It’s easy to obey a man when he’s right. I might grumble about some of the decisions handed to me. I don’t always like them, because I’m being required to do something I’d rather not do. Most of the time, it’s easy to get past my moment of “I don’t wanna” because deep down inside, I know he’s right. He’s made the correct decision and that the “I don’t wanna’ is actually good for me. Frequent topics of “I don’t wanna” include going to school, appropriate bedtimes, taking time for myself, and other issues of self-care, like retirement savings contributions. Even at my most petulant, I know these decisions have been made with my best interests at heart and obeying him is pretty easy. It takes a little extra effort sometimes to obey cheerfully but that’s another column.
My point is that more or less, any idiot can obey the right decision. It’s not rocket science to handle those ones. The much more challenging ones are to obey him when he’s wrong. I’m not talking a little detail wrong. I’m not talking a minor quibble wrong. I’m talking dead-ass, just plain, no matter how you slice or dice or squeeze it, WRONG. Wrong diddy wrong-ity wrong wrong wrong.
Now there’s a moment for you. It’s a whole lot harder to obey when every fibre, every instinct, every thought is arguing with the decision. It’s harder to obey when you think the decision is unreasonable, unfair, based on a double standard, or made in haste or without a full possession of the facts.
So what’s a girl to do? These are the times that challenge my pledge of submission. I struggle. These are the times I wish I was a brainless automaton. I want to argue with him and the more wrong he is, the more I want to argue. I can feel my anger growing even as I obey physically on the outside.
“Anger”, Judith Lassiter Hansen once wrote, “is directly proportional to our need to be right.” How true. It takes milliseconds for the old ego to kick in the defences until my need to be right subsumes the actual point of contest between us.
Fortunately, I have an understanding boyfriend who can read my expressions well. He knows when I’m struggling with inner turmoil over something and to his credit, he is not a moron about it. Where some men would be offended that their judgement was being questioned, he’s cool about it. He doesn’t natter or nag about it. He doesn’t throw some big “I’m the Dom” hissy fit. He gives me the time and space I need to process the emotional reactions. My anger, even when my anger is with him, doesn’t faze him. He’s perfectly fine with me being angry, or hurt, or just conflicted. He lets me have MY anger and allows me the space to deal with it.
He does listen to my viewpoint. He’s very calm at times like this. I guess one of us has to be because usually I’m way too busy emoting to be calm. Unlike some men who don’t listening to what you say because they’re too busy mentally constructing all the arguments of why you’re wrong to really appreciate what you’re saying, he actually listens. He listens with his ears, his brain and his heart. He can very quickly deliver my arguments back to me, including an accurate assessment of my emotional state. “You think I’m being unreasonable” or “you think I’m not listening to your concerns”. He’s usually spot on.
Sometimes he does change his mind. He’s not an unreasonable man. Sometimes I hear the words “You’re right. I didn’t think of it that way.” Much harder, of course, is when I hear the words “I appreciate your viewpoint but my decision stands.”
Now the ball is in my court. My only choice is to obey or disobey. Which is more important to me: my need to be right or my desire to obey?
So far, my desire to obey has won the day.
Later on, sometimes much later on, when I sit in his lap and snuggle in, my face pressed into his neck, the anger is but a memory. “I still think you’re wrong.”
I can feel the warmth of his smile, even though it's out of my sight. “I might well be. I’ve been wrong before and I’ll be wrong again before I die.” He strokes my hair which is something I find very comforting at times like this. “And if I’m wrong, it’ll be my job to fix it – which I have done in the past and will do so again in the future.”
And that’s why I start to appreciate that being the dominant partner doesn’t give a man the inside track on the Truth. He’s as fallible as any other man alive. The difference is his willingness to own the consequences of his decisions. He won’t always be right. In fact, there’s going to be days where he’s going to call it wrong ten ways from Sunday. My job is to remember that his intentions are always good. Even the boneheaded decisions are made with my best interests factored into them. He makes his decisions with his head, of course, but also with a clear heart.
I can feel my body relaxing against him as the stress of conflict just dies out. It’s not “resolved” or “negotiated”. The tension just evaporates when confronted with the strength of my submission.
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