I’m a new submissive, Anon. I introduced this into my relationship, and it’s been a learning and growing experience for both of us. Some things I’ve learned:
It’s helpful to lean into any natural dominance by checking any “topping” behavior. I’m a dominant woman in my every day life, so sometimes it’s easy to assert my opinion when he makes a decision or tells me to do something. I try to take a tick before answering things he says, to make sure I’m in a submissive space, and check any desire I have not to listen. I’ll take some questions as orders and default to yes as an answer “Please, Sir.” If he asks me my opinion on something, sometimes I’ll say “what do you think?” or “this is what I’d like, but I’ll follow your lead.” Basically just trying to get into the habit of following him.
Once that started progressing and I didn’t feel it would overwhelm him to talk about it, I asked for some help. We created a phrase for when I’m pushing back, inadvertently topping from the bottom. He says “Trust me.” And that’s a pneumonic device for “You’re topping and you need to stop and trust that I’ve got you.”
It’s also been key for me to ask for what I want. Sometimes with words. Sometimes with movement and body. (”May I have a spanking?” or kneeling with our whip or a belt for when he gets home). Respecting when he says no. Affirming that it’s for his pleasure and at his will. (Asserting when it’s a need so that he can fulfill that.) Leaning into dominance with sex. For us the kinky sex is a gateway to the foundational stuff.
I have had to be careful too, taking one want at a time. It’s when I am greedy it can sometimes overwhelm him. So, the biggest thing that has not been helpful is that I’m obsessed with this right now. There are so many things to want and need, and it’s easy to get lost in them, and confuse them and forget to meet his needs too. It feels like I’m bursting at the seams sometimes.
So I’m working on deciding what is a want and what is a need. This is new and very difficult for me. But I’ve asked Sir to ask me when I ask him things “Is this a want, or a need?” It helps me challenge myself to delineate more clearly. It also gives him the opportunity to assert dominance. He tries to meet my needs immediately but plays around with meeting my wants. Always eventually, but on his time table.
And it helps teach me patience.
It’s easy to want to live, eat, breath this and overwhelm him with the sheer intensity of my need. I had a really hard couple of days recently, and actually felt like maybe it would be easier to stop being submissive. But that’s just not possible because it’s who I am. So it’s important to remember one very key phrase:
“Good girls are patient.”
Both a mantra and a lesson I have had to learn and relearn. Impatience in this life can cause damage, it can hurt, it can make things more difficult. Make sure to ask about/read about subfrenzy, and take heed that it IS real, it DOES happen, and it CAN ruin things. I wish I had listened better about that. I wish I had done more research and entered in slower.
@fantasies-of-a-dominant is right, sending articles is super helpful. I save articles about introducing D/s and the different options @ggsavesallthethings and then when we are talking about something within D/s (bondage, CNC, rules, aftercare) I send him corresponding articles to read and we talk about them.
That actually came out of a minor (but could have been major) mistake when we didn’t think or read about aftercare after our first punishment. So now we prepare. SAFE, sane and consensual.
I and we have made mistakes and that’s ok, because mistakes are milestones that mark my/our growth. When I’m unsure, when I need support, I reach out to members of this community, I build a tribe. It was some of my tribe ((thank you @fantasies-of-a-dominant, @xxxamorexxx, @hesincharge, @comicbookj82 & @avidlylearning) that helped me get through those hard days until Daddy and I could get on the same page again.
With any new thing introduced into a relationship, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. @instructor144 (another thanks!) told me recently “It’s hard when both people are learning together. Some really succeed at it, but the basics have to be there.” At the end of the day, I could bring all of this to him, do all of these things, but he had to step up too. It had to be natural for him to be dominant and then he had to choose to lean into it. So, there is responsibility on both of our sides, and we both have to accept that for this to work.
Feel free to reach out anon, I’m always happy for a new tribe member, and while this is not intended as advice, I hope that my experiences can be of some help to you and your potential Dom, I wish you the best. Submission is magic, and we all deserve a little magic in this life!