Master and Step Parenting

After reading Kaya’s blog about the source of the conflict she was having with her Master and her fears about complete surrender around the issues of parenting… I got to thinking about Master and me and Master and his relationship to my sons.

My two boys were 6 and 8ish when I first met and started dating the man who was to become my second husband.

My first marriage had lasted about thirteen years, the divorce had been amicable and I was able to have a civil conversation with my ex. We were completely in accord when it came to parenting. I didn’t much like him, did not love him at all, never lusted him… but I respected him as a parent. He was a good dad and a good provider. He was a good ex-husband, making all his child support payments and alimony right on time… he was the one that made sure that I got a property settlement equal to half the money he had accumulated in his retirement. We had joint custody and the boys went to his house a lot because I was working strange shifts. Other than being a complete dog fuck around… he was an honorable man. We see each other at times… at family events, we get along just fine. I still look at him and I can’t believe I was ever married him, gross… and the idea that I ever fucked him just grosses me out, but other than that… he’s okay.

But I digress, this is not about the ex… this is about how I met Master and made a family with him. I was working at a women’s shelter and he was a maintenance worker for a company that did contract work for our nonprofit. He was cute… slender with broad shoulders, longish blond hair around the edges, bald on top, deep, deep brown eyes and an engaging smile. He was shy, and I found excuses to follow him around. He accused me of sneaking up on him over and over as he would look up from some task and there I would be watching him.

I never actually broke anything in order for him to come over… but if something was breaking, I was not above “helping it along” in hopes he would be the one to come fix it. Eventually after all those “feel out the guy” kind of questions… the “what are you having for dinner?” question designed to see if he was “with” any one… the “do you go out?” question… etc… etc… I eventually asked him if he would like to go out sometime. He said yes… I gave him my number.

He called promptly. And while I have no memory of telling him my address or asking him to come over… he showed up one evening. I asked him in and fed him dinner, he met my boys. We kept talking on the phone a lot. Then we finally went out for hamburgers. I can’t remember if it was the first or second date, but, being a bit of a slut, it wasn’t long before we were at it. It was a great time. God, we fucked until it hurt to walk and then fucked some more. He was pretty good, and there was this kind of sense that he was taking. He was a generous, thoughtful lover, but he never asked, he just took and took and took. …mmm… and took… what? What? Okay, it was just fucking my first husband had never come anywhere near that. I was completely transported. I remember times when my awareness was completely reduced until the only thing that existed in the entire universe was that cock pounding my pussy.

Anyway… yeah, it started out purely physical, but we did have a lot of fun. He love to argue, verbally spar with me and there were some epic battles… all in good fun but endless debates. He seemed to like to piss me off a little, and any time I would show any kind of temper he would grin and laugh… and I could not help but laugh along with him. And then we would end up fucking some more.

There were bumps in the road… I had gotten a tubal ligation after the birth of my second son and did not want any more kids. I was up front about that. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to fall in love with someone if that meant he would never have any kids of his own. I remember saying to him once, that I would not have any man in my life that did not love my kids as much as I did.

Politically we were pretty much in accord. Spiritually we were equally unconcerned with the concept of a creator. We liked the same sorts of stuff, cars, walking on the beach...

When he asked me to marry him, it kind of took me by surprise. We had been going at it like rabbits, and as usual there was a bit of a rough aspect to the sex. I don’t remember what happened exactly but I remember fighting with him physically and him wrestling me into submission. He was sitting on top of me, pinning me to the bed, looking down at me with this fierce, triumphant, “I’ve got you now” expression. Then he asked me to marry him. I was taken by surprise… but I said yes. Later I insisted on a yearlong engagement. He moved in not long after that.

And he was good with my boys. He was stricter than me, but fair. It was not all roses, he did not tolerate bullshit, he could be pretty harsh, he had higher expectations for my boys than I did and there were plenty of conflicts. There were times I don’t think they liked him very much. I handled most of the discipline, but he backed me up. He sometimes got on my case about various flaws my children exhibited that he thought I was turning a blind eye to (and god knows they were not perfect children). I know he thought I “talked out” the problems too much, analyzed too much. I know he was much more of the opinion of “just fucking do it or you will get your ass kicked”.

There got to be more and more conflicts. There were a lot more issues than kids and step parenting. We fought a lot. He was getting more and more controlling. And I was not going to cave… I was an independent, liberated woman, damn it. I did not need to have him tell me how to do ever last little thing in my life. He would argue with me until I would throw up my hands in sheer frustration. And when I tried to “talk” with him about my feelings, what I needed… he would not listen… or worse… he would tell me that I did not feel that way, did not need this or that. I remember once when things really blew up and we tried counseling and he did that… denied my perceptions… saying outright that I did not feel the way I was saying, and that the counselor looked more than a little shocked.

Year after year he just got more rigid… more bossy… in my opinion a bigger asshole. My boys were getting to be teenagers… they started to fight verbally with him. I walked out at least a half dozen times, but kept coming back. Finally I just could not stand it anymore and I told him to just get out. He was so angry… he had never once listened to the complaints, the problems, and when it all blew up, he was mystified. What the fuck? As far as he was concerned there had been no fucking problems.

We stayed apart for about 3 (4?) years, maybe seeing each other a couple times a year when we would run into each other. And the boys grew up into men… and I matured a lot, he mellowed a little. I called him once when I had a particular mechanical problem. I had wrecked my Ford Tempo and needed a good head to tell me if it was salvageable. After that we sort of started dating. The physical thing kicked back on. I never stopped lusting after that man, he just smells right (and tastes right, and feels right… you get it.) I remember once saying that I needed to smash my Tempo in order to reconcile with him. He responded that I had to wreck my car too. He could always make me laugh, still can.

The power exchange happened much later, after I had done some research for a novel, learned about TPE relationships, realized I had been living in one… maybe it would be a little more accurate to say “fighting” in one for nearly 18 years. I stopped fighting and found out how much I really needed his control. Maybe that was why I kept going back to him; I had always needed his control.

He gets along with my sons pretty well now. The other day I saw him talking to an old friend he had not seen in twenty odd years, talking about the boys being his sons, how he was proud of them and felt like he had a lot to do with their growing up to be such fine men. You know, I think he was right. It wasn’t easy, or always pretty, but he cared about them and they knew it. He taught them what it meant to be honorable and that if he had high expectations, that they were capable of meeting them, even if they did not like it at the time.

When son number one ran into marital problems, Master was the one that made me reach out to his wife and let her know we still loved her and that she always had a place in our house. (I was pretty pissed at the time and more than willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater, but he slammed me none too gently into a corner and gave me a “she needs us, you will do this lecture”… this probably saved my son’s marriage.) When son number two and his wife ran into financial difficulties, it was Master who decided that they should move in with us for a while to get on their feet. And when that while got to be a long while, it was Master who once again decided that it was necessary and that if “our” family ever needs a place to stay, there will always be one here. Even if it means they have to listen to my screaming coming up the stairs from his basement lair now and then as he beats my ass for his amusement and my edification. (Hey, they are adults, and there are no secrets here. What happens behind closed doors… is sometimes… loud?)