A healthy relationship is dynamic. Not only does it evolve over time, but certain of its best elements ebb and flow with the seasons of the year and the seasons of our lives. Right now, Ken and I are in a wonderful period of our lives. His work schedule has relaxed in recent months, and I have made a very active effort to channel much of his free time into activities and passions that focus him on making us closer. He has been even more deeply devoted to me as of late, and outward expressions of his affection for me are constant reminders of his passionate and always growing love. In turn, I have indulged him with an intensity and frequency of my own affections. Often these are outward gestures that reinforce my authority in our relationship. I know that these make him feel loved in ways that nothing else can match. After all, affection takes many forms.
We have gotten to the point we are in our own relationship because we trust each other enough to communicate openly. We have built upon this trust by being open and responsive to what each other needs and wants most from the marriage. We have put our own best interests ahead of convention and tradition, and we have been rewarded with a relationship rich in emotion, mutual respect, and very genuine love and affection.
Follow your hearts, abandon your fears, and find what Ken and I have found together.
Emily
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We are excited to note that the first book, Around Her Finger, can now be found at Amazon.com. Here is the link below:http://www.amazon.com/Around-Her-Finger-Breathing-Relationship/dp/B0025UPLB6As always, our books and CD’s can be found at:www.lulu.com/aroundherfinger/
Lulu now offers an Ipad version of the all of our books!Send questions, comments and success stories to Emily (dot) Addison (at) Gmail (dotcom)
Letters from Women
Dear Emily,
It is probably a cliché for women to open their letters to you with a statement of disbelief that their husbands could possibly have been hiding a submissive side. However, I can honestly say that my husband was the prototypical LAST man I would have expected to be submissive.
We recently had his parents pick up the kids and take them to their home for a week over the summer vacation. We were not planning an out of town trip, but it was a chance for us both to spend some more focused time together. That first Monday after the kids were gone, I came home to find your book and a dozen rose on the kitchen table. There was also a card saying that he learned about this book on your website.
An hour later I had read much of the site and was beginning to get an idea of what this was all about. When my husband came home I was still sitting in front of the computer pouring through your updates page. He walked into the room where I was and kissed me on the cheek. Without looking up and in a very firm voice, I told him to go out and get me a glass of wine. In short, I was very interested, and I was going to follow through with this. I was touched that he felt close enough to me and trusted me enough to come forward with this, and I accept it as you describe it, as a means of him demonstrating his affection, love and commitment to me. It would be awkward at first to get used to the idea of being in control, but I could do this for him.
The best thing about all of this is the openness and deep levels of conversation that we now have. I need only to let him kneel and put his mouth between my legs for twenty minutes, and then to stop the intimacy at that point, and he opens up and talks and shares like we were dating again for the first time.
This is magic.
Unsigned
Emily responds…
It is not magic in and of itself; however, when combined with a healthy, loving relationship, it is just that. Honor his trust in you, and cultivate a life together that builds on this new beginning.
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Letters from Men
Dear Emily and Ken,
I wanted to write you a letter explaining how I discovered the joys of a female led relationship. The Around Her Finger blog has been helpful to me in so many ways, and I hope my own story can contribute something to your readers in return for all that your advice has given to me and my fiancé.
I first met my fiancé (I’ll call her ‘Beth’ which is not her real name) five years ago when she became my manager at work. We worked for a very large company, and I had met her briefly before, but for all practical purposes, we got to know each other in a context where our manager/employee roles dictated the nature of our relationship.
Beth is seven years older than I am, but she is a very attractive and a very young looking woman. However, I never let this get in the way of my work, and we always maintained a strictly professional and very positive working relationship for the several years that I was her employee. It is probably worth noting that while I consider myself a very dedicated worker regardless of who my manager might be, there was something very special about working for Beth. I found that I very much wanted to go the extra mile to please her, and I would often stay late and go above and beyond to do my very best when I was her employee. Also, I was always incredibly respectful of her authority and was always mindful to demonstrate my respect for her. I was very disappointed when she decided to leave the company after several years, but we left on good terms, and I knew that she was leaving for a very significant career opportunity at her new employer.
Several months after Beth left my company, I was surprised to get a call from her. I suspected that she might be calling to offer me a job at her new company, but this was not what she had in mind. She had correctly heard that I had broken up with my then girlfriend, with whom I had long but unsatisfying relationship. She asked me if I would consider the possibility of a romantic relationship with her. I was completely shocked. It seemed a very bold move on her part.
Again, she was and remains a beautiful woman. I considered myself a very eligible bachelor, but mostly had dated women my own age. Also, the entire time I worked for her, I had forced myself to think of her as my manager first and a beautiful woman second. I ultimately succeeded with this, so it required a brain reset to imagine that we could be romantically involved. Lucky for me, the brain reset happened instantaneously, and I responded positively and enthusiastically to her question. We arranged for a dinner date that weekend, which led to a series of more dates, and ultimately a committed relationship.
From the very first date, it was clear that there would be something atypical about our relationship. It seemed like the manager/employee roles were still in place. This was in part an unconscious byproduct of the years I had spent working for her, but at certain times, it seemed very conscious on her part. For example, she would always tell me what our plans would be for any given weekend. She would pick restaurants, she would order the wine with our dinner, and she would even assign me little tasks to do at her home. I would be told to pick up her dry cleaning, make her bed, and I was even once told to spend an entire Saturday cleaning her home and getting it ready for a “girls’ party” (to which I was not invited) while she spent the day relaxing at a spa. The sex was very good (conventional, but good) so I did not complain. One night, however, I finally felt compelled to mention it to her.
She smiled at me and confessed that she was surprised it took so long for me to raise the issue. She said that she frankly liked the idea of being in charge in the relationship, and it was her suspicion that I did as well. I was completely shocked. Formal, overtly recognized female led relationship were a foreign concept to me, so I really didn’t even have any context in which to evaluate her statement. I remember very distinctly how she leaned into me, kissed me, and told me she wanted to explore something with me, and that I would need to trust her entirely over the next few weeks as we would experiment with something new in our relationship.
That night we basically entered into a modified boot camp as you describe in your book. She stood and disrobed in front of me, asking me to kneel and go down on her as she remained standing. She said that she cared for me very deeply, but she wanted to explore a relationship with me where I acknowledged her authority, and where I would be expected to obey her. That was the first night that my orgasms were ever “managed” by Beth.
It was like she found a magic switch inside my mind. That night began a female led relationship that has made me happier than I have ever been in my life. Beth shared with me your site, blog and book, and they have all helped tremendously. She awakened something in me that she knew was there, but I did not understand at all.
The next two weeks found Beth becoming increasingly comfortable with a growing level of authority in our relationship. As a result, I began to learn more about myself, and realized that my desire to please Beth in the past had been more than just career ambition; it was sourced from something much deeper and much more personal. My desire to make please a strong, beautiful woman was really an end in itself. Making Beth happy was making me happy. The sexual elements of our very special relationship not only intensified my desires to please her, but they intensified the satisfaction I took from pleasing her. This has been a sustainable benefit and has lasted way beyond those initial two weeks. To any that doubt it, orgasm management works!
I recently asked Beth to marry me, and she has lovingly agreed. Of course it will be on her terms, but as you can imagine, I would not have it any other way.
Jay in the Midwest
Ken responds…
The history of your relationship is a beautiful story and very well told. It is somewhat unusual for the woman to be the instigator in a female led relationship, but it sounds like your fiancé understood that this would benefit both of you.
Congratulations on your pending wedding!
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Dear Ken,
I had approached my wife about your website, giving her your book and CD, about four years ago. While we had a brief experiment and a couple of subsequent revisits to female authority, mostly it did not work for us. I believe that this was because it was just not something she wanted. She just did not see herself in the dominant role. However, several months ago, I repositioned LFA as a means to solving a shared problem between us, and now it is working amazingly well. I wanted to share my success with your readers.
My wife is in her middle forties. Her moving beyond child-bearing years (we have two wonderful teenage children) has been accompanied by a decline in her interest in sex. This has been the subject of a number of small arguments between us lately. All of these arguments take place without mentioning the white elephant in the room, the fact that only a few years ago, I was asking her to consider a relationship dynamic where I would put our sex life completely in her hands. While she rejected this, it was still an option I had put on the table. Therefore, she felt very comfortable scaling back the frequency of our sexual intimacy regardless of how I felt about it. I saw her point, but I was still not happy about it. However, the more I thought about my predicament, the more I saw an opportunity in the making.
In large part because of what your site has taught me about myself, I know that sex is not the ultimate goal for me. My desire for sex is a proxy for my desire to achieve an intimate connection with my wife. I also know that I can achieve a higher level intimate connection without sexual intercourse. If she affords me a dominant intimate encounter, a moment of connection between us where she exerts her authority through verbal cues and allows some form of intimacy to occur, then I have received something even more satisfying than intercourse. Given that her level of sexual desire has decreased (but certainly not disappeared), this allows us to meet in the middle and both come out winners. My nagging her about not having enough sex goes away. Her having to give in to a quickie she really does not want also go away. However, our intimacy level in the relationship nonetheless goes up. Again, we all win.
The only trick is getting her comfortable with those dominant, intimate moments. If for example, I try to initiate sex by kissing on her earlobe when we are alone at night, her simply pulling away and refusing me only results in frustration. However, if she kisses me back passionately before telling me to get some lotion and rub her feet “because that is what will make her happy tonight”… then this is something else entirely. In the latter case, I have had some intimacy in being kissed back, and she has made the foot rub much more meaningful than if I had just offered it on my own. Because she has told me to do it as a preferred alternative to sexual intercourse, I feel that she is managing our sexuality and the foot rub is a meaningful expression of my affection for her as I know it is what she wants.
I don’t know if I’m making sense, but I am trying to explain that wives who struggle (like my wife did) with “playing along” with an LFA, can really use small gestures to accomplish a great deal of emotional intimacy with their husbands. A passionate kiss as you give your husband as you hand him a to-do list and tell him that “you’ll do these things for me” may seem like nothing to you, but it would be the world to me (and men like me). It is the combination of this intimacy and gesture of authority that really hits the nail on the head.
Unsigned
Ken responds,
I love it. Dominant intimate moments, maybe we should call them DFI’s, are exactly what many men crave during the day. Many men fantasize about endless oral sex with their wives, but the practical reality is that men’s libido often outpaces a woman’s. Pairing a command with affection can do a great deal to reinforce a man’s need to submit. It is the core of what we describe in our books about increasing the level of sexual energy in the relationship without necessarily increasing the level of sexual intercourse.
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Dear Emily,
Thank you. My wife and I started dabbling in a wife led marriage last August. That was two days after I stumbled upon your site late one night. There is no question that your site has changed our lives for the better. However, I do have a few questions.
- My wife has never formally asserted her authority, as suggested in your book. We talked a little after she read your book and were going in that direction anyway, but no formal talk about new roles. Is it too late and/or am I out of line wanting such a discussion?
- My wife knows from reading - and experience - how taking a tone of authority simply works for me (us). I perform my tasks so much more willingly when she makes her expectations clear and our roles obvious. My complaint is that she does it sparingly. I know it's my job to show her all the benefits of this agreement (as we call it), but I feel like if she really wanted to live a true Around Her Finger marriage, she would take a little more initiative.
I know this sounds like a list of complaints - and you've heard them all before - but it's not. My marriage is 100 percent improved since we tried this arrangement (in every way imaginable). I was scared to death to share this site with my wife, but she has been gracious and understanding throughout. We have had ups and downs with this the past year, but every time she tells me this is how she wants it. All I am saying is that if her authority were more clearly stated and reinforced, I am pretty sure I'd hold up my end better.
I don't think she would be upset if I contacted you on this. I know I'll share your response with her if I get one - if you think that's a good idea. Obviously, I'd love to have her contact you directly, but that's up to her.
Thanks again for your site. It has changed our lives.
Jim
Ken responds...
First, it is never too late to formalize roles. In fact, it is expected that you will have an ongoing dialogue about how any element of the relationship is or is not working for both of you.
The same goes for your second point. It sounds like there are a number of elements of AHF that are not present to your satisfaction. It is ok to complain, but you cannot just stop there. You need to engage your wife on these issues and have that sometimes difficult conversations that it takes to maximize the potential of where you can go together.
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Note: The following is the conclusion of an email exchange where a reader was encouraged to approach his wife about his desire for an Around Her Finger relationship.
Dear Ken,
A couple of days after I sent that email I had an opportunity to confess my desires for an FLR and so I took it. She thought I was weird and strange, but her libido went from zero to 1000, so I am feeling a bit more positive about it now. I told her we could have a 6 month trial run and she responded "Why 6 months? Why not forever?", so as predicted she has had a positive response to it. She has already completed a list of daily and weekly chores for me to perform and has started drafting a list of rules she wants me to follow. This is more enthusiastic than I expected but nothing for which I am not comfortable or prepared.
Time will tell on the orgasm management front, I just hope we can meet on some middle ground. I have an issue with pain in my groin if I go too long without release from an old hernia scar, but I think she will be sympathetic to that.
I think this answer was longer than you might have been asking for, but I will continue reading your blog and your book (when I get it).
Thanks again,
E
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Our books and CD’s can be found on the following sites:
http://www.amazon.com/Around-Her-Finger-Breathing-Relationship/dp/B0025UPLB6
As always, our books and CD’s can be found at: www.lulu.com/aroundherfinger/
Send questions, comments and success stories to Emily (dot) Addison (at) Gmail (dotcom)
