Hey Hon? If you wear the pants in the family, what do I wear?

Actually, I have zero, zip, no problem with you being charge of us. In fact, I rather prefer it. My job is in fact to provide for you and the kids. I take that job very seriously; and believe I do it well.

But for the other things, how can I complain. Sometimes I’d prefer you to be a little more in charge than you might actually feel comfortable with.

Does this make me a wuss? I hardly think so. As you’ve pointed out, I have 20+ people, and growing, who are fully dependent on me to lead them. And then I have my investors on top of that. And then there are my customers. Oh yeah, my vendors are always calling as well. Frankly, I need as much of a break as I can get. I still think you just need to go 24/7 domme on me. That’d be so awesome!!!

I love you!!!

dearest V,
as you may know, i have someone in my life now. she’s fucking fantastic and i love her dearly. she’s had some tough turns tho overall with past guys, so we play it even-steven. i am challenged with the fear of being too domineering (sp?) so overall, we tend to share the responsibilities. most often, i am happy and willing and even allowed to take the lead… other times, like in the AM, i awake to a situation where i have no choice but to…well.. you know. (lurve that)

This is a difficult subject for me to address, because it hits right in the heart of my marital problems. When we got married, I took care of our finances and took the lead in the bedroom as well. Regardless, we both worked and felt we were on equal footing. When our son was born, we agreed that I would stay home with him. Soon the money my husband earned became “his” money and I was no longer competent to make financial decisions. I still took the lead in initiating and directing things in the bedroom, but he took over the financial duties. In fact, he became downright dictatorial about them, making decisions without my input and refusing to allow me access to “his” money beyond what he deigned to give me. I’m not good with that. Then he took control in the bedroom too, by refusing to sleep with me except on rare occasions. I would have left a long time ago, except that one of those rare occasions resulted in our daughter and I didn’t want to go back to work right when I had a new baby.

He’s been a little better lately about the money part, sharing information about the bills, letting me take money out of the account so long as I inform him ahead of time (though he still doesn’t quite get what it takes to maintain a household for and feed a family of 4 . . . ). I invited him to be more aggressive, dominant in the bedroom – maybe get some of that need to control out of his system, but he just can’t do that (he says). But he still controls it by saying no (he hasn’t so much as kissed me in almost a year).

There’s tons – TONS – more I could say on this issue, but I think that’s enough for now. Like I said, difficult topic for me.

in my family we both wear shorts. no pants involved. by that i mean that we share responsibility. i am the primary bread winner. she makes enough money to cover day care so that she can get out of the house. she cleans, i cook. she pays the bills, i deal with all of the phone calls to credit card companies, etc. we work it together. in the bedroom, i am clearly the dominant, even though i’d like her to take more of a lead.

we also help each other out by letting each take a day off. it isn’t unusual for one of us to hide away all day saturday in the bedroom watching tv or reading a book while the other one deals with everything else. everyone needs to be able to do this.

my marriage is a good one and i know it. the only complaints i really have about it are sexual, but then who doesn’t have those kind of complaints from time to time?

I think it has to be relatively equal. Sure, there are definitely areas that are mine and ones that are his, but on a whole, I think it should try to be fairly well-balanced between husband and wife. Although there are some time when it doesn’t feel that way…

i recently tried handing everything over to someone but found that it was a mistake…so uhm…i say, i prefer to have someone else handle things BUT i think it’s a very dicey proposition to find the RIGHT person to give that up to.

Bronxbt- I think that is awesome. And I think you are taking the righ steps, by treading lightly. With all new relationships you have to ‘feel each other out’ (forgive the pun, lol) to see what each person’s comfortablity in the relationship is. Thanks for giving me your response. :) xo

Bunny- thank you so much for sharing what you did with me. You are in a difficult position. *hugs*

D- shorts…not pants….LOLOLOL But seriously, I think you have a very healthy stance. Awesome. I appreciate you sharing!

M- I totally agree. It *is*. And even then when you think you may have found the right person to hand it over to, it may still be wrong. Live and learn. *sigh* Hang in there chickie!

Gah, I was just talking about this… in my previous relationship (ex-husband), it began with him being in control of finances & bedroom. We had a new baby shortly after getting married and my “job” was to take care of him, house and finish my schooling. This lasted for about 3 years until I took a full-time position teaching after 2 kids later and that year our third son came along. At which time, I ended up staying home on bedrest and then after he was born. I took over the finances because my ex had started a company with a friend and could no longer “handle” paying the bills on time. The only thing that I had control over was making the phone calls to credit cards, insurance, etc. when there was a problem b/c he didn’t want to deal with it all! I finally took over the finances but the bedroom remained his domain and when I tried to exert some dominance in that arena, well, let’s just say it didn’t go over well. He’d withdrawl and that’d be the end of me trying to in the bedroom.

This is what partially led to my downfall in my marriage. Go figure…