The Club - Meeting 474 - An Update on Performance Improvement Check-ins, and Certainty vs. Immediacy

“It's not what we do once in a while that shapes our lives. It's what we do consistently.” – Tony Robbins

 

Hello all.  Welcome back to the Disciplinary Couples Club.  Our weekly meeting of men and women who are in, or interested in being in, Domestic Discipline and/or Female Led (FLR) relationships.

 

Once again, before we get started, I would like to extend a specific invitation to our female readers to move from “lurker” to “commenter” status. We miss having you around.

 

I hope you all had a great week. Ours was pretty sedate.  Though, things do continue to develop on the disciplinary front.  So, I’ll kick things off with some updates before moving on to this week’s topic.

 

First, our discussion here about tears—particularly the comments by Alan and others regarding how essential the wife wanting or expecting tears is to achieving them—led me to feel Anne out about it again.  While talking in bed about some DD-related issues, I told her that I still hoped crying would happen at some point.  In the past, when I brought it up I always felt her response was equivocal or non-committal, in a way that indicated she had concerns about how she might react.

 

This time was different. When I told her it was something I still found compelling and hoped would happen, she said simply, “Good. I’m glad. I want you to.  You can’t read a lot into seven words, but the tone was very different this time. There wasn’t any equivocation. It was simple and direct.

 

 

I asked her how she thought she might react.  She said something to the effect of, “I think I’ll see it as gratifying that you finally got over that threshold and gave in. I would probably acknowledge it and tell you I was glad you were crying. But, I don’t think it would make me stop.” 

 

I don’t think she’s determined to make it happen in the way, say, ZM’s wife was when she made it clear that a spanking wasn’t going to stop until he cried for the first time.  But, I think she does want it to happen and, at the very least, won’t have any adverse emotional reaction if and when it does.

 

Second, with our family commitments finally out of the way, we resumed our “check-ins” around performance goals.  I knew she had been mulling some tweaks to what I had proposed, but I wasn’t at all sure how weighty the changes might be.  As it turned out, it was nothing earth-shattering, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t meaningful in terms of her increasing comfort with being in control, as well as for what they forebode for the state of my butt going forward.   

 

Her changes included:

 

·      adding an agenda item to deal with day-to-day household planning on things like places we want to travel, home improvements, family finances, etc.  It has nothing to do with DD expressly but does recognize that sometimes my procrastination and lack of direction result, in part, from us not taking the time to coordinate plans as a couple;

·      using the meetings not only to address the performance improvement/goal-setting items I had identified but also as a more general “check-in” on my behavior over the preceding week;

·      adding a discussion of things she characterized as “pet peeves,” i.e. things that apparently have been grating on her nerves but haven’t been identified as “spankable” before now.

 

As I reported before, she also changed the frequency of our meetings.  I had suggested that we do these check-ins monthly, because I thought weekly might be more of a burden than she might want to sign up for.  But, she has not only scheduled the meetings weekly but tightened up on the deadlines I had proposed for hitting some of the action items on my “life goals” list. That’s consistent with Alan’s recent advice about deadlines:

 

I want to make a general suggestion about deadlines.

 

What we have found to be highly effective is setting the deadline as close as possible to the present. This not only keeps the task at the forefront of the assignee's mind but also ensures timely completion.

 

For instance, instead of giving him a week, consider setting a deadline within a day or two, and specify the time as 'by Tuesday noon'. Threatened punishment is an abstraction if it's too far in the future or going to happen “some time,” But “ I am going to warm your ass if that is not finished by dinner tomorrow” focuses the mind.

 

As I said, none of her tweaks to my original suggestions are earth-shattering, yet cumulatively they add up to something different not just in degree but in kind from what I proposed.   

 

 

Moreover, although we had agreed that it would be good for both of us if she stepped up her strictness and control, when it came to the specific items to be covered at these check-ins and their timing, she didn’t ask my opinion. She simply told me how it will work going forward. 

 

And, it’s not just a change in process.  At our most recent meeting, she identified behavioral issues that she determined added up to two spankings.  She also informed me of one “pet peeve” that would earn a spanking going forward. This is something that annoys her but that I don't see as a real issue. But, it's clear that she's decided that what matters is her annoyance, not whether I think that annoyance is reasonable.

She delivered one of the spankings that evening and said the second would come later in the week.

 

The, the next day, I got a text with a picture that showed I had violated the “pet peeve.".  It didn’t explicitly order a spanking, but a couple of days later I said something that she took as snarky, and she said, “You’re talking big for someone who already has two spankings coming.” 

 

Honestly, given that it was a “first offense,” I thought forgetting about the pet peeve would result in a warning not a spanking.  Instead, it was like Al’s Even More story, in which the husband immediately forgets the rule they had just implemented regarding toilet seats.  He argues a warning would be “more fair,” but she sticks to her guns and spanks him anyway.

 

All of which is a segue of sorts into this week’s topic.

 

 

The combination of these weekly check-ins and her increasing strictness seems to be creating a situation in which spankings are no more immediate but are substantially more certain.  In fact, while it’s a little too early to tell, the weekly check-ins might lead to her putting off some spankings for a few days, since there will be a meeting at which they are discussed and later dealt with.

 

Yet, regardless of what happens with immediacy, I find the likelihood of increased certainty to be pretty intimidating, particularly given that increased certainty will inevitably result in increased frequency. It's been on my mind a lot since that last check-in meeting.  In fact, I feel like, for maybe the first time in 20 years, we've hit on the combination that really gets my attention and makes me think twice before acting up.

We’ve talked about “consistency” a lot here over the years, though we’ve seldom defined it.  

 

“Certainty” seems to be inherent in the whole concept of consistency.  If bad behavior doesn’t get consistently punished, then there is no consistency.

 

Immediacy is, in my view, perhaps important to the effectiveness of DD as a deterrent but it’s not intrinsic to the concept a consistency.  And, I use the word “perhaps” because I’m not really sure how necessary immediacy really is.

 

Last week someone equated DD to training a dog.  I admit I’ve used the analogy myself, though it is an imperfect one at best.  A dog is incapable of mentally linking a punishment with a behavior unless the former happens close in time to the latter.  So, with dogs, immediacy is critical to behavior modification.

 

Humans, on the other hand, by virtue of both memory and imagination, can project thoughts about behavior and consequences forward and backward in time.  We also are capable of thinking about behavior and consequences abstractly.

 

I don’t know whether more immediate punishments would result in more behavioral change.  What I do know is that the prospect of more certainty—both in detection and punishment—by virtue of our new check-in system feels more intimidating than thoughts about how increased immediacy might feel.  And, there also is the almost guaranteed linkage between the formality and regularity of the check-in system, the resulting increase in the certainty of punishment, and the further almost inevitable increase in the frequency of punishment.

 

In fact, there is something very humbling and intimidating about the fact that she is keeping closer track and that, even if a week or two had passed, there is a very good chance the spanking will happen.  In some ways, the fact that I might feel less of a connection between the particular spanking and the particular offense feels like it is one more step in removing my judgments and preferences from the process and substituting her as the sole judge of timing and frequency, which in turn feels more like how I’ve always envisioned the DWC wife’s authority should work.

 

 

Of course, it’s not an either-or. In the past, immediacy felt like a loose prerequisite for certainty.  If a spanking didn’t happen relatively close in time to the offense, it was likely to be forgotten or “real life” would intervene.  But now, it feels like our formal check-ins will end up playing a bigger role in bringing about certainty and making “immediacy” less of a necessary component.

 

I also get the sense that our formal check-ins lessen any lingering concerns my wife may have about “fairness.”  She is running the agenda, but it’s still a two-way street in terms of communications.  If I don’t agree with her factual premises, I have the ability to raise those kinds of issues, but I get the sense so far that as long as the facts are as she perceived them to be, she isn’t going to be asking for much input from me on whether a spanking has been earned.

 

 

It also seems like she is coming down on the side of certainty and not worrying as much about immediacy.  Including the “pet peeve” offense, she ordered three spankings in a single week but didn’t schedule them all for the same day.  Between the offense, the check-in, and the execution of the sentence, almost two weeks could conceivably pass between the first offense and the last spanking.   

 

 

Yet, it seems to be more important that each spanking actually happen than that they happen on a particular timetable.

 

I’m reminded of something a friend of mine, Rhiannon, who is the “top” in an FLR marriage said about consistency on her blog:

 

“I often struggle with balance or worrying about my husband feeling something is unfair or that it could be "too much."  The vast majority of contributors all suggest just taking control, owning it and acknowledging that while resistance or "unfairness" may happen, it is kind of what we each signed up for in deciding to walk this path.  In fact, my husband does not want an equal relationship. He wants me to lead. So in spending countless time and energy trying to make it seem or feel equal or worrying too much about the impact something will have, I am really just spinning my wheels and depriving us both of what we actually need/want. It was this realization that got me back on the path of leading.

 

While I feared increased control or strictness could breed resentment, it has the opposite effect.  He needs the structure and the clarity. He needs the consistency and knowing what is expected. I also think, although probably less so in the moment, that he craves the accountability as well.  Being in this type of relationship really requires some shifts in conventional thinking and finding ways to make sense of concepts that perhaps seem counter intuitive.  It is the difference between viewing follow up as being a nag or as holding him accountable.

 

It also is not just better for him. It is better for me.  It is easier for me to know that when I make a decision, it will be followed because I am not leaving room for resistance. It is also easier because I have control over my own life and can be responsible for the choices I make, which also means I have no one to blame but myself if it turns out not to be the best choice.  It is just simpler and easier.”

 

I think the formality of the new check-in system removes some of the second-guessing my wife previously subjected herself to.  Like my friend, she recognizes that I need both strictness and consistency, and she seems to have arrived at the conclusion that, for us, the best recipe for consistency is:

 

·      certainty of having a direct conversation each week about my behavior, met and unmet goals, procrastination, and any annoyance or hanger she’s experienced as a result

·      certainty of punishment

·      separate punishments for each significant offense, even at the expense of immediacy

 

 

Let’s explore this topic of consistency in all its angles.  What level of consistency have you achieved in your DD relationship? Is consistency even a goal, or are you content with an on-again-off-again approach? For those for whom consistency is a desired state but remains challenging, what are the big impediments to getting there? What are you and your spouse willing to do, if anything, to overcome those impediments?

 

Do you see any tension between certainty and immediacy?  Is one more important than the other?

 

For the wives, what are the challenges in achieving more certainty and consistency? Is it practical things like lack of available time, or is it more an attitude issue? Do concerns about “fairness” cause you to second-guess yourself? Or, is being consistent and strict freeing, as my friend Rhiannon describes?

 

I hope you have a great week.

The Club - Meeting 473 - Catch up After Hiatus, Wives' Concerns About "More" and Fairness, and Tears

"To do great things is difficult, but to command great things is more difficult." - Friedrich Nietzsche

Hello all.  Welcome back to the Disciplinary Couples Club.  Our weekly meeting of men and women who are in, or interested in being in, Domestic Discipline and/or Female Led (FLR) relationships. 

Once again, before we get started, I would like to extend a specific invitation to any of our female readers, if they still exist, to move from “lurker” to “commenter” status. We miss having you around.

Wow. What a couple of weeks. We were traveling and taking part in a family event that had been in the planning stages for a looooong time.  It was a great event, but we both came back exhausted.  One of those, “I need a vacation to recover from my vacation” trips for sure.

That’s probably why I’m doing a different post than I thought I would be doing this week.  I’ve been teasing a post about some changes that Anne and I have been talking through that would involve her taking more control, being more strict, etc.  Sort of an extension of the “performance improvement” system we started playing with a month or so ago.  We both agree that the system is something we want to explore.  In fact, we quickly started talking about how to extend it into a more formal system of “check-ins” but also, more generally, about finally implementing a stricter kind of DD, with her really taking the reins in a way we’ve talked about before, and maybe even assumed would take place naturally after retirement, but never seems to fully gel.

We got oh-so-close to some real momentum, but then all the family event planning took over our lives.  We both agreed, however, that we would get back on that horse as soon as things settled down.  Near the tail-end of our travel, we agreed we would have “the” discussion about it the day after we got back.  But, we’ve both been in recovery mode all weekend, and I’m not 100% sure when it will happen.  But, as soon as it does, I’ll provide the details.

In the meantime, there were a lot of great discussions going on while my participation was largely on hiatus.  I tried to check in daily, but mainly to ensure no comments were caught in the spam filter, and I still haven’t had a chance to absorb everything. But, it’s safe to say there are probably at least four or five themes worth exploring further.  I was tempted to jump into all of them this week, but I’ve learned that inspiration is a fleeting and undependable resource, so I’ll keep several of the obvious topics in reserve and just hit a couple of them today.

To kick that off, I’d like to thank Miss E. for dropping in.  She’s the first new Disciplinary Wife we’ve had come around in a while.  I’m glad she was able to jump right into the conversation and that you all made her feel welcome.  Her questions and the resulting discussions covered a lot of ground, and I’ll refer back to some of those discussions in the coming weeks.  For the first part of this week’s post, I’d like to discuss more about this part of her comments:

“Speaking of embracing being a “bitch,” I sometimes worry that because I was the one who initiated it, maybe he doesn’t in fact ‘need/want’ this like I do and is only tolerating it for the sake of our relationship. Granted, we have had many, many discussions about these fears and his wants, so this fear is not exactly valid, but I still worry.

I only say this because when I fully embrace and lean into my dominant side, I am fair, but am also a ‘bitch.’

It makes me feel alive in a very powerful way. 

I feel like in the case of many of your relationships, you have an advantage in that the man was the one who initiated this dynamic, so your wife need not worry whether or not it is actually good for you.”

I love that line about how taking control makes her "feel alive in a very powerful way."

Yet, those very feelings cause her concern, leading her to wonder if she gets more out of it than her husband and whether that is "fair."

That leadership is hard is not a new thought for me, whether in the “real world” or concerning the DD aspects of our relationships.  It's not often that I use the same introductory quote two posts in a row, but the above from Friedrich Nietzsche seems very apropos of Miss E.'s concerns. It's hard to will yourself to do great things and even harder to will someone else to greater performance.

In fact, although it seems like the vast majority of us are in very healthy relationships, the few times we’ve had commenters whose relationship did not sound so healthy, it was often the case that the wife seemed arbitrary or flighty in her approach to her role. In Femdom relationships, maybe it’s all about her, but here in the real world these relationships rise and fall with both parties taking the emotional impact on the other spouse seriously.

So, it seems to me to be very natural that Miss E. worries about whether her husband is actively engaged and getting as much as she is out of the relationship. What I hadn’t thought about very much was how much that might be magnified in those rare cases in which the wife was the one who initiated the relationship.

It's something I should have thought about more, because I’ve talked to a female blogger in a F/m dynamic about her concerns around whether she was being too commanding, too strict, too decisive, and whether taking on the role in a full-blooded way might harm her husband emotionally.

Anne has displayed some of that concern, though it manifests in different ways. As discussed last week in a comment, she's told me that had a hard time embracing her role for a long time, because she couldn't understand why I would want my role, and that made her think that if she took more and more control, at some point I would balk and pull the rug out from under her.

Yet, part of her clearly feels empowered and alive in that more controlling role.  Moreover, she likes it in the context of FLR precisely because she knows I struggle against it, and she likes to see that struggle.

The great irony in all this is, of course, that most of us here seem to wish history could be slightly altered such that it was, in fact, our wives who initiated the relationship. In fact, we wish she imposed it on us. The closer we could get to consensual non-consent, the better.

And, while Miss E. and my friend struggle with concerns about being too commanding, too strict, too verbally dominant, when I’ve conducted polls here in the past, a HUGE percentage of our group say they want exactly that: more strictness, more sternness, more consistent consequences, more verbal dominance, scolding, etc.

Maybe Miss E. can take some assurance from our majority’s expressed preference for more rigor and sternness, given that her husband is assuring her verbally that he too wants their lifestyle. But, I’m sure that’s a little too pat for many of the Disciplinary Wives, as I suspect any thinking, feeling, non-sociopathic “dominant” would have lingering concerns about the impact of their actions on their partner.

So, let’s take it on more directly with our current group.  If you could change your dynamic in any respect, would you want more severity or less?  More strictness or less?  A sterner demeanor or less so?  More control and direction or less?

How about the wives? (Since Miss E. is our only female contributor currently, men feel free to contribute how you think your wife feels.)  Do you have concerns that, when you take control or become more consistent, that maybe it’s too much? Do you worry about being too strict? Too demanding?  Punishing too often or for “small” things?  Is your own enjoyment of your role limited by guilt or feelings that you shouldn’t enjoy it?

For me, I do feel I want more consistency, more sternness, more verbal control.  In short, I have expressed that I want her to be more in control, set higher standards, enforce her will more quickly and consistently, etc.  Now, whether I really want those things may be proven out once our new system/approach gets fully implemented. I have no doubt that if she carries through on what she has hinted at, I will struggle emotionally with it.  But, that is kind of the point for me.  I want to have the boundaries pushed a bit in that way.  I’ve already warned her that she may need to stick to her guns, and I hope the attitude she adopts—one that threads the needle between Miss E.’s concerns and our desire for more strictness—is to expect some resistance but to stay business-like and resolute.

That would probably be enough for one week, but we did cover some of this ground already.  Plus, I also personally wanted to follow up on Alan’s comment about crying from a spanking and Miss E.’s question about how the rest of us feel about crying, surrendering emotionally in that way, etc.  Alan said:

“Miss E wrote about re-experiencing crying from spanking: “[I]f this is something that you want to achieve with your wife, what would be the best way for her to lead you in this?”

This question has been raised often enough to suppose it comes up in many F/m relationships. Crying seems very idiosyncratic; some cry readily under punishment, while others never cry. Realistically, I think at least some may never cry during a spanking. It can be challenging for a man in our culture to reach that point of vulnerability, no matter how much he consciously may want to do so.

But for the man who will cry when spanked, there seem to be three conditions that must exist beyond his prior willingness or desire to reach that point of surrender:

1. He must feel some real guilt or shame for the behavior that earned the spanking. It must be real, and in my case, at least that has meant a severe scolding in a situation where she has at least partially begun the punishment (brisk hand spanking, pants pulled down, put in the corner, etc.) That scolding, together with real shame or embarrassment, puts me in a frame of mind to accept the spanking, and it is necessary to let go and cry during it.

2. The disciplinarian should clarify that she expects tears, wants to see them, and considers them evidence that the spanking worked. This early communication in our relationship was crucial. I don’t think I would have ever cried if she had not emphasized her expectation that tears should happen. This is very tied up with the standard “tough masculinity” image most males carry into adulthood. It sounds as crazy as it is, but instead of crying when we are afraid, we are scared to cry. A little guilt, a lot of scolding, and strong permission/encouragement to cry help overcome that.

3. Finally, he must come to feel on some level that the spanking will never end, which can lead him to let go and probably cry. A man who doesn’t cry during a serious spanking is probably “holding on” but if faced with the belief (an illusion but very real at the time) that the spanking is going to go on forever, he may be able to let go and cry—something he both wants and needs. The spanking that will produce this is not necessarily the hardest spanking you ever gave him. In fact, Hard and fast spanking can be practical behavioral tools, but they probably make a man hold on more. Instead of bringing on tears, extend the spanking for 20 minutes or even longer. Build up the severity slowly. Continue scolding throughout the spanking, and use short breaks or corner items to help create a setting in which he believes it won’t stop until he actually surrenders to you.

Others on this blog have recounted their route to tears and maybe they will add to what I have written.”

As I’ve said many times, I am one of those who was near-obsessed with tears and crying after I discovered the Disciplinary Wives Club.  Yet, twenty years later, it still hasn’t happened.

Perhaps one simple reason is I’ve never really been subjected to Alan’s three conditions.  First, last year, Anne did start scolding much more harshly, but it hasn’t been part of any kind of “preliminary” spanking, like being swatted by hand or physically controlled while it is happening. I could see how that could go a long way toward breaking down those ego barriers.

Second, Anne has never let me know that she expects tears and, better yet, wants them to be shed.  Early on, it felt kind of the opposite. This relates back to Miss E.’s concerns, as I think Anne worried a lot about whether what she was doing was “too much,” whether in terms of lecturing/scolding or spanking.  Although I think those concerns are much diminished, I think she may still have a few qualms about how she would react to tears.

Third, and this is one I’d like to hear more about in particular from those who have cried, Anne hasn’t delivered a spanking that just went on, and on, and on.  For me, given my tendency to go numb, I suspect that would take multiple sessions spread out over an hour or more.  I’ve come very close to this point as described in the DWC story Big Boys DO Cry, but never been pushed quite over the limit:

And that is when we approach my limit. There comes a point, as all well-spanked husbands should know, when it all becomes too much. The fire in my backside rages out of control, and I know I can't take much more. My pleading and promising becomes garbled and desperate, tears start flowing and I beg her to stop. At that point I will do anything, absolutely *anything* to bring the punishment to an end. I cannot possibly take even one more lick from that strap.

An interesting recent development is we’ve had a couple of recent spankings in which I hadn’t been spanked in several weeks, and from the very beginning, it was just excruciating. Both times, I felt like my emotions surged and I was very close to letting go completely and crying. But, that sensation lasted for maybe a minute, then I sort of “settled into” the spanking and, as it went on, I got further and further away from that initial “shock and awe” that seemed to almost bring me to the verge.

Are there any further comments on Alan’s prescription? Also, for those of you willing to go into it, how do you feel after a spanking that ends in real tears? 

Is the emotional experience dramatically different from a spanking that was similarly hard but didn't cause you to cry?  Is there any extra element of "humbling" or embarrassment when tears happen?  I am very sure that one reason I have been so focused on tears since the very beginning is that I feel like if it ever does happen, I will be extremely embarrassed, at least the first time. But, perhaps I'm wrong about that.

I’m also interested to hear more from him about how his wife and girlfriend reacted to his first real tears. Same for the rest of you who have cried from an adult spanking. What was your wife’s attitude? Was it something she had wanted to bring about?  Did your full-blown crying lead to any concerns about it being “too much,” or was she fine with it from the outset?

I hope you all have a great week.

The Club - Meeting 472 - Attitude, Disciplinary Wife Temperament, Others Knowing, and Wisdom From a Past Commenter

"To do great things is difficult, but to command great things is more difficult." - Friedrich Nietzsche

 Hello all.  Welcome back to the Disciplinary Couples Club.  Our weekly meeting of men and women who are in, or interested in being in, Domestic Discipline and/or Female Led (FLR) relationships.

 

I hope you all had a good week.  Mine was pretty sedate, which is good because I needed to recover some energy for a family trip we have coming up next week.

 

Relatedly, just a heads-up that I will not be posting next week, as we’ll be on the road. I hope to be back in in posting mood two weekends from now, but it could be delayed by a day or two.

 

We’ve been so busy preparing for the trip that I haven’t had much time to come up with a topic, and there wasn’t a super obvious topic among last week’s comments.  But, I will highlight a few here that caught my attention. 

 

 

First, I had noted that Anne was always reluctant to be more open about our DD relationship at home was her fear that the kids might lose respect for me.  This illustration from our Glenmore maybe unintentionally illustrates her point:

I replied with a military analogy: “In our scheme, Anne would be the general, which outranks me as a colonel, but I way outrank the kids who start out as privates and might graduate college as lieutenants at best.” In other words, Anne may outrank me, but I always outranked the kids by a lot.

 

Carl H. replied with this:

 

Dan, love your 'military rank' analogy which I frequently use. I like to say that marriage is the perfect democracy - because the vote is almost always tied - LOL. DD in an FLR is the ultimate 'tie-breaker'' While I can make a strong case for DD in a Male Dom relationship, I also believe that two aspects of DD are particularly suited to Fem Dom:

1) Males perform well in a hierarchy such as the military;

2) Males respond well to physical stimuli such as food, sex and yes, corporal punishment.

 

IMO, he’s right on all counts.

 

 

Ward had a couple of great comments on negative attitudes:

 

My problem has never been alcohol or drugs. I can very quickly become negative and when she sees it, I know that one or more spankings are coming my way until she sees a change in attitude. I was recently spanked three days in a row. I can be very stubborn about letting go of a negative attitude given challenging circumstances. Three nights of going to bed so sore that it was difficult to sleep. I finally gave up the negative attitude. She has been very happy this week with my change even though she knows it will most likely be short-lived. She can become very strict when she sees the attitude. The truth is I want her to blister me good for it because it is my nemesis that I can't control much like alcohol for some it is something that I can't stop.

 

I understand hanging onto a bad attitude.  We do sometimes have a tendency to nurse our grievances and tempers, don’t we?  His comment about getting spanked three days in a row, until the attitude finally disappeared resonated with me, as Anne and I have been talking a lot recently about the need to be resolute and firm and being willing to mete out punishment until I finally change the behavior at issue.

 

Ward also had this to say about how his bad attitudes contrast with his wife’s more balanced temperament:

 

“My wife is always right until she's not, but her ego is so much less in the way than mine, so empowering her to spank me even if I might be right keeps my ego from bullying her into things, and she will always figure it out eventually. I guess in some ways being spanked even when you are convinced that you are right empowers her more, because I'm trusting her with everything, knowing that she will get us to the correct answer every time even though it may not be instantly. She doesn't let her ego get in the way when she realizes she may have been wrong. She won't apologize for spanking me because she is the boss, but she will admit her error and correct her thinking that's what makes her so perfect for me.”

 

 

That too resonates strongly. I don’t think Anne is any smarter than I am, and I don’t think she necessarily has better judgment.  In fact, I tend to be more analytical and linear in my thinking than she is. But, where she vastly exceeds me in a way that matters for who should be in control is temperament. She’s simply more balanced and less prone to excesses.

 

ZM had this to say about openness and the prospect of others, including family members, knowing about a husband and wife’s DD hierarchy:

 

“For us, there is no question that the thing that kept us from going forward to check-ins was never having the house to ourselves. And on the very rare times that we were alone, who wanted to spend it on punishing me?

 

I think that is one reason that at some level, I wish that DD could just be totally open and matter-of-fact with no element of privacy. So then it wouldn't matter if others were around or not. Of course, I am not saying I would really like that, and certainly part of the big attraction to FLR/DD things is the hidden/kinky secret side of it. But still, in practical terms, the need for privacy has been the biggest impediment to actually implementing it and maintaining it consistently.”

 

I told him I understood that tension well and that it reminded me of comments made on this blog several years ago by a Disciplinary Wife who went by the name Holly.  She had grown up in a home where mom was in charge and it was an open secret—or no secret at all—that dad was spanked along with the kids.

 

A couple of years ago, I compiled some of the older comments into a searchable format, so in conjunction with replying to ZM I reviewed several of Holly’s comments. There was so much lived experience in them, I really do wish we could entice more female participation.

 

So, for this week, since I had no topic, I’m just going to post some of Holly’s comments and let people react to them and to anything above.

 

Regarding growing up in a DD household and knowing dad got spanked:

 

“Kids know or suspect if you are in a serious disciplinary relationship, even if no spanking is involved, and for sure if regular spanking occurs. Living in the same house you cannot not know a spanking is being administered or that one has been administered. Even if you don't hear it you know from the way everyone acts. (I will admit boys are a little dense about this, as I knew well before my brothers did.) My mother was probably more open than most women and probably spanked more often than most. But ALL spankings were in private and as far as I know she never talked about it until well after we were grown. Before my marriage in my case and after marriage in the cases of my brothers and their wives.”

 

I don’t know whether she’s right that kids always will know or suspect.  When ours were younger, we waited until they were in bed.  As they grew older, we generally did it only if they weren’t in the house at all. We generally kept tools locked away, but was there never a slip up? I also have kept hardcopy journals for years. Could they have snooped and discovered one with spanking references?  In the end, you just never know.  

But, I do know that over the years our kids have figured out that Anne has assumed some preeminent role around some decision-making and that she does things like handing out chores. They also have picked up on the fact that she sometimes uses language that sounds more like a command than a request.  

 

 

 All that fits with this Holly comment:

 

“As you have described your wife, she actively uses her authority, gives you orders, expects to be obeyed, and more and more acts in charge. A woman is not a disciplinarian only when she is holding a strap. Your kids are aware of that relationship between you even if they are not aware that you are punished with spanking. She is in charge. I grew up knowing that and believe I chose a husband who allowed me to behave much as my mother. (Actually, he chose me, but his knowing my mother spanked made a big impression on him.) Your wife may be correct that the kids don't know about the spanking. But the physical discipline is only part of "passing it on." It’s the presence or absence of real DD in the relationship. My three brothers also chose women who controlled them. Two of them are spanked by their wives, while I am not sure about the third. But they are all happy (so are their wives)."

  

In the end, I don’t know what our adult kids know now, but I agree with ZM that our hyper-sensitivity about kids knowing was the #1 factor in preventing us from achieving any real consistency as long as there were kids in the house. Of course, it didn’t get that much better after they were gone, but the pattern had been laid and it now takes conscious effort to break it.

Here's more from Holly on growing up in a family where spanking was the norm and how that probably made her more comfortable with it later:

 

“I have read that being spanked makes you a better disciplinarian but that wasn't my experience. Although my mother often took the strap to my father, I never saw it. But I did see my brothers punished many times and it left me convinced that males were easily controlled with a strap. 

 

When we were first married, I never expected to discipline him using corporal punishment, although I was in charge from our first date. Only after seeing my husband display many of the behaviors that got my father punished (particularly temper tantrums), did I decide to introduce him to the strap. Even then it was my mother’s encouragement, after she heard him call me a “bitch,” something he had done before but that I had let go. The really funny thing about it is that I was completely oriented to using the strap and my mother even gave me one when I started. But it turns out my husband has a fetish for being spanked that way, so these days I deal with him with my sorority paddle or a cane which definitely do not turn him on.”

 

Again, Holly’s stories had a ring of truth to me because she often did things consciously to avoid playing to her husband’s fantasies, like figuring out he had a fetish about a particular instrument and deciding to use something other than that instrument.

 

Here is this regarding how her husband’s brattiness was the equivalent of asking for the DD relationship:

 

“Calling me a bitch was what led to my husband’s first appointment with the strap. He had done it before, but my mom heard it for the first time and told me I was a fool for allowing it. There were other things going on at the time, including his general brattiness and increasing temper tantrums when he was frustrated. It was a big change for me because I had been determined to manage my own marriage different than my mom had done. But over a period of time, about three years, I saw the same behavior in my husband that had got dad in trouble with mom. When I told him what was going to happen, he gave me almost no resistance. That makes me think he wanted me to take charge and his brattiness and tantrums were his way of asking for it. He knew how mom had run things and I think that made him want the same thing from me. The strap transformed him into a sweet loving husband. I don't think that would have ever happened if I had not acted (or, to be honest, if mom had not pushed it.)

 

Something that always gave Holly’s comments the ring of truth for me is that while moms passing along spanking tips to their daughters often is spanking fantasy fodder, she was initially very resistant to her mother’s prodding.  It was only after her husband finally crossed a line that she decided to pick up the strap.  

 

Once she did so, however, she came to accept that being the disciplinarian wasn’t just about controlling her husband. Rather, she came to affirmatively enjoy and get off on that power and control as this comment, in response to my topic about whether discipline ever involves an element of “payback”, illustrates:

 

“This is a good topic. I want to answer that deterrence of his childish and unacceptable behavior is my reason for spanking him. It was my original reason, encouraged by my mother (appropriately), and I had reason to believe it was something he wanted too, but he was unable to admit he felt he needed boundaries (now he readily admits it). But the desire to punish him is also part of it and was probably there from the beginning. I am getting stricter with him, which means his appointments with Ms. Strap happen once or twice a month. Controlling his behavior is still what motivates me to consistency and follow-through. But payback from a sound spanking is part of what I get out of it too. I guess what I am saying, and a little shocked at saying it, is that even if I got no behavior rewards from spanking him I still would do it for punishment. Maybe I am turning into a bitch, but men just do better with boundaries and consequences.”

 

 

More on “bitchiness” and embracing her assertive side:

 

“I think we are all "bitches" to our husbands when the rubber hits the road (so to speak). I reconciled myself to this long ago. The amusing thing is that, growing up, I thought my mother was a bitch for spanking too often and severely. Now, I find that although I probably do not spank as often as she did, I certainly spank harder. If a wife wants results, she does need to be a bitch sometimes. As Tina Fey said, "Bitches get stuff done." I am not saying that being a bitch is necessary to be a good disciplinarian. But sometimes being a bitch is just what is needed, and don't be intimidated by the fact that someone (like your husband) might think you are a bitch once in a while.

 

Great stuff. Hopefully, there’s enough above to drive a good conversation until we get back from our trip.

The Club - Meeting 471 - Disciplinary Spankings for Life Goals, Procrastination, Etc.

"He who cannot obey himself will be commanded." - Friedrich Nietzsche

 

Hello all.  Welcome back to the Disciplinary Couples Club.  Our weekly meeting of men and women who are in, or interested in being in, Domestic Discipline and/or Female Led (FLR) relationships.

 

Once again, before we get started, I would like to extend a specific invitation to any of our female readers, if they still exist, to move from “lurker” to “commenter” status. We miss having you around.

 

I hope you all had a good week.  It’s been a weird couple of weeks here weatherwise. We got a major early spring storm at the end of last week. Yet, here we are just a few days later and it feels like motorcycle weather is just around the corner.   

 

This is probably the only artwork in my collection depicting a male getting spanked while draped over a motorcycle. It’s not something Anne has explored and, since she doesn’t ride, it probably would have to happen in our garage, which is unlikely given that the neighbors might overhear.  But, given her newfound openness around things like raising the bedroom shades during a session, who knows. . ..

 

And, I do, unfortunately, have one coming.  It was a difficult week from a behavioral perspective.  Lots of travel.  Lots of socializing. An ideal recipe for the kind of misbehavior I’m usually guilty of.  Anne has already told me that I’m in for one tonight. It’s been several weeks since the last one, so I know this one will almost certainly be very painful.

 

Some of the misbehavior illustrates the good and bad of my retirement social life.  Most of my friends over the last three decades have been work colleagues.  With me retired and most of them still working, many of those relationships drifted, and for the first two years of retirement, they weren’t replaced with anything.  That changed several months ago, when I started hanging out with a guy I met through some local political initiatives.  It’s been great making a new friend at this stage but, unfortunately for my butt, we share many of the same vices.

 

 

The odd thing is, while I’m sure nothing like the above picture would ever happen, both Anne and I have detected some FLR-like vibes when we’ve gotten together socially with them.  She’s a very successful career woman and clearly used to being in charge at work and at home.  Our friendship isn’t quite at the stage at which I would unilaterally spill secrets regarding our DD relationship, but I could see it happening in the future.  Stay tuned . . .

 

It was a little quiet here on the blog last week, at least with respect to the actual topic.  But, there were some interesting comments.  I especially liked this from MW regarding getting frequent spankings for a combination of different behaviors:

 

When we're spanked for missing a different habit or combination of habits each time, it feels consistent because our specific wrong choices or mismanagements come from one underlying mindset and attitude. We leave the spanking thinking about how to manage the whole day better, not just a small part of it.

 

I think that’s a great observation and, in my case at least, I do think that most of my punishments result from a small handful of attitude and temperament challenges, including from a “big picture” perspective things like self-indulgence and risk-taking, along with some basic carelessness. Anne doesn’t generally spank for “attitude” per se put, as MW’s comment illustrates, on some level, it’s all attitude. 

 

I would also encourage any of you who missed it to look at Alan’s comment from earlier today on the self-defeating nature or resisting a spanking even if you genuinely believe it is unfair.  I won’t repeat the whole comment, but here is the part about the value of giving in to “unfair” spankings:

 

But what about when she is threatening or punishing you for something you strongly feel is unfair -or is she just wrong about it? This is probably the most challenging moment in DD consent -taking a spanking (or other punishment) you “know” you don’t deserve.) I have accepted several of these in our marriage, and I consider them among the best investments in our relationship I have made.

 

Why? Firstly, while she allows me only limited appeals before a spanking, there is no limit on discussing my feelings after a spanking (and there have been some spankings that she apologized for). We have thrashed out many issues with the hairbrush being back in the drawer. This has served as a safety valve against resentment.

 

But beyond that, I accept spankings that may be unfair because the cost of fighting them is much higher than the cost of accepting them. I could compare it to hiring a lawyer for 1000 dollars to fight a 100-dollar ticket. Even if you win, you have already lost. The spanking will be over in ten minutes, absolute top-- but the cost of defying her over one can go on for weeks, months, or even forever.

 

I seem to have once again run out of ideas for new topics, so this week’s post is more of an update on some of the things Anne and I have been exploring. I’ve mentioned a few times now that we’ve been experimenting with using DD to help me drive forward on some bigger life goals.  I was going to wait until we’d been at it for a while before devoting a post to it, but thanks to some big family commitments we’re probably going to have to pause it for two or three weeks. So, I’ll describe it a bit here and then do an update once we’ve had an opportunity to really focus on it.

 

This all started with some very personal frustration I experienced last year.  My first year of retirement was devoted mainly to getting my health and energy back after burning the candle at both ends for too many years.  The second year included a lot of exploring new interests and activities. 

 

Then, last year, I hit a real flat spot.  For unknown reasons, I stagnated on multiple fronts.  Way too much time was spent reading bad books and watching too many streaming series. I had been doing quite a bit of writing the year before, but last year this blog was the only creative activity I maintained.  By the end of the year, I was very frustrated with myself but seemed to lack the will to overcome the inertia.

 

When I get to the end of a calendar year, I usually come up with a list of goals for the following year. But, in the past they were heavily focused on career and financial goals. This year, I decided that instead of listing some obvious areas of improvement (lose weight, exercise more, etc.), I committed to trying to get unstuck.  I put together a spreadsheet, which I used to list activities, fantasies, dreams, etc. that I recall having as far back as when I was a little kid.  I then identified those that had stuck with me, in one form or another, through multiple big life phases.

 

I also identified, from among the hobbies and pursuits I’d tried over the years, those few that I’d stuck with for many years. 

 

I then ranked all those individual items in terms of (a) how much they still resonate with me today, and (b) for those that I’ve thought about and thought about but never actually committed to, how much I think I’ll regret it on my deathbed if I don’t at least give them some real attention and effort.  I narrowed the list down to about five key areas.  Then, in each of those areas, I identified specific, concrete action items that would help move things forward.

 

Anne and I have never really used it for that purpose, and although we have talked a lot about instituting a reporting or “check-in” system, we’ve never really done it.  Honestly, while I always knew I would benefit from accountability around meeting personal goals, I always assumed that Anne would find it too burdensome, since my issues around procrastination and laziness with respect to big life goals had little real impact on her.

 

But, around the time that I was putting my “goal ranking” system together, I did a blog post on using DD for self-improvement and goal-setting. Anne does read the blog fairly regularly but seldom comments on any particular post. We do, however, often talk about our DD relationship when in bed. Honestly, it’s sort of like a form of foreplay, but it’s often me doing most of the talking.

 

Well, it became clear that Anne had read that blog post, because she brought up the possibility of “helping me” achieve my goals and get over my procrastination problems.  

 

Since some of the things we talk about regarding DD when in bed don’t actually end up happening, I wasn’t sure how seriously to take it. So, I wrote her a journal entry, asking whether she was serious about exploring it and suggesting what a system might look like.

 

She confirmed that she was very serious about it.  I may have even detected a bit of "be careful what you ask for, I may give it to you" glee in her voice.

 

So, we had a face-to-face meeting in which I walked her through the spreadsheet and explained how I’d generated it. She didn’t want to try to hit all five of the big areas at once.  Instead, she pushed me to narrow down which was the most important to me.  She then immediately assigned four specific action items. 

 

My original conception was to do a check-in once a month, so it wouldn't be too burdensome on her.  With that in mind, I would assume I would have a month to work on each set of action items.  But, she decided that nothing she had assigned was all that ambitious, so she dictated that I had one week to complete all four. 

 

 

The bottom line is, I got them all done.  The entire week, that “to-do” list was on my mind.  Near the end of the week, I realized I hadn’t finished one of them, and I went into a bit of panic mode.  It felt both humbling, but also oddly reassuring, that I knew specifically what I needed to accomplish and what would happen if I didn’t do it.

 

The jury is still out on how this will work out over time. But, the big surprise so far is how it seemingly has been as much a focus for Anne as for me.  As in most of these relationships, it’s been me as the DD recipient who has been the most consumed by it.  I feel like now that dynamic is changing a little, with Anne showing increasingly consistent interest in being in charge and holding me accountable.

 

Also, my narrow focus on life goals seems to be getting extended into other areas, like Anne assigning chores.  A couple of weeks ago, we were having guests over, and she handed me a note card with four house clean-up assignments, and titled it “Dan’s [but using my real name] Task List.”  I got them done and left the checked-off list for her on the kitchen counter.  One of our kids noticed it when visiting a few days later and commented that it was remarkable that I got such a list and that I actually complied!  Last week, Anne wanted to clean up the house so it wasn’t a mess when the dog-sitter arrived, so she again gave me a task list.

 

We also agreed that, since we are planning to do check-in meetings on my goal list weekly, we will use those to address behavior issues more generally.  At the end of each meeting, she will ask me if there is anything I think I should be spanked for.  If I don’t report honestly, there is always the risk that she will order multiple spankings, one for the behavior and one for the lack of honesty.  

 

More positively, it’s also an opportunity for me to ask to be held accountable for something she may not have noticed or cared about but that has been nagging at me.  While it doesn’t happen often, there are times that I do feel like I need to pay a price for something I did or didn’t do, like being extremely careless about something that ends up costing me time or money.

 

 

So, that’s where we are with our new check-in process for life goals and behavioral issues.  As I said, we have some commitments coming up that are likely to interfere with implementing it consistently, so the big challenge is not letting it become one of those things we talked about but didn’t follow through.  Given Anne’s level of interest, however, I don’t think that’s how it will go this time.

 

I’ll keep you all posted.  In the meantime, have a good week.