Caregiver Fatigue in BDSM Dynamics: Causes, Communication, and Balance

written by Micah Brown

Fatigue and burnout may not be the same thing, but fatigue is certainly a major stop on the road to burnout. Often, before we reach burnout, either personally or professionally, we notice the fatigue starting to take over.

There are many types and variations of fatigue, from exercising too much to working too hard, to not getting enough sleep, to emotional fatigue from things happening in your life.

When it comes to kink, BDSM, and scene dynamics, fatigue hitting the one who holds the role of caregiver in the relationship may cause major earthquakes for the relationship as a whole.

Even without raising children, the fatigue that is felt by the primary caregiver can somewhat mirror what single parents, stay at home parents, and primary caregiving parents may experience. The topic of fatigue in relationships and parenting has written about in great detail over the years, but finding information on what it means when your kinks takes these ideas into a new direction.

Littles and Bigs

If we’re talking about a Little/Big dynamic that’s in the realm of a 24/7 dynamic, then we’re looking at a situation where the caregiver is going to be in charge of most of the household items with the little having chores and responsibilities that have been delegated by their caregiver. This means that often, the caregiver is responsible not only for their career, but for the budget, the meal planning, running errands, and more.

As with anybody who is in such an intense caregiving situation, this can cause fatigue on a professional and/or emotional level. What’s important to remember is that any fatigue is not the fault of the little and taking your frustrations out on your partner is never the right way to help yourself.

Masters and slaves

While the dynamic itself may look much different than the dynamic between littles and bigs, the fatigue that can begin to creep up on the Master may look very similar to the fatigue that a Mommy, Daddy, or Caregiver may feel when it begins to effect them. Masters are often in charge of most of the household, much like a caregiver.  They often do many of the same tasks as a caregiver, but the way these tasks are accomplished may be different. There maybe more interaction between the Master and slave when it comes to meal planning, for example.

Again, it is not the fault of the slave for the Master’s burnout and the Master taking out that frustration on their slave will only cause the dynamic and the relationship to deteriorate.

Who is at Fault?

Life happens and the fault of fatigue is rarely contained within the relationship or dynamic. What may add to fatigue in a dynamic is an imbalance in household responsibilities. While Masters, Mommies and Daddies, and Pet Owners may take on many of the household responsibilities, they don’t have to do all of the things. Delegating tasks to their slaves, pets, and littles can help reduce the weight of responsibility that rests upon their shoulders.

As a Dominant myself who is married to my slave, I have fallen into this same trap and decided that to be a good Dom I needed to provide all the household things for my slave so she could focus more on her being a good slave. What happened is that we yo-yoed, and I decided to give her more responsibility that she was prepared for, and she hit fatigue.

The balance we found that works for us may not be the balance that works for you. Everybody has a different situation and faces different challenges in their lives. What’s important is that you take the time to sit down and work on ways to reduce stress and the share the load of responsibility for the household.

Sharing the Load

If there is a power dynamic, how can you share responsibility when one person is in charge of the other within the dynamic?

So often the immediate decision of a new power dynamic is to give all the control to the Dominant and allow them to make all the decisions, often without input from the submissive/little/pet in the dynamic. It’s exciting and feels new. The Dominant relishes in that sense of ownership and the submissive feels secure and may even feel relief from not having to make any decisions any longer.

The problem here is that, for both parties, those feelings can begin to wear off over time. The submissive may want to have a say in the budget and meal planning, or even make a decision on what movie to watch depending on how deep the control goes within the dynamic. The Dominant may begin to feel resentment that they have to do everything around the house and their job and never seems to have any help.

This doesn’t have to be the end of dynamic or even much more than bump in the road. As the Dominant, you can delegate tasks to your submissive to get done. Using something like Obedience app can help you build these habits. In this way, you can assign your submissive responsibilities and assign punishments for when they’re not done or not done well.

As an example, you assign your submissive to do meal planning for the week. If they can come up with a well-rounded plan for the week and don’t just put Mac & Cheese for dinner every night, then they’ve done a good job at it. Then the question becomes, do you want them to do any of the cooking?

To answer that question, it may be best to determine who is going to be home first to better decide who is going to be making dinner that evening. If you have a stay at home partner, then it might be nice for you make dinners on the weekends and allow them a break during that time.

You don’t necessarily have to assign your submissive the task of doing all the meal planning, you could say “pick three meals you want to make this week.”

Littles are often receptive to being allowed to choose meals for the week and  being asked to make a certain number of meals during the week. Maybe one of those meals will be Mac & Cheese, but you certainly don’t want them all to be Mac & Cheese.

Bringing your submissive in on helping with the budget is something that can be quite beneficial. When they ask for something and you say “no,” they may have a better understanding as to why you had to say “no” to that specific request.

Littles and slaves thrive when given tasks and a schedule. Having them work on household chores like sweeping, cleaning, and other items can help them feel as though they are part of the household and provide you with some relief. That doesn’t mean they need to be your domestic servant or even do all the cleaning and chores, but assigning them specific duties and spelling out consequences for them can help reduce the stress you feel about keeping the house running. Again, Obedience can be a great way to assign habits and create a schedule that your submissive will understand.

Communicating Your Needs

As the Caregiver in your dynamic, you need to be able to communicate your needs to your partner. Becoming fatigued isn’t a failure of you as a Dominant and talking to your submissive about it won’t make them feel less of you. It takes great strength to open your heart and talk about your struggles, and your submissive will see that in you.

If you’re beginning to feel fatigued, talk about what’s causing it. Is it work related, is it something at home? What can your partner do to help ease the burden of your stress and allow you to get some must needed mental rest?

Sometimes, fatigue is simply inevitable. It’s not just the daily grind that can cause fatigue, but tragedies, traumas, and life events. Even something as joyous as marriage can cause fatigue during the planning stages of a wedding.

Recognize how fatigue effects you and what you and your partner can do to help reduce those effects.