Why your man struggles to take the lead in your relationship or D/s Dynamic

If you’ve ever looked at the man you love and thought, why won’t he just take charge, I want to help you see what’s really happening underneath that question. I hear it often, especially from women who are awake, capable, and craving something deeper in their relationships. They don’t want to control their men. They want to trust them. They want to exhale.

But most men are carrying a very different fear. They want to lead. They feel the desire for it in their bones. And yet when the moment comes to actually step forward, something inside of them locks up. It’s not laziness. It’s not disinterest. It’s an internal conflict between love and fear. Between wanting to be trusted and being terrified of doing harm.

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The ache beneath the question

When a woman says, why won’t he just lead, what she’s really saying is, I’m tired. Not tired like I need a nap...tired in her soul. She’s been the one holding the plans, the emotions, the future, the small daily details that make life work. She’s strong, but that strength has turned into a prison. What she’s aching for isn’t control, it’s relief.

She wants to feel safe enough to stop managing. Safe enough to put it all down and trust that things will still be okay. But beneath that longing lives a deeper fear. The fear that if she lets go, she’ll get hurt. If she trusts, she’ll be disappointed. If she submits, she’ll disappear.

So she keeps control close, even though it’s exhausting. Control is her nervous system’s way of saying, I’m scared. It’s how she’s learned to survive. And survival has a very different energy than freedom.

Why leadership feels dangerous to him

From the outside, he can look soft, passive, maybe even indifferent. Inside, he’s conflicted. Most men were raised to equate being good with being harmless. Don’t be too much. Don’t make waves. Don’t be controlling. Be nice. Be agreeable.

What that training does is disconnect a man from his natural power. He learns that leadership, especially masculine leadership, hurts people. He sees what domination without love looks like (because he was hurt by it too), and he vows never to become that. So instead of embodying power, he suppresses it.

When that man grows up and falls in love, he carries that old vow inside of him. He loves his woman deeply, and the last thing he wants is to hurt her. So when she asks him to take the lead, his heart wants to, but his nervous system remembers the pain. It equates authority with danger.

That’s why he hesitates. That’s why he overthinks. That’s why he agrees when he doesn’t mean it. He’s not refusing to lead; he’s protecting you from a version of himself he swore would never exist.

Leadership isn’t something he does. It’s something he is

When a man realizes his woman wants leadership, his first instinct is to perform it. He starts doing more, saying more, deciding more. But underneath, he still doesn’t feel safe in his power, and she can feel that. Women always feel it.

Leadership isn’t about how loudly he speaks or how decisively he moves. It’s about the congruence between his words and his energy. It’s about presence. It’s about the stillness that doesn’t collapse when life gets messy.

A woman’s body doesn’t respond to performance. It responds to truth. When his energy says, I’m not sure, her body can’t relax, no matter how good his words sound. Real leadership begins when he stops trying to prove he’s a leader and starts becoming the kind of man whose calm is real.

The mirror neither of them see

Here’s the part that changes everything: her struggle to let go and his struggle to lead are the same fear wearing two faces.

Her fear says, if I let go, I’ll get hurt. 

His fear says, if I lead, I’ll hurt someone. 

So she over-functions. He under-functions. She manages everything. He hesitates. The more she steps up, the smaller he feels. The smaller he feels, the more she has to step up. It’s a perfect feedback loop of fear masquerading as love.

Neither is wrong. Both are protecting themselves. But real healing begins when each person starts doing their own work. He builds trust by facing the part of himself that’s afraid of being powerful. She builds trust by facing the part of herself that’s afraid of not being in control.

He learns to stay. She learns to soften. And the polarity between them begins to breathe again.

Control and dominance are not the same thing

Control comes from fear. Dominance comes from clarity. Control tightens everything around it. Dominance opens everything it touches.

Control says, do what I say so I can feel safe. 

Dominance says, I’ve got this so you can feel safe. 

When he’s controlling, her body contracts. When he’s dominant, her body exhales. Because control is about him. Dominance is about both of them.

True dominance isn’t loud. It isn’t about hierarchy or ego. It’s direction rooted in love. It’s leadership that protects, guides, and holds. His clarity gives her permission to let go. His steadiness gives her chaos somewhere safe to move.

When he hasn’t yet done his work

When a man hasn’t faced his pain, his leadership becomes a way to avoid it. His dominance becomes control dressed up as confidence. He makes rules to manage outcomes. He punishes disobedience instead of holding space. He uses authority to feel powerful because he doesn’t feel powerful inside.

This isn’t evil, it’s human. But it’s still dangerous. Because until a man has integrated his own shadow, his power will always come with a cost. He’ll look for validation instead of responsibility. He’ll use her obedience to soothe his insecurity.

Unhealed power tries to prove. Healed power serves.

Unhealed power demands compliance. Healed power invites surrender.

Every man has to face his own pain before he can safely hold anyone else’s.

What it looks like when he’s ready

When a man has done his work, you feel it before he speaks. His eyes are steady. His voice carries warmth and direction. He moves slower, but when he moves, you trust it.

He doesn’t avoid emotion, he meets it. He doesn’t collapse when you’re upset, he stays steady. His presence becomes the anchor that steadies the entire relationship.

He doesn’t lead to prove his worth. He leads because it’s who he is now. And when that happens, something shifts in her body. She stops managing. She stops bracing. She relaxes. Her surrender is no longer an act of willpower; it’s an instinctive response to truth.

That is the moment every woman longs for, the one where her body finally believes it’s safe to let go.

What women can do in the meantime

You can’t make him lead. You can only make it safe for leadership to arise. That begins by ending the habit of managing him. Coaching him, correcting him, directing him...all of that reinforces his belief that he can’t do it.

Instead, practice softening. Take a breath before you speak. Let silence stretch for a second before you give input. Notice small moments when he takes initiative and let yourself respond to them with appreciation. That is how men learn it’s safe to lead again.

Appreciation isn’t manipulation, it’s medicine. It tells his body, you did something right. And over time, those moments become momentum.

Keep doing your own work too. Ask where you still confuse surrender with weakness. Ask where you hold tension that no one told you you could release. The more you inhabit your own peace, the easier it becomes for him to meet you there.

Some men will rise. Some will not. That isn’t your job to control. Your only work is to become the space where real leadership could exist.

The long practice

This isn’t quick. There’s no five-step formula that makes a man embody presence. It takes time, devotion, and humility on both sides. Dawn and I have been walking this path for years, and we still get it wrong. We still find ourselves in the loop, her bracing, me hesitating, but we catch it faster now. We recover faster. Because devotion has become our baseline.

He’s not refusing to lead. He’s remembering how. And you’re not too much. You’re remembering how to trust. Inside him is a scared boy who learned that power destroys love. Inside you is a scared girl who learned that letting go leads to pain. Both want the same thing, to feel safe in love.

Leadership and surrender are not opposites. They are the same current expressed through two different bodies. Presence and trust. Power and peace.

When you both remember that, the entire relationship changes.

If this resonated, there’s more in the full episode, more texture, more story, more nuance.

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Take what speaks to you. Leave what doesn’t. And keep showing up for love.