Hypocrisy

From a child's point of view, there is hypocrisy going on in our lives. There are two standards of behaviour - one for him and one for me - and they don't entirely approve. I think I manage to keep the mood light often enough that they figure I am resilient and so they don't fester about it, but they do take note.

It is family folk lore now - one of those stories that gets repeated over and over - and it has reached a point where even my husband laughs along, so totally outnumbered is he, and it goes like this:

We were on our way up North in the 4 wheel drive - me, my husband, the four kids and my daughter's best friend. (Don't worry - we are never doing that again!) and I think it is time to turn off the highway to a new road. So, I say so. I have, after all, been assigned the role of navigator and map reader:

"Don't tell me to turn off. I know what I'm doing. Don't distract me."

So, we go a bit further along the road into a new situation and my husband figures that he must have missed the turn he wanted. I've been told not to say anything, so I don't.

"That was our turn. Look, you have to tell me when to turn. You're the navigator."

All five children groaned in one "I don't believe it!" moment. And, the rest is history.

I confess that I do struggle with these mood changes; with the very high expectations of me. No matter how out of control he is, how controlling, moody or exasperating, just one incident when I behave badly can set him into a spin. It seems to be a need that I am perfect: perfectly patient, perfectly understanding, perfectly under control, and perfectly willing to accept control.

As we move further along the path of power exchange, he has insisted on more and more control, not just in relation to me but in relation to making decisions. As I tried to explain to him this morning, we now have a situation where all decisions must be approved at the top: not decisions about what I buy in relation to small ticket items such as food or clothing and the like, but everything else.

It can be torture to stand by and watch, for example, our holiday house garden going to rack and ruin because he can't make a decision about a new gardening plan. With authority required at the top, and left to await a decision for long periods of time, huge wads of patience and tolerance are required. The alternative is to try not to let it worry me - to let the garden go to seed rather than rattle his cage. It is sometimes the choice I make but not without a great deal of internal frustration on my part.

And I wonder this: as I come to terms with my own personal needs for control, for containment and peace; as I become more and more the perfect female to go through life with, is a single incident of inability to remain in control of myself, no matter how much he pushes me, being whipped up out of perspective? It certainly seems to me that misbehaviour, such as losing my patience, is now completely unacceptable.

I spoke with an old and trusted friend about my concerns and he wondered if I should try to negotiate: perhaps a punishment to end the matter rather than a more drawn out saga of him feeling angry with me and me suffering a sense of banishment and having displeased. I think that makes sense except for the fact that a man who suffers this sense of displacement when his submissive fails him, even once in the bluest of moons, is not ready to make his peace. It is a deep sense of, at a guess, disloyalty in his mind and he needs time and space.

In fact, my husband explained it rather well to me when he said that he cannot accept the aggression towards him. When he responds to me in the way he does, he does not feel he is being aggressive, yet when I do the same thing, it seems I am. I don't understand that but I am trying to understand it.

My friend said that it is not hypocrisy because my husband is his person and I am mine. It is not hypocritical that I am being held to a higher standard because I asked to be held to a higher standard and if I was not, I would quickly feel short changed.

I don't dispute that I am being held to a higher standard than others at my own request. I certainly can't dispute the upset I cause when I am less than perfect, even if I have been perfect for hundreds of times before that and will be perfect for hundreds of times after that. I don't dispute that my role is to be the most modulated, patient, understanding and caring person that I can possibly be, no matter how prodded and poked and challenged I am in that role. I accept the role. I usually flourish in the role and I have no desire to change the role.

I only ask that the dominant stop and pause for a moment. I ask that he consider the enormous effort his submissive puts in to make his world comfortable, safe and beautiful. She recognizes the importance in his mind that she demonstrate, day after day, her loyalty, faith and love for him in the way she expresses herself and the tasks she does, just as he would wish.

On the rarest of occasions, she will falter. She will make a mistake. The world has not ended. She simply demonstrated that she is made of the same stuff of every other woman on this earth: not Mary Magdalen after all, but a woman of flesh and blood doing her best. It was just a moment - a slip of the tongue; a release of frustration. Your world is still safe. She still respects, reveres and adores you. She will recover and so will you.