The Club - Vol. 288 - Changes

“A punishment to some, to some a gift, and to many a favor.” - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Hello all.  Welcome back to the Disciplinary Couples Club.  Our weekly gathering of men and women who are in, or would like to be in, Domestic Discipline relationships.  I hope you had a good week. 

Mine remained crazy, though there were a few, incremental signs of settling in and adjusting my behavior in a slightly better direction. I did better on keeping up with the annoying administrative task I referenced last week.  I didn’t manage to complet it every day but I did get it done most days, which is a big improvement over prior weeks. I did have one major fail for the week, when a work-related social engagement took an unexpected turn.  It was something I didn’t cause or really even want, and one could argue it kind of had to be done.  But, that’s the way it goes sometimes with rules. Events spiral beyond your control. Best intentions, and all that. 

But, our current system is supposed to hold me accountable even when things spiral out of control, because the more rigorous accountability makes such spirals less likely in the future.  Or, at the very least it keeps some boundaries in place even if I have a tendency to drive outside them from time to time.  In that vein, one indication that things are settling in, though, is that earlier I felt like I was just so overwhelmed that punishment would not accomplish anything, but now I feel like rigorous discipline is necessary if I am to succeed.  ZM referenced this in one of his comments.  Here is an abbreviated version:

“Since the beginning of this year, I have been crazy busy and I keep hoping that she will not punish me for falling short of expectations, because it just seems so incredibly unfair to not consider how hard I am working and how impossible the circumstances are! However, as I read what you wrote, I realized that it is exactly at times like this that I most NEED discipline; the only possible way of climbing out of this situation is by executing perfectly day in and day out, which my general lack of self discipline guarantees won’t happen (at least on my own) or I wouldn’t probably be in this place! In other words, when she sees that I am struggling under a heavy load, her first instinct might be to be merciful to me and cut me a break, but by doing so she would be doing me a disservice. Instead, when she sees that I have an impossible load, that is the time that she might need to break out her paddles and canes regularly to keep me super motivated and on task. If she does this, she might just help me to overcome so I finally get some true rest and relaxation. . . And in fact, as I look back at the past few months (and for that matter the year before that), I can see that we would be in a much, much better place if she would keep cracking the whip, whether I want it or not.”

As I've alluded to, my wife has become a regular reader of the blog, and I suspect that she’s been following the comments on this issue and my evolving readiness to get on track with her help.  When I got to work Friday morning, I received a text from her saying, "You are grounded and will not be drinking alcohol this weekend." 

She also said I was in trouble for failing to do something yesterday, though she is factually wrong on that one.  But, when I pointed out she was wrong, she responded with a text saying, "Don't sass me."  No smiley face included.   

That is the kind of control—strict and with a decidedly maternal vibe—that I know I need right now.

On to this week’s topic.  Elizabeth better keep participating, because right now she is my primary source of inspiration. She suggested a topic focused on how spanking has changed the relationship with the spanking partner and “similarly, how has spanking changed your life outside of your relationship with your spanking partner? And are there ways you expected your life to change that have not transpired?”  Let’s focus on that latter part, since we have done the changes in the primary relationships many times.  So, how has spanking, and non-spanking discipline, changed your life outside the relationship with your spanking partner? What changes did you think would happen that have not?

A few of my own thoughts on things that have changed:

·      Productivity at work:  I’ve talked about this a lot lately, so I won’t go into much detail here.  While it is always a work in progress and there is plenty of room for improvement, I do feel like discipline has kept me from going off the rails many times and has kept me more focused than I might otherwise have been.

·      Workplace leadership: Being subject to discipline myself (and writing about it weekly) has made me a better leader at work.  I’m better at holding people accountable, but doing it in a controlled manner that doesn’t damage the people involved or my relationship with them.

·      Temper: Last year, I wrote about in incident in which I blew up on someone at work. Objectively, he sort of deserved it, but it still reflected immaturity on my part.  My wife’s solution was to make me apologize to him verbally (no emails), and that hurt far more than the paddling she gave me for it.  It also seemed to have a more lasting effect than any spanking, and I really have been more conscious of how I talk to others at work, even when provoked.

·      Family interactions: Similarly, Anne has spanked me more than once for saying things to the kids that weren’t particularly kind or sensitive.  I have gotten much better at holding my tongue in such situations and at offering apologies immediately when I have said something I know was excessive or not really fair.

What hasn’t changed?  Well, in general I think when I first found the DWC, I envisioned something like many of the fiction stories, not realizing that they are, in fact, fictional in more ways than one. I envisioned a more or less instantaneous change in our power structure, with her consistently spanking me for anything she saw as an offense and me surrendering to that authority.  It has been more incremental than that.  Her authority has not been exercised consistently and my surrender has been far from complete.  But, it’s always a work in progress, right?