The biggest area of growth for me was in being able to keep a consistent level of control and authority over Thomas throughout the year. There are times during the year when I get busy with work and other activities. I have always been challenged with exerting my leadership with Thomas during these times because I get so caught up in work and activities that I start to neglect him and we have less intimate time together. The effect on him is that he eventually slacks off on his chores a bit and does not pay as much attention to his required tasks and duties. I get too busy to notice and so it continues on. The communication between us also begins to break down and we don’t talk as much. When communication breaks down, we both begin to internalize our feelings and not talk about them. I get frustrated at his poor performance and he gets upset at my lack of attention to him. This festers within us until finally someone breaks and an argument ensues.which always ends with a punishment for hm. This pattern seemed to happen at least once a year with us for the past few years.

The one fortunate thing with this pattern is that by nature of our FLR, we always eventually address the issue and do not let it fester too long and once the punishment is issued, all is forgiven and we are back on track again. In both traditional marriage and in a FLR, it is very easy for couples to get off track in their relationship due to other things getting in the way. It often takes work and effort to prevent this from happening or to ensure that when things start to get off track, you get back on track quickly. Although I get busy, I have some control over what makes me busy and it is also incumbent upon me to ensure that I am still effectively leading the household during those times. My marriage and family need to be priority one.

My husband was the one who identified this pattern happening every year and he brought it to my attention. I was proud of him for having the courage to bring this up to me and ask for change. Part of being an effective leader is listening and being able to accept feedback and make changes based on the feedback. Ironically, I have written quite a bit in my past posts about techniques for maintaining control and authority. I’m sure I wrote those because of the very challenges I was facing. Bottom line was that I already knew what to do. I just had to apply it to my marriage on a consistent basis. That is the hard part of course.

After talking it through with my husband, we agreed to commit to a weekly ritual once a week. I wrote about it in a past post so I won’t go into details on it. The key point being that we were setting time aside once a week where I would be giving him direction and he would be completely submissive to me and pampering me. We have done similar things in the past. I’ve done regular discipline sessions and we frequently have nights where he pampers me. What was different was my commitment to do this every week regardless of how busy things got in the household. That is where the breakdown occurred in the past with us. In the past once things got busy, the disciplines session and pampering time would get missed one week and then another week and soon they were not happening. In the past year, I ensured this did not happen. When I was busy or tired, I may have only spent 5 minutes on the ritual, but I made sure it happened. Those 5 minutes were a game changer for us.

In addition to the weekly ritual, I made a conscious effort over the last year to give Thomas a few rubs” and specific orders or criticism during the week. Again, these are things that I already do regularly and have written about in my past blogs as advice to others. It was only during my busy times that I stopped doing them. This past year, I made the effort to do these things during my busy time. There were also a few new things I instituted that helped. I started him on a transition routine when he comes home from work (see my Sept. 2018 post on Transitioning From Work to Hone). The routine helps him stay focused on serving me and the required routine is a small way for him to feel my authority when I am not present. It’s a bit of a filler when I do not have the time to spend with him. Also on weekends I make him chauffeur me around to do errands and shopping. This way we are spending time together. It is much more enjoyable to have my helper with me during errands :).  He can carry my bags and drop me off at the door. He also helps me find things so the errands go much quicker.

I am happy to say that we did not have a big argument and associated punishment since the changes were made. Thomas has been exceptional with his obedience to me. It has also been a big positive for me. I enjoy spending the time with him and he has been helping me get things done. It’s actually a bit of a stress reliever for me and we are both much happier during the busy times. This has been a tremendous break through for me. With just a few small changes and a small amount of time each week, there was a big positive impact to our relationship and on my day-to-day work load. I think the experience also validates that submissive men are most productive and happy when they are under a constant veil of authority and structure. Thomas was still submissive and obedient to me when my attention to him was lacking but his performance was not up to standard and he was not as happy (I sense many of the male readers of this blog are in the same situation). However, when I am consistently dominant with him and hold him accountable, he is glowing and more than eager to please me.

Another change that occurred this year was assigning him more of the laundry duty. Thomas does most of the chores, but I’ve always held off on having him do laundry. He would put the clothes away but I always washed and dried them. If you have kids that play sports, you know that laundry is a never ending task. It is endless. I was always concerned about having Thomas do all the laundry because of the amount of time and work involved in keeping up with it. He works more hours than I do and already does most of the chores. However, in our discussions about the “busy times,” Thomas offered to do more things to help me so I did not feel as tired or stressed. There of course is a motive to his madness. It’s not the first time he has offered to take on more work. Deep down, I know his ultimate goal is to get me to spend more time with him; I know he is hoping for more teasing from me, more sexual and dominant play, and for him to be able to give me more orgasms. It all circles back to  one of the foundational principles of a formal FLR in which the wife motivates the husband through controlling his sexual desires. More validation that this is what submissive men want. Let’s see… more orgasms for me versus me doing chores? I decided to take him up on his offer.

I stated with having him do a load of laundry one or two days a week. Training him was quite  fun for both of us but I think he was a bit surprised at how quickly I transitioned the entire laundry duty to him. Now he washes, dries, hangs up, and puts away all the laundry. I will still jump in and do a load every now ant then to help keep up but he does most of it.  I love it! It frees up my time and I feel less busy and less tired. This has enabled me to give him more attention at night so it has been a positive for both of us.

There were several other small changes and things we tried during the year. Overall I felt like 2018 was a year where our relationship grew stronger and my dominance increased over him. I feel like we always grow a little each year and some year’s there are bigger changes or breakthroughs. This past year was one of those breakthrough years for me. Who knows what the next year holds for us. I’ve been thinking a lot about getting Thomas a chastity device. As of now, it is not something that I want him in  24/7 but I think it would be fun and thrilling to lock-up him up for short-periods of time. I know it would blow his mind and the thought of locking up his cock his exciting to me. We’ll see where that goes.

Happy New Year to all of you. I hope 2019 is a great year for you.

-Mz Kaylee