal sex, deep throating, bondage, choking, spankings, cuffs, collars, clamps and other toys and rough sex.
• The anticipation and thrill of visiting her monthly for long, long weekends.
• The 15 times we were together IRL.
• The artwork she sent me.
• The regular and routine daily interactions with me.
• Play time on FaceTime.
• Cornhole in the backyard.
• Online chess matches that lasted for days and days.
• The exploration of her submissive desires.
• The financial loans she granted me.
• Her care and interest in my son.
• Her giving of clothes and toys and books to my son.
• Her forgiveness along the way.
• The deep interest she showed in me and that I felt for a long time. . .

Words that describe my current feelings.

You’ll find a list of words below. These words are simply the ones that help to describe my current feelings about the demise of my relationship with JJ. They are not arranged in a top-down or weighted importance manner. Just words that help describe the litany of swirling emotions I’m currently feeling. Here goes.

• Sad
• Heart broken
• Hurt
• Angry
• Used up
• Used
• Lied to
• Duped
• Inadequate
• Stupid
• Wrung out
• Ashamed
• Hollow
• Broken
• Raw
• Dispirited
• Frustrated
• Wasted time
• Ineffective
• Misguided
• Feeble
• Rejected
• Unworthy
• Dejected
• Wounded
• Wrecked
• Less than respected
• Resigned
• Unloved
• Cloaked and daggered.
• Lonely

Quite the list huh? Ugh 😦

Your LDR can crash and burn.

This is from a recent tumblr post. It was designed to instruct and illuminate what many people on tumblr do. . . that’s get involved in these LDR’s.

 

Tumblr is an amazing social network. I don’t know the outlook for its future with its acquisition but its recent past has been terrific. You meet all kinds of people here. People who make you laugh, people who interest you and you follow, people who you can’t wait to see their posts and comments.

Tumblr also affords you an opportunity to connect. And, when you’re lucky you can connect in the real world too. This essay is going to describe what that real world connection looks and feels like and then often results in. This is a classic tragedy. My hope is that some of you will be able to think through my comments here, weigh them for yourself and your own individual situations and lives and, perhaps, just perhaps, gain some perspective and some skill at maneuvering. I believe in an informed consumer and a road map to probability.

There’s a rule in tumblr land that says the people (or a person) you’re most interested in and wanting to know, see, hold, kiss and fuck (often times) is a long ways away. For me, I have had a range in distance, maybe 600 miles in radius from where I am in the world.

This has served me well in many regards. There was only 1 time zone difference and fortunately, airfare had been very affordable or at worst, driving could be done in a day. Yet, that relative ease or convenience doesn’t solve the root issue. It doesn’t satisfy long term and it doesn’t make a future doable without a move and melding of lives. Somebody is going to be left lacking this way.

You can work an LDR with reasonable success with FaceTime, texting, phone calls, and other connection app’s that are out there. I have used those to great success and relationship building. However, they only go so far. If you’re not together day to day or to the maximum amount your cohabitation and life schedules permit, then your relationship will stagnate. It’s inevitable. It’s limiting. These are facts. Your desire for maximum contact and intertwining is limited. These are facts.

To embark on a LDR is an exciting thing in your life. The longing, connection and sexual intimacy can be the most moving you’ll experience in life. They are off the charts in satisfaction when they’re happening. Nothing is better in life, IMHO, than those times you’re together and able to enjoy each other. Those times are an oasis. An oasis of love, intimacy, connection and the purest expression of mutual relationship satisfaction. The question is, and has recently been answered for me, is that this oasis, as warm, inviting and comforting as it is, is simply NOT enough nor is it long term doable.

This is the sadness. This is the heartbreak. This is the reality moving forward when your connection dissolves into the ether. This is when your LDR turns into memories.

You have to understand yourself and what your intentions truly are when you’re in a LDR. You can have a play partner and a friend with ease as long as everybody knows that THAT’S what it is and will remain. Yet, when the heart gets involved and your feelings get tied up too, then there’s great danger in hurt just around the corner, unless you’re both on board a time schedule where you can be together in the real world, day to day.

I recommend that you not enter an LDR unless you can corral your heart. Or, you have agreed that a future together in the real world can be done and on a schedule that you can meet. Otherwise, you’re putting off a day of reckoning. A day of reckoning when your heart is involved.

When your heart is involved and things crash, it takes a chunk out of you that’s hard to replace. It’s hard to heal from. It feels like a mortal wound. It’s not good. It will change you, harden you and weigh on you like nothing else. Of this, I know.

I am not going to recommend that you NOT do this. I am not going to say that due to the inevitable probability that you’ll end up hurt and broken, then don’t do it, but I am going to ask you to search your heart and soul very early in your connection to make sure you have a layer of protection for your heart. Do not open the gate to your heart and let the wildness run free. It is really hard to capture that back when the gate closes.

You must think through the odds of long term success through the lens of melding your lives together. Are you willing to move there? Are you willing to have them move to you? Jobs? Children already? Other family? Values? How do you form a new union with those challenges? You must think about it. You must talk about it. You must talk about it often and regularly. You must agree to it. You must agree to it long term till you fold into each other. Otherwise, that train of carnage is coming. Period.

Think before you leap people. As many of you know, there is no pain on Earth like the pain of a failed relationship. I can think of some here who have not reconciled their failed relationships yet.

Think it through. Think it through hard. Do it while you still have your own heart in your own hands. Do it early and do it often, this self reflection. Use your mirror if you must. Rely on the counsel of friends. Think.

1/15-9/16, RIP.

Best friend.

This might be the worst part of all of this. Losing her in this capacity. My world revolved around her and has for a year and a half. And then poof. Gone in an instant. That’s a gigantic hole. It’s a cavern whose depths are deeper to fill than others could fathom. There are people that come into your life who you grow with naturally. People who you share everything with. It’s not an age thing. Young people, older people like me too. It’s a role.

For that to go as it has is crushing. Its debilitating when I reflect on it. It’s not right to lose it and grossly unfair that it’s happened.

And the curtain will fall. . .

I have been in a very healthy, or so I thought, long term LDR (long distance relationship) with JJ since about April 2015. Even though I had known her since January of 2015 we always chose April because it was the first month we met. We have been in daily contact, significantly ever since. Phone calls, texting, FaceTime, the app Couple. Lots of interaction. We had over 10 thousand emails between us before we started with the couple app.  I dare say we communicated through these channels more than many couples who reside together.

We spoke yesterday and it all ended. I can’t say I’m totally surprised. This eventuality had crossed my mind from time and time and I knew of her ever increasing difficulty with managing the separation between our monthly visits. For the better part of this year, however, they have grown steadily worse on her. I’d say she has been near depressed with the times between being together. That’s hard. That’s been hard for me to help her with too.

An LDR is a significant relationship with another person done over great distance. In our case, about 600 miles.

We grew very close over that time. We shared lots about each other. I dare say she knew me better than anybody has ever. That’s a big deal. I’d say I knew her as well as anybody had ever too.

Right now, I’m shell shocked. And pissed. And disappointed and hurt. Lost. She has called it quits with us.

This sucks.

 

The bitter end.

JJ had been struggling for months with the week that would follow my 4 day visit. It was gradually becoming unbearable for her. The distance and separation. Her desire to be together slammed into  the outlook of that taking years to be together daily.

I spent a lot of time and energy trying to bolster her spirits and change her outlook. Cajoling, being sweet and supportive and generally accenting only the positives. Also relaying how difficult it was for me too. . . And it was.

She had made an ominous comment to me just before our last visit about how she didn’t know how she’d handle my leaving this last time that I had come to visit. The previous months visit in August took a full 2 weeks for her to recover emotionally from her funk.

It’s been hard on her and getting harder. There were times when she’d mention how terrible she was at a LDR and how much she truly hated it.

So on Sunday the 25th we face timed. It didn’t go well. She was miserable. She told me she wanted a full relationship. One where we could be together a lot. In the same town. She thought we had peaked as a couple under the circumstances. We had reached our zenith. She needed to be a part of a relationship more than our LDR could give her.

I checked to see if she was testing out this idea or is it what she wanted. Obviously, it’s what she wanted and what she chose. It wasn’t a fight or argument . . . Just a discussion. I told her I could live with things as they were because she was a blessing for me. It just wasn’t enough for her. The status quo anyway. Trying to live with just enough was not who she was and continuing to do that meant she wasn’t being honest with herself and getting what she really wanted and needed. It would be suppressing her needs for something she didn’t believe in. That wasn’t going to work for her.

And that’s how it vanished into nothing. Just like that. All or nothing. She chose nothing. That sucks.

Time to dust off this site and start writing again.

This blog has traditionally been a processing blog for me. I haven’t used it in at least a year because I haven’t needed to process. Well, as of yesterday, that has changed. Stay tuned. . .