432. Thoughts on Dismissals and Rejection

A Domme friend of mine told me today that she plans to dismiss her sub.  She asked what the best way to do it without hurting him was.

My response was to just tell him and to also tell him why.  While the ripping the band-aid off punch in the face might seem like it hurts someone, it actually hurts a lot less than the alternatives.  Ghosting, passive-aggressively trailing off, avoiding them most of the time hoping they will “get the hint,” etc. all may cause a significant amount of damage.

They will certainly cause pain.  The damage depends upon the type of person they are.  A lot of people are those who are capable of deferring responsibility to the other person.  Pain quickly converts into anger/frustration and this keeps them from learning said lessons and dooms them to repeat their cycles over and over again.  I generally assume that the people I am close to would not choose a person who is of this type.

This leaves the other type.  The other type are the sensitive and vulnerable types that in the absence of a reason, they will find their own.  Often this takes the form of self-chastisement and in some cases, self-loathing and depression.  Without a reason they will immediately analyze their insecurities and the parts they dislike about themselves the most.  They become fixated upon those things.  “It MUST be that.”  Repeat this enough times and a complex is born that will be fed with each successive failure.  In the long run this can lead to some people seeing only their weaknesses and no longer seeing their strengths.  At its best, the person will attempt to over-compensate but will never truly be comfortable with themselves.

I know this because I’ve lost count of the number of times that I have been rejected.  A handful of them were honest.  When shared it was usually some kind way of saying they found me too ugly.  One time it was cited that I was too submissive.  These were actually kind compared to the torment of not knowing why.  When left to my own devices I come up with far worse reasons than being too ugly or too submissive.

I have never actually rejected anyone before.  There have been times when I have been unavailable/off the market or when geography is a limiting factor, but I don’t think that is the same thing.  To clarify, I have never told someone that I didn’t want to be with them because I didn’t like them or didn’t want to be with them.

With that in mind, I can’t truly empathize with the guilt of rejecting or dismissing someone.  What I would assume is that people in a position to reject/dismiss generally have options and knowing that there is someone else ready to make you smile is probably a better place to be in than agonizing over what went wrong, what you need to change about yourself, and so on.

18 thoughts on “432. Thoughts on Dismissals and Rejection”

  2. I’ve been watching a fellow sub go through all of this over the past few months. Through her blog that is. My heart aches for her. 😯

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      1. I think he was bringing in another sub. Maybe I’ll email you about it. 😕 I’ve failed to reach out to her as I don’t have the experience and well f#@k That’s not an excuse. I should of reached out. Hmmm. I’ll email you soon Fcsy. ☹

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  3. Great post, furcissy! Being pretty new to this scene, I’ve never considered how it might feel to be a sub who is dismissed…just the thought of being “dismissed” sounds so cold and hurtful. I suppose my perspective is skewed though as I have only been submissive to one person, and happen to be married to him as well. Thanks for bringing attention to this topic! Very eye opening, and speaks to the responsibility of the Dominant.

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    1. Thank you, Nora. The term dismissed is more commonly used in formal D/s and in the BDSM-oriented scene where there are a lot of relationships where D/s involved but there isn’t a romantic relationship that accompanies it. I think those lines get blurry for a lot of people, though. Dismissal tends to be chosen over “break up” or “dumped” etc. when things were D/s out of the gate.

      It tends to be quite a different world when there isn’t a long-standing loving relationship already in place. With married couples, you will find a lot of them will turn D/s on or off if things aren’t working, but rarely does the relationship end based upon that decision.

      Take care.

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      1. furcissy,
        Thank you for the thoughtful response! This makes a lot of sense. It’s hard to imagine it from a different perspective, as all I know is my own. The idea of dismissal sounds terrible, but I imagine that it often has to do with the submissive failing to meeting the Dominant’s needs? Or, do Dominant’s sometimes just grow bored…. probably both, I imagine….

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        1. Thank you, Nora. If I had to work from a majority of cases, it differs heavily in F/m and M/f. In F/m it tends to be due to lapses on the sub’s part with loss of enthusiasm, lack of attention to detail, acting out, etc. This is often rooted in poor communication and occasionally a dominant that doesn’t place a priority on their sub’s mental state.

          In M/f it is most often boredom, feeling the sub is too high maintenance, or finding someone new that they like better. Again, communication and mental states come into play here in many cases.

          In my intro to F/m series one of the posts was about how there are rarely any Dommes that are seen as “bad.” When dismissals occur you will find the consensus of outside parties generally blaming the sub in F/m and the dom in M/f.

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  4. Are we talking here about being dismissed after a relationship has been in play or are we also talking about having a bit of initial online contact but nothing more, then rejection?

    I presume we are also generally talking about submissives here rather than dominants being rejected (because that happens too). I’ve been ghosted etc a number of times both on Fet and in vanilla dating. So many I forget. My response. Their loss. But that, I suppose, reflects a lot more on my personality type and my position of ‘there’s always another one around the corner’, rather than theirs. I am self-sufficient enough to know it doesn’t matter and my simple argument is that they clearly weren’t the right person for me and ‘maybe I dodged a bullet there’.

    Of course I know this is not the same for a submissive, and especially for one who has already found what they thought was THE relationship and then they are dismissed. I think I would find it hard to dismiss someone after starting something serious with them, but then I wouldn’t take getting into a relationship of this kind, lightly by any means.

    The downside to me is that I can be having several conversations at once with ‘potentials’ and then someone really really special comes along out of the blue and suddenly everyone else is an afterthought. I am afraid that comes from getting so many messagess that you become hardened to the process, and the games that so many subs seem to play online, that you become very casual about picking up and leaving off potential suitors. I don’t doubt some reading this will think ‘what a bitch’.

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    1. Thank you, DomIP. I tend to see rejection as happening before things have evolved into something serious. First contact, courting, early stages, etc.

      From my conversations with others, subs tend to ghost when things are getting more real, while subs being rejected tends to happen before things get real.

      In F/m in most cases, the power to dismiss and reject falls solely with the Domme as they are the ones with options, leverage, etc. I’m not sure if my brain is making sense tonight.

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    1. I believe they are currently at a distance so I’m not sure that option would be available to her, although selling him would be quite the favor to him since it would save him from having to go through the arduous process of finding someone else.

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