I do get to sleep with a teddy bear at night, and lately Lady has added another, so now I sleep with Teddy and Fred. I’m not sure why two, but it’s ok with me! So that’s a constant everyday thing and that’s wonderful, we have so few constant things like that.

Found a couple new blogs, and will add them to my blog roll when I am at a computer, because doing this from my phone is just not working. >:-(

I am learning – slowly – how to still be slave and serve her when she’s not here. It’s getting better, at least I hope.

I have also decided to unsubscribe from Fet. It’s too confusing and too contradicting and just – generally not helpful for me. I am afraid to get involved in any of the conversations for fear of being attacked and told I’m “doing it wrong”. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of great people…but I’m just not comfortable.

Be back soon!

No, we did not.

Lady was actually so relaxed I was sure I did something wrong. But, turns out, She just had a good, relaxing time. We had “us” time, which was stupendously nice. I do not, and will not, take the luxury of being able to walk to the kitchen naked to get something ever again. It’s soooo nice.

She wanted to spank, and bite, and hit, and hurt, but she didn’t because she said she knew I couldn’t get back “there” so she would be able to. ‘Cause I am a masochist, and I like pain, but I have to “get there” in order to be able to just take it the way she needs me to.

#slavefail…sigh.

So, I am working on not being so anxious and uptight.

The best part of all is, she loves me anyway.

And the phone rings. It’s the security system at work. So we have to get dressed and go deal with that.

I will not give up. I WON’T. We will not be defeated.

Kids are gone and I met Lady for lunch today (a rare treat in itself). So, i am here, and apparently i am unable to order the correct food, so things are looking promising for very very slavey things in the near future….yay!

I think I am going to spend the weekend being thrown back into my proper place.

Life is good.

We had a huge blowout fight, then she left town. She was relieved to go, and I was relieved to have her go – for about an hour. After a cooling off period, we have talked and reset….but not without a lot of talking first.

The point that she has been trying to make me see is this:

For 10 years, ten YEARS, because of our &#$*(‘ed up custody situation of one week with each parent that some heathen devil judge invented in order to get to his golf game (and yes, that is actually what happened, because he told us all he had to hurry or he’d miss his tee time), I have had to be the angel to his Antichrist. I have had to be the parent that gives up time with the kids in order to be the one that lets them go to sleepovers and do things that normal kids do. Their dad (who I can no longer call names because he’s dead and somewhere it’s bad luck to speak ill of the dead although I really, really, really still want to) was always so worried about “losing time with them” and making sure he had ALL of “his time” that he never let them go anywhere. So I always had to let them go, give up MORE time with them, and let them be normal when they were with me. He was strict to the point of madness. I had to be the opposite in order not to warp them into anal, neurotic, twitching children who were scared of their own shadows. I had to be lenient, I had to be “fun”, I had to be understanding, I had to NOT be as strict. All they did when they were at their dad’s was work, so I felt like I had to give them a break. They could never, ever be involved in any outside activities for very long (oh, yeah, unless it was sports, to which events their dad rarely came to, and when he did he yelled and criticized and made them feel so horrible that they quit) because it was just too hard to organize who was going to get them where, because it was usually me, and I was only one person. And I was tired.

All that being said, Lady’s point is that I stopped learning how to be a regular mom who loved and grounded and punished and all the regular stuff moms do, and was just sort of the adult who floated around the house and made sure they were fed and didn’t hurt themselves (because I was working full-time and trying to go to school and broke and, and, and). AND, on top of all that, I left their dad when they were 2 and that’s when the above custody situation started, so I have actually only ACTIVELY been a working parent for a total of 8 years. I have kids who are 12 and 14.

So, after being faced with the loss of my independence, trying to cope with the loss of my co-parent, no matter how awful the situation was, faced with their grief, faced with the fact that my daughter seems to love and/or identify with her stepmother better than me, faced with the fact that she needs therapy and my son is, by all accounts completely normal and I thought that was just so fucked up it was unbelievable, faced with making decisions as a parent and letting them walk all over me because I didn’t know HOW to cope, I snapped. And Lady, watching this train wreck in progress and having tried to talk and guide me, and with all the pressure SHE is under what with a multitude of new responsibilities at work and faced with her slave going off the rails, snapped as well.

I knew she was right, but I didn’t want to face it. Lady has been my BEST friend, through everything in my life, no matter what, and I trust her with my life. And I still didn’t want to hear that I was “doing it wrong”. Not even from her. I got all defensive about “my” kids, which was unbeLIEVEABLY stupid, because in reality SHE has been a better mother to them than I ever could. Deep down I was afraid. I was afraid if I was too tough on them they would just – hate me. It’s stupid now, but that’s what I’ve always been afraid of, I think. That I would ultimately lose them completely.

I finally saw what she was talking about, after I stepped back and took my ego out of the picture. I realized that I DO need guidance. I thought something was wrong with me. I wondered why I couldn’t just “be a mom”. This is what I’d always wanted, their whole lives, for them to be with ME. And suddenly they were. So why didn’t it just all fall into place? What was WRONG with me? Why wasn’t I HAPPY? And I realized, because it came at a terrible price. A price I would never, ever, have had them pay. The saying be careful what you wish for has never been so appropriate. I felt guilty and sad and terrible. And I didn’t know what to DO with these people, they seemed alien all of the sudden. I didn’t really know them, and they didn’t really know me. We are all still learning each other.

Lady slowly backed me down off the ledge and explained all the above to me, and made me realize that I’m NOT a “bad” mom, I just have a lot to work through and learn. And I realized that if I’d sit back and listen to her for 5 seconds, things would go better. And you know what? I did. And they are. I am learning how to stick to my guns. And I am learning that when I DO stick to my guns and make them do something, they don’t hate me. They still seem to want to be here.

They learned why I have an entire toolbox. They learned that I’m sad too. They learned that I do actually know things. And they are  re-learning that I’m their biggest fan. And I’m learning how to be a mom. And I’m learning, it’s ok to make mistakes. And It’s ok if they are angry, because that’s what teenagers DO. They get all hormonal and angry and bitchy and whiny and moody. And so do I.

So at this point, the dogs have packed and want to leave (although less so now that they are being fed on a regular basis again) and the cats think we’re all stupid. All normal.

The other problem was, in the middle of all this, I forgot to act like a slave, and just started being independent. So Lady and I have re-grounded that part, and we are slowly working on that angle in the midst of all the rest of it. We are both much happier.

And, my mother, bless her, has just now realized that our family is totally f-ed up dysfunctional and crazy. She was trying to explain my daughter’s situation to one of her colleagues who is a child psychologist, and she said the more she kept explaining, the more crazy we sounded. I told her I’ve known this for years. Hello??? Duh.

More on Lady and I working on the slave part later….next post. Maybe, just maybe, we can resume some sort of regular sex life again. Between illnesses, periods, hormonal teenagers, and fighting, it’s been quite – sparse. Next weekend, hopefully, we will have an entire weekend all to ourselves with no phones and no sullen teenagers and no craziness. Cross your fingers for me. Light a candle. PLEASE!

Of course, I live in the South, and “a lady nevah tells her true color, darlin…”

Independence is something Lady has fostered in me for years, especially when it comes to my children. So, I’m independent, I make decisions, I mother the kids to the best of my ability, and…nothing is right.

And there’s this voice in my head that is screaming, “what about all the independence you have pushed me to have?”

My head is spinning. Her way or the highway applies to ME. But I like to think I have equal decision making power when it comes to the smalls. In her eyes, I don’t. And it’s making me absolutely crazy. They didn’t sign up for this, I did. I chose this. I would choose it every day for the rest of my life. For ME.

I think part of it is that we are having to redefine ourselves, yet again. I know we are both getting tired of THAT. First we were just a couple, then we were Lady/slave, then we lived together with the kids half time, then we lived together with the kids full time, and now She is traveling so much we barely get to see her. When she is home, she is so stressed its unbelievable. When she leaves town, I run the house. Then when she comes home, no one is doing things to her expectations. And we end up fighting. A lot.

Most of the problem is that she is a control freak Type A edge of the room person, and she lives with THREE passive, Type B middle of the room people. Our idea of housekeeping is sweeping the room with a glance and picking up the big stuff so no one trips over it. Hers? Um, total opposite.

Fireworks, people. Especially after I tell the kids theyve done a good job and I’m satisfied, and then she sees the same thing and blows her top. And an unhappy Lady, well, you get the picture.

Her wants and needs come first. I shouldn’t fight. Period. I should accept. Her deadlines should be mine. But in reality – its not working out that way, because of me and my baggage and issues. I simply cannot, most of the time, understand what the big deal is. And I have TRIED to understand. She will point it out and I will get it. Then the next time, I just don’t get it. Again.

We tried her setting expectations, and that didn’t work. We tried her setting specific things for them to do every day, and that didn’t work. Mostly because I’m so laid-back. Most of this isn’t working because of ME.

I’m not ready to give up. But I’m not ready to relinquish authority of the kids. I’m just not. Maybe I’m misreading her. Maybe we are misunderstanding each other. Maybe?

I hope so.

Someone possessed me, I swear.