On the airplane.
The lady sitting next to me on the way back here, the flight attendant gave her the little bag of snacks.
She's like, oh thank you.
I'm so hungry.
She's like this flight attendant was from Ireland.
She's like raised in Ireland and like a bright red hair and green eyes like the whole like she was just like your caricature.
I don't know what Ireland is but of an Irish girl and not much of the accent but yeah, she was pretty funny.
Your microphone.
Hi buddy.
Ok.
Ok.
Is it just you and me having a talk? You look very pretty.
Thank you, sir.
I'm really proud of how you put yourself together for this for me.
Thank you, sir.
You know if I took that camera down a little bit and lifted this dress up a little bit.
This would be a very different video.
Yeah.
Hi Princess.
Hi sir.
Today we are gonna talk about love in our dominant, submissive relationship and really how it's impacted and changed our marriage and also how each of us settling into these roles has made our marriage better and more loving, more kind, more fulfilling, more fulfilling really for both of us.
And you know, I know that goes against a lot of the the cultural misunderstandings of what dominance and submission is like the fulfilling and kindness and loving aren't what people expect.
Because if you go Google Dom Sub, you know, you see the the memes and the pictures of stern looking men who are always in suits, usually black and white with some desperate looking helpless girl who's like begging for some to get some self worth from this like broken insecure man, right? And it doesn't paint a picture of love at all.
And really, that's what we try to do here in part is to display the love that this relationship dynamic has really brought us into and why I love sharing our love with the world.
Yeah.
And I just want to say this that if you took off the labels of dominance and submission and I took off my collar, our relationship is still what it is without the labels, the color, whatever, but um those have its own unique like meanings and purposes for us, right? And so it really requires a person to set aside their own belief systems around.
What does this word mean? And what does that caller mean? And actually look at the relationship and the people and what makes it so great? Like that's the important aspect.
Yeah.
The it's a really good point because the way that we relate to each other is because of the people that we are not because of the roles that we play.
Exactly.
And not because we are dom and sub, right.
It's like the other way around because we're the people that we are.
And because of how much we love each other when we put our, each of ourselves into the role of me, of the dominant you, of the submissive.
Now we have a way to actively practice and show up for each other in a way that supports the kind of love that we want to have.
Yeah.
And it's been through this journey for me of turning the mirror on myself and really looking at my own patterns and who I was showing up at as and what I was bringing to the table where it was like, oh man, this is not quite um what I, what I wanna give like it, it I wasn't showing up as my best even though I thought I was, you were showing up as the best that you knew how to show up as.
And so was I so, you know, when we started now, five years ago, down this path of becoming dominant and submissive, you know, neither one of us knew what we were getting into.
But for me, like as I worked to show up in the role of dominant and when I worked to be the leader to be in charge to like make decisions.
So you didn't have to es especially at the beginning on the things that you really wanted to not be in charge of anymore.
The more that I did that, the not it, like it felt really good to me, it was empowering, it felt strong, but I also noticed it impacting you.
Right? Because what I've, what I felt in you was you now feeling like a little bit safer, a little bit calmer, a little more relaxed.
And I, I do think that um I want to point out here that you really went down the road of what is dominance versus what is being a dominant because you weren't playing a role.
You were, what I saw is shifting your life into what do you want it to be? And where do you wanna take us? Like there was a huge focus on and I will never ever forget this, like even in our marriage, but like this, um these labels and this dynamic really helped.
I think you solidify your role of where do I want to take us together? Where do I want to lead us? And including me in it, you know, reminds me of something that I wrote recently where I said like about this stage of it, for me, of dominance was like at this, at a certain point, I was a Dom, like I was a Dom, you were wearing the collar and we were like we were in a 24 7 Dom sub relationship.
So the way that I wrote it was, I was a dom but I was not yet dominant.
Yeah.
And those are not the same thing.
And, you know, you hit on another point there that I think is important that in any relationship where you want some kind of this power exchange where you want a leader and a follower, the, like the dominant has to be the one leading.
And that was like, as much as maybe I had made some decisions and kind of set a gentle course on a like on a small day to day basis, I wasn't actually leading.
I was trying to please you for a lot of what our day to day normal life was like, yeah.
And so, you know, and that leadership was very undefined.
So there was these covert contracts going on where it was like, um, I don't know, I'll let you be in charge of this area, but I'm not going to say that you're in charge of this area and vice versa.
And then like, it feels wishy washy on, you know, let's be real in a relationship.
Let's say there's a lot of important decisions that have to be made in any marriage, right? And so you can never fully have equality in any decision making because you're going to come to a point most likely if both people are being honest of.
Well, I want this and I want this and they're contradictory I wanna like live here.
I wanna live there or like whatever it is and someone has to sacrifice.
Someone had someone gets there I want and someone gets there like the opposite or whatever.
Um in that and we showed up in those ways somewhat and without structure to who is the one leading the decisions.
There isn't a solid foundation in that.
Yeah.
And this is where in our experience, the amount of honesty that comes out of a dominant submissive dynamic in discussing these things, putting everything on the table with like transparency, vulnerability, openness, the way that I see it, a dumb sub relationship in a way that's done like treated with love and with respect is far more based on consent than a kind of a traditional unconscious relationship between two people who don't put all that stuff on the table.
Because then like you're saying, everybody's kind of feeling around in the dark.
Like can I actually do this or am I going to upset you? I'm trying not to upset you over here and like I want this thing, but I don't know if I can say it.
And so in in dominance and submission, we lay everything on the table and it's not like can I make the decision or can I not, we know that where I'm going to make decisions? We know what I'm in charge of.
And we've discussed how like even what my decision making process is like right.
You know what my values are, you know what it is that I am aiming towards where I'm leading us.
So that in order for you to let go of the control of making those decisions and feel safe to follow me, like, you know, where I'm going and you want to go there with me somewhat.
I there's no by now I know five years into this, I don't want to know everything because otherwise it's knowledge to feel ok in my system because now I know you considered everything and I'm going to get my way and so now I can surrender.
That's not it.
No.
Um So I just wanted to make that clarity because I've had to work out of thinking that I need to hear everything about your decision making process and everything that, that entails in order to surrender and that's not surrender, that's control.
That's a very good point.
So, you know, the, the bigger point being that these types of relationships are very much based on consent and they're based on openness and there's not a lot of consent in a relationship that hasn't discussed who's in charge and who's not.
And how do, how do we actually make decisions when there are conflicts and when there are disagreements, right? And so I also want to point out that our communication has like we've all like honed that in like the ability to just recognize your own thought patterns.
And the stories that you bring to a conflict to a, like a disagreement or whatever as they do arise, your ability to be with yourself and be able to articulate that experience, which is a little different on both sides of the um feminine and masculine.
But um like just being able to, like, witness myself in how I'm showing up and how I'm communicating and communicating with love without like worrying about wrapping it up in a pretty bow.
So like, I don't um anger you in what I have to say, like there's, that's a whole another um conversation but like being able to be real and honest and open to receive and listen.
Like that's a huge one in communication is listening.
It's not just talking, it, it's, it's really huge and it's, it's especially huge for men to learn how to do because you know, most men generally are pretty damn good problem solvers and we're wired for that like to seek results and to affect change in our, in our lives.
And when we see someone, we love having a problem and we think we have a logical solution for it.
It's very natural for us to want to fix the problem.
When in reality, what we have to learn about listening as men is like most of the time the problem will solve itself or you can get to a, a solution for yourself that will be real for you.
If I can just sit here and hear you and maybe ask questions to you to help you dig more into it for yourself instead of trying to give you my solution, which might be right for me.
You need to find a solution for you that works for you.
So just by being able to sit still and let you share and work through it yourself.
A lot of times I'm doing more to help you fix, to actually fix a problem than I am by offering any solution at all.
Yeah.
And that's just a powerful lesson in any relationship.
The well, but it's a part of how dominance and submission has helped us be more loving to each other.
Like for me to be able to love you in the way that I can now, I had to figure out how to be able to not flip out when you were having big emotional reactions to things when you were really sad or when you're angry or God forbid, angry with me and how do I not like get defensive and try to fix all of this right here in the moment and just let you be angry with me, right? Like this, my role as your dominant has made me get stronger.
It's required of me that I get stronger so that I can be like I can hold you when you are feeling chaotic.
And so for me in experiencing, you grow in that strength and you take on more leadership of our whole relationship.
You know, at the beginning, we didn't jump into this and be like, well, every single decision is yours now.
Like that's silly.
So, you know, we, we chose certain areas that made sense to our relationship where you would lead, which was a good portion.
Um But what I realized each time that I recognized a pattern in myself of overthinking of struggling of like the challenge in my life that was presenting itself in like, OK, it's time to let go of this.
When I would give it to you, it would be like relief like, OK, I don't have to um be in charge of that anymore.
And there would be this time of like integration and recognizing where the ego tries to like pull me back into that subtlety of control.
And then like, that would play itself out and then I'd be faced with another thing and it was like, OK, it's time to like, let go of this one.
And the more times I continuously have gone through that, the more that I just came face to face with all the different ways that um like, I didn't really want to be in charge of decisions and that there was this freedom that came forward every single time.
And then I felt like I started to get a lot better at like li like for real, giving up the control.
Yeah, like actually letting go instead of just taking your hands an inch off of the steering wheel, ready to grab it again.
Right.
And so it, it's just like, the more that I had, like, you have just, um, taken the lead and shown me that through love, through devotion, through, like trust building all of that each time.
Like you had your own process of displaying to me that you've got it, you're strong.
You like you were the leader and like, the more I've gotten to just be like, yep, I, I want that for you.
The more it's um just brought forth pieces of me that um couldn't be witnessed before you used a word there displaying like when I displayed that I had strength.
That's very different than just saying that I have strength.
Yeah, I'm sorry.
Words don't mean shit when it comes to something like that, they really don't.
It's like going to the gym and saying I'm strong.
I can deadlift Β£400 and walking up to the Β£400 deadlift bar and never picking it up.
Yeah, I can do that like it literally, you like the words and the promises don't mean a damn thing.
It's, it's action and it's showing up that matters.
And so to kind of bring this back to like round out this point, all this stuff gets talked about in a dominant, submissive dynamic because there is structure to the relationship.
It's not like we're not just floating through life like OK, we're married and now we're married like there is structure to how we make decisions.
There's structure to who's in charge of what it's like.
There are ways that we go through and live our lives that in dominance and submission, we call things like rules and rituals and protocols.
Like there's structure to the relationship that defines what it is.
Now, neither one of us are forced to be here, but we can have an actual format, something that we get to practice and show up for every day.
That is how we live our life and how we live our in our love for each other.
And that is the kind of thing that never gets talked about in most non Ds relationships.
It's just, it's done very differently.
It's you people just, and, and we before this did it this way, just walk through life, trying not to piss the other person off and like, trying not to get hurt, like, basically trying to get the other person to avoid hurting me and then for me to try to avoid pissing you off.
And it's, it's like, how do we keep the peace instead of? And you can never go from like trying to keep the peace to a great love.
No, because that's all based in avoidance.
It's not based in going somewhere.
That's, that's what the structure of this relationship and the things that are discussed overtly laid out on the table in dominance and submission, allow us to build a relationship that goes to amazing, like that goes to 11 on a scale of 1 to 10, right? And you know, an important thing that I had to, I kind of alluded to this already was coming face to face with.
Um how much more you were showing up in our relationship than I was.
But that being said there was an important time of when you, you know, started going down this like taking charge of your life journey.
It was before um like you officially asked me to be your submissive.
Like this was a part of it, right? Like being vulnerable enough to say this is what I want.
This is how I want to lead us.
I had, I had to get gain a lot of my own inner strength just to be able to say that out loud.
And I, I saw you doing that before any of this even.
Um And so I know where I was before and I was very much in survival mode and we've talked about that before.
We don't need to oh talk about that one again.
But um the important thing is that you saw that about me and you didn't demand that all of a sudden I show up differently.
You started taking charge in trying to shift and create space in my life that allowed me to start to just soften and it worked.
I know you probably wish it would have gone faster.
But it, but the point is that I know the point is that like, that was an important aspect for me to actually like come to grips with who I am and find myself and kind of create this identity individuality because I didn't really know myself.
I didn't have it.
So all of this was happening inside of this dynamic and then eventually, as I like went through more, let's just call it emotional healing and surrender.
Um And connecting to who I am all of a sudden, it was like something opened up in me and I don't know what was exactly covering it because there's like none of this happens in a vacuum.
All of this is related and like I know, I know I showed up in the past, showed up to the extent that I could.
But all of that like sharing my desire with you and like, like you just feeling the depths of my love I know was so affected by my hormones and like during that ovulation time, which I didn't even really keep track of at the time.
But like I would pour myself on you and want so much connection and touch and like, I know that that part of it for you was like a roller coaster because it was for me too.
I just didn't know what roller coaster I was on.
We were both living on the, on the roller coaster of your cycle.
Right.
Because before and for anyone listening to this, that hasn't heard this before, you know, it's been close to four years now that we've tracked your cycle every single day for like almost four years.
And that, like, me being involved with that on every single day basis, like, not just passively kind of having an idea, but I started tracking it for you before.
You really ever wanted to be involved with it for yourself.
I know.
And I don't want to see your notes of how I was showing you what it was, what I was trying to learn and what it really helped me learn was like, oh, you're not just all over the place with no rhyme or reason.
Like, we were actually on a somewhat predictable roller coaster that went on a relatively predictable cycle once I was able to see it because when I couldn't see it, it just felt like I was getting my ass kicked by it and you felt like you were getting your ass kicked by it.
And then once, like, once I started keeping track and I could realize things like, oh that, like when it seems like you are showing up like that, that's always here in like days 10 through 15, like that's just normal for them.
And then on days like 22 through 25 it's like, there's a, there's a monster in you and it like Sass and like, and also like, very, very sensitive to like, anything that I might do that upsets you was, you would be way more triggered by something at like that time in your cycle versus others.
And like all of this stuff where all of a sudden it didn't feel like I was getting my ass kicked by it.
It was like here comes like, here comes the fun part, here comes the, like the scary part and like, you could see like I could see ahead of myself what was hap what was happening because up until that really, we were just on a ride of your cycle and how your cycle was affecting us with no idea of the ride that we were on.
Like our, both of our eyes were closed, right? And so my overall point in all of that was like, really just recognizing that um this requires for relationships to be the best that they can be, really requires both people to be all in and to give like for me, it feels good to give love to you endlessly.
And like I would have always said that about myself, but it's been through this journey that my eyes have really been opened at the the bigger beauty of what that can and possibility and abundance of what that can really be like on a day to day basis.
When I take just the focus off, what am I receiving and what like, what am I getting from you? Well, and that, that's a great transition into the next point I wanted to talk about, which is that this really does come into balance.
There's a giving and a receiving that dominance and submission has allowed us to access where like there is this energy that runs between you and me and it like, it will always find its balance.
And if it, I've used this analogy before of how electricity, right, it has to run in a circuit.
We don't just have a wire that runs electricity to you, like to the receptacle and then you plug into it, the electricity runs through the receptacle and back to where it came from and it has to make that full circuit anywhere in that circuit that that wire gets cut all the power goes out.
And it's just like that in a relationship anywhere that the giving and receiving the energy that moves between us, the love, the desire, the affection, anywhere that, that gets cut or limited down in some way, it limits all the rest of the energy and the love between us.
So, you know what that has really meant for us is both of us choosing to show up every single day and give as much as we can to this and to our side of the, of the dumb sub dynamic, which means like you staying out of the dumb role and me staying out of the sub role, like you don't get to be in charge and I don't let you.
Right.
And I would have always said I don't want to be in charge, but I know I did that plenty.
You and I would have said no, I'm not.
Yeah, you're trying to control this.
Actually, some would call that topping from the bottom and, and really it's, um, more often than not, it's succumb to fear and living underneath that, you know, I think in, in a lot of cases and it was this way for me before it, it's like I'm waiting for you to give me what I need.
So because I really do feel like I need you to give to me in order for me to have the energy to give back to you.
Yeah.
And let's be real like we do need to receive that from our partners, right? And, and you would, and have at times told me like you need more from me like there's, there's unmet, there's something unmet in you or something that you're craving more of and like when and it can go this way, it doesn't for us anymore because we've made this commitment so deeply to show up for each other.
But it really can go this way where like your partner asking for more from you triggers like uh I'm not enough, like I'm not doing good enough like, or like, it doesn't matter how much I give, they always want more like all of the ins the insecurity that can be triggered by your partner asking for more when they're really saying like I love you and I want more love from you, right? And then when you would share that with me, I would feel like, ok, now anything I give is just gonna feel like I'm giving to you because you asked for it like that's not gonna feel good either.
And this, this kind of brings me back.
I'm sorry if you had somewhere else you were going with that, I want you to finish that thought because I'm going off on a tangent.
You are good at tangents.
A very the, the commitment has to be to show up and give everything that we possibly can every single day.
And if you come to me or I come to you and say I need more rather than trying to convince each other that you don't actually need more.
And what I give you should be enough for you to say I want to give you everything that I can possibly give.
So if, if there's something that you're needing more of, I want to find a way to do it.
And when we both like buy in that fully to to that, like that's just letting the electricity stay running through that wire because then we're never getting to a point where I'm waiting for you to give more so that I can have the energy to give back to you, right.
And I do wanna make an important distinction here because this is not a giving all in doing.
This is not like these chores are yours and these chores are mine.
Like that's really not what this is about.
And so, um you know, at one point earlier in our relationship, we did that five love languages quiz.
And my top two were um physical touch and physical touch, physical touch.
Yes.
And acts of service and yours were words of affirmation and physical touch.
And oh man, I felt like I failed over and over and over again at giving you words of affirmation.
And I just did not understand why I'm like, why is this so hard? And but it would also to be honest, it was also like, what do I compliment you on? Like, what am I praising? What am I, what am I speaking to? And that was also at a point in our relationship where you were showing up differently, right? But a man that I am now for sure.
But I also didn't, I didn't understand what I do now.
And so watching you go into experiencing you, not just watching grow into what it truly means to be dominance and feel my physical body, my being's response to you has like that.
And along with, you know, all the emotional healing has opened up something in me that is like I have to tell you all these things, I have to share with you.
The appreciation for the ways that you lead me and take care of me and protect, provide love me.
Like all of that, this admiration is so big and like that's been a beautiful part of this like unfolding for us because like there like the love languages thing is great and all, but it's not all of it.
And what you also needed to experience was more ongoing desire for me, for who you were and all that you are.
And that's where I was completely missing the point there.
And let's be real though.
When like when I take that test and words of affirmation are what like what the test says that I need more of OK.
Yes.
When you would have like when you would build me up by sharing how much you loved me, it did something for me.
But when I originally took that test, there was not a lot of greatness to affirm in me because words of affirmation, like you're affirming something that you see is true and real.
And I was not the kind of man who deserved a lot of affirmation or who was worthy like I was worthy of being loved.
But there was a lot of me that did not need to be affirmed, it needed to be killed and you did far more for me with your words of destruction.
I mean, never in a mean way but in calling me out where I was out of integrity and where I needed to be better and not accepting that like that was also very affirming in a way because it was affirming in me where I needed to be better.
It was showing me where I was not the man that I could be.
And when a man wants to be given words of affirmation, what he's, what he's really needing is to be the kind of man who deserves it.
Yes.
And that's what I've like experienced all of that shift in you in the last five plus years and it's been incredible to witness and experience and it feels so much better, right? Like you if you were to give like give me words of affirmation because that's what the test said that I needed and you want to, you want to give to me what I need, but you were searching for words to give me and not finding them, not because you weren't good at finding them because they weren't there to be found yet.
Yeah, I was like, how many different ways can I say I love you? Like now, like when you share with me how you receive me and how you witness me, what like what I am to you, it is just real genuine like overflow of truth and that's what like now you're affirming something that is real about me that I've worked for.
And so what does that feel like for you to experience that admiration from me.
It really does feel like affirmation.
Like it's, you're not telling me something I don't already know about or feel about myself.
Like, when you're building me up, it's, you're, you're building up something that's already there in the past.
I would want those words from you because I was trying to have your words help me create a sense of self worth that didn't exist.
And so now when you say it, there's a part of me that's like, yeah, I'm glad you see what's true because I already know this about myself and I believe it to be true because I know who I am and and I can say that with a lot of confidence and a lot of grounded, but also with humility because I know what it took for me to be the man that I am and I know how damn hard I had to work to earn it.
Yeah.
And I was going to say that before I would have labeled you as confident.
But now I experience the true confidence and when you, when you believe in yourself and when, when I hear you say like those things about yourself too, like, I don't know, it just like it, it speaks it in something in, speaks to something in me.
It's like, I guess it my system receives that as like strength and belief in yourself and therefore is like softening to my whole being like the belief in yourself is important.
And so you hear men who are afraid of being dominant because they don't, you know, they're good men.
They have good hearts.
They don't want to be a jerk.
You know, the, the two words that always come up where I don't want to be a jerk in an asshole.
Yeah.
The, but dominant doesn't equate to that.
No, but in their head it does because in some ways it means having boundaries.
Like I do need to be very firm with you.
Sometimes I do need to set, set strong boundaries.
I need to somehow contain all of the chaos that is you while still allowing your true essence to be free, right? Because chaos needs structure and so it can feel like having boundaries and you know, let, let's face it.
We don't live in a world that makes it seem like it's OK to tell another person what to do.
And there is a certain part of this relationship where I do tell you what to do and I love it and I love it too because I know that when I do tell you what to do, I'm telling you what to do for your own good, for my good and for the good of this, of this dynamic in this relationship.
And you have a felt trust.
I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I, I like I know this to be true.
Well, I was gonna add like I feel the love and the trust in everything.
Like both ways, the love and devotion, the care, the heart, like it's not without heart.
And so if there's, if telling you what to do or bossing you around, like putting that in quotes, makes your life better, makes our relationship better, makes both of us happier and brings more love into the present.
Like is that being a jerk or an asshole or is that just being loving? Like it's being dominant, it's being strong.
It's the the fear of jerkiness and um of being an ass is really thinking that you can't be strong and have a heart.
Yeah, because most men have never and frankly, most women also have never experienced a man who can be strong and have his heart.
Right? Yeah.
It's also, you know, the difference in confidence versus arrogance.
So how do those feel different to you? How would you describe the difference first? Good question.
Um It's, I don't know, I just feel it in my body.
I can because it comes across in body language, it comes across in tone, it comes across in word choice like the difference.
Um like, I don't know, it's, it's arrogance comes from an insecurity and I just can feel that and it feels like garbage.
It's disgusting to my system.
So I can't really, I'm sure if I sat here long enough, but we're not gonna sit here and let me think to try to come up with how I would describe the difference, but it's felt one of the ways that it's definitely experienced is that a confident man will be comfortable with some silence in a conversation, a conversation where an insecure man or an arrogant man will much more often need to fill all of that silence with his own words and opinions.
Yeah, I guess I could also.
Yes.
And maybe this is getting at something else.
But, um, even just a man's ability to have the conversation like that in itself, if what he brings to talk about will show me insecurity or a grounded confidence as well.
All of that comes back to what we said earlier in this conversation about the importance of listening and how that is an essential piece of being a strong man and being able to be loving while being strong is being able to just listen.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
And you can't listen when you're talking, we're trying to figure out what you're gonna say next.
Yep.
I definitely had to learn that, um, through our relationship and communication.
I'm sorry for all the times I didn't listen very well.
The, the big picture here is that dumb sub dynamics when they are lived with heart and with care, with a willingness to both show up and bring all of yourself and also a willingness to let the other person show up and bring all of themselves are actually like in our experience has been the most profound experience of love.
Absolutely.
And perceptions from the outside world of what their definitions of those words mean or of what you know, what they've seen of Dumb Sub in movies or porn or whatever else is, is oftentimes very different than the reality of this.
So these kinds of this way of organizing a relationship and putting everything on the table and being very transparent with how the relationship works is a really valuable way to bring more love into a relationship.
And I think that's the the big point of the conversation that we've had here today.
Yeah.
And you know, in order to truly uncover who I am, what I've recognized is that you've received me in love when I feel like I'm at my worst and you've done the same for me, right? And like, again, labels aside it, that's the depth of what love is and how this can evolve.
But, but with like it's possible within the labels, within the relationship dynamic.
And gosh, I've learned, I've learned what love truly is.
I've learned how to open my heart, which has allowed me to give and receive love for real freely and connect to this divine love that's in me and it's infinite and like I have to give it and I want to give it all.
This is a great talk today.
I appreciate you having it with me.
My pleasure, sir.
Thank you.
You're welcome
