Settling In

As I mentioned before, Nick and I are a little over a year into our DD journey. We're finally getting to the point (at least I am) where it's not foremost in our minds.

Domestic Discipline was definitely not his idea. At the time, I didn't realize it was my idea either. I knew that spanking was a definite turn on for me, but I also knew that there was a piece of the puzzle missing. I just had no idea what it was. We've always had a good marriage. But every couple fights, and we seemed to have gotten to the point where we were doing more of it than we felt was normal for us.

I'll admit, it was largely my fault. Nick doesn't ask a lot of me - a navigable living space, clean underwear and work clothes, basic respect. I was sadly lacking on all three. As far as the respect, it was certainly always there in my heart, but my mouth sometimes shot off a different message. There were factors at play that planted resentment in me and elicited the same response in him, and we both fell into the old "Fine! If you won't meet my needs, I won't meet yours" trap. Part of the problem was spanking itself. Nick was raised that you just don't hit a woman ever. Period. So even though he sometimes spanked me in bed, I could sense his discomfort with it, which made me pull away as well. I felt that spanking was a sexual need he just wasn't willing to meet, so why should I do the laundry if he couldn't do that one thing for me? He felt that if I wasn't going to do my part around the house (and believe me, he's always done his part), then why should he cater to my spanking fantasies?

Last New Years Eve, we had a fight about some stupid thing that escalated into a lot of not so stupid things. We both yelled and cursed and said a lot of things that really needed to just finally be voiced. He yelled about how mad he got when I let the house go, and I yelled back that maybe he should just spank me for it instead of walking around fuming about it. That stopped us both for a minute. Who ever heard of a man actually spanking his wife like a naughty child? We certainly hadn't. But when the words came out of my mouth, it was like I suddenly had a clear view of a hidden need inside of myself. Nick warily agreed to give it a try, and I promised to try to not give him a reason to have to.

I spent the next few days buried online. We'd gotten a computer not long before, after being without one for 3 years or so. I was on a mission. I needed to find out about myself, and one thing the internet taught me was that I wasn't the only spanko out there. I stumbled across http://www.vickiblue.com/, and I found a name for what I wanted. I followed links and ran searches and printed off everything I could find about DD.

A few days later I took Nick an inch thick binder of material. I had highlighted, crossed out, underlined, edited. I'd never put so much into a research paper. I showed him the binder, casually mentioned that there were some things he might find helpful if had a free moment with nothing more pressing to do, then fled. It would be months before I could sit in a lighted room with him and say the word spanking out loud. I'd spent too long thinking my needs were weird, and drawing the same conclusion from his discomfort with it sexually. He read bits and pieces, and tried to get beyond his suspicion that this was all sexual for me. And he decided to give me the benefit of the doubt. In the beginning there were several spankings a week, countless silly rules (made by me), and an overall feeling of contrivance. After all, he'd been married to me for 5 1/2 years. Why all of a sudden did I feel like I needed to be punished like a child?

Eventually it got easier. I stopped feeling giddy every time I got spanked. He started noticing on his own when I needed discipline. He got better at making a lasting impression when he spanked. And we learned that sometimes a spanking without a "good reason" could reset my heart and ease my stress. Now we don't use a list with a point system like we did in the beginning. We can sit down together and have an honest, two-way discussion about what DD means to our marriage. We don't feel like we're playing a game anymore. Nick finally sees this, as I do, as something that we will keep for the rest of our marriage.

Not long ago, after a spanking, Nick was looking at the paddle he'd used. It's actually a decorative boat oar, about 18 inches long and impossible to break. There's a fish painted on one side of it, and he commented that in 15 years we'll have probably worn all the paint off of it. I asked him if he thought we'd still be using DD 15 years from now, and he said he definitely did. I felt such safety in those words. DD has made us both better. I can see that Nick is more confident, and truthfully, so am I. I don't feel anymore like he'll get fed up enough to walk away from me. And he doesn't get fed up so much anymore. The house is usually pretty clean, we very rarely fight anymore, and sometimes I get spanked in a very good way. It has been such a journey to get to this point, where DD no longer feels like "something we do", but rather just feels like who we are.

It's a good feeling.