In the past few months, I've done really well incorporating a lot of what I've read on this sub and elsewhere on the internet into my relationship, and things have been going great! My friends have been a bit confused and rather judgmental though of me having my SO take the lead in our relationship. Finally, I appealed to the gamers in them to explain why I loved our new setup.

I play World of Warcraft, and in the game, there are different roles for dungeons and raids, like tank and healer. Generally, the tank leads the way in all of these scenarios with the healer's only job being to keep them and the rest of the team alive. Not only does it help make sure that everyone stays together, but then you don't have multiple people trying to decide that they know which way to go or what to do next.

In my relationship, my SO is the tank and I'm the healer. He leads me and I support him. That's not at all saying that I don't have the capacity to lead myself. If I was playing solo, I would still be able to survive, and I have knowledge of what we're doing, so I'll occasionally offer input if he needs it. But our two-person team works so much better when only one of us is making the decisions.

They actually seemed to warm up to the idea a little after I explained it this way. I think they just always saw it as me giving up my autonomy because "women aren't as smart as men" or something similarly silly. But I think now they see that it's about being the best team possible. Feels good for them to understand a little more :)