Firstly, please don’t be fooled by the flashy title. I’m not encouraging women to play dumb, be in a ‘housewife’ role, or have no opinions. Being submissive to a man is not about that at all.
I’m also not encouraging women to be submissive all the time – being submissive is just another role that a woman can take up every now and then in her relationship with a high value, masculine man.
The reason I’m talking about being submissive is that it can bring more passion, strength, and life to a healthy relationship if it’s received by a man with love and respect. The key point here is that you need to do this inside a healthy relationship. If you want to know if your relationship is healthy, here are 10 Ultimate Signs of A Healthy Relationship.
1: You both feel like you add value to each other
Now, this doesn’t always have to be 50/50. Because there will be times when one of you is very sick or exhausted or just not in the right space of mind to add value that you normally would to the other person. We don’t always have to look for equality because that can take away from our vulnerability and natural gifts.
2: You both intend the best for each other
In other words, you build each other up. You both genuinely want the best for each other.
Of course, the intent is something that is difficult to measure, but it’s easy to feel if it’s there. So make sure you allow yourself to feel for not just your lover’s intent, but your own good intentions as well.
It’s great to have a playful banter and rivalry in your relationship, but at the end of the day, you want to know that your intention isn’t to suppress or take away confidence, worth, and esteem from your lover.
In other words, you not caught in a cycle of making each other small in order to feel better about yourself.
3: You are willing to face and deal with inevitable conflicts without having to push them down or avoid them altogether
Here’s the truth, in an intimate relationship, conflict is necessary, I repeat, necessary for that relationship to grow. And if the relationship doesn’t grow, it dies!
I know it can sometimes be easy to avoid conflict in order to keep the peace, but that doesn’t work long term. Ultimately the purpose of conflict is for us to understand and appreciate each other at a deeper level.
Men and women are inherently so different, biologically, psychologically, and spiritually.
What makes a relationship healthy is the strength of love that you both grow together AS A RESULT of going through tough conflicts and painfully challenging times together.
Remember this – Love not tested by conflict isn’t worth anything. You wouldn’t know if it’s real or not because it’s never tested. You would not have that sense of certainty.
So face those conflicts, and don’t walk away from your lover, no matter how difficult it may be. I promise you will become stronger, more confident, and resilient as a result.
4: You have no need to keep weapons in the relationship
What do I mean by weapons?
Power trips, guilt trips, shaming, anger, aggression, passive-aggressiveness, words that cut deep.
Now I can understand the use of some of these weapons as a last resort to try to get what you want in a relationship. However, just know that these weapons are always desperate and low-value ways to get what you want.
And they are always only just short term solutions to long term problems.
There are much better ways to go about it. You can inspire something different by adding value first. You can get what you want by adding value first, so much so that it’s reciprocated.
5: You HOLD emotional space for each other
In other words, you don’t consciously or subconsciously invalidate your lover's feelings. The term holding space has become rather popular in the last few years and it just means that you give space in your relationship for each other’s feelings.
You don’t belittle their feelings, you don’t ignore them. And most of all, you don’t try to talk your lover out of their feelings. Feelings are there to be acknowledged, not ignored.
Feelings don’t need to be solved, they need to be felt.
Ultimately our emotions are here to serve us and it’s important for all of us to feel through our emotions. Otherwise, we hold it all in, and eventually, it turns into resentment and comes out one day in a pathological and destructive FIREBALL.
The longer you deny your own anger and hurt, the more you let someone violate your boundaries, the more “damaged” you become, and the less emotionally “healthy” you become. Which in turn, makes you less fit for a truly healthy relationship and a secure attachment.
6: Your relationship is multi-dimensional
It other words, it’s not all about the sweet, ‘light’ energies. You also embrace other parts of yourself. We all have many different parts to us, and it’s important to be aware and appreciate those different parts.
For your relationship to be strong, you need to connect the different parts of you with the different parts of your lover.
So an ultimately healthy relationship isn’t all just full of light feminine energy and light masculine energy… because after a while, that gets really boring. If you’ve ever had boring sex, you know what I’m talking about. In a healthy relationship, we have to also embrace the dark energies that exist inside of every one of us.
And to do that, it’s important to not make any part of yourself wrong or any part of your lover wrong either.
By the way, It’s FINE to feel like you’re not ready for something. That’s totally OK and I hope you don’t do something you’re not ready for.
7: You embrace each other's fears and face them together
In other words, you don’t abandon your lover to face his or her fears alone. You make sure your lover knows that you are in this together and that you can depend on each other to build each other up.
In order to do that, you have to volunteer yourself to be responsible for each other’s feelings, especially fear. Because ultimately a healthy relationship requires both individuals to participate fully. And one person’s fear is going to cripple that process.
You see, we all have deep fears whether we admit it or not. And it’s even more challenging to identify, feel, and respond to a man’s fears because they hold it in much more so than women do most of the time.
So sometimes in order to do this, we need to know our lovers better than they know themselves.
8: You are both emotionally invested in each other’s future
As we mentioned just before, if your relationship isn’t growing, it’s dying. Some relationships die a painful death. Some die of a slower but soul-destroying process.
In order for a healthy relationship to grow, there must be a compelling future. There must be a sense of a greater future head for the relationship, whatever that may be.
In order to grow together, there has to be a level of emotional investment. Emotional investment means that if you win, I win. You’re in it together.
It’s not a game of I win you lose, it’s a game of you win I win.
You want to make sure that neither of you are being treated as a “backup option”. I often see men and women in these situation-ships where one person is devoted to trying to make the relationship work, but the other person doesn’t value the connection or the relationship.
If someone isn’t serious or was never serious about the relationship and is just dabbling around out of convenience, that leaves the other wasting their time and valuable reproductive and emotional resources.
Again, this is where attunement comes in. It is important to be attuned to your partner and where they are at. Attunement is healthy. Blindly trying to keep someone around out of fear of losing them is not necessarily healthy. I mean, it’s definitely not “wrong”, but it’s not really healthy.
Stay attuned to not only yourself and how you feel, but to the person, you are invested in. Feel outside of yourself into them. Feel where they are truly at. Feel whether they are truly emotionally connected to you and emotionally attracted to you.
9: You both know that your first duty is to yourselves
You cannot give to another person if you don’t give that to yourself first. You can’t give strength, joy, and love unless you cultivate it inside of yourself first.
So you need to be adding value to yourself, appreciating yourself, reassuring yourself, and letting yourself know that you are worthy. You have to make it a habit to replenish yourself first, physically, emotionally, spiritually.
In a relationship, if one person continually feels unworthy, the relationship cannot grow! In fact, the state of that relationship will be dragged down for as long as that person feels unworthy.
So perhaps it’s time to tell yourself today: “I appreciate you so much. I appreciate you just for existing. You are a wonderful expression of life and an infinite creation of the universe.”
And most of all, give yourself permission to believe it.
10: You both have a strong sense of identity outside of the relationship
What does that mean? It means that you both have ways to meet your sense of worthiness outside of the relationship so that you’re not both always feeling dependent on the relationship.
So that you’re not always looking to take value from the relationship in order to fill up. Instead, you come into the relationship already filled up.
You see, it doesn’t matter how we want to twist it, every human being has a need for connection. Even the ones who seem like they don’t need it or are very “independent” (people with an avoidance- attachment style, perhaps…)
Every human being also has a need to feel significant….sometimes we try to deal with having these needs by pretending we don’t have them, or pushing them down. But really? The best way to deal with needing to feel important and significant is to meet your needs for significance in several ways – not just within your intimate relationship.
Being submissive is NOT something that you do with an abusive man.
It is just another part of you that you might want to bring out sometimes.
Being submissive – whether in a joking or serious way can awaken the most masculine yet tender character in a man. Submission is almost never about admitting you’re ‘wrong’ or less worthy than a man. Being submissive just allows for a man to feel more like a man around you, and – as a result, have that extra bit of passion.
And, part of being in touch with your femininity is feeling all the different parts of yourself that you can feel in your body – and how to ‘go there’ when you need to. Submission is a part of learning to become more feminine as well.
So, the question of how to be submissive leads me to bring up some things that you will need to understand and therefore be able to be submissive at times.
The ‘how’ will come to you through an understanding of the reason behind it. Our society has encouraged women to keep their guard up, wear masks (instead of being comfortable in their feminine core/essence), be ‘right’ all the time, and be like steel in the face of conflict. That is definitely not how to be submissive at all.
Opening up about submissive relationship
I’ve mentioned it before and I’ll mention it again – that a man really wants his woman to be open to him, and to let him in (emotionally, mentally, sexually, spiritually). The problem with the way we’re educated (or not educated) at school, is that it’s turned a lot of women into these intensely dominating creatures that completely emasculate the men around them.
The problem with this is that in the face of conflict in a relationship (there always IS conflict and always will be, it’s natural and good) women use these steel masks to cover up the natural parts of themselves that would come out when in moments of connectedness with a man.
Women can feel the MOST vulnerable.
As a result, they have to use masks more than anything, to survive in a world that doesn’t honor sensitivity – and that’s sensitivity to how people are treating us, how others feel, and how we feel.
Our society seems to value being socially acceptable. There’s nothing wrong with that – until we’ve practiced it so long that we bring the same need to be ‘acceptable’ and fake in our intimate relationships.
In the face of conflict, a woman can decide to open up to her man and remove the mask. Decisions shape your future, and it’s as simple as making a decision, and focusing on the positives of doing this rather than the comfort of doing things the same way you always have.
Let him in and try to let him take the lead – try to trust him even when it feels unfamiliar.
(Sorry for the generalizations – but for the purpose of this post, they are useful).
The truth is, in general, men are built naturally physically stronger than women.
And, they operate differently to women mentally too (think about a woman’s handbag, and how she magically fits in the contents of an entire HOUSE in it; versus a man who only carries a wallet with a few cards and some money.
Deep down, all women have vulnerabilities and deep fears and feelings of uncertainty, especially in the face of violence.
A trustable man wants you to show him this!
It’s a simple word of ‘I am afraid’ or ‘this scares me.’
Trust
The trends in our society have also led women to become less trusting of men; one feminist even claiming that ‘all men are rapists’. raises eyebrows
But, every day there are men being heroic and standing up for what is right, and protecting and taking care of people.
Being submissive is also about trusting your man enough to let him show you the way sometimes. Many women ask how not to be boring in their relationship. And guess what, this is just one of the ways to not be boring.
And, asking him for help. Or asking him for his opinion, or asking him for solutions.
Many men who are in touch with their masculinity at their core would jump at the chance to help a woman with something – really! It makes him feel needed and useful. Not to mention manly 🙂
So, ask him for help even with the smallest things like bringing the shopping in, opening a jar, carrying something heavy, undoing a knot, etc. Give him trust where you know it is deserved, and do it without question.
The masculine energy wants to be trusted. If you doubt your man all the time, it feels hurtful. It drains from the relationship bank!
He wants to have a good direction to add to your life – to be trustworthy to you, but if there’s a cycle of you not being willing to TRY to trust him, it makes it hard for him to BECOME more trustworthy, as each mistrust is possibly stripping him of hope, as well as stripping him of his trust in you.
Now, this isn’t just about trusting him not to cheat on you. That can be a part of this. However, it’s more about learning to try to trust his direction in life. So, even if you have a man who isn’t very smart, evolved and correct in his direction – you don’t HAVE to pretend he’s right when you know he’s wrong – you just have to behave like a woman who is willing to show that you are open to him even when he is wrong.
For example, your man wants to invest every last cent in a stock that you already know isn’t looking good. Do you tell him he’s WRONG and it’s a horrible decision? Or would you prefer to suggest to him that it makes you feel scared and nervous because of (list reasons)?
As a woman who is learning to give a man the gift of being submissive, of course, you would choose the second option. As it shows you’re willing to TRY to trust him and still be open to him.
Of course, if this is a man who is constantly making bad decisions, you may not want to stay with him long-term, however, the principle of learning to show up more submissive and open in your feminine energy is the same – choose to value openness MORE than cutting him down and emasculating him.
Why?
Because that adds to the connection inside of a relationship, whereas being domineering just takes value from the relationship and ruins the connection.
Question: have you seen men with their little girls/daughters? They don’t want to let ANYTHING hurt their little girl! The same goes for their wife or girlfriend if only she could show a little innocence and submission – looking up to him as the leader.
Innocence is precious. Innocence can also erode with a very high number of sexual partners as well as with the number of bad relationships you have been in. We live in a society that doesn’t value innocence. We are encouraged to do things that basically ruin our innocence from a young age. So, that’s why some women do end up quite jaded – but that can be fixed.
Just imagine the innocence and purity of a happy little girl. A girl who is well-loved and who feels pretty and beautiful. What does her energy feel like? Is she warm or cold? Is she hyperactive or calm? Is she vengeful or vulnerable?
Despite you having a possibly traumatic upbringing, CAN you find it within yourself to connect to an innocent and pure girl within you? As she is your gateway to greater openness and feminine energy.
You see, no high value, masculine man wants to fail at leadership, especially with his woman. And that’s why, if you can give him the gift of feeling successful around you, he will WANT to be around you and he will perceive value by being with you.
Ability to be uncertain
This is where being submissive is especially powerful and strong, on the woman’s part. To be submissive, a woman has to be OK with being uncertain.
She has to let her guard down, peel off the mask and look of ‘steel’ and be free. Just look to your man as a possible source of strength for you when you might need it.
This is incredibly strong on the woman’s part.
A lot of people think that by not trusting people, they are being strong, independent, and smart.
But, where does a lack of trust get us, really?
It gets us a whole world of pain, that’s what it does. We walk around, holding ourselves back, not able to be free and to let go and to fully enjoy what life has to offer, and not able to give people a chance to show their better side (often if you trust someone, they want to please MORE, as I was saying above about not trusting a man and how this can sometimes push him to betrayal).
The happiness and freedom you are able to experience in your life now, and in the future is in DIRECT PROPORTION to the level of UNCERTAINTY you can comfortably handle.
The same goes for your intimate relationship! The quality of your relationship with your man is in direct proportion to the level of uncertainty that you can handle.
Surrendering and Being Submissive
Part of knowing how to be submissive, and knowing that it doesn’t mean you are inferior is understanding that by surrendering to a man’s leadership and strength at times, you allow your relationship to flow, be real and just be free. Without so much pent up anger and negative association that plagues many modern marriages and relationships.
Men can grow to resent a woman who is always fighting to be more significant. Women who always want to be the expert, be dominant, be ‘enough’ – they often struggle in relationships or any sort, let alone with a masculine man.
As the report ‘What Men Think’ reveals, most men who took part in the survey indicated that the most respected and admired a woman who was comfortable with her femininity and able to let her guard down, thereby letting him in: being open to him. Making a man’s role real and worthy.
Also, being able to surrender shows that you have plenty of self-confidence, esteem as a woman (not having to prove yourself and be in CONTROL all the time). You can also be charming when you “surrender” at the right time and to the right person.
The root of our anxiety in a relationship with a man and the root of our conflict with men is not being able to understand them. What men perceive as high value is often very different from what we perceive value in as women. If you want to learn how to add value to men, then check out Understanding Men.
