What is Relationship Maintenance While Your BDSM Dynamic Is On Pause?
written by Maja Metera
If you are considering taking a break from engaging in power exchange within your established relationship - please check part one of this series first, where we explain how to set yourself up for success when taking a break from D/s.
1. The Relationship Check-ins’ Structure
Those meetings are supposed to create a safe space to review and reflect on your dynamic in its current state. Use them to keep the freely and openly discussed topics calm, nurture trust by addressing any issues promptly, ensure mutual understanding, and discuss any feelings of discomfort caused by the changes in circumstances.
Below, you will find an infographic describing the structure of meetings. Follow it to ensure you cover the most important topics.
2. Focus on Vanilla Relationship Maintenance
Since your paused dynamic has been built on power exchange before, it can be easy to feel distant or disconnected without kink during this period. Therefore, ensuring everyone affected by the pause still receives affection, attention, and reassurance is essential for the relationship to survive the break.
We encourage you to prioritize the overall vanilla side of the relationship by spending quality time together engaging in non-D/s activities such as watching movies, dining out, enjoying hobbies, or making plans for the future. This will not only carry you through the pause but also will reinforce your bond outside the D/s dynamic.
3. Take Care of Yourself First
D/s dynamic swoons can sometimes blind our judgment or even make us forget about our own well-being. Taking a break from the Dom(me)/sub mindset can be used to reflect on individual needs, desires, and growth while considering how these may impact your life and your dynamic.
You can use Obedience’s sibling app Embrace as a safe space to be honest with yourself - and then decide whether you want to share each entry with your partner. And do not worry if you do not know what to write about. You can use a variety of prompts that we had prepared for you with @coach.emilyy. You can even connect Embrace with Obedience and create a journaling habit, but what should you do with the rest of your Obedience setup during the pause?
Using Obedience During D/s Dynamic Pause
In the spirit of maintaining a good degree of individual self-care through exercise, meditation, or hobbies to remain mentally and emotionally well, we suggest you do not stop using Obedience. We discussed BDSM outside partnership in our article on solo submission.
This is a step-by-step plan of what we strongly encourage you to do:
Sit down with your partner and change settings within the Obedience You can do that by going to Menu -> Settings -> Permissions within the Obedience App.
Pause habits that you already have to save your progress history. Click on the habit and scroll down to the “Pause habit” button. If you leave the habits, as well as rewards and punishments, the setup after the pause ends will be easier.
Create your own habits to track, rewards to collect, and punishments to endure. Our community-made templates can inspire you, or you can use the button below to access a self-care-oriented template.
When setting up habits, make sure not to skip past “Advanced Settings,” where you can turn off notifications about your progress for your partner and ensure that even a person with a “submissive” role Obedience account can complete punishments and rewards.
4. Be Flexible and Patient
The only constant in life is change. So do not get stuck on the idea that everything you wrote down in step 3 of your pre-pause preparation will remain unchanged for the whole duration of your D/s pause. Respect your agreement with your partner, but do not be afraid to respond and take action when your circumstances evolve. Try to be patient—with yourself, the situation, and your partner.
In part three of this guide, we go over reintroducing power exchange into your relationship after taking a longer break from it. Check it out!
