The Club Meeting 424 - Needs, wants and usefullness

“Desire is in men a hunger, in women only an appetite.” - Mignon McLaughlin

 

Hello all. Welcome back to The Disciplinary Couple’s Club.  Our (mostly) weekly on-line 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.  For me, so far so good in terms of no flagrant behavioral breakdowns or resolution breaking.  I shouldn’t be so excited about making it a whopping week, and yet in past years, it hasn’t taken more than that to screw up in some significant way at least once.

 

Several of us also seem to share some post-Christmas fitness and weight loss goals.  Here's hoping we all meet them.

And, ZM has resolved to stop looking at women’s butts, while I refuse to make any such commitment.

 

 

It seems like many of us share a resolution or goal around wanting to crank up the intensity of discipline or FLR, however we each may define “intensity.”  It’s interesting, but in the roughly 11 years that I’ve been running this blog, I can think of maybe one instance in which a commenter said they are in a DD relationship and wished his wife was less demanding, less strict, less consistent, etc. Which is a segue into this captioned resolution photo and into this week's topic.

 

A couple of weeks ago, during the Q&A session, Donn raised this question, while suggesting it probably was too broad for that session and, instead, merited a full-topic discussion:

 

“My wife suggested a question (more likely a "subject") that she is interested in learning more about. It is not something that can likely be answered with just a "sentence or two," so it may require an entire week's discussion. This is for the men . . . "Do you believe you have a "need" for Domestic Discipline (DD)? Or rather, is DD "useful" in your relationship, but you could (psychologically) "prosper" and "happily live" your life without it? "All sorts of people have tried to define what are "truly human needs," and many people make a point of contradicting people when they claim something is one of their own personal "needs." We're not interested in anyone else's definition of a "need;" every person has to define for themselves what their own needs truly are (and their decisions should be respected). So, . . . "How do you, personally, know what you feel is a "need" for Domestics Discipline?" Thanks everyone, and have a great New Year!”

 

I can kick things off and give my answer here within the body of the post.

 

For me, it’s hard to separate out “need” from “useful,” or “need” from “want.”  Probably because there are multiple meanings of “need,” which can overlap to the point of fully encompassing or being encompassed by concepts like “want” or “useful.”

 

 

I have a really hard time distinguishing between “need” and “want” because they are more or less the same thing, different in degree not kind.  In fact, one of the Merriam-Webster definitions of “need” is “an urgent want.”

 

I have seen one effort at line drawing that I felt was somewhat helpful to me in analyzing why each of us wants this thing we do.  It comes from Jillian Keenan’s book Sex With Shakespeare, in which she discusses her own spanking needs.  She distinguishes between a “kink” and a “fetish” in a way that I think correlates at least loosely, with the difference between a want and a need.  According to Jillian:

 

“Plenty of vanilla people explore kink as an accessory to sex. The difference is that fetishists explore sex as an accessory to kink. Our fetish is our baseline. It is our first, and most fundamental, need. This is about identities, not activities.”

 

She goes onto explain that if she had to choose between spanking and sex, she would choose spanking, because in some real sense spanking is her core expression of sexuality.

 

By that standard, I plainly am someone who has a kinky interest that I want to fulfill, not a fetish that I need to fulfill.  If forced to choose between sex and spanking, sex would win hands down.  Another way of illustrating the difference might be that if Anne ever decided she didn’t want to do Domestic Discipline anymore, I wouldn’t be happy about it but I could easily live without it. It simply isn’t core to my identity in the way it is to some people.

 

I also have a hard time distinguishing between “need” and “useful” because, again, the definitions aren’t all that separable.  Another Merriam-Webster definition of “need” is “a lack of something requisite, desirable, or useful.” 

 

I think that definition also brings into play the question of “need” from whose perspective?  I sometimes want a spanking but I often don’t, while my wife would probably say that while I might not want one I desperately need it, in the sense that one is requisite, desirable, useful, or has been fully earned.

 

 

Getting past the dictionary definitions down to brass tacks, my answer to whether I have a “need” for DD or, rather, find it useful, it’s not an either/or. Instead, there are really three overlapping answers.

 

First, in terms of my own desires and needs, I certainly want the lifestyle and at times that wanting has been more or less urgent.  Yet, to use Donn’s words, I could prosper and happily live my life without it. 

 

Second, there are times that from my perspective I need a spanking in the sense that it is helpful or useful in maintaining boundaries or in “cleaning the slate” after some bad behavior.  My wife would agree that I often “need” it in that sense of it being requisite or what accountability and justice require.

 

Third, it does serve “useful” purposes for both me, Anne, and the relationship itself.

 

 That’s about the best I can do.

 

Also, during the Q&A session, Alan asked about dildos and pegging.  Fortuitously, I saw this meme last week, which seems directly on point.

 

Have a great week.

The Club - Meeting 423 - Happy New Year 2023!

“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 first meeting of the Disciplinary Couples Club for 2023.

 

As an initial matter, if you haven’t responded to last week’s Q&A post, please do so if you are so inclined.

 

 

As for my traditional New Years' kick-off post, well, what a year.  While it ended on some relatively positive notes, for us it got off to a really lousy start.  I began it quarantined with Covid in a foreign country, while our community was dealing with a really horrific event.  The market meltdown that began around October of 2021 extended through the entire year, which put a BIG dent in my plans to retire on investment gains.

 

Yet, I also feel like the world normalized a little compared to 2020 and 2021. Insurrectionists are going to jail in droves.  Election deniers largely lost their mid-term elections.  Huge verdicts against Alex Jones will, hopefully, give fellow conspiracy theorists some pause.  The Ukrainians reminded us that the world doesn’t have to give in to thugs and autocrats. “I need ammunition, not a ride” and “Russian warship, go fuck yourself” inspired the hell out of me and others.

 

On a personal level, overall it wasn’t a bad year, other than financially.  Yeah, I got Covid and some of the symptoms lingered for a while, but my life was never in real danger. Our family and friends all got through the year more or less unscathed.  As a friend says whenever I ask him how his family is doing: “Everyone’s alive.  No one’s in jail.”  

 

On the other hand, I am kind of annoyed with myself that I let 2022 drift.  A lot.  Here are the goals I posted for last year:

 

• 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. 

Of those 8 items, I fully completed only one.  A couple of others I sort of partially fulfilled.  Overall, it was a pretty uninspiring performance.  Though, I also do forget sometimes that I didn't have full control over some of these.  Covid did get me off on a poor footing for the new year and it did linger. I just didn't feel well for the first two or three months of the year, which makes hitting goals with real energy hard.  We also had unusually lousy weather throughout the spring and early summer, which was a problem for some of the trips I'd envisioned taking.  Anne was still working during the first half of the year, which meant no big trips together.  And, of course, there wasn't much I could do about the investment portfolio losses given that the whole market took a dump the entire year.

 

The one area I’d say I made some legitimate headway was in writing. I didn’t get remotely close to the book drafts, but I did start doing some shorter writing projects on another platform, and I did manage to produce a decent amount of content over the course of the year.  I also did get more consistent with maintaining this blog after letting thing slide in 2021.

 

So, what are my resolutions for 2023?  Basically, to do all those I didn’t make headway on in 2022.  I think there are two big themes I need to keep firmly in my mind.

 

First, over the last couple of months, I feel like I keep getting hit over the head with messages from the Universe relating to the difficulties men have making or keeping friendships in middle-age.  I need to make renewing and fostering some old friendships a big priority.  It would also be a great thing to make some new friends now that I’m more or less retired, though that seems to be easier said than done. But, that’s OK. Renewing existing friendships will itself take plenty of time and attention.

 

Second, one of my big misses last year was volunteering.  For some reason, I can’t quite get my heart into it. Yet, I also feel like if there is one thing that might cause me real regret on my deathbed, it would be not helping others enough.  So, I really need to find some cause I can contribute to and feel really passionate about.  Unfortunately, I keep hoping the Universe will give me a nudge in some particular direction, but so far no luck.

 

One area I feel we DID make some big strides in was on the DD/FLR/kink front.  We definitely had some hiccups along the way, but I feel like this year was perhaps our biggest ever in terms of Anne really embracing her role and taking charge more.  She also was a lot more cavalier about people potentially finding out.  I had been surprised that not all that much changed when we started empty-nesting and I retired, but as it turned out the real key was her retiring.  I think it removed some of the pressure of trying to find time to administer more frequent discipline.  It definitely was key to her new cavalier attitude about others knowing, like spanking me with our window shades open.  She has commented that there was always this anxiety in the background about the possible ramifications of people at work finding out.  Once that was removed, she stopped caring nearly as much about others possibly finding out about this thing we do.

 

 

Given that she is taking charge more, one could say that where the Domestic Discipline and FLR aspect of our relationship is concerned, it’s really her resolutions for 2023 that count, not mine.  There are a few areas we’ve talked about, however, that I think may be areas she actually works on in the upcoming year.

 

 

First and perhaps most importantly, she does still tend to let me off the hook way too often. One thing we talked about recently is she tends to ask me whether I think a particular bit of less-than-ideal behavior deserves a spanking.  The problem with that approach is, while I may think of all sorts of things that she should spank me for, I change my mind awfully quickly when confronted with the possibility of an immediate spanking.  Given the opportunity, eight times out of ten I’m going to try to talk my way out of one. Therefore, asking my opinion is a problem unless she is very quick to dismiss and override it.

 

Second, and related to the first, disrespect and disobedience have been long-running problems.  There are way too many times that I dismiss her opinions or do things like rolling my eyes when she’s saying something.  It’s never been clear to me why she’s tended to focus so much attention on things like over-indulging on alcohol that really don’t have much immediate impact on her, yet she lets things like being disrespectful or disobedient slide.

 

 

Third, we’ve said for a long time that there really needs to be a lower trigger for a spanking.  If she finds herself feeling annoyed or angry at something, the whole purpose of our DD relationship is to give her a means to address it there and then.

 

Fourth, lecturing/scolding is something that she did more this year.  And, it didn’t go so well.  My ego had a very hard time dealing with a couple of the more intense scoldings.  Yet, the fact that I did react so negatively a couple of times is an indication that the whole dynamic was becoming both more real and getting at some deeper problems.  While I think it is very hard for both of us, I also think it is very good for both of us and for our dynamic if she verbalizes her concerns much more frequently and follows them up with a spanking.

 

 

How about you? Do you have any specific goals or aspirations for the new year, whether related to domestic discipline or more vanilla aspects of your life or relationship?  Anything that you particularly want to achieve?  Any specific bad behaviors you’d like to conquer?  I for one would be very interested in hearing more about the “back to basics” approach that Alan says his wife wants to implement in 2023.

 

Also, if anyone would like to share, did holiday socializing result in any well-earned spankings?

 

I hope you have a great 2023. The bar is set awfully low for this to be a better year, but let’s all try to do our part.

The Club - Meeting 422 - Open Mic Q&A continued

 

Hello all. Welcome back to The Disciplinary Couple’s Club.  Our (mostly) weekly on-line gathering of men and women who are in, or would like to be in, a Domestic Discipline relationship.

 

I hope your post-Christmas, pre-New Years week has been restful or, if not, at least enjoyable.  It’s still pretty damn cold here.

 

 

If people were at home and did have extra time on their hands, they apparently weren’t using it to respond to Alan’s suggestion for a Q&A session regarding DD and FLR best practices.  We didn’t get a lot of questions, but thank you to those who did participate. If more drift in, I will post a new comment to start a new thread.

 

I’ve put the actual postings (lightly edited) immediately below.  I’ve also put edited/summary versions in the “comments” section, so we have a separate thread for each question.

 

I’m looking forward to everyone’s thoughts on these and will provide some of my own.

 

Alan

 

1. Dildos-If you use them as part of the discipline are they used before or after any spanking or are they used separately from the spanking aspects of the discipline?

2. Rubber Paddles- Are they used in your relationship at all and if so, are they used regularly or only occasionally?

3. Lexan Paddles -same question- are they used at all and if so, regularly or only occasionally?

 

TG

 

There are certain immutables: a DD spanking is always going to be physically painful and I assume it is always going to be on bare skin. However, I think that there are physiological aspects to this in addition to the purely physical. Whether the relationship is more generally FLR or not, at the time of the spanking, the spankee is making themselves subservient to their partner’s authority. My questions are really aimed at (1) learning if others also feel that and (2) if so, then how this manifests. So firstly : bare skin, but just pants down or completely naked ? And secondly : OTK or standing and bent over something ? I also feel there is a distinction between different types of OTK. Lying across the lap on a sofa or bed seems to me more a position for spanking play rather than DD, I believe a more appropriate position for DD has the spanker sitting on a suitable height chair with the spankee positioned across them so that their butt is their highest point and both hands and feet are on the floor. This feels to me a far more subservient position. So, do others feel that there is a strong physiological component to how a DD spanking is carried out and if so, what are the practices that reinforce or detract from that ambiance ? TG

 

ZM

 

1) When multiple spanking instruments are used in a punishment (for example strap, paddle, cane), in which order should they be used for maximum effectiveness assuming that the goal is to maximize both immediate pain and longer lasting discomfort and to allow the spanking to continue as long as possible so delaying skin failure.

2) Alternate punishments - what alternate punishments do your wives use and which do you find most effective? This can be anything including old fashioned childhood punishments like enemas, castor oil, and mouthsoaping, as well as BDSM related things like nipple clamps, pegging, and so on, but only when those things are used as a punishment in a DD context.

3) What things can be done to maximize the effects of a spanking? Some I can think of are making your bottom cold or wet to make impact more painful, wearing pantyhose or tights to compress the skin and hold in heat, or perhaps different positions, but I am sure there are others.

 

Kevin

 

My questions are related to maintaining a long-term spanking relationship. Do wives who spank begin to see it as a chore? If punishment is required for same issues more than a couple of times, is it less satisfying and more tedious?

 

Along those same lines, the husband may find spankings less embarrassing after a while. How do others keep the experience fresh? Are there some changes to the routine that are especially effective? Is it unrealistic to expect satisfaction to remain at a high level for both? – Kevin

 

Spanked Cowboy

 

Here is a question I have rising out of my observations, not only in writings like this blog, but also my actual conversations. As we, and the FLR ages, aided by becoming empty nesters, and winding up with fewer people around, it seems couples tend to be less careful about others 'discovering' your lifestyle. I don't mean broadcasting it or shouting from the rooftops, I mean less hidden. Some here have alluded to spanking near an open or undraped window. Others I have talked with find themselves spanked in less than private situations. Do we become less concerned about others knowing? Is it a change of mind of the female of the couple? As careers wind down are we more open about our lifestyles?

 

Kevin

 

Dan, I know this is a late suggestion, but I've been curious about the duration of other people's spankings. And does it vary, depending on the circumstances leading up to punishment and the implement being used?

 

J

 

J: 1) How to explain DD to children (whether they find out accidentally or they are told). Will you tell the whole truth? Will you sell them the benefits of such a way of doing things when they are older? And any other related points on this subject.

2) Reconciliation after a spanking. Hugging? Kissing? Or anything else. And what works best?

3) Post-spanking sex. Does it happen? Does the spanking typically have much of an effect on it? And anything else people think is relevant.

The Club - Meeting 421 - Christmas Recap and Open Mic Q&A

“Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted .” ― Randy Pausch

 

Hello all. Welcome back to The Disciplinary Couple’s Club.  Our (mostly) weekly on-line 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 who celebrate it, a great Christmas.

 

I’m not sure what happened to me this year.  Christmas usually is by far my favorite holiday, but this year I just couldn’t seem to get into it.  And, it wasn’t just me.  Anne felt the same way.  We liked seeing and being with family, but I think we both woke up this morning kind of glad the whole thing was over. 

 

 Oh well.  Not every holiday can be special every year, right?

 

And, how about that cold front that hit most of the country?  I took the dogs for a walk on Wednesday morning, and it actually was pretty pleasant.  By late afternoon, temperatures had dropped by over 50°.  Very frigid for a few days there.

 

 

How is the holiday season going for the rest of you?  Any pre- or post-party spankings?  Anything you should be spanked for but haven’t been (yet)?  Any spanking-related gifts given or received?

 

Anne didn’t deliver any preventative spankings this holiday season.  Perhaps it was because we had family around most of the time.  Though, it also was a function of not having a lot of social events on the calendar. We went to only one actual holiday party and stayed less than two hours.  Like I said, it was just one of those years and neither of us was really in the mood.  

 

The blog was pretty quiet over the holidays, but thanks to all of you who dropped in to exchange holiday greetings.  During the course of one of those greetings, Alan made the following comment and suggestions:

 

To my surprise and delight my wife (who is now officially retired) has told me we are going to inaugurate a back to basics next year around our DD relationship. I am not sure what she is intending –but much more excited than intimidated by it at this point. She has asked me to acquire some toys and a couple of disciplinary items we have not used for a very long time (one never used). To my point: I am thinking of a possible topic/theme for an upcoming Blog (one that may be impractical).

 

Thinking about her direction, I realize I still have some questions (maybe more than some) about spanking related issues. I wonder if maybe some others have a few questions too that someone might be able to answer –maybe a kind of round robin, trading on our own unique experiences. To make this happen as I envision it, you could open up for a week or even less strictly to questions folks have about the art and practice of DD/FLR. Then collated a little, they could be presented ad seriatim to be discussed by whoever might wish to do so.

 

So, let’s do that.  If you have any questions relating to the “art and practice of DD/FLR” that you’d like to raise for the group’s collective consideration, leave them in a comment, below.  In an effort to keep the collating effort reasonable, please try to limit yourself to no more than THREE questions.

 

I’ll leave the process open until Thursday evening and will try to de-duplicate and summarize each question, posting them as separate comment threads in a new blog post. 

 

Please do NOT answer any of the questions until I’ve compiled and posted a new post with them.

 

I hope you all have a great week as we drift ever closer to the new year.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays 2022

Christmas is a season not only of rejoicing but of reflection. - Winston Churchill

 Hello all. Welcome back to The Disciplinary Couple’s Club.  Our (mostly) weekly on-line gathering of men and women who are in, or would like to be in, a Domestic Discipline relationship.  I hope you all had a great week.

 Thanks for joining me for what is likely to be the final post of 2022, or at least the final post before people start winding down for Christmas and, hopefully, some serious relaxation between now and year-end.  We’re sticking close to home this year, so maybe I’ll get bored and put out something else.  This year, I’m just going to play it by ear.

 There is something I really love about this particular Christmas meme.  It's peaceful, hopeful, and fanciful, all at once.  It symbolizes nicely what I hope Anne and I, and all of you, experience as 2022 winds down.

Last year taught me a lot about playing it by ear.  When I sat down to write my end-of-year post last year, we were a few days away from celebrating the season with family and friends, looking forward to taking our first post-Covid international trip.  We did manage to take the trip but, a few days into it, there was a very traumatic event back home.  But, I couldn't go home, because I got stranded in a foreign country with Covid, then spent the next couple of months recuperating. 

So, it’s fair to say that 2021 went out with a bang and 2022 got off to a very bad start. 

While it’s easy to cast aspersions on an entire year and blame everything on world events, in fairness I didn’t always put in my best efforts in 2022.  The previous year really was one of rebuilding and recuperating.  I was not in good shape, physically or mentally, after putting a pause on my career early in 2021.  I really didn’t have much choice when it came to slowing down and resting up. 

Unfortunately, that unambitious pace seemed to become my new norm and dogged me throughout 2022.  I did some fun and adventurous things, but it was sporadic and pretty unimpressive in comparison to the amount of free time I had on my hands. 

Yet, there undeniably was progress.  With the exception of the world in Ukraine, didn't the world seem just a little bit more rational in 2022, with people maybe acting just a little better to each other?

On the personal front, my overall health and fitness is much, much better than it’s been for at least half a decade and maybe more.  I’m again wearing the same size jeans I wore in college, and I’ve maintained that fat reduction for many months now.  I’m still too prone to binge drinking, but overall I had far fewer of those incidents in 2022 than before my retirement and, while I didn’t keep any detailed statistics, I think overall I drank quite a bit less in 2022 than in 2021. 

Significantly, for years and years, I’ve set goals to reduce my news consumption and also to focus on creating and producing more instead of just consuming.  While I didn’t perform at anywhere near the level I’d like, I did start doing some (very vanilla) writing for another platform, and it’s gone reasonably well.  For the first time in really my adult life, I’ve been regularly doing something creative that isn’t this blog. 

I also feel like the blog came back to life a bit in 2022.  It wasn’t looking great in 2021.  Some regular commenters stopped showing up. The monthly viewership went way down, after peaking in late 2019.  It was probably a mix of factors, one being the political environment and my own role in stirring that pot. Which I don’t, by the way, apologize for, given the seriousness of the situation at the time.  

 I’m really not sure how much political animosity contributed to the blog’s loss of viewers.  The biggest direct impact was probably from the fact that one popular blog stopped linking to mine in retaliation for me dropping a link to theirs.  A couple of other blogs that had been responsible for a large number of referral traffic were killed by their owners.  In fact, in the course of a little over a year, the blog lost its second and third largest referral sources.

 That downward trend hit its low point about mid-way through this year, and the numbers have been climbing back slowly but steadily since.  Not coincidentally, the upturn started around the same time I started trying to get back to a weekly posting schedule.  I can’t promise to maintain the more consistent pace in 2023, but I’ll try.

 Far, far more important to me than the total viewership, or even the number of commenters, is the number of regular, quality commenters.  That was another area that deteriorated for a while but reversed in the latter half of the year, with new commenters dropping in regularly and some previously sporadic commenters stopping by more regularly.  So, thank you J., T., KOJ, Kevin, MW, JR, Caged Lion, TG, Ward, DWC Fred, Belle, Brett, Red, Glen, and others for dropping by regularly or at least every once in a while.  And, a big thanks to ZM, Alan and al, who so often seem like my brothers separated at birth.

 There was one thing that changed a lot in 2022 and was very significant.  I used to get almost depressed when year after year, not all that much seemed to change or deepen in my own DD dynamic.  Year after year we’d talk about stepping up her assertion of power and authority or about her becoming stricter and more consistent, and year after year it wouldn’t happen.  After we became empty-nesters and still nothing changed, I started to wonder whether the dynamic was just what it was and would remain that way, at least until we hit some age where the interest in it would inevitably decline.  That view was reinforced when I retired, and nothing changed.

 But, then Anne joined me in retirement part way through 2022 and, while it wasn’t a night and day difference, things definitely did change.  Spankings became more frequent.  She became generally more assertive. There was that whole thing with leaving window shades open.  I’m not sure whether either of us were ever conscious of her having big concerns about people at work finding out about this thing we do, but it’s pretty clear that her employment was, in fact, a psychological constraint all those years. 

 So, in that very important respect, 2022 does seem to have been a game-changer.  Either over the holidays or early in 2022, I’ll undoubtedly annoy you all with my annual process of goal setting and resolution making.  Humbling, respect, and obedience have been goals in the past, but now that we are empty-nesters and both retired, there is no excuse for not bringing more proactive attention to those issues.  Moreover, as my most recent post’s references to some recent arguments shows, humbling me and showing me who is boss seems to be not only a good goal but a necessary one.  

 On the gratitude front, we once again were fortunate not to lose any immediate or close family members.  Better yet, last year I did lose a couple of people who were not family members but were very big influences on my life; nothing like that happened this year.  Most of our family and friends are in pretty good health.  

 So, as I said last year, as we all run around buying those last-minute gifts, let's think a little about what a blessing it is to have people in our lives to buy those gifts for. Maybe try to do something nice for a friend, family member, or stranger who may not be as lucky.  

  

Until next year, I hope you all have a restful, peaceful, holiday season and get to take some time away with family and friends.  Merry Christmas and happy holidays!  

 And, in case you're still looking for that perfect gift for that special someone, just remember . . .

 

 

The Club - Meeting 420 - Resentment and Really Giving Up Control

"One regrets the loss even of one’s worst habits. Perhaps one regrets them the most. They are such an essential part of one’s personality." – Oscar Wilde

 

Hello all.  Welcome back to the Disciplinary Couple’s Club.  Our weekly gathering of men and women who are, or would like to be, in a Domestic Discipline relationship.

 

 

I hope you had a good week. Ours was kind of a roller-coaster.  It started good, with family visiting.  Then it turned bad, with Anne and I getting in a rare argument. Then, it got better with both of us seeming to get over the fight.  Then it got bad again, with Anne getting a very bad case of the flu, which has me sitting around wondering whether I’ll join her suffering soon or whether I’ll succeed in dodging it despite being careless and not getting a flu shot earlier in the season.  (Funny how that carelessness theme keeps coming up for me these last few months, isn’t it?)  Of course, in my partial defense, Anne did get a flu shot and, yet, is sick as a dog.

 

A Christmas season interrupted by family visits, illnesses, and arguments somehow seems kind of par for the course this year.  I don’t know why, but I’m having a really hard time getting into the season this year even though Christmas is by far my favorite holiday. I’m totally uninspired regarding Christmas shopping, even though I usually enjoy trying to find just the right gift for each person in the family.  As for decorating the house, we got off to a good start, getting the Christmas lights up on the house relatively early, but then things kind of stopped. 

 

Our whole neighborhood also seems slow to get cracking on decorating.  Maybe it’s the economy?  It does seem like there are years when the world is unsettled and/or the economy is down or shaky, and for some reason that puts a damper on everyone’s holiday preparations.

 

 

This also is the first year that neither of us is working, so no office parties to go to, which may be keeping some of the holiday spirit at bay. On the upside, it's also probably putting some limits on my holiday weight gain. Though, I decided going into December that I was going to put a pause on most diet efforts.  This year, I'm having the damn Christmas cookies and eggnog.

 

 

Since parties lead to drinking, and drinking leads to spankable behavior, it might be reasonable to assume my behavior would be exemplary this season. Unfortunately, it hasn't really worked out that way.

 

 

Which brings us to this week's topic.  Near the end of the most recent topic discussion, a side-discussion about “resentment” ensued.  Here are some excerpts:

 

Alan: Sometimes there is going to be resentment before or even after a spanking and that is probably unavoidable in a real DD relationship. But if it is happening a lot, that needs to be addressed.

 

Me: Alan, I agree. I might even go a little further and say that if you aren't feeling some resentment now and then, is it really discipline you are doing? Or, maybe it is discipline but isn't very strict or effective discipline? I don't want to sound too judgmental on this point, but it does seem to me that some level of resentment is inevitable if the discipline is real, consistent, and hard enough to be effective.

 

ZM: This is a really good point. It has been rolling around in my mind the past few days. We always tend to treat resentment as a very bad thing - which generally I believe it is, especially if there is much of it - but occasional resentment is probably not only the inevitable outcome of DD, but in fact a pretty good sign that DD is being done correctly and that it is indeed real. 

 

Although it wasn’t really related to anything I’d raised in that week’s topic, it turned out to be somewhat prescient, in that later in the week Anne and I got into an argument that left us both feeling resentful and angry.  I won’t go into details about it, other than to say that I said something that she thought was intentionally hurtful.  I felt like it was, at most, accidentally hurtful and really shouldn’t have been hurtful at all.  Sometimes the two parties to a conversation just don't see it the same way.

This followed on an incident a few months ago in which I got two spankings, on back-to-back days, after Anne got very mad about what she saw as boorish behavior while we were out with some friends.  Again, it revolved around something I said. Or the way I said it, Or both. 

After the first incident, my resentment was at a low-boil for a surprisingly long time.  Close to a month.  After this latest argument, I was mad but only for two or three days.  So, I guess that is improvement?

At the root of both incidents was my communications.  The first was mainly about how I said things and how loudly; Anne’s view was I was being boorish and dominating a conversation.  The second time was more about what I said.

Regarding me getting resentful, it's no accident that both incidents involved Anne attempting to change, or hold me accountable for, my verbal communications.

My whole career involved communicating with conviction.  I’m also very analytical, which means I tend not to arrive at opinions haphazardly. Hence, I’m comfortable voicing them with confidence.  From Anne's perspective, with too much confidence and too little attention to the sensitivities of those I'm talking to.

Deep down inside, I recognize that my opinions do sometimes ruffle feathers, perhaps unnecessarily.  I also sometimes forget that I have a deep, booming voice that may give my communications an attack-like intensity that's not really what I intend.

Voicing strong opinions is core to my identity. Yet, in some contexts it probably does need to be restrained.  Which is why the Oscar Wilde quote above resonates with me.

Because my communication style is so core to my identity, I did initially feel resentful that Anne was trying to make me "censor" myself.  More accurately, she was making me stop and think before I talk.

The first time, it pissed me off.  I couldn't look beyond the fact that she was censoring me to appreciate the reason she was doing so.  But, eventually I did have an epiphany of sorts, and not just that she might be right to make me think more before I speak.  It also finally occurred to me that my feelings of “unfairness” were part and parcel of the reality of her exercising control.  

In that incidence, while she did spank me—twice—the spankings had little if anything to do with the resentment.  It was really the tone and content of the preceding lecture, and the fact that was intent on making me change how I do something that is core to me, i.e. communicating with others.

The lecture was very humbling, and my ego clearly didn’t like it. After the spankings, it kept whispering in my ear why I was right and she was wrong.

Honestly, it felt a lot like being punished as a kid.  When has any teenager accepted responsibility after a hard scolding by a parent or other authority figure?  Didn’t we always assert we were right and the authority figure was being “unfair”?

 

In those days, even after a spanking, wasn't it rare that you really accepted you were wrong?  At best, you complied with the spanking and life went on.

In the end, the incident and my reaction to Anne cracking the whip and enforcing her expectations about something as fundamental as how I must talk to others served to drive home just how deep-seated my issues with authority are.  Given how negatively I react to being controlled, it's probably inevitable that Anne imposing real constraints in important areas will lead to resentment or feelings of “unfairness.” 

Part and parcel of accepting her authority is capitulating to it when I least want to do it. Really accepting it goes deeper, however.  It involves that epiphany happening when you accept not just the reality and inevitability of the authority, but that here exercising it and you accepting it are things are right. That it's what you asked for, what you want, and definitely what you need.

  

It’s hopefully a good sign that, while our second argument was far more heated than the first, I got over the resentment far more quickly and, importantly, within a couple of days I recognized that she's right that I have to accept some limits on how I communicate.  

I’m not going to lie – part of me does continue to really chafe at someone trying to censor the opinions I voice or how I voice them.

Yet, when I’m honest, I know my predicament is because of my own failure to impose some stricter “time, place and manner” restrictions on how I talk to others.  There's no doubt my failure to rein myself in at work led to a reputation for being “pugilistic.”

I’m quick to talk here about how much I want and need imposed guardrails, yet it’s also the case that I feel anger or resentment when they are imposed.  Which is, as ZM pointed out, the best indicator that they are real.

In those moments when they are the most real, I can’t help but have doubts about whether this is something I really want -- giving someone else the authority to set limits on my behavior, including behaviors that reflect an “essential part of [my] personality” as Wilde put it.   

But, when I have those doubts, I’m reminded of a comment from Danielle about  Anne imposing some limits around workplace socializing:

“You also seem to think that the following behaviors are not issues for couples who aren’t in FLR’s:

 

- coming home late for supper

- having a third drink at happy hour

- receiving texts from your wife asking you not to stay out late

 

If you think those aren’t bones of contention in non-FLR marriages, I think you are fooling yourself. Sure, lots of guys will ignore their wives’ nagging about such behavior, but many will likely have bitter arguments with their wives about it, and in the worst case such disputes can lead to marital breakdown. The only difference between a FLR and a regular marriage is that a wife in a FLR has more leverage to curb behaviors she doesn’t like.”

 

She really hit the nail on the head.  It wasn’t like we didn’t have arguments about things like my tendency to be domineering back before we discovered DD and FLR.  If anything, before DD those arguments happened more often, were more intense, and lasted longer.  

 

 

Where do things go from here? Well, I suspect this will be a “work in progress” for some time.  Anne and I both need to recognize a few, perhaps uncomfortable, truths.

 

First, the more often she uses her authority and the more often I give in, the more comfortable we both are going to get with it.  Practice makes perfect.  It’s a good reason for her to exercise her authority more often and on “small” things.

 

Second, there inevitably are going to be things that don’t feel “small” to one or both of us.  Hopefully, her practice with exercising authority on small things will pay off in exercising her authority more easily when emotions are running high.

 

Third, I need to accept, and learn to concede more quickly, that there are going to be times in this kind of relationship—one that I initiated and continue to want—when being bossed around is going to be emotionally uncomfortable for me. Put quite simply, I’m not always going to get what I want. Period.   

 

When that happens, we both need to accept that although resentment is inevitable, it’s her role to impose her authority and my role to comply, as difficult as that may be.  And, when there really are good reasons for her imposing the boundaries she’s imposing, then my resentment really is all about ego, isn't it?

 

What are your thoughts about this?  Does being disciplined, or having rules enforced, sometimes leave you feeling resentful?  What do you do when that happens?  Does it make your wife more reluctant to enforce her rules, or has she gotten comfortable with it? 

 

I hope you all have a great week.

 

(Probably) no post this week

 

Hi all.  I hope you're having a good weekend.  We have visitors this weekend and upcoming seek.  It's doubtful that I'll have time to post.  Enjoy the season.  If holiday parties are in store, be careful out there.