The Club - Meeting 427 - Communication Problems and Spankings for Big Things

When you don't respond to bad behavior, you get more of it. - Carly Fiorina

 

Hello all. Welcome back to The Disciplinary Couple’s Club.  Our weekly on-line gathering of men and women who are in, or would like to be in, a Domestic Discipline or Female Led Relationship.

 

I hope you all had a good week.  For us, it was another snowy one.  I did take advantage of it to get in one day of skiing, though the conditions were cold and windy, which became a great excuse for me and the guy I was skiing with to knock off early and drink beer in the lodge.  I’m not totally happy with myself in terms of the volume consumed and the extent to which I feel very tired today because of it, but it also was a good, long conversation with someone I hadn’t hung out with in a while.  So, I’m not going to beat myself up too much about it.

 

It probably won’t result in any punishment from Anne either.  We’ve gone back and forth recently about spanking for alcohol consumption, after having some disputes about what the rules should be when the consumption is just a matter of having “too many” but when there wasn’t any other bad behavior associated with it, like getting loud and obnoxious, staying up absurdly late, etc.  I’ve always been a little confused by why Anne has always been fairly quick to discipline for excessive alcohol consumption, which often has little if any real impact on her, while letting things like blatant disrespect or rudeness slide.

 

That may be beginning to change, and a recent example served to get me questioning some of my own beliefs about whether spankings work very well on bigger issues.

 

I do believe that, for the most part, spankings are going to be more effective in nipping smaller irritants in the bud (or the butt, bad pun intended).  Things like my repeated problem with leaving the garage door open or not locking all our doors at night or repeatedly leaving part of my job of cleaning up the kitchen after dinner undone or not done very well.  

 

 

I also think some problems may be too deeply rooted, or be too serious or anger-inducing, or touch too closely on someone’s identity to really be resolvable with a spanking.  A recent argument with Anne is making me question

 

I don’t want to go into the details, but Anne and I seem to be struggling a bit with how our routines have changed now that we’re both retired.  Lately, there has been an uncharacteristically large amount of friction around priority setting and spending time together. We haven't exactly been living the fantasy of retirement togetherness lately.

I got resentful, and probably a little jealous, about one way she was spending her time and about someone she was spending it with.  Instead of communicating how I was feeling, I let it fester until, when the issue arose again, I cut loose with a snippy, frustrated comment.  Things escalated from there into a full-blown argument and going to bed angry, which is rare for us. 

 

The next day, she came in from running some errands and, without much lead-in, announced in a very business-like tone that we needed to have a talk about my communication style. 

 

She observed (correctly) that I clearly had been holding in a lot of resentment on something that she didn't even know was an issue. Thus, she had no opportunity to correct the problem because I’d given her no reason to know that it was a problem for me. 

 

She asked whether I agreed with her reasoning. I reluctantly admitted that I did.

 

 She then announced, again in a very business-like tone:

 

“OK then. You are going to get a spanking for this. Even if you are frustrated and even if there might be a justification for it, you can’t talk to me like that.”

 

Note that she didn’t ask me whether I agreed with her decision that a spanking was coming or whether it was deserved.  Rather, she simply asked whether I agreed with the underlying facts.  I couldn’t really argue with her recitation of what had happened, and from there she moved directly into telling me what I was in for as a result. In a comment last week, Alan brought up how is girlfriend was very concerned that every spanking had to be “fair,” and I think maybe there was a bit of that playing out in Anne asking me whether I agreed the facts were as she described, though I do think at that time she had already decided to spank for it.

 

I also should have seen it coming, since we had discussed at the beginning of the year that if a course of conduct merited a scolding, then it probably merited something a little more, shall we say, “tangible.” I had even suggested that she make that a New Year’s resolution.

 

 

What’s all this have to do with spanking for big issues and whether that works?  Well, for me our argument had been about something I really had gotten pretty worked up about. I was feeling aggrieved and definitely saw myself as the wronged party.

 

Yet, much of those resentful, angry feelings evaporated the second she told me I was going to be spanked.  I had been indulging myself with a little pity party, but the prospect of a forthcoming hard spanking gave my mind something more immediate, more concrete, and much more unpleasant to think about.

 

After she took control, the underlying problem that caused the resentment didn’t go away, but the internal emotional tenor of it suddenly seemed much less serious and the entire thing seemed more manageable.  And, of course, I now had much more reason to wish I had managed it and done so in a less emotional, more proactive, more adult-like way.

 

The almost immediate drop in the negative energy I’d been devoting to ruminating about the problem made me rethink some of my skepticism about using adult disciplinary spanking to solve big problems.

 

The core problem that had set me off had not been addressed. But, isn’t it the case that when we let ourselves get wound up about something, often the state of being wound up on the one hand, and the underlying problem on the other, are somewhat separable?

 

Big relationship problems are seldom simple and one-dimensional. They often involve a core issue that is important, is real, and does need to be dealt with.  But, that core issue often is bound up with a whole bunch of peripheral issues, including how we communicate about the issue to our partner, but also to ourselves. 

 

While the spanking may do nothing to solve the core problem, it can address some of the stuff that is making the core problem worse or preventing a solution to it.  Like unhelpful communication styles. Expressing anger and being disrespectful almost never resolves the underlying issue. Instead, it just makes the other party defensive and leads them to dig in their heels.

 

 

KOJ talked about this a couple of weeks ago, and maybe if I’d taken it more to heart then, I could have spared myself a very sore bottom. 

 

“We had some hot-button issues, like all couples. But my wife never tried to punish me for my position on one of those issues, but rather for my attitude in expressing my position. Some comments above express concern about being punished for one's "style of communication." But I knew full well when I was being inappropriate and deserving of punishment. My wife took the position that I should always be the consummate gentleman, especially with her but with others as well. So she would point out if I was being rude, harsh, disrespectful, yelling, overly sarcastic, etc. It wasn't what I was saying but how I was saying it. And that was spankable. In fact, that was the primary reason I was punished over the years.  She was very clear: "You are not being spanked for your opinion but for how you are expressing it in a disrespectful manner." Of course, she was right, and I accepted those punishments, even if it was a hot-button issue. In actuality, after she had spanked me really hard and adjusted my attitude, we then often were able to discuss the hot-button issue in a much more level-headed way, and possibly reach some resolution, or at least agree to disagree without hostility or resentment. But first I needed to be humbled over her knee.”

 

When Anne let me know that I was going to be spanked, it wasn’t that she was refusing to see or address my underlying concern. Rather, she was making it clear that even if I was riled up about something, that didn’t relieve me of the obligation to raise it respectfully and give her a reasonable opportunity to respond.

 

It also resulted in me instantly getting much more clarity around the fact that I had gotten snotty with her about something that she had no real reason to know was a problem for me. 

 

Had she made that point the day before, when I was at the peak of my agitation about the whole thing, I probably would have asserted that the “whole thing” should have been readily apparent, so why did I need to point it out?  Of course, that’s a great, all-purpose excuse for not communicating like an adult, isn’t it?

 

 

I do believe that one big reason my moodiness lifted almost immediately after she pronounced the sentence was I now had something else to think about.  But, isn’t it interesting how a sound spanking can almost instantly alter your view of the substance of an argument and give you a new, immediate openness to the other party’s perspective?

 

I also wanted to quickly note something about the spanking itself.  Some of us have brought up that wooden instruments have a tendency to numb, but ZM has pointed out that even after such numbness has occurred, the wife might still want to extend the spanking because those cumulative swats are what make you sore for days afterward.  That happened this time.  She focused a lot of attention on one spot on each cheek, bringing the brush down over and over again on that same spot.  It’s now been six days since that spanking, and I still have some pretty significant soreness.

 

I don’t have any specific questions for the group or a firm topic suggestion related to this, but I look forward to any thoughts you may have about it.

 

One other item:  I've mentioned that I've thought from time to time about writing a book about Domestic Discipline and FLR relationships.  I don't know whether I'll ever get around to it, but I'd be interested in any suggestions any of you might have for particular topics/chapter ideas.  Feel free to leave them in a comment or send them to me by email.

 

I hope you have a great week.