Finding Sara

I want to thank each of you who left such wonderfully kind comments after my last post. Even though I was not writing, it was really nice to be able to check in, and  to see so many were thinking of me.

My father passed away in the middle of last week and we have laid him to rest beside my mother. It has been a week of great pain and relief, sorrow and comfort. I am OK…really and truly OK. I think it might take me a little while to feel completely balanced, but that is natural and OK too.

I will be back to writing soon, not quite yet, but soon. I am sure of it.    Sara

This past week has been an emotional roller coaster. I keep thinking to write, and then find that I cannot. This is not about marriage, about DD, about anything but life. I am losing my dad, and the time is near. He has been slipping away for a while, since the end of March, when he was in a very serious car accident. Sometimes we lose people slowly, and it is very painful. But it has given me time to think, to prepare, to mourn in stages, to make some peace with what is coming.

The man I knew as my father was gone on impact in that collision. The man in the hospital is physically there, not well, but he lives. He is mentally incapacitated. I miss him; the phone calls, the laughs, the shared memories. He is the only person left who knew me as a child, knew us, how we were. My Mom died 20 years ago, and my only brother 12 years ago. There is part of me that feels left here alone.

Of course I have Grant, thank God, my children, and a handful of wonderful friends. But at 50 I will be an orphan. How strange to be the lone survivor of a family at such a young age. I am praying for the strength to do what I must to see him comfortably out of this life. If I can ease his passage, I believe that is the most loving thing I can do.

Through the pain, the tears, the anger that comes at times, it also makes me acutely aware of my priorities, of what matters. Yesterday I was in a CVS parking lot and a woman decided that I had cut her off. It was unintentional. If I even had…I think I had the right of way. She gave me the finger, screaming…her face contorted with rage. How very sad.  What a waste of energy and focus. We have choices to make each and every day, how we treat the people we love, and the strangers we meet. Moments of upset and discord show the true person, the mettle we are made of.  In some ways losing my mother and then later my brother so early in my life has made me more aware of what is important. Losing my father now reminds me again…

…planting my garden at the Ranch, laughing with my children, loving and respecting my husband, being kind to my friends,  making each day count, as it is the only chance at that day I will have, and remembering that life is so short, and it is meant to be cherished and lived with awareness and love.

I have enlisted. My oldest son has also enlisted. My other two children have been drafted. Never being in the military myself, I didn’t realize the difference that little fact makes regarding how you came to serve your time, and perhaps how you feel about it.  I hope in the future the draftees will look back and know it was a good thing.

The project Grant is working on is a large one. On any given day he may have 6 ‘workers’ (our 3 kids and 3 other people he hired) and an assortment of contractors. There might be an electrician, a plumber and a excavator, or all three at once. It gets hectic. Grant has set himself up a command post on the front porch at a table with his laptop, coffee, stacks of papers and files, and the phone. Truthfully, between answering phone calls, emailing, running to look at what some contractor needs to discuss, and directing the workers who come to him repeatedly and ask “What do you want me to do next?” he is constantly busy. I, for the most part, try to stay out of the way!

First, if I appear, I may get asked to do something. Any person standing still is apparently fair game for receiving direction! Really, he has been great. I volunteered to plan and oversee the establishment of five large perennial beds. That will take me all summer, but it is something I enjoy.  Besides that, I do have my own work to do, and sit holed up in the spare bedroom on the laptop a lot of the time. It also happens to keep me out of the fray. I forgot, somehow, how I don’t really like being around lots of people all the time. I need my quietude and my space. This is a rare commodity at the Ranch these days.

The kids are presenting an array of issues and reactions to the arrangements this summer. Our oldest decided he wanted to work for Grant rather than getting another job, and he and his girlfriend both work full time. They have been great, although adjusting to having a sort of, almost but not really, new member of the family is awkward. I like her, we all do, but she is different from us. And she squeals…a lot! I know this is petty of me, but she has a very loud and extremely high pitched giggle, and she squeals. She makes the dog bark all the time because the pitch hurts her ears! And she calls my son “Babe”. And she nags him…A LOT! He is happy with her so far, and we are all trying very hard to be accepting, to be kind.

As to the nagging, well we had an interesting conversation the other morning. I was nagging my son, actually. He protested and said that the two of us nagging him, me AND his girlfriend, was more than a man can take! Realizing a teaching moment was at hand, in front of the both of them, I said “Well since I am not allowed to nag your father, I have to nag you! Besides, it is a mother’s prerogative!”  At that moment Grant passed through the hallway and decreed “Not any more! You are not allowed to nag him either!” In my opinion all moms have nagging rights, but I saved that to take that up with Grant at a later date. Our son looked at his girlfriend and said “Oh yeah, well I have told her she is not allowed to nag me! How does Dad get you to stop?” The girlfriend says “Yeah, I swear he sounds just like his father!” Well what the heck do I say to that question? I settled for “I realized it doesn’t accomplish anything except making him mad, so I agreed not to nag.” What was I supposed to say, “Well if I don’t stop when he tells me to, he spanks”?  That conversation will not happen for a long time, if ever, and it sure won’t be with me! Maybe one day Grant will have a man to man with him. I am pretty sure I don’t even want to know about it.

Our other two children, 19 and 15, were drafted into service. Grant informed me and them, they would work three hours a day this summer, Monday through Friday. They work from 9-12, because Grant is all about his schedule. I tried, at their request, getting him to change the hours so they could sleep in. Nope, “Work starts here at 9 am!” They are free for the afternoon to do whatever they want and then in the evenings we often take them out to do fun stuff. It is not a hard life, but I guess different from how we did things before. I was told of these plans a few months ago, and also informed I would not argue with him about it, and would not interfere. I am thinking the first time he brought this up to me just happened to be when I was OTL during maintenance. So unfair! (smart)

We have had our struggles regarding child rearing. Grant is much stricter than I am. He is very loving and nurturing, but he also imposes rules, consequences, standards…I have those ideas, sort of, but am much more focused on making sure everyone feels good and is happy. There are many times when our priorities have collided. Since the power shift in our home, i.e. adopting an HoH model, this has been the stickiest area. Of course we both feel passionately about our children, and giving up the control in this area has been so hard for me. I see his point, his perspective, even when it is not my own. I think having two parents, a father and a mother so enriches a child’s life. Knowing this means that intellectually I agree that letting him be the father is a good idea. Father’s parent differently then mothers. That is a fact. There are many times when Grant does listen to me, but there are times like these when he believes he knows what is best, and he expects me to follow his lead. I am trying!

Ultimately I understand that our daughter is not thrilled, but she is cooperative. She has made some noise about working hard at college all year and needing her vacation, but all in all she is a great worker with a good attitude, and when she needs a day off, personal time, whatever, she has her ways. She has always had a special relationship with Grant, basically holds her Daddy’s heart in her hand the way all daughters should, and she handles him.

Our younger son is a whole other matter entirely. He is a 15 year old boy, Right there, the trouble starts. He is also very much like Grant in personality and when the two 0f them have a stand–off…watch out! He is unhappy. He does not want to be at the Ranch but home with his friends. He does not want to work, or to get up at 8:30 in the morning. The Ranch is “Dumb” and “Boring”. It started with him lobbying to not go up to the Ranch after school was out. I explained that I would be spending most of the summer there, that his Dad expected him to work, that he can bring friends up with him whenever he wants. He doesn’t understand why we should be unwilling to leave him home alone. Sigh. I often resort to saying “You need to talk to Dad about that.” It seems to be the best I can do. They know I am the softy and they keep at me until I cave! They come to me with things they won’t even try with Grant, and they hope I will go behind his back like I admittedly used to in the past. I won’t anymore, but it is still hard for me to say no, to stick with the program when I have an unhappy child standing before me.

One of the things that has helped is remembering when Grant explained to me last year how he felt about putting our youngest to work. I lobbied against the plan at first, and reminded him that we had not asked that of the other two at 14. He said “Sara, I do not see this as something I am doing TO him, but as something I am doing FOR him. I have the opportunity to be a better father, to teach him what a young man needs to learn about becoming a man. I want you to trust me that I know what a 14 year old boys needs from his father.” Wow, it is hard at times, but I know he is right.

So, this summer we march on. It does feel like an army camp at times, but if he thinks I am going to salute, he has another thing coming! What saves us is that underneath the commander is a softy. He adores us and the love shines through. And when the day is done, he is always game for a movie, or miniature golf and an ice cream. Ice cream helps!

I guess you know your husband is committed when he puts his money where his mouth, or in this case his palm, is. Yesterday my husband paid $100 to spank me! No, I did not provoke him so awfully that he needed to get his hands on me, but I am sure after almost a week apart, a weekend of guests, and the state of things here, my stress was showing.

There was some grumbling about me being “awfully feisty”, and I vaguely remember “Brat” being whispered a few days ago. Who knows? He is in charge of spanking, and so I figured when the spirit moved him… Yesterday afternoon the spirit apparently spoke.

At about 3 PM, out of nowhere, I heard him tell the kids that “Mom and I are going out for a few hours. You guys meet us in town for dinner at 6:30.” Huh? This was news to me! I went over and sat next to him on the porch and said quietly “So, what’s up?” He answered, “I’ve made plans. Get yourself ready to go. 15 minutes.” as he picked up the phone and I heard him discreetly reserve a room. Well, from past experience, I knew that could only mean one thing!

Last summer Grant absolutely floored me by taking me to a hotel for our maintenance spanking. He made it a romantic surprise date, and then took me to dinner after. I just could not believe he was doing this!  I remember being so touched, nervous, embarrassed, and then trying to get out of it. He wouldn’t let me. We have little privacy at the Ranch between kids, contractors, workers and visitors. It is not at all what we are used to, as our house at home is very spread out, and the walls are thick. We do what we want, pretty much without too much concern. Not here. He got creative, and truly his understanding and dedication to us, to this lifestyle we have chosen, is moving.

I did not really like the hotel experience so much. It is just not the same as home. I mean, it is better than nothing, and I had no choice anyway, but there is something a bit cold, and the worry of being overheard that changes things for us both. So this time, I didn’t have a choice either. And I do appreciate that. I need to not have a choice. My choice would have been to say no, and then I would be unspanked right now, and a whole lot less calm and centered. Likely we would be arguing instead of feeling happy and connected, which is what happens when we go too long without.

So we went, and he spanked. Apparently it was needed because in the midst, with a hard misplaced (I was pulling away) whack of the olive wood spoon, I started to cry, and what bubbled up with the tears was “I am feeling homesick!” For me, I try so hard to hold things together, and to do what is needed, that at times I keep the walls up and hold these feelings in. Spanking releases them, as it allows me a place, time and way to let my walls down. He is my safe place, and it felt better to acknowledge the feelings and then I was able to move on. And he needed to know how silly I was being too. With him, I am at home.

So, I guess it was $100 well spent. I know we would spend that on a good restaurant, a show, a night out. So why would we not spend that on something that defines us, keeps us connected, keeps me together? I have had people ask from time to time how we make DD work. How do we get through the difficulties and obstacles? We make the commitment, and we do whatever it takes. We admit who we are, what we need, and we make that happen. I am very fortunate that my husband is such a determined and committed HoH. I am lucky he understands what I need, even when I am not so much wanting it. Underneath, I am secretly glad he doesn’t listen when I make my noises about “no”.

Well, the past five days have been quite a whirlwind! I am writing now from our mountain lodge where I will spend most of the summer with Grant and our kids. The last week has been filled to the brim with angst-ing and packing, angst-ing  and traveling, angst-ing and trying to get settled.  Unfortunately getting ‘settled’  is going to be quite a project!

I have realized these past 24 hours, yet again, that maybe I really am a bit of a princess. I like my creature comforts. I am not into camping. I need to have multiple pairs of shoes to choose from, a place to hang my towel, and I need a good make up mirror with a place to put it! All this is a challenge here.

Close to nine years ago we bought an old Dude ranch. The classic log buildings were built in the 1940s and in great shape on the outside. The 27 acres of forested land was beautiful, the lake clear, the beach ours…and the potential amazing. Of course the main lodge had two bathrooms, one up and one down. The upstairs one had the toilet and the downstairs one had a sink, so what’s the problem? Shower…who needs a shower? The old kitchen was sinking into the basement, the wiring was home grown and “not up to code” an overstatement, the windows unscreened, the well too old. The multiple outbuildings were worse! It goes on, but I won’t bore you. The point is it was a spectacular buy, a handyman’s special, and Grant has been hard at work for all these years.

Every summer Grant and the kids came here, and I worked and visited frequently. Whether I was here for weekends, or for a week, still it was a visit, not a prolonged stay, and I could get by.  Now, for the first time ever, I am here for the summer. I am here because my whole family is here. I am here because Grant is here, and I really need to be wherever he is. That kind of “submission” to him, to our marriage was not something that came easily to me. These past few weeks I have been pretty wound up. For those of you who are not regular readers, read back a few posts and you will see that I have struggled.  I am a homebody, really. I love our home, my place, my nest that we have lived in for twenty years. Starting over, making a second home here, is truly a stretch for me.

The thing is, this is Grant’s dream. He has nurtured it for many years. We would drive these mountains and look for land long before we were married, 28 years ago! I would have rather had a beach house, frankly, but his heart has always been here where he spent his summers as a boy. When he is here, back to his roots, the cowboy in him surfaces. He grew up in this small mountain area, amongst small town locals and the rodeo crowd. One of his first jobs was shoveling manure and tacking horses for a trail riding business. By 17 he was riding bulls in the rodeo.  As I have mentioned in one of my stories, I grew up in the suburbs outside a large East Coast city. I am the pampered only daughter of a psychologist, educated at a “Seven Sisters” (Ivy League) college. Mountain men and cowboys were simply not in my world experience! So way back when, on the streets of NYC the cowboy met the Jewish American Princess…and the rest was history, as they say!

We both think it has been a wonderfully enriching for our kids to have the experience of growing up seeing both worlds. However, visiting here, and living here, even for the summers, is quite a different story! Grant is opening a summer business on this property, even while it will also be our second home. I have realized that coming here to be with him for the summers is truly a act of getting on his page, joining him in his dream. On some level I resisted that for many years. I supported it, his travels, the financial investment, sending the kids with him in the summers. The reality is that I had to stay behind for my work. Leaving my work plcae was not an option at that time, and now it is. But there is another reality too. In my heart, I never embraced this place as mine, as ours. It is time.

So, here I am. The kitchen is undergoing a huge renovation and thus is not usable at all. Everything is packed up so finding a coffee cup is an adventure. I have no dresser. One will have to be found. There are all new windows, but no shades on them. Grant moved the laundry room to the second floor, which is the family quarters. He is such a sweetheart! He did that for me. The only problem is that the washer faces one way and the dryer another, so that transferring a load of laundry requires gymnastics. Clearly there was no woman available to consult for the layout! It’s all OK. It can and will be moved. I will find a place to unpack my clothes from my suitcase; I will buy a makeup mirror and figure out where to put it; Window shades will be purchased and hung. I forgot the bag with all my shoes at home, but my daughter and I went shoe shopping yesterday afternoon at the mall which is only a half hour away, and I will survive!  made sure to schedule a bi-weekly hair and nail appointment at my salon at home, so that when I go home for those three days every two weeks for work, I can get that done too. Priorities!

I also have a coffee pot. I can get through almost anything if I have a good cup of coffee in the morning! I prepared for this adventure by buying a pound of Starbucks French Roast, and bringing my coffee press from home. I also bought an electric water boiler, and Grant is taking me out this week to select our new coffee pot together that has somehow come to symbolize our life up here together. It is a long story…suffice it to say that for us a coffee pot makes a home!

Temporarily, I set up the coffee supplies in the bedroom that we use as a dressing area, on a chair. Last night I overheard Grant telling his brother that a week ago the house keeper asked how and where to wash his electric coffee pot. He shrugged and told her to take it down to the lake! “The lake?” she asked. He explained “Yes, the lake! Walk down to the beach, and pour out the grounds. The fish will eat them! Wash the pot out and you are done!” OK, look…I have my standards! I pour the grounds in the toilet, and wash the pot in the bathroom sink. I found a spoon and two mugs, one for the cowboy and one for me. We will make it through another day, with coffee!

This is something that comes up from time to time in a domestic discipline marriage. My ideas and thoughts about it have evolved and changed. In the beginning it was something I knew, and Grant agreed, was needed. We had to establish consequences for behaviors in our relationship. There had never been any, except for fighting and unhappiness. In essence, now the consequences are more limited, more immediate and less hurtful than the ones we used to live with. Instead of emotional pain, arguing, anger and discord, there is spanking or restrictions.

In a way it was a hard thing to wrap my mind around. Why would I deserve to be punished? I am a very decent person, responsible, giving. I try hard to accommodate and cooperate. Why would punishment make any sense? In many ways, I am still not sure. I do know that I feel responded to, cared for, and safe within the boundaries of this kind of relationship structure where more serious hurt is just not an option.

I have a need. On the other hand, Grant does not have an emotional need to be punished, or to have boundaries established for him. We figured out that would not in any way make him feel loved or cared for. Whether it is his personality that makes him so self disciplined, or his dominant character that makes him not need/want a punishment dynamic, I am not sure, but that is where it stands. Fortunately our personalities and needs dovetail.

In reality, the role of ”punishment’ spanking has become one of expression (his disapproval), resolution (our disagreements), and when called for, the re-establishment of the roles and responsibilities in our marriage (i.e. who’s in charge). When Grant feels I have over stepped bounds, broken an agreed upon rule, or been disrespectful to him, spanking is a way to communicate. It causes us both to focus on what is not working and why, and then to reboot the dominant/submissive dynamic. All spanking takes us in this direction, but punishments really up the ante.

There is something that makes punishments hurt beyond the obvious fact that spankings hurt. When Grant punishes he does not use a warm up. That makes the spanking physically hurt a lot more. He also spanks harder.  However, I have taken some long hard spankings that were not punishment a lot better than a punishment spanking. Over time I eventually learned to let down my inner walls enough that I almost always cry when I am punished. Yes it is the pain, but it also has a lot to do with the high emotions, knowing I have disappointed him, and learning to allow the needed catharsis to occur. Accepting discipline is so highly submissive of an act, emotionally and physically, that it is truly both fulfilling on some level and cathartic, as much as it is also absolutely something to be avoided at all cost!

Every DD wife I know has true ambivalence about punishment. We hate it/love it. We need it. We want to know our Dominant can and will provide it. We need to know it is there and will be used if called for. We do not want to do that which would earn it. What a bind! Grant and I use very regular spanking sessions to take the pressure off, and maybe because of that. I find that true punishments are rare.

I guess, to define terms, I would separate out punishments and Punishments. The first are disciplinary in nature, but we really are using spanking to highlight and/or remind of expectations. If I lost my temper and yelled at Grant, he might pull me OTK and give me 20 hard whacks with a paddle. To me that is a lower case p punishment. It is a “Hey! Get it together and stop acting like that” spanking. No capitol P there. The real Punishments are far and few between, and an emotional experience that is not something either of us enjoys. We know it works for us, but it is not a fun or pleasant time.

This weekend there was a Punishment. It started with a smaller thing that would have called for a punishment, without the P. The offense was missing exercise for three days and going off my diet. I did not follow our rules, and didn’t keep to our health agreements. However, the fact is, while Grant had let me slide recently and promised he would spank if I messed up again, this is not usually a Punishment offense. Things like that are just going to happen from time to time. When he spanks it motivates me to try harder not to mess up for a long while, and it works for us. What made it a P offense was the reasons the lapse occurred.

I really do try very hard to cooperate, to do the things I have agreed to, to be a fully engaged partner in our Domestic Discipline marriage.  One of the things we have agreed upon is that if I feel I am having trouble following our rules, I need to tell Grant, to utilize his strength to bolster mine, if I need to. In other words, if my determination is slipping, and I have not exercised today, it is expected that I will tell him. He will growl and tell me to get myself in gear and go do it NOW, and that takes away the option to cop out. If I am feeling down, I need to tell him. Whatever is going on, I need to stay open and communicative.

That is one big part of what keeps in sync.  After our fight last week, and after he left, I found that although we mostly worked through things, I was just in a funk. I was still wound up, feeling disconnected, and ultimately let things slide. I stopped exercising and went off my diet. Not as a conscious decision, but I just could not bring myself to care. More importantly, I didn’t tell him. That is my job to do so.

We all have our stories we tell ourselves in our heads, the records that play when we are feeling down, self doubt or insecure. One of mine is that Grant doesn’t have the time for me. I am a bother. I am too needy…variations on that theme.  One of the wonderful things about DD is the development of trust, and more often than not these days I have learned to push through that emotional garbage and to tell him anyway, believing that even though I may feel disconnected, he IS there for me, and I can and will trust him. Trust is often a decision.

So when he came home on Saturday and was going to punish for the exercise and diet, I knew I just had to come clean and tell him what was behind the lapse.  That confession definitely upped the ante, from a p to a P. Our marriage, what we do and how we live is all about trust. I failed to do my part, and entrust him with how fragile I was feeling. I know that one is all part of the other. If I had not been feeling so fragile, I would have been able to tell him. The thing is, the Punishment was needed. The whole thing was in some ways a symptom, I believe, of several months of living in two places, lots of stress, and not feeling the strength and connection of our bond the way I need to. Going through the ritual, the mindset, and the physical reality of the Punishment rebooted us, put us back firmly into our dynamic, reminding us (me) of our priorities, our lifestyle…who we are together.

I am so glad we have this tool, a way to set things right without emotional damage between us. I just barely remember how it was before DD…just that there was frequent heart ache. I’ll take a sore bottom any day!

Main Entry: sub·mis·sion     Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Latin submission-, submissio act of lowering, from submittere…

2 : the condition of being submissive , humble, or compliant
3 : an act of submitting to the authority or control of another

From Latin submission-, submissio act of lowering, from submittere

From the beginning when I began to read about Domestic Discipline “submission” was talked about. I did not exactly understand what that meant, and was not to sure I wanted any part of it anyway. I came to understand that “an act of submitting to the authority or control of another” was a basic necessity of a DD lifestyle. After all, we started with my agreement to submit to my husband’s authority. Soon it became obvious to me that “the condition of being submissive, humble, or compliant” was at the heart of the spiritual journey I needed to undertake.

Learning to be compliant, or “cooperative” as Grant likes to call it, has taken learning humility. It has taken facing that what I want may not be in sync with what he wants at any given time, and that my needs, wants, feelings are sometimes simply less important that what is good for us as a couple. What is good for us is to be in harmony, and many times that takes the form of me making an active decision to go his way, follow his wishes, to submit.

“Humility is the defining characteristic of …someone who does not think that he or she is better or more important than others.”   

The humility is the hard part. I am often sure I am ‘right’, that I know what is best. It is not that I am always sure that Grant’s perspective is wrong per se, but when I am committed to me being right, or doing things my way, I am committed basically to myself. There can even be two paths that might take us to the same end. I may feel more comfortable with one and he may feel better taking the other. I have needed to learn to follow, to take his way, simply because it is the way he is taking, and I have committed to following his chosen path. It comes down to paying that price to be united in our lives.

This whole shift has happened slowly for me. I surely had no clue what I was getting into, what would be required of me, when we began Domestic Discipline. It is one thing to say you will submit, and another entirely to do it. There are times when I simply get scared. I wonder what piece of myself I might be giving up, and will that be ok. Will I be OK? It has to do with trust, ultimately. Maybe it is also about faith, faith in him and in me. All of this requires faith that he will catch me if I fall, and that I will have the strength to give up my attachment to going my way, and still maintain my essential sense of self. A wise man once told me “You have to lose yourself to find yourself.” Part of this journey has meant letting go of attachments to my world, my focus on my self. I have had to be willing to let go and lose some of my old self to find the new.

Such small things at such unexpected times can send me into a tail spin of fear and doubt. An everyday occurrence can trigger the underlying issues that lie almost silently, like an iceberg, under the surface of my consciousness.  This has happened periodically over the past three years since we began DD. It has always taken me by surprise, always rattled me, always required intense thought to sort through and figure out what the real and underlying issues were.

This one had to do with moving with Grant up to our summer place. Such a seemingly innocuous thing, and one I am very much looking forward to. But I think last week I started to get scared. There are some old martial issues attached to this that make it a bit emotional. In retrospect, I realized that there is also another part of this.  In someway I am walking away from my world, my work and my home, to join Grant where he needs to be, and to begin to establish us, there, in a way we have not been before. It is applying action to a shift in my priorities. It is an act of literally going to him, joining him where he needs to be, putting aside my stuff, and following. Now I will say that the reality is that this is just for two months, that I will be able to work from there, and that this is mostly on an emotional level. But emotions are real too. It is significant to me in its symbolism, in what it represents to me.

It is a step for me in submitting in my life to my husband, to our marriage, and taking this next step scared me. It scares me every time I begin to grow because it is new, it is a stretch and it often feels uncomfortable. However, now that I finally know what is bubbling up inside me, now that I can talk about it to myself, to Grant, it becomes manageable and speak-able, and I can begin to move through it.  I can try to find the humility to go to my husband, to show him the vulnerability, and to let him help me though this.

I feel not quite myself. I am having a hard time writing. I start and then stop, write a paragraph, and discard the topic. I am not exactly down, but feel a little withdrawn, pensive. There is a lot going on in my life, in my head, and I guess I am thinking, and working through.

The older kids have come and gone. Our daughter returned from Ireland, our son from Florida. They are working with Grant this summer, and yesterday they left for the mountains. Our house is much like it will be in the fall. They will both move on with their lives, my daughter back to college in Massachusetts, my son to a new University, and into an apartment with his girlfriend. It is wonderful and yet a lot of change. The house is quiet. Our younger son is still here, as he will be next year, but at 15 ½ he does his own thing most of the time already.

Today my father left the hospital. He was moved into a skilled nursing home. I did not expect to feel sad but I do. He has been through so much. In three months this 86 year old man has endured a traumatic car accident, a broken neck and hip that took two separate surgeries to repair, three bouts of pneumonia, and a heart attack. He is on a ventilator but close to weaned, for the third time as well. We just do not know how aware he is, how sharp, how far he will be able to go in his recovery. But he continues to fight back, and so I will give him that chance. It hurts to see him go through all of this, and it hurts to be losing him.

It has occurred to me that these past few months have been a process for me. I am slowly facing losses and changes and a lot of letting go. No matter how far my dad might recover, the father I knew is gone. Things with my kids are changing too…my son starting to make a life with a woman who might or might not be his future, but clearly he is going back ‘out there’ to live his life. Thank God he is, but I will miss him. My daughter just told me she wants to major in Celtic studies, and to study in Ireland. All lovely. We will visit. She just darn well better not meet some good looking Irishman and think she is having MY grandbabies abroad! Life is getting so complicated!

And then there is Grant and I. I save the best, and in some ways the most important, for last. One of the things that DD does is bring you closer, more aligned, in sync, and when things are awry, it is so much more noticeable. We no longer can float by each other, whether content or alienated, but in parallel worlds. When one of us is off, when there is stuff going on, it is all the more obvious, and we cannot help but feel it. I feel it now.

Some issues have come up from our troubled marriage before DD that apparently have lain dormant until now. Maybe life’s changes have stirred things up, or maybe, perhaps, we are strong enough now to finally deal with them. For us DD has included a commitment to growth, personal and marital. It is an awful lot of work at times, but the rewards have been so amazing. This lifestyle means that we need to look at what gets in the way of us having the very best relationship we can. There is always stuff, there is always more, as we grow together, as there is more trust, more intimacy, there is more revealed. It is not always pretty or fun, but it is real.

So we have a lot of talking to do. We spent some time this past weekend talking and fighting, and crying and spanking, and talking again. I am sure there will be more. There is always more. I just know that he is my heart and so somehow, someway, we will get through together, and move past this too.

 And so, what is the point of all this? That there are things I am not quite able to write about. At least not yet. 

Hi Sara-
Thanks for the very quick and thorough response to my questions. As one who has been there/done that, I really appreciate you letting us benefit from your experience.

I do need to swallow my pride and communicate more openly, honestly and in a more timely manner. I did place my trust in him when I asked for dd and whenever he has understood what I needed and wanted, he has spared no effort to fulfill my needs. He deserves my trust…even when I am overly tired/emotional/hurt/proud…whatever.

Realizing that Grant truly deserved my trust, and my inability to trust him at times was something I had to work though was a huge turning point for me. My revelation did not result in immediate trust, but it helped me to see more clearly what I needed to strive for, and where to make the effort. I needed to work on me.

There have been times when I have felt so satisfied that I AM a submissive and happy wife…that I float around the house spreading joy and beauty all around… Those are the easy times. But I am learning that dd isn’t just for the easy times. And what is the purpose of dd if it can’t see us through the hard times?

I think it can and it will, if you work at it and allow it to. You are right that when you do not want to submit, when it is hard, you are upset, he is wrong is when the rubber meets the road. You see your commitment and your capacity for growth and change in how you handle the difficult times.

So, yes, I should have told him that I was feeling out of control, needy, disconnected, and then I should have trusted his decision to spank. The inner workings of my Venus-brain are really twisted because months ago I thought how nice it would be if my husband would suggest/deliver a spanking when he saw me going to pieces….flash forward to now. He sees me going to pieces and suggests a spanking. I think,”He doesn’t really want to do this. He is just patronizing me. He thinks I am too needy. He is going to get tired of having to maintain me. He would rather watch tv. He isn’t going to do a thorough job with a spanking. He is tired of me.” And he didn’t really say ANY of those things.

I didn’t want to open myself up to being hurt, Sara. I was afraid that if he didn’t prove he really “wanted” to spank me by wrestling me down, he would just be going through the motions. But he shouldn’t have to do that. I have agreed in my more sane moments to trust him. I agreed (without any arm-twisting or speeches on his part) that I believed in him and his ability to guide our relationship. I still do.

Marie, I think you were flat out afraid. We do make ourselves very emotionally vulnerable within this lifestyle, and sometimes we simply need extra affirmation. We need to hear, again, that we are not alone, that they do want this lifestyle, that they are not just doing this because we asked them to…on and on. You had a whole scenario going in your head and were unable to see past it in the moment. You can learn to be more aware of those emotional times and to talk about them.

He has proven over and over again that I am more important to him than anything else. Saying or thinking that he would rather watch tv than take care of me is so ridiculous. I should be the poster gal for PMS and the dangers thereof.

Aha, so there it is. I was going to ask, but thought it seemed…well wrong. Yeah, hormones are an evil thing. I think our men would agree. I get that way sometimes too. I will have to remind Grant that he felt moved a few weeks ago to write something about spanking and hormones. Frankly, all I have to do these days is whisper PMS and he spanks. I think he is convinced it is a survival tactic for any man living with a menopausal woman! I do have to admit it seems to do a lot to restore sanity, mine and thus his.

So, how did we work it out? I showed him the question that I posted to you. He read with interest and said, “I understand this. Why didn’t you tell me this last night?” I said, “I couldn’t put it into words last night.”

But I could have tried. I could have opened myself up to hearing, “Sorry, babe. You’re not worth it. I’m gonna watch some tv.” I like the rule you and Grant have that “nothing” is not an acceptable answer when it isn’t the truth. And ala Grant, Mac will be saying “Would you like to talk or would you rather be spanked first?” And frankly, sometimes, I might rather be spanked.

Well, yeah, there is that. Sometimes, we just need that!

But he won’t have to wrestle me into position. That is my renewed commitment. He is my HOH and I will trust and obey him. I don’t have to like it, but I will obey….knowing that he is doing what he believes is best.

I wasn’t able to stay in position very easily last night when the bath brush came out, but I do find my mind is able to overcome my body when the alternative is “Stay in place, Marie, or I’ll get out my wood paddle.” That’s worse than the brush… Even then, he had to “help” me by keeping my arm and legs pinned with his body at times.

Different people feel differently about this. While major struggling is not OK, we both feel not moving at all is near impossible when the spanking gets intense enough.

When it was over and Mac scooped me up on his lap and started drying my tears and soothing me, there wasn’t a luckier girl in the world. And I know it.

I know I need to stop jumping to conclusions about what he is thinking. I know I need to trust him. I know I am emotional and more than a little needy. But I also know he loves me.

It’s good to know that in time, Sara, we may get to that magical 99% where miscommunications and misunderstandings are a thing of the past. I love that you have been so willing to share your own experiences with me.

Blessings on You and Grant-
Marie

Marie, a wonderful resolution all in all! I am betting you both learned a lot from this, and you also came up with some strategies to deal with similar problems the next time they arise.

You know, maybe I need to revise my numbers. I think 95% of the time would be more on target. And wow does that 5% still cause us stress, but we do have ways to get through it, and the big thing is we are both 100% confident that we will. That has made all the difference.

Marie, my very best to you and Mac! Sara