Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Realities of Life

So it has been a little while....apparently blogging is harder to navigate with real life than I thought! Which leads me to my topic today of balancing what we do with the realities of life.  Being in a FLR simplifies things in many respects- it provides defined roles and expectations, and an open acknowledgment of who makes decisions.  It takes out a lot of the back and forth or use of emotional means of securing what you want anyway.  When everything runs smoothly and everyone is on the same page about the path, it is relatively easy to live this lifestyle.

What is much harder, though, is to navigate this path when life intervenes.  Either in the form of outside sources or influences like work crises or third party personal relationships, or just sometimes when you as a leader are wrong about a decision.  We had some things arise over the last few weeks that I struggle very much with how to balance in this new path.  I know that many people who have lived this lifestyle for awhile probably know exactly how to handle these issues or are comfortable with just saying the female is in charge and that is that.  That is not a place I am at yet.

My husband had a work crisis a few weeks ago that was very emotionally difficult.  It led to him feel unsettled, concerned and raised some old emotional ghosts for him, which then impacted our communications and interactions.  There were things we agreed to that went by the way side and I struggled to figure out whether he needed me to be more dominant or more sympathetic.  I understand conceptually they are not mutually exclusive, but when you are dealing with a human being who is hurting about things outside of your control, it is difficult to then inflict a punishment for a transgression in your agreement--even though it is exactly what you would have done in different circumstances.

I wasn't sure if what he needed was for me to just take control and enforce what we agreed however small or give him a break.  As anyone who has read this knows, I struggle with balance all of the time.  And this is particularly difficult because it involves things outside of us that nonetheless impact us.  I ultimately gave him a break on some things but then tried to get us back to our path when the dust settled a little.  But even in that, he reacted badly to a small order/decision I made that I thought was inconsequential and ended up being very upset over it.  I think it mostly had to do with what was going on around us, but then it made me feel like maybe this only works when it is easy.  It led to an internal debate that him reacting badly or me offering leniency somehow means I have not been the leader I promised I would be.  Or that I have built in some escape hatch when life gets difficult.

Have any of you lived through that? How have you handled it? Did you want more or less control? Or did you take more control or allow for some leniency?

The reality is this type of lifestyle cannot be turned on and off if it is to be meaningful.  But it also is not linear at all.  In fact, each day brings some challenge that in some way or another either reinforces or undermines this choice.  I want to lead in the best way that I can, and I believe sometimes that requires leniency.  But I worry about the confusion that brings or it sliding into a situation where there is always an excuse for why things were not what we agreed.

It is difficult to lead and to feel that the choices you make are really in everyone's best interest.  I have read that when you assume control, your path is simply the right choice because it is what you think.  But that feels oversimplified to me because I am not always sure what is right.  I do not know if that is something that gets easier with time or practice, or if it is always something that plagues females who lead.  Do you ever feel entirely comfortable that you make the right choice all the time?

What about in the circumstance when you perhaps admit you did not make the best objective choice? I was upset about something last night that was probably overblown and based almost entirely on an unrelated outside influence.  I also did a poor job of identifying that I was upset in the moment rather than over a span of several days, which he thought, and felt to him like a shifting expectation or trap. We did not completely escalate into a fight, but it was clear he disagreed with me.  In the end, I also realized the position I took may have been slightly unfair or related to things in our past that I have not let go of as much as I should.  I think he struggles too because he can be truthful with me about how he feels about something, but if I read something else into it (either fairly or unfairly), there is not much he can say to convince me otherwise.  It is kind of the trap of this type of lifestyle too- you demand honesty, which he gives, but then you are in charge so you can still say it is not enough or the right answer.  Which feels unfair, admittedly, but I am only human too.   Do the female leaders just always get to be right?

I cannot really live in a relationship where his opinion simply does not matter or that I do not take his disagreement into account, but it also feels like that can lead to a shift away from real female leadership.  If you have experienced this (from either side), I would love to hear how you handle these types of issues; what works or does not work; and what you would want your partner to do.

15 comments:

  1. Mistress Rhiannon,

    The art of good leadership is a complex and difficult skill to master. In my experience good leaders have a general predisposition to being a leader, but need time to develop and gain experience. I was fortunate to have been trained formally in leadership from a reasonably young age and have led teams in the workplace since I started working. I still lead a sizeable team. I have found that a number of men living as the submissive partner in a relationship occupy a position of power in their work life.

    Interestingly the first thing I was taught was that in order to be a good leader, you need to understand how to be a good follower. This taught me about acceptance of decisions, team work and how to voice concerns in a way that doesn't undermine the authority of the leader. In understanding how to follow, when you take on a leadership role you then innately understand the potential impacts of the decisions that you make. This might also be why we find strong mature women who are good leaders because they learnt how to be good followers.

    The second thing we were taught was that you are better to make a decision, even if it turns out to be wrong than to not make a decision at all. Being decisive is one aspect of good leadership. Understanding this gives you great confidence to always make a decision. Dithering leaders do not engender this confidence nor obtain obedience. No one that I know would consciously seek to make a bad decision. They do occur but generally because the amount of information available at the time was insufficient to form a better plan. Good leaders also learn from these mistakes and never repeat them. They also acknowledge and own their errors. You don't have to apologise for making an error, nobody is perfect and no one has all of the answers. We look to our leaders to weigh the facts and make a decision, when that occurs we follow.

    The third element of good leadership is that the style of leadership to be used depends upon the situation. The concept of ‘felt’ or ‘situational’ leadership was ingrained into me during training. Authoritative leadership has a time and place, the dispensing of fair punishment also has a place. Equally consultative leadership has a time and place. Good leaders learn the difference and know what is generally appropriate. What ever the style adopted ultimately the leader must make and own the decision.

    Good leaders develop in their followers a strong sense of loyalty and trust. They need to earn the right to lead. Leaders need to be humble, reflective and kind. Anyone can be a dictator. Leadership through the exercise of direct power or force is not true leadership and will ultimately fail.

    I'm not sure if this answers any questions for you, but if you are going to lead in your relationship then you must have the confidence in yourself to know that you must ultimately make the decision. Leadership is never easy but we can all identify a good leader when we see them. Draw on your experience of good leaders in your life, know that you have the trust and loyalty of your husband. Lead him wisely and he will follow you to the end of the earth. DtBHC.

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    1. Thanks so much, DtBHC. This is really insightful and I appreciate the clarity of the three elements. It is really a great way to look at this and an excellent how to!

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  2. Thank for such a great post. I love the way you write. It is so personal that it feels like you are in my home and we are just two people talking about our families.

    We have been at this for about ten years. Some my choices have not been the best. In a way it doesn't always matter. As long as your husband understands you love him, he will appreciate the sacrifices you are making. I believe it is important to listen. At the end of the day it is equally important for him to understand that the final decision is yours. There have been times when I have had to remind my husband that besides being his wife I am his mistress. Good mood or bad mood I expect him to respect me as such. One of those times was only a couple of weeks ago.

    At one time I made the decision to stay out of all issues involving my husband's career. This proved impossible because what happens at work effects what happens in our home. One of my friends tried to make a rule that what happens at work stays at work. This is good in theory, but the reality is that work intrudes on our every day lives.

    There are also real limits to how well a man will react to your authority. It took some time, but my husband understands that just because things went wrong at work, it doesn't mean he can do as he likes as home. There have also been times when corner time has actually improved his attitude. There have been times when I asked him directly if he still loved me, and if he still wanted me to be his mistress. The answer to both of those questions has always been yes. My follow up is generally something like 'then do as you are told'. Reminding my husband who is in charge has been a way of calming him. From what I hear some men need kind of a spanking. With John I can accomplish a great deal with just the sound of my voice.



    Love your blog.

    Kathy

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  3. Thanks, Kathy! I think that is really helpful advice with respect to balancing career and home time, and also using this as an opportunity to help when maybe he needs some guidance in the form of control.

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  4. It is also absolutely true that he has to respect the choice to have a mistress wife. I certainly need to get better about remembering that myself.

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  5. One reason a relationship that includes the sustained power exchange of a FLR is rewarding is that the exchange is a form of intimacy that can be extended for longer than, and far beyond, the bedroom. When someone is experiencing emotionally challenging/stressful situations like your husband has with his work, it probably wouldn't surprise you that he is "not in the mood" for traditional intimacy. He's used up his emotional capacity on the work issues and expended his emotional resilience. The same is likely true for the power exchange intimacy.

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  6. I really like DiBHC's observations on ‘felt’ or ‘situational’ leadership, authoritative leadership, and consultative leadership. I suspect that "felt" leadership is something that comes naturally, or doesn't, but that can be improved over time. Trusting yourself to figure out which style applies in a given circumstance. While I do believe that people have different innate levels of leadership ability, molding that natural ability takes time and experience.

    As does submission. You have to learn to be a leader, and some of have to learn to be followers.

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  7. I think there are two types of dominant and submissive relationships.

    One is based on abuse, and the dominant simply enforces her or his will without regard to the submissive's state of mind.

    In the other, dominance and submission is another way to express love and intimacy. In this type of relationship, life intrudes. For example, sometimes I am driven crazy with desire for my wife and other times I am not even though it has been many weeks since my last release.

    I think that both people need to see their relationship in the context of both their lives. Sometimes dominance needs to be relaxed, sometimes submission needs to be relaxed.

    Perhaps for your husband in this time a hug and cuddling would have been right, perhaps some dominance. Communication is even more important, I think when we expose ourselves to these roles than when we wrap our relationships in conventional forms.

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  8. It's entirely too easy to fall into the trap that your roles are absolute and not dependent on circumstances. I spent a decade as a "master" owning a 24/7 slave. Her choice of terms and lifestyle. In that case, she wanted the comfort of my absolute authority. The simple fact is that I had work, finances, and other normal life pressures. So did she.

    Even in that much stricter context it was very clear to me that decisions need to be made that are more important than the power exchange. Like it or not, we had to act and decide together We each needed that for our own mental health.

    I'm currently in a somewhat reversed role with my wife. But even from the bottom side, it is no different. Any relationship regardless of the agreed power dynamic will have trouble surviving if that dynamic takes precedence over life. So many "internet" FLM/R people claim it is critical that you maintain your authority, make every decision, provide the pain, etc. regardless of what is going on.

    Please! Your relationship is between two people with vanilla needs and pressures. The FLR agreement you have will still be there after you take some time to work out the important issues ac partners first.

    The most important thing I ever learned about power exchange is that the submissive side of the exchange has to step up and do what is needed when the going gets tough. Same for you. Your role may be to make all decisions and tease and torture your boy. But it's a role, not everything.

    You and he remain partners. You choose to exchange power on a full time basis. I get that. But sometimes "full time" doesn't mean all the time; it means when you both can afford the luxury of that sort of relationship. It sounds like right now you need to pull together.

    One other thing. You don't have to make the correct decision every time. If you are right more than half the time, you are doing a good job.

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  9. Welcome back. Great post and great comments. Kathy is right we men chose to obey our wives; for me that choice was and is unconditional. I appreciate that it is hard to impose your rule when your partner is hurting but sometimes that is exactly what is needed.

    There are times I get into a 'mood', more accurately there are times 'moods' seem to settle on me. I know Elaine struggles to be tough at those times, but being ordered over her knee and spanked is surprisingly a great help. as Kathy suggests, it calms me down.

    Tony

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  10. Lady Rhiannon

    What say Kathy is so true.
    Your post shows that you are really listening to your husband. Your FLR live as long as you will continue.
    For my part, I always try to never bring home my stress of work. It's hard but I do.
    I know my dominant wife does not tolerate that. When this happens she is uncompromising. Knowing that I do not anymore.
    My wife guess my feelings and asks me if I want to talk about it. But I have never come home with my bad mood.
    That this is how we live our FLR.
    I love my goddess.

    Dominick (a French reader)

    (Sorry for my bad English ...)

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  11. Ms Rhiannon, A very good post and Ms Kathy and DtBHC had really good comments.
    I was taught well in the Marines that the only truely bad decision is one not made. No one makes the right decision all the time, but a decision made can be modified and adapted as needed.
    Be confident in your decisions but, always be ready to admit you may need to make a change or adaptation. I give my wife my opinion, details that I am more expert on and all the help I can in making her decision. We discuss things, she values my input. Like Ms Kathy said, at the end of the day it is her decision that we move forward on. She is a loving leader not a dictator or micromanager.
    I agree this life can not be turned on and off if it is to be real. Life and things can not get in the way of FLR any more than another style of relationship. Life is just life with its good and bad no matter who is in charge. Just in this style it is the woman who is in charge. Having a mistress/wife I am content that she will make the best decision at the end of the day for our family.
    I know when things seem to go wrong, she steps up her control and it calms me. Is that difficult at times for her? Probably. But she does it out of love for me and us.
    We men, or at least myself, need to feel that control when things seem to unravel. It calms us with a feeling of love and security.

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  12. I can empathise with the way your husband behaved when he was under stress as I behave in the same way. We've been working at our FLR for several years now and it ebbs and flows - largely because of outside influences.
    At times I find it difficult to cope with the stresses of work then going home to Mistress' domination, which in turn puts our FLR under stress too. Mistress finds it difficult to assert her dominance when she is under stress from work too. It really takes a lot of effort to live a FLR.
    I actually think it would help if Mistress ramped up her domination when I'm struggling becasue it would allow me the focus 100% on her and forget the work element while at home. But putting that into action is never as easy as it sounds.
    I agree with others here, the lifestyle should be turned on and off if it is to be real, but we've realised that there are times when one or both of us needs space. At times we become quite vanilla (for want of a better word) but what we've realised is that these are only short periods of time and we quickly drop back into our FLR - which tends to suggest to me that it works for us.
    I read a lot about FLRs and it seems to me that everyone goes through similar ups and downs, which is how most relationships are - except the FLR somehow brings a much greater focus to the relationship. At least, it does for us.

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  13. I can fully agree with just about everything that has been said here; the comments have been well thought out and are helpful.

    I find that when I am stressed through work a good hard spanking really helps. My problem is that Mistress doesn't always pick up on the fact I'm stressed, this is of course my fault as I try to hide it. There are no easy answers here, I can only add that when Mistress picks up I am stressed I am forced to talk it through, then sometimes She eases up because that what She perseves I need. Other times She gets stricter. I think on balance the stricter spanking way sorts me out a lot faster. I love Her for taking the time and trouble to care for me.
    Regards
    m

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  14. Miss Rhiannon,

    May we hear from you soon. We miss you.

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