You're about to bring dominance and submission into your relationship.

Maybe one of you has been fantasizing about this for years and finally worked up the courage to say something. Maybe you both discovered this together and you're excited to explore it. Maybe she came to you and said she wants you to be her Dominant, and you have no idea what that actually means.

However you got here, you're standing at the beginning of something that could transform your relationship.

Or it could crash and burn in the first few months.

I'm Andrew, and I've been living in a 24/7 Dominant/submissive dynamic with my wife Dawn for seven years now. Before that, we were together for a decade as a vanilla couple. We brought D/s into our marriage after eight years of being married, and it's been one of the most challenging and rewarding things we've ever done together.

For the last five years, I've been teaching and coaching thousands of people through this exact transition. I've seen what works, what doesn't, and what separates the couples who build something real from the ones who give up after a few months.

These ten tips are what I wish someone had told us when we started. They're based on our experience, on the mistakes we made, and on what I've learned from working with hundreds of couples who are navigating this same path.

Whether you're brand new to D/s or you've been trying to make this work and something just isn't clicking, these tips will help you build something real.

Tip 1: One Person Always Wants It More (And That Creates Problems)

In almost every relationship where D/s is being introduced, one person is more into this than the other.

One of you has been thinking about this for years. You've read the books, consumed the content, fantasized endlessly about what this could be like. You're ready to dive in, try everything, go all the way right now.

The other person? They're just trying to keep up.

Maybe they said yes because they love you and want to make you happy. Maybe they're genuinely curious but have no idea what they're getting into. Maybe they're terrified they're not going to be good enough at this thing they didn't even know existed until recently.

This imbalance is one of the biggest challenges you'll face, and if you don't address it, it will undermine everything you're trying to build.

If You're the One Who Wants This More

You need to let go of your expectations, your comparisons, and your fantasies.

That perfect scene you've been replaying in your head? That's not going to happen. Not right away, and maybe not ever in exactly that form.

You're not dealing with a fantasy anymore. You're dealing with another human being who probably doesn't even understand half of what you're talking about yet.

Your neediness is your flaw here. Not their slowness. Not their hesitation. Your impatience.

The fantasy has to be let go of if you want something real. The reality of these relationships is better than the fantasy, but only if you're willing to be present with the actual person in front of you instead of the version you've been imagining.

If You're the One Coming Along

You're going to need to let go of feeling like you're the problem.

You're not. You're learning something entirely new, and that takes time. But you also can't let fear run the show.

Fear will keep you stuck in your head. It will keep you performing instead of experiencing. It will keep you doing what you think you're supposed to do instead of connecting with what you actually want.

Feeling pressured, feeling like you have to do this to please your partner or they'll leave you, feeling like you're not good enough. All of that is going to poison your ability to actually be present and find out what this could be like for you.

The Solution

You both have to surrender to the reality of the human being in front of you.

Not the fantasy version. Not the "should be" version. The real person, with all their limitations and all their potential.

Your fantasies and your fears are what's getting in the way. Be with the human being right there, and then you can actually have something real.

Tip 2: The submissive Cannot Lead the Dominant

This tip is specifically for the relationships where the woman wanted to be submissive and brought this to her partner. In my experience, this is how it happens in 80-90% of the couples I work with.

If this is your situation, listen closely: you cannot lead your leader into leading you.

I know you have a vision of how you want him to dominate you. I know you've been fantasizing about this, probably for longer than he has. I know exactly what you want it to feel like, what you want him to say, the tone of voice he should use.

But here's the thing: if you're trying to control him into dominating you the way you think he should, he's not actually your Dominant. He's your submissive, dancing on your string.

You Have to Submit to the Man He Actually Is

Not the fantasy version in your head. Not the Dominant from your romance novels or your favorite erotic story.

The man standing in front of you, who probably has no idea what he's doing, who's learning this as he goes, who's going to get it wrong sometimes.

You have to submit to him, not to your fantasy.

Yes, speak up for your needs. Yes, communicate clearly about what you want and don't want. But then you have to release your attachment to the outcome looking exactly the way you think it should.

He Needs Space to Figure This Out

He needs permission to be clumsy. To not know what he's doing. To try things that don't work. To find his own way into what dominance means for him.

Nothing becomes real in this kind of dynamic until the submissive lets go of the expectations of how he needs to dom her and lets him find his way.

That takes patience. That takes trust. That is submission.

And it's one of the hardest things you'll do, because you've been fantasizing about this and you know what you want. But you can't have something real if you're trying to control it into being exactly what you imagined.

Tip 3: Go Slow If You Want to Go Far

You're going to want it all right away.

24/7 protocols, rules for everything, rituals, the whole fantasy package. Maximum intensity, maximum frequency, all the kinks, all at once.

I get it. We did it too. You're probably going to do it whether I tell you not to or not.

But here's what I learned: if you want to go far, you have to go slow.

You Can't Unwind Years of Patterns Overnight

Dawn and I had been together for ten years before we started this. We spent that decade learning how to relate to each other in a very specific way. We learned how to avoid each other's triggers, how not to upset each other, how to keep the peace.

We had programmed ourselves with lessons about what love is, what power is, what surrender means. Years and years of unconscious patterns.

You can't erase all of that just because you decided to do something different.

Yes, start moving in a better direction. But understand that you're both going to be unwinding some really deep patterns. You're going to be facing fears that have been there your whole life. You're going directly against programming that runs deep.

Take One Thing at a Time

Start where you are. Pick one thing to work on integrating into your relationship and do that until it feels natural. Then add the next thing.

You're going to want it all right now. You're going to want maximum intensity and the whole 24/7 experience from day one.

But if you try to do everything at once, you'll burn out. Or one of you will start to resent it. Or you'll realize you built something that doesn't actually work with the realities of your life.

Go piece by piece. You'll go farther and deeper that way than if you try to sprint to the finish line and collapse three months in.

Tip 4: Build in Time to Be Human

This might be the most important ritual you can establish in a new dynamic.

Set aside time every week where you sit down together, outside of the dynamic, and talk about how things are going.

Not as Dom and sub. As equals. As partners.

What This Looks Like

Have a conversation where you step outside of the power dynamic and ask: What's working? What's not? Where is there resistance? Where do we want more? Have we bitten off more than we can chew somewhere?

If you're the Dominant, lead these conversations. Ask curious questions. Try to unearth where resistance might be hiding. Use this time to learn what's working for both of you.

If you're the submissive, this is your time to speak freely. You don't need to communicate submissively here. You don't need to worry about protocol. This is where you get to be fully honest about your experience.

Why This Matters

This does two critical things:

First, it keeps the lines of communication open. You're not bottling things up until they explode. You're not letting resentment build because one of you is afraid to speak up.

Second, it actually helps you stay in the dynamic better throughout the week. When you know you have a scheduled time to debrief and process, you don't need to constantly push pause on everything to talk about this or that. You can bring it to the weekly conversation.

Some people call this "porch time." The idea is that either person can call for it when something isn't working, like a safe word for the relationship itself. You step outside of the dynamic for a bit, work through whatever needs to be worked through, and then step back in.

Make time to be human. It will help you stay in the dynamic when you need to.

Tip 5: Have Deep Conversations Before You Write a Contract

Before you download a BDSM contract template and fill in the blanks with your kinks, stop.

Before you create a bunch of rules and rituals and protocols, pause.

Have some really deep conversations first.

What You Need to Talk About

Talk about what you both actually want out of this. Not what you think you're supposed to want. What do you actually want?

Talk about your fears. Where are you hesitant? What scares you about this?

Talk about what excites you. What are you genuinely curious about?

Talk about what you understand and what you don't. This is so important. Make sure you're both actually on the same page about what these words mean.

Why This Matters

I cannot tell you how many times I've worked with couples where one person has been using words the other person doesn't understand.

Dawn was 35 years old when we started this and didn't even know what it meant to call someone "vanilla." That's how new all of this was to her. I had been fantasizing about D/s for twenty years by that point.

The gap between where we were was massive, and I had no idea until we started actually talking about it.

So get into the really deep conversations. Talk about specific kinks you want to explore. Talk about consent and what that means to both of you. Talk about boundaries. Talk about your vision for what this could become.

Figure Out Your Why

If you're the Dominant, think about why you even want this. What's the point? What's your vision for this dynamic?

Because if your rules and rituals and protocols aren't based on some deeper purpose, they're going to burn out. They're going to feel hollow and performative.

Figure out the why before you build the how.

Tip 6: Consent Is Everything (And It's More Complex Than You Think)

Consent is not just saying yes.

Real consent is being able to say no.

Here's where this gets tricky: it's hard to truly consent when fear is in the room. It's hard to consent when people-pleasing is driving your decisions.

Fear Poisons Consent

Let's say you agree to something as a submissive because you think that's what submissives are supposed to do. Did you actually consent? Or did you abandon yourself?

Let's say you're the Dominant and she asks you to do something in a specific way, and you go along with it because you're afraid she'll be upset if you don't do it "right." Did you actually want to lead her that way? Or were you submitting to her expectations?

What if you agree to something because you're afraid your partner will leave you if you don't? Is that consent?

Fear poisons consent. People-pleasing poisons consent.

No One Gives Up Their Right to Say No

No one gives up their right to say no by entering a D/s dynamic.

You don't lose that right when you put on a collar or sign a contract.

If you're the submissive, you still get to consent or not to everything you do. Every single time. You can change your mind. You can say no to something today that you said yes to yesterday.

If you're the Dominant, you still get to say no to things that don't feel good to you, even if they're things she wants. Even if you think you "should" want to do them.

D/s Requires More Space for No, Not Less

A D/s dynamic has to make more space for no, not less.

If you can't both say no to each other easily, you don't have a D/s dynamic. You have a codependency. You have a relationship built on fear.

The D/s relationship starts after enthusiastic consent based on authentic desire.

And yes, that consent can change. Something that felt like a full-body yes yesterday might not feel that way today. You're human beings, not robots.

Build space into your dynamic for changing minds, for evolving consent, for things to feel different from one day to the next.

Tip 7: Meet Resistance with Curiosity, Not Force

You're both going to hit resistance at some point.

There will be things that feel off, that don't sit right, where something inside you says "not this, not now."

Maybe it's something you thought you wanted, but then when you actually try it, it just doesn't feel right.

Maybe it's something your partner wants but you can't quite bring yourself to go there.

Maybe it's something you were into last week, but today, for reasons you don't understand, it's a hard no.

Don't Try to Force Through Resistance

When resistance shows up, you have two choices:

You can try to force through it. Suppress it, ignore it, push it down. You can say, "But we agreed to this in the contract, so you have to."

Or you can get curious about it.

If you try to force through resistance, you're violating consent. You're creating resentment. You're making the resistance stronger, not weaker.

Nobody wins.

Learn From Resistance

But if you can let the resistance be there and get curious about why it's showing up, you can learn something.

That resistance is trying to tell you something important.

Maybe there's a wound there that needs attention. Maybe there's a fear that needs to be seen. Maybe the timing is off in some way you don't understand yet.

Be patient with resistance. Yours and your partner's.

Sometimes it takes a long time to work through. Sometimes people have resistance to things they genuinely want, but they just can't bring themselves to go there yet.

Let it be.

Having patience with resistance is actually how you move through it. It's the only way.

Tip 8: Integrate the Dynamic Into Your Whole Life

If you want to be Dominant but you spend most of your life being passive, trying to please everyone, not taking responsibility, being a martyr... what you do most of the time is going to win.

Eventually, those patterns are going to come back and infect your D/s dynamic.

If you want to be submissive but you spend your whole day needing to be in control, telling everyone what to do, not trusting, holding onto everything because you think it has to be a certain way... you can do that. But it's going to make submission really hard.

You Can't Run Two Different Operating Systems

One of the biggest challenges I hear, especially from women, is this feeling of needing to switch.

They feel like real life requires them to be in charge, in control, masculine, forceful. They think they have to be all these things to be an employee, a mother, a wife, whatever their life requires of them.

And then they want to be submissive, and they're like, "I can't switch back into that mindset. How do I switch?"

The problem isn't the switching. The problem is that you're trying to be an entirely different human being in your dynamic than you are in the rest of your life.

Those two things are going to be at odds with each other until you rectify them.

Learn to Go Through Life in the Same Energy

This doesn't mean your life has to change. You can still work. You can still be a mother. You can still do all the things you do.

But your internal state can approach them differently.

On the submissive side, this is about learning to go through life with more surrender, more trust, more patience. Not controlling everything. Not needing to be in charge of every outcome.

On the Dominant side, this is about being the person who takes care of themselves, who sets boundaries, who speaks up for what they need, who takes responsibility.

When you learn to be that person in all of your life, not just in the bedroom or during "dynamic time," everything gets easier.

You don't have to switch. You just get to be.

Tip 9: Keep Dating Each Other

Don't let the fact that you've decided to be a Dominant and submissive couple steal the fun out of your relationship.

Keep doing the things you love. Keep going out for dinner, going to movies, whatever you enjoyed doing together before this.

Dominance and submission doesn't replace being a real couple. It gets to add to it.

Let the Dynamic Enhance Your Dates

Now you're not just a couple going out for dinner. You're a Dominant taking his submissive out to dinner. Maybe there's a collar or a special piece of jewelry involved. Maybe you have a toy you can play with discreetly in public. Maybe there are little ways you bring the dynamic into the date that add excitement and energy.

Let your date nights be a playground for the dynamic.

Make Time for This

If you have kids, get a babysitter. Trade off with another couple who has kids too, where you watch theirs one week and they watch yours the next.

If you're only trying to do this after the kids go to bed, or after all the other "real life" stuff is done, it's going to fall by the wayside.

Prioritize time together. Let the fact that you continue to date each other be a part of how you make the dynamic work.

Tip 10: Just Keep Going

As I mentioned, Dawn and I have been doing this for seven years now. We've been together for 17 years total.

The way dominance and submission was for us when we started in 2018 is completely different from what it's like now in 2026.

Kids grow up. Job situations change. Living situations change. Life keeps evolving.

Work With Reality, Not Against It

One of the big frustrations people come to me with is: "How do we do this when we have little kids? When we have demanding jobs? When we have all this stuff that seems to get in the way?"

Work with it. Don't try to work against life.

The challenges you're going to face in a D/s dynamic are the same challenges you were avoiding in your vanilla relationship. How do we make time for each other? How do we keep intimacy and excitement alive when we're busy and tired?

You're not going to change those realities overnight. But your life is going to evolve.

So stick with it. Let yourself find ways to make the dynamic work with what life has for you, rather than trying to figure out how to get around life.

Let the Dynamic Evolve With Your Life

If you keep showing up for each other, if you keep working at making this as good as it can be, then as life evolves, your dynamic gets to evolve with it.

Jobs are going to change. Kids are going to grow up. Responsibilities are going to shift.

And if you're still there, still committed to this, still working at it together, you'll eventually find yourself in an entirely different world.

That's worth waiting for. It's worth working for.

Bonus Tip: How Good Can This Get?

I want to add one more thing here that wasn't in my original list.

This is a mantra that Dawn and I adopted a couple years into our dynamic, and we still use it sometimes: How good can this get?

An Antidote to Fear and Pressure

This question is an antidote to "Am I good enough?" and "Am I living up to expectations?" and "Am I fucking it all up?"

If you both adopt the mindset that you want to see how good this can get, then every challenge becomes an opportunity.

Everything that isn't working right becomes something you can look at together, side by side, and ask: What do we need to work through here so this can be as good as it can possibly be?

Face Challenges Together

When you adopt this mindset together, it changes everything.

You're not trying to be perfect. You're not trying to match some fantasy. You're not trying to measure up to some standard.

You're both just trying to make this as good as it can be, given who you are and what life throws at you.

Look at a mantra like "How good can this get?" as a way to work through challenges together and find the best possible outcome you can with whatever circumstances life gives you.

Where to Go From Here

These ten tips are based on seven years of living this, five years of teaching it, and working with thousands of people who are on this same path.

They're not theoretical. They're what actually works.

If you're just starting out, take these to heart. They'll save you from a lot of the mistakes we made.

If you've been trying to make this work and something isn't clicking, look through these tips and see if you can identify where the weak link is. Often, it's one of these foundational pieces that isn't in place yet.

And if you want to go deeper, if you want more detailed guidance on how to actually implement these things in your specific situation, we have courses, coaching, and other resources that can help.

But start here. Start with these ten tips. They'll set you up for success. 

Want to hear more? Listen to episode 115 of the Dom Sub Devotion Podcast where I go even deeper into these tips! You can listen here: https://infinitedevotion.com/podcasts/dom-sub-devotion or watch the YouTube version at: https://youtu.be/oe_imxc3mz4 

Andrew teaches dominance, submission, and conscious sexuality through the Dom Sub Devotion podcast and Infinite Devotion's courses and coaching programs. He and his wife Dawn share the lessons they've learned from seven years in a 24/7 D/s dynamic to help others build relationships based on authentic power, deep intimacy, and lasting desire.