The Club - Meeting 438 - Journaling & Communicating About DD

“Men always remember a woman who caused them concern and uneasiness.” —  Coco Chanel

 

Hello all.  Welcome back to the Disciplinary Couple’s Club.  Our weekly gathering of men and women who are, or would like to be, in a Domestic Discipline relationship.

 

I hope you all had a great week.  Mine was . . . not fun.  And, it caps off a full not fun month.  It’s really all about health or lack thereof.  Ironically, it all began with a beach vacation, where I thought I would unwind and rest up.  Not that I have that much to unwind from these days.

 

 

Unfortunately, unwinding turned into a little too much socializing with one of our adult kids and her significant other.  I left the vacation more exhausted than when we left.

 

On the first day home from vacation, along came Covid, with Anne joining me in said illness a couple of days later.  Thankfully, this time both of us recovered—or mostly recovered in my case—fairly quickly.  About the time I was feeling better, however, I had to travel for an unexpected family funeral. I didn't sleep well during the trip and after the funeral some of us staged our own wake-like remembrance, which was great but also contributed to the energetic hole I had been digging for myself.  It also was one of those "life is short" reminders, as the decedent was almost exactly my age.

Then, this week, Anne and I  both caught an entirely separate virus.  She’s now feeling better, but I’m still not feeling entirely back on my feet. Is this what getting old looks like – hobbling from one injury or illness to another?

 

 

I had kind of hoped aging would work more like this (I know I've used this pic recently, but I really get a kick out of it):

 

 

But, with a month of injuries (Anne’s hand issues) and mutual illness, there has been almost no action on that front. Or, on getting back on track where discipline is concerned.

 

For once, it’s not because I’ve been delaying with the goal of avoiding entirely.  As I discussed in last week’s entry, I had been feeling contrition for some past acts, and the need for accountability was lasting an unexpectedly long time.  This time, I actually succeeded in following through with a journal entry that reported the unpunished bad acts that were still on my mind and suggested not just one but two separate spankings to deal with two separate kinds of bad acts.  It wasn’t an easy thing to do—both the reporting and affirmatively asking for two spankings in one week—which is consistent with some of your comments from this past week:

 

“My wife will often take the initiative and make me submit to a spanking. But she will equally as often delay, postpone or simply let slide misbehaviour. This inconsistency is frustrating for me and when we have discussed it she will admit that she sometimes does not feel completely confident in taking the full responsibility for the decision to spank me. To be fair, I know when it is due or needed 95% of the time and a well-executed spanking clears the air & clears my head. So I have agreed to let her know when I feel the time is right or overdue. This is really hard for me but she responded very positively to my very first admission that I felt it was needed. She agreed, thanked me for my honesty and delivered the necessary punishment.” – TB

 

“Well, as I am writing this my rear end is sore and swollen. My wife followed through on her promise to beat my already sore butt. I was hoping she would forget or not follow through. She had a wonderful dinner with her friend and then immediately ordered me upstairs. It’s the first time I’ve ever been spanked two days in a row. It was not pleasant by any means.” – T

 

I do think Anne would have responded with some solid and, frankly, overdue spankings had we not run into these ongoing health issues and other distractions.  Though, as I knew would eventually happen, my guilt and/or need for accountability did eventually start to fade, though it’s not gone entirely.  As Alan noted, however, Domestic Discipline isn’t always just about discipline, i.e. modifying behavior.  Instead, sometimes it may simply be about retribution.

 

“The other issue you raise is the length of time before discipline is no longer needed or appropriate. This taps into one of the purposes of punishment that we don’t discuss as often as we do deterrence and behavior modification. I am thinking of “retribution,” which is punishing simply because the person committed an offense where the suffering should be proportionate to the severity of the offense committed -- punishment for punishment’s sake aside from or absent any other purposes of the punishment –and no matter how long it has been since the offending behavior.” - Alan

 

My discussion here about giving Anne a journal entry regarding the need I was feeling to be spanked even if it was arguably overdue led to some discussions among the group around journaling and reporting.  I know we’ve covered the topic of self-reporting fairly recently, but a couple of comments suggested some areas I wanted to follow up on (to some extent because, once again, I’m kind of coming up empty when it comes to truly new topics).

 

 

Glenmore offered this technological solution to developing consistency through reporting and reminders:  

 

“My wife and I have tried various tools in the past and while they work for a while the issue is that they take time and effort to complete so they end up falling by the wayside. Recently we have experimented with using Alexa's skills to create a list she can review at any time with no effort. I have set up a list called 'Glen's Report Card' and can ask Alexa to add anything to it. My wife can then ask Alexa what is on my report card and Alexa will give her a list. The list can be cleared once the offenses have been taken care of.” – Glenmore

 

Alan offered this in response:

 

“We have tried many reporting and behavior-monitoring systems over the years. Of all of them, the scheduled behavior review with a written record or log-in hand containing things she has ordered to be listed is the only structured system that has worked very well. And, importantly), the log entries need to come from her. She has to be invested in the behavior at issue. It is a simple process. I am told to put an entry into the log, and then it and anything else she has ordered in the log get discussed when during a regular behavior review.” – Alan

 

I’ve always thought that Anne and I would both get more out of the DD and FLR aspects of our relationship if there were more consistency, and I’ve always thought a reporting process would help.  However, where it always seems to fall apart is that I am inconsistent when it comes to journaling and reporting, especially when I know that it’s likely to lead to a spanking.  While I was doing a little better for a while, it often seems like any process that I have to initiate is doomed to failure.  As Glenmore observed:

 

“One of the conclusions we can come to is that there are now lots of easy and convenient tools for us to report bad behaviour to our wives, but we are sometimes reluctant to do it because of the consequences. I suppose that type of reluctance is natural because as kids we wouldn't report poor behaviour to our parents or teachers no matter how easy it was.”

 

So, that brings me to one of my follow-up issues regarding journaling and reporting:  For those of you who do have some kind of journaling or reporting process in place, how do you ensure that it actually happens?  Any ideas from the group on how to somehow make the process more self-initiating, or at least create more powerful incentives for it to happen regularly?

 

 Is the process something you initiate or is she more in control of it?

Also, for those of you who do keep a journal or log that you share with your wife, what is the content like?  Is it a simple listing of offenses, or is it more robust than that?  Does it include you sharing more about how you feel about things that are going on in your life that you’d like her to focus on dealing with?  Or, maybe some heartfelt confessions and explanations for repeated problematic behavior? 

 

Mine does go pretty deeply into what I’m feeling, especially regarding behavior that I’m upset with myself about.  I also tend to talk about things she has done that were particularly effective or that really brought home to me the reality of her authority.  She has commented that she really likes the journaling process, because it allows her to get deeply into my head and get a better understanding of things that are going on with me.

 

Which brings me to a third question around journaling, though it’s more about communication issues writ large.  This comment by GH got me thinking about it:

 

“I have said I have a feeling that giving spankings serves some purpose for my wife that isn’t purely disciplinary, i.e. not about “educating me” or managing my behaviour. She says it is satisfying to be able to punish me, but she is vague about the nature of that satisfaction. Because I used to keep a FLR journal that was open to her, she knows a great deal about my feelings when it comes to DD, but I know little about hers. That contributes to the power imbalance between us. I often imagine my wife getting sexual satisfaction from spanking me, but she says the satisfaction isn’t sexual. Beyond that I am in the dark.” - GH

 

I’m in the same boat when it comes to not having a robust understanding of Anne’s feelings about DD and about exercising power and authority.  She will respond if I ask her a direct question about things, which I sometimes do though I tend to focus more on confirming that she is on board with my desires for things like increasing strictness and her stepping up to more extensive control.  Thus, even when I do get insight into her thoughts it tends to be hers in relation to mine.

 

Do any of you have any kind of process in place—whether journaling or maybe as part of your reporting process—in which she takes the lead in talking about her feelings when it comes to DD and FLR issues, or about her authority and power over you?  Do you think she would find something like that valuable or, as GH reports, does a more unilateral reporting process contribute to a power imbalance that one or both of you prefer?

 

I hope you all have a good week.