My husband & I have just recently begun to actively explore a D/s relationship. I have had an interest in this area for years, and we have occasionally incorporated it into our sex life, but not in any major or consistent way. We have had several scenes in the last few months, mostly fairly mild, which is fine, considering that we're both new to this. Slow and safe is better, right?

My problem is this. My husband has a pinched nerve in his back that sometimes flares up & causes severe pain. We were in the middle of a scene, one of the first times I truly felt as if he were dominating/commanding me, and I believe it may have been the first time I actually reached subspace, when he had to stop because of the pain.

This really threw me for a loop. Not that I wanted him to keep going if he was hurting, but the fact that he hurt himself doing something that I wanted, (I am much more into the D/s thing than he is) caused me such an awful attack of guilt that I spent the next hour or so sobbing like my heart was broken. He was very kind & reassuring, held me and petted me, even told me that it wasn't pain that made him stop, he just couldn't maintain that position. I heard his words, but the sense of it didn't really reach me at that moment. I think that having let go of control that much was what caused me to overreact to what was really a simple incident, not a major crises. However, speaking for myself, it seems to be harder for me now to let go like that again. It also seems to me that he has not been as dominant during sex since then. We have discussed what happened, and came up with a "battle plan" should it happen again, but I feel like we're both holding back now. I'm not sure how to get us past this. Anyone have any advice?