BionicPears wrote: ↑3 years ago But it feels like he doesn't really care about the ddlg lifestyle anymore. He says he's still my daddy and that he always wants to be, but he doesn't try to start anything anymore or get me into little space. I've been talking to him about how much it hurts me for months, but nothing's changed. Part of me just wants to give up and put all my stuffies away and never bring it up again, but the thought of it always makes me cry. This is who I am. It's a part of me and apart of the way I live my life. I don't know what to do. He says that I need to start things more and try harder, but when I do, he doesn't really try to fully interact back with it and I get hurt and embarrassed.
Perhaps you’ll need to reframe the situation to yourself.
It isn’t a Daddy’s job to get you to feel little or regress. It really isn’t. Caregivers don’t make Littles little, but they enjoy these expressions since it partners well with their expressions. When partnered, it’s their preference to care for and about you, even when you’re feeling little. While they may love you to be regressed and needy, it simply isn’t natural to pressure you into that state. That’s just not truly realistic, and is more fantasy roleplay than something that can exist as a constant. Roleplay and fantasy can be fun to do sometimes but you can’t fall into believing they can take the place of reality. Maybe you two use to roleplay more but don’t as much any more because he’s seeking the reality of
just being with you and enjoying what naturally occurs.
It’s also extremely important to understand that the Caregiver identity is also a personality trait just like being a little is. It isn’t a job or a part in a play.
So, maybe your Daddy is phrasing things in a way so that you realize that. It isnt your job to make him feel parental. It isn’t his job to make you feel regressive. These traits are naturally present, and you two will interact when it naturally feels right to both of you when you’re both feeling like expressing these parts of yourselves.
In the meantime, you can be Little without pressuring him to engage in it with you. You can be happy just being yourself, and you have the bonus of extra freedom at home since your partner accepts that you’re quite childish at times. Perhaps this change would reaffirm to him that you are who you are and who he fell in love with.
Take a step back. If you’re a Little then you don’t need him to make you be or feel little. Placing him in the position of making you be who you are does not make sense.
I’m a Mommy. I love how my partners are naturally little, fluctuating in level, throughout each day. I love when my partners regress more deeply because I can show them even more how much I love them by caring for them in very maternal ways too. But if I always had to “put” them “into littlespace” /deeper regression then I’m not as interested. Why? Because I want our partnership to be genuine and not pressure them into this role or that role. I want these things to naturally occur as they do. I want them to genuinely feel the need to express their need for me instead of being “put” into a place where they’re just expected to. If they’re not feeling particularly regressive then pressuring them to feel that ways is just asking them to potentially “fake it” for my amusement. That’s just not appealing to me.
A parent’s job isn’t to put a child in a space of being imaginative or playful. The child does these things because that’s where they’re are at in developmental psychology.
So, try to reframe the idea that he should be making you be you. You perceiving him as not initiating your regression or intentionally furthering it doesn’t mean anything in reality.
Care comes in different forms. Sometimes trying to look for the way someone cares about and for you can help see them in a better light. This could mean nitpicking in effort to find positivity.
Having a relationship commitment means choosing to prioritize the other person. It means liking and loving them with conscious effort. Humans change, as do our interests and preferences. What was our favorite color 10 years ago may not be our favorite any more. Relationships are a lot bigger than a color preference! So, of course, this same concept applies to our preferences in people. What I’m getting to is that you must choose to like your partner, and choose to think positively and highly of them so that you maintain being interested in them. Inevitably, you will change, but you have to make effort to see why you can like, appreciate, and love your partner for who they are, naturally.
You’ve made it clear to your partner that you want him to be parental with you. Try to see efforts he makes. Trying counts, even if it’s a failure. The thought he puts in counts. The small things count, even if you wish they were bigger, deeper, more intense, or more elaborate. Open your eyes to him. Intentionally try to see what he
does do, no matter how small, instead of focusing in on what he doesn’t do.
Reframe how you think. He isn’t asking you to give your expressions up. He’s telling you that he can’t make you be yourself just like you can’t make him feel like himself.
After all, there’s no harm in just being who you are and doing what you do while being open to him jumping in and participating in more ways you’d prefer. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. You can
just be and enjoy
being.
Enjoy walking your path together