I wasn't sure about my own feelings in my own relationship, because I hadn't had any models for what I was feeling, nor did I find that website or anything else very helpful before now.
For myself and my man, I can't say we truly have a TIH relationship, although it may appear to be pretty close.
I can say that all of my friends feel that he has "too much sway" over what I do, and that to them I appear to be c*ck-whipped. Sigh. What can you do? How can I explain to them that this is truly what I want and how I want it, regardless of how it may appear to them that he has me under his thumb?
They can understand the rough sex (most women do understand that and the desire for it) but they don't understand how I went from my marriage, where I had to do everything (although I didn't want that role), to my current relationship where to them it appears he dictates my every move. They also can't understand what to them seems like unusual amounts of possessiveness on his part. They think I should feel controlled and rebel against it.
Well...that's because they are in the same trap I was in when I was married: raised by feminists, told to "never do what a man tells you to do", learned early and soon that they held the sex power, and as a result, they have emasculated husbands and they are not happy, but they DO wear the pants, for which they pretend they are doing it because "they have to". Ugh.
For a while, in the beginning of my new relationship, I thought maybe it was just a sex thing and that maybe I was just exploring some BDSM fantasy stuff (though I kinda knew that wasn't really it). But what other model did I have? It seems such a simple thing, to need and want a male-led relationship...but even that label is weird and doesn't really fit.
Do you remember an email that went around a couple of years ago, which was a cut and copy from a 1950's good housekeeping magazine, an article about basically "how to be a good wifey to your wonderful husband" and it was full of stuff like "keep the children quiet when he comes home so he can shake off his day" and "make yourself prettier for him right before he gets home" and "have a fire lit and a drink ready for him". Things like that. It was heavily misongynistic but at the same time...it was about SAHM's and working dads. When I read it, all I could think was "heck yeah, if a man was totally financially supporting me and I had the day to myself (other than child rearing) I would totally do that stuff!" Myself, I always worked longer and harder and earned more than my husband, so why in the world would I greet him like that at home? But if a man were supporting me? I would have felt it was heaven.
When this article went around, I was in my new relationship and was thinking "yeah I could go for that, especially if he is supporting me". A girlfriend sent me the article saying "look at this total BS, what a load of crap". I wrote back and said "well....but this is about men who fully support their woman. Wouldn't you feel differently if you were being fully supported?" She just ended up getting edgy and defensive and told me I am co-dependant in my new relationship and that "the hold that man has on you is just weird, DanceQueen". Ugh.
So you see, even women don't really get it.
(BTW, that same girlfriend is now happily married to a man who finacially supports her, she gets to be a SAHM for the first time in her life, and guess what? She greets him with a drink, has a fire lit, keeps the kids quiet, and tries to be a nice pleasant wifey for him to come home to. But whoa...when I tried to tell her what it is like when you are happy with a good man who supports you, she just called me co-dependant. You can't really explain, even to another woman, how when you are truly supported and happy it makes you want to be subservient.)
Baggy, I hope you keep posting updates. I will be back with a bit more about my sitch too, for you or whoever is interested.
