Chris M. Lyon - Leading and Supportive Love - The Truth About Dominant and Submissive Relationships

As a young child, Im at a family holiday gathering on asunny southern California day in the late 1970s; in a house full of family, homemadefood and gifts. I observe the usual scene of most of the women taking care ofall of their children and seeing to it that they behave, eat, go to thebathroom, and play nice.

One of them also serves her husband food and waits on himpatiently and thoughtfully. After the large meal, her husband sits back,relaxing into contented snores. Meanwhile, his wife tends to the children, andhelps with cleanup from the meal. When he wakes up, she greets her husbandcheerfully and helps load up the car before they say their goodbyes and leave.

That day, I dont remember this man saying more than a fewsentences, and all of them were short requests/commands or grunts, either tohis wife or his kids. I guess he was kind of scary to me at the time.

I soon came to resent this type of treatment as unfair andimagine that wives like this must be sad and abused, maybe even trapped in anunhappy life.

Decades later, as an adult spending face time with thiscouple, I realize how this man is humorous and sensitive, how much he adoresand loves his children. I understand more about the care he has provided at allcosts for their family to be happy and secure. He has consistently worked hardand carried great stress to gladly provide his family the quality of life andopportunities that he himself may never have had.

On the occasions I observed as a youth, this man (and otherslike him) had actually spent his day off visiting his wifes family and wasvery patient and polite about it. He may not have completely felt like he fitin and may not have known what to say to the other ultra-energized, running,chattering children that he only saw once or twice a year. He was on a holidaybreak and just needed to sit back and breathe for a while.

He does his job. His wife was doing hers, as at the time,traditionally she did not work outside of the home. He and his wife lived bytraditional roles and she seemed happy with it.

I found out later that some spouses were happy with theirroles, others werent. Other couples presented that the man was in charge, eventhough to me, the woman was really the head of the household.

Over time, things changed. Societal traditions morphed andshifted into varied relationship standards, as statistics showed a rise of bothpartners working for a living. The "balance of power" it seemedbecame more openly determined by each individual couple.

Still, I saw these scenes of couples in clearly hierarchalrelationships played out. The gender varied in either "role," butmost interesting was that both partners seemed to be happy and content withthis arrangement.