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AthenaSurrenders -> RE: A Master's Responsibility (12/28/2012 5:18:13 AM)
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Fast reply because there are too many good comments and I can't decide who to respond to.
I find questions like this hard to answer. Maybe it's because I've been in this type of relationship my entire adult life, which means I'm not really qualified to make a comparison to 'vanilla'. Or maybe it's because my version of 'D/s' is 'lite', low protocol etc.
I can't separate out his responsibilities from my responsibilities. As I see it, in a serious relationship (and M/s is undeniably at the serious end of the spectrum) BOTH parties are equally responsible for the wellbeing of themselves, the other partner, and the relationship. We are both responsible for making sure the bills are paid, the baby is fed, we're happy, feel secure and loved, we're healthy, the car has fuel in it, our business is running smoothly and so on. If I'm sick, he cares for the baby. If he gets a migraine, you'll find me driving the forklift or contacting buyers or balancing the books so that our income is safe. If one of us is sad or worried, we both do what we can to alleviate that. Who does what at any time tends to ebb and flow. There have been times when I was the main or sole breadwinner. There have been times when he was the sole breadwinner. When a decision needs to be made, generally it is made by the person best placed to make that decision, albeit with input from both parties. All of this works so smoothly we barely think about it. I find it impossible to say these are Master's responsibilities, because just about everything comes under our shared team responsibility. The thing is, I can't imagine that being the tiniest bit different if we weren't D/s.
Ultimately, he has the final say, but in reality I know his decisions are always based on what's best for 'Team Us'. 98% of the time I would make the same decisions if I had to.
As Master, he has the right in our relationship to make demands which suit him. He can, if he wants, demand something entirely selfish. He can wake me up at 3am and send me out to buy ice cream. He can have me scrub the kitchen floor with a toothbrush just for giggles. He can have me spend hours playing a video game with him knowing that I find it boring and will probably get headaches. That's what I agreed to. So I suppose he has the responsibility not to abuse that power - to use it sparingly, and balance it with lots of kind and sensible decisions.
So in short - we both have the responsibility to keep our lives running as smoothly as we can and to treat each other decently. Within that, I have the responsibility to do as I'm told, and he has the responsibility to make sure the things he tells me to do don't conflict with the 'smooth and decent' rule. Sounds pretty boring, put like that.
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