Responsibility in Female Led Relationships

I used to think that being responsible meant paying your bills on time and having the basic necessities of life figured out. That’s one level of responsibility, and an important one to learn, but it’s not the only level of responsibility. I came to intimately realize this when I went away to a weekend men’s work experience where among other lessons was one on accountability.

I stood up in front of a room full of men and shared the burden I had been carrying about the choices I made in my life. I was asked by the man facilitating me to be accountable for my choices, not just to myself, but to the other people my actions impacted. What he asked me to do brought me face to face with the full consequences of my choices, not just for myself, but for other people. It was a life changing moment.

Taking accountability for my choices was the first step on the road to being truly responsible for my choices in life. It wasn’t an easy road to walk, but it has made me into a better man and person. One of my next steps happened through a class I was taking. In the class, the teacher made the point none of us were victims of circumstances. We had made choices and were responsible for those choices. If we weren’t happy with those choices, we had responsibility for that lack of happiness in our lives.

Many people might read this and think it’s radical to take so much responsibility for one’s life. I personally find it liberating. At any given moment of the day, I can pause and reflect that the circumstances I find myself in are for the most part self-chosen. I don’t control everything around me, but I do have control over thing: How I choose to respond in my life.

The root words behind responsibility teach us what it really is

When you look at the word responsibility and break it down you have two words: Response and ability. Or to reframe it, you have the ability to respond. Take a moment and really take that in. You have the ability to respond. It’s quite powerful!

Many people react and place that power in the hands of whatever they are reacting to. And yet at any given moment you could take that power back by simply choosing to respond instead of react. Many people will never do this because it is much more comfortable to react than it is to respond. For a long time, I was one of those people, at least a good part of the time. I took responsibility sometimes, but I also reacted a lot, and let my reactions call the shots.

And it wasn’t just my reactions. I let my feelings and desires also call the shots. I made some impulsive choices in the moment and the reason was that I didn’t have something essential. I didn’t have a clear sense of values that I could draw on. I realize how awful that might sound, but I don’t think I’m alone in this experience. I don’t make any excuses for it either. I grew up a certain way, learned certain skills for surviving and that became the way I operated for a long time. I used it to justify a lot of choices I made.

I had moments of insights and glimmers of realization but it really took hitting bottom, multiple times, for me to recognize that the way I was living my life wasn’t working. I wasn’t taking responsibility for my choices and I wasn’t always thinking about the choices I was making. I was living life on cruise control, but I wasn’t steering the car very well.

What taking Responsibility Really Meant

Getting into men’s work was when my life started to turn around. I took responsibility for the fact that I wasn’t happy with my life or with myself. I didn’t like myself very much. In fact, I downright loathed myself. I felt empty on the inside, and even though I had done a lot of meditation and inner work, I didn’t feel like any of it was really moving the needle. I was going through the motions of changing my life, but still ending up in the same exact space I had been in before.

Something needed to change and it became clear to me that a significant part of the change was my relationship with myself as a man, as well as how I related to other men. I didn’t have a lot of male friends. I didn’t know how to relate to other men. I just knew I distrusted them. But to be honest, I didn’t trust myself either.

My lack of trust in myself had led me to make questionable choices in my life. I realized the only way I could really begin to change my relationship with anyone else was by first changing my relationship with myself. I also knew that I couldn’t do that on my own. I still needed to be in relationship with other people. Instead of putting all this on a romantic relationship, which would have been unfair to the person that I would have gotten involved with, I started really focusing in on developing relationships with other men. By taking responsibility for the relationship I had with other men, I also took responsibility for the relationship I had with myself.

As I changed my relationship with other men, I began changing the relationship I had with myself and it helped me see some patterns in my life I hadn’t acknowledged or recognized. I had displaced my own responsibility onto the relationship I had with the women in my life. I had unconsciously looked to them to heal my issues, salve my pain, and otherwise take care of me. I began to recognize how much stress I had placed on the relationships I had been in. The more ownership I took of my relationships with myself and others, the more I was able to change how I showed up in those relationships.

How this applies to Female Led Relationships

In a female led relationship, the woman is the leader of the relationship. A man who is in this type of relationship may be tempted to abdicate his responsibility in the relationship. She’s in charge, so she calls the shots. However, this doesn’t release you from taking responsibility. If anything, being in this relationship requires you to take even more responsibility.

You’re taking on the responsibility of dismantling everything you’ve learned about being a man in a relationship and offering that up through your submission. You are also taking on the responsibility of submission to her and trusting her leadership. Another part of your responsibility is what I’ve been speaking to in this article: You need to take responsibility for your self care and well-being instead of putting it on her.

When I talk about self care and well-being, I’m not just talking about going to the gym and staying fit. That can be an important component of physical self-care and that’s often where men stop. Self-care goes far beyond that though. It includes:

• Learning good self care habits for how you nourish yourself.

• Getting rid of addictive habits such as smoking and alcohol and porn, while also identifying why you have chosen those habits.

• Learning emotional wellness and connection with the support of other men.

• Connecting with your sexuality from a place of curiosity, desire and creativity instead of from a place of trying to numb yourself.

The better you are at taking care of yourself, the better you can be in any relationship you are in.

A Practical Exercise for Taking Responsibility as a Submissive Man

Responsibility is different from compliance. A submissive man who truly wants to embrace responsibility as a core virtue needs to understand the difference.

Many men equate responsibility with compliance.

This is probably the most common pattern that shows up in Female Led Relationships. The internal logic is:

“If I do exactly what she wants, I’m being responsible.”

But compliance is only one expression of responsibility. A sovereign submissive version of responsibility is:

“I take responsibility for carrying out what we’ve agreed to, while remaining aware, communicative, and accountable.”

The difference is subtle but significant. One is passive execution; the other is active participation. Passive execution will only get you so far and at some point it will make the dynamic less powerful. Active participation shows that you are fully embracing your role in the relationship and the responsibility that comes with being a man whose submission to her leadership she can trust.

Responsibility is often externalized.

Many submissive men unconsciously believe:

• She is responsible for leading.

• She is responsible for making decisions.

• She is responsible for maintaining the relationship.

• She is responsible for correcting me.

This places an invisible emotional workload on the dominant partner.

In healthy dynamics, leadership does not eliminate shared responsibility. Different responsibilities can coexist without one partner becoming responsible for everything. She also needs to know that you can be a grown ass man that she doesn’t have to parent. If she has to parent you, that will kill the dynamic.

Take a moment and evaluate how you are applying these levels of responsibility to your life and dynamic. Be honest with yourself and her about what you think is working as well as what could be better.

There are additional layers of responsibility that we’re going to explore in the Sovereign Code Cohort, which includes:

• Taking responsibility for your emotional well-being and communication

• The difference between self-sacrifice and responsibility.

• The predictable consistency that tells she can trust you and creates the intimacy and openness you want.

We’ll cover all of this in the Sovereign Code Cohort, starting August 20th.

A lot of men try to tackle all of this on their own and they don’t get very far. What they really need is a support network of other men who can identify with and appreciate the challenges they face and hold each man accountable, even as each man holds himself responsible. The benefits of having a support group of men is you aren’t putting all of this work onto yourself or your romantic relationship. You get to be witnessed by other men and supported because they are also doing the same work.

Men who are in Female Led Relationships have their own unique challenge because they are choosing a relationship that goes against the societal norms about relationships. This is one reason I have put together the Sovereign Code Cohort, for men who choose to be in a Female Led Relationship (or want to be in one) to have a supportive space with other men who have the same desire.

We can put aside the narrative that so many men are told…that men need to lead and be dominant in the relationship and instead embrace out own desires, while also being held accountable to living our values so we can take responsibility for building the life and relationship we want, with the awareness and masculine presence she craves and is looking for from you.

A man who desires a Female Led Relationship is not a weak man. He is a man who knows what he wants and can advocate for it, while also accepting her leadership and guidance in the relationship. The Sovereign Submission Code Cohort is a space to build the foundation that supports what you want, with the fellowship of men just like you who are also seeking support so you can build and live your life unapologetically and powerfully as a sovereign man who is strong enough to lead and wise enough to kneel to her.

Values, Desires, and Female Led Relationships

One of the most important conversations I have with men who desire to be in female-led relationships is about defining their values for the relationship.

Your values are essentially the guiding lights for your life. They describe what is important to you. How you live your life in adherence to those values speaks to the quality of the relationships you have with yourself and with other people.

A person who doesn’t have a clear sense of values will, more often than not, live a fairly chaotic life because they struggle to identify what really matters to them. More often than not, they are reactive to what is happening around them rather than responsive to their values.

Desires are easy to discuss. We all have them and even if we struggle to express them, they are still identifiable. Your values, on the other hand, can be harder to define and describe even though we have words such as integrity, honesty, responsibility, or love to name those values.

When you have a clear sense of values, you are able to bring those values into the relationship. This actually creates a deeper sense of trust because she knows that you have a clear sense of your identity and how you are choosing to show up in the relationship.

This also tells her that you are capable of taking care of yourself and that you’re willing to take care of yourself because you are using those values as a way to define your actions and your choices. This even includes showing her that you’ve clearly made a conscious choice to be in a female-led relationship, which is a brave and bold decision on your part.

There are many men who long for this type of relationship and yet aren’t fully honest with themselves or with the women in their lives. As a result, they enter into an unconscious power dynamic where she may end up leading the relationship but it’s done by default as opposed to through a conscious decision on the part of both people.

Welcome to sovereignty through submission, leadership through service. This is the Substack for submissive men who value presence over performance and the dominant women who love them.

The values you live by can help you create the relationships that last

In the Sovereign Code Cohort, one of the areas that we focus on is defining the specific values that you are living in your life, both as a man and as a person. What I’ve discovered over and over again in relationships, both my own and in observing other men’s relationships, is that a clear lack of values often creates cracks in the foundation of the relationship because she can’t trust a man who doesn’t have an established sense of integrity. Your values form the bedrock of the integrity with which you live your life.

Your values tell you a lot about who you are. They tell her a lot about who you are. When you don’t know what your values are, by extension, you don’t really know yourself either. You don’t know what you want. You don’t know if what you want is really a conscious choice or if it’s an unconscious dynamic that you’ve entered into because you’re still trying to heal some part of yourself that hasn’t been adequately addressed in your life.

For much of my own life I did not have a clear sense of the values that were important to me. I didn’t know what they were. I lived my life by reaction. I would get into relationships from an unconscious place because I wasn’t in touch with who I was or what it meant to express my identity in the world. This created a lot of turmoil in my life, and in the relationships I was in. I was reacting to my own sense of loneliness and to the desires that I felt but I wasn’t balancing any of that with a sense of integrity or values. That could give me the necessary perspective to really look at both my own behaviors as well as my partner’s behaviors and evaluate whether or not we were the right fit for each other.

I am not alone in making these choices. Many men don’t know themselves and end up making choices that are not helpful for themselves or the relationships they are in. They make a choice on the basis of whether or not they find someone to be hot or sexy but they don’t necessarily take the time to really get to know that person and find out if, in fact, that person is really the right fit for them. Another mistake they’ll make is to focus so much on their kink or other desires that they have without balancing those desires with a system of values it speaks to the other areas of relationship, which are equally as important.

Value Mapping - a practical exercise available for supporting members of Sovereign Submission

In Value Mapping, I help submissive men discover what their specific values are and how they embody those values, both for themselves as men and relationally with the people in their lives.

Below are some values that many submissive men believe they hold, but my mapping exercise invites you to distinguish between the healthy expression and shadow expression and recognize how each shows up in your life and dynamic.

Surface Value - Sacrifice

Shadow Version - Self-erasure

Sovereign Version - Conscious generosity

Which version of this value do you identify with?

How does this value show up in relationship to how you take care of yourself?

How does it show up relationally with other people?

Surface Value - Obedience

Shadow version - Fear of Rejection

Sovereign Version - Intentional cooperation

Which version of this value do you identify with?

How does this value show up in relationship to how you take care of yourself?

How does it show up relationally with other people?

In The Sovereign Code, we do a deep dive into YOUR values and help you map them out relationally.

Submissive men often organize their lives around relational values rather than individual ones. They don’t just ask, “Who am I?” They ask:

• Who am I in service to?

• What kind of relationship do I help create?

• What qualities do I bring into a partnership?

• What kind of man does my submission allow me to become?

These questions are at the root of a submissive man’s identity, and the only one who can answer the questions is the man himself.

What I help you do is strike a healthy balance with your values and your desires. Submission is much more than just kinky sex. It is a relational choice that requires a clear and concise awareness of who you are in relationship and in life.
How your Values support your relationship

One of the reasons that I emphasize values in my work with my clients is because when we have a clear sense of our values, we also have a better sense of our boundaries. We know what we are willing to accept and, more importantly, we also know what we are willing to say no to.

When a man can say no and walk away from a relationship, that man knows that he’s got himself and that he’s got a clear sense of his values. He’s not staying in a relationship from a place of co-dependent desperation or out of a fear of being alone. If he chooses to stay in a relationship, he stays in it because the person he has chosen to be with shares similar values as well as desires. He’s using both desires and values to create a stable foundation for himself, so he can be fully committed to the relationship.

Having a clear sense of your values also creates a happier and healthier life for yourself. Your values are part of your self-care. When you know what you stand for and you have a sense of purpose in your life, it provides you a sense of confidence that can be very appealing. You aren’t being defined by your need to be in a relationship. Instead you’re being seen as a person who has a life outside of the relationship.

This approach to relationships creates genuine love and connection between yourself and the people that you choose to be with. I didn’t always vet people in the past that I would get involved with. I would let my initial desire call the shots without even taking the time to really vet that desire or explore what was causing me to say yes to somebody that might not be a good fit for me. What I learned over time is that desires are multi-faceted. Some desires will be rooted in your shadow and the wounds that you haven’t faced yet. Other desires will be clean and clear because you’ve taken the time to read to learn about what it is you really want and you have situated it within the context of the values of your life.

When you choose to get involved with somebody but you haven’t really taken the time to examine your own desires and understand where they come from, you may end up repeating past patterns of behavior or be trying to heal old wounds through that relationship. That doesn’t serve you or that person. On the other hand when you’ve taken the time to get clear and clean about what really matters to you, you’re bringing that into a potential relationship. It helps you to be a lot more grounded. It shows her that you have figured some things out about yourself and it creates a much more stable foundation for the relationship to flourish.

A lot of what I share here can be applied to any type of relationship but my focus is on female-led relationships. I help men who desire these relationships make informed choices because they’ve taken the time to understand why they want what they, without judging themselves or shaming themselves for wanting it.

A female-led relationship is a natural desire for many men. It can be a very healthy choice. It simply requires that the man actually takes the time to understand what attracts him to this type of relationship so that he’s not repeating old patterns and bringing that into the relationship. In the Sovereign Code Cohort we explore what your values are in relationship to your desires.

This helps you do the inner work and be ready for the relationship. If you’re already in a female-led relationship, the cohort is also going to help you show up better for that relationship because you’re going to have a much more informed awareness of yourself to bring to her. You’ll be able to speak to your values and your desires in a way that shows her that you know yourself and what you want and that you’re not expecting her to automatically fulfill what you want. I help you orient toward her with the level of devotion and commitment that is conscious instead of being an unconscious play-through of your own unmet needs and wounds.

Devotion is the first step, commitment is the practice

One of the words that I see tossed around a lot in female-led relationships is the word devotion. On the surface the word sounds good. This man is pledging that he is going to be devoted to the woman that he has chosen to be in a female-led relationship with. What I’ve noticed, however, is that while it’s easy to pledge devotion, the actual practice requires something else altogether.

Devotion is the first step.

What you need to turn devotion into reality is commitment. One of the challenges that relationships face is how do you stay committed and connected with each other especially in the face of being in a relationship where you may have been with that person for years upon years and one day you wake up and you realize I’m really bored with this relationship or I’m not feeling in love right now with this person. It’s easy to profess love when you first get into a relationship or when you’re having an incredibly hot and sexy moment with the person. But lust in and of itself is not love. Lust is a feeling, an expression, an experience, but it is not the actual presence of love.

Devotion is a lot like lust. On the surface it looks like love but in reality it is the hot, quick thrill of the moment. It’s easy to feel devotion when you’re first meeting somebody. You don’t know them yet in a very real sense. The devotion you feel is to the projection of that person. You don’t know what they look like when they’re sick or when they’re having a rough day. You don’t know what they sound like when they’ve come home stressed out. You don’t know any of the things about them that will tell you whether or not you can really be in relationship with this person.

Welcome to sovereignty through submission, leadership through service. This is the website for submissive men who value presence over performance and the dominant women who love them.

Curiosity, Devotion and Commitment

Devotion, in and of itself, is not relational and this is something that may surprise you. Devotion, much like lust, is objectifying. In the moment it feels good but the reality is that you are pedestaling the person that you are devoted to. On the one hand she may want that. On the other hand it may actually prevent you from really getting to know her. In a female-led relationship devotion can be an expected part of the experience. Yet something that I would recommend is that devotion, in and of itself, isn’t enough.

The reason I take this particular stance is because what I have come to recognize about devotion is that devotion cuts off a fundamental element of being in a relationship. Simply feeling devotion for someone ultimately creates a static perspective of who that person is. The element that is essential for being in a relationship is curiosity. Can you be curious about this person that you are in a relationship with?

Curiosity asks you to look beyond the objectification of devotion and discover the actual contact with the person that brings you into alignment with them. For example one of the practices that I apply to my relationship with my mistress is a question of the day. This practice is a commitment to staying curious about her. Instead of holding on to a fixed notion as to who I think she is, I ask questions.

It’s not always easy asking questions. There are days where I can’t necessarily think of an easy question to ask. It requires a level of commitment and focus on finding a question to ask. And the asking of the question is what keeps us in contact with each other. By taking the time to ask a question and listen to the answer, what we’re doing is continually discovering something about each other. This is part of what it can take to really maintain a relationship.

How to come up with creative and imaginative questions

I want to encourage you to employ this practice of question of the day in your own relationship. Here’s an exercise that you can do that will help you come up with questions to ask your beloved(s).

One pattern I've noticed across highly generative questions is that they don't simply ask for information. They reorient attention. A good question changes where awareness is looking. In that sense, a question shifts consciousness before it ever receives an answer. The practice is really about learning how to move your attention through different dimensions of experience until a question naturally appears, and an answer is invited in.

There are patterns to questions that when observed and understood can help you come up with more creative and imaginative explorations of yourself and other people.

Pattern 1: Questions emerge from changing orientation

Instead of asking someone what happened, change your orientation. Creative questions come from deliberately standing somewhere else.

• What would my future self ask?

• What would a child notice?

• What would a tree ask?

• What is this room asking of me?

• What question would silence ask?

• If this emotion had language, what would it ask?

Orientation changes perspective. Change your orientation to discover different questions.

Pattern 2: Every question has a direction

Questions move in directions.

Try applying a direction. It could be inward, outward, up, down, sideways or something else all together.

Pattern 3: Questions arise from tension

Good questions aren’t random. They offer the chance to explore the dynamic tensions of life.

They can be awkward…they can also be illuminating.

What’s something you’ve pretended to know in your life? is a question that will challenge each person and it could be fun.

Pattern 4: Every domain has hidden questions

People usually ask about objects. Creative questions ask about relationships and are relational.

Instead of asking “What book changed you?” try “What relationship do you have with books?”

Instead of asking “What do you fear?” try “What does fear help you protect?”

Pattern 5: Good questions invite imagination

Notice how these questions change when you apply imagination to them.

“What did you do today?” versus “If today became a landscape, what would it look like?”

“If this week had weather, what would you be standing in?”

The imagination can bring us fascinating insights through questions, if we apply it.

Pattern 6: Questions become richer when they shift scale

A fascinating pattern appears when moving between scales.

Microscopic

What’s one tiny habit changing your life?

Personal

What part of yourself feels most alive today?

Relational

What conversation are you avoiding?

Community

What does your neighborhood teach you?

Planetary

What season of humanity do you think we’re living in?

Cosmic

If the universe wanted your attention today, how might it get it?

Changing scale changes perspective and invites curiosity in.

Pattern 7: Let the environment generate the question.

Instead of thinking of a question, let something outside you ask it. Walk through a house. Whichever object attracts your attention becomes the source.

The chair asks or the doorway asks or the shadow asks.

The doorway might ask:

What threshold are you standing in without recognizing it?

The world becomes an active participant rather than a backdrop. It also gives each of you a chance to ask and answer from your orientation.

These patterns show that questions are not primarily invented, so much as they are discovered through shifts in orientation. The more ways someone learns to orient themselves in relation to time, space, scale, perspective, relationship, and imagination, the more original and meaningful their questions become.

Give this practice a try and watch how it changes your relationship with yourself, your beloved(s) and the world.

Commitment begins with yourself

Another element of successful relationships, which I’ve already mentioned, is the word commitment. To truly be in a relationship with someone else requires commitment. Devotion is easy because you are devoted to the projection of the person. Commitment requires actually getting curious about the person and discovering who they are. This is a never ending process. Commitment also requires turning toward the person at any given moment in the relationship. Sometimes that’s easy to do and other times it can be hard. You’re not just turning towards the other person. You’re also turning towards the relationship itself and you’re turning towards yourself.

That last part may sound like a contradiction. I maintain that we can’t really be in a successful relationship until we learn how to choose ourselves first. A relationship that is based on choosing someone else over yourself will inevitably fail. The reason it fails is that you’re abandoning yourself. When you abandon yourself for somebody else, you are hoping that that person will fill in the gap that is within you and that creates an unstable relationship.

When you base your own sense of happiness and contentment on whether or not you’re in a relationship with somebody else this creates a fundamental imbalance in the relationship. You are putting a lot of pressure on that person and the relationship itself to fulfill something that needs to come from within yourself. On the other hand when you learn how to be content and happy with yourself, this brings you a level of stability that you can bring to the relationship because you know that you are basing your sense of happiness on yourself and on choosing yourself. This allows you to choose the relationship as well.

In the last couple of years, I’ve been on my own journey around this realization. I’ve made a commitment to myself to choose myself and choose my happiness and contentment. This has actually allowed me to commit even more deeply to the relationship that I’m in because I’m choosing that relationship from a place of choosing myself. I know that I’m happy with myself and I’m content and it allows me to be more present and aware in the relationship.

I’m not basing my sense of happiness and contentment on the person that I’m with. I’m basing it on discovering a deeply intrinsic recognition of joy around my life and the choices that I’ve made for myself. I’ve actively committed to be in relationship with myself. This presents itself in a number of ways. For example I am committed to my martial arts practice, which has brought me a connection with a community and other people but also, just as importantly, with how I value myself. By learning to value myself and be committed to myself, I am able to authentically commit to the relationship that I’m in with somebody else. I’m not putting my sense of happiness and joy on that relationship. Instead I am treating the relationship as a complement to a deeper relationship that I already have with myself. The relationship I’m in with somebody else enhances the relationship that I have with myself and so I can give myself more fully to both relationships.

Bringing this back to a Female Led Relationship

Devotion is the first step. Commitment is what actually makes the journey possible for being in a female-led room. The commitment that you have to your desires and what brings you joy and happiness and contentment is part of that process. The commitment to her happiness and joy, and orienting yourself to her is another step. Choosing yourself first is not mutually exclusive with choosing her. On the surface it may look that way, but in reality, choosing yourself first allows you to choose her wholeheartedly because you already know what you truly want. You recognize that you want her and that you want to be in a female-led relationship with her.

This is an important choice to make and it’s a choice that you’ll be making every day and every moment of your life. I think this is one of the things that people take for granted about being in a relationship. They think that once they’ve chosen to be in a relationship, that the choice has been made. Relationship is a continual choice. Each day that you’re in a relationship, you are choosing to be in that relationship for that day. You could change your choice tomorrow. There may be consequences that come with making a change in that choice. Nonetheless, you could make that choice.

When we take our relationships for granted, we also take that capacity to make the choice to stay in a relationship for granted. Your capacity to stay in a relationship becomes conscious through commitment. Your choice to be in a female-led relationship is a commitment to accepting her leadership and trusting her in that leadership. This is even if she trusts you in the ability to follow her and to take action as needed to orient your life around her but also around the relationship itself.

In the Sovereign Code cohort we explore the relationship between devotion and commitment in depth so that you can fully understand the choice that you are making. Devotion is easy but commitment is where the action occurs, where you follow through on that devotion. And if you don’t have the necessary foundation in place, your relationship will have a faulty foundation. I help you build that foundation by exploring the paradox of holding both your desires and values in alignment with each other so that you can express what you desire and you can live a life of values that aligns you to both your desires and the relationship itself.

Our values speak to our character. Your commitment is a choice that is made from integrity when you are consciously aware of it. When you are unconsciously operating from devotion, the commitment may not be there. In the Sovereign Code we differentiate between devotion and commitment so that you have a better picture of what each brings to the relationship and you can use them both to help you choose the relationship and her over and over again, while still honoring yourself.

Submission through Attention

I think one of the most important skills a submissive man can learn is the skill of paying attention to his mistress. I’m not just talking about listening to her when she speaks, though that’s certainly important. What I’m really talking about is paying attention to the subtle details and nuances of her being that aren’t always readily apparent to a man.

Men have a biological cycle that doesn’t fluctuate or change very much, whereas her biological cycle is a continual experience of fluctuation that varies depending on where she is in her cycle.

And she has her routines, her way of being in the world. As a submissive man you want to be attuned to her rhythm and routine, showing your devotion by noticing how she carries herself through her life and being able to anticipate that routine.

And let’s be clear - This isn’t happy wife, happy life, where you’re going along to get along.

The difference between submission and nice guy codependency

Submission is a conscious choice and a fundamental orientation to her as a guiding presence in your life. It requires the discipline and presence to show up in full devotion to her. It’s also a desire that is deeply embedded in your being. You keep coming back to submission because it addresses something fundamental within yourself that is calling for recognition.

Nonetheless one of the challenges that the FLR dynamic faces is the submissive man’s awareness of his submission to her as a genuine orientation to her as opposed to using her to fulfill his kinky desires.

A nice guy may try to orient himself to her cycle and routine because he’s trying to get approval or stay safe through anticipating her needs. He wants to get something from her.

A submissive man orients himself to her routine and cycle he genuinely derives an intrinsic sense of satisfaction and connection by doing so. This doesn’t mean he doesn’t face challenges, but he’s honest about it, with himself and her.

One of the best ways he can show her his dedication to the relationship dynamic and his choice to submit is making the time and effort to learn her cycle and routine and orient himself to it.

The Guide for Men who want to be in a Female Led Relationship

You want to submit to her.

You want to surrender control and be led by her.

But she pulls back and gets cold and withdrawn.

Find out why and what to do in The Sovereign Submission Relationship Guide

How aware are you of her biological cycle?

Do you know where she is in her cycle? Are you paying attention to the details that show when she’s in an ovulation phase versus a luteal phase?

A lot of men don’t know the answers to these questions and skirt around trying to find the answers, but to truly serve her with devotion requires a level of awareness and attention to what her experience is on a given day.

Paying attention to her biological cycle clues you into her experience. One of the best ways to do this is to start tracking her cycle each day. Note what day it is and where she is in her cycle helps you understand how you can be of service to her experience and her needs as she’s going through her cycle. It also shows her that you are paying attention to her daily experience and not taking it for granted.

Are you attuned to her routine?

Do you notice her daily routine? Do you know when she wakes up and what her initial experience of the day is? Are you paying attention throughout the day? In an FLR, if you aren’t paying attention to her routine there is a disconnect in your ability to serve her or show up for her.

Her routine is the quiet current that guides your life. Her lived experience is the call to you to serve and submit.

When you are fully attuned to her, she knows it. She may not say anything, nor is she obligated to, but she knows. She also knows when you aren’t attuned to her. She knows when you aren’t paying attention or showing up with dedication and purpose to her.

The truth is that her routine isn’t just HER routine. It’s your routine. It’s the routine you orient your life around. If you genuinely want to be of service to her it requires a fundamental shift in your thinking about orienting your life to her, as well as the acceptance of her leadership.

Her routine and her cycle guide you. Your attention to them is a dedication of your service to her and your willingness to fully commit to being in the specific dynamic you’ve chosen.

If you’re experiencing resistance to that orientation, its time to get curious about what that resistance is about, both so you can share it with her and discuss it, but also so you can understand where it’s coming from and address it proactively through your own work.

In the Resistance, Surrender and Regulation e-book we get to the root of your resistance to discover what your resistance is really about.

You say you want to surrender.

But when it actually matters…

• You hesitate.

• You tighten.

• You argue.

• You shut down.

Your nervous system is activated, and you don’t know how to work with it.

Learn how to identify the cause of your resistance and how to regulate it in a healthy way that allows you to surrender to her and go deeper into your dynamic.

Getting Real with your Sexual Desires: The truth about why you want what you want will set you free

The deeper I go into men’s work, the more I get the opportunity to explore the unexamined areas of my life. Recently I’ve been reading “To Be a Man” by Robert Masters. One of the subjects that he touches on in some depth is around sexuality. In men’s work this is a subject that is typically treated gingerly, even though it’s a subject that really needs to be explored with a lot with transparency, compassion, and presence.

I’ve done a lot of work around my sexuality. I’ve healed a lot of my own sexual wounding. As I’m reading this book I find myself called back to examine some of the work that I’ve already done as well as to continue plunging the depths that are available to me.

I think one of the great unspoken truths for men in general is that we are operating in the shallow end of the pool when it comes to our sexuality and the masculine mysteries. So much of the focus of masculine sexuality is on the penis and whether or not a man is hard. But there’s a lot more to masculine sexuality than just that.

For example, what we end up fantasizing about, what we long to experience sexually, and the way that we experience it can be a really powerful component that is worth exploring. The pornography that a man watches (if he watches pornography) can also be a really fascinating flashpoint that shows what it is he needs to get real with in regards to his sexual fantasies and his sexual wounding.

What you watch is where your wound is

Most, if not all, men have watched pornography at some point in their lives. It has become such a prevalent aspect of masculinity, in no small part because the focus is on seeking release and relief from the inner sexual pressure that occurs but also the performative pressure that is put on men in terms of how they show up in the world.

The porn that I used to watch involve being seduced by a stepmom or a MILF or an older woman. Even as a teenager I found myself deeply fascinated with and intrigued by older women and most of the relationships that I got involved in early on were with women who were 10 to 15 years older than me. What I didn’t realize is that I was acting out through my sexual desires the deep inner wounds that I had around my early childhood experiences. This is the kind of topic that most men won’t touch on or explore, partially because they feel shame and embarrassment around the desires that they felt and partially because to do so means bringing into the light the very thing that they haven’t been willing to face within themselves.

My particular fantasies were a result of experiencing rejection as a kid with my Stepmom. I saw that she loved her own kids differently than she loved me. In some part of me was always trying to get that love and approval that I had not experienced with her. I didn’t realize that in a conscious way but the inner boy within me was definitely calling the shots when it came to my sexual desires. He was trying to get the healing through sex and the validation and the approval. Of course he was me. I was the person trying to get the validation and the approval.

I want you to think about your own sexual proclivities for a few moments. What is it that you fantasize about? What have you watched, if you’ve watched pornography? What have the themes been? Those themes play a significant role in your own life. On the surface level, they seem to be purely oriented around what you desire, but they are really a reflection of the deep inner wounding that you haven’t fully addressed or dealt with.

You’re strong enough to lead and wise enough to follow her

This is a cohort for men who desire or are in Female Led Relationships, but feel like something isn’t lining up.

You show more devotion and she pulls back.

You’re ready to show your service and she rebuffs you.

You say you want her leadership, but something within you resists.

You can try to solve this on your own or you can get the support you need, from men who are on the same journey as you.

I want to learn more

Are your aroused or just faking it?

We don’t talk about this aspect of sexual fantasies or pornography. Yet it is something that men grapple with all the time. The lack of willingness to really sit and explore what the actual underlying issue is, is part of what keeps that pornography addiction so prevalent and creates the dysfunctional connection with masculine sexuality that men have. It leads to under-fucked men and women. It leads to a deeper sense of dissatisfaction and disconnection in your relationship.

I want you to think about the last time that you masturbated to pornography. What did you feel when you started to masturbate? What was at the root of your charge? Were you doing it because you genuinely wanted to experience pleasure or were you doing it to numb yourself out? Were you doing it as a way to escape boredom in the moment or were you doing it as a way to connect with yourself and with your desires?

Chances are that most of you will end up answering that you are numbing yourself or that you were disconnecting from your desires or that you were seeking that release because it felt like a way to deal with whatever stress or anxiety or pressure was in your life. You’re not alone because when I look at my own history with my sexuality, more often than not I can safely say that I have had sex or I’ve masturbated or I’ve used pornography as a way to get some release from the stress and anxiety of the moment or numb myself out in the face of whatever situation I was dealing with or try to salve that inner wound that I hadn’t really addressed or dealt with.

It’s easy to mistake arousal in the moment for genuine sexual desire and satisfaction when, if anything, it’s often an escape from the specific moment that you’re in. This is the challenge that faces so many men because when you’re checking out with your masturbation, chances are you’re also checking out when you’re having sex. She can feel it. She knows that you’re checked out. She knows that you’re somewhere else. She knows, most importantly, that you’re not with her.

There’s no way you can be with her as long as your sexual shadow is calling the shots. The inner wounded boy is calling out for attention. Your sexual desires may be very real and bring you lots of enjoyment but until you get clear about his role in those desires, it will continue to overshadow every experience that you have in a way that actually takes you out of the experience and away from her.

In the Sovereign Code Cohort one of the foundational principles that we explore is your relationship with your own sexuality: this isn’t just a matter of saying “I want a female-led relationship” or that “I desire kinky sex.” It’s a matter of getting really clear on what’s underneath that want and why it’s there.

Here’s the fascinating truth: as soon as you get clear on the shadow of your own sexual desires, what ends up happening is that you are able to be far more present with her and with yourself. Your shadow is no longer calling the shots. Your shadow is no longer telling you that it wants things a certain way. Instead you’re actually able to start being present with her and with yourself. This is when both of you start to become well fucked because you actually are truly being present with each other instead of being disconnected.

And this isn’t work that you can do alone. This is work where you need to be held in a container, supported by other men who are doing the same work. That’s one of the reasons I’ve put together the Sovereign Code cohort. What we’re ultimately doing is creating a code of behavior that allows you to fully step into your sovereignty.

You have the strength to lead and you have the wisdom to kneel. What you need is the support that will help you get there and that’s what this cohort is for. We’re going to explore, among other topics, your relationship with your sexual desires. We are going to explore how your sexual shadows show up in your desires and we’re going to transmute them through the sexual alchemy of coming clean about what is really at the heart of your desire.

I want to help you heal that wounded child who’s calling the shots so that way you can truly step into a sexual experience, knowing that you are bringing your full self instead of being distracted by the little boy who is trying to get approval or validation or some other form of acknowledgement from her or from the porn that you’ve been watching.

Join me in the Sovereign Code Cohort

You’re strong enough to lead and wise enough to follow her

This is a cohort for men who desire or are in Female Led Relationships, but feel like something isn’t lining up.

You show more devotion and she pulls back.

You’re ready to show your service and she rebuffs you.

You say you want her leadership, but something within you resists.

You can try to solve this on your own or you can get the support you need, from men who are on the same journey as you.

I want to learn more