This is a second part to Charmer’s post, here.
I don’t get as many questions about things as Charmer does – but I do get a lot of assumptions. I get assumptions about what it means to be in an FLR with D/s structure and how it all works for us. It’s odd how people will see a video, read a story someplace and assume that that’s both reality and the same for everyone.
It’s not.
Sure, the tropes and caricatures are fun and full of frenzied fantasy – and at times, those things happen, but day-to-day life is pretty different, at least for us. We have worked very hard to figure out what works for us these last several years. I don’t know if it would even work for anyone else, but we’ve found a good rhythm (that Charmer loves to break up on a regular basis, but that’s another story).
This is where we insert a standard, “our kink may not be your kink, but both of our kinks, and approaches to them, are OK. Your mileage may vary. Some restrictions apply. Our approach is not everyone’s approach – and may not be ANYONE’s approach…
I have come to learn that in D/s parlance, I’m a service-oriented /s/ in our relationship. I love to just make sure she’s getting some little thing done here or there, or that she doesn’t have to deal with stuff that breaks or repair folk or whatever. At the same time, it’s so cool to let her just take care of things – like running the finances or figuring out our next adventures together (trips or whatever). All of those fall under the FLR umbrella. She drives things for us as a couple, but we talk about stuff, we lay out options, she decides, that’s that.
It’s never been a dictatorship, not really, but it is done once decided. I sort of see it as my thing to go execute on that, make sure it happens and that, since I know her vision for whatever the thing is, I can make sure it’s fulfilled in every way possible.
This doesn’t mean I don’t participate, or that she doesn’t care what I have to contribute. It means she’s deciding when we’re going one direction or the other. We both have input, but she’s making the choice.
We’ve worked with DD – and while it’s part of our dynamic, it’s not the controlling part. We did that, we tried using it on a day in and day out basis, but it wasn’t her thing. So we have changed, really, to DD being the answer if I am supremely stupid or stubborn about not doing or doing a thing as she wants. Otherwise, I’m managing to her expectations. This runs from our outside activities (Dance, Work, Family) to our us time and sexy time.
Yes, DD is there if earned. But I like to think it’s extremely difficult to fall into that. We both work to those expectations and to smaller corrections if needed, usually. Impact play, well, that’s another story altogether.
Overall, I love getting things out of her way. It’s very much like a management role – the folks working for the manager are there to make sure the manager can get their stuff done, can make the choices to drive things forward and to make sure the overall direction is attained. I sort of see that as my role support our FLR – do the myriad of little things that make life a little easier (cook when I can, cleaning, baths, tea, all of that simple, but fun stuff that she enjoys).
I’m not perfect, but we’ve found a good rhythm of real-life, incorporating D/s and FLR in our real life (you’d recognize it in a heartbeat if you knew us, but wouldn’t probably notice if you didn’t and weren’t looking for it).
Charmer has a knack of resetting things too, when they need resetting. This may be playtime, or impact stuff or just a look. We were doing our outside hobby just last night, running through our thing and she stopped for a half-beat longer than needed and just locked eyes with me. No one but us noticed, and right then and there we both went through a very edgy reset … and then moved on. But it was her, giving direction, taking control again.
If you looked at us KNOWING us, you’d see all of it, but if you didn’t know us, you wouldn’t — but we are always pulling in the same D/s direction.