How To Set Up An FLR Page 2

  If you run into objections to any part of your “plan” for a new relationship style, don't try to argue your way through it. Instead, offer solutions. If he objects to you taking control of the money, offer to handle all the bills, freeing up more time for his sexual pleasure. Be the person with all the solutions, not the one presenting problems.

  The more you talk, the more comfortable you will both become. Once you feel that things are going your way, then you can bring up some of the other things you would like to change as well. When it comes to sex, a woman might not want to be “bothered” too often, or she might want to feel more desirable. In an FLR, she will have more control over when and what kind of sexual activities in which you both engage.

  From a man's point of view, a woman might want to hear that she will have more control of sexual encounters. From a man's, he might want to hear that he will get more sexual attention than before. Either way, you don't want it to sound like you are applying pressure. When a person feels pressured, they will, generally, try to shut down any further discussion. Think about it. You may have to start will small changes in order to achieve your larger goals.

  It is important to look at all the benefits that your partner will receive from the new relationship and put your own desires off for a later discussion. If you are a woman, you probably would not want to say something like, “I will tell when and what you will get in the way of sex.” That will scare him into thinking he will never get it again. Don't mention that you want to train him as your personal slave or that you want to cuckold him, either. As a man, you don't want to apply too much pressure to your partner by telling her that you want her to take total control of you. Or that you want her to treat you like dirt and only allow you to have one orgasm a month. These are all things that you don't bring up until you are both ready for them.

  Chances are, you don't have a written agreement for your current relationship. One that defines each person's role. Such as, who will handle the finances, who will do what chores, and how big decisions will be made. You can always start there. Suggest that you create such an agreement for your current relationship. Then, when you sit down to negotiate things, you can make suggestions about any aspect of the relationship that you would like to change.

  Your first agreement might not even include chastity, even if you both secretly desire it. I would wait until you have tested your first agreement to bring up things of that nature. The point is not to push your partner into something he or she might not be ready for. Ease into it. If you (or your partner) are not ready for a particular activity, maybe because one of you thinks it's too 'kinky' or because it might be too intense, then save it for later. You can always modify your agreement to include these kinds of things.

  If you are a man trying to get your partner to become your “Mistress,” don't push her. She may not be ready for, or even comfortable with, the idea. On the other hand, if you are a woman and you want to take total control over your guy, take the time to show him all the niceties of tease and denial before you order him to put that chastity belt in place. I think you get the point. Rushing into something before you (or your partner) are ready for it, can be disastrous. Give yourself and your partner time to get used to the idea, whatever that idea is. Maybe suggest it, then give your partner time to contemplate it, research it, even talk to you about it, before you try to push them into it.

  Taking things slow and easy is the key to making changes in any relationship, especially an FLR. Push too hard and all you will accomplish is to destroy what you already have. In short, if your goal is to have the woman totally control everything, start by her taking more control over the money or over when you have sex. Then add control over free time. Then, maybe, give her more control over your goals in life as a couple. The slower you take it, the more ready you both will be for what is to come, whatever that might be.

  When we converted our relationship from a Master/slave style to a Mistress/submissive style it actually took well over a year to make the full transition. I took over little bits of control one thing at a time starting with household chores. Once I was comfortable with one aspect of our relationship, I moved on to add another. As I said, it took my husband and I over a year to make the transition complete. We have since settled into a Shipboard style relationship simply because there are things I don't want to control all the time. But we still have fun with discipline, chastity, and tease and denial enough to say we are at the top end of a Shipboard style relationship and the bottom end of a Dictatorship style (with a little BDSM thrown in for good measure).

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  Chapter 3: Honesty & Trust

  You have heard the old adage “Honesty is the best policy” I am sure. Well, in any romantic relationship, it means the difference between success and utter failure. There is no substitute for honesty. However, even more important to any successful romantic relationship, is trust. Without trust, the relationship is doomed to failure. Especially if you have any BDSM aspects included in your relationship, such as spanking, paddling, etc.

  Before we go any further, I must admit, there is one time, one occasion when I feel honesty is NOT the best policy. I know, you never thought you would hear me say that, but it is true. If you have, at any time during your relationship, been unfaithful, and you are POSITIVE that your partner knows nothing about it, DO NOT TELL THEM! I know, it sounds like I am countering my own commandment, but I am not. Let me explain...

  If you have ever been unfaithful, had an affair or even just a one night stand that your partner knows nothing about, chances are, you feel guilty about it. If you don't, there is something basically wrong with you. Here is my reason for not telling your partner about your indiscretion...You are only trying to unburden yourself of all that guilt. Telling your partner will relieve your feelings of guilt because you have “cleared the air” or “gotten it off your chest.” The problem with that is you are being selfish. All you are doing is relieving your own feelings of guilt in order to feel better about yourself, at your partner's expense.

  You selfish pig! Think about your partner's feelings. If he or she will be the least bit hurt knowing the truth, don't you dare tell them. Learn to live with your guilt. Get over it. Don't let your guilt ruin your relationship. This is something that you need to bury deep down inside. But don't forget how awful it made you feel. That way, you won't do it again. You simply do not have the right to hurt your partner that deeply just to relieve your own feelings of guilt. If you feel you absolutely have to tell someone...See a therapist! (You can tell them anything.)

  Having said that, if you think your partner does know about your little affair, then you had better come clean. Don't think for a minute that my telling you to keep your little secret gives you the right to run out and have an affair with anyone. It does not. I wish I could tell you that there is some magical way to tell your partner so that he or she won't be hurt by it. I wish there were some spell I could tell you about that would make them forget what you did. The problem is, there isn't any magic, no spells you can cast, nothing you can do. If your partner already knows, then be open and honest. If you are positive that he or she does NOT know, then don't tell them. It's that simple.

  Okay, we got through that. Now let's discuss honesty and trust. You can only gain trust through time and honesty. So don't expect your partner to trust you completely until you have had time to earn their trust. You need time to earn each others trust. There is no other factor that can eat away at your relationship like distrust. One lie, one indiscretion, and it's back to square one. It makes no difference how big or how small the lie, it will ruin your relationship and you will either break up or, at the very least, start over from scratch.

  So how do you build trust? Time. You must give it time. There is an old BDSM adage that demonstrates the trust between a dominant and submissive. If the submissive is placed on the edge of a cliff, blindfolded, and told to take a step forward, he or she must trust the dominant to either catch them or teach them t
o fly. This is the kind of trust that every lasting relationship should have. Do they? Hardly ever. But if you want your relationship to last, you must find a way to earn that kind of trust from your partner. Even the submissive partner needs to earn that kind of trust. If your partner tells you to do something, then they must trust you enough to know that you will do your very best to accomplish whatever task they have set for you. You may fail at the task for one reason or another, but your partner must know that you tried your best. That is the kind of trust I am talking about.

  You can not be honest about some things, or honest most of the time, you have to be honest about everything ALL of the time. There is just no other way to earn that kind of trust from your partner. It all depends on you. If you are serious about making your relationship better, then you have to be honest. It is that simple.

  When my husband I first met it was online. We met in a chat room, quite by accident. At first we talked there, then moved to instant messaging, and finally to the phone. We talked about everything under the Sun for over four months before we ever met face to face. Why? Trust. We wanted to get know each other intimately before taking that one big step. We laughed, we cried, we comforted each other, we became one another's best friend. When we finally decided to take that final step of meeting face to face, there was almost nothing we didn't know about each other. We had built up our trust of each other by agreeing to be completely open and honest right from the start.

  Not everyone has the chance to do that. Many of you are already in a relationship and you don't want to start over with someone else. So make a pact to be open and honest about things and, I think this is important, once you do, don't ask any questions you really don't want the answer to. By that I mean, if suspect your partner once had an affair, and it would damage your relationship to know for sure, don't ask. Make it clear to your partner that you are willing to start over, start fresh, and that you don't want to know about certain things from the past. Let the past be the past. Maybe someday you can discuss them, but for now, let them go. Don't ask, don't tell. It can help you if you are starting over and want to start out right. Clearing the air doesn't always clear the heart.

  Emotional well-being, is a very important part of your relationship. Don't risk it on things that don't matter. If there is something in your past that you want to get off your chest, go see a psychiatrist. Pretend you just met and take it from there. That's the best advice I can give you.

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  Chapter 4: Communication

  After honesty and trust comes that all important communication. Now that you have decided to be completely honest in order to earn your partner's trust, you must begin to communicate properly. This isn't as easy as it sounds. But with a little patience and understanding you can both accomplish it with a minimum of difficulty.

  First of all, you must learn to be completely open and honest. Along with that, you must learn not to judge your partner when he or she is being open and honest with you. If that sounds simple, that's because it is.

  You and your partner must be able to talk about any subject openly and honestly without judging the other. To do this requires that you do your very best not to show your feelings when your partner is telling you something. Sex is one area in which it is often difficult to be open and honest. It may also be difficult not to react when your partner tells you things that he or she desires, or has done before.

  Before we go any further, I need to explain to you the basic differences between men and women. How we were not all created “equal”, that is. For example, women were designed to want sex more when the time is right for getting pregnant. Ladies, you should already be aware of this. A woman's libido is most active just before her period. Now, if you have had a hysterectomy, your libido may have declined considerably. This is normal. Then, again, you may have a very active libido, which is actually pretty rare. Anyway, my point is, your libido is probably not in sync with your partners (unless you are newlyweds who just do it like rabbits anyway).

  Men, on the other hand, in order to perpetuate the species (us, humans) have to be ready (and willing) to have sex whenever the time is right for the woman. Since there is no way of telling when that will be, men have very active libidos as a general rule. Of course, there are always exceptions to every rule. My point is, this is a very fundamental difference. Put simply, men are always ready for sex because they have to be ready whenever their mate is ready. Now if you are in a homosexual relationship, this becomes a moot point. Two men will always be ready when their partner is (generally speaking). And two women (assuming they live together) will synchronize their cycles and will, most likely, be ready at the same time, though no pregnancy can result from sex between two women (or two men, for that matter).

  What has all this got to do with communication? One of the most difficult things for almost anyone, is to talk openly about sex. Fantasies in particular. Therefore, understanding why men and women are different sexually, and have different sexual proclivities, is important. It is also important to remember just how humiliating it can be for one partner to admit to having certain fantasies, especially if the other partner is not understanding. One snicker, one frown, can mean the difference between a successful discussion and an unsuccessful one.

  Think about it, if you have just confessed your deepest, darkest fantasy to your partner, and he or she reacts in the wrong way, you may never tell them another secret as long as you live. After all, our fantasies are simply desires that cause erotic feelings within us. It really makes no difference what those fantasies are, what is important is knowing what arouses your partner. If your partner will not be open and honest with you, what chance do you have of finding out what turns them on?

  Knowing how your partner feels about things (many different things) is important. Therefore, it is extremely important that you both feel as comfortable as possible talking about any subject you can think of. It is especially important when it comes to sex. There are very few couples in the world who are truly happy with their sex lives if they do not feel comfortable talking about them.

  There are other solutions to an unsatisfactory sex life other than talking about it. Many men simply turn to masturbation, affairs, or ladies of the evening to satisfy their needs and desires. Ladies, ask yourself this question, “Do you really think you can make your partner truly happy without knowing what really turns him on?” If you answered, “No” to that question, then you need to be able to communicate well and so does your partner. You must both feel comfortable talking about any subject. You must learn to relax enough to talk about those things (fantasies?) that are the most difficult for you.

  While we are on the subject of fantasies, let me tell you how important it is to know what your partner's fantasies are, and how important your reaction to them is. If your partner told you that one of their strongest fantasies was to watch you having sex with another person, how would you react? Would you say, “That's a very interesting fantasy, but I don't know if I could actually go through with it”? Or would you be more likely to say something like this, “Oh my God! I could never do anything like that. That's just sick!”?

  How you react is every bit as important as what you have just been told. If your reaction is one of shock and horror, you will never be able to get your partner to tell you anything openly and honestly again. Think about it. Think about how you would want your partner to react when you tell him something you have always dreamed about. How would you feel if your partner reacted in horror? You would probably clam up tighter than the head of a snare drum. That's not very conducive to good communication, now is it?

  What if, in the previous confession, your partner went on to say that he or she would, most likely, not be able to handle you actually having sex with another man or woman, but the fantasy still turns them on? Would that make a difference to you? Perhaps you could find a way to make his fantasy “seem” to come true. Or maybe, you could simply use the information to turn him or her on while you are ha
ving (or getting ready to have) sex. Would that be a good way to handle it? Of course it would.

  Hopefully, by now you are getting the idea. Communication is vitally important. And openness in a relationship is even more important. I suggest that you try talking about some simple things, like your friends, to find out how you each really feel about them. It's a good way to open up the lines of communication without getting into something too personal. Practice makes perfect, and there is nothing quite as important as open and honest communication to get your relationship back on the right track.

  So do your best and remember not to over react to what you hear from your partner. I have to admit, when my husband and I first met, being as it was a long distance relationship, he could not see my facial expressions, nor I his. Instant messaging made things so much easier. If he asked me to tell him one of my fantasies, he couldn't see the bright red color of my totally embarrassed face. I don't think I could have told him anything that really turned me on had we been sitting across a dinner table. But since he could not see me, it was much easier to write out my fantasies, and, with his encouragement, I was able to be honest about what kinds of things actually turned me on.

  I am not saying that you should turn to instant messaging, although it is one way to handle the problem, but I am saying to find a way to let him know what turns you on and for him to do the same for you. Remember, every fantasy does not have to be turned into reality. I will write more on that in another chapter. Just remember, what he doesn't know won't help you and vice-versa.