The Emotional Complexity of Wife Led Marriage

At first glance, the authority that a wife wields over her husband might appear to be nothing more than the exploitation of her husband's carnal desires.

Though wrong, this is perfectly understandable given prevailing attitudes.

Marital advice on how to save or improve your marriage has long been centered around conversation and intellectual engagement in problem solving. While an allowance is made for the emotional needs and experience of the spouses, it is generally assumed that the wife and husband must sit down and talk through their problems. Alternatively, marriage counselors lead the discussion asking each to make conscious changes in their behavior for the sake of the marriage.

This focus on intellectualizing emotional issues too often results in a dead end. If the husband won't agree to talk about the marriage, or meet with the marriage counselor, or consciously change his behavior, then the only alternative is divorce.

By contrast, when a wife sets about to assume the lead in her marriage, whether to repair or improve it, she does not share this decision with her husband. Rather, she simply acts to influence his thinking. And the most crucial step that she takes is to assume complete control of sex.

At a casual glance, then, it may appear as if the wife is simply withholding sex and that her husband is merely working hard in hopes of sexual gratification. But there is much more going on than that.

Sex, being a primal human desire, has deep emotional and psychological roots. When you manipulate your sexual relationship you are reaching past your husband's consciousness and manipulating the deepest parts of his subconscience.

As a result of this sexual manipulation, your husband's emotions and feelings about you and your marriage become fundamentally altered.

As you pair sex and authority you begin to wield erotic power in your marriage. Your husband experiences this differently than either sex or power alone. He very quickly becomes addicted to your erotic power. He experiences this addiction as an irresistible desire, arising out of his deepest subconsciousness, to submit himself to your authority. He begins to crave every opportunity to obey your command. He starts to feel great joy in serving you.

Ultimately, he begins to worship you.

That can be a very startling change if six months ago you were on the verge of divorce, arguing, as so many couples do, about money, kids, and housework. It may be tempting to miss or dismiss his adoring interest in you as nothing more than the pursuit of the sexual gratification that you have been so carefully managing. If so, you are selling short yourself and him and the transformation itself.
 
The transformation is real. It is profound. It is deep and permanently life changing.

Asymmetric Sex

One of the most surprising aspects of wife led marriage is the asymmetric nature of sex. Few wives can imagine how different their sex life becomes when they assume a position of dominance in the marriage. 

In most marriages sex is essentially symmetric, or at least idealized as such. When one partner is in the mood, usually the husband, he works to arouse the other or, more commonly, simply initiates sex with, if he is in any way a gentleman, the expectation of mutual satisfaction.

But wife led marriage is different.

In a wife led marriage, the wife controls sex. Either she allows her husband to indicate an interest, to which she responds positively or negatively, or she reserves the initiation of sex entirely to herself. In either case, the wife is the gate keeper of sex.

When she does choose to engage in sex, it is primarily focused on her satisfaction. She expects her husband to bring her to orgasm at least once, perhaps more, before there is any possibility of his own.

So every sexual encounter in a wife led marriage arrives at a point where the wife has been satisfied but the husband has not. This makes sense because there is virtually no risk of a healthy husband failing to orgasm during sexual intercourse whereas there is considerable risk that he might before the wife, thus depriving her and ending the intimacy.

The wife's first orgasms, therefore, are achieved by means other than sexual intercourse. The possibilities are endless but usually involve manual or oral stimulation or the use of sex toys.

But just as the wife decides when sex occurs, so does she decide how far it proceeds. In particular, she decides whether sex proceeds beyond her first orgasms. As a routine matter, the husband not only has no expectations about when or whether sex will happen but, as well, how far it will proceed when it does.

As part of the transformation of the marriage, the wife may be scaling back her husband's orgasms and, at the same time, increasing her own.

How far can this go?

Well, let us suppose that you decide to allow your husband an average of one orgasm a week. At the same time, you might indulge yourself each night. That would result in a ratio of 7:1.

But you might allow him as few as a couple orgasms a month while you enjoy a quickie in the morning, another after work, and a more intimate and prolonged encounter in the evening. That is a ratio approaching 50:1.

These ratios, while interesting, are irrelevant. Once you pass beyond 5:1 there is really no longer any meaningful connection between your orgasms and his, they become entirely different matters: his are a strict matter of discipline, the exact frequency that brings about optimal adoration and obedience while you can enjoy as many as you wish. In fact, the more sexual intimacy, the better for the marriage.

That might seem incredible but for the fact that as you become ever more proficient in exercising erotic power in your marriage, your husband begins to derive ever greater happiness from your satisfaction. He will crave that morning quickie as much as you!

Needless to say, this extreme asymmetry does not come about overnight. It develops naturally over time so that, gradually, eventually, both of you come to regard wife-centered sex as a normal aspect of wife led marriage.

How Public Should Your Wife Led Marriage Be?

One thing I want to make unequivocally clear is that I blog post here with an understanding of a couple of things.  One is that I am somewhat of a novice and am seeking to learn.  Another is my understanding and assumption that all couples are different and can choose different paths - even if they do share the general commonality of being in female led or wife led relationships.  I consider myself to be an "explorer"only.  I relish the thoughts, feedback, and knowledge that others have.  For me it's the reason to post at all.

Another thing I should share is that even though I still consider myself a novice in many ways I have quickly realized that I may well be more "strict" or "dominant" than some, though not all, other women who are in these types of marriages.  It's just me and so far seems to be working quite well - for both of us. Though I am a bit afraid of sounding "too strict" my feeling is that my authoritarianism works well and my husband not only is responsive to it but needs it.

One thing I am curious about is how do other women handle the public aspects of a wife led or female in the lead type of marriage?  To be honest, even in marriages that would not use the term "wife led" my belief is that many of them are - even if not in the more extreme ways my own has been developing.  Even in more "traditional" families I think it is frequently known that you "call the woman of the house if you want something done".  Please know - I realize fully that there are numerable exceptions.  I hear and see many women who run their homes in an authoritarian fashion - even if it is not fully acknowledged that that is the case.

Part of my purpose of this post is to explore the "public" aspects of wife led marriage.  For us, out in the World it has not really been an issue for the most part. Occasionally we will get a "glance" or "double take" in a restaurant when I indicate that the bill come to me - or last week when, quite audibly I told my husband that I wanted him to pick a salad for dinner (keeping him trim) - despite his menu lingering over a sauced chicken dish.  Our "dynamic" did not go unnoticed by the 30 something waitress who had to sense that this was not negotiable.  I expect she was not used to this sort of "public" openness of female authority.  I don't know.

Those more "anonymous" interactions have been more straightforward.  It gets a bit more interesting with family and friends.  Our parents, particularly his mom, are more than aware that I "wear the pants in the family" though they do not  know nearly how far  my authority extends.  My girlfriends are another story.  I have one, maybe two who "know all" and then a more extensive group who "know" in some sense but again not the full extent - frankly I am not even sure I  myself know that!

The "public question" was apparent to me last weekend when I had my husband prep, serve and clean up after a small group of professional women I had over for a "business-social" type gathering.  Again, the "dynamic" did not go unnoticed.  The two single women chided "where can I get one of those".  At one point there was what I would call some "gentle teasing".  My husband is sensitive and can be prone to blushing easily and did so then.  I think he knows though that I won't let the ladies get too rough!

In any event - I am curious as to how other women/couples manage all this. My expectation is that my husband works to manage it for the most part.  I know that there will be moments of vulnerability that I expect will feel more awkward to him than to me and I will support him through those moments.  However, I don't want or expect to "hide" the real dynamic of our connection and for the most part want and expect him to manage.  The deep reality is - he knows that when I am pleased - he may be as well.  My happiness is (increasingly) a primary objective for him - even if I lay out challenges.