Does Good Behavior Cancel Bad, and Does Her Bad Behavior Ever Cancel His? (Club Meeting 556)

“Mutability of temper and inconsistency with ourselves is the greatest weakness of human nature.” - Joseph Addison

Hello all. Welcome back to The Disciplinary Wives Club - Tribute.  Our weekly on-line gathering of women and men who are int, or would like to be in, a Domestic Discipline relationship of the type advocated in the now defunct Disciplinary Wives Club (archived copy in the Links I Like list below right).

 

I hope you all had a great week.  Mine was okay physically, with some progress on the recovery front, but it also was disappointing to have it emphasized how slow it will be. I ended up having to see my surgeon to have something checked out. Everything was OK, but I asked her whether, after my checkup next week, I can expect to move at least toward some weight-bearing.  Got an instantaneous, unequivocal "no".  Sigh . . . 

 

Accepting that this is going to be a very slow, very drawn out process is hard and resembles a bit the process of accepting that a spanking is going to happen, no matter how much you may want it not to, as discussed by a few of us near the end of last week's discussion.  Check it out.

 

A couple of weeks ago, I asked for topic ideas. Greg responded with this:

 

“Should a spanking be cancelled by good behaviour?

Should a spanking be cancelled by bad behaviour by the wife?

 

Both of these were allowed recently by my wife during a weekly maintenance.

 

Though I do believe that the answer should be a definite NO (particularly for maintenance), I did not contradict her because she does have the right to decide on all punishments.

 

We had had a busy week and there was an argument just before our “Report Card” meeting. She admitted that she was at fault and therefore wasn’t going to give the maintenance spanking. She acknowledged that I had been very good all week as well, so a spanking wasn’t needed.

 

In my opinion, a maintenance spanking is designed to be a reminder, even if there have been no offences. This should always happen. And if the wife has done something wrong, that is irrelevant to any behaviour by the husband. We haven’t agreed to punishments for her. The husband needs to be held accountable each and every time.

 

Any thoughts?”

 

Greg’s two scenarios are different aspects of an issue we’ve explored many times in various forms, namely, when does/should fairness trump consistency?

 

There’s probably not a “one size fits all” answer to his first question, i.e. should a spanking be cancelled by good behavior?  The answer probably is going to be different depending on where each couple sets the bar regarding the behavior they are trying to address. Some have a "zero tolerance" approach.  For others, that would be seen as overkill.

 

Also, I think there are two possible interpretations of Greg’s question.  One might be, if there has been some (minor) screw up but the husband’s behavior has otherwise been exemplary, does the especially good behavior offset the bad?

 

For us, I think the answer would mostly be no, but it depends on the circumstances.  Anne has never been one to punish for every little thing.  So, if my attitude and behavior have been especially good, she’s probably going to let a minor incident slide.

 

On the other hand, there are some items that I may see a minor, and even she might see as minor in isolation, but in aggregate she’s become pissed about them and intends to nip them in the bud.  In those cases, even if it’s something that hasn’t happened in a while, and even if my behavior has been exemplary otherwise, that good behavior is unlikely to negate the behavior she’s determined to wipe out.

 

The other angle on Greg’s first scenario would be the maintenance spanking that his comment referenced.  Should good behavior cancel a scheduled maintenance spanking?

 

Since we don’t do maintenance, I don’t have much of an opinion on this one, but my uninformed view is maintenance is something that would seem to be more at her discretion, because it doesn’t send mixed signals in the way that inconsistency in real punishment spankings do.  When something clearly meriting punishment has happened and it isn’t delivered, that tends to undermine the dynamic.  But, maintenance is more about role affirmation and maintaining the spanking habit.  If that habit is well-established, it seems to me to be reasonably within her discretion to skip one session.  But, others who actually use maintenance spankings should chime in here.

 

Greg’s second question is, “Should a spanking be cancelled by bad behaviour of the wife?”  I’m not totally sure what Greg is getting at with this one.  Two scenarios come to mind. 

 

First, his comment referred to a fight that his wife determined was her fault. For me, if that was how the scenario actually played out—we got in a fight and it was Anne’s fault—yes, for me that would certainly mean I don’t get spanked for the fight, unless I did something like go way over the bounds of civilized argument. 

 

However, it's also the case that Anne has been getting better at cutting things off before something turns into a real fight.  Over the last year, she's become much quicker at not only noticing snippiness or snarkiness but making sure I know it will get me spanked if I don't stop.  Although I don't like it at the time, it does put give me a certain amount of choice in determining whether to (a) continue with a bad attitude that might lead to an argument, or (b) get spanked.

 

Second, there is the perhaps more common issue of a husband getting spanked for something the wife sometimes (or often) does herself.  Or, maybe the wife has behaved badly in way that’s unrelated to the husband’s bad conduct.  Does her bad behavior cancel out his?

 

 

For me, this one is a clear no.  Her behavior is more or less irrelevant to whether I should get a spanking. There are two related aspects to this.

 

First, our DD relationship came at my request.  After I discovered The Disciplinary Wives Club, I determined that it was a relationship style that might do me good.  I felt the need for more structure. I wanted someone to set rules and enforce them. And, I felt an overwhelming need to be held accountable for bad behaviors and attitudes, and I wanted the means for imposing that accountability to be the kind of disciplinary spankings I read about on the DWC website.

 

Anne, in contrast, doesn’t have any desire for physical discipline.  She’s emotionally self-regulating and has a solid temperament. She doesn’t want or need imposed discipline.

 

Second, and relatedly, our DD relationship involves a consciously chosen inequality in the power structure. When it comes to the “why, where, when and how” questions of how the disciplinary relationship works, she’s in charge.  Period.  While we’re equals in many aspects of our relationship, when it comes to discipline there is a clear hierarchy, and it’s again based on the DWC model, which advocated for “maternal” style discipline.  In short, I’ve asked Anne to take on a more parental-style role, and parents do the punishing; they don’t get punished themselves.

 

 

There was a comment last year that summed this up as well or better than I ever could. It’s one I know Norton liked, as he’s brought it up several times. It was by a commenter calling herself Ms. Terrapin.  She said that she had initially had some hesitation about disciplining her husband for smaller things and also about disciplining him for things she too was guilty of. She had epiphanies, however, on both fronts. Here’s what she said (edited for length) in response to me talking about Anne spanking me for failing to close the garage door, even though she’s had some problems with it herself:

 

“I’ve found that keeping my focus on the root cause—disobedience or disrespect—has been a lifesaver for banishing second-guessing. It’s like a mental anchor that keeps me steady when I start to wobble on whether a spanking is “fair.”

 

Your mention of Anne experiencing the same garage door quirk reminded me of a similar concept - and that is hesitating because I felt like I was being a hypocrite. Early on, if I’d messed up something similar—like leaving the garage door open or forgetting a chore—how could I discipline my husband for it? But focusing on the root cause solved that dilemma for me. It’s not about whether I’ve ever committed the same offense, because the primary reason he is being spanked is for disobeying me.

 

This ties into something else he’s asked for (even if he’s not always thrilled about it when the paddle comes out!): a dynamic that mirrors realistic maternal discipline. And here’s the fun part—another epiphany I had is that real-life maternal discipline isn’t about fairness. A mom can spank her son for staying out past curfew without batting an eye, even if she stayed out late herself the week before. It’s not a relationship of equals, and that’s the point!

 

I've had several occasions over the past few years where my husband has tried to get out of punishment by arguing that it wasn't fair that he was getting spanked for something that perhaps I had also done myself in the past. I always enjoy the look on his face when I cheerfully reminded him, “You asked for maternal discipline, and you will receive maternal discipline. Life’s not fair, darling, and I’m the one in charge!” It is a moment that sets the tone: naughty boys are not peers with their maternal disciplinarians.

 

The sentence I bolded is the heart of how I answer the question of why it’s fair for Anne to spank me for something she isn’t perfect about herself:  By choice and at my request, ours is not a relationship of equals when it comes to setting the rules or determining the consequences for breaking one.

 

How about you? How would you answer Greg’s questions about what should, and should not, cancel or offset a spanking, whether disciplinary or maintenance?