Polarity

 If you are a woman with a submissive nature, and you want to be led by a man, that is, for there to be a leader in the relationship, that man is going to require certain characteristics. In all likelihood the man will need to grow; to hone his dominant nature and to overcome any residual trauma from his childhood as well as societal messaging.

Let's assume that the woman is intelligent and well educated, and most probably perfectly capable of looking after herself. By that I mean she has the education and the necessary skills to get through her days quite satisfactorily whether she is led or not. But she chooses and desires a dominant man to lead her. For her to express her submissive nature she needs a man who is capable and willing to express his dominant nature; for there to be polarity. This man is going to be required to be evolved, mature, stalwart, calm and steady. 

We are judgmental about our leaders because no-one wants to be led by a fool. We analyze their behaviour and their decisions and as a whole we don't hold back from criticism when we disapprove.

I had a talk with someone over Christmas when I got a rare opportunity for a one-on-one conversation and I explained to him that, although it was clear his wife's behaviour was certainly triggering and sometimes quite unacceptable, he couldn't afford to give her back the same sort of behaviour she gave to him. As difficult as it no doubt could be, he needed to be that calm and committed presence in her life who was determining the standards of behaviour. 

'No, he couldn't mind the child this evening as he still had essential business calls he had to make, but he was happy to mind him on Saturday morning whilst she went to do whatever it was she wanted to do.'

Statements. No anger. No throwing words back at her. Just declarative statements. Compromise, but not giving in.

When she tried to make him responsible for something that was indeed her responsibility, he needed to note to her that she was capable of sorting this situation herself. He didn't need to be involved.

He was running around, I explained to him, trying to sort her problems, because he was capable of that, but he was training her to be dependent on him by doing so and getting angry about that at the same time.

There's no shortage of love either way and so he said to me, yet again, that the violence in her childhood home had created this scenario. He was justifying her behaviour. I understood that, I explained, but people can't spend their lives in disarray because something happened thirty years ago. He deserved peace, for one thing, and once the new training period was over, they would both be happier.

To his credit, he listened. He truly wanted it to be better, to be calm and for there to be harmony, but he had been triggered for several years by her demands and he sensed it wouldn't be easy to not be triggered again.

'Of course,' I assured him. It will take time and you will make mistakes. But you have to keep working your way towards being that man who was something like a well-built brick wall; solid and dependable; indestructible.

'She'll note the difference and won't understand it. You'll get a whole lot of stuff around how she is an 'independent woman' yadda yadda. Just stay the course. Trust me.'

Dominant men, the ones who hone their craft and character, do not get enough credit. I heard a brave man say in a podcast recently that a man has to be better than his woman in all the criteria that counted. He needed to contain her, and by that he meant he had to hold her in her hour of need. She needed to look up to him and he needed to protect her and hold her accountable to him. If she wants to be led, that's the way it works.

This reminds me somewhat of meditation advice - to let go of doing and sink into being. In the same way, I wonder if we should not let go of society's messaging and just be our authentic selves; strive to be our best selves.

Stop the shit

It's been...eventful...and I barely know where to start. It's been about my emotions - the spilling over of them and the repercussions of them  - and it's been about intimacy through a shared dynamic, and it's been about accepting my own faults. It's been about so much that at the moment it's just a smattering of disjoint thoughts.

There is a recognition as well that you can't share what you can't put into words. If your perceptions and growth can't be expressed coherently, maybe you haven't quite reached the place where you need to go. Yet, I want to record something here and see where it goes, how it expands and grows in my mind. It feels like I have a palm full of seeds that could grow into a very good crop if I tend them well. Right now my thoughts are just separate seeds living right beside each other but not amounting to much until put into the ground and watered; left to mature and reach for sunlight. Still, I have the seeds. That's a start.

First of all, a situation occurred where I felt alienated. Experiencing a sense of alienation - whether true or just perceived in that light - shatters me. I know it shatters me and my mind protected me this time by telling me, first, that I wasn't troubled by it, and soon after that, it told me that I needed to stand up for myself. If memory serves me rightly only a few days before this event (perhaps seeing it coming and getting ready?) I pulled from my file the long article my psychologist had given me about 'The Subjugation Trap'. As I read it, it was blatantly obvious this time around that I fell firmly into the category of a subjugated person, potentially. The reason for this is that I wasn't assertive. I'd blended into people to keep the peace in many ways and according to the article I needed to learn to ask for things in a way where I was listened to. I needed to see myself as my own person.

I made notes. I began cue cards to keep me on track in my own mind. By God, this time I was going to get this right. When the time came to speak again my physiological responses weren't really under control but I wanted to talk. I decided to say as little as possible in the hope of staying in control of myself. But, in this power dynamic of mine there's always going to be a way to show me that I'm not the one in control and eventually I had to speak first. It came out as 'girl language', formal speech, an immediate and resounding red flag that I was upset and feisty.

I found myself making statements and asking questions in the most direct way ever that I can remember. This was, I'd agree, akin to waving a red flag at a bull and I'd say this conversation was as close to a 'fight' as we have ever had. (Still, I was proud of myself for making those statements!) I'd punched some accusations and statements over the net and he volleyed some others right back at me.

It's not usual for him to say all that much in one mouthful and as the words spewed out I could feel the bile rising. I was angry. As I do, I tried to settle myself. I was aware of my quickening breath and the tightness in my chest. I knew all too well that my brain was going haywire both with the messages being inputed but also with an emotional state now out of control.

I don't think I am what you want.

Yes, it is embarrassing now to look back and see how I played the feminine card. A little alienation on my part catapulted into the mix of words that had us both smashing balls with Exocet missile capability.


More was said, a good airing of grievances on both sides, but as we know in this dynamic, amongst people who have a tendency to be a bottom or a top, the Top prevails.  Thank God for that.

Stop the shit.
Bimbo was wrong.
Get back to pluggiz.
Talk later.

My anger has a beginning and an end. It burns out. It didn't burn out immediately but the next morning the thought began to occur that he had a point. I had deceived. I hadn't played by the rules. I hadn't just been deceiving him but I had been deceiving myself. My goals weren't achievable until I took responsibility myself  for my erroneous thinking about my strategy and stopped being slack, falling back into thinking traps of justifying my actions. He'd removed himself from the deal because the contract with him was broken and I did need to accept the fact that I'd erred. I had. It was my fault, looked at that way.


I always understood that if he knew every last piece of information about this subject that he'd correct, punish; insist. And, whilst I did the right thing about 98.5% of the time, I wasn't working to the rules laid out. I was achieving results, but not as fast I should have been. I know that.

This business of thinking of our arrangement as a contract - something that he emphasized - really challenged me. It was, somehow in my mind, taking two people with a range of emotions, strengths and weaknesses - human beings - and reducing that relationship to a commercial transaction. I found it galling and even insulting.

But as time has gone by I begin to see that there are concepts of a power exchange that I hadn't quite entirely understood related to the intimacy of the arrangement; another grievance of his at the time of the conversation that seemed so rich. By withholding all the information, by not being entirely honest, I'd denied the opportunity for intimacy that a power exchange dynamic provides. I don't necessarily mean sexual intimacy but the intimacy of two people sharing their lives; their frailties, their needs and their desires.

I'd failed to reveal myself and my weaknesses. I'd not revealed my failings for fear of abandonment (and thus was abandoned...). I'd made it impossible for him to do his work as he'd agreed to do. He'd removed himself from the arrangement because I'd made it clear that I wasn't willing to pay. I simply had not kept my bargain.

The whole experience - unpleasant as it was - had taught me something important, and rather than wanting to walk away from me, he'd seen it as his responsibility to me to pull me up. Maybe, he'd learned something else important about me too; that this fear of abandonment is not something that I can easily control; that it lives in my psyche and shows up without invitation. Fear has its own logic.

I'm not always easily dominated. I need relatively tight control. A partner needs to know that there will be times when it looks awfully like I want to throw in the towel. I don't. I am just hurting. I need someone who can withstand those moments, set me straight, and put me back in my place. I need someone who understands that I very much want to grow through this dynamic. I need someone to tell me to 'stop the shit'.

There's more to say, so much more. This is enough for today.