My wife and I were married in 1973. We have been married for 32 years now, and I can put these years in two categorize; the first 29 years and the last 3 years. Let's start with the first 29 years. I have always loved my wife, but she was hard to live with. When we had a disagreement (and there were many) she always had to have the last word; if I tried to say one more thing, she still had to get that last word in. Most of the time our fights got very loud; I never hurt her physically though. I learned to just back off from these arguments to avoid a fight. She was acting the dominant role and I was acting the submissive role.

During those 29 years, I really do not remember one time when she actually kissed me without my initiating it. She showed no affection for me during those years. We once went over a year without sex. I seriously wondered if she had a fear of being touched. When I kissed her, it would be quick and I almost always got pushed away. As usual, I would back away to avoid the normal argument. Towards the end of those 29 years, I told our daughter that if I didn't love her mother, I would never be able to continue living with her. It was time for a change; it was time for me take control of our marriage. This was sure to set up a battle. For once, I was going to stand up to her and not back down. I was going to have to be the first one to change. Actually, I think I have always been the dominant type. I just never knew how to apply this trait properly. Before approaching my wife, I looked at D/s web sites. And there were a lot of bad ones out there. I weeded out the good ones from the bad. I needed to know how to approach her (and afraid of the fights we would encounter). So, yes, I was definitely the first one who needed to change; I had to be sure what I was doing was right. Let's go to the past three years.

I sat down one night with her and told her things were going to change with us; I told her I wanted her to be submissive. No fight; she didn't say anything to me, for three days. Then she faced me and told me that that was the most disgusting thing I had ever said to her. To avoid a fight I didn't say any more that day, but I came back the next day and the next, and we finally started talking more about it. I told her I was taking control of our marriage and taking control of her. It was like a huge brick wall in front of her at the start, and every day a little crack formed and grew. When I approached her with this, I stressed one thing: she would always be able to trust me with this control. I emphasized I would never hurt her physically, or emotionally. The biggest part of this was that I sat down with her twice and prayed about it. I felt very awkward with this, but was sure it was right. We worked on it for 6 weeks, until, on Valentine's Day (and her birthday), she walked up to me with a glow on her face that I had never seen before, but have seen many times since. I knew then that I had her.

Fast-forward three years to today. We have just (due to job) moved into a new house this week. It is almost two hours away from where we lived for many years. This past week has been very stressful. I have been working to relieve the stress from her; she has taken the move hard. Since that Valentine's Day three years ago, we have not had one fight, and she always offers her opinion, and sometimes I change my decision based on her idea. She has become very affectionate; we have sex more now in a month then in a year before; and she never pushes away my advances. She used to nag me about everything. She quit this without my asking her to, and she has not nagged me once, since. I make all decisions for her now, and she gladly submits. She has been a lot of work for me – and has been worth all of it. When I talk to her about her being so submissive, her face just glows; this makes her so happy. When we started this three years ago, I told her it would be a journey, and that she would learn and grow in her submission. I talked to her tonight and reminded her of this. She is not one of these “wanna be” ‘submissives’ on the internet – she never discusses being submissive, she just is submissive.

There is obviously a lot more to this story than Gale has said here. It sounds as though Gale took quite a huge risk, and given that it worked, I think there must be some facts missing in Gale's explanation. Perhaps what brought Gale's wife round was that she saw that he was not trying to force her to submit for his own self-serving reasons, but for the good of their relationship. Perhaps they thereby started engaging with each other, and that made it possible for good feeling to come back into the relationship, and for Gale's wife to be consenting. But what would be unlikely, to say the least, would be for a woman in a bad relationship to feel good when non-consensually taken in hand. It has to be consensual. So I would love to hear the other side of this story. Might your wife write her story for us, Gale? 8-)

After reading a lot of the posts over the past maybe year and a half, here's the theory. Marriages where the wife is particularly, or shall we say unusually, contentious or unusually controlling might in fact be marriages where the wife is secretly longing to be taken in hand. This doesn't mean do it nonconsensually. I fully agree, Sarah, that something vital is missing from this story. But it does seem that the women who most welcome the idea of online dating are those who know they can't be with a man who isn't dominant because they are quite simply going to take advantage of him. That's the pattern I see here. Whereas a woman who is a dominant personality or egalitarian in nature is NOT going to find herself locked in a power struggle with her man, so being taken in hand isn't going to be what she wants. If she's dominant, just like a dominant male, she can get her point across quietly and firmly. If she's an egalitarian she can simply negotiate with him when there's a conflict, and neither one has to prevail all the time. This would be the explanation behind this apparently miraculous conversion that has taken place here. And it fits for a lot of the others who post how much happier they are after being taken in hand. Much as they didn't realize it, their fighting with their man and struggling for the power shows they WANTED him to have the power. For those women, and only those women, being is "natural" and right. This extends to those whose contentiousness is physical (several women who want to be wrestled into submission) as well as to those whose contentiousness is more psychological. Whereas for the woman who is dominant, there will be very little contentiousness because her husband, the more submissive of the two, will gently step aside and accept her decisions, and harmony will reign just as it does in a household.

Some of what "Pat" said rang true for me but for myself, the reasons for the power struggle differ. Before I met my husband, there was a pattern to my relationships. I'd meet a guy, get involved with him, we'd engage in a power struggle, I'd start to walk all over him, he'd let me and then I'd lose all respect for him. This would happen over and over. See, I have a very dominant personality (this is where I disagree with "Pat") and I refuse to submit to anyone who isn't stronger (not talking about physical strength) and more dominant. A line from Conan comes to mind, Red Sonya tells Conan that she can never "give herself" to a man unless he can beat her in a fair fight. Well, that's kind of how I was I guess. Except the fight was with words and actions, not swords. The guy I'll submit to has to WIN my submission by standing up to me and not letting me take advantage of him and no one ever made the cut, except my husband. Deep inside me I longed for a man to come along and be the dominant partner but not just any man would do. He would have to prove himself more dominant than me and up to the task of "taking me in hand", and as my husband will tell you, I'm quite a handful. ;)

what you say supports my theory. I didn't mean by "dominant personality" a strong willed submissive. That is the way I see the women who want a man stronger than themselves but feel they must put up a fight. When I say a dominant woman I mean one who is comfortable and happy in the driver's seat and doesn't secretly want to be relieved of command. She's the one (or the egalitarian) who is not going to get locked in one of those power struggles with a man. She won't pick a more dominant man than herself (unless by error). I would use myself as an example. My marriage is mostly egalitarian. There are areas where I am dominant (decisions re: the child). There are areas where he takes the lead but I get a veto (re: money). There are no power struggles going on here, at all.