How Fifty Shades of Grey Saved Our Marriage

For those who don’t get out to the movies much Fifty Shades of Grey is a controversial movie about Dominance and submission (D/s) power exchange relationship between a man and a woman. While I haven’t read any of the books in the series, there’s three, I did go see the movie with Kitten. We both loved it. She was already a big fan of the books and felt the movie did a good job over all of telling the story from the first book.

The movie is not without critics.  Many in the BDSM community have taken issue with the way the movie portrayed a D/s relationship.  Since this article is not a movie review or critique I’m not going to get into those issues.  Many other people I’ve read or talked with who are critical of Fifty Shades have never seen the movie. Basically, those critics are characterizing the characters as a misogynistic male predator and female victim story. All of which is reason enough to watch.  Clearly, Fifty Shades touched a nerve in our culture well worth exploring.

As far as the personal impact of the movie we were inspired us to begin exploring more deeply the D/s power exchange dynamic in our sexual relationship.  D/s wasn’t really a new concept for me prior to the movie.  Playing on the Dominant side of the dynamic has been attractive to me for quite a while. Over the years I’ve come across interesting articles and web sites.  Steve Pavlina’s Getting Started with D/s Play for example is good.

Actually being the Dominant for real in a relationship though was another thing altogether. Speaking from my own experience as well as what I gather from online forums there’s a lot of misunderstanding of the nature of Dominance and submission. Many critics of Fifty Shades also miss the critical point about the dynamic.  The source of the power of the Dominant rests in the conscious choice of the submissive to submit.

What is required for the submissive to surrender to the Dominant? What makes the Dominant worthy of being given power?

Trust

As trust grows between the D/s so does surrender and submission.  As the submissive is able to surrender the Dominant can be drawn deeper into the dynamic.  There’s an opening and mutual drawing along of the partners potentially happening on many levels.

Kitten and I encountered a seemingly insurmountable obstacle of being mutually reactive with each other.  From the beginning of our relationship we triggered our primary core issues. We really are made for each other as perfectly complementary partners in every way.  Which includes maximizing each others growth including accompanying pain!

In a future article I’ll share about our psychic connection, spiritual experiences and such.  For now, I’ll just say the match is perfect, amazing, and really hard to explain. Something I’ve never experienced before in my life.

Crisis Point

When we got to our crisis point a few months ago we had no idea what to do.  Essentially, she wanted to feel safe from being abandoned and I felt helpless in the reactive dynamic. Feeling helpless led me to feel a desire to escape instead of stepping into a position of strength. My desire to escape led her to feeling abandoned. These feelings were intense, deep, and exhausting both physically and emotionally. They also fed on each other.

Therapy was helping with managing some of my reactions.  We were still not getting to where we needed to be in our relationship. At the end of our collective rope while she was out on an errand preparing for our seemingly inevitable split I got a flash of an idea.

When she got home I suggested something pretty unorthodox. Would she be willing to really embody the D/s dynamic?  What would happen if we fully incorporated D/s into our lives beyond the bedroom? Could we create space for me to be the Dominant and her to be the submissive? More importantly, could we do it in the midst of intense conflict?

This choice was risky and I wouldn’t advise anyone try it without some professional guidance. Mental health issues can have serious impacts on success.

What helped us in our process?

• Communication is vital. More than ever honest compassionate, none-blaming communication about our desires and needs was required for us to be in these roles.
• Kitten had to choose to be my submissive and surrender. She made a very courageous choice to be fully vulnerable in the face of intense conflict. Without that choice I would never actually be her Dominant. Her willingness to create space for me to be in strength was key.
• Her vulnerability and softness opened a space for my strength and presence. Leaving wasn’t needed to protect myself.  Needing to protect myself wasn’t needed at all. I was able to show up with my willingness to hold a safe place for her and us and stay physically present. Together we are able to create a space of expansion and growth for each other.

We learned that yes we can be in the D/s dynamic in many areas of our relationship. Because I wanted to avoid power her creating space for me to hold power has allowed me to learn to trust myself being strong in relationship, especially during conflict. I’ve learned I can hold a strong presence for both of us.  No more feeling helpless.

Over time she is learning to trust me in areas, giving me the power to make the final decisions. She trusts I am looking out for the greater good of both of us.  In the process, I’m learning to trust her as I become more open to allowing her to take care of me.

Yes, sex has become a delicious, beautiful way for us to to practice this dynamic.  There’s so much more though.

Love flows between us more and more deeply by the day. I feel we were destined to come together to catalyze this growth for each other.

She is my Kitten.  I am her Master.