(Slightly) Extended Hiatus

Hello all.  I hope you had a happy Thanksgiving and a relaxing long weekend.

I apologize for the very inconsistent posting.  But, I'm not going to get a post out this weekend and possibly not this week.  It's not really busyness, so much as a post-illness total lack of inspiration or even DD interest.  This has happened a few times. gotten really sick or had a medical procedure and had all DD inclinations go poof!  I felt a few glimmers of an idea for a post come through today, but not enough to lead to an actual post.

So, feel free to start a thread here if you have anything you want to talk about. Or, just tell us about your Thanksgiving.  

Have a great week.

Happy Thanksgiving - No New Post This Week

 

Hi all.  I had planned to post this week but, unfortunately, I'm now three-for-three in getting Covid during or after vacation travel.  That annoying little bug seems to have just the right key to open the door and get past my fully vaccine-enhanced immune system.  Anyway, my head is way too full of congestion for any DD-related inspiration to pierce the mental fog.

For those of you in the U.S., I hope you have a great week, including time spent with family and friends.  I hope you eat well, rest up, and travel safely.

The Club - Meeting 457 - Deterrent or Not?

“The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack in will.” ― Vince Lombardi Jr.

 

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. While I’ve always said the blog is open to both men and women, one of our commenters suggested I expressly invite our female readers to join the discussion.  Please consider the invitation enthusiastically extended.

 

I hope you all had a great week.  I’m bummed that my second favorite holiday has come and gone.  Though, there still is a bit of Fall left, and the seasonal foods carry through to Thanksgiving.

 

 

We got mobbed by trick-or-treaters this year, probably because the weather wasn’t too bad, which is a rarity over Halloween where we live.  What I still can’t figure out is the waves of junior high, and even high school, kids.  In my day, we had better things to do, like drinking and doing drugs. What’s with kids these days??

 

Last week’s discussion was one of those in which, by the end of the week, I felt like we had a great discussion but I literally had to go back and check what the topic had been.  Which is perfectly fine.  The conversation meandered a lot, but we toughed on some great stuff.  Reasons versus resets. Others knowing, and the associated vulnerability and embarrassment.  Exceeding one’s limits.  Asking for a spanking. Going to pros.  Older women.  Maternal discipline. 

 

There was a lot of good stuff that I’ll need to go back and plumb for future topics. One that personally intrigued me:

 

When my wife was deciding whether to spank me or not, she commented that she was not my mother and never wanted to be acting as my mother. Then she proceeded to spank me just as my mother had -- OTK, bare bottom but not nude, with an implement, with scolding, no sexual connotations, but comfort afterwards. While I knew she was acting maternally, I never said so. I realized that I wanted her to be in loco parentis without realizing it or being confused by it. That was good for both of us.

 

The “in loco parentis” comment succinctly summarized something I’ve been feeling lately, but I think I’ll save it for a future topic.

 

Instead, I’ll go with this suggestion, also from KOJ:

 

Possible topic: Describe occasions where you know you are about to cross the line and earn yourself a spanking. Does that knowledge often act as a deterrent? Or do you often do it (whatever) anyway? If so, why? Are you testing her to see what will happen? Are you hoping to earn a spanking? Is your male ego just doing what it wants to do? Have you not been spanked enough for this particular behavior to have learned your lesson? Or ...?

 

I’ll take the liberty of also re-posting ZM’s responsive comment:

 

DD has allowed me to change behaviors and especially attitudes, but I can never think of a time that I chose to act differently or not exhibit an attitude because I thought it may result in a spanking. Rather, I have changed because DD allowed me to see things differently, and often from her perspective, and that is what brought about change.

 

The exception to this was when we were doing weekly check-ins with goals and punishments. Those did provide strong motivation, and I often changed my behavior to avoid punishment. Even there, however, I cannot think of a time that I chose to do something anyway, knowing it might result in punishment, nor did I want to test her. Rather, sometimes I did my best, or at least what I thought was my best, and it simply wasn't enough. Or sometimes there were things that I didn't have complete control over that kept me from meeting goals. And finally, especially with diet, I would go ahead and eat something because I wanted to, but always with my over-optimistic idea that I would work harder or follow the diet better the other days to still hit my target. I never thought "maybe this will get me punished, but I am going to do it anyway," but rather I thought "it will be ok, because I still have plenty of time to hit my target."

 

This one is kind of a tough one for me to answer, probably because there really aren’t that many times that I know I am about to cross the line. And, it’s very rare, if ever, that I test her to see what will happen, and I can confidently say that I never do something in hopes of earning a spanking.

 

The closest I come to going over a known line is probably not paying enough attention to a known risk because I have, in fact, repeatedly gotten away with similar behavior.  Though, even that is pretty rare.  

And, on a very few occasions, I probably do consciously decide to take the risk because it's something I want to do more than I fear the spanking for doing it.

 

A counter-example may serve best to illustrate that the underlying reason probably lies in KOJ’s question: “Have you not been spanked enough for this particular behavior to have learned your lesson?”  I talked about how a few weeks ago Anne thought I was driving too fast and threatened not just one spanking, but a spanking every day for a week, if I got a ticket.  What did I do?  I slowed down. Reluctantly and grudgingly, but I slowed down.  

What would have happened if she had threatened just one spanking?  Honestly, there is a good chance I would have taken the risk.  I’ve been spanked dozens of times, and a ticket didn’t seem very likely, so the cost-benefit analysis of speeding might have tilted in the direction of doing what I wanted. But, getting spanked every day for a week? Just the thought of that was “enough.”

 

 

That’s a fairly unique case, in which I did engage in some conscious risk assessment.  Usually, I either tend to drift over lines without thinking about them, or the offense itself is about being careless and forgetful.

 

The best example is probably my ongoing problem with leaving doors unlocked or not ensuring that the garage door closes fully before I go inside.  It happens fairly often, even though it really pisses Anne off.  If I know it pisses her off, why do I still forget?  I’m definitely not testing her, or deliberately disobeying, or hoping for a spanking.   

 

And, it’s not like I’m consciously blowing off her concerns even if I don’t share them to the same extent.  Instead, I simply get distracted and don’t notice a door is unlocked before I leave or get distracted and don’t watch the garage door go all the way down when I go into the house.

 

Those failings definitely are my fault, but there also is the issue of whether Anne is escalating enough to guarantee that she overcomes my forgetfulness. The fact is, we have talked about making that a “no tolerance” offense, and she always agrees that it should be . . . then she lets me off the hook.

 

It happened just last week. I came back from a dog walk. Thirty minutes later, I was sitting in my office and Anne was leaving for the gym when she yelled up that the garage door was open . . . again.  I yelled down a somewhat shaky apology. I really expected I might hear something like, “Well, I’m leaving. So, we’ll take care of your spanking when I get back.”  Nope, she just left and that was the end of it.

 

Hence, the reason I chose the Lombardi quote, above. I assume that when Lombardi referred to “lack of will,” he was talking about the unsuccessful person lacking it. But, it could also be the coach/boss/leader’s lack of will, couldn’t it? They say they want a particular result, but are they really escalating the consequences to the point that the subject will really get how bad the consequences will be, and how certain they will be, if they don’t step up?

 

 As another example, several of us have talked about how our wives have used DD to put some boundaries or limits around alcohol. That’s one where my forgetfulness borders on chemically-induced amnesia.  After a couple of drinks, it’s like the possibility of a spanking simply never enters my mind. 

I’m honestly not sure whether DD or threats of DD would change that, since it does seem to just vanish from my conscious decision-making process. But, would that be the case if she carried through with a threat like the threatened week of spankings for a ticket? I really don’t know, but I do think the willingness to escalate is key. I’ve used this spanking drawing several times, but that’s because it illustrates the escalation concept so perfectly.

 

 

There also is the issue of warnings.  As I said, Anne did give me a very strong, direct warning about what the consequences would be if I got a speeding ticket on our trip. But, that really is the exception. I do think that, at least in some circumstances, I might toe that line better, instead of drifting right over it, if she made it unmistakably clear what would happen otherwise.

 

 None of this is to say that DD is not a deterrent and hasn’t successfully been so. It’s just been an imperfect one. Sometimes it’s because I’m willing to take a bit of a risk for something I want to do (speeding, socializing, etc.). Sometimes it’s because I don’t see the line that I’m about to cross. Sometimes the behavior itself is something I’m just not paying enough attention to.

 

I can’t speak much to ZM’s examples. We haven’t really used DD to reinforce some concrete goal, like losing weight. If we did, I suspect that my key failing would be similar to his.  I would make some excuse to indulge some activity I know is bad for me, thinking that I would double-down later, but it would instead lead to more and more backsliding.  

 

A somewhat similar example that is an issue for me is procrastination. I often just don't get much done even though I have plenty of time. And, it's not always minor stuff or things that Anne doesn't care about. There have been medical things that Anne was probably more concerned about than I was, yet I didn't jump on getting them attended to right away. In those cases, making spanking a more effective deterrent probably would require more rigorous self-reporting, because sometimes Anne isn't aware of even the existence of the more important things I have on my to-do list and/or isn't aware that I haven't made any progress.

How about you? Has spanking been a strong deterrent?  Has in proven more effective for some things and less so for others? What makes the difference?  Do you sometimes consciously know you are about to cross the line and earn yourself a spanking but do it anyway? Why?

 

Ladies, do you recognize when your husband is going to cross that line?  Is it something you seem him do often, despite your best DD efforts? Why do you think that happens? Have you thought about escalating the number or severity of punishments?  Are there other things you’ve done to nip the problem in the bud?

 

Have a great week! FYI, we are off on another vacation next week and into the following week.  I should have reliable connectivity but it’s likely I won’t get a post out while we’re gone.  I’m going to play it by ear and will try to keep up with comments to some extent.

The Club - Meeting 456 - Specific Reasons or Generalized "Resets", Reporting and Asking, etc.

“Karma is a tricky thing. To serve karma, one must repay good karma to others. To serve Karma well, one must sometimes deliver bad karma where it is due.” ― R. Mathias

 

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 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. While I’ve always said the blog is open to both men and women, one of our commenters suggested I expressly invite our female readers to join the discussion.  Please consider the invitation enthusiastically extended. 

This will be our last post before Halloween, so . . . Happy Halloween!  It’s always been one of my very favorite holidays though, honestly, other than decorating the house and handing out candy, traditionally we haven’t really done that much for it. This week, for the first time in ages we went to a Halloween costume party.  It was for adults, but nothing risqué.  (Darn it.)

 

 A good time was had by all, though not too good.  

 

However, something did happen that has some potential bearing on some of the things we talk about here on this blog.

 

Over the last few months, I’ve developed a new friendship with the host of our Halloween party. It’s a pretty new relationship, and neither of us knows all that much about the other’s personal life. But, it was clear from the first time we got together with our wives that his “wears the pants” in that family.  He has a big, bold personality, but hers is clearly the more dominant. As the party was kicking off, she took the floor to explain some of the planned festivities.  Her husband was off to the side chatting with someone.  After trying for a few seconds to talk over him, she called out: “Hey, will you please shut the fuck up? I’m talking here.”  Her tone was kind of teasing, but also kind of not. She’s clearly someone who is used to issuing orders and having them obeyed.  This was not the first time I've felt that vibe from them.

 

Over the entirety of our DD relationship, I’ve come across only one other couple who made me seriously wonder whether they might be in a similar dynamic.  The interactions I’ve had with this new friend and his wife over the last few weeks definitely have me wondering whether they might be a second.   

 

The odd thing is, I’m feeling some interesting qualms about whether I would want him to know about our DD, even If I were convinced he’s in a similar dynamic. It’s gendered as hell, but it’s clear to me that for all my professed openness to letting others know, I do have a bigger issue with men knowing than I do about women.

  

As I’ve noted before, early on in our relationship I told a female friend about our DD experimentation.  I don’t recall being all that embarrassed about it, even though she was vanilla and I really had no idea how she might react.  Yet, I find myself way more resistant to even the possibility of opening up to another man, even though in his case I do have some reason to think he could be in a somewhat similar dynamic.  Now, part of it is clearly about the longevity of the relationship and differences in how well I know him versus my female confidante.  But, I don’t think that’s really the only thing at play.  Anyway . . . food for thought.

 

I go through phases where I seem to have lots of ideas for blog topics, then I inevitably hit a dry spell. The latter is happening now and has been for a few weeks. Since I’m lacking for real inspiration, I thought I might explore one of my favorite comments from last week--one from TB--and see whether we can parse it a bit more deeply.  Instead of quoting the whole thing then probing it in a series of observations, I’m going to take it piece-by-piece, mixing up the order of our comment exchange a little and hitting on things that caught my attention.  Instead of narrowing down to a particular topic, I invite all of your to jump in with anything his comment or my observations bring to mind.

 

DD started for us as a way of satisfying my lifelong interest in spanking. We were playing about one night, she started to spank me and I opened up about my interest a few days later. It gave her some power over me as she was able to access a part of me that I had kept secret from everybody.

 

As I told TB in my comments last week, this resonates with me strongly, though I had not thought about my interactions with Anne in quite this way before. I do recall vividly the conversation in which I first told Anne that I had discovered The Disciplinary Wives Club website, suggesting but not quite coming out and saying that I was interested in trying it. I definitely was very embarrassed and felt very vulnerable explaining it to her, not knowing how she would react.  When she called me at the office the next day and told me she thought the whole thing was "interesting"--enough so that I should buy a brush on the way home--my heart definitely skipped a beat.

 

 

But, at the time I didn’t think about it in terms of giving her some power over me.  Yet, clearly it did. At a minimum, it involved me giving her an embarrassing insight into my psyche that wasn’t reciprocal.  The confession alone, and the inequality in our knowledge of each other that it invoked, was a first tentative step in elevating her in the power hierarchy and taking me down a peg.

 

As I observed to TB, it also makes me wonder whether that kind of unilateral revelation and the power dynamic it creates is at the root of many of our DD interests and fantasies, including particularly “witnesses.” 

 

I've always known that a big driver of my DD fascination was a deep-seated desire to give up control.  But, when I’ve thought about witnesses, I’ve tended to focus on the acute embarrassment it would entail and not much about someone else witnessing, or even just knowing about, a spanking inevitably involves giving that other person a certain power over us. And, it’s not just that they might say something to someone else.  Rather, the fact that they know this very personal thing about you kind of elevates their power and diminishes yours vis-à-vis that relationship, doesn’t it? 

 

After a time I asked her to explicitly link the spankings with behavior changes that she (and I) wanted to see. I wrote out several versions of 'rules', we experimented with a 'points' system but eventually have settled on a set of general principles, a sort of charter that we both use as a way of measuring how I have behaved and whether a 'reset' is due.

 

From the outset, we linked spankings with behavior changes we both wanted to see, and initially the approach was very rules-based before settling into something at least a bit more generalized, like the “charter” TB describes.  Where we may differ is in the extent to which it’s about a “reset.”   

 

Anne still tends to spank mostly for specific offenses.  There isn’t a lot of focus on using disciplinary spankings to more generally reset the power dynamic. This ties into something else TB said about the benefits of DD in his relationship:

 

The key benefit for her is a rebalance in our relationship - as she will often say, she now has the power to stop me, to re-center me, to reset me any time needed. She says (and I agree) that we are much closer now and puts a lot of it down to the 'need' that I have exposed to her, the openness in my journal and hew ability to draw any dispute to a close if necessary.

 

For me I now have the clear guidelines (or guardrails as Dan calls them) and some clear consequences when I overstep. As a very goal driven personality having this clear 'target' behavior', measures & consequences is very appealing. Tension builds in most relationships for a variety of reasons - there is nothing quite like a session with the strap to 'clear the air'!

 

Anne really doesn’t always seem to be aware of—or at least she doesn’t focus enough on—her general authority to “stop me, to re-center me, to reset me any time needed.” I feel like she’s missing an opportunity, including to “clear the air.”  When we got back from our recent trip, we clearly were getting on each other’s nerves after too many days in close quarters, to the point that she observed that we “needed some space.” At that point, I probably was too irritated to respond well to a DD-oriented “reset.”  But, a few days later, once we’d both cooled off a little, I think it probably would have been beneficial for both of us.

 

It makes me curious, how specific are the wives when it comes to reasons to spank? Setting something pre-scheduled like “maintenance” aside, is it almost always for some specific offense? Or, is it sometimes more generalized like TB’s “reset” or “re-centering”?

 

 

Link that to our recent development where I now explicitly 'own up' to failings and request that she addresses them via a spanking has moved her sense of power and control (she says) to a new level. If I miss anything she will point it out during the pre-spanking 'talk'.

 

I followed up on this, because although I know in my heart I should confess bad behavior and even request spankings as deserved, I generally don’t. And, while most of it is because I suddenly don’t really want a spanking when I know one is coming, I also do sometimes feel like requesting a spanking leaves me too much in control. Yet, TB’s wife says him doing so gives her a new sense of power and control. He explained further:

 

The only behaviors that she is interested in punishing me for are disrespect, moodiness, etc - so behaviors that impact her directly. She is therefore aware of anything that I 'own up' to already (and would usually take action to address either as a specific or as a general 'reset'). She does see that my recognizing & admitting to the behavior before she takes action is another level of submission & self-awareness. In fact, although we have only been using this approach for a number of weeks, if I don't 'own up' to some failing that was obvious to both of us, she will take extra spanking time to highlight that particular issue. A virtuous circle of sorts in that I am encouraged to document my own failings even though I am aware of the consequences, because if I don't there is a very good chance that the next spanking session will be increased to cover the omission.

 

She is a big fan of the new approach and she enjoys matching my journal view of my behavior with her own recollections. She also feels that it takes some of the pressure off her in deciding if/when a spanking is due. It helps me in that I dislike the delay & uncertainty between offense & punishment - if punishment is due then I am always keen to get it over and done with. My behavior has definitely been better for the past few weeks, mainly because I now feel that if I misbehave I have to submit a 'confession'.

 

As I said, in theory tattling on myself does leave me in control. Yet, what TB says resonates with me.  The plain fact is, one reason I don’t ask for a spanking even when I know I deserve or “need” one is because doing so ramps up the feeling of vulnerability. At the time, it certainly doesn't leave me feeling like I'm in control. And, I can see his wife’s point about how it takes some of the pressure off her to decide whether a spanking is due.

 

How do the wives feel about this?  Is the husband’s confession and/or asking for a deserved spanking empowering to you?  In your mind, does it show an increased level of acceptance of your authority over him? Does it take away some of the decision-making pressure? Or, does it leave him with too much control over the whole process?

 

That’s all I have for this week.  Have a fun and safe Halloween!

 

The Club - Meeting 456 - Costs and Benefits of Disciplinary Spankings and FLR Relationships

“Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes.” ― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

 

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 Female Led (FLR) relationships.

 

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. While I’ve always said the blog is open to both men and women, one of our commenters suggested I expressly invite our female readers to join the discussion.  try to be more expressly inviting in order to get a little more female involvement.

 

 

I hope you all had a great week.  We were on the road, which is always a little grueling, though it was a fun trip.  There wasn’t any actual DD action during the trip, though there was one incident that illustrated Anne escalating her strictness—or at least her threats—steadily.

 

It was on the last day of the trip, and we were pushing through a long drive home.  Anne has a problem with “back seat driving,” and it was on fully display that day after taking a hiatus for a while. She kept “reminding” me of the speed limit, even though while I often was speeding, it was basically just going with the flow of at least the faster traffic.  I started throwing unmistakable signals that the “reminders” were getting on my nerves.  She responded with something along the lines of, “Fine.  You can drive whatever speed you want.  But, if you get a ticket, I’m going to spank your ass hard every single day for a week.”

 

How did I respond?  I slowed down, reluctantly and resentfully.  Not to the speed limit, of course, but to a speed that was pretty unlikely to get me ticketed.

 

 

So, her threat worked, even if to me it does seem kind of like cutting off your nose to spite your face, since the only thing slowing down really accomplished was to get us home even later.  But, in the end, she got what she wanted.

 

It also seemed to me to illustrate something about “threat” and “warnings.”  I’m not really sure whether in those circumstances a threat of a single spanking would have caused me to slow down much. The odds of getting a ticket weren’t particularly high, and a single spanking might have been an insufficient threat. But, when she raised the stakes dramatically to a full week of daily spankings, THAT got my attention. 

 

Something else that might have worked would be had she threatened to give me an immediate spanking in the car.  Severity, in the form of not just one or two but multiple spankings, clearly got my attention, and immediacy might have done the same.  Without out one or both of those, I’m not really sure if my compliance would have been the same.  But, something that seems to be changing this year is her determination to ramp up the punishment to whatever is required.

 

Anyway, thanks to everyone for keeping the conversation going again.  I almost didn’t post again today.  I just wasn’t in the mood and wasn’t feeling the inspiration. But, I felt like not posting was becoming a habit.  So, I looked at some of the recent topic suggestions and started thinking about how to approach it.  Within a few minutes, I went from being not in a DD mood at all to thinking about how, even though I was pretty good on our trip, there certainly were certain things that happened during the week that might merit a session over her knee.

 

The topic I landed on was a very straightforward and simple one from Norton. A couple of weeks ago, he suggested:

 

It occurs to me, since I just wrote about it, that another topic could be about the benefits and costs for you and your wife practicing this kind of lifestyle.

 

While we have comments about costs and benefits of these lifestyles virtually every week, sometimes it’s good to give these “big picture” issues some focused attention. I also think that while we often talk about the benefits of DD, we don’t often talk about what it costs, and we often seem to assume that it has no costs for our wives.  So, let’s talk a bit directly about our respective cost-benefit analyses.

 

For me, the primary benefit of domestic discipline lies in establishing boundaries and guardrails, which I’m not always great at imposing on myself.  I readily admit that I have a personality that is prone to excesses.   

 

 

And, I don’t always do a good job of anticipating more abstract consequences.  Kind of like our “discussion” about my speeding during our trip.  Anne calculated the odds of getting caught differently than I did, and then she amped up the possible consequences way beyond the monetary cost of a speeding ticket.

 

Relatedly, having someone impose boundaries and guardrails balances me out emotionally.  A personality that gravitates toward extremes can be inherently stressful and intense.  I am convinced that our close to 20 years of DD has done at least as much to help bring some balance to my psyche as meditation ever has.  It’s probably no coincidence that I discovered both DD and mindfulness meditation at about the same point in my life as, for me, they address much the same temperamental and personality issues.

 

Then there is the erotic feelings that DD arouses.  While in most of my life I am about as anti-authoritarian as you are ever going to encounter, there clearly is some part of me that gravitates HARD toward a maternal style of imposed discipline and toward being taken outside of my comfort zone.  Near the end of last week’s topic, ZM, GH and I talked a little about the need for “authenticity” and how, for me, that means I have a strong desire to be taken to a mental/emotional state where I am not in control and where someone else decides what consequences I will face for behavior that they THEY decide is an issue. 

 

The speeding thing is, again, a great example.  I did not see the speeding as a problem and, frankly, still don’t. But, Anne decided that it was a problem for her, and then she figured out how to MAKE it a problem for me.  Did I like her decision?  Definitely not in the moment. I resented it and continued to resent it every mile for the rest of that trip – miles in which I complied with her wishes about appropriate speed not because I agreed with her but because she laid down a rule in a way that demonstrated that she didn’t really care whether I agreed with her or not.

 

At its core, there is something incredibly parental about your spouse deciding for you what you will care about and being willing to make you pay a painful price if you do not accept the rule they have laid down.

 

Indirectly, I’m sure that over the years I’ve benefited from DD in the form of better physical and mental health. Given some of my excesses, had trends from 20 years ago continued unchecked, it probably wouldn’t have been pretty.

 

So, are there costs associated with DD?  Of course there are, and for me they tend to be the flipside of the benefits that both Anne and I receive.

 

I ran across the captioned spanking meme just a few days ago, and it seemed to me to sum up very succinctly the paradox of the cost-benefit trade-offs these relationships entail:

 

 

This year in particular, as Anne has ramped up her control, it’s been driven home to me over and over again that when I’m liking our regimen the least is exactly when it is doing its best work. There have been multiple times over this year when she’s given me a hard lecture and harder spanking that I really, truly did not want or sometimes even agree with.

 

But, the ill feelings those brought out at the time were the also the closest I’ve come to the “authenticity” ZM talked about last week.  Those incidents were authentic precisely because, at least at the time, there was nothing erotic about them and, instead, they represented instances of her imposing her will at times or in ways when I very much did not like it.  In fact, authenticity is perhaps the most real “cost” that “real” DD imposes, even if it is simultaneously something many of us crave.

 

There is also a cost to me that varies directly in proportion to one of the biggest benefits Anne receives, namely the ability to communicate to me directly and concretely her dissatisfaction.

 

 

I do get a better sense of balance and psychic well-being from having guardrails imposed. There also are psychic benefits involved in behaving better and not causing problems for myself.  But, the cost of that improvement is the most straightforward cost of all – hard, painful punishments that lead me to want to walk the straight and narrow more often.

 

Perhaps the hardest “cost” associated with the more FLR-oriented aspects of our relationship is being truly, genuinely, kept under someone else’s control and being subject to their decision-making authority. It all is fodder for so many fantasies . . . right up until she exercises her authority in a way you truly do not like.

 

 

Even my fantasies of being taken far beyond what I think I can take, and in a way that feels as close as we can get to non-consensual, have the inevitable cost of, by definition, being taken there by virtue of her decision, not mine.

 

 Anne obviously gets the benefits of having a better-behaved husband and getting her way more often. But, are there costs?  I’m sure there are or have been in the past.

 

Anne was one of those wives who took to the DD relationship I asked for far easier than I feared she might.  Still, I think it took a while before she really embraced the authority and power. Today, I suspect this captioned meme sums up how she feels most of the time:

 

 

She has told me that she gets off giving me orders or imposing limits, especially when my reaction makes it clear that I really dislike complying.  I also think that, while she is not a sadist, she gets that spankings must hurt to be effective and, for that reason, she wants them to hurt.  I think she probably gets off on the whole thing more than she sometimes lets on, and I know she gets off on making me feel nervous and vulnerable. 

 

I do think one cost associated with exercising control is learning to lead and to do so responsibly.  It’s not easy being in charge, even if it may have a lot of benefits.  I suspect it sometimes seems like a duty or obligation.

 

 

I do know that she sometimes struggles with the simple logistics of figuring out how to make time for a spanking in the midst of a busy day.  She’s told me that when she does think of DD, it’s often in the context of figuring out when to announce one is coming and how to fit it into whatever else she has going on.

 

How about you? What benefits do you get from your DD and FLR relationships? What are the costs involved? 

 

Ladies, what benefits do you get from imposing painful consequences on your husband or from exercising more authority than you might in a traditional marriage? Are there costs associated with those benefits, or is it all upside?  If there are trade-offs, are they worth it?

 

Have a great week.

 

 

No New Post This Week (Probably)

Hi all.  I hope you all had a good week. Thanks for your insightful comments on crying, among other things.

Anne and I just got back from a trip, and I find myself lacking both energy and inspiration.  Therefore, I don't have a topic in mind for this week.  If there is anything any of you would like to discuss, feel free to try to get a topic rolling.

The Club - Meeting 455 - Verbalizing, Tears, Letting Go and Accepting One's Place

"I was better after I had cried, than before--more sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude, more gentle.” - Charles Dickens from Great Expectations

 

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 relationships.

 

Before we get started, I would again like to extend a specific invitation to any of our female readers to move from “lurker” to “commenter” status. It’s been too long since we heard from women who are either in F/m domestic discipline or Female Led Relationships, or positively interested in it.  Please think about joining in.

 

 

Can I just say, I really, really love this time of year!  Other than Christmas, Halloween is my favorite holiday, and I just love this entire season.  I spent yesterday afternoon putting up Halloween lawn decorations, though the woman across the street beat me to it, as usual.  Unfortunately, our travel early in the month threw me off a bit, and I feel like I’m a little late to the party. And, there is still work left to do, like getting pumpkins.

 

 

Speaking of being late, just an FYI, we are traveling again later this week and won’t be back until early next week.  I do plan to post but probably won’t get to it until Tuesday.  I know that my posting schedule is getting less predictable, but I think that’s likely to be the new norm. My post-retirement schedule is more flexible, but we finally seem to be getting into a more adventurous groove in which more of that flexible time is spent traveling, which means blogging will be fitted in more flexibly, though hopefully without a big drop in frequency.

 

I thought we had a good discussion last week about telling others about our DD relationships.  Though, Alan kind of summed up my own thoughts, and added some “what if” food for thought/fantasy:

 

I am somewhat surprised by the comments indicating reluctance or reticence in discussing TTWD with other males who have been identified as in, experiencing or otherwise understanding or understanding F/M discipline. In fact, one of my unfulfilled fantasies is to be seriously disciplined together with another male under female authority his wife and my wife both acting as independent disciplinarians.

 

There are probably many causes of this fantasy including seeing how another DD couple handle discipline But I think a major reason for the fantasy is the opportunity to have conversation and possibly friendship with a male who has the same emotions, desires and experiences I have had. I have shared much of that with my wife (and earlier with my former GF) but seeing another male under discipline or him seeing me might presage an openness and vulnerability very different from that experienced with the opposite sex.

 

This may be one of those fantasies better left in fantasia. And if it actually was fulfilled, the experience could be very different from the fantasy. However, I think the benefits of being in face to face, person to person zoom-less connection with another male under his wife’s authority would end up a very positive experience.

 

I share some of Alan’s surprise that, while some were open to telling others about this lifestyle, there was also a lot of resistance to talking openly to anyone about it, particularly other males.  Admittedly, while I’m open to it in theory, in practice I haven’t done much to open myself up that way.   

 

It’s also probably one reason why I haven’t tried more diligently to try to morph this group into something more truly DWC-like. I’m not quite sure how Aunt Kay, Jerry and others built a real face-to-face community around this thing we do, when so many of us are so resistant to that kind of openness, but somehow they did. Maybe it was just a more open, experimental time?  On the surface, we’ve become more tolerant of kink, but so much of it is consumed on-line.  Maybe solo access actually inhibits group participation?  Hard to say.

 

This week’s topic extends, for me, from one of ZM’s comments last week regarding “memorable” spankings:

 

Another very significant and memorable one was when she spanked me to tears. She has spanked me sort-of to tears other times, where I was on the verge or perhaps beginning to cry, but this one was different. I had had several bouts of bad attitude, and she informed me beforehand that I was going to be spanked, and it would continue until I was in tears. The combination of her telling me beforehand that the spanking would only end with me in tears, a horrible Delrin cane, and her employing the diaper position definitely did the trick. She stopped spanking shortly after I began crying. She said she would have liked to go longer, but it was hard to see me cry. I kind of have a feeling that if we get to this point again, she would be more comfortable pressing on with it.

 

While he’s related that story before, it came up in a conversation between Anne and I, and it could lead to another of those milestone moments.  Maybe.

 

 

A couple of weeks ago, some of us here posted spanking videos that seemed sort of plausible or similar to the kind of disciplinary spankings we received. Something that jumped out at me was that most of the recipients were a lot more vocal than I am while being spanked.

 

When being spanked, I definitely trend toward the stoic end of the spectrum. While I do exclaim, gasp, and groan, I don’t really use words.  I don’t say how hard it hurts, or how I can’t take it, or ask her to stop.

 

Some women may like it that way.  In fact, one of the first stories I ever read on the Disciplinary Wives Club website, entitled Pretty Legs II, involved one disciplinary wife disciplining another wife’s husband and becoming exasperated that he was “crying and begging for mercy” and couldn’t “even take his spanking like a man.”

 

Yet, while vocalizing may on the surface seem like a form of resistance, I think on some level trying to stay stoic is, at least for me, absolutely a subtle way of resisting authority. 

 

One of my biggest emotional attractions to domestic discipline was the prospect of having to give up control but, the reality is, twenty years into this I still find ways to maintain that control, and one of them probably is trying to “man up” while being spanked.  As long as I don’t vocalize how badly it hurts and how much I wish it would stop or, worse yet, let her bring me to tears, then I’m not really giving in to it.  It’s a very subtle form of control, but control nonetheless.  

 

ZM’s post came up in my conversation with Anne, because after the “videos” post I told her that I was thinking about trying to let myself go verbally a bit during, and maybe even before spankings.  It could take many forms. Maybe, instead of trying to delay spankings in my usually passive way, I come right out and ask tell her I’m afraid to be spanked and ask her not to. As long as she knows that she absolutely should NOT let me out of it, it allows me to own up more to what I’m actually feeling and gives her a chance to express her authority by reinforcing verbally that I am, in fact, going to be spanked whether I like it or not.

 

Similarly, crying out during a spanking about how much it hurts, telling her I can’t take any more, begging her to stop, all might be more honest and open than my usual stoicism, while again giving her a chance to take more demand by not giving into my pleas and, in fact, letting me know that it’s going to keep going and going.

 

Anne’s reaction to the prospect of me being more verbal was quite positive. She said it would be an indication that she was doing a really good job and that I was really learning a lesson.

 

 She also said that she thought it would help humble me. I asked whether that was one of her express goals, and she didn't hesitate in saying that it is.

 

Which brought us to . . . crying.  There have been times I have gotten close to real tears, but I always “man up” in the end.  ZM’s wife got around that by making it clear that the spanking would not be over until he cried real tears.

 

Anne has never given me that kind of ultimatum.  In fact, I’ve always gotten the sense that she was kind of reluctant to take me to that point, maybe because of her own reaction.

 

This time, however, when I talked about ZM’s story, including that his wife did find it hard to see him cry, she seemed much more open to it.  She said she wasn’t sure whether she would, in fact, find it that hard to see me cry as long as she thought the conduct that led to the spanking merited a spanking to tears.   

 

 

She acknowledged that, given the way I’m wired, an “until you cry real tears” spanking could take a LONG time, possibly involving an hours-long effort with multiple sessions separated by breaks for any numbing to recede.  I acknowledged that might be the case, though I’m not sure it necessarily would.  I think if she were to emulate ZM’s wife and announce up front that it would go on and on and on until I cried real tears, that might cut off my “man up” instincts in their tracks. 

 

The odd thing is, none of this seemed to phase her, while she used to be quite skittish about the subject What has changed? I’m not sure, but overall she just seems less concerned than she used to be about me suffering substantial embarrassment or other negative consequences on top of the spankings.  A lot of the memes I see about embarrassment and crying involve the wife assuring the husband that it's not something to be embarrassed about.

I don't think that's Anne's present attitude at all.  Instead, I think maybe she's inching toward become more like KOJ's wife (I miss him, by the way) who, in retirement, started caring less and less about asserting her authority openly even if it embarrassed him. To the point of taking him to a private room for a spanking during a busy party.

 

It’s in-line with, for example Anne's sudden determination to leave window shades open when spanking. For some reason, she’s simply stopped caring as much if someone sees and I get embarrassed. 

 

Or, if she lectures me strongly and I get embarrassed or temporarily resentful. 

 

Or, if she gives me a much harder spanking than I think the situation deserved (as happened a few days ago). 

 

Or, possible, if she spanks me until I cry mortifying tears.

 

I did tell her that we both might need to be prepared that bringing me to real tears, after all these years of DD, might work a really fundamental change in our relationship that might be hard to predict in advance. I told her that I can’t imagine that it wouldn’t leave me feeling like there was a very substantial shift in the hierarchy, with me feeling in a very concrete way that my position was firmly under her.

 

We’ve talked a lot about tears in this forum over the years, and people can respond to this post with any thoughts they may have about the subject. But, I hope at least a few people who have experienced it can tell me, am I right to assume that letting go and really crying during a spanking is, in fact, humbling on a whole different level? That it likely will reset the power dynamic in a pretty fundamental way?  That the relationship likely will feel fundamentally different afterward, with her more firmly in charge? Is it likely to make the spanking feel even more maternal?

 

If any of our female readers are inclined to weigh in, have you experienced your husband crying real tears from a spanking? What was your emotional reaction to that?  Is it something you wanted to happen?  Is it maybe even a turn-on to do it, or to consider doing it? If it hasn’t happened, do you want it to?

 

  

Have a great week, and happy October!