How growing closer can tear us apart

It can be very easy to center yourself in your own life. I wouldn’t call myself a self-centered person, in fact, I would say sometimes I don’t center myself enough. But there’s some complexity here that I am just now pulling apart as I get older.

When you spend a lot of time with someone, be it a family member, romantic partner, or friend, it can be very easy to fall into the habit of viewing the casual niceties of everyday life as “enough”. I’ve talked to many kinky people who find their intensity and frequency of kinky encounters going down as their relationships become more serious or live-in. Intertwining your life with someone requires a great deal of transparency and understanding. You will see them in their worst moments, and best. They become a whole person to you. No longer a collection of traits and encounters that are artificially skewed by scarcity.

When you don’t live with someone, or are intentionally working on building a relationship with them, it’s easier to think outside of yourself. About what they like for dinner, what they find special or significant, what they’re afraid to do alone. And because your time together is limited and scheduled, it is easier to allocate time and intention towards making them feel seen, appreciated, and desired. The greater your time together, the easier it becomes to let that intention wane. Centering someone else all of the time would be exhausting and unsustainable, so it falls out of practice.

There’s also a sort of enmeshment that comes with being partnered or family with someone. Their accomplishments are your accomplishments. Their fears are your fears. So if you aren’t bothered by something, don’t miss something, don’t fear something, then why would they?

A celebration that never came

Recently a close member of my family confided in me about a time when they had achieved a great accomplishment, and no one in their world seemed to care. It was an accomplishment that significantly impacted their life and the lives of many others in their close circle, but it was left without acknowledgement. They had bought themselves a small gift to be shared at a celebration of their achievement, but that celebration never materialized. It has been years since, and they think of it rarely, but it still brought tears to their eyes when they told me.

The intentions of their circle were not malicious, I’m sure. But it does remind me that taking time to intentionally set aside your own preconceptions and come to the table with a sense of humility is so important.

While you might think you are deeply intertwined with someone, you may not truly know what is going on inside their head. How they actually feel about everything.

I do appreciate the radical honesty and detailed breakdown of negotiation and conversations we have here on TheDuchy.com. I try to encourage people to approach conversations about rope with their long-term partners like they would with someone they know nothing about. Sometimes we just don’t ask the right questions because we assume we already know the answers. And that does a disservice to our relationships and the people we share them with.

I hope that by carving out time to build my rope skills, I am able to also practice stepping outside of myself and focusing on creating a meaningful experience for another person, led by their needs and desires, even if they are still learning what those are.