This has you flummoxed.
You have a dominant and submissive side to your personality.
The dominant side comes out when you are feeling unsafe and need to assert yourself.
The submissive side comes out when you feel safe around someone.
Yet, even in scenarios where you feel safe, there are moments where your dominant side comes out and you are suddenly in a much more aggressive headspace.
This is normally when something is said or done by the guy that makes you believe that you are being taken advantage of.
All of a sudden, your dominance reveals itself.
This is a shocking moment to the guy you are dating.
Being that he is used to your submissive side, it takes him by surprise when your dominant side appears out of nowhere.
The thing is, the dominant side is far too reactive.
He wasn’t intending to take advantage of you nor did he.
It was your childhood trauma and abandonment issues influencing you, making you believe that there was a need to protect yourself.
It gets so pathetic, the dominant side can even come out when he hasn’t said or done anything directly to make you feel the need to protect yourself.
You could be out on a date with him, observe that women are looking at him, and that alone forces the dominant side of you to come out.
All of a sudden, you are snapping at him when he did nothing wrong.
He wasn’t looking at any of those women.
His entire focus was on you.
Yet, you were so incensed in seeing these women looking at him, you reacted by becoming dominant towards him.
This is where you become belligerent with him, reluctant to return his affection, nor keep a conversation going.
You are wrestling with how to balance your dominance and submissiveness.
Although you know that each one serves its purpose, you are horrified at the prospect of losing out on a guy you like based on this Jekyll and Hyde act.
Guys you are romantically interested in, love your submissive side, until the dominant side appears out of nowhere.
This has cost you in the past, as guys have been turned off and moved on from you.
To balance your dominance and submissiveness, you have to learn to trust who you are dating.
Whenever you think you feel safe with a guy in the early stages of dating, that is not based on true belief.
It doesn’t take much for you to quickly shift into your dominant side.
This means that you don’t trust him through and through.
You are forcing yourself to believe that you trust him, and feel safe with him, but this is misleading.
You don’t trust him.
Basically, you want to believe that you trust him, based on positive cues that he is giving you, but deep down, you don’t.
It is a house you have built on quicksand.
This is quicksand that is sure to suck you back into your untrusting mindset, unleashing your dominant side, the moment anything seems awry, unsettling or suspicious.
You have to fully trust a guy to keep your dominant and submissive sides in balance.
Yes, this means that you have to do the one thing you dread the most, become vulnerable.
Since you have chosen to navigate the dating market in search of a partner, you must permit yourself to become vulnerable to said partner.
This is not exclusive to you.
Everyone in a healthy relationship has made themselves vulnerable to their partner.
This is how trust is built in any healthy relationship.
Without surrendering your vulnerability to your partner, you can never trust him.
Everyone in a healthy relationship had to become vulnerable to their partner to make their relationship work.
You will struggle to be vulnerable to your partner, as it goes against your innate desire to protect yourself at the slightest sign of discomfort.
Nevertheless, you can become vulnerable to your partner by doing trust-building exercises with him.
This is where you do activities together where you have to rely on each other for the activity to succeed.
Activities like camping, mountain climbing and self-defense classes are excellent trust-building exercises.
They rely on teamwork.
As you successfully engage and complete these trust-building activities, you learn to become vulnerable, trusting that your partner has your back.
This trust permeates into the romantic relationship you have with him.
In time, you realize that you are no longer having any trouble balancing your dominant and submissive side.