The heart is not a pie.

Just got back from a weekend at FetishCon in Tampa with Sir. What a fun time! Getting to catch up with friends, shopping, and generally a good time. Hubby opted out this year, because he had other things he wanted to do, but graciously sent me off to do my thing.

I still laugh when I get the questions from people about our situation. Yes, I have a Hubby and a Sir. The three of us are switches, and Hubby and I just celebrated our fifteenth wedding anniversary, so I'd say we're on solid ground. Sir's wife is a good friend of ours, and she doesn't enjoy playing in public, nor does she have the interest level in many of the things Sir, Hubby, and I enjoy doing. So she also gives Sir permission to go have fun doing His thing.

So yes, I live a real-life BDSM poly-V. The three of us are switches, so it makes things even more interesting depending who's in the mood to do what.

There's a general misconception that people in BDSM are all about the sex, and that's not necessarily the case. Yes, some people have their BDSM completely entwined with their sexuality. For some, the two things are completely separate. For some, it's a mix.

And there are people who are completely monogamous, monogamous but who do intimate BDSM play with others, some who are poly, some who are swingers, and some who are a mix of all of the above. (Some friends of mine have dubbed that mix as "swolly," meaning not-swingers, not-poly, not-monogamous.)

There is no neat one-size-fits-all set of labels you can apply to people. Sir and I are lucky enough we have spouses who are emotionally secure and open enough to understand that what the two of us do doesn't lessen our love for them, but instead increases it. The heart isn't a pie, with a limited amount of love for one person. Parents of more than one child can relate to that, I'm sure.

One of the benefits of my situation is that communication has increased greatly. It's a necessity to prevent misunderstandings or hurt feelings. Sometimes those communications are uncomfortable, but that gets easier as you go. There is trust, because of the communication that trust is only amplified. I have no reason and no desire to hold back, and neither does Sir. Our spouses have full veto power, and we have clearly drawn boundaries so that our secondary relationship with each other doesn't cause harm to our primary relationships with our spouses. But it also strengthens our secondary relationship with each other, if that makes sense. No, we don't always get as much time with each other as we'd like because life gets in the way. But because of our communication, and because of our strong relationships with our spouses, we're able to fully enjoy the time we do get together.

And both Hubby and Sir's wife ask what they want to know, when they want to know it. They don't always want or need blow-by-blow details of what's going on. But they also know if we say we're going or doing something (with or without each other) that if they ever did want to check up on us, they know that's exactly where we were and what we were doing, because they can trust us.

Speaking for myself, I know my marriage is stronger tody, and my love for my husband even greater than ever, because I know he trusts me. I appreciate the fact that he is such a secure person that he can let me do what I need to do for myself. Some of my relationship with Sir, Hubby knows he cannot duplicate, because Hubby isn't the sadist that Sir is. When I need a good, emotional, cathartic beating for stress relief, or to help with my fibromyalgia pain, Hubby isn't comfortable making me cry. Sir, on the other hand, enjoys it immensely.

Not to say sadism is the only aspect of our relationship, because it isn't. It's only one facet. My "default" mode with Sir is that of Daddy and pet. (Daddy not in an age-play sense, but as in that's just what I've come to call Him, and we both enjoy it. He's only a couple of years older than me. LOL) It's comfortable. And the irony is, in the early days when we started playing, when I was just topping Him and there wasn't a sexual element to our play, we jokingly called each other bro and sis because we are so much alike. Hubby dubbed us twins because of the similarities.

Had you asked me a few years ago if I'd be in this positon, I would have said hell, no. Life throws us curve balls, and I'm glad that I'm lucky enough to be married to a man who loves me enough to know what I need even more than I know it sometimes. And if there were ever a situation in the future where Hubby came to me and said he'd met someone he'd like to explore with, I would offer that same support to him as well.

That's not to say there's not twinges of jealousy here and there. We're all human. Most of those feelings come down to time constraints, and it's not so much true jealousy as it is wishing there were an extra twenty-four hours in the day to devote elsewhere. LOL

What we have isn't for everyone. But it works for us. And for that, I thank the Universe every day.

(Tymber's website is http://tymberdalton.com and her latest release, "Domme by Default," an auto-biographical story about a wife trying to come to grips with her husband's need for dominance, is now available for pre-order from Siren-BookStrand.)