All day, every day

When one lives in a power exchange relationship all day, every day, the two participants walk a rather fine line; balancing on a tightrope at times, it seems to me. It is not possible for a submissive to cool off or slack off back at her own apartment for a few days if the going gets tough. If the dominant is not pleased, he is not pleased potentially for the whole weekend. The submissive needs to get used to the fact that he’s going to be, potentially, watching every move she makes, whether she’s steaming angry or not, wanting his attention or not.

It should come as no surprise to read that the submissive is challenged to be...well...submissive, twenty four hours a day. Some days, it is as easy as agreeing to be taken to a lovely lunch at a restaurant. One is feeling in one’s happy place and doing all the right things; making all the right moves is effortless.

Some days it is like being asked to go to a cricket match or have root canal work on a tooth. It is just something one would rather avoid. You’ve got your own ideas on how to spend your day and it doesn’t include him asking a whole lot of questions and wanting things done his way. Be that as it may, being in a power exchange relationship, twenty–four hours a day, means that a submissive woman needs to, at the least, negotiate her ideas and plans, with good grace, a calm disposition, and a polite demeanour. Exhibiting frustration with the dom, at least in my house, does not go down at all well.

I struggle a little (is that you laughing, my dear?) with being pulled up for my tone, my lack of consideration or my inability to keep my dom abreast of my activities and my plans. I may have been perfect for the past four days straight, but it means nothing to him if I should, for a minute or two, display a lack of patience with his desire to have the message repeated, as an example.

Needless to say, I fail, more or less repeatedly. I do something that a well trained submissive woman knows better than to do. It has been pointed out to me that I should not feel too badly about this. Did I intend to behave badly? What is important here is that I acknowledge my failings, apologize for them, try to do better next time and accept my lecture calmly. (That’s so easy to do!)

This is my new life; a constant striving to be the perfect submissive woman; to display all the virtues of an angel on earth. No big deal!

For the dominant man who is dominating the woman he loves, things can get a little tricky! He needs to keep her on the straight and narrow, to provide the structure around her life that she has said she craves, but at the same time, he may well also feel responsible for her happiness, just like any husband or lover. Does he really want to impose a penalty that will make her miserable whilst at the same time teach her an important lesson? I have to presume that there are days when he feels conflicted.

On one of the blogs I read Mr. Cross refers to being the dominant of his wife of many years. He writes:

“In my own experience the key is courageous honesty, unfailing trust, personal integrity, and the ability to balance between maintaining the framework of control for the submissive, and focusing on the happiness of his lover which now has become essential to his own sense of well being”.

This sentence resonated. No longer is it possible for my husband to turn a blind eye to my failings. Perhaps as a young husband he could put down my terse response to me having a bad hair day. That is not really possible any more. My training as a submissive woman has shown me that terse responses are not really acceptable. We all have feelings of frustration or anger, but there are strategies to deal with these feelings such that a calm and measured response is expected. The standards of what will be tolerated are now more stringent; higher.

At the same time as the man is a dominant to his submissive girl, he is also her man, to whom she goes when she is sad, worried, emotionally distraught, or in need of help. He is not just her dominant but the man in her life with whom she will have millions of vanilla discussions about this and that; the good, the bad, the ugly.

If she is not happy, for whatever reason, he is not himself. The connection is such that her well being is his well being, just as Mr. Cross said.

Frankly, I think it is a hard task for both man and woman in a 24/7 D/s relationship. For her, he is her dominant, her husband (or lover), her adviser, her mentor, her mechanic, her fix it man, her financial adviser, her rock! He is her everything.

For him, too, I think she is paramount. She provides him with stability, love, and a sense of worth in the world. Her behaviour reflects on him and provides him with feedback as to his own success. Or, so it seems to me.

A twenty-four hour power exchange relationship is intense. It is challenging. I continue to believe it is worth it.