An unexpected break

On Tuesday night, whilst I was out, The Photographer left. He didn't "leave me", but he did leave me physically, without warning and under something of a cloud. I have not been dealing with it very well, to say the least. I'm bad with surprises, even nice ones, I don't like being unprepared.

He'd been staying with me over the summer and it has been wonderful to go to sleep (and sometimes even sleep...) with him, wake up with him, come home to him and generally have him as an ongoing part of my life rather than a sometime visitor. We've managed to become partners, more so than before, and whilst the 24/7 kink adventure I had been daydreaming about didn't entirely materialise, although we did get there once or twice and maybe more, I've loved it, and for it all to end like that was a terrible shock.

I'm trying to work out whether the BDSM has made it more difficult. Has him leaving in this fashion had an effect except in the fact that he is my main source of kinky activity? Certainly I don't feel particularly motivated to do anything kinky or sexual, because I'm unhappy. But there is another element. Of late the relationship has suffered because of stress, part of which was me worrying about him moving out (which he was supposed to do at some point around now, there was just no fixed date) and where that would leave us. That had led to a decrease in the amount of kink we'd been doing, also a change in the type - we had become more S&M and less D/s because connecting physical activities to a relationship type had become challenging. In a way, this is not a bad thing, "my partner let me down" is less difficult to deal with perhaps than "Sir let me down" We had been drifting, quietly, for a while - coasting is a good word for it. Neither of us encouraging or pushing the other to greater acts of depravity, and I've missed that greatly. There was (and still is) an uncertainty in how the relationship can develop, partly driven by the poly aspect, partly driven by various intangibles regarding what he wants in the future. That also gave me concerns. All ina ll, I came to the sad point where I no longer felt him to be "Sir" anymore - I didn't want to give myself up into such an uncertain situation and with that came another sense of loss.

We've spoken a lot since and I do understand why he did what he did, but that doesn't make it especially easier. It's one thing to be able to be reasonable and rational in the face of someone else's problems, when they impact on you badly it's harder. I am not really sure what the next step is, on the face of it, I suppose, when measured against the real disasters of this world, it is not a big thing. But my reaction was a real reaction, and my unhappiness is real also. Currently I'm stuck in the event - I can't quite move passed the shock of feeling abandonned so suddenly, and before we can move forward on anything, I need to deal with that. Then I can see whether we can build up to something else.