The Club - Meeting 345 - DD and Parenting

“Children are educated by what the grown-up is and not by his talk.” - Carl Jung

Hello all.  Welcome back to the Disciplinary Couples Club.  Our weekly gathering of men and women who are in, or would like to be in, Domestic Discipline relationships. 

I hope you all had a good week.  The same can’t really be said for the country, unfortunately, with the Coronavirus surging again in 31 states.  So much for it dying on its own accord over the summer.

I want to thank everyone for keeping the conversation going so well last week after I lazily adopted Belle’s comment suggestion and added very little to it in the process.  In the process, some good stuff came out.  A comment by Alan, led to some discussion our audience.  He observed:

“I should acknowledge I did benefit greatly from my former girlfriend’s discipline. (I have recently discovered that she probably reads this blog, so I need to be transparent here.)  My sense is that quite a few women either in F/M relationships or interested in them are tracking your blog. I hope even more comment. I have learned a lot from those who have shared their views and experiences.”

I share ZM’s skepticism of whether it is really the case that quite a few women in F/m relationships for interested them are monitoring the blog, though I hope Alan is right.  It’s always a little disappointing to me that after seven years of blogging on this topic, the total number of simultaneous female commenters seems to stay about the same.  Seems like it’s always kind of gain-one-lose-one.  It would be nice to build up a roster of longer-term female commenters.  Assuming there are some substantial number who encounter the blog in one way or another, Liz laid out a partial prescription for keeping them around:

“My husband found this blog and showed it to me. I decided to comment because there is an intelligent exchange of ideas and as I understand it there are few blogs on this topic that are not about titillation. And because Dan specifically asked the wives to participate.”

I think (hope) I’ve been doing a better job of inviting wives to participate than I did for the first two years of the blog.  I never had any intention to exclude them and, in fact, always hoped they would participate.  I always just kind of assumed that if I phrased topic questions with a husband-centric way, a wife who wanted to respond would just flip things around and comment from the female perspective.  I think that assumption was a mistake, and I’ve tried to be more inclusive in the way I phrase topics.

As for Liz’s kind description of the blog as a place for an intelligent exchange of ideas that don’t center on titillation, that one is harder to pull off and also not always in line with my own inclinations.  I do try to keep the blog focused on exchanges of ideas, views and experiences about Domestic Discipline, but I’m not a prude.  I obviously find a lot of the content I post and others’ stories titillating. And, I’m not a prude by any means.  When Danielle or Carol or other wives allude to kinky activities that are distinct from, but wrapped up in, their DD activities, it definitely perks up my interest.  Recently, I found myself tempted to ask them to expand on those allusions. But, inevitably some guy who reads the blog and is into Femdom would use that as an excuse to post a bunch of nonSexuiturs, and I’d have a very hard time explaining why it’s OK in one instance but not in another.  I hate Potter Stuart-like “I know it when I see it” exercises in line drawing; but sometimes that’s what I’m left with.  Anyway . . . thanks to all of you for the kind thoughts on the blog and its direction.

This week’s topic is one I was thinking of last weekend before I ran out of time to do much with it that week.  It was Father’s Day weekend, and my thoughts were inevitably drawn to my relationship with my kids.  We’ve talked a lot on this blog about the maternal aspects of discipline.

But I think I’ve only once did a full post (Meeting 276 in December of 2018) about the role our interactions with our fathers might have on our openness to Domestic Discipline as an adult.   https://disciplinedhubbies.blogspot.com/2018/12/dcc-meeting-276-fathers-sons.html. At that time I was thinking mainly of whether being disciplined by a father might have influenced our commenters openness to DD as adults.

Liz gave us a different angle on this last week.  Growing up, she was aware that her mom disciplined her dad.  In her case, it didn’t seem to have much influence on her own marriage until her husband actually asked for it.  As she said:

“I also was surprised that I didn't think of using DD myself before my husband suggested it. Since it was in use by my parents, you would think that I would have thought of it. But I had a blind spot, trying to be the best modern-day version of the 50s wife I could be. But some of them spanked their husbands, too, my mom being one example.”

This wasn’t the first time she mentioned her early exposure to the idea of F/m adult spanking and discipline. A few weeks ago, she discussed it in the context of how easily she took to spanking once Art requested it:

“I do think I slipped into my disciplinarian role quite easily, but I assumed that was because spanking was so prevalent in my family that it was not considered a big deal. So it is interesting to hear that other women without my background also have been able to adopt the role easily. Maybe it is not that hard to act parental towards men who act childish!”

 Compare that to “Holly,” a commenter from a few years ago who, like Liz, was aware her dad was spanked.  And, her mother appears to be have been even more open about it:

"There wasn’t any time I wasn’t aware of domestic discipline. Mom spanked our dad, never in front of us, but when she took him into the bedroom there was no doubt what was going on and anyone in the house could hear it. I didn’t think much of it except that mom was definitely in charge, which everyone knew anyway."

But, in her case it originally led to an aversion to being a spanking wife. She got over that, however, and as in Liz’s case it was her mother’s insistence that the husband deserved a thrashing that served as the impetus for eventually taking up the paddle

“The amusing thing is that growing up I thought my mother was a bitch for spanking too often and too severely. Now I find although I probably do not spank as often as she did, I certainly spank harder. . . .  Calling me a bitch was what led to my husband’s first appointment with the strap. He had done it before, but my mom heard it for the first time and told me I was a fool for allowing it. There were other things going on at the time, including his general brattiness and temper tantrums when he was frustrated. It was a big change for me, because I had been determined to manage my own marriage differently than my mom had done. But over a period of time, about three years, I saw the same behavior in my husband that had gotten dad in trouble with mom.

Let’s talk a little bit about how DD influences multiple generations and the chains of cause and effect involved.  What was your parent’s attitude toward spanking and discipline and how did it affect, if at all, your own openness to DD as an adult whether you are now spanker or spankee?  Further, how has being a Disciplined Husband or Disciplinary Wife affected you as a parent?  

If you are a husband who is spanked by your wife, does that affect your relationship with your kids in any way?  Does it make you a better father? More attentive and less immature, perhaps?  Does being subject to spanking and being lectured or chastised affect how you interact with your kids?

For the moms, how did your own exposure or lack thereof to spanking as a kid affect your own openness to adult corporal punishment?  Today, has taking a disciplinary role over your husband changed your approach to being a parent in any way?   

Have a good weekend.

The Club - Meeting 344 - Most and Least

All, sorry for the delay, but as reported on Sunday, Father's Day weekend found me busier than I expected.  Then Monday found me distracted by other things, and it's kind of the same thing today. I was planning to just say "no post this week," but then Belle suggested a topic, below.

"I have noticed that I actually enjoy lording it over my husband with the bath brush. So I thought that might be a topic for both the guys and the women: what do you like most about your DD relationship? And what do you like least? What has surprised you the most? If only one of the couple participates here, you could suggest that person ask their partner so we get as many responses as possible."

Since I have nothing else for the week, let's go with that one.

 

The Club - Meeting 343 - Leading by Example

“Instruction is good for a child; but example is worth more.” ― Alexandre Dumas, Twenty Years After

Hello all.  Welcome back to the Disciplinary Couples Club.  Our weekly gathering of men and women who are in, or would like to be in, Domestic Discipline relationships. 

I hope you all had a good week.  Life continues to normalize a bit where we live, though I’m coming to doubt that there just won’t be any part of 2020 that qualifies as normal.  And, maybe that’s a good thing.  A lot of (justified) anger out there and, hopefully, an equal amount of reflection and self-examination.  If you’re a person prone to reflection and self-examination, that is.

And, while things have started to open up here, it’s a little one-sided and may reinforce some bad trends.  Restaurants have been opening up for the last couple of weeks to one degree or another. Friends who were under quarantine are now getting together socially.  So, we’re all back to eating and drinking as much or more than we were under quarantine. Gyms, on the other hand, are still largely closed or are just beginning to open with limited access.  So, plenty of bad food, plenty of bad drink, but limited options for working it all off.  

While last week was a little subdued with respect to the number of comments, there was some good stuff.  Among the quotes I gravitated to:

"More, or perhaps the better word is 'different', responsibility falls on me because I'm in charge and I'm also a caring person." - Carol

"Yes. It's good to be boss." - Carol

“He thought I should no longer say please and thank you to him because that didn’t sound dominant to him. He said I should be more “imperious”, i.e. bitchy. I wasn’t comfortable dropping the social niceties, even though I expected him to treat my polite requests as orders. He was so insistent about it that one day I blew up and tore a strip off him for presuming to tell me how I had to speak. In the long run, as I became comfortable with my dominant status, I started to develop a bitchy tone, dropping the please and thank you’s. But I needed to follow my own path at my own pace.” - Danielle

“Incidentally, the problem wasn’t a reluctance to spank on my part. On the contrary, I had started to enjoy spankings. I liked having the power to humble Wayne that way. I liked the one-sided “discussions” when he was bent over with his bottom bared. I liked deciding whether to use the paddle, the hairbrush, or the strap, and how long and hard to apply them depending on my mood and the reason for punishment. I liked the sound of the implements striking bare skin. I liked how responsive he was, physically and vocally. I think Brett is right about spanking being “a form of communication.” As such, it is a form of self expression for the spanker.” - Danielle

“I definitely felt more responsibility for his happiness at each stage than the stage before. I also feel more responsible for his behavior. The burden of that responsibility went down when we acknowledged that we have a wife led marriage. Before, if he misbehaved, I would feel obligated to do something about it but wouldn't know quite what to do and I felt like I needed to convince him to accept whatever I did. Now, I know I can use my paddle anytime he acts up. It is still a burden, but much less so. Sometimes I feel obligated to paddle his behind when I would rather be doing something else. (I'm kinda embarrassed to admit that I sometimes get into a mood where I really enjoy it.)” – Anonymous

Lots of good stuff in there.  Some of the discussion regarding how the sense of responsibility felt by some of the disciplinary plays out, if at all, in how they themselves behave and whether it ensures that the rules and expectations are fair and reasonable. 

Basically, it got me thinking about whether making the rules and enforcing them have a positive influence on the leader’s own choices and behavior.  If your husband sometimes over-indulges in food or alcohol, does holding him responsible for those choices make you more likely to behave yourself?  If you discipline him for being a slob and not getting chores done, does that make you more likely to clean up your own messes?  If you hate his backseat driving, do you check your own tendency to tell others how to drive when you’re a passenger.

Or, in terms of impact of spanking on behavior, is it a purely one-way street?

Tell us about whether practicing DD makes you more or less likely to lead by example.  Has disciplining him made you more disciplined, whether at home or in other aspects of your life? Does your own behavior enter into your rule making or disciplinary practices?

I’ll end this post with a drawing Red posted a few weeks ago. It has nothing at all to do with this week’s post.  I just loved it, and it took me a good five minutes of staring before I could see “happy people.”

I hope you all have a good week. 

The Club - Meeting 342 - Freedom & Control

"A submissive gives up control for freedom.  A Dominant gives up freedom for control.” - Unknown

Hello all.  Welcome back to the Disciplinary Couples Club.  Our weekly gathering of men and women who are in, or would like to be in, Domestic Discipline relationships. 

For years I’ve began every blog post with a line saying, “I hope you had a good week.”  Now, week after week it seems like a stretch wish.  We seem to go from one crisis to another to another.  I’m not sure I’ve ever gone through a period in which I’ve felt less in control, at least in terms of being able to influence the events in my life through thought or effort.

  

Yet, in other ways I’m taking control like I seldom have before.  I’ve talked before about making a major career transition.  Probably not “retirement” per se; I’m still kind of young for that.  But, a very significant change of pace and direction.  Like many people at this stage of life, I’m looking for ways to spend my time that are more about personal meaning and service, and less about economic necessity.  I’ve always hoped a time would come when what I do is more about doing things I like and giving back than about needing to earn a paycheck, though I’ve found that where retirement saving is concerned the bar seems to keep moving up.  You can always have a little more, right?

   

Well, I finally decided that it is all relative and the bar will keep moving up if I don’t consciously draw a line in the sand, to mix a whole bunch of metaphors.  So, I started taking action a couple of weeks ago to start the process of winding down.  It likely will be more of a process than an event, but it feels good to get things rolling.  It feels good to take control and move events forward, instead of just drifting along the established path. I've also hit a point where I'm worried about regrets I'll have later if I stay in the same rut even if it is a pretty lucrative rut.

That feeling of control and the need to assert it is definitely part of what is driving my need for a change.  I work in a pretty large organization, which implicitly means not having direct control over many things.  Even when decision making is decentralized and fairly democratic, the decisions are being made by a group and not by me.  There are times I’m 100% sure that I’m right about organizational or management issue, yet the decision goes the other way.  And, I’m kind of tired of that.  I want something smaller and simpler, but bound up in that is a burning desire to have a life that is less subject to decisions I didn’t make.

Now, you see where this is going, don’t you?  A big part of the attraction of Domestic Discipline for some Type-A personalities like mine is giving up some level of control and, rather, having rules and consequences imposed.  That desire to give up control is reflected in my metaphysical pursuits like meditation, mindfulness and Zen. 

At the top of this post is a quote that I came across a few years ago.  In two short sentences, it seemed to sum up for me the trade-offs involved in Domestic Discipline and, to an even greater extent, FLR.  There may (or may not) be some negotiation of the rules, but once they are set the disciplined husband loses some freedom.  His actions are now subject to some painful consequences that are purposefully designed to change, and thereby limit, the choices he makes.  For the Disciplinary Wife, there is a corresponding tradeoff.  To the extent she takes her role seriously, it involves taking on responsibility for disciplining someone when they fail to show self-discipline.  It means being consistent and diligent and exercising good judgment.

There is an inherent paradox in the quote above, and it’s the same paradox I come across in metaphysical pursuits like Zen.  Trying to control everything is exhausting and often pointless, and a sense of freedom emerges when you stop controlling things and let life go where it will.  So, while it may seem paradoxical that giving up control ultimately gives one a greater sense of freedom, I believe it is true and potentially a life changing perspective.  As I transition to a new phase of life, I’m seeing more and more of those paradoxes, and sometimes it feels like the various themes are not only paradoxical in themselves but even contradict each other.  I want to leave myself open to more of what life might have to offer, so I’m consciously not laying out a plan for what this next phase will look like.  Yet, moving out of my current career is very much about wanting to assert more control over my day-to-day activities.  Whatever I do, it almost certainly will involve a big drop in income, so frugality becomes a concern in a way it hasn’t been in the past.  Yet, as I said in an exchange with KD last week, there seems to be a certain sense of freedom in denying myself some material things.  

With all that said, I still have a hard time articulating how it is that there is a sense of freedom in handing over control to someone else.  And, it is also true that there are some areas in which yielding control does not result in an increased sense of freedom. When Anne gave a spanking in anger a couple of weeks ago, being reined in and told how she expects me to treat her felt very powerful and right.  Yet, there have been a couple of instances lately where she tried to exercise control over personal behavior issues that did not really affect her and I found myself not particularly caring what she thought.  Things like whether I had two beers or three as I was reading and watching television and she was doing something else. Maybe it’s about the extent to which a rule or direction seems to be arbitrary or pointless?  I think that may be one dividing line between men who are into DD and men who are truly submissive.  I get turned on by having her exercise power over me when it serves some purpose or involves being held accountable for some real failing.  Yet, I think I would start chafing pretty quickly if her exercises of power seemed arbitrary or capricious while some men would get very turned on being subject to such arbitrary control.  And, I’m not wholly consistent in how I react to being subject to rules I don’t actively consent to; sometimes being subject to discipline that seems “unfair” is a turn-on and sometimes it’s not. 

How does this work in your DD relationship?  Do you, in fact, feel a certain freedom in giving up some level of control?  How far does that extend?  Are there some areas where giving in to her rule setting works and some where it doesn’t?   

Conversely, for the wives who assume control, does that give you a sense of freedom or does it impose a sense of responsibility or burden?  Or, is it both at the same time?  Is it freeing to make decisions without checking with him and even more so to impose your own rules or decisions on him? Assuming that, as the quote indicates, such freedom comes along with a certain exchange between freedom and control--because you are now taking on additional responsibility and leadership--is that trade-off something you feel comfortable with?

I hope you all have a great week, or as great as possible under the circumstances.

The Club - Topic 341 - Buffet Night

"It is not only what we do, but also what we do not do, for which we are accountable." - Moliere

I wasn’t wild about 2019, but 2020 is turning out to be a real motherfucker, isn’t it?  While I’m sure there have been times in the past that I haven’t felt like posting because of  turmoil going on out there in the “real world,” it has never happened this many times back to back. 

I do want to get back to posting regularly, though today I really struggled again to find a particular topic I wanted to discuss.  I can’t say I came up with anything we haven’t talked about before. Since in this post-Covid world we may not be enjoying buffet-style dining for a long while, so let's indulge in some buffet-style sharing here at the Club.  I’ll set the table by exploring some of the user comments from last week and people can pick and choose what they'd like to take up and discuss.

To kick things off, I related last week that Anne did something she’s never really done before over all the years we have been doing this DD thing – really cut loose with her anger while lecturing and spanking.  Liz observed: "It sounds like you finally got what you have always wanted in a DD relationship: nonconsensual punishment. It would be interesting to hear how you feel a few days later." My reply to her and a similar comment to Glen was that I am still processing it. While it goes too far to say it was non-consensual, it did feel like in that moment, in her mind, my consent was pretty much irrelevant.  In terms of what whether there has been a lasting impact, I think the answer is sort of.  We've both been busy and there have been family around a lot, so there hasn't been any substantial spillover or extension of that encounter. I do think I have been more careful about what I say to her and how I say it, though I felt some of that care starting to dissipate a little as the week went on.  As we’ve discussed, it’s hard to break old habits.

A separate question would be whether asserting herself like that led to any lasting change in how she feels or how she approaches this.  I guess only time will tell.  On the night of the event, she seemed poised to take more control than she has in the past, including flexing her muscles in areas that don’t have a direct impact on her.  One of the things she said she wants me to change is posting about politics.  While she and I are pretty aligned politically, she thinks it detracts from the blog, so she more or less ordered me to stop posting about political topics. Now, it is really hard for me to watch a week like this go by and not say something about it, but I guess you could say that last week’s dynamic has stayed in mind enough that I have more or less obeyed her order on this even though it is not an easy thing to do.  Does she enjoy being able to exercise that kind of power?  I haven’t asked her since the night she spanked me, but I suspect she does and that if she continues exercising power she will enjoy it more and more.  As Alan said, “That power and authority naturally grows as it is exercised. It is very reciprocal. The more you command ( or exercise it), the more he obeys (or responds to your authority). Ours has grown over time to a handful of items (first suggested by Aunt Kay) to today's "anytime, anywhere for any reason I decide" That seems to be the natural path of DD.”  And, while Liz says she does not desire to have power over her husband, even she admits that the shift in the power structure, no matter how subtle, is hard not to enjoy.

Talk about enjoying the power that goes along with being the on the “giving” end of the paddle or strap always seems to make a few commenters nervous.  But, Danielle suggested what I think is, for many wives, a naturally limiting principle.  She observed:

“I think my disciplinary methods wouldn’t satisfy the needs of some of the men who post here. When I punish my husband, I draw on maternal instincts I honed from raising two boys. That’s why I don’t limit my disciplinary toolbox to just spanking. And when I do spank, I don’t go overboard. I know some of the guys here feel that a spanking isn’t real unless it’s brutally long and hard.”

First, at the risk of arguing with a disciplinary wife, I don’t know whether she’s right that many of us feel a spanking has to be long or especially severe to be “real” or to be effective, even if we may have received some real bottom blistering spankings. It’s all relative and, as Danielle has said, the punishment needs to fit the crime. For example, if my wife wanted me to do a better job of taking out the garbage, I think 10 quick swats with a paddle in the kitchen could reinforce that message quite effectively. But, in that situation the behavior to be changed and the offense committed is pretty minor. For more substantial offenses, I think some of us need more substantial punishments in order to really feel a sense of accountability. Finally, for those for whom a goal is really breaking down the ego and getting to a cathartic sense fo surrender, it does seem like some need a really long spanking in order to get over the internal resistance they feel to giving in like that. In 15 or so years of DD, I've never gotten there even with pretty hard spankings.

Second, and the issue I’d like to explore a little more is Danielle’s statement that she doesn’t limit her disciplinary toolbox to just spanking.  We’ve done this topic before, but it’s been a year or so, and it’s one I’m always interested in.  To some extent, my interest in this topic extends from some of my own reservations about the limits of the effectiveness of spankings alone.  This blog obviously focuses a lot on corporal punishment, but it is hardly the only form of punishment available to wives who want to see real, positive behavioral change.  Further, it’s hard for me to identify that many spankings that have really changed my behavior fundamentally over long periods of time.  I talked above how last week’s spanking affects me a week later, but the lasting impact wasn’t really from the spanking itself; while it was bad, I’ve endured worse with less emotional and behavioral impact.  What made the difference was her tone and attitude.  So, I feel like spanking is often more effective when coupled with other factors, such as tone or attitude but also perhaps other kinds of punishment or behavioral control.  As discussed, her banning me from discussing politics on the blog wasn’t a punishment, but it was a limit on my freedom of action, and I find it more humbling than a spanking precisely because it requires me to pay attention on a sustained basis to this new limit on my freedom of action.

So, while we have addressed it before, I hope some of you will share some specific examples of non-disciplinary punishments you’ve imposed.  Grounding?  Loss of privileges?  Additional household chores?  Please share your thoughts and experiences. How about financial controls?  Have you ever restricted your husband’s spending or imposed budgetary constraints as a punishment or a means of humbling him?  Again, Danielle had some interesting thoughts: 

“Alan, your former girlfriend’s comment about DD “levelling the playing field” hits home for me. That may seem strange since I have so much power over my husband now. But the fact is that he has always been the main breadwinner, and even in retirement he brings more money to the table than I do working part time. I sometimes wonder whether he would be able to accept being so thoroughly under my thumb if we weren’t both aware of his financial contribution to our lifestyle. No matter how much I may humble him, he can take pride in that, I think.”

This one struck a chord with me, because we are getting closer and closer to, if not retirement, then some kind of profound occupational change that is likely to result in my income becoming much smaller and less predictable.  We’ve never been big spenders, but it’s funny how when retirement and loss of income start becoming a real thing, it does seem to change my attitudes about spending. I suddenly find myself passing up small purchases (clothing I don’t really need, books I might never read, etc.) that I might not have thought twice about just a few weeks ago. While she hasn’t exercised much control over my spending, it might be good for us to explore that as we get closer to actually needing to exercise some self-restraint in that area. 

Like I said, I don’t have a specific topic in mind for this week, so comment on any of the above that strikes your fancy.

Have a good week.  Stay healthy and safe.

The Club - Meeting 340 - NOT Asking for It, and Anger Revisited

When someone says that I'm angry it's actually a compliment. I have not always been direct with my anger in my relationships, which is part of why I'd write about it in my songs because I had such fear around expressing anger as a woman. - Alanis Morissette

Hello all.  Welcome back to the Disciplinary Couples Club.  Our weekly gathering of men and women who are in, or would like to be in, Domestic Discipline relationships.  I hope you had a good week.

Well, I feel like I’m finally coming out of the Covid-19 induced blahs.  I’m not sure what brought them to an end, mostly because I’m not sure what caused them in the first place. Though, in a situation as abnormal as the one we’ve all been going through, is it any wonder that it’s pretty easy to get disconnected and discombobulated? But, it really was becoming pretty problematic, because it wasn’t just my interest in DD that plunged.  My libido diminished down to nothing, and I found myself not having any interest in much of anything.  The ultimate result was that during a period in which we had the house to ourselves almost every day and more than ample time on our hands, we were having less sex than usual and Domestic Discipline was starting to feel like a distant memory.  In fact, because the pandemic got tacked onto an extended period with houseguests, almost five months went by without a single spanking.  That is by far the longest “break” we’ve ever taken, and it was not something either of us consciously initiated or wanted.My bottom’s months-long reprieve ended this week.  In retrospect, it had been building for a long time. say familiarity breeds contempt, and wow have we ever been familiar to each other for the last few weeks.  I'd gotten snippy with her several times during the lockdown.  Honestly, I’m not sure it was much worse or more often than usual, but this time there wasn’t any time apart between those instances of marital friction.

I had plenty of warning.  Several times, she called me out on it when I said something insensitive or arrogant.  In the past, when I caught myself behaving badly, I usually would have pointed out, perhaps in a journal entry, that our DD arrangement gives her the authority to put me in my place any time she wants.  Yet, I didn't do it this time. Why not?  Well, two reasons. First, as discussed, for some period of time I just lost interest DD.  Second, I was frustrated that even though she kept voicing hurt and displeasure with how I was talking to her, she did absolutely nothing about it. I finally decided (sort of) that if this thing we do was worth doing at all, then she really needed to take ownership.

In an interesting bit of timing and synchronicity, I had been thinking about this non-initiation strategy on Friday morning, and wondering whether she would ever recall that if she was really angry about my conduct, she had the power to do something about it. That night at dinner, out of the blue she said that whether I was interested in DD or not (she had apparently been reading the blog and knew about my flagging interest), I was going to be getting a dose of it.  Her message wasn’t conveyed with a lot of authority. Yet, I can't emphasize enough how different it feels when a Disciplinary Wife takes the initiative, as opposed to just kind of accommodating or initiating only after being reminded about her authority.  It is just a totally different thing when the prospect of a spanking actually feels imposed.

I’ve talked a couple of times recently about wanting a “reset,” i.e. something that might change the nature of our DD relationship and make it more “real.” More imposed.  Something that feels less initiated by me, to the point that it feels almost non-consensual. Well, I think I may have finally gotten it.  I admit that I was pretty anxious about the likely level of pain I was going to experience, being spanked hard on a butt that hadn’t felt a paddle or strap in five months.  Yet, we’ve been at this so long, it’s hard for it not to feel a little routine or scripted.  I went upstairs when instructed.  I set out her tools, stripped off all my clothes, and waited for her.  She came out of the bathroom after a few minutes, and the lecture began like it has so many times before.  She sighed a bit, a soft expression of disappointment that usually leads into a fairly unemotional listing of what I am about to be spanked for.

Yet, this time, something changed.  She really cut loose with the lecturing.  In an increasingly angry tone, she told me not just what I had done, but how my arrogant tone and remarks made her feel.  She was virtually yelling at me, as she berated me for my behavior and said that was absolutely done taking it from me. It went on longer than any of her prior lectures and, when she had finally said everything she had to say, she told me brusquely to get over the ottoman that she always spanks me on.  She laid into me hard and long with multiple straps and paddles.  After several minutes and a couple hundred swats, she asked whether she was getting through to me.  Between gasps and yelps, I assured her I was, but she made sure I knew I had more coming.  And, she delivered.  I got up from the ottoman one thoroughly chastened little boy.

It’s not just me who saw this as a possible turning point.  She said afterward that this was the first time she had spanked me when she was feeling real anger and the first time she really cut loose when lecturing me.  We talked about how empowering it would be for her if she stopped censoring her own feelings and just spoke up whenever she was mad.  

 How do I feel about it?  I’ve said before that I like it when my wife displays emotion before or during a spanking, but this was on a really different scale. It was disturbing and embarrassing and extremely humbling in the moment.  Yet, I’m glad that she now seems to have internalized that it is OK to hurt not just my bottom but my feelings when I hurt hers.  I also think this is the way it has to be if discipline is going to lead to real improvement.  My ego is pretty strong, and I need more than just a cold, clinical application of the paddle to break down my defenses and really accept accountability. It also helps me to accept her authority if she is expressing herself like she really is in charge.

How about you? Ladies, do you keep your anger at your husband bottled up?  Or, so you sometimes cut loose and let him know how he’s made you feel? Do displays of anger and emotion help establish your role and your authority.  Or, do your spankings tend to be more business-like and controlled?  Men, have you pushed your wife to the point of real anger? Does it make the discipline feel more real?  Do you feel more under her authority when she expresses that authority with real strength and angry passion?

 Have a great week.