I have a friend who is a lesbian. We'll call her V. V's most recent girlfriend was a real neanderthal, but she can't quit the crazy because I am pretty sure the caveman sex has her hypnotized. V was briefly "talking" to a new girl who was very sweet, endearing, affectionate, and just an all around cool person. But she won't date her because she is used to being the "boy" in the relationship and it makes her very uncomfortable to have someone attempt to woo her, pay for her, take care of her in any way. So instead of pursuing this new relationship, V has gone back to the old girlfriend. Cue another few weeks of crying at work, pissed off texting marathons in the hallway, lots of time spent in the bathroom. But hey, it's okay that the girlfriend is abusive, a pathological liar, and just generally a shitty person, because V gets to wear the strap-on. Focus: What is your role in your relationship(s)? Is this inflexible? Maybe you wear the pants during the day but slip on a dress at night. Alt Focus: Strap-ons.
Focus: I'm the lesbian in my relationship as well. I'm pretty inflexible about this, but whatever floats your boat. Overall, my relationship (to the degree it is a relationship) is pretty non-standard - though I think eventually it will be the norm as there are more women than men in college and professional grad schools. My wife makes the money, I take care of the house. If I could change it, I would, while I don't mind it right now, overall, it has become stultifying. Considering the jobs I've worked since we started this phase of our lives, I don't get a lot of intellectual stimulation. For now, it is what it is. Neither of us, outside of what was outlined above, really have a 'role' as we generally have a very amicable, yet distant relationship. She does her thing, I do mine. Alt Focus: I'm not into strap ons as I came equipped with one that gets precious little use. What the fuck would I do with another penis? Keep my other lonely penis company? Maybe. Blech.
I basically handle repairs, mechanical stuff, and upkeep of our place. FutureWife does a lot of the cooking since she's the daughter of an Italian Chef and I can't compete with that. As far as money goes, I make twice as much as she does so consequently I handle the bills, retirement plans, savings, etc. It probably doesn't get more traditional (sexist?) than that.
It is a very fluid situation between the Ms. and I. She is definitely more organized, and I keep things going with grocery shopping. Daily household chores, I feel, are shared. Cooking I tend to be more in charge of but that is because I have more experience cooking meats like chicken, pork, and beef that is not steak than she. I also have a clue as to what a vegetable is and how they should be prepared. Our trade-off in terms of who decides how things are run is that I'm in charge of the outside and "man things" such as cleaning the tub and wiping down a gnarly garbage can. All bug and pest problems are forwarded to me as well. I don't really mind that trade-off, especially because I can coast through by vacuuming.
I will post more on the focus later, as I'm getting ready to leave, but I need to make it known that strap ons are terrifying. Utterly, completely, totally, absolutely terrifying. Worse than spiders. And I fucking HATE spiders.
Oh my god, million dollar idea: Spider strap on. You see it would be a strap on, with eight different dildos on it, that you could fuck with!
I'm expecting my wife to come to this thread any minute to lament how she wasn't born in the 50's so she could stay at home, cook all day, and clean her house while wearing a dress and pearls. I was never over-bearing or overly dominant in my previous relationships but I 100% have the man's role in this one (hmmmm....maybe why I've been in this one the longest?). I take care of the heavy lifting, she takes care of the cleanliness and organization. I pay the bills, she does the majority of the cooking. It's way more traditional than I thought it would be, but it just works for us. Oh, and she's not frightened of a strap-on at all. I think she would very much like to use one on another woman.
In terms of our division of labor, up until recently we've had a pretty traditional setup because it worked well that way. These days since I am working full time and tired as hell when I get home, and he is a student with the summer off, I get him to help with a lot of household stuff, plus he is on permanent status for yardwork and dog washing duty. I don't bug him about stuff or pester him, but I'll make a list and he'll do it when he feels like it. I feel like we are in training mode or something, because things I feel obviously need to be done NOW don't get his attention unless I point it out to him. If the laundry hamper is full, time to do laundry. Oh, you noticed all the knives are dirty? Maybe it's because there are dishes in the sink that need to be washed. Is the garbage full? Take it out. I still do what I can in my free time but I have started making small lists once or twice a week and that seems to work. It's funny because people think I wear the pants. He is very laid back and easy going while I am pretty loud and assertive. People get assertive mixed up with dominant though. In other parts of our lives he is the boss.
My girlfriend and I have an interesting dynamic. Inside the house, or in semi-private situations, I am dominant. I am a nester, I do the lion's share of the cooking, and I am in charge of the house's electronics and layout. For much of our relationship, I have done much of the outdoor work. Finances have been split fairly evenly, as our income has been similar. So, I supply her with TV, delightful Cuban sandwiches and a semi-clean, liveable house (keys to life: separate closets) and she manages our outside the house activities. Outside the house, I am an introvert and I hate crowds, so she is dominant. She is much more charming and polite and in Korea, her language skills were much more advanced than mine were. So, when it comes to restaurants, entertainment and travel she is much more comfortable taking the lead. She does more homework and chooses her outings more carefully than I do ("Hey, look a place...with stuff. Yeah"). I feel awkward engaging people like tour guides and waiters, but she does it casually and well.
Given the issues with your bowels, I had always assumed pants would just be an inconvenience for you. Do they have a flap in the back? Focus: My girlfriend and I split our chores pretty evenly - I have some traditionally masculine roles (e.g. fixing things) and some that are not (I do the day-to-day cooking). In our relationship, the combination of me being pretty laid back and her being fairly picky means that she does a lot of the deciding - yet she's not very dominant when it comes right down to it. The fact that she does a lot of the picking and choosing is virtually invisible in social situations, though: she's very social but exhibits none of her choosiness or assertiveness in group situations. I think most of our friends believe I am much more assertive in our relationship than I actually am.
Personality wise - The Husband is quieter, more affable, more worldly, and MUCH easier to get along with than I am. His presence is due to his size, and due to his overwhelming positivity. People really like my husband. I am much much more reserved, but also more outspoken than The Husband. I don't have a lot of stories to tell -especially not in comparison to Mr Traveler like he is, and his stories of school and traveling and Jew camp and the like are always more entertaining. Much less dark than anything I've got. My presence is in spite of my size. I couldn't be invisible if I tried. People rarely forget meeting either of us. How that plays into our relationship - when it comes to the kids, we're unified, especially in front of them. I don't get in the middle of the testosterone in the house, and he and the boys work things out. I handle the domestic aspect, except cooking, for the most part. He works (I'm looking). The dog, I make the rules. Money, everything else - it's a matter of communication. I won't say that there's much of a dominant role for either of us, and it's more a mutual understanding and partnership. When we had the miscarriage, I sort of fell apart. I'm not 100% together from that - and he's still picking up slack here and there. He doesn't complain, he knows and understands, and I try to do the same when he needs it. I can't say there's dominance. Just mutual, real, coexistence.
I always end up doing the cooking, and I would even if I didn't really like it. That sounds like a subject worthy of its own thread.
Not really. He used to go to a camp for Jewish kids. They called it the Farm. Because you kill Jews in camps but raise them in farms.
I'm a very dominant, Type A person, but I seek out relationships with men that are also dominant because they present a challenge. Softer, more laidback personalities are usually romantically unattractive to me. I guess between my "strap-on"and his in-the-flesh peen, my relationships are basically a sword fight. As for actual strap-ons, I have little interest in replacing real dick with imitation dick. There are some aspects that just can't be simulated.
My wife and I split up chores and what-not in the fairly "traditional" dynamic, but not because it was easier that way. When she moved in with me, I was 20 and she was 19. I had been living on my own, in my own (and my own paid for) house for about a year and a half. I was Ms. Doubtfire and Mr. Handyman, because I had to be. It was a 75-year-old, two-story house in one of the wealthier parts of the city I got a steal on because the owners had bought it years back as an investment property sight-unseen and then the housing market crashed. They were looking to dump it. I had to learn a lot real quick. When my wife (then-girlfriend) moved in with me she barely knew how to wash dishes. Certainly didn't know how to write a check. Knew nothing about folding clothes. So we did a quick cost-benefit division of labor analysis and realized that we were better off if I taught her the household chores and I took on the "skill" tasks like plumbing, electrical, carpentry, random repairs, yard upkeep etc. It was more financially-beneficial for both of us for me to teach her the "household chores" stuff and keep saving money by doing what would otherwise require us to pay someone. Fast forward about six years, and we're basically doing the same thing. She still can't cook, but I can cook extremely well and I love it. So ok, I do that, you clean the dishes (which her OCD loves) and we're good. Even the son we just had a few days ago: I have a very sensitive stomach so cleaning diapers is a no-go for me. So she does that. But I've spent a little over the last decade working in the field of early childhood development so I know, both academically and in practice, the ins and outs of caring for a child from about 6 weeks through early teenage years. It's astonishing to a lot but not to us that at 3-days-old our son can already loosely hold his pacifier in his mouth and push it out when he is finished. I know I'm not in the minority when I say that the idea of a "male" and "female" role is bullshit. I can iron clothes better than the local cleaner, can my wife can power wash off our back porch with one of those "green" electric things better than any green card mexican with a generator. But we just happened to fall into it, largely, out of convenience... so maybe there is something to it. I'd be curious to read further about this, more than just this board's first-hand accounts. I'll research it a bit tomorrow and see if I come up with anything worth linking.
Can you expand more about this challenge? I've heard this several times or have seen it in my time in the online dating world but could never get anyone to properly elucidate their reasoning. Focus: Typically I'm a very assertive and dominant person however I don't have a problem switching roles as needs dictate. Since I took care of my siblings when I was younger I've leaned to be extremely independent and need almost nothing from a woman which is where the majority of my issues arise from.
When a dominant person is in a relationship with a completely submissive personality it's hard for the dominant person to respect the other - because the dominant person NEEDS to see the other person show some back bone. At least - for me.
My wife and I split up the household chores pretty evenly for the most part, although I'm more uptight about the house being orderly than she is so sometimes I give everything a once over just to get things how I want them. I do more of the laundry, usually so I can tell myself I am being productive while working on my websites in the evening. She washes dishes more often than not, because its a task I absolutely hate. But if it needs doing, I'll wash them. One thing I insisted on was she handle the money and bills. When I was a paramedic I would be hauling an old man out of his house, dead, and the wife would be seemingly lost not knowing what to do or where what was because in that generation the man did all of that. When we got married I told her that since statistically and genetically I will probably be dead before her, she should know where it all is when I kick. I'm not totally in the dark about it, but she has a great system of keeping everything organized and we discuss money matters as needed. Plus she is really good at saving money.
He makes sure dinner is ready when I come home and I do all the yard work, so I think that makes us both lesbians. I've been making him watch Mad Men so he gets a better sense of how to treat me. I'll let you all know how it turns out.