The Club - Meeting 474 - An Update on Performance Improvement Check-ins, and Certainty vs. Immediacy

“It's not what we do once in a while that shapes our lives. It's what we do consistently.” – Tony Robbins

 

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 our female readers to move from “lurker” to “commenter” status. We miss having you around.

 

I hope you all had a great week. Ours was pretty sedate.  Though, things do continue to develop on the disciplinary front.  So, I’ll kick things off with some updates before moving on to this week’s topic.

 

First, our discussion here about tears—particularly the comments by Alan and others regarding how essential the wife wanting or expecting tears is to achieving them—led me to feel Anne out about it again.  While talking in bed about some DD-related issues, I told her that I still hoped crying would happen at some point.  In the past, when I brought it up I always felt her response was equivocal or non-committal, in a way that indicated she had concerns about how she might react.

 

This time was different. When I told her it was something I still found compelling and hoped would happen, she said simply, “Good. I’m glad. I want you to.  You can’t read a lot into seven words, but the tone was very different this time. There wasn’t any equivocation. It was simple and direct.

 

 

I asked her how she thought she might react.  She said something to the effect of, “I think I’ll see it as gratifying that you finally got over that threshold and gave in. I would probably acknowledge it and tell you I was glad you were crying. But, I don’t think it would make me stop.” 

 

I don’t think she’s determined to make it happen in the way, say, ZM’s wife was when she made it clear that a spanking wasn’t going to stop until he cried for the first time.  But, I think she does want it to happen and, at the very least, won’t have any adverse emotional reaction if and when it does.

 

Second, with our family commitments finally out of the way, we resumed our “check-ins” around performance goals.  I knew she had been mulling some tweaks to what I had proposed, but I wasn’t at all sure how weighty the changes might be.  As it turned out, it was nothing earth-shattering, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t meaningful in terms of her increasing comfort with being in control, as well as for what they forebode for the state of my butt going forward.   

 

Her changes included:

 

·      adding an agenda item to deal with day-to-day household planning on things like places we want to travel, home improvements, family finances, etc.  It has nothing to do with DD expressly but does recognize that sometimes my procrastination and lack of direction result, in part, from us not taking the time to coordinate plans as a couple;

·      using the meetings not only to address the performance improvement/goal-setting items I had identified but also as a more general “check-in” on my behavior over the preceding week;

·      adding a discussion of things she characterized as “pet peeves,” i.e. things that apparently have been grating on her nerves but haven’t been identified as “spankable” before now.

 

As I reported before, she also changed the frequency of our meetings.  I had suggested that we do these check-ins monthly, because I thought weekly might be more of a burden than she might want to sign up for.  But, she has not only scheduled the meetings weekly but tightened up on the deadlines I had proposed for hitting some of the action items on my “life goals” list. That’s consistent with Alan’s recent advice about deadlines:

 

I want to make a general suggestion about deadlines.

 

What we have found to be highly effective is setting the deadline as close as possible to the present. This not only keeps the task at the forefront of the assignee's mind but also ensures timely completion.

 

For instance, instead of giving him a week, consider setting a deadline within a day or two, and specify the time as 'by Tuesday noon'. Threatened punishment is an abstraction if it's too far in the future or going to happen “some time,” But “ I am going to warm your ass if that is not finished by dinner tomorrow” focuses the mind.

 

As I said, none of her tweaks to my original suggestions are earth-shattering, yet cumulatively they add up to something different not just in degree but in kind from what I proposed.   

 

 

Moreover, although we had agreed that it would be good for both of us if she stepped up her strictness and control, when it came to the specific items to be covered at these check-ins and their timing, she didn’t ask my opinion. She simply told me how it will work going forward. 

 

And, it’s not just a change in process.  At our most recent meeting, she identified behavioral issues that she determined added up to two spankings.  She also informed me of one “pet peeve” that would earn a spanking going forward. This is something that annoys her but that I don't see as a real issue. But, it's clear that she's decided that what matters is her annoyance, not whether I think that annoyance is reasonable.

She delivered one of the spankings that evening and said the second would come later in the week.

 

The, the next day, I got a text with a picture that showed I had violated the “pet peeve.".  It didn’t explicitly order a spanking, but a couple of days later I said something that she took as snarky, and she said, “You’re talking big for someone who already has two spankings coming.” 

 

Honestly, given that it was a “first offense,” I thought forgetting about the pet peeve would result in a warning not a spanking.  Instead, it was like Al’s Even More story, in which the husband immediately forgets the rule they had just implemented regarding toilet seats.  He argues a warning would be “more fair,” but she sticks to her guns and spanks him anyway.

 

All of which is a segue of sorts into this week’s topic.

 

 

The combination of these weekly check-ins and her increasing strictness seems to be creating a situation in which spankings are no more immediate but are substantially more certain.  In fact, while it’s a little too early to tell, the weekly check-ins might lead to her putting off some spankings for a few days, since there will be a meeting at which they are discussed and later dealt with.

 

Yet, regardless of what happens with immediacy, I find the likelihood of increased certainty to be pretty intimidating, particularly given that increased certainty will inevitably result in increased frequency. It's been on my mind a lot since that last check-in meeting.  In fact, I feel like, for maybe the first time in 20 years, we've hit on the combination that really gets my attention and makes me think twice before acting up.

We’ve talked about “consistency” a lot here over the years, though we’ve seldom defined it.  

 

“Certainty” seems to be inherent in the whole concept of consistency.  If bad behavior doesn’t get consistently punished, then there is no consistency.

 

Immediacy is, in my view, perhaps important to the effectiveness of DD as a deterrent but it’s not intrinsic to the concept a consistency.  And, I use the word “perhaps” because I’m not really sure how necessary immediacy really is.

 

Last week someone equated DD to training a dog.  I admit I’ve used the analogy myself, though it is an imperfect one at best.  A dog is incapable of mentally linking a punishment with a behavior unless the former happens close in time to the latter.  So, with dogs, immediacy is critical to behavior modification.

 

Humans, on the other hand, by virtue of both memory and imagination, can project thoughts about behavior and consequences forward and backward in time.  We also are capable of thinking about behavior and consequences abstractly.

 

I don’t know whether more immediate punishments would result in more behavioral change.  What I do know is that the prospect of more certainty—both in detection and punishment—by virtue of our new check-in system feels more intimidating than thoughts about how increased immediacy might feel.  And, there also is the almost guaranteed linkage between the formality and regularity of the check-in system, the resulting increase in the certainty of punishment, and the further almost inevitable increase in the frequency of punishment.

 

In fact, there is something very humbling and intimidating about the fact that she is keeping closer track and that, even if a week or two had passed, there is a very good chance the spanking will happen.  In some ways, the fact that I might feel less of a connection between the particular spanking and the particular offense feels like it is one more step in removing my judgments and preferences from the process and substituting her as the sole judge of timing and frequency, which in turn feels more like how I’ve always envisioned the DWC wife’s authority should work.

 

 

Of course, it’s not an either-or. In the past, immediacy felt like a loose prerequisite for certainty.  If a spanking didn’t happen relatively close in time to the offense, it was likely to be forgotten or “real life” would intervene.  But now, it feels like our formal check-ins will end up playing a bigger role in bringing about certainty and making “immediacy” less of a necessary component.

 

I also get the sense that our formal check-ins lessen any lingering concerns my wife may have about “fairness.”  She is running the agenda, but it’s still a two-way street in terms of communications.  If I don’t agree with her factual premises, I have the ability to raise those kinds of issues, but I get the sense so far that as long as the facts are as she perceived them to be, she isn’t going to be asking for much input from me on whether a spanking has been earned.

 

 

It also seems like she is coming down on the side of certainty and not worrying as much about immediacy.  Including the “pet peeve” offense, she ordered three spankings in a single week but didn’t schedule them all for the same day.  Between the offense, the check-in, and the execution of the sentence, almost two weeks could conceivably pass between the first offense and the last spanking.   

 

 

Yet, it seems to be more important that each spanking actually happen than that they happen on a particular timetable.

 

I’m reminded of something a friend of mine, Rhiannon, who is the “top” in an FLR marriage said about consistency on her blog:

 

“I often struggle with balance or worrying about my husband feeling something is unfair or that it could be "too much."  The vast majority of contributors all suggest just taking control, owning it and acknowledging that while resistance or "unfairness" may happen, it is kind of what we each signed up for in deciding to walk this path.  In fact, my husband does not want an equal relationship. He wants me to lead. So in spending countless time and energy trying to make it seem or feel equal or worrying too much about the impact something will have, I am really just spinning my wheels and depriving us both of what we actually need/want. It was this realization that got me back on the path of leading.

 

While I feared increased control or strictness could breed resentment, it has the opposite effect.  He needs the structure and the clarity. He needs the consistency and knowing what is expected. I also think, although probably less so in the moment, that he craves the accountability as well.  Being in this type of relationship really requires some shifts in conventional thinking and finding ways to make sense of concepts that perhaps seem counter intuitive.  It is the difference between viewing follow up as being a nag or as holding him accountable.

 

It also is not just better for him. It is better for me.  It is easier for me to know that when I make a decision, it will be followed because I am not leaving room for resistance. It is also easier because I have control over my own life and can be responsible for the choices I make, which also means I have no one to blame but myself if it turns out not to be the best choice.  It is just simpler and easier.”

 

I think the formality of the new check-in system removes some of the second-guessing my wife previously subjected herself to.  Like my friend, she recognizes that I need both strictness and consistency, and she seems to have arrived at the conclusion that, for us, the best recipe for consistency is:

 

·      certainty of having a direct conversation each week about my behavior, met and unmet goals, procrastination, and any annoyance or hanger she’s experienced as a result

·      certainty of punishment

·      separate punishments for each significant offense, even at the expense of immediacy

 

 

Let’s explore this topic of consistency in all its angles.  What level of consistency have you achieved in your DD relationship? Is consistency even a goal, or are you content with an on-again-off-again approach? For those for whom consistency is a desired state but remains challenging, what are the big impediments to getting there? What are you and your spouse willing to do, if anything, to overcome those impediments?

 

Do you see any tension between certainty and immediacy?  Is one more important than the other?

 

For the wives, what are the challenges in achieving more certainty and consistency? Is it practical things like lack of available time, or is it more an attitude issue? Do concerns about “fairness” cause you to second-guess yourself? Or, is being consistent and strict freeing, as my friend Rhiannon describes?

 

I hope you have a great week.