Submission and how to TRY to do it!!

So, we have seen in my previous entry how before we started on this journey that I'd have died rather than submit. Thus how on earth could it be possible that a lifestyle whose main premise is submission would actually turn out to be beneficial, want to find out then read on ...

First for those who are new to domestic discipline I will try to explain the concept briefly, of course every couple can, and indeed should, adapt the basic premise into something that works for them, thus I will explain here how we have decided to go about it. Having read the blogs mentioned to the right together with Mr LovingDD's informative site we decided on the following.

We agreed that we wanted to firstly have a 'maintenance spanking' regime, this was to provide a framework for me to learn to submit to my partner's authority. Initially we agreed three times a week, but this could be reduced to 2 or even once per week as long as my behaviour was improving (not too many punnishment spankings per week) and I was learning to properly submit.

Then we identified the main problem areas and created a set rules with which to tackle them . Our main rules revolved around what was considered to be acceptable behaviour from me to my partner, i.e. no more verbal abuse and general nastiness was to be allowed and I was to let him properly help and "take care of me".

Secondary rules we also agreed upon were; stopping me from neglecting myself, i.e. ensuring that I stuck to my regular exercise regime (to get fit and lose weight), and ensuring that our bedroom, where I would receive any spankings, was a peaceful, comfortable and calm haven (i.e. that it was kept tidy and the bed was made every morning before I left for work).

Finally my HoH added in a few minor rules concerning my physical appearance, partly for his own devious little pleasure and partly because he said that 'adding in these more trivial points would be beneficial in teaching me to submit in small ways', e.g. as he has a "thing" about women in 'virginal (!) white cotton full figured knickers' he decreed that these were to be the only type of underwear that I should be permitted to wear, no thongs were to be allowed (anyway I hate 'cheesewire' underwear so there was no argument from me on this score)!!!

Finally we agreed the level of punishment spankings to be given should I infringe any of the above rules.

Well that all sounds very simple doesn't it, and indeed it did, until the very first maintenance session.

I have to admit it was a rather surreal situation, in order to ensure that for our first 'try' at domestic discipline we would have plenty of time, peace and quiet, and absolutely no possibility of being disturbed by the kids we decided to go into our loft come family room as this has a lock on the door! Thus my putative HoH ordered me to collect the various spanking implements, to go upstairs to this room and adopt the agreed position - standing in the corner with my hands on head and he would be up in half an hour or so when I had had sufficient time to reflect on my behaviour and why it has led to the decision to try thus new lifestyle. Thus, as a good little submissive should I followed his instructions to the letter, well up to the point where I tried to enter the room and go to the corner. Sadly, unbeknown to me, at some point during the previous week it seems that the room had been struck by a freak hurricane, a bomb, sorry, improvised explosive device, or perhaps just a stampeding herd of elephants, all of whom had forgotten to tidy up after themselves. Thus in order to reach the corner and stand in it, I first had to tidy up the room, this did not put me in a particularly repentant and submissive mood, rather I was in a furiously bad mood, I can tell you and this just made the whole situation seem even more bizarre.

The perhaps ten minutes, I stood in that corner trying to calm down and get myself ready for this first session seemed more like a couple of hours and when my partner actually joined me there I have to say that it took all of my considerable willpower not to run away or tell him to 'get stuffed'. I was not convinced that after all of that I would be able to submit to him spanking me.

Apart from some creative strategies for dealing with my untidy, inconsiderate elephants, sorry children, mostly what was going through my head were the words of Sara, Vivian and C who wrote the blogs above, these were words that they wrote about themselves, but you see, these words could actually have been written about me. Reading their accounts was so scary, it was putting into words what I had been thinking and feeling for some time, but just could not express. It was in so many ways a relief to find out that I was not alone and that other intelligent, well-educated, career minded, strong women could think the same way. These women had found a solution to their problems, not a conventional one admittedly, nor an easy one, but this solution, this lifestyle choice resonated with me in a way that nothing else ever has in the more than 40 years I have been on this planet. This was the reason I was standing in the corner of my own loft, hands on head, waiting for what I knew was to be a physically and emotionally painful experience.

Yes it was painful, far more painful than I had imagined, in my naivety, that it would be. Some of the time I could not think because of the pain, all I could do was grit my teeth and wait for the next strike to land. Some of the time I could only hang my head in shame as I listened to the words which my HoH was using to scold me, as I could only admit that all he said was true, my behaviour was what had led us to this and nothing else, this was an incredibly embarrassing and humbling experience.

Yet at the same time it was a huge relief, I finally had someone who loved me so much that he wanted to help me to become a better person, to take away the extremely tiring and taxing burden of always being in charge, someone who was leading so that I need only follow. I have been the leader all my adult life and actually realising that I had found someone who I could truly trust sufficiently to be able to admit that I was too tired to go on doing this, that I wanted someone to take control for me was mindblowing.

Physically I was a wreck, I was clearly going to have to be extremely careful about sitting down for a number of days (my HoH was also clearly going to have to improve both his technique and his aim too, but more of that later), but mentally I was elated, it felt as if a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders so I could finally spread my wings and fly.

What a paradox, my submission to my HoH, and his forcing me not to be in control made me experience the greatest amount of freedom I have ever felt. Not only was I free but also amazingly secure. The huge amount of guilt about my outrageous treatment of my partner and the fears that this would force him to leave me were gone and I had finally found a place where I truly felt safe, loved and valued.

Submission, and how NOT to do it!

Submission, gosh, even writing that word is extremely difficult for me, a card-carrying, and proud of it, member of Control Freaks Anonymous. Submission is all about giving up control, letting someone else drive, and you are not, repeat not, allowed to touch the steering wheeel, even with the little finger of one hand, nor may you give directions, they get to decide where to take you.

Even though I trust my partner completely, if I did not we could not live a DD lifestyle, letting him do this is so extremely difficult. My natural inclination is to keep one hand at least close to the wheel, just in case I need to grab it again (purely in cases of emergency you understand!!), or to at least direct him to exactly where I want to go. True submission in this case means sitting on my hands, keeping my mouth firmly shut and going wherever he decides.

Submission is particularly difficult too as outside the home, in my professional life, I need to be dominant, strong and decisive, having a clear understanding of where we need to go, when and how to get there. Also I naturally expect the people who work for me to follow my lead without question. Of course I do not expect them to behave as mindless morons and I am happy to encourage a health debate about the relevant issues, but ultimately I decide where we go, even if they do not like it, and thus I am responsible if I make the wrong decision. Inside the home, I clearly am not the boss and should submit to my HoH's authority, but switching between these two modes can be very difficult, especially as I am not accustomed to sumission in any form. We both agree that it is easier for the HoH, who can, of course, can retain his dominant role all all times, outside and inside the home.

So why submit at all I hear you all asking, well all one of you who have read this blog so far!! As I have mentioned before, I spent the whole of my married life being in control, making every decision for my family because no one else could or would. After my separation and subsequent divorce I had no choice but to continue doing this. I was the "boss" at work, supermum at home not to mention sole breadwinner, chief cook, bottle washer and general dogsbody. A pretty awesome set of responsibilities for one "small" woman!! It was also an extremely tiring set of responsibilities and even though I had to do all of this for my family to survive, day after day I was both physically and mentally exhausted, not to mention emotionally drained. But, in some way this was also comforting, as the rest of my life was so out of control I needed to be "in control" somewhere.

You would have thought that when I finally found someone new to share my life with I would have been happy to share some of the responsiilities too. Obviously I would not expect my new partner to finance me or the kids, but he did expect, naturally that he would be able to look after me. However, better the devil you know than the role you don't know as they say, and I just could not give up all this control and allow him to do that. Every time he tried to help I would push him away, I was too scared to admit that this is what I truly wanted him to do, in case he would see me as weak or useless, or try to take advantage of me. The more he tried to help the worse I became, always trying to put him down when he tried, just to make sure that he didn't come up for air a second or third time. It was getting to the stage that, he would ask if I wanted him, for example, to lay the table for supper, instead of saying "yes, thank you" like a normal person, I would start shouting and ask him if he thought I was so useless that I couldn't lay a table myself, following this up with a long list of insults about firstly how useless he was about laying a table anyway - so it was easier to do it myself and then, I would reel off a long catalogue of every other one of his miniscule little faults, just for good measure. Even though he would admit that he is not the most domestically capable of men he surely did not deserve, nor should he have expected, such a response from me when he was just trying to help.

Of course I could not allow myself to admit that what I really wanted was someone to take care of me, as this would mean that I would have to admit to some kind of weakness. So instead I looked after everyone else, friends, family, colleagues etc and neglected myself, always putting others' needs before mine.

Part of the want/need to be looked after does come partly from my Christian upbringing with the ideal of the strong husband, taking care of his weaker wife ("to love her like Christ loved [his bride] the Church", an awesome responsibility for any man), who submits fully to his authority (yeah right, as one of my teenagers might say!), and partly from my observation of my parents' marriage, which was incredibly strong and although I consider that my parents were equals in most things, I always felt that my father was the "boss" of the house and took care of my mother, even though she was more than capable of doing so herself.

Just so that it is clear to you all I want to make it clear that though I am a Christian this is NOT a blog about Christian Domestic Discipline as I feel very uncomfortable with the extremes to which some people go under this heading.

So to summarise, we have a woman who is desparate to submit to her strong man, but is fighting it with every atom of her being. She is so scared of the prospect, that not only, is she running very fast in the opposite direction screaming, she is also doing her best to completely destroy the man she adores and cannot live without. She is doing her best to drive him away with her vitriolic tongue and outrageous behaviour because this is prefarable to admitting that she is terrified of losing him.

We also have a man who is desparate to take care of her, if she will only let him, but is getting seriously hurt, because she really knows how to kick a man when he is down, after all she knows his every weakness and exploits each one mercilessly, as they are, after all, like two halves of a single person. He does not want to fight back in case he hurts her, because he feels she has gone through so much pain in the past few years, and he does not want to leave her (as a sane man should do) because he loves her too much.

How can you stop her self destructive behaviour which is destroying both of them? He knows she hates herself for the way she behaves, she knows she is going to drive him away eventually, it is just a question of time, but just does not seem able to stop. As he won't fight back, she suffers no consequences for her behaviour and just repeats it over and over. He wants to take care of her, to relieve her from some of her burdens, but she just can't, or won't, let him in.

What can anyone do in these circumstances? Well, that was the question we were asking ourselves time and time again, we just seemed to be going round in circles with no way out, me engaging in the self-destructive behaviour described above, driving him away millimeter by millimeter, him becoming more and more demoralised wondering how he could exit the relationship with his sanity intact.

That was the point at which we stumbled over the practice of domestic discipline, the light came on and my life was turned upside down. From reading the blogs listed above, I finally understood how it could all work, how I could be "made" to let it work. I was finally going to be forced to submit to his authority, to give up the control to him and let him decide what was right for me and most importantly I was going to have to suffer real consequences for my awful behaviour. In return, he was going to have a chance to finally wrest the role of HoH from my grasp and to see an awful lot of my bare backside!! In short, he was going to give me a damn good spanking the minute I put a toe out of line.

I was going finally have to accept the word "submission" as part of my vocabulary and to learn how to do it properly. Yes it was a scary thought, but in fact, far more scary was the possiility that I might lose him and I was prepared to submit to anything rather than face that prospect, even if that submission would likely prove to be extremely painful in both the physical and emotional sense.

In the next installment I will try to explain "submission and how to do it right", or at least how I try to do it as I am still somewhat of a novice in this respect and am still feeling my way in this unfamiliar territory. More importantly I will try to put into words the vast benefits that I have already experienced in the three months we have been living in a domestic discipline relationship, although it may seem unbelievable, there really are huge benefits to finally agreeing to submit to my partner's authority.

DD and what it means to me

Well where do I start, the whole concept of domestic discipline is such a complicated subject to get your head around, in fact it is hard enough to explain it even to myself, and I am living it. Nearly every day I experience some of its many positive benefits, some of these I expected to encounter when we started with this journey but we have discovered yet more positive facets which I could never have imagined as being linked to such a lifestyle.

I try to look at myself as an outsider would and imagine how I would explain to them why on earth someone like me; intelligent, strong, capable, opinionated, feminist leaning, highly responsible, with fulfilling, well paid career and the 'perfect' family, own car/house/teeth, could possibly experience anything positive in agreeing to have her bottom regularly and painfully spanked by a man if she should step out of line and break 'the rules', even if these are rules to which she has previously agreed.

This is indeed the paradox of DD, at face value it does not seem possible for it to work, after all why would anyone in their right mind agree to let someone else 'assault' them. As this clearly does not make any sense one must assume that any woman who is prepared to do this must obviously be desparate, have no self worth or perhaps is just plain crazy. If she is not then her partner must be a manipulative bully at best and a 'wife-beater' at worst.

But DD cannot work if any of the above are true, there has to be a balance in the relationship, both parties must be equals in the relationship, equal but with different roles. For a ship to function effectively it cannot have two captains...

Lookout: Iceberg dead ahead, whatever shall we do?
Captain A: Righto, I see it too, hard to port Steersman,
Captain B: No, no, no, that will never do, Steersman - hard to starboard,
Steersman: So which way should I turn?

CRASH

Lookout: To the lifeboats, abandon ship
Captain A: I'm supposed to say 'abandon ship'
Captain B: No, I'm supposed to say it

...glug, glug, glug ...

Ah, so that is what happened on the Titanic, but I digress, clearly someone has to have the final say, the ultimate authority to ensure the safety of the vessel and all who sail in her. For that authority to be meaningful and effective they have to be someone who is respected and trusted by those underneath them, or at the first sign of difficulty chaos will ensue and people will get hurt.

For me this is one of the many aspects which underpins a DD relationship, to ensure that the relationship remains healthy, one needs to lead and the other to follow. But to follow you have to trust that wherever you are led you, will be safe.

Part 1 - Welcome, Wilkommen and Bienvenue

Well, how does one start, I am rather new to this whole blogging thing, but I have been so inspired by the other women who have decided to chronicle their own domestic discipline journeys (thank you Sara - findingsara.wordpress.com, C - rncblog.blogspot.com and Vivian - disciplinedfeminist.blogspot.com) that I have also decided to put pen to paper, well fingers to keyboard to be pedanctically correct, to try and capture my own slow progress down the sometimes rocky, sometimes glorious road which is DD.

Given the nature of the blog I will, of course, dedicate it to my wonderful HoH who since we started, our albeit short, DD life journey has been both a tower of strength and a smacker of bottoms, well actually just the one - mine!

Given the nature of the blog I will, of course, dedicate it to my wonderful HoH who since we started, our albeit short, DD life journey has been both a tower of strength and a smacker of bottoms, well actually just the one - mine!

So as this is "The Beginning" I suppose I should start with some kind of introduction, so here goes ... warning it may, no will, be long and rambling ...

My partner and I stumbled across the concept of Domestic Discipline (DD) completely by accident, while we were, to be honest actually searching for something erotic on the subject of spanking to augment our sex life. Reading blogs from the ladies listed above and the LDD site literally turned my life both upside down and inside out, just blowing my mind. It was if the pieces of a jigsaw which had been jumbled up for so many years inside my head had just suddenly fallen into place to reveal the image of the 'ready made solution to my problems', if only I had realised that it was "all so simple". Three months ago I had never heard of DD and now I cannot imagine living without it.

I am in my early forties with a partner in his late thirties, we have been together for a couple of years and intend to get married in the not so distant future, just need to find the time! I was married once before and have until I met my partner been bringing up, single-handedly the children from this marriage who range from primary school age to mid teens. This I had been doing at the same time as holding down a full time job in an extremely technical and male dominated environment. I have worked in this industry since I completed my Masters Degree nearly 20 years ago and am now in a senior position responsible for managing projects with large budgets typically in the 10 to 15 million Dollar bracket and have a pretty good salary commensurate with this level of responsibility.

Life has been very challenging, due to issues around my own childhood (I'll probably bore you all with more details of this in later blog entries) I picked the wrong man to marry and spent the whole of my marriage "wearing the trousers" in the relationship, bearing all of the financial, practical and emotional burdens of the family, taking on, mostly out of necessity (my ex neither had the ability nor the desire to do this) but also, to be truthful, partly as it is my nature, the Head of Household (HoH) role as well as the more traditional role of wife and mother. When I finally woke up and 'smelled the roses', extricating myself somewhat painfully from the marriage, I naturally carried on performing this role, knowing no other, acting for the last 5 years as both father and mother to my children, as well as providing the roof over their heads and the food on their table.

This was an extremely difficult and stressful time, bringing up 'lots' of children alone is hard at the best of times but doing this whilst working full time, as your life and theirs falls apart is for most people an impossible task. Indeed, I know I could not have survived these last few years if I had not been an incredibly strong, determined person. Some, might of course call me stubborn but I would counter that it was this stubborness that helped to save my life and bring me back from the brink of suicide on more than one occassion.

Today, after many years of therapy (!!) I can finally say that I am extremely proud of my achievement in both my professional life and with my children's progress, however, as to my success as a wife, this was as you may have gathered, a different story...

However, as I suspected, and you probably feared, this introduction has turned out to be rather (too) long, so to enable you all, gentle readers, to have a comfort break or to put the kettle on for a nice cup of tea, I'll stop here and put the rest in - "The Beginning - The Sequal".

Thank you for your perseverance in reading thus far, you deserve a medal, I hope you will stick around to enjoy - Part 2!

Hil

Part 2 - the beginning continued !

Well after part 1 you would, by now, probably be thinking that me finding a fantastic man was a lovely end to a long and difficult story, but sadly this was not to be the case and this was solely my fault.

In this new partnership, as was the case in my marriage I still held on firmly, obsessively even, to the balance of power. Although my partner has an excellent reputation in his profession, it is not very well paid and I thus earn several times what my partner makes. I also have the kids, house and rest of the 'trappings of wealth' whilst he has very little to his name, other than a lot of rather old and awful cars and suits (sorry Darling!). Due to issues in his own past, he is also not a particularly strong or self-confident person and is gentle by nature I thus exploited him mercilessly. Having held the role of HoH for so I was not able, nor it seems willing to surrender this familiar role, despite the fact that what I knew I both wanted, and desperately needed, was a strong, dominant husband to take care of me. I wanted, desperately wanted, to relinquish the HoH role, which, in fact, I should never have had in the first place, and submit fully to his authority.

What we clearly needed was a way to redress the balance of power in our relationship, whilst I still thought I should retain the "HOH" roll for my children, I obviously needed to submit totally to him in our relationship, to let him take care of me. But the way that I was treating him, was often totally insulting and disrespectful, sort of constantly challenging him to take the dominant HOH role, whilst ensuring that he never got the chance to do so, due to my 'vitriolic' nature and his reluctance to fight back in case he upset me. As there were no consequences for me for this appalling and destructive behaviour, I continued to repeat it ad infinitum. He loved me so much he was prepared to put up with my behaviour because he did not want to leave me. I knew that this was not the way I wanted our life to be, I so despised myself for behaving in that way, but just seemed unable to stop. I was destroying our relationship, and I realised that I would do anything to make sure that we stayed together. This time, for the first time in my life, I did not just want to be with him because I was afraid of the alternative, being alone, I wanted to be with him. I knew I did not deserve such a wonderful man and I hated myself so much for behaving in this way but I just could not find a way to put on my 'brakes', everything just seemed so dark and depressing.

Then, we read the blogs on DD which I mentioned in part 1 of this introduction and it seemed as if the lights were switched back on, on full beam! The more I read about these strong, capable, highly intelligent women the more I realised that it was if they were describing me. The experience was overwhelming and somewhat scary, it seemed as if these women could read my mind. But, here in a most unlikely guise, for a seemingly dominant woman like myself, was the solution to all our problems, an ideal way for my partner to become my HOH and to take "proper charge of me". A way that ensures that I am forced to relinquish the HOH role, and submit, giving my partner both the space to take up that role and grow into it, and the tools to maintain it. I was going to have to suffer real consequences if I stepped out of line and broke any of the rules which we would jointly agree upon, and I would have to learn to submit, fully, to him.

DD finally makes me step on those brakes, both for my sake and his.