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.