The Dominant and Submissive Partner in Relationships
“In any relationship there is a dominant partner and a submissive partner. This is true of all relationships, it is just a question of the extent of the imbalance.
Another way of stating this is to say that one partner ‘loves’ more than the other, or that one partner is more dependent than the other. Of course it is always the partner who loves less, or who is less dependent, that holds the balance of power.
If the imbalance is significant, then one partner spends a great deal of time trying to gain the approval of the other. In effect, the submissive partner will expend large amounts of life-energy jumping around in circles in an attempt to win a nice, friendly pat on the head from the ‘master’ or ‘mistress’.
In the vast majority of cases, the dominant partner is the male, and the submissive partner is the female. This is due to centuries of conditioning during which women have been exhorted to be as humble and submissive as possible in order to please the man and be a good and dutiful little wife.
I am talking here about permanent relationships, and not the early stages of ‘courting’ where the real discrepancies in power are often masked and hidden by the silly love-rituals in which the prospective partners engage. It is only later, when things settle down a bit, that the true imbalance of power can come to light, by which time it’s too late!
This means that in normal, ‘romantic-love’ relationships, the women lose out….again! In fact we might call the participants of this typical relationship Mr Macho, and Mrs Doormat!
Of course, there are also relationships in which the woman is the dominant figure, and the man is submissive. Perhaps we could call these super bitch and wimp relationships!”
- Inner Circle Philosophy (Stuart Goldsmith)
“Doormat spends her entire life running around in dizzy circles, desperately seeking a crumb of approval from Mr Macho. She is overjoyed if he flicks a crumb her way and she will experience overwhelming feelings of gratitude towards him on the rare occasions he chooses to be nice to her, or even acknowledge her efforts.
Mr Macho is fully aware of his power, of course.
He ruthlessly exploits her need for approval because it maximizes the amount of her life-values which she will sacrifice to him.
He will play her like a skilled angler plays a fish on the end of his line – allowing a bit of slack here, but reeling-in there. A skilled practitioner will withhold approval until she is at breaking point in her efforts to please him. Then just as she is about to snap under the pressure, he will flick her the crumb which she craves.
This is not unlike withholding drugs from a junky!
Similarly with super bitch and wimp. The wimp will dance around in dizzy circles in an attempt to get super bitch to ‘love’ him. He is desperate for a word, a gesture, a touch – anything which will show that she cares.
Super bitch withholds her affection (approval) for as long as she possibly can, because this gets wimp into a frenzy of sacrifice. Played carefully, wimp can be made to give up anything and everything to enhance the pleasure of super bitch. Then, when he is just about to snap, she will toss him some small scrap of affection.”
- Inner Circle Philosophy (Stuart Goldsmith)
