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"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so" Hamlet, somewhere.

by ConfusedOfHomeCounties? on 2004 Dec 21 - 15:00 | reply to this comment
Different needs
Louise,

I have very few limits on what my husband can and can not do. Yes I want him to continue to do something if I disagree if he really thinks that is what is needed. I would submit to him if he insisted. I have a say. It means that I can give my side and explain what I want and think I need. But in the end I want him to decide the way it will be. He cares about me, so he takes what I say seriously and will consider what I am saying. I doubt we would be where we are now if I thought I would have no say in our life's decisions. Sometimes I have been surprised that what I was vehemently against turned out to be not what I thought and it turned out to be a good thing for us.

But different from you my husband has explicit consent to do this. It works very well for us. This means that yes some days I may be told to submit to something that I do not want. It is part and parcel of what we do. I know he has our best interest at heart, and he is worthy of the trust I give him.

Blush once talked about hard and soft limits. Hard limits that you do not want to follow are hardest. The true test of whether I trust him to lead comes when he makes a decision that I disagree with. When he sets a hard limit that I do not like. Those are the hardest to submit to. It is easy to comply when I agree. I want him to lead, so it means submitting to the hard limits that I may not always agree with. When we first started out it took a long time before I did not agree with one of his decisions. He listened to me, but decided we were going to do it his way. We had a real battle of wills over that. He won, and it was a powerful experience for us. It helped cement the fact that he was really willing to lead, and yes he was willing to fight my will and could go the distance.

Not everybody is like us. I do not think that makes them not Taken in Hand. What gets me are the people who try to tell me that I should not have this level of consent to his control. There is nothing inherently wrong with him having control to make decisions, even when I really hate them. It is what I want, what he wants. I would never try to tell you that you need to have this level of control in your relationship. What is right for you is right for you, what is right for me is right for me. Taken in Hand is not, as far as I am concerned, a contest to see who can be the most submissive. (We are not voting people off the Taken in Hand Island!) We all have different needs and so we all do it a little differently. I think that is great, because we then get a lot of different perspectives on things on this site. I always learn the most about things when I can see the most different points of view.