Learning Captain and First Officer

Reader:  I have noticed that my wife has started reading your blog here and there. She puts on like she is un-interested, but she has made enough comments that I can tell she is reading and paying some attention.  She occasionally hits me up wanting to know if I’m trying to pull something over on her from your blog.  Its like she wants me to be dominant and alpha but resists it at the same time.

This sets up a question I want to ask you.  Basically my wife and I are both naturally more dominant than submissive.  From reading your blog, you have pointed out that you and your wife are basically both more submissive or beta.  At least you started out that way as I understand it.  So as you up-ed the Alpha your wife just ate it up and it made a big difference in the relationship and with the sex.

In our case, we are starting from both being dominant.  So its more a matter of my wife deciding to be submissive which then brings out my Alpha or at least allows my existing Alpha to actually work on her rather than just piss her off (when she takes the dominant stance). She struggles with this and frankly has just been all over the map the past few weeks as I have been taking a more Alpha/Dominant stance with her (I also focused on beta things while upping the Alpha, night off from the kids, doing laundry, etc etc).  Some of my attempts have worked with amazing results and other have backfired horribly and really upset her.  My problem, is I can’t be so Alpha that I can just completely ignore her when she gets upset like this.  It tears me up inside, so I try to talk to her about it to smooth things over, and this always goes nowhere and in fact angers her to no end.

So my question is basically, what advice to you have in this situation (2 Dominants rather than 2 betas trying to work this out)?

Do I just need to take a harder stand against her dominant behaviors towards me (which I don’t know if I have the nerve to fully go there)?  Or do I need to just add more beta in which seems to role reverse us as my wife can be very Alpha herself?

Remember, my wife says she agrees with heading in the dominant/submissive direction, but in practice its easier said than done. Any ideas?

Athol: Hiya, and hiya Mrs. Reader who is no doubt reading and lurking. The good news is that it sounds like everything is “working as intended” in that you’re on the learning curve and making progress.

 Here’s the crucial line in your question…

Just give her space to process the emotion next time and see what happens. You might find that she’s on the edge of a breakthrough of allowing your leadership, but you try and un-leader yourself to make her feel better. Which she doesn’t actually want.

I would keep talking together about this and understand you are learning these new roles and ways of relating. Try not to think of it as you’re “two dominants” vs Jennifer and myself being “two submissives”. It’s Captain and First Officer for both couples.

Jennifer and I play a very soft low key C&FO. Most people probably don’t even notice that’s what going on because I don’t typically use/need anything but the most minimal force – simple asking – to gain Jennifer’s compliance. In real life you have to watch us quite well to start noticing that I’m the one in charge.

You two may play a harder tougher C&FO. Your wife may respond positively to firm tones and slightly raised voice for example. Or even Klingon directive speech patterns. (You remove all the words except verbs and nouns… You. Here. Now.)   She might get her being dominated fix from an occassional light spanking. Or maybe it’s just hair pulling and a rough pounding in the sack once a week that floats her boat. You can recite poetry while she hurls things at you if that’s what works for you as a couple. Seriously, I don’t care what it is that works for you guys, just explore together and find out what does work.

Don’t expect to immediately unpick and rebuild an 16 year pattern of interaction, it’s going to take at least a year to smooth out the kinks. During this time you will make mistakes in attempting to lead her, and she’s going to have hurt feelings in those moments. But if what she wants – by her own admission – is for you to be dominant over her, the little emotional bumps and bruises translate into her deeper feelings of being dominated effectively.

Which is not to say that you purposely set out to hurt her feelings, or ride roughshod over her. It’s just that not everything works as well as you can hope. You say “Okay that didn’t work, my bad.” and don’t linger on it. Leadership isn’t static, it’s dynamic and adaptive. Listen. Adjust. Move on.

She just doesn’t want her tears to be your kryptonite.