The End, or is it the Beginning ...

Hello All

Apologies to those who used to read me before, I've been away a long while. I'd like to claim that it is because work is hectic, which it is, or that the kids are hectic, which indeed they are, but the truth is that the real reason I have been away is that I have felt that I did not really have anything worthwhile to say.

This blog was all about the search to find myself, well that is not how it started (as those who have read it over the last year know), but it was what it fast turned in to, starting with domestic discipline, moving through to BDSM and latterly my coming to terms with understanding and accepting myself as I am, a masochist and submissive.

And I suppose in a mad kind of way I have not felt the need to blog any more because I seem finally to have found myself, and accepted me, warts and all and rather than write about it all I would rather actually live it.

I mentioned this to Andrew, who has been true to his word and has stayed in touch to continue to act as a male role model to my children, and he suggested that I really ought to "round off" the blog rather than leave it hanging so this is my attempt to do so. I am not saying that I will never write anything more here, but for now I do not plan to.

As to the actually living it bit, as I hinted before Christmas, but did not elaborate upon out of deference to Andrew's feelings (but as he has found someone new I think it is OK to "publish" this information) I have found my Dominant Sadist, the man I now call Master (well I do some of the time, the rest of the time I call him Dave!).

Over the last year I have "wasted" a considerable amount of time endlessly questioning, analysing and agonising over this "weird, kinky lunatic" side of me which has emerged from the deep. The submissive, masochist who "loves" to be controlled and spanked and needs pain. Well Dave has been instrumental in helping me to move past the "requirements analysis phase" into the "implementation phase" or is that "routine operation phase" proper, and to finally really accept this part of me, to stop fighting it and to just get on with living it.

I need the dynamic of having someone else in control, to tell me what to do, I do not understand why, I just do. For instance, why I cannot be "good" to myself, exercise regularly and not eat chocolate I do not know, but the truth is, I cannot, I have some need to "punish" myself for some unknown reason by not doing things I enjoy, like running, or doing things that are actively bad for me, like eating sugary stuff. But , when Dave tells me that I am to exercise regularly and not to eat chocolate, I do it. I am not saying it isn't hard, especially when you are a serious chocoholic, but it just works. If he sets the rules I can follow them, punkt (as they say here), full stop!

When I did fail recently, and, after a stressful day fighting my mother's computer gave in to my sugar cravings and ate a couple of biscuits and an After Eight or two, I was so upset, not as I was frightened about what he might "do", because I knew he would not be angry, but rather would be disappointed in me and I would prefer to 'cut off my right arm' rather than have him disappointed or displeased with me.

My mother was telling me recently that even as a small child I was always spending my pocket money to buy presents for other people and that (having just bought my sister a computer) it seems that I had not lost this habit. I told her that this was because I have always had this really deep seated need to please, to make people happy, even if it makes me unhappy, even deeply unhappy.

I still clearly have this need and doing things to make Dave happy makes me happy (even when it hurts or I don't like it) whether it is running, eschewing all forms of chocolate, being flogged or caned or making him a coffee, if he is pleased with me then I am in seventh heaven. In fact I'd do anything just to hear him say, "good girl". Yet if anyone else said those two words to me I'd bite the head off the patronising git!

I also need pain. Pain is my way of tuning out life and de-stressing. Why? Again I don't know, it just is and now I have accepted that it does not matter.

With Andrew I would often break the rules and misbehave to make him spank me, to give me that "bit". He did not like the inflicting of pain at all. With Dave, he spanks me because he likes to spank and because he knows I need it (and like it too, well some of the time as long as he does not use that damned loopy johnny from Leatherthorn paddles, how I hate/love that thing!). He also enjoys other forms of inflicting pain, and so I am also learning to enjoy the delicious art of sexual torture too.

It is strange mixing spanking and sex, I have always, perhaps artificially kept them separate, spanking being for discipline not for fun. But I am learning that they can mix, and mix quite well!

I have always felt extremely inadequate in the bedroom, mostly because for more than 10 years I was married to someone who firstly knew nothing about sex and secondly refused to talk about the subject as he found it embarrassing, unless of course he was drunk and was thus incapable. Being a submissive at heart made it extremely uncomfortable for me to talk to him about what he would like me to do or what I'd like him to do so I suffered in silence. With Andrew things were also a bit difficult because he did not really enjoy me pleasuring him and did not like to give me feedback on how I was doing so I became firmly convinced that I was unable to pleasure a man in bed. This did not really sit well with someone who has a high sex-drive as I do and I always seemed to feel dissatisfied.

Being with Dave has changed this completely, I know I'll not ever be really self-confident behind closed doors (or maybe open ones if that is what he wants) but my confidence really has increased. He has directed me from the start about what he likes, what I am to do and how I am to behave. Sure I can be creative and use my imagination but he sets down the ground rules and I operate within their boundaries. I have not had this much fun ever, even when I'm not allowed to play it is fun!

On a final note, and an unexpected one, this acceptance of me has had some interesting consequences on the work front. Dave asked me once, early on, if I found it difficult and tiring "Dom-ing" at work as this was clearly something that should make me uncomfortable.

Initially I thought, 'no of course not', but after some serious thought about the subject I realise that he was right. It takes serious mental effort to step out of my natural position and "Dom", and it makes me very tired, both emotionally and physically. I always used to blame myself for being inadequate or stupid when I could not "handle" something which I felt that I "should" be able to which just made the situation worse. Now I realise that this was just because my reactions were more sub-based than I realised. Well, now I know this I can devise strategies to cope with these situations. When you work in such a testosterone fuelled industry as I do these are inevitable and having some way of handling them is really useful and stopping beating myself up for being useless also makes a big difference. Positive energy is always better than negative.

So that is it, the end. It has taken a year or so but finally I have actually found what is actually the beginning of the path which I want to follow, the one that feels most "me". Sure there will be many bumps along the way, but this "me" feels much more able to meet these challenges head on.

Thanks for reading. I'll always answer e-mails.

Hil
xxx

I'm still here, honest, you just can't see me ...

Hi All

I am sorry that I have been away for so long but there has been a lot going on in my life, both inside my head and in reality which has made blogging too difficult for several reasons.

The reality part is a combination of the end of the school term and the chaos that causes when you have 4 kids to sort out (in 2 different countries and 3 different schools) with the usual round of concerts, sports days and exams to manage and the shenanigans of my ex-husband. He has been acting in a manner which at least spectacularly stupid and at worst possibly dangerous and I have had to spend some considerable time ensuring that my children are properly protected from the worst of his actions by numerous consultations with various legal and professional authorities.

This latest incident is just one of a series which is part of an ongoing saga which stretches back more than 5 years, although I am more able to handle the situation now and do not get as upset as I did before, it is nevertheless emotionally and physically draining to have to do it and it leaves me unable to give much energy to anything else. But the next steps are in the hands of the police and the lawyers and for now I can do no more thus I have time to "enjoy" a bit of a breathing space and to deal with the "stuff" inside my head.

So with no further ado I'll move on to that !

As you will have seem from my recent posts I have been struggling to come to terms with some parts of me which have been slowly emerging as Andrew and I have been following our DD path, namely submission and masochism. I have known, since I was in my mid teens, that these parts of me existed but had not been able to acknowledge or admit to them until very recently. As a small aside I can honestly say that "choosing" a relationship where I get regularly spanked had absolutely nothing to do with these masochistic tendencies, in fact they did not enter my head at all, as chronicled earlier in this blog we started DD for completely different reasons.

However, I digress, what has been happening over the last few months is that I have found that this journey seems to be changing my life in a really radical way and this is not because DD/ BDSM is in itself a radical lifestyle, but because it has started to change something much more fundamental within me.

I have spent some considerable time discussing all this with The Heron Clan, mostly because they are wonderfully nice, non judgemental people, who have "been there done that" in the DD/BDSM world but also because they have some real understanding of my issues on a much deeper level coupled with a real gift for mentoring and excellent communication. Swan pointed out to me that I ought to be posting all my conflicts here in the blog, not because I have found answers yet, because I haven't, but because it helps to write it all down, and perhaps it might help me unravel it a bit, a tough task but here goes!

Well what is the problem, let me try to explain...

Although the changes in Andrew's and my life which we wanted to bring about by embarking on this DD path have indeed started to bear fruit the truth is that this new journey has actually started to change my life in a completely unexpected and radical way, not because DD/BDSM is a "radical" lifestyle but because it has started to make me feel that perhaps I am "finally" allowed to do something for me and this is a pretty unusual concept for me.

For most of my adult life I have lived to do things for other people (partners, husband, kids, family, colleagues), sometimes even doing things to them happy even if they did not make me happy. The truth is that I have always put my needs/wants/desires on hold and made sure that their needs/wants/desires were fulfilled. It is what I believe(d) the traditional role of wife and mother was really about, even though I clearly was/am not a typical wife and mother but perhaps even more because I was not. This traditionalist view was also carried through in my beliefs about sex, a woman is supposed to be totally submissive in the bedroom and lie back and think of England she is not supposed to ask for sex and she is definitely not supposed to like pain etc. I have found that actually I am only happy adopting a submissive role in the bedroom and that when forced into a more dominant role with my ex-husband I was really unhappy. Strangely this is one place where I am a reasonably good submissive, if I can just lick that in the rest of my life that would be great!!

I started therapy 5 years ago after a nervous breakdown induced by a very stressful situation caused by my ex-husband, what I thought would be a short term thing to get me through these issues and involve much cursing and swearing about my stupid ex has turned out to be a long term thing where I mostly talked about me and started to finally deal with the very significant issues that I had, irrespective of the stress related to my ex. Most of my problems centered on my extremely negative self image which was deeply ingrained from years and years of bullying at school. Although I am very lucky in that I had and indeed still have a very supportive and loving family, my school environment was extremely abusive, in short a living hell. In short I had believed everything that the bullies had told me about myself and despite outwardly being a confident and happy person, inside I was deeply unhappy and self-loathing.

It was this self-loathing had always meant that I refused to "allow" myself to do anything that was good for me or would make me happy. I hated the fact that I was overweight but could/would not control my eating, indeed I would often deliberately eat the wrong things to "punish" myself and reinforce the view that I was fat, ugly and useless as I had been told for years. Yet I would proclaim to the world that I was happy with my size and it was the rest of society who were wrong and narrow minded, they should love me for who I was on the inside and not what I looked like on the outside, despite the fact that I despised myself.

This "double bluff" worked well for so long that I had managed to convince myself that it was not my problem it was just the world's problem and it was only through the many, many sessions with my patient therapist that I was finally able to first identify this negative record, that was constantly playing in my head, and then counter it's damaging effects. Thus about 18 months ago I finally started to exercise and lose some weight and become much more happy with my body. I even started to really enjoy the exercising, something that I had always considered as a necessary evil before. I get so much satisfaction when I run 5km or have a good session in the gym, things I never thought I could do in a million years, things that the bullies had said I could never do because I was so fat. I will be honest and say that the record is still there, I know it and recognise it for what it is, but sometimes I still have problems not reacting to it. It sometimes tells me for instance that, because I not only enjoy running and the gym but they are also good for me, I am not "allowed" to do them.

I have been battling this mindset for a while and have been working with my therapist on getting used to the idea that I should be "allowed" to do things that make me happy. As I said before I have spent a lot of my life doing things to make other people happy even though, in some cases it did not make me happy or indeed made me very miserable, but I do get great satisfaction, or you could call it "indirect happiness" out of making others happy. However, "direct" happiness, doing things just for me, because I want to, has not been possible, or if possible has been associated with great feelings of guilt, e.g. I cannot go shopping to spend the money (that I alone work hard to earn) on myself unless I really "need" the item, but I can buy totally frivolous things for other people who clearly do not need, nor often in the case of my kids deserve them. I suppose in a warped way doing things to make others happy and at the same time me unhappy has continued to "feed" my need to punish myself because I "know" I am a bad person, I suspect this is why this behaviour has continued for so long.

And so to now, coming to terms with my self image issues when dealing with "normal" things like diet, exercise and body image was one thing but now, starting to deal with much more "not normal", but even deeper and stronger issues like submission and masochism is a whole new ball game. I am already "bad" as I am overweight and cannot control my eating, for example, what must I be because I have a deep desire to be submissive and an enjoyment of pain - crazy, evil, certifiable?

Perversely it is purely because these needs are so strong that I have been forced to address them, now I have taken "it" out of the box, I cannot put "it" back. I have finally to admit that there is something that I want AND need so strongly that I cannot any longer suppress it. I am going to have to "allow" myself to have something that I actually want, because I cannot face the alternative, living without it, this now seems impossible. It is too late to turn back, I am out of control now, even though I am terrified of what the future may hold as Andrew and I continue down this path, I know I cannot go back to life as it was.

So the battle between what I want (the good stuff) and what I am "allowed" to have (the bad stuff) has been raging for a few weeks now. It seems the more I move down the path to what I want towards submission the harder the other good stuff (diet and exercise) becomes to do. I have been eating badly and missing the gym in order to somehow "compensate" for exploring and enjoying the "wanted" submissive and masochistic side of me. It is like I have to do these negative things to balance out the positive ones.

So, this is part one of my current turmoil, I'll try and post the rest in a couple of days, just need to put the washing on and start packing for my holiday which starts on Friday - yippee.

Hil

June is bustin' out all over ...

June is bustin' out all over
The ocean is full of Jacks and Jills (or is that Hils ?!),
With the little tail a-swishing'
Ev'ry lady fish is wishin'
That a male would come
And grab 'er by the gills!

I've always loved the musical Carousel and I realised that one of the verses could sort of be DD related, OK so just indulge me in my fantasy for a minute ... "the little tail", or was that a paddle "a swishin" and the "lady fish wishin' " that she would be grabbed "by the gills" for a swift spanking perhaps!

I wonder what other songs I can adapt for DD, off the top of my head I can think of only one other which is from another musical, Cabaret, "Helga is the baby. I'm just like a father to her. So when she's bad, I spank her. And she's very, very, very, very, very bad"! Sounds like I need to do a bit of Google-ing tonight!! Unless you, dear lurkers, can help me out with some ideas.

June already, nearly half way through the year, where did that almost half year go so far, anyone know, it sort of flew past without me noticing!

Life has once again been a bit challenging, I have been struggling with my submissive urges once again, I seem to go for long periods where I can manage to submit without too much trouble and then, wham, I hit a brick wall, and me submit, no way, no siree!

In a vague attempt to come to terms with my newly emerging persona I discussed the issues surrounding Dominance/submission and their extremely close cousins sadism/masochism with my therapist. I have been struggling to come to terms with the realisation that I should wear both the submissive and masochist "hats". In the surprisingly philosophical interlude which followed this revelation from me, he pointed out to me that these are actually extremely normal, natural states, "never" said I, but "actually yes", said he, "in fact life is a cycle of S/M or D/s". If I had not been lying down (sadly not on the "stereotypical" leather couch, I love leather - but that is another story ho ho!!) at the time I probably would have keeled over in amazement. Natural, normal, NEVER!!! His explanation went something like this...

Let's start with sex ("a very good place to start" as Julie Andrew's would have perhaps said!!) , this is in itself is about an act of dominance on the part of the man and submission for the woman, he has to have enough dominance (fuelled by the hormone testosterone which also of course fuels aggression, without enough of this aggression he just can't keep it up!!) to provide the possibility to 'penetrate' her and she has to submit to such penetration. Then in a further act of sadism the sperm has to "penetrate" the egg which has to submit to this if a new life is to be conceived.

The mother then carries this "foreign being", in her womb for the next 9 months (assuming that all went OK in the previous stage and the egg was not 'running' about the fallopian tubes screaming, "submit, ha, you must be f*****g joking"). The "blissful" state of pregnancy is in itself somewhat masochistic, think morning sickness, heartburn, the little blighter tap dancing on your bladder etc, etc. After all babies are basically extremely effective sadists, "sucking" all they need from the mother (often to her disadvantage, and clearly without her consent!!) in order to give themselves the best start in life.

Finally the mother has to turn from this submissive being, who allows this to take place into a dominant aggressive one, "expelling" the intruder from her body into the world. As a mother of 4 I can tell you that this is the ultimate "masochistic" act and we haven't gone anywhere near breastfeeding yet! I could go on with the theme but I think you get the gist.

In summary, as I guess you'll all need a brief summary after all that philosophising, labelling myself as either or both (submissive and/or masochist) should not be considered as meaning I am mad or bad, I am just part of the natural cycle of life!

Hmmm, food for thought, or what!

Hil

Help from unexpected quarters!

Following on to the last post, in addition to the stress of my daughter's accident and operation and the usual cycle of Andrew's coming and going and the sense of abandonment and general grumpiness that I feel, something else both confusing and wonderful has also been unfolding. Andrew and I have been struggling with our respective roles as HoH and sub as those of you who read here regularly will know. In fact it is a theme in many other DD blogs too, the "unfairness" of it all - when I screw up I get spanked, when he does, nothing happens.

Despite of course having agreed to this lifestyle, having asked him for it in fact, and despite the many benefits which I know it brings, I continue to struggle with this aspect. I have on a number of occasions refused to "acknowledge" him as my HoH, the one who has the power to decide the rules and when, why and if I get spanked. He has usually at the time of such outbursts, spanked me anyway, with me fighting him tooth and nail, but has always felt extremely uncomfortable because of the ease with which he can overpower me because of his superior size and weight, using them against me and feeling more like an abusive husband rather than my loving, caring and lovingly correcting partner. In short, sometimes he was starting to feel that he was only the HoH when I said so, the classic "topping from the bottom" syndrome and to question if he 'really has what it takes to keep this control freak under proper control and prevent her from torpedo-ing the relationship as she rather tends to do'.

I have for some time read with interest the blog from The Heron Clan, having first found it from Finding Sara in relation to a 'debate' Sara was having with Rahereticsswan about "DD vs BDSM". The friendliness and the respect which was shown by both ladies, one on each side of the "potentially rather heated" argument surprised and delighted me and encouraged me to read some of the other posts on the site.

The warmth and humour, not to mention the sheer down-to-earth-edness of Rahereticsswan's writing drew me in further, not to mention I was, of course, somewhat curious about such an "unusual" lifestyle and wanted to read more. It is such a nice mix of things, politics, spanking, recipes, maths, more spanking etc. Naturally I recommended it to Andrew and he, as a writer, was so impressed with the "naturalness" of it all he contacted the clan to tell them so.

All I can say after a number of chats and a lot of laughs, is that Raheretic is the nicest sadist I have ever met, actually I have never met one before, well not knowingly at least, so truthfully I have no-one to compare him with, I'm sure they must all be like this! Rahereticsswan and Rahereticssly are equally as lovely with wicked senses of humour and some great practical tips. In short, they are so refreshingly "normal" and have really showed me in particular what it is like when you are comfortable respecting and accepting yourself, as you are, warts, spanking and all.

They have also been most kind to give us a lot of advice, well perhaps that is not the right word as they have emphatically not "told" us what to do, instead they have talked and shared with us and asked us challenging questions to make us think.

Suffice it to say that in only a few short weeks we have moved further along in our relationship and DD life than we have gone in the previous few months since we started on our DD journey. Andrew has really, and I mean really, discovered that he truly has a Dominant nature. I should be scared as he is really now taking charge and being much more strict with me, really enforcing the rules, not halfheartedly doing so, and more spankings are clearly looming, but actually I am calm and happy. I am no longer in charge and the submissive part of me, the one who wants to be looked after, the one who desperately wants to cede control, that part which has been hidden for so long is creeping out slowly. At the moment this skin that I am inhabiting seems a little alien, but the more I try it on for size, the better it feels and the more at peace I feel.

Who'd have thought it and all from an innocent click to a Swan's blog. Maybe this ugly duckling could learn to turn into a swan too.

Thank you Clan Heron, I so look forward to getting to know you better.

Hil

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.