Is consistency really the issue?

 

I’ve spent an awful lot of time in the last three months moaning to myself (or others on chat) that my HOH is not consistent enough, not serious enough  etc etc.  I’m now starting to wonder, is it really his consistency that’s at issue or is it my own insecurity about this new lifestyle ?

Anytime he is not correcting me or warning me, or doing something “HOHish”, I instantly start to worry that he’s changed his mind, doesn’t want this, or was just humoring me.  At first I started questioning him ad nauseum….”are you liking this? Do you want to keep doing this? Are you sure? You aren’t just saying that?”.   I wanted as many rules as we could think of, and then add some more……all to make sure there were plenty of chances for me to mess up and have him prove he wanted to do this.   Eventually I worked it out that he was getting very fed up with my constant nagging and I knew I had to stop it before he just gave up on me/DD.


That led me into my testing phase.  From what I’ve read a lot of us newbies do it, and almost all the veterans try to warn against it.   For me I think testing him, (ie purposely breaking a rule to see what he’ll do), had more to do with giving me the reassurance I was no longer verbally asking for.  I also realized that this would also eventually lead to him getting fed up with it all. 

My insecurities are slowly receding, but it still frustrates me.  On some weird level it’s almost like I’m not relaxed and happy unless he’s being stern with me, or correcting me.  Not sure if this is a normal part of adjusting to the lifestyle or if I am just a freak!

Every time he doesn’t let something slide it gives me more ammunition against the doubt and fear.  It also makes me respect him more, and respect the seriousness of my agreement to be submisive to him……….which makes me want to test or disappoint him less.  Hmmmmmmmm wonder how long I go being this calm and rational?!

Starting to become real?

 

Our fledgling DD relationship has effectively had a few weeks off. First we were away visiting T's family, and then our whole family proceeded to come down with the flu. Tom is pretty much well now, our son still has traces, but I've really been battling trying to get clear. Throughout this time, Tom basically called a time out on punishment and has been very lenient with me. Unfortunately, this has led to my getting laxer and laxer on the rules (like respect/obedience and lack of back talk).

 

 

Last night I took it one step too far and and managed to get Tom really riled up with my attitude. I was promptly told to get up out of bed and was given my second real DD lecture ( and this was way more than the first one), during which I was advised that he was done trying to be nice while I was unwell, and that starting in the morning we were back full on with rules and consequences. I have no doubt that he is very serious. I can't remember the last time I've seen him so mad. When he was done making me feel bad , I was promptly sent to bed and told that there would be no internet privileges today.

 

 

Two things sprang from this lecture:

 

 

1. For the first time since we started DD I really felt remorse for my actions. For the first time, instead of just being worried about how bad my punishment would be, I felt terrible for disappointing him, I felt terrible for being disrepectful and possibly hurtful. I've never been able to cry during a spanking but I came close to it last night just from a lecture!

 

 

2. This is rather embarassing to admit, but after I got into bed after the lecture I found myself VERY aroused and really hoping we would have some, ahem "cuddles" when he got into bed. We didn't, but I am surprised at this reaction to a pretty intense lecture. He was still pretty steamed though and said it was time to sleep in a tone that brooked no argument.

 

 

A sane person would have been grateful I wasn't punished last night, especially considering how angry he was. Don't get me wrong, I was and AM. But that just makes my decision this morning so messed up. I was home later than usual this morning, and after Tom left I wanted to go online and check out some blogs.......

Did I remember the internet ban for today? Yes. Why did I do it? I don't know!   I don't want to be punished ( I know from last time that my days of light punishments are likely behind me now), and I wasn't trying the testing thing again.......I think it was just a case of old fashioned immature rebelliousness. What I don't understand is why? I am the one that wanted this lifestyle and when I start to get it I rebel!

Originally I figured that I would turn the computer off, go to work and he would never be any the wiser. And then......guilt set in. Guilt with a capital G. I think the effect of that lecture last night was still with me. I didn't just feel guilty, I felt ashamed of myself, I felt appalled that I would do this to him after he was good enough to just warn me last night.I felt terrible for disappointing him.  I also knew that I couldn't hide this from him.

 

 

By 11am I had snapped and emailed him my confession. I got a short terse email back referencing my taking a while to learn things. But he did say that my being honest about it helped my cause. So now I wait, to find out my fate. (hey that rhymes!). And for the first time I don't have some secret excitement or anticipation about an upcoming punishment. This time I'm just full on dreading it. Does this mean it's really starting to feel real???

P.S. I wrote this at work on my lunchhour. For obvious reasons the internet ban doesn't extend to work, but Im suddenly wondering if being on the internet at work for personal purposes would fall under the ban? Hmm not sure I want to ask him about that one as its already too late and Im in trouble enough!

3 mos in......What I've learned so far

3 months in I can  say that our biggest challenge with DD is consistency. (I've also learned that that is NOT an uncommon challenge in this lifestyle).

But as I type that , I wonder........is that entirely fair?  Maybe it would be more accurate to say that while it has been an issue, perhaps the bigger issue has been my inability to accept that Tom has agreed to this new lifestyle, and I feel an almost constant need to be reassured that he is "on board" and we are "still doing this". That's probably the topic for another post, I think the bigger issue is that I have resisted really giving up control.

Reflecting on the last 3 months has brought me to to the following realizations:

• Just because he is not following MY expectations to the letter, does that mean he's doing it wrong?  Or am  I still trying to control how my giving up control takes place.  Sounds nuts doesn't it, but it's exactly what I have been doing.   Now I just need to stop it!  Anyone have any advice on this???
  
• From the beginning I tried to control how we would do this...even the first set of rules we drew up included ( and written by ME), a list of his responsibilities, basically a How To guide for him on how to take the lead on our marriage.  How the heck is that ever going to work????  I'm slowing learning that he will find his own way to lead, and it may not be the way I envisioned or what it "says in the book". Suffice it to say, it didn't take me long to realize how insane my rules of him were and they were  removed from the list. He kept the smugness to a minimum, guess he knew deep down I would come around.
  
•  Submission in theory vs in real life:  The concept of submitting to my husband's lead has always intrigued me, and quite honestly I have always secretly harboured the desire to be in such a relationship, even as I embarked on relationship after relationship without ever expressing this, or actively seeking such an arrangement.  Instead I would try to make a "regular" relationship work, while fantasizing about being with a "real  man".  Sometimes I would even secretly bemoan the fact that I was with someone and therefore unable to hook up with the kind of person I wanted.......(now there is a serious breakdown in logic if I ever heard one).  Wow, the poor buggers I was dating didn't have a chance!  All that being said, when I'm faced with the very acts of submission I know I crave, why is it so difficult?  Suddenly my pride puffs up and I resist the very thing I want. I am annoyed when  I don't follow the rules and there are no consequences, and I can be just as annoyed when he insists on them.  It begs the question....What the #$*!  do I really want?

The thing is, I know what I want.  THIS is what I want.  I just I've just been surprised that it has been an adjustment for me.  I knew it would be an adjustment for Tom, but I foolishly thought that because it was what I wanted it would just be smooth sailing from the get go for me.  Can you get any more naive than that????

The bottom line is, 3 months in, I don't regret asking Tom for this kind of relationship for a nano second.  Was I foolish to expect a seamless  transition for me? Of course I was!  Was I slight off my rocker to offer up control to my husband and then try to tell him what to do with it?  Yuuuuuup!  Is submission to him harder than I anticipated?  You bet.    Have I ever thought it was a mistake or wanted to go back to the way things were? Emphatic NO

Definition of Insanity......

Some people define insanity as the act of repeating the same actions with the expectation of a different result.   I have  new definitions of insanity:

1.  Embarking on a bedroom painting project while we are recovering from the flu...........or
2. Embarking on a bedroom painting project (or any home reno's for that matter), when you are in the midst of trying to be more serious about DD ..............or
3. BOTH

We didn't decide to paint the room while we were sick, we had intended on doing it  this long weekend for several weeks now.  Last month  our 4 yr old started waking up screaming in the night and insisting he be moved into "blue room", aka the spare room, and that someone stay with him.  After weeks of interrupted sleep, he finally told his father that he was afraid of his room and it was too dark.   Something  you need to know about our son's room......its painted red.  And I don't mean a nice cherry, cheery red, Christmas red or M & M red.  No its RED as in bloodred.....so RED that my girlfriend created a REDRUM sign for it when we moved in (complete with dripping bloody red font).   I recalled that on our first walkthrough of the house I told Tom, wow, if I had to sleep in that room Id have nightmares!  

Now before you think I'm evil, I didnt then turn around 3 mos later and put our sweet baby in that room.  He started in the smaller "blue room".  But Redrum was bigger, and as he got older and into a big boy bed we moved him to the bigger room.  For 1.5 yrs the color was not an issue. Now, apparently it is and I have to say I can't blame the boy.  Especially when the morning or late afternoon/early evening sun comes through the beige curtains.  Somehow it has the effect of casting an almost orange glow in the room, complete with odd shadows.  nope, don't blame the kid at all!  But I digress...............

It's a widely agreed upon theory that it is virtually impossible for spouses to tackle any sort of home reno project without arguments or at the very least getting snappy with each other.  No problem! I thought, with this new magical DD thing we are doing I wont be tempted to get snappy at all!  (especially after what I'm considering to be my first REAL DD spanking having taken place only 2 nights ago).  I failed to factor in that 

1.  my patience is thin because I really still don't feel well!  Yes, I'm up and functioning for the first time in a week but I am not OK
2. Tom's patience is thin because he still doesn't feel well.  Yes, he's up and functioning for the first time in a week but he is still  not OK
3. Tom would instantly turn cranky and short tempered the minute we started to get the room cleaned out, pictures down, walls taped etc

At first I tried to just keep everyone getting along.  Unfortunately the small one, is oblivious to the moods of his parents and was so excited and wanting to "help" that he continually forgot to listen to anything we said or told him to do; and Tom's shortened fuse ran out pretty quick.

Long story short, I tried to keep things happy, Tom kept snapping.  It was inevitable that I would start to snap back, maybe I wasn't as respectful as I could have been when telling him he was cutting the corners wrong....and placing the ladder wrong..................later we seemed to be in a better place.  The small one was obeying the directive to stay out of the room and was quietly playing in the hallway, we were "happily" priming the walls.   Suddenly Tom asked "Your butt still sore",  I kind of laughed and said "a little, I can still feel it".   He was quiet for a minute, and then  "Well let me know when it stops hurting and I'll remind it again............."  DOH   I figured the stress of painting would have given me a "by".  Guess I'll just be happy he wants to wait till I recover from the last one..........

The Beginning

Here goes nothing...or everything, depending how you look at it.   I have no idea what kind of a blogger I am, or will be....for all I know this will be my only post....or I'll post bucketloads and no one will ever read it.

I really don't know when I found out about any form of organized domestic discipline, but I know that for a long time I always imagined how nice it would be to have an old fashioned kind of marriage....back when men were men, took charge and took control (within reason of course!).  Over a decade ago I came across a now defunct site called fondlybutfirmly.com,  which was the first I had found that focussed on DD,  and while I was fascinated by it I never got up the courage to bring it up to my boyfriend at the time.

Long story short it seems like it was always there in the back of my head but I never felt I was in a relationship that it would be possible with. Looking back I realize now that I always had a tendency to take control in my romantic relationships, even though deep down I wanted the guy to.  Eventually the relationship would peter out, Id always feel like I had just tired of the person. Its only now that I realize what I was tiring of was of being the "man" in the relationship and once the initial "honeymoon" phase wore off I was back to wanting something different.

I'm not sure why I was so afraid to bring DD up to my husband of five years when I did.  To some extent in the beginning of our relationship I was submissive in a lot of ways but I didn't realize until we started DD and there were some facets of submission that I had unconsciously been doing .    By the time I spoke to husband it, we were in trouble.  I had gone from feeling like we would be done the minute our small son left home to wondering if we would make it that long.  We weren't fighting....we rarely fought....we just...weren't.    Almost like we didn't care enough to fight...at least that was what I felt. Alot contributed to it, I had a child, I had health issues for a couple of years that only got resolved last year, I lost my father........along the way I lost myself.  Was it depression? I really don't know.  I just know I pulled back on alot of things.  The more it went on , the less respectful of my husband I became.  I totally took him for granted and had started to begrudge any time I had to spend with him.  I took no joy in doing anything for him, and to be honest was doing as little as possible.

But deep down I knew he was still a wonderful guy, and there was love for him, it was just buried under a bunch of junk and bad habits.  I started doing more and more research and digging into DD and tried to find a way to get the courage to bring it up to him. As it happened, we were fighting when I did.  Actually I'm not sure you could call it a fight.  He had finally been annoyed at me to express it, and, as I always did whenever he tried to get through to me, I just got angry and fired back at him, and lectured him about everything wrong HE did and had been doing for the last couple of years, taking no accountability for my own actions.  Somehow in the middle of it all I started talking about the DD and him taking control of our marriage.  I can only imagine how stunned he must have been considering my behaviour over the last couple of years.

It stunned me that he agreed to it and seemed to think it was a good idea!  It stunned both of us how quickly things changed between us.  We are suddenly attracted to each other again, (we could have counted on 1 hand the number of times we had made love in the preceding 4 years), we can't wait to get home to each other.  It feels like the very beginning again, except so much better because we were reconnecting with someone we already loved.

I don't know how much longer we would have lasted, he doesn't like to admit that it was as bad as I describe it, but he did say he was reaching a breaking point and doesn't know what he was going to do about it.  

We aren't perfect at it yet, but we're starting to iron the kinks out....will have to see how far this takes us....