I (31/m) am in a submissive relationship with my girlfriend (28/f) and I just realized she doesn’t actually love me

A Reddit user shares their experience navigating a female-led relationship (FLR) with their girlfriend, which has recently left them questioning the nature of their bond. Following a medical emergency, the girlfriend displayed what the user felt was an alarming lack of empathy and care, leading them to realize that she may see them solely as a submissive partner rather than as an equal in love.

The user reflects on whether this dynamic can work long-term and seeks insights from others on similar situations. Read the full story below for more details about their journey and struggles.

‘ I (31/m) am in a submissive relationship with my girlfriend (28/f) and I just realized she doesn’t actually love me‘

My girlfriend (of 1 1/2 years) and I follow an “FLR” which means female led relationship. It’s basically a lifestyle fetish thing. Without being too specific I basically have dedicated my life to making her happy in a seemingly selfless way (it’s not really selfless I guess because I enjoy it myself, but that’s all I get from it).

She controls all the finances, we only do stuff if she wants to do it, we never do what I want, s** is only for her, I do all the chores, etc. The whole relationship is basically about double standards that benefit her and that don’t benefit me, to put it simply. But that’s just how our relationship is. I’ve struggled with it at times but I enjoy it overall.

I have a sciatica issue with my back. It’s normally not a big deal but over the weekend I seriously screwed it up. It was totally agonizing and I had to go to the hospital. My girlfriend was completely unsupportive and didn’t care about me at all. She told me to power through the pain but I was like rolling around in pain almost.

It was clearly impossible. I called her by her first name by accident and she yelled at me for being disrespectful. I had to drive myself to the hospital because she wouldn’t let me use the phone. She was just completely annoyed about the whole thing. I think she told me that she hopes I catch the virus but I wasn’t sure.

I was out of it as I was leaving the house. They gave me some muscle relaxers in the hospital and I’m doing better now, but I’m trying not to exert myself too much until the disk completely goes back into place. Also, while she does sometimes treat me badly as part of the “role”, she didn’t seem to be doing that here.

I mean she knew it was serious, and I think she just revealed exactly how she felt. I always thought that even though we had this relationship, that she did actually care about me. But because of the way our relationship was, it didn’t come out much. She loved me in her own way, I thought.

But these last days, I realized that she actually just views me as a literal servant. She doesn’t care about me as a person, only as submissive partner. Even calling it a partnership doesn’t make sense. Maybe this is the wrong place to post this but I wanted to get a vanilla perspective with people that have normal, healthy relationships.

Am I overthinking this? Do you think I might be able to make the relationship work long-term? And if you have dabbled in d/s stuff I’d be curious to hear if any of you have had similar experiences. Thanks.

Here’s the comments of Reddit users:

KSSLR −  In d/s relationships, a Dom is supposed to respect the Sub’s limits. Anything else is abuse, I’m sorry.

UncertainWeasel −  Regardless of your type of relationship, your partner should always care and love you. This is the baseline. It doesn’t matter how you manifest or arrange it, if there is no love and caring, then it’s abuse even in vanilla relationships. You need to leave and find someone who cares for you.

bleepybleeperson −  Let me preface this by saying I’m not vanilla. Your girlfriend’s treatment of you is not OK. For a relationship like yours, there has to be a lot of trust. If you want her to be in control you need to be able to trust her, trust that she’ll let you go to the hospital when you need to or use the telephone if needed.

Trust that the dynamic can be suspended in an emergency if that’s what you want or need. For a dom / top to break that trust is unethical.. Get a new girlfriend. Edit: thank you all very much for the upvotes and awards! It’s also given me a reason to edit this post and add in the following general comment about kink and BDSM.

If any vanilla person who’s curious about the BDSM world sees this post and this comment, please know that while there are people like OP’s girlfriend who don’t practice kink ethically or safely, generally the kink and BDSM communities are built on foundations of informed consent and mutual respect.

There are assholes, but most people are perfectly nice. Being dominant doesn’t mean you have to be disrespectful or harmful to your partner. Being submissive doesn’t mean you have to accept being treated like trash. Do check out r/BDSMAdvice for more.

[Reddit User] −  A good Dom cares for their sub and accepts they have limits. She should’ve been more sympathetic about your pain and taken you to the hospital herself. It’s time for you to leave her now.

Absurd_Name-5231 −  This may be controversial, but I think 24/7 d/s relationships are unhealthy, seriously unhealthy. I say this as a fairly submissive person myself. But I’m satisfied with keeping it in the bedroom. Sometimes we’ll extend it into our daily life.

But that’s rare and even when we do that, we both know we’re just playing. I don’t particularly enjoy being dominant but I do it for her at times. It’s just a fun thing that plays a small role in our otherwise completely respectful and loving relationship. That’s the healthy way to do it. If you’re in a relationship with someone who treats you like s**t every day for a year, what do you expect?

Don’t get me wrong, her behavior is awful, but isn’t it just a natural manifestation of what you’re already doing? I wouldn’t enjoy my girlfriend’s entire life being dedicated to me, even if she said she wanted it. I care for her too much. I want her to enjoy her life, and if she did seriously want to completely submit to me,

I would rather she get professional help with that, instead of exploiting it for my own gain. If your girlfriend love you, she’d feel the same way about you. I know, people will yell at me for this, but I honestly feel like this sort of outcome is natural and should be common sense.

I recommend getting into a better relationship with a person who cares about you. Maybe that person can still fulfill your fantasy without abusing you.

Borcarbid −  Your agony was an annoyance to her. That should tell you all you need to know, no matter the depravity of your situation. You don’t have a girlfriend – just someone who views you as a source of cheap labour (not even a servant, because a decent employer would care about the well-being of his employee). Get out of there as fast as you can.

MasterOfKittens3K −  Even in a 24/7 TPE relationship, there should be a safeword for exactly this sort of event. If you don’t have any safewords, then it’s not a healthy relationship, it’s a**sive.

helenp353 −  A good Dominant cares for their sub. She shouldn’t be in that kind of relationship if she can’t uphold her end.

Nox369 −  Sooo I’m not a “vanilla” person and definitely the submissive one in my relationship but what you described is not normal or healthy. Everything in your first paragraph sounds like literal abuse, not just submission. Then everything else you wrote after that solidifies the abuse.

My husband is definitely more dominant in our relationship but he still helps with the chores, kids and takes care of me. I still have a say in our finances and money management. He wouldn’t ever n**lect me if I’m in pain, in fact he would do whatever he could to make me feel comfortable.

If I’m ever not happy I can tell him and we’ll figure out how to fix that together. He always makes sure I know I’m love and appreciated. He definitely in charge, but he’s not walking all over me.

neonrainfalls −  You wanted a vanilla view. I know a guy who had his first siatica nerve problems at about 30. And then again every 5-8 years. His partner was much like yours the first time… I don’t think you want to know how much worse, lonelier and hurtful it got each time after.