You're listening to the Loving BDSM podcast. Kayla
Lords here with the one, the only,
the amazing
IT man. You just need a purple cape,
John Brown's time.
Okay.
We
we as in family, the kids and I
used to, call
JB
IT man whenever we needed him to fix
a tech thing. Yep. And this day that
we are recording this episode is filled with
tech things.
Oh my god. Need your shiny cape.
Mhmm. Your superhero cape. Something like that. Mhmm.
Mhmm. We're not talking about that this week
though. No. No. No. This week, we're answering
a question from a submissive who wants to
know how to plan ahead and negotiate for
when their long distance relationship
goes in person.
Welcome to the Loving BDSM podcast. If you're
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or you can find the link in the
show notes for this episode.
Okay. Let's get into the question.
I am a newer submissive who's in a
long distance relationship with a daddy dom. We've
met several times to get to know each
other and play. We clicked right away. We
are now talking about moving closer or in
together in the future, but want to negotiate
how our power exchange will look. He has
a 13 year old daughter who we definitely
don't want to know anything about it. We
discussed my current daily tasks previously, and he
gives me regular tasks throughout the day. My
question is, even though we communicate amazingly,
what is the best way to approach our
power exchange negotiations?
Just to note, he has more experience than
I do with this, but and I trust
him, but I want to protect both of
us. What things should be decided before we
take that step to move in? I see
myself as a service sub, so things will
need so so those things will need to
be added in.
Can I sound like an old lady for
a while?
For a minute? Go ahead.
It feels a little early
Yeah. Based on the description.
Yeah. It does.
You know, the closer together,
yeah, the moving in, I think. But but
anyway,
you know, the whole long distance thing.
Long here's what I'm gonna say. Long distance
and moving in, completely different animals. Yeah. So
whatever you're doing long distance,
most of it's not gonna translate to in
person. Most of it, you're gonna have to
toss out the window. Right. And you won't
actually know what's going to truly work for
in person or even just moving being closer
physically together
until you're in that position.
Yeah. We
we thought we were so smart.
Oh, man. Yeah. We're planners from way back.
That we were we were
on top of everything. Mhmm. And and before
we moved in together, we sat down and
we talked about and, you know, hammered out
this whole list of stuff that that's gonna
be part of our DS when we're together.
All the tasks. Mhmm. Mhmm. Yep. And and,
you know, how everything was gonna be relatable
to us and all that.
And it took two, maybe three days, and
all that shit was tossed out the window.
Yes. And then we ended up having,
we ended up having, like, some life stressors
happen right after we moved in together.
In the middle of a Florida summer, the
AC went out in our rented town home.
And so
we had to deal with that. We felt
the overwhelm from thinking we knew what we
were gonna do when we moved
in together. Mhmm.
And it was so overwhelming, we literally put
our power exchange on hold for about two
weeks
to get through the stress that had just
occurred in the apartment, this brand brand new
to us apartment. Because thing thing is this,
we moved in,
meaning we rolled up
and we had a bunch of people there
to help us unload.
Mhmm. And did we got the unloading, went
went very well. Put everything in its all
the boxes in their respective rooms.
Went to bed that night and woke up
to an overheated apartment. Yes.
So
you can plan, and I respect wanting to
try to map things out, have a plan.
For me, having a plan even though even
if I don't follow it is very comforting.
There's nothing
thinking about it, trying to imagine it, but
I think the the biggest thing is understanding
Yeah. That plan might get completely thrown out.
Right. And and you know that that's what
I was just gonna say, you know,
we're not telling you
not to plan. No. Yeah. Okay?
Have a plan. Have some ideas. Sit down,
talk, communicate,
talk about your expectations,
your wants, your desires, and all this, both
of you. K?
And realize that
a good portion of it can go 10
sheets to the wind. Oh, yeah. Once it
hits, you know,
what is that? No bat no plan survives
battle
unscathed?
No
plan survives contact with the enemy. Yeah.
Okay.
So, you know, just be aware Mhmm. That
you can plan this out. You can go
down to the nth degree.
Okay?
And and there's nothing wrong with trying to
do that. But again, be aware that you're
going to have to most likely
be
fluid about this, and that things are not
gonna work out the way. And and I
know for us, even when we first reinstated
our DS, we were doing weekly check ins.
Every Friday night, we'd hop in the car,
and and we would head out for a
cup of coffee,
and we would sit and be like, so
how's this working out for you? We also
the thing we did when we reinstated
was what we had tried to do first
day living together, I had about 10 things
I was supposed to keep up with that
I had never had to do with a
partner living with me before. Mhmm. When we
restarted, we started with, like, one or two
things Right. And gradually added things in. So
Mhmm.
Or two things Right. And gradually added things
in.
So you did not ask how to move
in together, so I don't want to go
too far down that rabbit hole, but that's
that's our reality.
Mhmm. And we have talked to many other,
people in relationships who went from long distance
to either close together or living in person,
and they found something like that to be
very true for them as well.
Because what you're doing when you plan before
you've gotten there is you're imagining
what you think it will be like, and
we all know, we're all adults here, life
loves a good curveball. Oh, yeah. And the
things you can't even imagine, you couldn't have
planned for, are going to happen when you
least expect it. Now what I will say
for the
the dreaming of what might happen in the
future, the planning for if and when it
does,
the big thing I would say is each
of you needs to have
your own individual
idea of what that would look like
and then come together to figure out the
Venn diagram of that. Right? Like, what do
you imagine being a service sub to to
this partner to be like? What are the
things you would like to be able to
do for them? What are the things that
you're currently doing long distance that you'd like
to somehow maintain, just in a different way?
What is it that your daddy dom wants
from a submissive living with them? And, yes,
absolutely, how do we
do this
with a child who we don't want them
to know anything's going on? Now the thing
to know about that, and
you can kind of plan it now, but
it's
it's gonna make more sense to live it
a little bit and figure it out. But
the thing about being power exchange and not
having kids clock it
or not doing anything so overtly, air quote,
kinky Mhmm. That it's noticeable
is to do very subtle
power exchange. And when I say subtle, it
means the meaning is there to you of
what it means, but what you're physically doing
looks like normal, air quote, normal vanilla behavior.
You know, you could negotiate it that,
serve you know,
making your partner's
plate. For a meal. I'm sorry. Meal and
and serving it to them, getting their drink,
you know, anything like I'm making a coffee,
do you know, any dessert, anything like that.
Having their lunch prepared for them. Right. Having,
if and I'm I'm picking things that are
very domestic. Yeah. It's not always gonna be
true if, like, you're also working Mhmm. You
know, your own job or whatever. It it
sounds mundane, but we have a lot of
that stuff incorporated into our our power
exchange does not look like power exchange from
the outside.
The kinkiest thing we do is our bedtime
routine because that is behind closed doors. Right.
And we
when the our the kids were young, they
were very sound sleepers. Nothing woke them up.
As they got older That started to shift.
That shifted, but, like, the home we're in
now, they're completely across the building from us,
and one's not even here anymore. One one's
in a whole different city now. But, I
mean, when they were both living here, they
were completely across the house and they are
teenagers and this teenager might be similar,
once they're in their own little world of
their room of doing their thing, they do
not care what you're doing. So behind closed
doors, you can do a lot more.
But
for example, some of what I do
that is meaningful to us but does not
look like anything. I always make JB's,
iced coffee. He makes his own morning coffee.
I get the coffee pot ready for him,
so all he has to do is push
a button. But I make his his
more
post
coffee coffee.
He drinks a hot cup of coffee when
he first wakes up. He drinks iced coffee
next. I make that every time. You make
it happen.
And that's that's one of my jobs. And
a fine job you do, girl. When we
are
in places where there's serving up of food,
maybe,
family,
meals together, holiday meals,
buffet style meals with with
people we know, not you know, I will
make up a plate for him and put
it down for him. I have the luxury
of being Southern and that is kind of
expected of Southern women.
So my family doesn't think there's anything wrong
with that. Right? They don't even notice it.
Preak disguise.
Absolutely.
For things that aren't, like, that domestic, if
that's not a thing that will impact y'all's
relationship very much,
JB opens my car door for me. Mhmm.
Yes. That looks very chivalrous
and polite from the outside looking in, but
that's a power thing. Mhmm. I don't leave
the car until he wills it to be
so. Right. He holds doors open for me.
Yes. That looks very
respectful and sweet and chivalrous, but, also, he
controls
where I am.
I walk on a specific side of him
when we're walking out somewhere. Mhmm. The one
time got your hair pulled in parking lot
one time for not being on the correct
side. I might have been a little sassy
about it. I I might have been pushing
buttons there.
If we go out to eat, I we
have not done it as much recently, but
we're in in flux with some of our
power changer. We're negotiating
things. When we go out to eat, if
it's a breakfast,
I I get his coffee ready. He orders
a hot coffee. The server is always very
confused. I might grab it and start putting
cream in it. But if we're
having
diet Coke or water, I'll put his straw
Yes. In his cup for him. Right? It's
these small things that nobody is gonna think
twice about. The coffee thing does throw some
servers off. Oh, yeah. But not they don't
really care. They're too busy. Right? Right.
But they have meaning for us. Now I'm
not saying you need to do those things,
but those are the kinds of things, especially
this works out really well
seeing as you are a service submissive because
there's a lot of of service you can
do that can look very domestic or just
look very helpful.
When we the only time we were ever
asked, the kids were younger than 13. Okay?
And one of them said, why why do
you do this stuff for mister John? Because
that's what they call him, mister John. I'm
like, because it makes him happy and because
I want to. Or and sometimes I'll say
because it makes me happy to do it.
So there's no, oh, no. And now I
have to explain power exchange to the kids.
No.
They just noticed me doing a little bit
extra for him
that they had never seen me do for
their biological father. They were curious.
And so
what we do with having kids is and
we did not know to plan this at
the time when we were working on, well,
how do we want our relationship to look
after long distance.
But the kinky stuff is behind closed doors.
It's at the end of the day.
It's mildly kinky because we're old and tired.
He gives me permission to go to bed.
I bend over the bed and I might
get a butt rub. I might get my
my butt spanked. Now leading up odds be
ever in my favor. Right. Now now leading
up to that,
she
pulls the bed and prepares it. I do.
I pull down the sheets. I get the
pillows ready. And I I read in bed
at night before I go to sleep, so
she
sets my pillows. So they're all where I
want them to sit and read in bed.
So what those negotiations look like and this
is true for anybody who's just going into
power exchange and trying to keep it subtle,
trying to keep it, like, nobody really clocks
it. Mhmm. Or you're moving in together. Right?
The it's
when it can be about service, to me,
that's the the easiest thing because it's then
the conversation is from sub to dom. What
can I do for you that will make
you happy, that helps you, that will make
you feel more in charge, that allows me
to feel,
like, in you know, whatever your submissive headspace
feels like? What are those things? And then
the negotiation
part is,
what are you willing and able to do,
and what are you not willing or unable
to do? And you do get to say
no to those things. You just have to
find the balance.
There's nothing wrong, like we said at the
top, of planning what you think this will
look like. I think there's nothing wrong with
having
lists or,
ideas or daydreams about what best case scenario
might look like.
But
the realistic part is, one, start slower than
you think you should. So
Lola agrees.
You might have 10 things. Will that first
little bit when you first move in start
with one or two, right?
You might have best case scenario and then
life throws you a curve ball. And it
might
Lola agrees.
It might be a while before you can
get to your best case scenario. You might
never get there. There are some things that
on paper
sound great,
and then you start doing them.
Yeah. And you're like, I hate this. This
does not work. And and I think that's
the most important thing. Mhmm. When, you know,
when when you are
someone who is in a long distance relationship
Oh. That was close, I know.
Laura walked under the tripod.
You know,
when when you're coming together
from from a a distant
relationship,
and you start
putting together your power exchange, you have to
be fluid. Because what sounds really great on
paper right now Mhmm. Okay. Once you put
it into practice,
well, we need to tweak a few things
here. This is not what I expected. I
can't do this all the time. You know,
you have to be fluid. You have to
be able to
work and compromise and get to where you
want to be. It just doesn't happen. Flexibility
is the key here.
You can, for the planning purposes now, talk
about what your day typically looks like. So
if you're long distance, who's moving to whom?
Mhmm. If you're both working, whose job is
changing? Is anybody's job changing? If your jobs
aren't changing, how do you work? Do you
both leave the home?
Do either of you work from home? What
will that look like?
When moving in together, are there pets that
need to be taken care of?
Are there other obligations? Does anybody take care
of a parent? Does anybody,
you know, volunteered?
Like, what does the whole part of your
life look like, and how do you imagine
meshing that together? Mhmm.
That for some of us, I'm a person
who when I'm in the mood to plan,
I fucking love this shit. Some of us,
this makes our eyes glaze over and we
hate every second of this. So you have
to know yourself and how much in-depth you're
gonna go with this planning. But it is
a we're gonna take our two individual lives
where we have,
prior to this, temporarily come together in basically
vacation mode because the rest of your, air
quote, real life typically takes a break when
long distance couples get together Right. For their
fuckery. Right?
This is okay. We're not gonna have anywhere
near as much fuckery at some point, maybe
you will in the beginning, as we did
during long distance. And now it's the mundane
parts of life. It's the parts of life
that you might have maybe you talked about
before, but maybe you didn't. Do either of
you have
bathroom habits
or routines that maybe other partners have clocked
as being
not typical? That might be a thing to
talk about. Do either of you have pet
peeves that
when you've lived with people previously have driven
you fucking crazy. These are great things to
talk about. It is entirely possible
that your pet peeves are not things that
they do. It's entirely possible that their pet
peeves are things, you know, that you're willing
to adjust on.
But these are the things you can't actually
know until you're living together. But if you
love to plan,
it's those kinds of things that I would
recommend talking about way more than what are
the rules gonna be. What is submission gonna
look like?
Because all of those mundane parts of your
life are going to impact when and how
you get kinky, when and how you're, you
know, in your dom self, when and how
you're in your subhead space. Like, all of
that impacts
the power exchange.
So every part of your air quote real
life has to
be able to work with the power exchange.
The power exchange has to be able to
work with it, which means there's a lot
of adjustments.
And that means there's a lot that you
cannot plan for. How many times have we
said that there's a lot you cannot plan
for? That is a thing that I would
take away from this more than anything. Plan
if it makes you, you know, feel more
comfortable. If it's just fun to do, it's
nice to talk about the future,
but stay flexible Yep. Because it's the only
way that you're gonna make it work. Now
as a shameless plug,
we do have a workbook on our Etsy
shop, I'll link it in the places, about
long distance relationships. The majority of it is
making the long distance relationship work
while you're long distance.
And it's not the what do we do,
it's the how do we do it. But
there are sections about,
when you're there's there's a section, I think,
at the end when you're ready to start
that process of moving closer together, moving in
together, and things to think about. The other
thing that I would say to consider doing,
again, shameless plugs,
we have,
thirty days of DS volume one is really
more for beginners of what does dominance mean
to me? What does submission mean to me?
But thirty days of DS volume two?
That's
the, oh, we're in a power exchange. What
happens when one of us gets angry at
the other? What happens when one of us
is sick? What happens when
we're not in the mood for sex? What
those kinds of things. There's more air quote
and big air quote here, real life kinds
of situations.
That might be something to to consider doing
together as well. Thirty days of DS
volumes one and two are
you can either do them as journal prompts
where you just think about the answers to
yourself privately,
or they can be conversation starters in relationships.
So it's like, hey. Let's take this one
topic this on this one conversation, keep it
narrow.
How does this work for you? How does
this work for me? How do we imagine
this working
when it happens to us? Because it's not
an
if. It is 99% of the time a
when. So that could be another thing that
aids in the planning
portion.
But
be the broken record here. No matter how
how much you plan, no matter how many
conversations you have, no matter what you envision,
you will likely have to be very flexible
Yeah. In what you decide to do. And
the best thing we did was to put
a complete halt to the power exchange for
a couple weeks. And it gave us it
gave us time to fully move in. It
gave us time to breathe. It gave us
time to get the AC fixed. Right. And
by the time we came back to it,
I felt settled because I was moving in
with JB. I felt settled with where we
lived. Mhmm. And then I could focus on
what do we do now. Right. And and,
you know, it's funny,
you know, what whatever it is that you
decide,
originally,
we had talked about me
moving to where she lived. Yes. That was
the original plan. And and I had even
started interviewing
You had so many interviews. Yeah. Mhmm. And
and I could not get
and that's when we decided to go the
other way. That was the first shift in
the plan. Yeah.
We spent two or three months
where, yeah, you tried and tried and tried,
and you were not getting a job. I
would I would get the interviews. Yes. They'd
be good interviews. Yeah. Nothing would come of
it. Mhmm. So we shifted
because, yeah, we could keep trying for another
six months to a year. I think eventually
you probably would have found a job, but
we didn't wanna do that.
And quite frankly, the one of the other
big shifts, I had been working in an
office, you know, had just, like, a whatever
whatever job. And when we made the decision
I would move, it was with the understanding
that for a while, JB's
income would pay all of the bills, including
for two children,
and that he would support me,
emotionally and, you know,
all that, but also, like, financially support me
while I built a freelance business. So can
you imagine the overwhelm? I have picked my
two children up to live in a completely
different city. I've quit my stable job that
paid for health insurance,
and now I'm starting a freelance business and
I have no money to call my own.
Can you imagine why maybe I was
overwhelmed?
So Right. That would be another thing that
you need to think about. Whose life
is having to alter the most for this
move? Mhmm. And what kind of time are
you gonna give for that adjustment period as
well, and what are those changes probably going
to be? Mhmm. So it's a very boring
answer of you could plan, but it's probably
not gonna go that way.
But I get why there's that urge to
try and plan too. And and, you know,
yeah. Go ahead and plan, but just realize
that you're gonna have to adjust the plan
on the fly. Very well possible. Yes. You're
gonna write the plan,
start the plan,
execute the plan, throw the plan out,
and then replay it. Something different.
So, yeah, it's not it's not the most
satisfying answer, but from our perspective and from
conversations with other
people we know who have gone through something
similar Mhmm. Is the most realistic. Yeah. So
just just
stay flexible
is the thing.
Thanks for listening to this week's q and
a episode. If you want us to answer
one of your questions, just use the contact
page on our website at lovingbdsm.net,
or you can find the link in the
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