Poster Couple for FLR Part 6 - What if We Give Up on FLR?

I have posted some pontification on this subject five times before. This is the last installment. “Oh what a relief!” you may say. Here is what I have covered already:

1. I Have Given to Her the Authority over Me
2. She is the De-facto leader
3. She Is not Expected to Do or not Do what I Require
4. She Has the Last Word
5. She Is not Expected to Give me a Life of My Fantasy

My last subject deals with the unthinkable: “What if we give Up on FLR?”

There is always the possibility that one or both of us must do so. I can think of some scenarios, none pleasant or taken by choice. I could see the situation occurring as an imposition by a third party, rather than one of us saying, “I don’t want to do this any more.”

As I said, I am an alpha male of sorts. Not the arrogant bastard who will have his way at all cost, more like the guy who will simply have his way eventually. In our marriage of earlier years I used to be really hard assed about getting things done and mostly doing it my way. What lead us into an FLR, is that at some point I decided that my way is causing a lot of strife, and it was driving us apart. I decided that there would not be anything wrong with just letting her do what she wants for a while. I did, and she did.

Glory be! Our marriage did not disintegrate, our family is as strong as ever, she has more fun and less anguish, and I have on occasion lived my fantasy. She is not burdened with satisfying my craving in any way. I think that I am a nice guy. Even if we were to give up this FLR officially, I still would do what I do now: earn a living, maintain the house in all respects, clean the house, wash the dishes, take care of pets, etc. And when she wishes, I give her all the pleasure that she can take. So, in a sense I am giving her all of this whether or not she is the leader.

Then you might say, “If you are already willing to give her all of this, then exiting this FLR will not change anything.”

That is almost true. In an FLR she has the last word. She can decide on anything and I will abide by it. That may be what she would lose if she backed out. Once we are not in an FLR because one or the other broke the covenant, this rule would no longer be binding. I am not really sure though … over the years I have learned to give and to give in just for harmony and out of love. Let’s take a sidetrack here.

We married with great expectations, willing to love, honor, skip the obey part, and raise a family. From day one nobody obeyed anybody. Yes, there was all the other stuff, but the obey part just did not happen. Looking through my jaundiced contact lenses I don’t think that I really expected her to obey, as in, “Now see here, woman. You will do as I say!” Neither did I see myself obeying her commands, since she was not that way.

We survived, and about ten or so years ago, we slowly began to ease into an FLR, although the term had not yet been invented then. The FLR became imposed on our marriage in an insidious way at first.

Don’t think that all is rosy here. I will act like an ass from time to time. She will have an occasional meltdown. Several hours in a day can be ruined by either of us. But we have learned. Several months ago we had such an occasion, and I thought that our FLR was over. The resolution was, that I no longer have an option of backing out of this FLR. She is wiser than me on this subject, and we reinforced her position in this respect: only she has the option to back out. I think that the way it is now, my ass would hurt in a bad way for a while if I tried. Yes, I know that some of you men think this is just what you want, but it is not really about what I want. It is about what is best for MW, because if it is good for her, it is good for me.

To re-emphasize the theme of this post, I will say this:

• I am committed to her, to our marriage, to our life. She is a good person whom I trust and respect. She is the mother of our children. I chose her to be my wife, and that is not a decision to undo because I am angry from time to time.
• I cannot, and would not abandon a person (her) who relies on me for love, support, and sex, given the above declaration.
• Our relationship may change over time, but my loyalty is unfailing. My wife need not worry about my withdrawing my support.
• FLR is a wonderful superposition on an already successful relationship. If or when FLR goes away, it need not destroy the underlying relationship.

If we revert to vanilla for whatever reason, none of the above will change. That is how I see my Female Led Relationship.

Alone Again, Temporarily Jan 19, 2008

Mistress Wife is away for a few days visiting friends. I drove her to her friends' place. As usual, the ladies were thrilled to see me, and gave me very personal hugs and a kiss on the lips. We spent some time over a glass of wine. As I was leaving, I again received personal hugs and a kiss on the lips, and that did not even include MW. That was yesterday (Friday). Today I have done some work on the roof repair I mentioned before. Actually, all I did was preparation to enable me to do the work. Still, it took about four hours of hard labor. During that time I put on some favorite CDs and enjoyed the music echoing off the slope of the hill. I was a bit concerned that I might be disturbing the neighbors, but not too much. Houses here are hundreds of yards apart, and it was not too loud. I think.

I was happy to quit a bit after noon. I fixed lunch, and ate it while checking the mail. I spent the afternoon trying to use Microsoft Access. I am sure that it is a good tool, but the implementation of a database is not exactly intuitive. Is anyone out there who knows a good tutorial? After some hours of messing with it I felt the tension, and decided to postpone the work to some other day. Now it is after dinner, and I am just messing around. I write my proposed blog, and MW will approve it with or without corrections, but only after she returns from her visit. Meanwhile I am left to my own devices.

I wish that she had left some kind of reminder for me to contemplate while I miss her. You know, a CB2000 or something. Alas, she had not done so. I will have to rely on my memory and my fantasy.

I suppose that I could play with the little guy and give him a good time. After all, MW has not explicitly forbidden me to do so. I think it would be OK if I did. But then she would know, and I would have to try to justify it, and I could not. This is the thing about chastity imposed by females in an FLR. The hardware (or plastic-ware) is just a symbol. I could cut it off with my bolt cutter in a second. It is the reason and the commitment that makes my chastity binding. I wait for her to release me. I wish that it were more often, but we are following her schedule on this one. Since I don’t even have hardware or plastic-ware to cut off this time, I am even more aware of my commitment. It is both good, and bad. It is good because I honor her decision. It is bad because I miss a lot of pleasure without reason. On the balance I will go with her decision. It is always better for me to do so. After all, that is what an FLR is about. Thank you, MW.

Pontification #2: Relationships

In my post on Commitment I pointed out that it takes two to have a relationship, and that both partners must be committed and remain supportive. What I did not say was what kind of relationship. The reason for that was because I wanted to explore the subject later, which in part brings me to this posting.

Merriam-Webster has three definitions for the word, but my preferred one is “… the relation connecting or binding participants in a relationship.” It is circular in a way, but fits my current reasoning. I will take that to expose an underlying principle.

In any relationship there is tension, and a subsequent struggle to resolve the tension. One participant may be satisfied by the resolution, but the other may end up with more tension as a result. I could write a book about this, but would rather get to the point before I lose the readers’ interest.

The only way a resolution would satisfy both partners all of the time is if, on the dominance scale, one partner was one hundred percent and the other zero (100-0). The dominant would decide and all would be well. It turns out that humans are not that way, so we must compromise.

Why does any relationship work, even temporarily?

On the short term we don’t get too perturbed by things not turning out the way we expect. We keep hoping that they will be better and maybe try to do something to make it so. But if they keep going that way, after a while we have enough, and want to change.

On the long term, assuming that we got over the short term annoyances, we develop a working relationship: “you do this and that for me”, and in return “I do that and this for you.” As long as both comply with the assumed and developing rules of behavior, the relationship can last a long time. As mundane as this sounds, this covers all ranges of dominance and submission. The key issue here is that both participants get what they want out of the relationship. Neither is forced, either may quit, but they continue because generally they are both getting much of what they want. It is unlikely to be perfect, but it works.

I will take an example from my previous jobs to illustrate the point. A workplace is not a democracy. When I accept employment I am obligated to follow local rules and produce a product that my employer can use to make profit. Change any of this and either my employer or I are breaking the contract. In more simple terms, I do what I am told to do, otherwise I am out. If the employer is unethical or does not support my needs to produce, I find another job. Wow, that is some power exchange!

A marriage is somewhat like that, but has other layers of interdependence and complexity. There is love, lust, friendship, habit, mutual responsibility, etc. But the same rules apply as in any other relationship: both participants must get what they want, otherwise it does not work. Even strongly committed persons will give up if there are irreconcilable differences.

So how does a successful relationship work where others fail? I have heard of, read about, and seen in movies 50-50 marriages that supposedly worked. Marriage is a subset of a relationships, so all that applies to marriage does not apply to relationships in general. In this 50-50 marriage, fictional stories aside, both partners must be detached in order for the relationship to survive. This to me implies “impersonal”, “clinical”, “nothing but rational”, non-involved living and continual negotiations. It is fake, or the end of a formerly loving marriage. The union remains only for economical, financial, or some legal (having children in common) mutual obligation until such obligations are dissolved. Screw the 50-50 marriage. It is fake.

The following numbers are not based on scientific data. I am making them up only to illustrate my point. If a marriage does not have at least a 60-40 power balance, it is deathly dull. On the other hand, many marriages don’t survive a 60-40 or more diverse power balance. Either because the wrong person has the 60, or both want to have the 60 percent or more of power. Those that survive have figured out that one of the partners is more or less in charge, and the other complies. Hmm … What a novel idea! Too bad ideas cannot be patented.

In a Dominant/Submissive relationship the power exchange is more 80-20, or even 90-10. It is really never 100-0 for any length of time except maybe during a scene. But even then we don’t know for sure.

Female Led Relationship (FLR) is a subset of all relationships between a male and a female. In my next Pontification, if you are still around to read it, I will show you why FLR seems to work, and try to explode a related myth.

Pontificaton #1: Commitment in a Relationship

Based on the premise of my prime directive, “Hers Forever” you could guess that my postings are directed at Female Led Relationships. You are right. But some of my writings cover subjects that are more general than that, and are necessary to provide a stable and credible basis for my views on FLR. The FLR idea will pop up often both as a contrast to vanilla and as the primary topic.

I want to point out that I am not about to beat up divorced and remarried people. Commitment aside, divorce is sometimes the best for one or both partners. It can happen to anybody. But when it becomes a habit …

Neither am I about to beat up people who cohabitate without marriage. Without marriage divorce is not necessary, although the equivalent can be just as painful. However, I see less of a commitment in this case.

The subject of this writing is "commitment within a relationship." Let’s get the negativity out of the way first. Most marriages are vanilla. We, who know what FLR is, also know vanilla. A vanilla marriage has characteristics that range from no sex or ho-hum sex to S/M, from “honey please do such-and-such” to knockdown abuse and control of male or female. It includes fantasies, unfulfilled wishes, cheating on one’s mate, and more often than not, divorce!

The divorce rate in America for first marriage, vs second or third marriage 50% percent of first marriages, 67% of second and 74% of third marriages end in divorce, according to Jennifer Baker of the Forest Institute of Professional Psychology in springfield, Missouri.

See the source at http://www.divorcerate.org/

A contemporary approach to starting a marriage is often like the following. After having sex for a few days, and not really knowing each other, they get together for a weekend. A few drinks later and before another bout of sex,

“I love you babe!”
“I love you too honey!”
“Let’s get married.”

So they do, and the female gets pregnant. Hardships develop because after a while the female has problems that are not necessarily related to having sex for the moment. The male does not see it that way. What he sees is that she has not been as attentive to his needs as before, and his options of gratification are (1) self, (2) professional, or (3) that sexy little number at the Seven-Eleven store where he buys his cigarettes.

I may be making light of today’s marriage age adults, but you just have to look at statistics of the number of marriages versus divorces, families with children of various parentage, etc. and you can’t argue that there seems to be a lack of commitment. I am sure that there are responsible adults out there who are not the way I presented in my irreverent portrayal. It is just that I get really annoyed when some beer swilling hairy-assed jock belches and says, “I’m in charge, and I’ll take what I want.” He may still have some tender feelings for the woman that he married, but with all the conflicting influence on his behavior of having to be macho but sensitive, manly but expressing his femininity, he is one confused male. Add to that the possibility of not being very intelligent or even smart, he has a major problem dealing with his life in a caring and intelligent manner. No wonder he wants to split when the little woman does not see it his way.

This is not implying that the wife is necessarily perfect and just a victim of a bad marriage. She may be just as messed up as he is. Coming from a broken family, uncaring parent or parents, torn between warring parents, succumbing to peer pressure of early exposure to drugs and sex, seeing television sitcom females as her role models she has her own problems. She may be perfectly beautiful and sexy, but totally unable to handle a marriage. So, when things become difficult between them, she will decide to split. They become single again, and the cycle repeats with possible complications: children.

A person’s lifetime is too short to accommodate several experimental marriages that fail in search of one that finally succeeds (the eenie-meenie-minie-moe approach). It is best to be selective in the first place, but I understand that most couples are not mature enough when they marry. I know that I was not, even though I was old enough. Why? It is because we never had education in how to select a mate for life. Romance novels, movies, and television are very bad sources for such task. Either our parents were unwilling to talk about it, did not know it themselves, or it was not part of the curriculum of raising a child. It is just not done. Look at many TV show that deal with so-called families, and you see a lot dysfunctional people who don’t have a clue about commitment. Their children grow up sophisticated with respect to today’s gadgets and protocol. They emulate the dog-eat-dog relationship within and outside the family. They learned these from the parents and peers, and don’t have a clue about survival as a caring and reponsible adult.

On to the positive approach …

My background prepared me to take responsibility for my actions and for all who depend on me. I realize that once I make a change in another person’s life, I am responsible for that change. Marriage is such change in the most profound way.

Commitment is necessary regardless of the style of relationship. We cannot simply say, “We love each other and all is well,” and expect it to succeed and last forever. It takes two to have any kind of relationship. A relationship needs awareness, open mind, and continual support from both participants. You can relax for a while if you have a lot of goodness in the bank, but don’t become complacent. Your partner’s attitude is likely to be as in, “Yeah, you were great, but what have you done lately?” It is not wrong. It is the way we are. If you are really committed, you will do all you can to avoid having to hear that.