Topping from the bottom FLR: when his enthusiasm is the thing strangling your dynamic
There is a particular kind of letter that arrives in my inbox, and you have probably already guessed at the shape of it.
It is long. It is detailed. It is, almost without exception, written by him. He has been reading for years. He has the books, the podcasts, the forums, and he arrives at me with a single confused question. Why, after all of this enthusiasm, all of this want, has his wife not taken up her crown? Why, when he is offering her everything, does she seem more tired than thrilled?
My darling, I am going to tell you what is happening, because the woman in that marriage cannot see it from where she is standing.
He is topping from the bottom. And she is the one paying for it.
The term, borrowed from the bedroom
You may have heard the phrase in its scene-based meaning: the submissive who, mid-scene, takes the reins from the top. Borrowed and stretched, it describes something more interesting in a domestic Female-Led Relationship, and a great deal more corrosive. He does not interrupt to demand. He researches. He frames. He brings it to you, gift-wrapped, with an article attached. He becomes the project manager of your dominance.
He has not, in any meaningful sense, submitted. He has commissioned a fantasy and put you in charge of producing it.
Four tells, and you can spot them this week
Four behaviours mean he is doing this. Test them against your week.
He brings you the next article unprompted, and the framing is I think this is something we should look at. He talks about your development, your confidence, your willingness to take more. He asks, in the texture of the conversation, how you are progressing. He suggests, ever so gently, what you might try next.
If three of those four landed, the diagnosis is in. The dynamic is not stuck. It is being driven, expertly and persistently, by the wrong person.
Why the bright, willing ones do it most
The men who do this are not the reluctant ones. They are the eager ones. They read everything. They arrive with an open heart and a closed agenda they do not know they are carrying.
It is not a failure of submission. It is an excess of want. The submissive man who has done his homework is still in charge of the want, and the want is steering the marriage. The keenness is real. The submission is not, yet. Those are different things, and the keenness, when it drives, makes the submission impossible.
Why you feel the way you feel
You are not stuck. You are not failing to dominate. You do not lack technique. Please do not let him buy you another book.
What you are feeling is what any woman feels when she is asked to perform a desire imported into her marriage from outside, refined in private, and handed to her as the thing she is now required to want. Your appetite cannot surface under the weight of his. There is no oxygen in the room. He has filled it with his wanting, and yours, the thing the whole dynamic was supposed to rest on, has nowhere to grow.
The deepest service is restraint
The deepest service a submissive man can offer his Dominant wife, after a certain point, is restraint. Not action. Not enthusiasm. Not the next idea. Stillness. Holding back. Letting the room be quiet.
A man who cannot do this has not yet submitted. He has only offered to. The test is not whether he can kneel or serve on instruction. The test is whether he can close the browser tabs, stop bringing you the agenda, and simply wait to be required.
The conversation you have with him
You do not negotiate this. You do not propose it. You inform him.
A Saturday morning, the house quiet, the week ahead not yet started. You tell him you have noticed a pattern. You decide, from now on, what enters the dynamic and when. You do not want to be brought articles, suggestions, ideas, podcasts. If there is something he would like you to consider, he may ask once, in plain words, and then drop it entirely. You are taking over the wanting.
And then you tell him what you are taking instead.
The quiet quarter, where his energy goes
Stopping is not the prescription. Redirecting is.
His energy goes, with immediate effect, into the things service is actually for. Your standing requirements, continuously and without commentary. The house at the standard you set. Your car valeted on Friday. His own physical maintenance to whatever protocol you have already named. Anticipation in place of suggestion: your bath run because it is Tuesday, your coat held out, the kitchen restored without him appearing in the doorway to confirm. And the hardest thing of all, the one most of these men cannot do: stillness when not required. Present, available, quiet, ready, and not trying.
Three months of that. He does not get to ask how it is going.
What surfaces when his wanting stops crowding the room
One of two things will happen. Both are useful.
In the first, your appetite, finally given a room to itself, surfaces. Not on his timetable and not in the shape his articles described. You discover what you actually want from him, which may turn out to be more than he ever proposed or less than he ever feared or something neither of you had imagined, because neither of you was looking at the right woman. The dynamic that grows from there is yours.
In the second, the quiet quarter reveals that what he wanted was the fantasy of being led, not the reality. He fidgets, he relapses, he brings you a new podcast in week six. That is also useful information. You now know what you are working with.
He thought he was offering you everything. The thing he was not offering was room.
This post is well written. In my relationship with my wife, I try to strike a balance between showing her the possibilities and giving her space to choose if, what, how and when. Seven years in, we are well into the journey at her pace and I love her more deeply than ever.
I have experienced this. I have backed off, but she still does not take the FLR stance. Perhaps she just does not want this and the effort it takes, We however have a very good loving relationship I don’t see her changing her stance on FLR and I have to accept her position as I do love her
This is frustrating article. In all the others communication is stressed. Seemingly as soon as the male communicates his desire and thoughts, it’s now topping from the bottom. This is a relationship and through the discussions and journaling that is endlessly discussed in previous stories and articles it now seems conveniently put aside and is called topping from the bottom. In a relationship the needs of both should be acknowledged.
Through my own research and anecdotal evidence, most women have never heard of this type of relationship. How does a man express to a woman he is in a relationship with his desires without introducing some if not all of what was introduced in the article. When all the benefits of the relationship are her only consideration without any consideration to his, though he is making an effort to respectfully express himself. He is dismissed as topping from the bottom. Maybe it’s time for him to leave for someone that will at least discuss in place of dismiss his expressed needs. and desires for his fulfillment in their relationship
You are right that there is a difference between speaking and managing, and I should have drawn the line in the article. Say it. Once. In plain words. I would like us to try this. I am unhappy with that. I have been thinking about the other. Then put it down and let her hold it.
What I diagnosed was not the asking. It was the not being able to stop asking. The next article, the next podcast, the gentle weekly how are we progressing. He is not communicating any more, he is carrying her share of the want and his own at the same time, and she is exhausted because there is no room left for her appetite to surface.
The test is what you do in the seven days after you have spoken. If you can let it be quiet, you have communicated. If you cannot, you were managing.
On your last point. If she takes everything and gives nothing, you are not in a Female-Led Relationship, you are in a bad deal. Your instinct to leave is sound. Just be sure you are measuring her against the woman she actually is, and not the woman your reading list told you she should have become by now. That is where most of the trouble lives, in my experience.
— Cat
Thank you, Kevin. I agree.
As a switcher I have been in both roles for longer and shorter periods. Ultimately any D/s dynamic is about both sides, no matter how one-sided it appears outwardly, even the seemingly extremely one-sided relationships.
As a top I have encouraged my bottoms to share. Then share more. It allowed me to get into their heads and hearts, something that is dear to me and that I see at the heart of a healthy relationship.
I found their sharing exciting and inspiring, too. I felt safer in what is on and off limits, what is easy, acceptable or too much, what is pleasing or turning off.
I never considered such shared feelings, ideas and needs as instructions for me. I never felt topped from the bottom. I appreciated the trust placed in me and then the freedom given to me to do with it.
I found and find it very human and kinda cute that there is an element of expectation after sharing. If the expectation gets too much, I have a sweet little conversation, and we will soon agree again. Maybe add some extra, ahm, motivations into this conversation for the fun of it. I can even turn the expectation into a tool and the possible disappointment, that comes with it. If done right, it can be sweetly cruel, and “right” includes love and care for the other.
That said. A shame that the first time I post on this blog is for when I disagree. Not fair. This blog provides some tremendous insights. Please keep going.
I recognise both the article and the comment above from Kevin. I feel I’ve read so much on the subject and also I’ve filtered out the dross, the rubbish and the male-centric fantasy. My partner thrives and enjoys this in a relationship but it often collapses due entirely to external real-life pressures of work and extended family. In attempts to reestablish it is only me who can see the solutions and suggest the necessary improvements to make the FLR run smoothly (as I read extensively on the subject). So I can present her with ideas to improve what we had previously (which seem like topping from the bottom) or we will drift on in our relationship and never reestablish our FLR.
I couldn’t agree with this article more. The fact that the men above both identify themselves in it and disagree is telling. Key phrases seem to either not be understood or simply ignored.
“ He has not, in any meaningful sense, submitted. He has commissioned a fantasy and put you in charge of producing it.”
So very many times men have approached me to be dominated. Not to submit! To have me fulfill their desires, not to fulfill mine.
With respect to the specific situation you have described (a relationship rather than a scenario), you were clear: genuine desire and eagerness for FLR is one thing, over eagerness and ignoring the desires of the woman herself is another. You’ve encouraged any woman in this scenario to move at her pace and create the space she needs to determine the shape of relationship she wants. I am inspired.