The Club - Meeting #281 - Ebbs and Flows

“A rule sometimes broken is better than no rule.” – Herman Wouk

Hello all.  Welcome back to the Disciplinary Couple’s Club.  Our weekly gathering of men and women who are in, or interested in being in, Domestic Discipline relationships.

First off, welcome again to Elizabeth and Jeanne. Thank for you for participating, and this is an ongoing invitation for more Disciplinary Wives to participate.  Of course, the possibility that always worries me is that some of the “women” who drop by here are not, in fact, women and are, instead, spanko men pretending to be women.  Our little pest Sean/Jack often pretends to be a woman, somehow missing that inane posts are inane posts that reveal it is him whether he’s calling himself Sean, Jack or Susan.  And, I’ve had a few indications lately that even some of our longer term posters might not be what they seem.  It’s disappointing, and part of me wishes this blog was set up more like Aunt Kay’s DWC, where the website was public but real participating hinged on admission by Aunt Kay, which might include a short phone call to verify the bona fides of the participants. But, that would, of course, blow my own anonymity, which I’m not really ready to do at this stage.  So, I hope for 2019 we can foster some genuine conversations and that the people engaging in them are being more or less genuine about who they are in terms of gender and disciplinary role, what kind of relationship they are really in, etc. Hope triumphs over experience . . . 

In addition to the live trolls like Sean, I seem to have picked up some renewed interest from the annoying automated spam bots.  I've been getting inundated with the same stupid fake comments that became a problem last year, involving generic praise for the blog that then tries to lure you into some kind of response or link.  One I particularly loved over the holidays said something to the effect of, "Hi. Thank you for such an inspiring post.  Can I share this on my own blog, as my readers share some of the same interests and I would like to share with them your compelling piece." It was posted on my notice that the usual Saturday post would be delayed by a day.

I hope you all enjoyed the first full week of the new year.  Mine was an instant wake-up call and reminder about the general futility of planning anything.  Without going into details that might be too revealing, I came into the year with a game plan for delegating more and pulling back a little on my own hands-on work, both because I feel like I’m coming up on the stage of life where I want and need to do that, and because I need to make room for the people under me to develop and grow and move up.  So, I had this whole plan to get together with my lieutenants and lay out that goal, but one of them beat me to it with an announcement of a major move in his own life that threw all my plans for his role out the window.  A day later, there was an organizational announcement that may result in me taking on a different role that will require a major time commitment, more travel, and generally a faster pace in 2019 than I had in 2018, which is exactly the opposite of where I saw things going.

Worse, these developments both conspired to cause me to very quickly blow one of my New Years resolutions.  I had committed mentally to throwing myself into one of the latest fads – Dry January.  No alcohol for an entire month.  At first, my prospects for living up to it seemed surprisingly good.  Even though we were on vacation for the first several days of the new year, I stayed away from alcohol despite a confluence of opportunity and temptation. Then, when I got back to work along came these two developments from below and above, both of which were made known to me by someone walking into my office at 5:00 pm, announcing they needed to talk about something, and suggesting we grab a drink to do so.  Now, I could have explained that I was happy to join them but would be nursing a “near beer,” but particularly in one case it just didn’t seem appropriate, because the conversation was with someone who I’ve been close to for many years, and he clearly needed to talk genuinely and openly.  Having a beer together is how we have always done that.  So, although I’m not wild about breaking my resolution, sometimes abstract rules and plans have to yield to the needs of real people in real relationships.  Or, at least, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

 Paradoxically, despite tripping up on that resolution right at the outset of the new year, and despite 2019 seemingly heading off in a very different direction than I had planned, I’m feeling pretty good about things.  I’ve been exercising regularly. My diet has been pretty consistently healthy.  My strength and overall health are quite a bit better than this time last year.  I’ve always been a chronic insomniac and, yet, I’ve been sleeping surprisingly well lately.  Part of this seemingly well-balanced internal state is probably the after-glow of a vacation, but some is also attributable to conscious choices, like meditating more and trying to take every day slightly less seriously.  It seems to be working.

So, what does all this have to do with Domestic Discipline?  Perhaps not much.  Except that, my perceived need for discipline and boundaries and giving up control are inversely correlated with how calm and balanced I feel at that particular point in time.  There are kink aspects to this thing we do and for many of us there also are compulsions that go deeper, including the need to give up control, the need to have some external restraints imposed on your behavior.  Where your motivations fall on that spectrum, between the desire for kink and the desire to be taken under someone’s control and made to behave, probably determines whether you see yourself as a “spanko,” a “submissive,” or as a “disciplined husband.” 

I’ve never contended that this desire of mine that I recognized pretty late in life—well into my 30s—is “normal” or reflective of a well-balanced mental state.  Quite the opposite.  My personality has always been intense and lacking in balance.  While I discovered DD late in line, it was kind of like finding a new drug to treat a long-running illness.  I am pretty open and accepting of the fact that my driving need for accountability and boundaries is not “normal” or “healthy,” though in a weird way the discipline itself does promote better mental and emotional health, because Domestic Discipline  is for me a kind of psychological medication that balances out what are some fundamentally unbalanced personality traits.  My friend Jane over at https://ashrewtamed.blogspot.com has characterized those of us with this bent as having somewhat “disordered” personalities.  Her view is that being disciplined and subjected to someone’s authority provides some of us a means of ordering our emotions and mental processes that, for whatever reason, we can’t quite sustain on our own most of the time.

Which is kind of where I am going with this week’s post.  Ebbs and flows in our interest in all things both kink and disciplinary inevitably is going to ebb and flow depending on what else we have going on in our lives, the relative level of distractions and, frankly, our hormonal cycles and on a variety of other factors.  (Yes, we men do have hormonal cycles that affect our overall level of sexual desire, kinky thoughts, etc.)  For me, it also depends a lot on how balanced I feel at that point in time.  Last year was kind of a meat grinder, so my desire to be kept in check ran very high for much of the year.  Right now, I don’t feel like I need it as much.

But, and here is a serious kicker, now that I have consented to this kind of relationship, the level of intensity isn’t just up to me.  Anne has her own desires, needs and motivations.  She may very well be interested in ramping things up, and that’s fine, particularly with respect to the “kinky” aspects of DD and FLR, as opposed to “real” discipline.  Right now, when my mental state is in better balance, I don’t feel a compelling need for her to impose boundaries, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t still find it very sexy for her to do so.  And, while right now my behavior is pretty well in check because my mind and emotions are in good shape, that doesn’t mean I might not stray and break some rules or do something to piss her off.

I could ask whether you go through ebbs and flows in your interest in Domestic Discipline, but I would be shocked if any of you do not.  The question for this week is, do you see any patterns in the triggers for those ebbs and flows? For the recipients, are there times you need discipline more than others?  What role does being stressed out over work play?  I can see it going both ways.  When I am under the gun and trying to get a bit of work out the door, discipline is the last thing I need as stepping away from work at an intense point in time may just make things worse.  However, when work is just chronically stressful, discipline and boundaries are very welcome and necessary.  For the Disciplinary Wives, are there times you are particularly into your role, and others where you lose interest, and are there particular things that trigger those ebbs and flows in the interest level?

I hope you have a great week.