Level 1: How You Live.

I ran across this series of questions on Sofia's blog.  She pinged back to this blog, Our Master/slave journey.    The questions were, apparently, originally posed on Fetlife, but I don't have access to that so i'm citing the secondary sources.  I'm not sure why they are called "levels" but I'm keeping the format as much as possible.  

He and i haven't had some of these discussions explicitly and the series of questions seemed like a really useful way for us to start conversations and to see if we are on the same page - it has happened before that we aren't.  

Level 1: How You Live. Who steers the overall course of your lives? Who decides where each of you will live, how each of you will be educated, and what each of you will do for a living? Who has decision-making authority over money, major purchases (house, car, boat), and vacations?

Parts of this questions don't quite fit.  We were married a long time before we became whatever it is we are now.  We were already educated, working, had kids, living together, and settled where we were...  We had already made most of the big purchases - car, house, etc.,  The big decisions were made together i guess.  We mostly did whatever made the most sense for the us, eventually for the family.  

Big picture, i have always done a lot of flexing, bending, scrambling and working to accommodate what he needs to do to keep and succeed at his job.  Of course, his job supports us. On the other hand, he has worked hard and actively put up with a good deal to allow me to pursue my career - including moving across the country.

I don't feel like our 'system' has changed.  He has always managed finances.  I have a good idea what we can spend - and i am a sensible girl and not a big spender in any case, so i have no allowance or restrictions.  Big decisions get made together (vacations, travel/schedules, new car when it became necessary, work on the house, the usual life things).  He defers to me on decorating and landscaping because he hates those decisions.  I defer to him on bigger finance stuff, home maintenance and most car stuff because he will do what he will do anyhow.  Mostly that stuff just kind of flows - I defer to him at times, and i know that he goes my way at times, whether he sees my point or doesn't feel as strongly about it, or whatever.

I will say that the overall mindset i feel is that he makes the final call, though i don't think that was any different before ttwd.  I think he has always been good at managing me, whether i was aware of it or not.  And i think he very much makes decisions based on the good of our family and not his own ego.  That hasn't changed.  In the end - if it were clear that i needed to change or give something up for the good of our family - or even just for Him - I would.  But  he would do the same if needed.  I haven't been faced with being asked to change or give something up at this level just because he wants it that way; he has never asked anything like that of me.  In theory he could, but it hasn't happened.

One area we do have difficulty at times is in decisions about our kids - how to handle different aspects of raising them, how to approach them in different things, what to do in crises.  We want the same things for them, but neither of us has all the right answers, and we both know that.  Our instincts about them are sometimes different from one another.  We talk and talk and talk, (ok - i cry sometimes).  In the end, if he feels strongly enough about something to say he wants a certain thing done or not done - i go along with that.  I'm not sure that's any different because of a power exchange though.