Apologies for the long delay in posting unfortunately the vanilla world has been a big focus for us in the last 6 weeks. All 3 of us have had things that filled our calendars and in some respects it has meant that who ever has had the most stable calendar to be the lead in the Household.
For myself I've had a lot of time on the road traveling with work but it has been fairly stress free other than regularly being stuck in traffic jams.
Sir has had 2 activities which have occupied his time one has been spending time with one of his daughters and also being heavily involved with a contract that his company has.
However the main issue has been with Madam, with changes at her work she was has been asked to step up into a lead role for her team as a temporary measure, while she has done this several times before it has often been for specific projects or tasks, however this time was classed as the designated lead for the team as a whole. At the same time she was informed that she was being considered for a permanent promotion. Madam was quite rightly incredibly pleased to be selected to go forward for the promotion as the company she works for have a very good internal development programme, but there is a very rigorous selection process to go through.
This process has required Madam to spend time preparing for the different parts of the selection process, interviews at different levels, an in-house exam and also a couple of days doing problem solving and team work exercises. All of which I get as some of the candidates may get a position that will come with a funded MSc or MBA, so the company wants to know what they are getting.
The problem for Madam started after her initial chat/ interview where she started to have some doubts about her suitability and ability for the jobs/ promotion. I initially thought that this was down to her being probably one of the older candidates but that wasn't the case.
What was bothering her was the fact that she had started her career as an Admin Assistant. It seemed that it was a case of imposter syndrome.
I had to sit her down and we had to have a "Mick and Alice" discussion and it did start with "Alice! bloody sit down and listen..."
Over the years I have watched my wife develop, to change and become the wonderful person that she is and that I love. Her loss of confidence with this opportunity was also transfering into our homelife so it was a case of getting her to recognise that this was well within her capabilities and the thing that she had in bucket loads was life and work experience, with a right skills and competence for this. I had to remind her that while she may have been an admin assistant at the start but she was now a Project manager and Team leader working on some fairly impressive jobs over the years, all with steady progression and recognition. This opportunity was just the next step in the process.
I told her that I would help get back upto speed with Project management training (whats the point in being married to someone who teaches the topic if you can't take advantage of it) so that she would be just fine for those elements of the exams.
Both myself and John noticed that her worries were carrying over into our FLR, so as her submissive I viewed it as my job to support her and to make sure that her confidence remained where it should and if needs bolster it.
We didn't do too bad a job, and it is one of the reasons that I was travelling back and forth with work rather than a more sensible overnight stays. I wanted to make sure that I was there to support Alice each evening and also to make sure that Madam had her submissive on hand should she need it.
Our FLR routine became key with all of this, things like the Thursday Evening review were really important as it helped to ensure that Madam had stability and had to stay focused for any of my "mistakes" during the week.
Routine isn't just about giving structure to the submissive, it has a function for the Dominant as well. It also had the purpose of providing a good distraction from what was going on at work and bringing Alice back into being Madam and having the focus and confidence of being the Lead in our FLR.
It worked, admittedly with a little manipulation from me. You could accuse me of doing a little bit of "Topping from the Bottom" but it was all for the purpose of making sure that Alice kept her confidence.
Has Alice been successful ?- Yes. she was offered a promotion and she has accepted. She has a bit of time to prepare and learn the ropes ready to step up into the new job, so all is good.
So this weekend has been totally about Madam and billie spending some quality FLR time together. Madam was back in full "swing" and my bottom has been thoroughly used by her, to the point that I need an extra cushion while I work at the computer.
To everyone, thank you for your patience with us, we are hopefully going to get back into a more steady routine with things and back into regular posts.
Take Care
Madam and her submissive.
