I'm back ...

Dear All

Well I am back after a weeks holiday, plus another week not being able to blog due to a) much washing to get kids ready to go back to school, b) the usual 3 million work e-mails to answer and c) too much time spent over my partners knee being spanked due to my awful behaviour.

As we were on holiday staying with friends and family most of whom do not yet know about our DD lifestyle I was so concrned about the "noise polution" from the twice weekly maintenance sessions so that I could not get the real benefit of the spankings. This was not due to my patner's reluctance in this area as he was more than ready to give me what he knows I need, it was more due to my embarrassment as I was acutely aware of the sound of every swat and thus ended up the sessions more stressed than at the beginning.

This stress led me to behave really awfully to him on a number of occasions, the last one of which resulted in a punnishment spanking being "awarded", in fact by the time he did this he was so cross with me that he made me stop the car so he could look for a place to administer it immediately. Luckily for me around the M25 there are few suitable places and so he had to wait until we returned back to where we were staying.

That evening as he was about to administer said punnishment, despite the fact that I was clearly on dodgy ground I decided to push the boat out a little as I was already in trouble (or maybe it was the full moon as Sara - from Finding Sara - says) and told my HoH that he would do that "over my dead body" as I was not prepared to risk the resulting noise and buried my head in the pillow to go to sleep. He of course was not taking any of that nonsense and as I had stupidly lain face down on the bed, he proceded to forceably remove my knickers and give me a spanking anyway. I was not best pleased as you may imagine but by then it was too late.

Once we were back at home things should have improved but alas they did not, I could blame it on PMS but really should not and after a couple more unpleasant days with me being generally unpleasant, my HoH announced that he was increasing the maintenance sessions to three times a week and that I was going to get another punnishment session that evening.

A lot of my frustration was stemming from the fact that my dear HoH is somewhat domestically challenged, when intelligence was being handed out he was clearly at the front of the queue but with common sense he was either at the back of the queue or forgot to turn up entirely!

Well this drives me insane and I feel that when he does not behave like an HoH I do not see why I should submit to a spanking, this led to a flurry of email exchanges as I was at work and was not going to talk about this over the phone nor was I about to let him administer any kind of spanking so I lost no time telling him this.

My HoH wrote the following which I quote as it is so lovely:

"It is not your role to state whether or not you are willing to receive the discipline of your HOH, for that immediately places you in the driving seat. It will always be the case that I can & will discipline you whenever I decree it and that you will accept this. Even if you do not, discipline will always be administered.

I will always listen to reasoned arguments unless this comes perilously close to bratting.

By submitting to my dominant role as the HOH, you will benefit from your submission. I do this in order to show that you are loved and cherished as no other woman has ever been - or will ever be.

So, when you return tonight, as soon is practical, you will strip to your knickers and stand in the corner in the punishment position. You will do this because I order it, because it is the right thing to do - and because I love you."

Annoyingly the damn man was right, it is not for me to decide if I get spanked or not, I gave up that right when I asked him to agree to live a DD lifestyle as this was what I wanted and needed.

But even so I was still not happy and was struggling to explain why, I first pointed him to Vivian's post http://disciplinedfeminist.blogspot.com/2008/02/resistance-blame-and-responsibility.html as she so acurately, as always, puts into words a good explanation for part of how I was feeling but not the whole, for the rest I tried to expand on my feelings thus.

"In addition to what Vivian describes there is a major difference for our situation which causes me even more problems, in that you often do not act as a 'typical' HoH which does not seem to be the case for Viv or Sara who both seem to have strong dominant men as their partners. Yes I have problems with the injustices of it all, I get to be spanked for my misdeeds (which I agree recently have been many and various) and you get to carry on with the non-HoH behaviour yet have no consequences.

I know that in a DD relationship it is not about fairness, Sara has a good article about this see her article entitled 'When DD is not fair' (http://findingsara.wordpress.com/2008/02/11/when-dd-is-not-fair/) but it is so hard to submit even given her very valid argument when I see you behaving in a way that if I did I would get spanked.

I believe part of your HoH responsibility is NOT to behave in such a way (this is one way DD is not fair the other way round - I can behave like a spoiled brat while you cannot), and when you do this it winds me up greatly and then I lose control and usually my temper too.

I know that when I finally submit to what is coming to me I will benefit, but that does not make it easier on an intellectual level to submit. For me there are 3 parts to submission - physical, emotional and intellectual and I need all three in harmony for it to work.

• Physical submission is about taking the pain of a spanking and not resisting.
• Emotional submission is about accepting the reason(s) for the spanking whether maintenance/punishment/disobedience and accepting the need for the correction of my behaviour
• Intellectual submission is about fighting the inner battle between my wish to submit and my natural tendency to keep in control, no matter what even if I miss out on the emotional benefits.

It is the intellectual side which gives me the most trouble when I see you not behaving as my HoH as I cannot force myself to accept to submit to someone who behaves as badly as I do, I need you to be "better" than me, when you are not I can submit physically to a maintenance/punishment session, I can admit emotionally why I need one but I cannot reconcile the intellectual issues.

I know I am not explaining this well but it is so hard to do when I am so angry, angry at you for not being what I need and more angry at myself that I cannot "ignore your failures" as I should and behave properly, instead I know that as you continue your non HoH behaviour I escalate my failures and my behaviour gets worse."

So there it is I had put my feelings into some rather confused words, I am not sure if they make sense or not and I am sure that my HoH is right that I chose to submit to him and allow him to discipline me when HE thinks I need it and not when I do, but, and it is a big but, I find it so hard to do in the above circumstances.

So I got home in the evening and once the kids were in bed we retired to the bedroom to talk, well I expected to talk and he expected to spank. I having learned my lesson from the last time he tried to spank me against my will, lay carefully on my back on the bed and refused to comply. Completely to my surprise and even though I was fighting tooth and nail, the turned me over onto my stomach and proceeded to give me a damn good spanking. I fought him all the way, yet he kept on calmly spanking me until I gave up the fight and submitted. Then he carried on until he was happy that I was thoroughly spanked and sufficiently repentant.

Thankfully he was prepared to risk prosecution, he was of course taking a real risk "disciplining me against my will", as he understands how important DD is to me, to us, and how much I need it even when I do not want it. He was able to honour our agreement when I was not. And I am now very much in awe of a man who loves me enough to do that. A man, who I have to admit was, and indeed is, more of an HoH than I had realised or had dared to hope for.

Darling Andrew, thank you.

Spanking vs CP ?

From reading all of this material, the would-be HOH will start to understand that there is rather more to this lifestyle than spanking. Indeed, it is our own experience that since we started DD, our bouts of erotic F/M spanking have all but vanished, as we believe that reserving CP purely for our discipline sessions is absolutely appropriate. Does this work for any of you?

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.

The Novice HOH

A few notes for any would-be HOH:

a) When your partner expresses a desire to stand in the corner of her own bedroom, with her trousers & knickers around her ankles, hands on head, she is both paying you a great compliment and handing you a truly awesome degree of responsibility as the HOH. Or at least that was my experience.

b) There really is a knack to adminstering discipline. Do not be over-ambitious with the use of implements - you might cause damge to your partner, as opposed to maintaining your relationship.

c) Communication is all - before and after.

d) Do not expect immediate responses. These are roles that you will both have to grow into.

e) Set a consistently high example as HOH - a task that is often far more difficult than the actual punishment but even more essential.

f) And after all of these provisos, if you are anything like us, you may well reap some very genuine and lasting benefits.