I would relish the thought of having a D/s relationship which involves more than just the bedroom play aspect of it.
But then again I am still trying to work on the r/l bedroom part, which is sometimes a painfully slow and complex situation. I highly doubt that I will ever make it to more than what I have now, but I am patient enough,

I did try the o/l route to scratch an itch so to speak, and it went horribly wrong. The dynamics and compatibility were there, but I soon found out that I had many deep seeded issues, both personal and other as well.
I could not continue. I had to start really thinking about what is was that I wanted and analyizing everything I came up with.

While I agree with everyone that relationships both Vanilla and D/s are essentially the same, by reading and talking with others, I find that a r/l D/s may differ just a little because of the intensity of emotions that it can involve.

With online, you can shut off your computer and move easily into your normal everyday routines. With r/l you cannot shut it down, and it is always constantly there.

So IMO, and also seeing that an online experience made me think a little bit more, I would probably find it a little difficult to move into a r/l D/s realtionship and would think very hard about what I expected, wanted, and what I would be willing to give. And I would be expecting a lot of communication in the beginning between both parties, because I expect that there would be a lot of things pop up that were not expected and best to deal with them before the emotional ties become harder to break.

Sorry that was so longwinded, but thanks Lily for doing this thread, it was kind of therapuetic for me.

And congratulations on your new relationship.