2025 in the Rearview Mirror and Hopes and Goals for our Domestic Discipline Relationships in 2026 (Club Meeting 539)

“Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man.” - Benjamin Franklin

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 relationship

 

As those who have been around here for a while know, I usually do a New Years post, talking a little about how the past year went, and what I’d like to see happen next year, on the Domestic Discipline front. And, it almost always flops, but I like doing it anyway.

 

I often wait to do these posts until we are actually in the New Year, but I was feeling kind of bored today and also in a mood to think a little bit about I really do want for 2026.

 

Of course, if 2025 taught me anything, it was the futility of planning.  Though, that’s not quite right.  I’ve always been big on goal-setting, especially before I retired, and I genuinely believe that making written goals did help me accomplish more.  I guess what 2025 really taught me is not to get too attached to particular goals, because fate and circumstances often have their own agenda.

 

 

I’ve talked a few times about how 2024 ended, and 2025 began, with a big loss in the family and that it served to derail the whole year.  Although there is some truth in that, when I went back and looked at last years’ New Years entry, I was kind of surprised to find that I had noted that 2024 actually had some strong points before going off course right at the end.  In particular, I noted that these annual posts often were depressing because, despite all my goal setting, little seemed to change from year to year.  Yet, in 2024, I had seen real progress on several fronts.

 

Although my Christmas post was kind of gloomy, when you set aside health issues, it isn’t like progress wasn’t made in 2025.  Going through some of the issues I was working on when the year began:

 

·      Solidify the progress I made last year on reducing the number of excessive drinking incidents: As I noted in last year’s post, 2024 was better than 2023 when it came to drinking, specifically binge drinking. That pattern generally continued in 2025, despite some events that, had they happened in years past, probably would have led to over-indulging just to keep from exploding in tears or anger.  Yet, by year-end, I felt myself slipping back a little into some bad habits, like having a couple of drinks at dinner (which is fine), then having a few more at home (not fine).  So, I’ll want Anne to make a project of nipping that in the bud in 2026.

·      Renew and energize some friendships that I let drift:  As in 2024, I can’t say I made a lot of progress on this one, but I’ve figured out that, to a big extent, it’s because most of my friends didn’t retire when I did. They still have these pesky things called "jobs" and, in some cases, are still in family-raising mode. But, while renewing old friendships is probably on the backburner for now, I did make some new friends in 2024 and 2025, despite all the doom and gloom in the popular media about the “friendship crisis” confronting middle-aged men.

·      Multiple multi-state motorcycle and van trips: I did okay on this one, though not quite as good as I’d hoped.  Unfortunately, these goals were challenged in part by shorter travel calendars thanks to surgeries and other medical issues.

·      Reverse the recent losses in our investment portfolio: It was another good year for getting back on track financially.  I can’t complain on that front.

 

For this upcoming year, it’s so cliché, but I really do need to focus on fitness goals.  A couple of years of injuries, surgeries, and an arthritic knee have really taken a toll.  I went to the gym today for the first time in months and, while I won’t be able to do upper body work for at least another six weeks, I did do a modest leg workout and rode a bike for a while.  I was really disappointed at how hard that minimal workout felt.  I really don’t remember the last time my general fitness was quite this bad. Although I'd love to have help on this one, I suspect I'll have to deal with it largely on my own, though it could be a candidate for our weekly check-ins, assuming we get back on track with those.

I also do want to do some more volunteer work, which I thought would be a big part of my retirement, but it hasn’t worked out that way.

 

I also want to do more writing, in both DD and non-DD genres.  In 2024, before everything went to hell at year-end, I had completed most of book comprising a topic-oriented compilation of some of the best quotes we’ve had here on the blog over the years, with extensive topic intros from me.  It’s in pretty close to publishable shape, and I need to make some concentrated effort on getting that done. I also need to focus on writing non-fiction essays and moving forward with some fiction ideas I’ve had in the hopper for some time. Unfortunately, I’m good at generating ideas and not so good at actually developing them from there.

 

How about the DD and FLR front in 2026?  I don’t have anything groundbreaking in mind and not anything truly "new".  Rather, it’s the typical desire for “more”.  More strictness.  More consistency.  More frequency. More feelings of being under her thumb. 

Regarding more strictness and more frequency, back in 2021, a commenter who drops by every once in a while and goes by DD talked about his reaction to his wife adopting a much stricter persona when they first started DD and his wife took on a much stricter persona:

 

“The first time I cried it wasn't from the intensity of the particular spanking itself but from a culmination of spankings a few weeks after my wife first took me in hand.

 

I had been spanked and disciplined a lot in those first few weeks, and I think I felt a loss of control. That combined with the shift in my wife’s demeanor made me feel very unsure about what would happen leading into each time I was disciplined. 

 

Leading into this particular spanking, I was balking and trying to get out of it. I had a sense of panic at the point she brought me into the room and it was time to bare myself and bend over the bed. I had just been spanked the day before for something else and this was the second time I was being disciplined for the same issue in a week. I felt frustrated with myself and the frequency of misbehavior. I think deep down I was realizing I wasn’t the mature responsible adult I thought of myself as. Getting disciplined really highlighted that.

 

 I don’t know why but that spanking was the first I really tried to talk my way out of. My wife continued to tell me to bend over and take my punishment and that we would talk after. Eventually, she told me I was now going to be spanked for disobedience in addition to the original reason for the spanking. That got me lowering my pants and bending over. I will never forget the glare from my wife as I finally obeyed. I was already tearing up getting into position and it only took a few swats before I started crying. That didn’t seem to phase my wife. The spanking and scolding were long and severe.

 

After the spanking was over, she sat me down and said I was permitted to tell her what was so important before the spanking. I tried to rationalize not getting spanked so much but this conversation is what turned into us formalizing our FLR relationship. My wife made a lot of good points and basically doubled down on the fact that things were going to continue where they were heading if I wanted to be in the relationship. She said the only way I was going to get out of getting disciplined like a bad child was to fix my bad behaviors and attitude and always respect her as the authority in the house.”

 

In the 20+ years we’ve been doing this, there haven’t really been any periods like DD describes; periods in which the spankings are coming multiple times a week and she makes it clear that will continue as long as the bad behavior persists.  Is that realistic at this stage? Hard to say.  The reality is, my behavior is quite a bit better than it was back when I was working, but if she decided to really get on top of things like lack of respect, disobedience of one kind or another, and carelessness, it could add up to a lot. 

Do I think we really need more frequency?  Honestly, yes, I do.  I think she lets too much slide, and I think a concentrated period where she was setting the bar a lot higher would do us both good.  I think she gets it, too.  Several months ago, I was over Anne’s knee, receiving a well-deserved butt blistering for an offense that has happened many times.  During a short pause she asked, “Do I just need to spank you more often?”  Although her question was rhetorical, the literally true answer was “yes.” When I’m being honest with myself and her, it’s a rare week that I don’t do something that would probably merit a spanking. 

 

 

We also need to get back to our weekly check-ins, or maybe bi-weekly. We didn’t do them very often, but we both saw value in them. They helped keep me on track in some areas I wanted to improve in—like procrastination and putting more effort into certain goals—and I think her conducting the sessions helped solidify her role in her mind.

 

Like last year, I’d like for her to continue to explore a more overtly maternal role. It’s something we both gravitate toward, though we probably both struggle to define it.  But, I think we also kind of know it when we see it. Last year, I talked about the maternal vibe and decreased overt consent on my part as two different things, but I think they are part of the same emotional dynamic I’m looking for.  I want her to be more overtly in charge.  Although sometimes I can feel resentful for a while when she is tightening the screws, the reality is I feel better when she is setting and enforcing expectations. In many ways, it’s more about her attitude than about any specific DD practice. I want to experience her articulating, on a more frequent and consistent basis, Ideally, “This is how it’s going to be, and it’s going to happen whether you like it or not.”

 

 

Openness and others knowing about our DD relationship is a theme I’ve touched on here several times over the last couple of years, and it’s on my mind more and more. In the past, I had strong negative reactions to being embarrassed, yet paradoxically I now often feel a strong desire to have others know, or at least strongly suspect, the nature of our relationship. Our former commenter KOJ talked about how much more openly assertive and in charge his wife became after she retired, and Anne too has talked about how her retirement removed some of the psychological constraints she felt around being openly dominant.   

 

Although by the end of 2025 I was already really sick of AI slop, I do still kind of like this series I posted a few months, depicting a wife and mother who has gotten very comfortable being open about the DD dynamic in her household.

 

 

Do I want this exact dynamic? No. I wouldn't relish the prospect of Anne telling one of our daughters that I'd just been spanked.  But, maybe a some point she opens up to someone in her friend network?  Right now no one comes to mind, but you never know how things may develop, right?

 

Relatedly, although in the past I’ve shared a mild to moderate interest in witnesses with some of you here, I feel like that interest is getting stronger.  It used to feel more like a fantasy than a genuine interest.  Today, I’m pretty sure that if the right opportunity arose, I would be into being spanked in front of a witness or with another couple. 

  

Do I think these "openness" and "witness" goals might actually happen?  Probably not, and that's why they aren't really goals so much as fantasies/interests that almost certainly won't happen but that I think I would be open to in the unlikely event an opportunity were to arise.  And, even if these fantasies/interests likely wouldn't happen, I do feel like it's good just kind of throw my own openness to new things out to the universe and wait to see what happens.

I honestly haven’t given goals for 2026 as much thought as I probably should. This physical rehab and recent illness left me in an uninspired and not particularly reflective mood. Still, I think the above more or less reflects directions I’d like explore, if 2026 doesn’t throw us a major curveball.

 

How about you? How did 2025 turn out? Were there any interesting developments on the DD front that you’d like to share?  Are there any goals or things you’d like to accomplish—DD or otherwise—in 2026?  Do you intend to share those with your wife?

 

Finally, after almost 13 years of weekly posts, it's getting harder and harder to come up with anything truly new. And, I'm going to keep reminding myself of that reality so novelty doesn't become an unstated goal. But, if any of you have ideas not just for topics but for new directions you'd like to me to consider exploring in 2026, please let me know.

Here is wishing you and yours a great 2026.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays 2025

Christmas is a season not only of rejoicing but of reflection. - Winston Churchill

 

Here we are, Christmas week of 2025 and nearing the end of another year.

 

I thought I had another substantive post in me before Christmas . . . then I got walloped by the flu.  Honestly, it kind of seems like a fitting end to what has been a very challenging year.

 

I tend to evaluate my years from Christmas to Christmas instead of the from one calendar year to the next.  So, I’ll follow my usual pattern of using this pre-Christmas post to sum up how the year went.

 

The reality is, most years are mixed.  I’ll look back and identify things that I wish had gone a little better and areas where I lost ground on personal goals and resolutions, but there are lots of other good things to offset the bad.

 

This year, and really going back to mid-2024, was just hard.  Injuries. Illnesses. Hospitalizations. Surgeries. And, just as the year began, a really big loss. 

 

Looking back on my Christmas post from other years, I often had a line that said something like, “Still, as I said at the end of last year, I can give thanks for a few simple things.  All my immediate family made it through the year in one piece, as did most of our extended family.  Most of our family and the important people in our lives made it through the year in relatively good health.  None of our close friends or family suffered health or financial calamities . . . .”

 

2025 just wasn’t that kind of year.  It began with a huge loss, one that totally blindsided me. Almost a full year later, seldom a day goes by without me thinking about it.

 

 

It's also an odd Christmas for us in that we have no kids or family around, as one daughter is traveling to see in-laws and the other has to work on Christmas. And we're not traveling to see anyone extended family because I don't want to risk getting anyone sick.  So, this will be the first Christmas in over three decades where the only people gathered around our tree will be Anne and me.  And, the dogs of course.

Yet, even with all the challenges and losses, there were good notes.  In fact, often good came out the bad.  I had no real relationship with one of my close family members, to put it mildly, but we bonded over our shared loss and really supported each other.  We see one media reference after another to the supposed “friendship crisis” among middle-age males, yet the trip on which I got the injury that I’m now recovering from a surgery to fix was the starting point for what has become a pretty tight friendship with a guy I barely knew before we set out on a multi-day adventure trip together. 

 

Financially, it was a pretty good year, and much closer to how I thought things would shake out when I decided to retire.

 

Physically, I’ve been kind of mess for about a year, but I feel like maybe—just maybe—I’m starting to knock the problems down one after another. Unfortunately for Anne, given my current physical condition, a visit from a naughty Santa Claus will be her only hope for a good time this Christmas Eve.

 

On the DD front, I can’t say there was any kind of sea change, but I do feel like there was progress. It just tended to get stymied by all the “real life” discussed above.  And, I think this was a year when maybe Anne progressed more in this area than I did.  She seemed to be much quicker to slap me down verbally when I got out of line.  She was also faster to threaten spankings.  Although that didn’t translate into more frequent spankings, I do think it’s fair to say that spanking as a way to deal with annoyances and anger was much more top-of-mind than in years past.

So, here’s to 2025.  I can’t say I will be sorry to see you in the rearview mirror.

 

As I sign off to do some last minute gift wrapping, I truly do hope that all of you and your families have a safe, healthy, and very Merry Christmas. Happy holidays to all.  Don't get your holiday celebrating create a behavioral debt that you ass will have to pay!  Instead, I wish you the kind of peace that this drawing, which has become a tradition for my Christmas post, conveys to me.  See you in 2026, if I don't decide to post sooner.

Communicating an Impending Spanking and Ensuring it Happens (The Club - Meeting 538)

“One person's embarrassment is another person's accountability.” - Tom Price

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

 

I hope you all had a good week.  Mine was, once again, pretty uneventful.  Wrapped up some Christmas shopping. Hours and hours spent doing physical therapy exercises.  The days begin to blend . . .

 

We did go to one party. Unlike many parties in Christmas seasons past, I did a good job of keeping alcohol and behavior under control.  But, I did have a nightcap or two when I got home. That habit of extending drinking after I get home from an event was something I made a lot of progress on earlier in the year, but I seem to be backsliding.  It's going to be high on the list of things I’d like Anne to devote some proactive attention to in 2026. This time, it wasn’t really excessive in the scheme of things, but it was enough to make me feel tired today, and it was just kind of pointless. 

 

Ordinarily, I might be secretly hoping she would do something about it, but the reality is I’m probably a couple of more weeks away from healed up enough for a resumption of DD to be realistic. But, I do think getting 2026 off to a strict and stern start would be a good resolution for Anne this New Years.

 

Though, other than that small bit of bad behavior, so far this holiday season has been so boring, I’m almost feeling like I need to do something to try to put myself on the naughty list!

 

 

It's been a little quiet here on the forum.  (Multiple weeks with no comment from Alan, which is very atypical. I hope he’s OK.) But, thank you to those of you who did participate, despite the busy holiday season.  One problem with a relative dearth of comments is I have even less to work with when it comes to topic generation. But, after wrestling to come up with one most of the weekend, I was finally able to string two different comments together in a way that seems minimally fitting for a topic of sorts.

 

When discussing delayed spankings and deserved spankings that end up not happening, I was intrigued by this advice from 3pops:

 

“With regard to ordered punishments being forgotten, perhaps the pronouncement of a punishment should trigger some obvious and unambiguous reminders such as you must immediately go pull out an implement and place it on the bed or other conspicuous location. Other ideas could be a fridge magnet turned upside down, or the immediate loss of privileges, clothes, entertainment, basically a pre-spanking “grounding” that clearly alters the status quo and constantly reminds both of you that a punishment is pending would help.”

 

I really like that first part about putting an “unambiguous reminder", i.e. a spanking instrument, in a “conspicuous location.”  We haven’t really done anything like that in the past, perhaps because having kids around for so many years inhibited that kind of thing. But, I can see how that could have huge potential to increase our consistency.

 

The reason I find the prospect of leaving a spanking instrument on open display as a reminder so compelling is two-fold. 

 

First, although we do leave a bath brush and hairbrush on open display in our master bathroom, those aren’t really “unambiguous” spanking instruments.  In fact, I suspect that one reason we are both OK with them being out all the time is because, while their prominent display on the bathroom counter might tip off a spanko, to anyone without that proclivity they are going to look perfectly innocent.  

 

So, for me, the “unambiguous” reminder instrument would have to be something like a paddle or purpose-made strap, i.e. something that is unambiguously a spanking tool.

 

Second, to serve its purpose of preventing lengthy delays and avoided consequences, I would interpret “conspicuous location” to mean out in the open, in a room that a visitor would be likely to enter, such as the kitchen or the foyer at the entrance of the house. 

 

Maybe it’s on the small table that guests would see the moment they enter the house. Or, maybe it’s laying on the kitchen table.

 

To me, the belt doesn't quite fit the "unambiguous" requirement, but it depends a lot on the context.

For something really unambiguous, a kitchen chair placed in the middle of another room, with a paddle or brush laying on it, would be about as conspicuous and unambiguous as it gets.

Or, maybe the paddle could be hung on a wall temporarily, in a very open part of the house.

 

The reason I found 3pop’s suggestion so intriguing is it would almost certainly encourage both of us to make sure the spanking happened with as little delay as possible. The critical point would be that the instrument must remain on conspicuous display from immediately after she orders the spanking until it actually takes place.

 

We don’t have random visitors drop by all that often, but one of our adult kids does come by regularly and we do get other visitors from time to time.  And, given that Anne is probably more hung up on confidentiality than I am and is also the one who is in control of the timing of carrying out her spanking orders, the prospect of someone seeing a paddle out in plain sight would certainly provide an incentive to her to carry out the sentence sooner rather than later, and it might encourage me to go to her and ask to get it over with were the paddle to be on display for very long.

 

The challenge is, this would all depend on us both taking the obligation to put the paddle out on display seriously and to actually do it, instead of just talking about it.  It feels a little like our self-reporting and check-in efforts, which never seem to fully gel. In an ideal world, Anne would somehow condition herself to be unequivocal in ordering the spanking, and we would have affirmatively agreed that as soon as that happened, I would have to put the paddle out.

Alternatively, if this became a more firmly ingrained thing for us, she could put the paddle out herself, both as an announcement that I'm in for one and that it will be happening very soon.  Imagine how my heart would jump were I to walk into the house and see a paddle laying on prominent display in a public area.

 

But, it's at that initial communication stage where things are likely to break down, and it brings me to the other reader comment I wanted to highlight.  A couple of weeks ago, Norton said:

 

“When I first saw the DWC site and learned about the concept of submitting willingly to your wife's authority for discipline, it was definitely a turn on. However, I never suspected it would be more than a powerful fantasy for me. I didn't know of any women that were into F/M spanking, and aside from one couple, still don't. If memory serves, Aunt Kay's advice to wives was something like, "The harder and the more often you spank him, the more he will love you for it". While I wanted and needed to be spanked, I was still a long way from wanting my wife or life partner to actually have the authority and willingness to hold me accountable. How things have changed! Now I actually self-report any behavior of mine that I know my partner would not approve of. I have encouraged her to hold me accountable as soon as possible whenever I break a rule, and she has become much better at doing that. I have also encouraged her to use the word "spanking" instead of using a euphemism, and to please let me know when to expect punishment. An example of how that is different now than it used to be would be, is something like her saying ‘you are in trouble because you left the stove on’ vs ‘you left the stove on again, so I am going to give you a spanking in 5 minutes. Go set things up and wait for me.’”

 

It sounds like Norton is a lot better at self-reporting than I am, and his partner has worked with him to hold him accountable as soon as possible and not let things linger.   

Moreover, he’s encouraged her to use very tight, concrete language in order a spanking, including expressly stating that he will be spanked and assigning a time for it to happen.

 

The problem for us is that even when Anne is angry, she tends to phrase things more like Norton’s “you are in trouble” example than his, “I am going to give you a spanking in five minutes” one.  In fact, often it’s even more ambiguous.  A real-world example would be when she comes home and finds that I once again failed to lock the house when I left.  It’s typical in that scenario for her to send me a text about it, but it’s often no more than a picture of the unlocked door accompanied by an angry emoji.  In other cases, she may tell me I’m in trouble for something, or point out something I’ve done that violates an established rule, but the communication doesn’t include a clear statement that I’m going to be spanked.

 

For 3pops’ suggestion to really work, it would require the kind of definitive communication Norton is talking about. Something along the lines of, “You left the door unlocked again. I have to run some errands, but I’m going to spank you for it when I get home.” In an ideal world, she would add, “Put the paddle out,” though I think if we had established the rule that I would do so every time she has actually ordered a spanking, I would comply.

 

This isn’t so much one topic as a series of questions raised by 3pop and Norton’s comments as a series of mini-topics with the uniting theme of quality communication around ordering a spanking and how the quality of the communication influences whether the spanking actually happens and/or happens on time.

 

First, what did you all think of 3pops’ suggestion?  Were any of you intrigued, as I was?  Have you done anything like that?  Is there any requirement in your DD relationship that you do something like putting an instrument out when a spanking has been ordered?  Do you think something like that might help with consistency and ensuring that spankings are carried out soon after the offense?

 

Second, when your wife indicates you are going to get a spanking, is it like Norton’s succinct and firm, “I am going to give you a spanking in 5 minutes” or, rather, something much less definitive like, “You’re in trouble. . . .” Is her announcement clear and concise, or does it leave room for interpretation as to how committed she is to delivering it and doing so on a certain timeline?  What have you found to be particularly effective when it comes to communicating to you that you are in for a spanking?

 

Third, what about the word “spanking” and its equivalents, versus some kind of softer euphemism?  Like Norton, I do kind of gravitate toward the word “spank”, though “paddle” also carries similar weight for me.  And, I’m sure I would respond to some of the classic spanking phrases, like, “I’m going to blister your butt for that.” The important thing to me is that the order that it is going to happen is unequivocal.

 

I hope you all have a great week.  Get that Christmas shopping finished, or Krampus may have to pay YOU a little visit!

 

How Do You Feel About a Spanking NOT Happening? (Club Meeting - 537)

“Nothing quite encourages as does one's first unpunished crime.”- Marquis de Sade

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

 

I hope you all had a good week.  Mine was, once again, sedate.  Downright boring.  It’s probably going to be that kind of winter for me, thanks to this extended recovery.  I definitely am going stir crazy.

 

My boredom was exacerbated by our seemingly unchanging weather.  I don’t recall a winter in which we’d gone so long with virtually no snowfall.  We got a dusting a week ago, but even calling it a dusting overstates the accumulation.  As I’ve said (repeatedly) in my most recent post, I really enjoy the holiday season, but the weather in our usually fairly snowy state was putting a damper on the enthusiasm.  Finally, we got a big dump, and as I write this I'm in my cozy living room at our place in the mountains, looking out at a very snowy day with near blizzard conditions at times.

 

The one upside to my generally reduced level of activity is that I’m not doing much to earn my usual holiday-induced corrections over my wife’s knee.  Though, it’s not like I’ve been a Christmas angel.  She’s noted a few instances of disrespectful comments, including a couple that I would probably agree should result in a good spanking, especially in a season that includes consequences for making it onto a naughty list.

 

Hence I was already thinking about the season and owning up to bad behavior and my current physical condition precludes any real disciplinary spanking session for at least a few more weeks.  Anne had even made a couple of passing references to the Krampus legends, which are all about consequences and punishing bad behavior at Christmas time, so maybe it’s on her mind, too.

 

 

That was the mindset I was in when I saw this comment from Ward on the post from a couple of weeks ago:

 

“How do you deal with knowing you deserve a severe spanking because you upset her and complained about her to her face, but she chooses to delay or worse not punish you for it? I hate it in a way! Not getting spanked when it's deserved is worse than getting spanked when you don’t think it's deserved. Don't get me wrong, I hate how much her paddle stings, but I think I hate the guilt more. Maybe I wanted this lifestyle to absolve me not just correct me? She did say I deserved a spanking so maybe it's just delayed to prolong my suffering. Either way this sucks.”

 

I responded that I know that feeling all too well. There have been many, many times over the years that I was feeling guilty and/or felt a strong need to be held accountable.  Often in those circumstances, Anne would tell me I was going to be spanked.

 

Yet, it was all too often the case that it didn’t happen. 

 

Sometimes, it was mostly on her.  She’d get busy and forget.  Or, sometimes she wouldn’t think to punish things that I saw as clearly deserving it.  My recent displays of attitude are a good example.  This time, the lack of correction might be attributable to my physical condition, but the reality is that, for whatever reason, Anne seldom spanks for general attitude for even for disrespect directed at her.

 

 

Unfortunately, I too play a big role in this dynamic. Even when I know I deserve a good, hard spanking, and even when I fully accept I should get one, once it looks like one is actually in the cards, I will say or do something to delay my well-deserved licking; and, delay all too often becomes successful avoidance.

 

I’m sure many of you have experienced the scenario I just described, though it’s a psychological dynamic that I have a hard time explaining rationally.

 

I genuinely don't like being spanked. There is nothing at all about the experience that I enjoy as it is happening. Yet, like Ward, I often have this need, which he calls absolution and that I tend to call accountability. When I've done something that falls below my own standards of behavior or when something I do has some big negative impact on myself or others, part of me craves being held accountable for it. To the point that I’ve felt disappointment, and even resentment, when she doesn't carry through with punishing something that we've agreed should result in strict discipline.

 

Yet, once she does order it, I almost instantly start hoping she will forget all about it, and I will try all sorts of ways to delay it or get out of it. Then, on those occasions when I think I’ve gotten away with avoiding a bad one, if she unexpectedly announces that it’s time for what I’ve known I have coming, and just a few minutes before was disappointed about not getting, instantly I wish there was something I could do to put it off or avoid it altogether!

 

 

It seems to make no sense. The closest situation I can equate it to in my vanilla live might be equate some kinds of physical exercise. I sort of want to do it, and I know it would be good for me. But, when the time comes to head for the gym, I sometimes have a hard time making myself do it. But, if I skip a session, I inevitably feel angry at myself.

 

But, that situation is way less complicated than the psychology around why we both crave and seek to avoid discipline and why we feel resentment when a delay happens even if we genuinely do want to avoid the spanking.

 

We’ve talked about these delay/avoidance impulses many times before, and we’ve talked a lot about our desire for consistency in our DD relationships.  But, I don’t think we’ve talked much about Ward’s specific issue, i.e. how we feel about and deal with the situation in which we know we deserve a spanking, and think we have one coming, yet for whatever reason it doesn’t happen.

 

How do you feel in that situation?  Disappointed?  Resentful?

 

Or, is it more like relief at having avoided something you knew was going to be very unpleasant?

 

Also, when a spanking has been earned and perhaps even ordered, what are the most like reasons that it doesn’t happen?

 

In the past, there were times when Anne simply forgot all about it.  She was a busy woman and lots of other things on her mind, so I shouldn’t have been surprised. There has been a fair amount of progress on this one over the last year.

 

Other times, there is a clear recognition that a rule has been broken, but it seems like her commitment to addressing it is sort of low.  A good example is my bad habit of leaving doors unlocked or not making sure the garage door is closed before I come inside or take off on an errand.  It’s one of her pet peeves, and she agrees she should spank more often for it, yet when she sends me an angry text saying I did it again, it may or may not be accompanied by a spanking threat, and even when it does there often is no follow-through. This happens even though I know she really does get mad when I forget or am careless about the doors; it just doesn't seem to connect sometimes that she has the power to make it stop happening.

Another issue, and one that is on me, is there are times that I feel a need to be held accountable but it’s not clear that she knows I feel that way, in large part because I haven’t told her.  The best example probably is carelessness.  There are times I do something, or fail to do something, and it ends up costing me a bunch of time and money.  I often feel like I should be spanked for those kind of things, both because I do feel a need to be held accountable and also because I think the threat of being spanked would make me pay more attention and be more careful.

 

Yet, although I will sometimes tell her when I’ve done something careless or dumb, I very rarely take the next step and tell her I should be spanked for it.  Why?  Part of it probably is that I keep hoping a much more strict side of her will emerge and that she will start taking up the paddle in some situations without me having to suggest it. Basically, part of my desire for DD is about wanting to give up control, and that desire isn’t served by me controlling my discipline by initiating it like that. 

 

But, there’s also that maddeningly inconsistent, push-pull desire for discipline coupled with an equal and opposite desire to avoid it.  In the end, I just have a very hard time actually asking for discipline even when I deserve it and (kind of, in that moment) want it, or even reporting something in a way that I know will "lock in" getting a spanking for it.

I don’t know if that is what Ward experiences, but one follow-up question I have for him is how clear he has been with his wife in these situations where he knows he deserves to be spanked but she fails to deliver it.  I wonder whether our wives even know that when an ordered spanking doesn't happen what many of us feel is disappointment, not relief?  If I were in their position, I'd probably see relief as the more likely reaction, so maybe we need to make a special effort to explain to them what is really going on inside our heads.  Maybe they even think we appreciate it when they err on the side of leniency, when it's really the opposite?

I feel like there should be some concrete ways to avoid this whole dynamic where we know we need to be punished but it doesn’t happen.  Maybe part of it is simplifying the rules, so there is no confusion about when a spanking has been earned?

 

But, of course, that isn’t wholly consistent with the “anytime for any reason” approach some of us say we want.

 

 

Maybe frequent check-ins and reporting would help? It undoubtedly would, but in my case, it would require more consistency on my part is self-reporting or affirmatively asking to be spanked for something.

 

Ideally, there would be a way for us to encourage our wives to become more strict, but I’m not sure what to do beyond reiterating that strictness is something I want and need.

 

What are your thoughts about all this?

 

I hope you have a good week.  I’m going to spend some of it trying to conjure up some more holiday spirit. Maybe I’ll watch a few Christmas movies, though some of them hit a bit differently now that I’m a cynical adult.

 

Finally, we seem to have lost a couple of our most reliable regulars lately, including Alan who definitely wins the award for most reliable long-term contributor.  I’m not complaining – I just hope everything is OK with him, and with Al who has also been silent for a while.