Wow, yeah, love and BDSM is such a tricky concept. i've thought about that a lot in the past. Someone i recently told about my predilections asked (roughly) how any of us could believe that someone who would control them, own them, speak roughly (at times) to them and even hurt them...could ever love them. i have attempted to intellectualize the point for so long and so hard, but never really getting anywhere. In the end, i said i felt more loved and even..highly prized (yikes) as a sub than in any other capacity...to be loved for who i am and what i need DS wise. Having said that, that's not to say i can't also be loved for all the many other things i am, being M/s doesn't preclude you from still loving lots of other things about someone. In the end, i know this sounds irritatingly simple...but it's just a different kind of love, but it doesn't mean it's any less pure or doesn't inherantly contain all other kinds of love within it, i just believe that if anything, it's intensified by feelings of protection, ownership, a desire to please (on either side, actually) and giving someone what they really need..and far from taking anything away from it, it only serves to add to it.

As for guilt, all i'd say is this - firstly, everything i just said above and accepting that it's a different but no less important kind of love should go some way to helping, secondly, even being 24/7, doesn't, IMHO, prevent you from enjoying the other parts you enjoyed before (humour, fun, conversation etc).

Probably makes no sense, but that's my take on it all the same.

Hope it all goes well for you.

sl