Monday, July 22, 2013

JENN: FEMALE AUTHORITY WITHIN THE FAMILY, Part 1

(A note from Mark Remond: I join many of my readers in lamenting Ms. Amanda’s recent departure from guest posting here. I learned a lot about FLRs and female-led families from her posts, as well as from her clear and concise response to readers’ comments. I, too, hope that Ms. Amanda will consider posting here in the future, if circumstances permit.

In the meantime, I am pleased to offer readers the first of what I hope will be quite a few guest posts by an online friend and email correspondent of Mrs. Amanda, “Ms. Jenn.” Ms. Amanda mentioned Ms. Jenn several times in her posts, as here: “I have [had] some email correspondence with another dominant lady who lives in the Netherlands. She also runs a female led household...”

Although English is not Ms. Jenn’s native tongue (that is Dutch), I have found it necessary to make only a very few alterations in her writing. Here is her first post. — M.R.)

*

First, to provide a little bit of background.  I do not come from a female-led family, but from early on I became aware of what I would call the higher potential of women. Add to this the fact that I have always been the dominant type. However, when I met my future husband, Paul, our relationship started off quite “normal.” Actually I should say “vanilla,” because, as you will see, I regard a wife-led marriage and female leadership in a family not only as normal, but quite natural, firmly based on the natural fact of female superiority.

Paul is a very soft, loving, caring and loyal guy. He works two days a week as a way to supplement my full-time income. This allows him time to do all the household chores and to help with the children. We have three—Sophie, 12, Luuk, just turned 9, and my youngest girl, Lotte, 6 years old.

In many ways, however, my Paul is like another child. He is frequently very childish in behavior and thus irresponsible (a trait which I have come to recognize in many men) and, frankly, less intelligent than Sophie, for instance. That does not mean that I love my husband the less; I am merely stating the reality.

When Sophie was 3 years old, I became fed up with Paul’s childishness, and told him we had to change things for the good of the family. This has been an ongoing process for the last 9 years. Eventually, I decided I should take more responsibility over Paul, even though that would mean he would be relieved of responsibilities and thus rights.

As a result, Paul has grown to be more and more off a brother to my children rather than a father, even though he still displays fatherly love and, as I said, does practically all chores. But he is relieved of any meaningful decision-making. I told him, as his behavior is childish, his treatment should reflect that. All kind of rules that the children abide by, my husband has to abide by as well.

Believe me, compared to the way it was before these stricter rules were applied to Paul, it has worked very well for all of us. My husband is happy and works hard, even though he sometimes has trouble coping with having to keep to the same rules as the kids.

So far I am talking only about our female-led relationship. Now I will speak of our female-led family.

Not long ago my daughter Sophie became 12 years old, and I viewed this milestone as a crucial turning point. She had been asking for more responsibility within the family, and I decided that she should get comfortable with increased responsibility.

I had been browsing on the Internet for information about female led families, or matriarchal families. In that search I came across Mark Remond’s blog, Worshipping Your Wife, and especially certain guest posts by dominant women who had taken charge of their families.

I was especially interested in the posts by Becky Sue on female superiority and matriarchal family guidelines, and by certain comments by Siobhan to Ms. Nancy’s guest posts. I also received some valuable information from comments by other dominant wives and mothers which Mark Remond kindly emailed to me at my request (including from Ms. Amanda).

In my next post, I will share a little bit about my first family meeting on this important topic, in which I talked about some of these ideas with my husband and Sophie and the two younger children. I will also tell you about some of the changes that were decided upon as a result of that meeting.


But here I would like to add a note of caution, which I may repeat in later columns. While I do believe strongly in female-led families and a female-led future, obviously no two people, and no two families, are quite alike. What works for our family may not work for another. So when I describe some of the female-empowering guidelines that we follow, please do not suppose that I am offering these as prescriptions or as an "exact model" for other families. —Ms. Jenn


Wednesday, July 17, 2013

ALPHA_BY_DAY: DISCOVERING FLR



(Note from Mark Remond: I join a great many of my readers in lamenting the recent departure of Ms. Amanda from these pages and in hoping she will find it possible to return. In the aftermath, I have been scrambling to recruit other guest bloggers, especially women. More on this soon. Meanwhile I am happy to tell you that "Sam" will be posting again shortly, and I am delighted today to announce what I hope will be an ongoing series of guest posts by "alpha_by_day," describing his own lifelong search for a female-led relationship. Those intrigued can find more about his submissive quest on his own blog, My Journey Into FLR.)

Hello. I’m honored to become a guest blogger here. I’m going to be checking in from time to time with updates on my search for a female-led relationship.


In my quest for information about FLRs, I found this blog a few months ago and just love it! I’m really quite excited that Mark is allowing me the opportunity to chronicle my journey.


I guess I should start with a little background…


There have been so many different “me’s” in my life. So
many head-spinning course corrections, so many mistakes and triumphs, so many proverbial skinned knees; and yet through it all, still so much for which to be thankful. If balance can be defined as the average of all movements, if extreme flailing in one direction can be balanced by running as fast and hard as possible in the exact opposite direction, then I’d say I have maintained a balanced life.


But that isn’t really true, is it? Balance isn’t a calculus equation whereby two opposing values cancel each other out, regardless of magnitude. Balance is discipline and focus. It’s equilibrium and atonement within the complex circumstances of our lives. Balance is about subtle shifts, a nudge, a minor adjustment to keep us from tipping over.


For most of my life, I’ve been a workaholic, and that singular focus has served me well. I’m good at what I do, I enjoy my career, and my future seems bright. What I realized a few years ago, however, is that I’ve started to define success differently. While I’ll certainly continue to push for greater achievements professionally, I recognize that I need balance. To put it plainly, I need someone with whom to share that success.


But here I come up against a contradiction of long standing. Professionally, I have always been 100% alpha. I’m a natural leader and very comfortable in that role. Personally, however, I have always—literally always (as I’ll discuss in future posts)—harbored submissive desires toward women, though (until quite recently) I’ve found scant opportunity to act on these desires.


How to reconcile that contradiction? Could I ignore the submissive me and be the  alpha me, all the time?


Well, I tried that. I decided that, despite my submissive
desires, a long-term “D/s” (dominant female/submissive male) relationship wasn’t realistic, and I forced myself to go vanilla “cold turkey” so to speak. It was my hope that, within the framework of a vanilla relationship, I could find sufficient outlets for my submission. And even if I couldn’t, it was more important to me to find a long-term loving relationship than it was to live out my submissive fantasies.


I believe that’s the kind of compromise that many submissive guys are forced to make.


Looking back to that decision, or compromise, I find it ironic to think that I grew up in a female-led household, and yet didn’t recognize the difference between a D/s relationship and loving female authority. Call it naivete, call it Internet-kink-inspired ignorance, but regardless, I didn’t see what was sitting right in front of me. And what’s worse is that I tried to consciously ignore feelings I’ve held inside me for my entire life.  


So off I went on a full-scale assault on vanilla dating.


It was great—heck, I love vanilla. Let’s face it, being single in Southern California is pretty amazing. In one sense, all of the great dinners, great wine and great conversations helped me find some balance in my life and enabled me to break the workaholic streak.


I also learned an important lesson about myself, one that has, again ironically, led me inexorably to this point. I realized that I love being a gentleman. I like to bring flowers and hold open doors, to be well mannered, kind, considerate, honest, punctual, to follow through on commitments, always to put her first and do little things to make her day a little brighter. And that’s when it hit me…


Being a gentleman and being submissive seem to have a lot of parallels.


This revelation fueled my fire even more. Being a gentleman
in a vanilla relationship is a perfect outlet for my submissive desires. I can be my alpha self and still put her first and have the best of both worlds. It was around this time that I stumbled upon the “strong but obedient knight” analogy and immediately tried to incorporate that concept, at least to the extent possible in a vanilla relationship.

And yet, through all of my doting, courtly behavior and thoughtful gestures, I began to realize that it was a façade; and so, after all of these attempts at melding my submissive and alpha selves, I’m back where I started trying to find the real me.


Someone I have come to regard as perhaps my closest friend on this journey made a great analogy that seems quite apropos. She said that coming out as a submissive man is, in many ways, like coming out as gay in that you feel the same peace inside once you accept yourself. To live authentically is to know yourself, and that enables you to find happiness.


Now a topic I am likely to explore in future posts is this notion of what is a submissive man, because to tell you the truth, I am still wrestling with the "S" word as it applies (or does not) to me.


I guess in the end, a duck doesn’t know he’s a duck, he only knows he floats and flies.

—Alpha_by_day