Yes, he's in control. Yes, he loves to be in control. But, he's easy with it, it sits lightly on his confident shoulders. It suits him. It's healthy for him.
Me, I'm a different animal altogether. I fret about control or rather any lack of it. I leap to fill any vacuum that I perceive in control. But things just have to be under control - come hell or high water - and believe me hell followed.
This is what got me in such a mess before I knew him, before I understood myself and my needs. When things got rocky and others faltered, I stepped up so fast to fill the gaps, to try to bring everything back under control, that I put myself and them in places that were not good for either of us. (And no I am not robbing the other person of their part in it. That person made choices too: perhaps even the ones that kickstarted the whole sorry affair.) But it grew like some malignant weed: the more the other dropped, backed off, the more I tried to pick up and take on... and the more unhappy everyone became. Really not healthy.
And don't misunderstand me, it's not all bad, this tendency to step up to the mark - it makes me tough, reliable, dependable in a crisis, quick to act in an emergency - I am not doing myself down here. I am not some weak and feeble damsel who needs rescuing , who cannot decide what to have for lunch or is not capable of running her own life. Funnily enough, I've not met a single woman or man who identifies as consensual slave or property that is - which says something about the nature of s-types or the taste of their Owners. But I do say that working against your nature is unhealthy and the head docs have it all wrong when they label all forms of dependence as unhealthy.
But back to my point.
The first, perhaps the greatest gift that his dominance gives me, that this relationship with its special brand of inequality holds for me, is the ability to relinquish control to him and stop worrying about it and allowing it to control my life. It's not about dependence, it's about finding and accepting answering needs and roles in each other.
It's freeing for me. The fear is gone and I'm learning a more healthy response to control. He's teaching me not to fear either the control in his hands or the lack of it in the parts of life that no-one can control. And that's possible because he really IS in control of the rest of my life without cost to him. It's fulfilling for him.
Meanwhile, I'm a recovering control-freak and he's the Master.
Meanwhile, I'm a recovering control-freak and he's the Master.
