The Club - Meeting 503 - Goals and Resolutions for 2025

“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.

 

Once again, before we get started, I would like to thank the female commenters who have recently joined us and to extend an invitation to all others who may be inclined to move from “lurker” to “commenter” status. We like having you around.

 

Welcome to the first post of 2025. 2024 ended on an awful note for our family, and it carried over into this first part of 2025.  But, while it was never going to be a good end, there was an end and, in these circumstances, it was right and good to have it over.

 

 

As those of you who have been around for a while know, I always start the new year with thoughts on the year that was and goals for new one to come. 

 

I began 2024 lamenting my utter lack of progress in 2023, which led me to simply carry over goals from one year to the next. The specific goals I laid out were:

 

• Solidify the progress I made last year on reducing the number of excessive drinking incidents.
• Renew and energize some friendships that I let drift away over the last few years when I was too focused on career.
• Volunteer on some effort that has a real and substantial impact on the lives of vulnerable or powerless people.
• Take at least three long road trips with Anne and the dogs.
• Complete drafts of two books I’ve wanted to write for some time but never seem to get around to.
• Multiple multi-state motorcycle trips.
• Take up some sport or demanding fitness activity that doesn’t take place in a gym.
• Reverse the recent losses in our investment portfolio.

 

I lamented the fact that of those eight items, I fully completed only one.

 

I did better this year.  I made more progress in reducing alcohol consumption this year than in any previous one.  I did backslide a lot over the last few weeks, but even Anne gets it was a justifiable form of self-medication.  I didn’t do that well on renewing old friendships, but I did make a couple of good new ones.  We did a few good road trips, and I had some good motorcycle adventures. I not only reversed our investment losses but, by years’ end, I’d come to enjoy investing and trading, and studying investing and trading, so much that I feel I’ve discovered my second career.

 

I was more than a little weak on volunteering, though I did make at least a tiny bit of forward progress.  I didn’t complete the books, but I did make a lot of progress before everything went to hell at the end of the year.  In other areas where I fell short, it tended to be because our year got derailed with injuries, surgeries, and finally a family member’s medical crisis.

 

Maybe that’s why, even though the last third of the year sucked in all sorts of ways and ended horrifically, it’s hard to see 2024 as a “bad” year.

 

I do know that I want progress in our DD and FLR relationship to be a defining part of 2025.  Although my system for using weekly check-ins on some long-outstanding life goals didn’t last long, in part that was because the last third of the years did such an abrupt turn on us. And, I do feel like our few sessions did, in fact, help force me out of the rut I got into in 2023.  

 

I also recognize—and told Anne this a couple of weeks ago—that while I needed some leeway to get through the upcoming bad weeks, I recognized that guardrails were going to be more important than ever.  I still believe that and hope she will take a very strict approach with me beginning immediately.  As I noted last year, I’ve come to believe that when I’m allowed to backslide in one area, it often spills over into  generalized sloppiness and a lowering of standards.  For the last few weeks, I had a good reason for backsliding and had no choice but to focus on the crisis in front of me. But, now it’s time to make sure that doesn’t morph into a destructive pattern or habit.

 

 

Part of getting me back in-line and getting me moving forward again will be a return to weekly check-ins. We both want them.  The fact that we started them last year also informs a goal of being more open about what I would like to explore in DD and other areas.  In years past, whenever I considered asking Anne to take on more of a “coaching” role, I thought it would be too burdensome. Yet, when I finally just came out and asked whether she’d want to do it, she jumped on it, and she clearly enjoyed it.

 

As for other DD-related goals, most of the things I’d like us to explore were laid out in this post from July, in which we discussed our visions for what an “ideal” DD and FLR would look like.  Mine included:

 

Strong maternal element. Over the last couple of years, I’ve come to realize how core the “maternal” element of domestic discipline is to my motivations. I’ve always identified “accountability” as the heart of my DD urge, but I’ve come to believe that although accountability is fundamental for me, it’s not so much the independent reason I’m attracted to DD but, rather, one aspect of being subject to a higher authority that has a very maternal vibe.  It also includes her having the undisputed primary role in making and enforcing household rules, with something close to “my house, my rules” attitude on her part. 

 

When it came time for discipline, there would be a more explicit adoption of a full-on maternal dynamic, with both the words and the tone emphasizing her maternal role, with me being treated like a teenager who has earned a real blistering and is going to get one.

 

 

Increased strictness and decreased overt “consent.”  In 2023 and 2024, when Anne would become more strict and controlling, there would be a period of resentment and rebellion, but it was always replaced with a feeling akin to, paradoxically, liberation.  I simply felt better when she was setting and enforcing expectations. Ideally, in 2025 there will be more of a “This is how it’s going to be, and it’s going to happen whether you like it or not” aspect to it all.

 

Consistency and frequency. 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 “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 in an ideally strict environment.  

 

Openness and others knowing.  Throughout 2024, I became increasingly aware that part of me wants her authority to be on more open display. In the past, I had strong negative reactions to being embarrassed, yet paradoxically I now often feel a need to have others know or suspect the nature of our relationship.  Moreover, I find her rare open displays of authority sexy as hell. At least in retrospect. Anne has talked about how her retirement removed some of the psychological constraints she felt around being openly dominant and the possibility of others knowing about the nature of our relationship.  I hope that’s something she explores more vigorously in 2025.  Although I’m not quite as obsessed with witnesses as ZM and a few others here, I do think that in the (unlikely) event an opportunity arose, I would be into being spanked in front of a witness or with another couple.  I don’t think Anne is there and perhaps never will be, but one never knows . . .

 

More humbling.  Although progress was sporadic and uneven, we did make progress in 2024 on Anne setting rules and spanking for things she viewed as a problem, regardless of whether I agreed. Getting scolded and/or spanked when I didn't really agree with the premise was a major ego blow, but that is precisely why those incidents felt like the biggest stimuli for personal growth, for both of us. Again, the only thing lacking was consistency.  Her taking more control and exercising more authority humbled me and, while it was very difficult in the moment it was happening, I believe that in the long run it was very beneficial.  I hope she takes an even tougher approach in 2025 and purposefully tries to humble me and sand off the rough edges of my male ego.

 

How about you? How did 2024 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 2025?  Do you intend to share those with your wife?

 

For the ladies, do you have anything in particular you want your husband to improve on in 2025? Any specific goals you expect him to hit?  What are your thoughts on providing him some DD or FLR-oriented motivation to do that? Have you set any goals for yourself related to disciplining your husband or taking more control?

 

Have a great week, and let’s get 2025 off to a good start.