• What is D/s?
• Introducing your Partner to D/s
• Trust
• I am a male submissive

Trust is an important part of any D/s relationship. While it is important to a vanilla relationship I fully believe it is even more important to a D/s relationship because the amount of information that needs to flow back and forth from sub to Dom and vice-versa. Some of that information is highly personal, or may be viewed by the giving party as 'silly' or 'embarrassing'. Yet for a D/s relationship to flourish, for the couple to continue to grow, that information must flow. How can a sub let their Dom push them into new areas if they can't trust them fully? How can a Dom be a good Dom if the sub doesn't trust them enough to talk to them? How can a Dom trust a sub who seems to keep things from them? How can the relationship flourish in any of these cases?

That said, I'm slowly learning that there's different levels of trust.

As strange as it may sound I think it's easier to trust someone with your life, than it is to trust them with your mind, your thoughts and your feelings. I have found it incredibly easy to submit to My Alpha in terms of my body. I'll let her do anything she wants to my body. But until recently it didn't occur to me that I wasn't trusting her with my thoughts and feelings. I was too scared to. I was too scared she'd think they were silly, that she'd laugh at me, that what I thought wasn't that important. Slowly I'm learning to trust her with something more important than my body: my mind.

While it's nice to think that you may have total trust in your partner. Think of this, would you allow them to read private email? Would you allow them to read your diary? Could you go to them over some small incident between you that affected you but they probably didn't notice? Could you confess to them how you feel, how you really feel? If they do something you disagree with, no matter how small or large, could you talk to them about it? If you have total trust in them, then the answer to each and every one of these questions is 'yes'.

Alright, we've established that trust is important and that there are different levels. Now, how do we achieve that trust? Well it's not easy. I would say that the hardest part of any relationship, D/s or otherwise, is building trust. Trust can take months or even years to slowly bloom, and can be destroyed with a single word. Yet it's worth it. Those who have never trusted their partner fully can't hope to easily understand the freedom that you feel when you trust your partner. I'm not to the term 'total' trust yet, but even so, I feel incredibly free within our relationship.

So how is trust built? With a lot of work. And often it's the small, seemingly insignificant things that matter. Now I would say that everyone knows of the 'trust building' exercises that are common at team building camps. One of the most publicised is the one where one person simply collapses, trusting in their partner, or group, to catch them. I would contend that the level of trust acquired there is absolutely piddling compared to the amount of trust you gain when you admit even a minor transgression (such as sneaking a snack when you're dieting) to your partner and they calmly discuss it with you, then eventually tell you it's alright and just expect you to do better in the future. Yet that isn't the end of the story, trust wise. You would have to go through this scenario a number of times before you felt completely at ease telling your partner of a transgression. Once doesn't cut it. We need to be absolutely sure our trust is well place.

On the other hand if, in that same scenario, you admit a minor transgression to your partner, and they tell you you're 'stupid', then next time you'll find it much, much harder to admit, if you ever do again. It's one small word, but it's also very powerful.

You can see here I'm not talking about the large issues. I'm not talking about admitting an infidelity, or that you scraped the side of the car or whatever. You can probably work out just how much trust can be gained or lost in the larger issues too. Now I'm not saying that if your partner comes to you admitting they've cheated on you, that you simply shrug your shoulders and say, "oh well, it's happened, just don't do it again". It would certainly mean your partner could come to you again with that problem, and be sure of a good reception, but it also means that your partner might be in that position again. Hardly a good situation.

So what do you do? How do you build trust and yet resolve these issues?

By talking them out. Trust works both ways. If your partner can come to you admitting they've done something very wrong, they're asking for trust, for you to accept that. By the same token you have to trust them to accept that this affects you badly. Building and keeping trust doesn't mean ignoring consequences, it means dealing with them.

Let's take our extreme example of the infidelity. Now first off you've obviously lost trust in your partner that they would do such a thing. However, before you go completely off the deep end, talk to them rationally and calmly; don't judge. How much of a transgression was it? Was it a touch, a kiss, or are we talking 'going all the way'? Are there extenuating circumstances? Why did they do it? Do they think it will happen again? Here you are working through all the issues associated with the admission. Now it may well turn out that they have abused your trust so badly that they have a lot of legwork to do in recovering it, if they can at all. Or it may be that you can both shrug it off as a silly incident. The key point here is that you discuss the issue fully without being judgmental, and in the end each partner is fully aware of what the effects of the problem are on both partners.

Obviously that is a complex and emotional example, but serves well. The same principles apply in, say, the situation where you wrote off the car, where you overspent on the credit card, where you broke your partner's favourite mug. You have to have the trust to go to your partner and tell them, and know that they won't just call you a 'stupid idiot'. You know that they'll talk to you, find out the full story and then you can both deal with it. Punishments may be handed out or restrictions imposed but you know with 100% certainty that these are not random and silly, they 'fit the crime' as it were.

Now since we are talking D/s here, you may be under the impression that I'm talking here about the sub confessing to the Dom. Not so. The same applies in the opposite direction. The Dom is just as human as the sub and may commit the same infractions. Since the sub is 'dependant' on the Dom this can be difficult, but the Dom has to trust the sub enough to talk things through with them. I will repeat something I said earlier, trust is not a one way street. While on the surface it may seem that the sub has to put more trust in the Dom than vice-versa, in reality this is far from the truth. The Dom must have equal trust in their sub. They have to trust that their sub will come to them with problems. They have to trust that their sub can handle the 'Real Life' side of the D/s lifestyle where sometimes the Dom is not a God/dess, and can fail. Sometimes the trust needed here is subtle, but it is important none the less.

Trust is important in any relationship, but the deepest level of trust is essential to a D/s relationship. The important thing to realise is that trust takes time to build, but next to no time to destroy. When dealing with issues, don't judge your partner; accept what they say and deal with it. Make them aware of the effect their information/actions have on you, whether good or bad. Trust them to receive what you say in the same light as you just received what they said.

True, total, full trust is difficult to achieve but worth it.

• What is D/s?
• Introducing your Partner to D/s
• Trust
• I am a male submissive