I thought maybe he would bring it up, or even act on it, but he didn't, so I tried talking to him about it. I tried explaining some of the feelings I was trying to work through in the post, and what I needed from him (basically piss or get off the pot). And he acted as though I literally wasn't there. Not so much as an acknowledgement I was speaking. So I turned over and went to sleep. At that point, yes, I was hurt, but in a dull kind of way that just felt like something I had known for a long time was being confirmed. I wasn't pouting or working myself into a crying rage. I was just tired, in more ways than one, so I went to sleep.
The next day we were supposed to spend the day at Kelly and Grant's house. I was quiet and a little subdued, but I wasn't sulking or trying to have a bad attitude, and I was friendly and sociable throughout the day. What thought I gave to the whole DD situation was brief and not too deep and mostly centered on whether I should write him an email or just put it in a blog post that this part of our relationship didn't seem to be worth pursuing any longer. I wasn't exactly angry, just resigned a and a little sad. It was a long day with a lot of little kids running around, and by the time we got home, I was worn out. Jack and Daisy were both asleep, so we put them and Morgan straight to bed, and we both just kind of vegged out on the couch for a bit. Finally I headed up to bed to read for just a few minutes, already dreading getting up early the next day to get Daisy off to school. A few minutes later Nick came up and I heard him rummaging around in his closet, but I didn't think anything about it. When he walked around to my side of the bed and I looked up to see him standing there holding his belt, I was genuinely startled. And I got really angry. He started telling me that I'd had a terrible attitude all day, and that he was going to deal with it. Frankly I just wasn't having it. I had spent basically weeks by this time accustoming myself to the idea that he had moved on from this, and his complete lack of response the night before had more or less confirmed it for me, and here he was turning everything upside down.
He pulled the blanket and sheet off of me and told me to turn over, and I flat out refused. Several times. He warned me that he could make me, and I more or less invited him to do so. Within the next couple of seconds I was face down in my pillow, and he was basically wearing me out. It wasn't a particularly long event, but it did break through my anger, and I was hardcore ugly crying before it was over. And the crying went on for a very long time, far longer than the spanking itself would account for. I was just working through a ton of built up stress and fear and sadness. I would like to say that the evening ended with him holding me and letting me cry it out on his shoulder and then maybe some sweet time reconnecting. Unfortunately we both had to be up the next day, and he was maybe less inclined to be patient with me than he might have been if we'd had more time and had I not fought him so much on the whole thing. He basically told me to turn out the light and go to sleep, and I was left feeling more or less exactly like the hassle and irritant I'd felt like for so long.
Now, before anyone, Nick included, thinks I have nothing but complaints about him and what happened that night, I don't. Whatever the execution, it was something I badly needed, and by the next morning I was feeling much better and more evened out. It helped, it really did. And I know that I really, really needed it to be something I submitted to whether I thought I wanted it or not. I think maybe we were both so out of practice with it that we were clumsy with each other's feelings. But he did the hard thing, and that was what I needed him to do, and I'm grateful.
I don't know if this means that this is something we're doing again now or if it was an anomaly. He hasn't wanted to talk about it, and I'm reluctant to push a conversation to ask for fear of making him think that I didn't appreciate it or that I'm too needy.
Something he did mention the other night was that he felt like I maybe portrayed him a little unfairly in the last post when I mentioned the various ways he has of blowing off some steam. He thought it sounded like he's off playing all the time and just leaving me with the kids and never coming home. That's not how it is at all. He does something maybe once or twice a week. He's done the soccer golf thing on a couple of Sundays recently. He went on an overnight hunting and fishing trip Friday night, and he's at the gun range with my brother right now. But he also came home last night to keep an eye on the kids while I had a Norwex demonstration at the house. And there are certainly weeks when he doesn't do anything relaxing at all. He has a three day weekend every other week, which means that the weeks in between he works 6 days of 7, and the 7th day is spent mostly at church. And this past Sunday he cooked both lunch and dinner without even being asked.
He hasn't been doing the DD side of things, but he has tried to relieve stress for me where he could. It's just that there's not always a good way to do that other than spanking it out of me. This is just an especially stressful time in our lives between tight finances, having our house on the market, and trying to find another house. For instance, in the 11 days since my last post, our number of showings has risen from 60 to 72, and we have another one tomorrow. And that's not even counting the three that got cancelled in the last week. So we don't really get much of a break. And as we talked about, the things he does for stress relief are mostly very inexpensive or free (with the exception of the hunting trip, which he took on a side job specifically to finance), and there's just not a lot of things like that that would be relaxing for me. I really enjoy crafting, but that's not really an option right now with most of my stuff in storage and no good place to use what I still have here. I would absolutely LOVE to spend a day thrift store hopping, but we don't have any room in the budget right now. The same thing with just a girls night out. None of this is his fault in any way shape or form, and I don't want to imply that it is.
I don't really have any answers here, but I know this season will pass. Eventually the house will sell (or it won't, and we'll eventually take it off the market and stop having strangers parade through it every day). Eventually Jack will potty train, and finances will get a little better and the lawnmower will get fixed (did I mention it threw a rod through the block? It did.) Eventually I will have some sort of a place to craft and we will get to take a vacation and life will stop putting us through the wringer. Eventually. And even if that takes forever, we have God and each other, and we will make it.
He pulled the blanket and sheet off of me and told me to turn over, and I flat out refused. Several times. He warned me that he could make me, and I more or less invited him to do so. Within the next couple of seconds I was face down in my pillow, and he was basically wearing me out. It wasn't a particularly long event, but it did break through my anger, and I was hardcore ugly crying before it was over. And the crying went on for a very long time, far longer than the spanking itself would account for. I was just working through a ton of built up stress and fear and sadness. I would like to say that the evening ended with him holding me and letting me cry it out on his shoulder and then maybe some sweet time reconnecting. Unfortunately we both had to be up the next day, and he was maybe less inclined to be patient with me than he might have been if we'd had more time and had I not fought him so much on the whole thing. He basically told me to turn out the light and go to sleep, and I was left feeling more or less exactly like the hassle and irritant I'd felt like for so long.
Now, before anyone, Nick included, thinks I have nothing but complaints about him and what happened that night, I don't. Whatever the execution, it was something I badly needed, and by the next morning I was feeling much better and more evened out. It helped, it really did. And I know that I really, really needed it to be something I submitted to whether I thought I wanted it or not. I think maybe we were both so out of practice with it that we were clumsy with each other's feelings. But he did the hard thing, and that was what I needed him to do, and I'm grateful.
I don't know if this means that this is something we're doing again now or if it was an anomaly. He hasn't wanted to talk about it, and I'm reluctant to push a conversation to ask for fear of making him think that I didn't appreciate it or that I'm too needy.
Something he did mention the other night was that he felt like I maybe portrayed him a little unfairly in the last post when I mentioned the various ways he has of blowing off some steam. He thought it sounded like he's off playing all the time and just leaving me with the kids and never coming home. That's not how it is at all. He does something maybe once or twice a week. He's done the soccer golf thing on a couple of Sundays recently. He went on an overnight hunting and fishing trip Friday night, and he's at the gun range with my brother right now. But he also came home last night to keep an eye on the kids while I had a Norwex demonstration at the house. And there are certainly weeks when he doesn't do anything relaxing at all. He has a three day weekend every other week, which means that the weeks in between he works 6 days of 7, and the 7th day is spent mostly at church. And this past Sunday he cooked both lunch and dinner without even being asked.
He hasn't been doing the DD side of things, but he has tried to relieve stress for me where he could. It's just that there's not always a good way to do that other than spanking it out of me. This is just an especially stressful time in our lives between tight finances, having our house on the market, and trying to find another house. For instance, in the 11 days since my last post, our number of showings has risen from 60 to 72, and we have another one tomorrow. And that's not even counting the three that got cancelled in the last week. So we don't really get much of a break. And as we talked about, the things he does for stress relief are mostly very inexpensive or free (with the exception of the hunting trip, which he took on a side job specifically to finance), and there's just not a lot of things like that that would be relaxing for me. I really enjoy crafting, but that's not really an option right now with most of my stuff in storage and no good place to use what I still have here. I would absolutely LOVE to spend a day thrift store hopping, but we don't have any room in the budget right now. The same thing with just a girls night out. None of this is his fault in any way shape or form, and I don't want to imply that it is.
I don't really have any answers here, but I know this season will pass. Eventually the house will sell (or it won't, and we'll eventually take it off the market and stop having strangers parade through it every day). Eventually Jack will potty train, and finances will get a little better and the lawnmower will get fixed (did I mention it threw a rod through the block? It did.) Eventually I will have some sort of a place to craft and we will get to take a vacation and life will stop putting us through the wringer. Eventually. And even if that takes forever, we have God and each other, and we will make it.
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