My reality

All jokes aside, I do highly commend Sir J for his truthful account of his life with his h. There is, perhaps, a tendency for D/s and power exchange relationships to be glorified. Like any relationship between people, it has its ups and downs, its good days and its bad days, its highs and its lows. It must exist within the backdrop of a life; raising a family, having a job, keeping house.

It is possible that the avid reader of blogs relating to D/s might come away thinking that the dominant sits while the submissive waits on him, time after time. They might get the impression that the submissive is overworked and the dominant, under worked. The reality is usually, of course, that both people have their parts to play in their lives, together and apart, and that could well mean that the dominant does the laundry, or even, ironing! (Just a little joke, J!)

So, let me be clear about my reality.

Within a few weeks of going out with my husband, I did the laundry. I popped over to his room in college and collected his laundry and did it with my laundry. He didn't ask me to do this. It just seemed the natural thing to do. My course had few contact hours whilst his had lots of contact hours. Why not? Since then, that's been one of my responsibilities. I'm not saying that he doesn't occasionally throw on a load of laundry, because he does do that sometimes. Yet, it is rare.

When we met, I didn't know how to cook. He taught me how to make lamb chops with mashed potatoes and peas. From there, I took over, since that was all he knew and we soon tired of that meal. I bought cookery books and took some cookery classes, and ever since I've been the provider of food. For a time, he prepared the pizzas on a Friday night, so long as the dough and ingredients were all there, ready to assemble. Certainly, he barbecues the meat, cuts the roast, and from time to time, brings me breakfast on a tray, but the food is really something that I do.

Please do keep in mind that he is an extremely busy person. If we let him, he'd work around the clock, virtually every day of the year. I guess you might say that he is a workaholic. The proviso to that is that when I get him away, he usually tries to extend the stay away, so he's getting better at 'down time'.

What's my point? We do have designated roles. You can't bring up a large family without some order, and my job is to get up and get them off to school, to know what we have to do re school and other commitments, to arrange our social life, the house, the food, the clothing and so on. I know that sounds like I am living a 1950s life. The little woman does all the domestic stuff whilst the man does all the making of the money, and handles the business activities.

The thing about this arrangement is that it works for us. Over the years, I've suggested that he might like to try cooking a meal from time to time. He's suggested that I might like to ring the bank and get the b**tards to get the account right! Frankly, I don't want to tussle with the bank and he doesn't want to cook a meal.

So, while it might seem that our lives are such that he as the dominant does all the big things, while I the submissive, do all the little things, it is not like that at all. We are simply doing the same things that we always did. Of course, when I'm working outside the house, he helps out a bit more on the domestic front, but still, we maintain our usual roles just because we know what we are doing and we get on and do it.

Since we have committed to a power exchange relationship, after years of a vanilla style marriage, the details of our "real" lives have not changed at all. What has changed is our satisfaction with our roles. I respect more that he has the lion's share of responsibility for his family and I give him the support he requires to fulfil that role. He respects more that I try very hard to keep all the members of my family happy, loved and progressing through life. He supports my writing and the exploration of my submissive nature.

In essence, we both look after one another well. We live well. We love well. That is the reality of my power exchange relationship.