I am submissive to my husband AMA

[Peachesx2606]

Please AMA but please be kind.

I'm interested in other thoughts/opinions and will try to give mine.

This is just something that seems to work for us x

This doesn't sound at all healthy. It's basically you consenting to coercive control. Have you thought about this from his perspective? If he knows he has control over you, he will lose respect over time. That in itself could create a yearning for someone who he can respect. Your marriage could Implode over time. Added to that you are a terrible role model for your children.

You talk about liking a reduced mental load but really how much mental load do you actually have if you don’t have a job? It just seems to come from a place of rejecting adulting.

Yes, it's not hard to see a narrative where the OP's 'manly' DH gets tired of of his passive, childlike wife who never takes any decisions, and starts finding Ballbreaking Bella at work suddenly fascinating because of her decisiveness, readiness to disagree, willingness to take on lots of responsibility and risk at work, and unapologetic centring of her own needs.

Though you would think that the OP, having been through one bad marriage, would be less naive about the 'Oh, he would always look after me financially' delusion.

Can you give specific examples of things he gets to decide?
All your examples are of things you get to decide.

I have now read the OP’s posts. Am I missing something? The husband makes the final decisions and tells his wife to go the bed. Wow, shockers.

I tell my husband to go the bed most nights (otherwise he’d fall asleep on the sofa), and if a joint decision needs a final say - it’s always been down to me. Does that make him submissive? 😂

To me, it sounds like the OP is lacking in confidence. I can’t say this has been an interesting chat. Sticking a label on it doesn’t make your marriage noteworthy.

Did you miss that OP said that a ‘consequence’ (punishment) of her not doing what he wants is her being ‘told off’, ‘sent to bed’ or not getting what she wants?

I’d say something deeply unhealthy with him as well. Maybe needs this to feel masculine. No healthy minded man would agree to this. Maybe he doesn’t have any authority at work, isn’t as senior as he’d wish. So plays out this fantasy at home so it makes him feel that he’s more of a man.

what they are both missing is that’s not what masculinity is. And is more what is now known as toxic masculinity. The ops view of femininity is also warped, she think it means weak , in need of protection, indecisive

id assume both have very significant issues.

Just putting up my questions again.

Does your husband decide when you have sex or do you also initiate sex when you want it? Are you submissive when you do have sex or does it vary?

It doesn't sound to me like a submissive relationship it actually sounds normal but maybe leaning more traditionally, which is fine in my opinion, especially when you are not working that's normal to have those roles or ask about big spends in that position so what is actually submissive im struggling to grasp? When I think of submissive relationships I think of a lot more, you say he doesn't control clothing, it's not sexuslly submissive,you get a say and say yourself you get own way a lot and I'd think of those things as just examples in a sub/Dom relationship so I wouldn't really describe it as one, it's more a case of your position right now, ie out of work to study of course you will pick up more house/kid stuff, and I guess things are tighter with 1 income so of course you don't spend willy nilly without talking, so I don't think you understand sub/Dom relationships, this isn't really it, and I think maybe it's a case shirking out a bit, but if you are both happy then of course it's fine, maybe it works for him too, he gets to feel like the protector etc

Do we actually ask you? Or do we ask your husband.

You may well be right. I kept changing my mind ad I read through replies.

I just have a suspicion Peaches2026 may be describing something ordinary in overly dramatic terms.

I've had pretty unhealthy sleep patterns in the past and I can well imagine asking my husband to make sure I get to bed at a sesible hour. Which would involve him st some point in the evening coming to me and saying, It's time for you to go to bed now. I've certainly told him whrn I want to limit my drinking when I go out as in “do not let me havr more than 2 pints tonight!”

If I wanted to make this soundmore dramatic and interesting than it actually is I could tell people, I am obeying my husband, he decides hoe much I drink!

So the OP doesn’t want to talk about her sex life, which is absolutely fine, obviously . But I can’t help but think it is etremely relevant in this situation.
I think it’s relevant to wonder if she ever initiates sex and if so what his reaction is - happy/ pleased/turned on, or angry/uninterested/turned off?
And what happens if he wants sex but she doesn’t ? Does he accept her decision with good grace, or not? Is she coerced or does she ever feel at all coerced?
Do they discuss it either way? How important is being in control to him here?
It’s very pertinent to the relationship, IMO.

Neither of those things you describe are you being punished for not doing what your H wants though, are they? Which is what OP describes.

They are your husband supporting you in commitments you want to make.

Totally different.

I was supportive of OP until the ' I get told off, don't get something I want or get sent to bed' as a 'consequence' of displeasing her H. There is no reframing that as part of a normal or healthy relationship.

You gave an example earlier around what would happen if you disobeyed your husband, and it was when he sends you to bed - if you disobeyed him, the consequence would be that you would be tired, but actually you like it when he sends you to bed. Does your husband actually send you to bed, like you are a child?

You also anchor submissiveness to the fact that you are very feminine. Do you consider dominant women to be less feminine? Because there is strength and power in womanhood, to many women. I don't consider dominance or submissiveness to be gendered - why do you?

But he tells you those things (time for bed / you’ve probably had enough to drink) as part of a wider acknowledgement that your sleep isn’t great and you don’t want to drink too much.

OP’s husband sends her to bed / tells her off / withholds things from her as a punishment. That’s completely different.

Do you honestly think that a decent man in a remotely healthy relationship would send his adult wife to bed for disagreeing with him or disobeying him?

Agreed. It's abusive and a slippery slope to more serious abuse. I actually don't think she is telling us the worst of it.

To me this is too far, it’s not for my husband to withold something from me because I didn’t do as told or telling me off instead of having a discussion like an adult.

I empathise with the desire to have someone else just take charge, god knows I want most things to be someone else’s problem but this does feel like roleplay to me.

I am really worried about your self esteem. I can’t see how this helps you. If you get ‘told off’, sent to bed, not allowed something you want etc, for whatever reason, the underlying message is what you did/said/felt is not acceptable so you are diminished further. I don’t understand how any adult would want to do that to another rather than try build them up. It’s one thing to let someone take the lead on something like a practical family decision but quite another to get ‘punished’ like this. It can only distort your sense of reality and undermine what you said/did/felt. It as though you don’t think you are worthy of anything more.

I guess you missed the punishment bit.

Authority, dominance, coercion and aggression are not all the same thing.
Wanting someone else to take control is a childish state. It can also be passive aggressive; you don't have any responsibility and you can blame him when it goes wrong. But that isn't a solution to life's problems.

Has your therapist discussed the Karpman Drama Triangle with you? Look into that, and the book I'm OK, You're OK by Thomas Harris.

I would also worry about the loss of respect, I can’t imagine DH wanting or enjoying that kind of control over me. He’d find it a bit tiresome, he’d find me boring and he would struggle to have any respect for anything I did or said.

It’s also just so unmanly as well tbh, I need my wife to be passive and I enjoy her being passive because her being small makes me feel bigger. I would struggle to respect my husband if he wanted that from me, it would make me think he’s a small man from the off.

I do understand part of where OP is coming from, I genuinely do, but a lot of it I’m struggling to grasp. What do you get out of being “told off” by a man who you are supposed to be equal to? Do you enjoy it in some way? Like a farther giving you boundaries?

You have stated that you feel vulnerable, childish, embarrassed, anxious, lacking in self-esteem, needing to rely on your husband for ‘feeling safe’.

There is clearly a lot going on - stuff that is rooted in your childhood and your previous abusive marriage. It’s good that you are in therapy as it indicates that you are aware that your current marital setup is not meeting your needs. Moreover, therapy will hopefully help you process everything that has happened to you and gain insight into how you can take charge of your life and, in the best sense of the word, grow up.

You are an intelligent woman and will get there in the end. However, I put it to you that you will get there much sooner, and with more positive rather than negative impetus, if you start being proactive and start advocating for yourself and focusing on your best interests- instead of relying on your husband and hoping that he will keep you safe.

Relying entirely on someone other than yourself is both unhealthy and potentially dangerous. So many women who believe that ‘he would never do that’ end up in deep shit because…… he did exactly that. Look after yourself and your children above anything else, always.

That’s what I think, this is a small man in the real world. With little respect or authority in his day to day life. So being the man at home, bossing his wife about. Gives him what others around him do not respect or rate him enough to do.

Likely feels he’s the big man at work and knows more than his boss, can’t understand why he’s not in charge, thinks he’s great at his job, when others don’t think he is.

and the op isn’t very feminine, by most people’s standards, so she acts out this parody of femininity, where she’s the weak feeble minded little woman needed to be told what to do to feel safe.

and to keep him she gives him this authority over it, and lives in this parody of masculinity v femininity , as she’s no money, and is trapped in this situation.

They think they’re the only ones doing it. Pathetic really.