Why Do Subs Have a Hard Time Accepting Help from Our Doms? LB029
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This week, in episode 29, Kayla Lords hosts with a question: Why do subs have such a hard time accepting help from our Dominants? The question comes straight from a listener, and for once, Kayla doesn’t have a firm answer, but plenty of theories.
In this episode:
- A listener asks: why is so hard to accept help and care from our Dominants when that’s what we say we want?
- Kayla has experienced the same issue many times.
- The first time was in the kitchen.
- There are plenty of reasons it might happen.
- Do submissives feel like a burden?
- Is it because we don’t think we’re worthy of the help?
- Is it leftover from years of being taught to be independent and not rely on anyone?
- Are we dealing something else?
- To move past an unwillingness to accept help takes time and a willingness to let our Dominant lead.
- Kayla asks for feedback and opinions of listeners about why they think submissives do this.
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Full Transcript:
You’re listening to Loving BDSM podcast: episode 29. Hey, everybody. Kayla Lords here. Today’s topic comes straight from a listener and it’s a question that I think affects most submissives: why do we have such a hard time accepting help from our Dominants? Welcome to the Loving BDSM podcast. If this is your first time listening, glad to have you! If you’re back for another week, welcome back! Loving BDSM is produced every Friday for your kinky pleasure and education and show notes are found at kaylalords.com. Come back often and feel free to add the podcast to your favorite RSS feed or iTunes. If you love what you hear, we’d love a good review on iTunes to help other kinksters find us! You can follow me on Twitter @KaylaLords or stalk John Brownstone at southernsirsplace.com. All links are in the show notes.
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Okay, on to the show.
I have to thank a listener for sending me this week’s topic. I read her email and immediately thought, “Oh my God, I do that, too!” I don’t pretend to have all the answers about this, and maybe this is just the first of many discussions to come on the topic – as we all try to figure this one out – but she raised a really good question.
Why is it, after finally admitting to ourselves that we want someone who can care for us, who we can lean on and depend on, and who we know will take care of us, that when they offer to help us, we try to reject that help? I mean, we’re submissives who love serving our Dominant but somehow don’t feel comfortable with being served by our Dominant, if that’s even the correct term.
Now I say “try to reject that help” because some Dominants, my own John Brownstone included, won’t always take no for an answer. He offers to help. I brush him off as if I don’t need it. I get the look – you know the one – and the tone – you know the one. The Dom Voice and the Dom Look together? Yeah, I’m not refusing anything after that.
But it wasn’t always like that for us. Let me give you an example of what it once looked like:
When we first moved in together, we had several weeks – and months, really – where we had to learn to adjust to being D/s on a full-time basis (tough enough) and living with another person again. There were plenty of things I was used to doing on my own. I’d done them on my own when I was married, then single, and so now, living with my Daddy Dom, I just kept doing what I’d always done.
Picture this:
Three pots on the stove, one about to boil over. The table needed to be set. The drinks to be poured. Salt, pepper, knives, forks, which kid doesn’t like this vegetable, and which kid doesn’t like the potatoes? Let’s plate up. And I was running in circles trying to get dinner on the table.
He asked if he could help.
Nope, I’m good. I got it. It’s fine.
Until I dropped a plate. The water boiled over on the stove. And I forgot the damn salt and pepper. It was nothing really, but when I feel out of control over the things I think I’m supposed to control, I get a little wound up. (Ironic, I know. A submissive who needs to be in control of things – it happens more than most people realize).
He said, “You don’t got it. Let me help.”
I pushed back. We fussed at one another. He tried to help anyway and all we did was bump into one another for 15 minutes.
It was a mess, y’all.
That night, he sat me down and we talked about it.
I had a new rule. When he offers to help, I need to one – let him help, and two – give him direction on what to do until we figure out how to work side by side in those moments. I was also under “orders” to ask for help if I need it. (I’m still working on that one. I prefer to try out for the part of Wonder Woman on at least a weekly basis.)
Now, nearly two years later, we’ve got a routine down. If he asks for help, I can accept it better, and tell him what I need him to do. Plus, he knows when to jump in without asking. We figured out our pattern for working together – in and out of the kitchen.
That’s a very small thing, and it’s really a new couple thing more than a D/s thing. But what is that about?
Prior to discovering D/s and meeting Daddy, I wanted nothing more than a partner who would be by my side, take care of me, and help me. Once I had exactly what I wanted – in a way I never could have imagined – I seemed to reject the help and care.
Sure, when it comes to obeying orders, it’s almost easy. Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.
But offering to help me? I should be able to do it on my own. You shouldn’t have to worry about me. At least, that’s the thought process I go through.
And that, I think, is part of it. Part of serving and submitting is taking care of our Dominants. What if we’re worried that we’re a burden on them? What if it’s not that we can’t accept help but that we think we shouldn’t need their help?
Are we all telling ourselves that if we were somehow better, smarter, faster, more efficient, or whatever, they wouldn’t need to help us – with big or little things? Does accepting help feel like admitting failure and defeat?
Maybe. At least in some situations.
The person who emailed me gave her own example. Her Dominant offered to help her fix the air conditioning in her car. That’s definitely a situation where he’s providing for her, taking care of her needs, and it has little to do with his needs – unless you define having a happy, not sweltering or melting sub as being part of his needs, which I could totally see the argument for that.
But really, this is about doing for her, caring for her. And she finds it hard to accept that kind of help. Why is that?
Is it left over from all those years where we had to be completely independent? Were we all fed the same lessons about not accepting help from anyone – I know I was. Most of my life, I either said or was told that I shouldn’t need a man for anything (and while I nodded and said the right things, it never felt completely right. Guess we know why, huh?). Are these just old lessons that we haven’t forgotten?
Maybe it’s all of that and more.
Maybe we’re afraid of feeling like we’ve cost our Dominants something that’s precious to them – money, time, whatever.
Maybe we’re not sure we deserve that kind of help. I know I had a problem accepting anything from Daddy for a long time. Now, especially with my babygirl strong and out and about, I’m practically begging for treats and little things to make me happy. So when he hands me something, I’m happy, surprised, grateful, and a bit like a wiggly puppy. But that’s now. In the beginning, I found it very difficult even to receive gifts. Almost like I didn’t deserve them.
I don’t have all the answers for why we act this way. And truly, if you have any thoughts about why we do this, I’d love to hear them.
I would guess that, for those of us who have a problem accepting help from our Dominants, in whatever form it may come in, we probably have old thoughts, feelings, and memories to overcome. And once we do – in a mindful way (meaning we think about it and work to overcome our own thought processes) and by letting our Dominants take the lead – we’ll find it easier to accept the help, support, and care that we desperately wanted in the first place.
At least that’s my theory anyway.
No really, if you have thoughts on the topic about why submissives may find it difficult to accept any help from a Dominant, I really want to know. If I get enough responses, maybe I can do a follow-up episode.
That’s it for me this week. I’m going to bat my big brown eyes at Daddy and see if we can do next week’s episode together since he won’t be at work all next week. We shall see.
Keep it kinky, y’all, and we’ll see you next week.
