What Is Left?

We spend a lot of time together when we are free to do so. We enjoy each other’s company. We have fun. When we are free she does what she wants, and I do what I want to a certain extent. For example, she does not restrict my Internet access to any site or to any time or length of time. She lets me do my work at my pace and my convenience, for she knows that all will be done. She does not want to be in charge, she just prefers to have her way since I make it possible.
 
She is not throwing crumbs at me as gifts, a-la-Rika. But that goes much deeper. I miss our all-inclusive FLR of a short three years ago. What we have left is like a former priceless work of art displayed on a pedestal. At some point it fell and shattered. We could put some of the pieces together and the result would be a reasonable approximation of the original. However, with the small pieces missing or beyond repair, the result would never be as good. Erosion succumbs to entropy. The longer we wait, the less chance there is of finding the crucial pieces that would make things work.
 
It’s not that we could not still have fantastic sex without resuming the old customs. Even vanilla people, whom we have become sexually, can have that. During our best days she was satisfied with occasional sex, whereas I was driven by it daily. I never insisted, never gave her a hard time about our differences. She knew how I felt and we often joked about it.
 
I said earlier that I have some guesses about her view of things. At first she was regretful about not being able to have penetrating sex. Then she began to feel guilty, which transferred to any other kind of sex that we used to have. She was waiting until she was perfect again to try. With her, perfection is in everything she does. If it is not perfect, she abandons it. Later on she could not decide how to resume any of the old activities, and that just added to her regret and guilt. Now she is embarrassed about beginning anything related to sex. We talk freely, never fight, and don’t even have an argument. If I don’t agree with something I say so, and take it no further. We don’t talk about sex. I don’t want to cause her stress over it, and she does not bring it up for the reasons I guess and explain here.
 
The years of joy we have missed weigh on my mind. Someone young can begin anew and then get over it. Alas, we are not in a position to do so. We have what we have, and go with it. We can choose to make the best of it, or maintain status quo. One of the commenters on the previous post guesses that ours may be a “service oriented vanilla” relationship. I think he is right. Until three years ago we were fully in an FLR with a fair amount of sex and D/S, as you can read on my early posts. Lately, however, the formal D/S and the sex components have been on hold. I am not sure where we are heading with this.