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.

The Holiday Season and Disciplinary Spankings (The Club - Meeting 536)

“What I don't like about office Christmas parties is looking for a job the next day.” - Phyllis Diller

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 and, for those of you in the U.S., a happy Thanksgiving.  Ours was pretty chill, but not necessarily in a good way.  I’m still laid up and under significant activity constraints. I’m not banned from travel or longer car trips, but it’s not very practical right now either.  One of my siblings had a major surgery the same week I had my less major one. Although I got to see both kids, they work both work in professions in which they have rotating holiday coverage responsibilities.  All that meant no extended family gatherings and only a scaled-down immediate family get-together.

 

Anne and I did get the house mostly decorated for the Christmas season, and I managed to contribute at least a little, while listening to Christmas music. 

 

I started feeling at least a few glimmerings of holiday spirit, even though this one is, in many ways, more challenging than most. 

 

As much as I love this season (and, I really do have a thing for Christmas in general), it does tend to be challenging, doesn’t it?  At least that seems to be the conventional wisdom.  And, despite my love for the season, in the past it is fair to say that it seem to involve concentrated periods of bad behavior, resulting in more spankings than is our norm.

 

For me, it’s definitely not about generalized holiday stress.  As I said, I really like Christmas, including believe it or not, gift shopping, which I know contributes to some people’s stress.

 

 

Back when I was working, holiday parties were a big contributor to my bad behavior.  My firm usually had a big, somewhat swanky, very boozy holiday party. Anne’s workgroup usually had some kind of potluck.  And, work and social friends hosted their own gatherings.

 

It seems like that source of both holiday merriment and holiday stress has really tapered down since with both retired.  To the point that, despite my introverted proclivities and the fact that we’ve never been big party hosters, I’ve been thinking maybe we need to start our own holiday party tradition. Although holiday party season definitely was contributor to both bad behavior and stress, I feel like it’s tapered a little too much.

 

 

Others get in trouble for family arguments, particularly about politics, which seems to be part and parcel of holiday gatherings.  Based on the comments last week, a few of you are already off to a bad start on that score.

 

I’m sure DD couples have different ways of dealing with holiday stress and gatherings and the tendency for some of us to behave worse or let our bad attitudes get the better of us during this season.

 

Although there wasn’t a huge difference, I think Anne did sometimes cut me some slack over the holidays, recognizing that it wasn’t entirely my fault that I’d give into temptation when there was just so much of it around the holidays.  It was also the case that some of the parties where I was most prone to over-indulging were given by her boozy friends.

 

Yet, probably because there were so many opportunities for misbehavior, the number of spankings I received would spike over the holidays and usually go down as I started working on those resolutions in January.  And, Anne’s tolerance definitely knew some limits, and I myself generally recognized that the fact that there were so many temptations probably suggested there should be more strict guardrails, not less.

 

 

There also were a handful of times we experimented with “preventative” spankings during this period.  In the early days of this blog, I wasn’t wild about the whole concept of preventative spankings. I felt like a spanking couldn’t really be about accountability or punishment if it preceded any bad behavior.

 

However, I’ve come around on that point.  I now recognize that preventative spankings do modify our behavior, and that’s really the entire goal of Domestic Discipline.  Also, it’s not like preventative spankings are gratuitous or random.  Rather, they are generally used in situations that have proven, time and time again, to present an elevated risk of bad behavior.

 

 

How do the holidays affect your Domestic Discipline relationship?  Do you misbehave more often?  If so, give us some specifics.  In what specific ways does your behavior deteriorate?  Over-indulging in alcohol?  If so, is it a problem in and of itself, or is it that it encourages you to say or do things you shouldn’t?

 

Or, is it more about general attitude problems than about bad behavior?

 

 

Where is the misbehavior most likely to happen?  Office parties?  Parties with friends?  Family gatherings?  Shopping excursions?  During holiday travel?

 

How are the behavior or attitude problems dealt with?  Are you cut some slack, given that the sheer number of parties and stressors might lead anyone to misbehave more than usual? Or, are the holidays treated with increased strictness and severity? 

 

How would you like them to be dealt with? Do you think your wife should cut you some slack in the name of holiday cheer? Or, do you think she should tighten the reins so you’re less likely to misbehave or let a bad attitude spiral?  From some of the comments last week, it seems like attitude problems do proliferate around the holidays.  What is your wife's approach to generally bad attitude issues during the holidays?  Does she take a tough line, or does attitude in the absence of other bad behavior tend to go unpunished?

Don’t feel confined to this specific set of questions.  Talk to us in general about how the holiday season influences your DD regimen or how you think holiday misbehavior should be dealt with or prevented.  Also, please share any especially memorable holiday fails and the associated discipline you received, or should have received.

 

Have a great week.