It’s a common happening.

KinkyHurtyFucker meets FreakyPainWonder and they REALLY hit it off.

They play like tyrannosaurus-fucking-fireworks and everyone sees and feeds off their energy.

The D/s happens, and it’s wonderful. It’s intense and disciplined and proper places, and really, really fun hurty-painful-scary things, and all the stuffs of dreams.

And they fall in love.

And, it seems, the in-love overshadows the hurty stuff. And the hurty stuff starts to wither.

And eventually, FreakyPainWonder gets sad and a bit frustrated, because KinkyHurtyFucker no longer… well… lives up to their name, or their previous behavior.

Not only are they not exploring new, terrifying depths of depravity and immense pain, but the depths they have started to explore are left lonely and wanting as they have somehow retreated back towards the surface.

KinkyHurtyFucker doesn’t REALLY hurt FreakyPainWonder anymore.

KinkyHurtyFucker is in love.

How does this happen?

There are lots of ways.

• Maybe KinkyHurtyFucker’s drive for kinky play was mostly NRE, and it dissipated with time and comfort.
• Maybe KinkyHurtyFucker has a Madonna/Whore issue, and they subconsciously believe that someone they love isn’t really into that freaky stuff (even FreakyPainWonder).
• Maybe it’s just hard for KinkyHurtyFucker to hurt someone they love, because they are an empath, and feel the pain their lover suffers more than they feel the pain of play partners.
• Maybe KinkyHurtyFucker has social conditioning. When you fall in love in general society, you are equals in everything, and KinkyHurtyFucker is just falling into habitual thinking.
• Maybe it’s life stresses, and the fact that they are now living together and potentially raising small KinkyHurtyFuckers and FreakyPainWonders that run them ragged.
• Maybe it was a role KinkyHurtyFucker was playing, and they were never confident with it, but when it was just play, that was OK. Now that FreakyPainWonder has become irreplaceable, KinkyHurtyFucker stopped risking fucking it all up to hell and back.
• Maybe once KinkyHurtyFucker falls in love, they move into a protective/caregiving mode.
• Maybe BDSM is, really deep down in KinkyHurtyFucker’s brain, a BAD THING, and you don’t do bad things to people you love.
• Maybe before they were in love, KinkyHurtyFucker didn’t hear about the aches and pains after, the drop and the recovery as much. Maybe now that they spend more time together, that is causing KinkyHurtyFucker sadness to think of the pain, and they aren’t realizing how very very worth it is to FreakyPainWonder.

How do you fix it?

Well, maybe you don’t. But when you do, it’s probably with communication:

• “I need pain, it makes me feel loved when you give me pain.”
• “Pain is a part of the me you fell in love with. Let’s continue on our journey and fall even more in love.”
• “Trust me safeword when it goes beyond pain into potential injury.”
• Use the stoplight. Green to let KinkyHurtyFucker know they are on the right track. Yellow to slow things down, red to stop the scene altogether. This is a good way to give feedback, and can be made a part of the dynamic.
• Make sure to balance complaints about pain and bruising with positive feedback on how amazing it makes you feel, even now, after the scene is long over.

It’s a difficult situation.

In fact, sometimes, all the communication in the world will do nothing.

Not unlike the romance and sex dying in a relationship.

For me, this is all the opposite of how I work. I want to do MORE hurty stuff and sexy things and so on the more I feel… In fact, it’s hard for me to do all that stuff well without the feels.

But I’ve been there, on the other side, when things fall off. And it sucks.

My ex-husband’s Catholic guilt and Madonna-Whore complex took over when we married, and the kinky-open-to-poly guy became vanilla and jealous…

Has this happened to you?

Did you save your relationship? What worked/didn’t work for you?