I Want My Wife or Girlfriend to Submit, and How to Dominate A Submissive Woman

I have been musing about this post for a while now--it seems like a concept that would go nicely next to "I Want My Husband to Dominate Me."
I have gotten some visitors from search terms like, "how to dominate your submissive, make her submit, I want my girlfriend to submit, my wife wants me to dominate her, I want to dominate her, how to dominate a submissive woman, [and] I want my wife to submit".
So here's catering to keywords lol.

The thing is...I have far less confidence in this topic. But knowing (or not knowing), what I'm talking about hasn't stopped me before lol.

I think that this is a much trickier subject to address for a couple of reasons:
I have never been there and done that.
I think it is, depending on one's personal motivations, potentially far more hazardous for a relationship when one is on the side of seeking to gain control--not seeking to give it up.

So I'll go with my personal opinions (as usual), and I'll tackle this from the viewpoint of introducing D/s into an already established relationship.
I'm not a fan of "How to" manuals for ttwd, so please don't mistake this post as an attempt at such--it's just another one of my little soap boxes so kindly afforded me by the invention of blogging. Results, caffeine consumption, and mileage, will vary.

It's easy to think about wanting someone to submit. But if you want her to submit, you are going to have to Dominate her. And Dominating your wife or girlfriend is a whole awful lot of responsibility.

If you think that you can "Make her submit" with a snap of your fingers, you are sadly mistaken. Likewise, you cannot "Make" someone submissive--it's either there somewhere inside of them, or it isn't.

If you walk in the door after ten years of marriage, and announce that you want control and she'll be submitting to your whims from now on--chances are that you'll find yourself sleeping on the couch while your wife researches mental illness and tries to decide what drugs you might be on.

So think it through before you lay the concept of power exchange out on your kitchen table.

Do you want this to be something that stays in the bedroom and exists to spice up your sex life, or do you want it to become a way of life?
If you want it to be a bedroom activity, chances are that introducing a little here and there, is not going to throw off your established relationship. And it probably won't be that difficult--you try it out slow, see if she likes it or not, and go from there.
Living D/s is a lot more complicated because we can't close the doors on it in the morning.

Why do you want her to submit to you?
If your reasoning is just to get your way whenever you want, chances are that it will be an epic failure from the start.
In order for Dominance and submission to work in a relationship, it has to enhance and strengthen what we already have--not diminish and minimize who and what we are.

What does the concept of Dominance and submission mean to you?
I expect that this one can be a lifetime exploration, but it's good to get an early start on it. It is going to be very difficult to show her what you are seeking if you don't already have a general concept of it for yourself.

Are you willing to take on that much responsibility?
This question is a really big deal--the more power and control you exert, the more impact you have on someone's life. And the more impact you have, the more important your actions and choices become.
I think that selfishness has its place in Dominance, but you are asking another human being to place an inordinate amount of trust in you. This means that your actions must reflect the fact that their best interests are always kept in mind.
When you have the final say, when you choose her choices and bend her to your will, the amount of responsibility you carry grows tremendously. It is not always going to be an easy weight to bear.

The first step is to talk with your partner about Dominance and submission. If she is flat out against it, don't try to run her over and make her see the light via train--that is not going to work. Take it slow, give her time for the idea to sink in, and give her the space to actually consider it.
If she finds the idea attractive, you still want to take it slow. The deep end isn't going anywhere, and it is far better to test the water with your toes than it is to jump in head first and get badly burnt--especially when you are pulling your significant other in with you.

And for goodness sake, don't begin by spilling your darkest and most extreme fantasies to her--you want her to be interested and curious about learning more, not calling her mother and saying  that you have gone off the deep end.
That's not to say that there is necessarily anything wrong with such fantasies--just that they are not the best jumping off point for fledgling power exchange.

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So you have had your initial conversation, and she is amenable to introducing D/s into your relationship. Now what?

Controlling another human being is tricky business. First and foremost, it is based upon your control of yourself--if you cannot control yourself, you have no business in even attempting to control someone else.

This starts with you--your control of yourself, your expectations of yourself, the rules you follow yourself, the standards you hold yourself to, etc.

Be confident, but remember that you are not omnipotent.
It is extremely difficult to obey and follow someone who is not confident in their actions and the path they choose to lead us down.
On the other hand, you are human, and you will make mistakes as humans do. Hopefully not a great many because you are thinking carefully about what you do. But to err is human. Sometimes you will be wrong, and you will occasionally screw up.
The impact such events have on your relationship is largely based on how you deal with them--an admission to being wrong, and an apology go a lot further towards restoring trust than pretending that nothing went wrong in the first place. In fact, such pretenses merely compound the issue and eat away at your carefully built foundation of trust.

Be consistent! I don't think that can be said too much.
Don't take her to task for something one day, and then let the same thing go unnoticed the next. Because she will notice. Promise. She will test where exactly the boundaries are, and if those boundaries are constantly moving, she is not going to respect them.
If a directive is not important enough for you to be consistent about, it is not important enough for her to follow.

Say what you mean, and mean what you say.
I think that this is very important--don't make threats that you are not willing to follow through on, don't make statements that you are not willing to back up with actions, and do not make promises that you cannot keep.
If you are going to control her, or hurt her, or do whatever your idea of D/s is, she must be able to place a great deal of trust in you. Trust isn't (and shouldn't), be given blindly. There has to be a basis for it--one that shows submitting, for all its danger, is safe.
When your word is law, that word must also be true.

Base your Dominance on respect, not fear.
Personally, I get off on a bit of fear. But that's me, and years of knowing that Alpha will also save me from my fears. It is not a basis for our power exchange.
You don't want her to submit because she is afraid of you--you want her to submit because she respects you and you are worthy of that respect. And hopefully, because she discovers that she wants/needs it too, and has a desire to please you.
By the same token, if she believes that submitting to you means losing the respect you have for her, this road is probably going to lead to a dead-end. There are reasons that you love and live with this woman--you (hopefully), like her mind and respect her as a person. This has to show in your interactions.

Remember that you can do irreparable damage--both to your relationship, and to your partner.
Physical damage is a danger if you "play rough". But it is fairly easy to avoid with diligence and some gentle experimentation. The last thing you want to do is end up breaking her neck (I'm not joking. It has happened). Know your own strength, your "toys," and her physical limitations.
Psychological damage is more difficult to avoid, can be harder to immediately recognize, and has results that can be far more devastating than physical markings. If you damage her mind, you have done something with serious repercussions--you can't just put a band-aid on it and move on.
This is one of the reasons that taking things slowly is usually the best approach. And there's really no substitute for knowing someone well.

I asked Alpha for his input on this post, and he requested that I add a bit about what he calls cool down--most commonly known as aftercare. In other words, the importance of what happens after you "Play." This applies to both mental and physical activities.
How you take care of her afterwards will go a long way towards solidifying or damaging the relationship you are building. Most of us submissives cannot engage in intense BDSM activities and simply walk it off on our own. Well, we can--but it tends to be a rather unpleasant, and sometimes lengthy, process.
If you hurt her, she needs to know that you are capable of kindness; if you humiliate her, she needs to know that you still respect her; if you control her, she needs to know that she has surrendered of her own free will.
It is often more about what you do after, than it is about the actual activities themselves. It is a symbiotic process in which one aspect cannot succeed without the other.
Alpha likens it to the creation of a samurai sword (I asked if i could have one, he said no). It is a combination of heat and cold that tempers the blade. Too hot, and the blade warps. Too cold, and it breaks. A molecular change occurs in the tempering. There is an exact and delicate combination of heat and cold that creates the perfect blade--the cool-down process is critical.

"To fashion these blades, the smith not only must possess physical strength, but also patience, dexterity, and a refined eye for the limits of the material and the beauty of a finished sword."

 --Edward Hunter

"It has been said that the samurai's sword was his soul. Perhaps this deep attachment had something to do with the perfect melding of form and function found in the katana, as the famous curved sword is known in Japan. Invented a millennium ago, the katana remains a marvel of aesthetic beauty and skillful engineering."

—Rima Chaddha and Audrey Resutek

So there's my ten cents on getting your wife or girlfriend to submit to you. I have never been Dominant in a relationship, and have no real concept of what it's like to live on that side of the fence. But I do know what garners my respect as a submissive, solidifies my faith in his ability to lead, and inspires me to submit.

While I do think that Dominants tend to not be quite as susceptible to comparison as us subs, it is important to remember that one cannot successfully model their relationship after someone else's.
Learning and research is great, and can give very useful insights. But everything you read is another person's perspective--it is about what works for them and their relationship.
It sounds corny, but what you're really seeking is inside you--outside experience and opinion is just a way to help light the path towards your own self-discovery.