Blogs I Learn From: Husbandly Touch

When I began The Hand of Love, I hoped that it would be unusual in a couple of ways. First, I hoped it would chronicle a domestic discipline marriage from the very beginning of its transformation—something I haven’t seen elsewhere. Second, I wanted it to be one of the rare male-authored blogs whose focus is the marriage: so many male blogs seem to be about domination or spanking as if these things existed outside a very real relationship. There are marriage blogs written by men, of course, but in the DD world I know of only one like I’ve described: Husbandly Touch.

Mick has a number of traits I admire in a man. One, he’s thoughtful in a deep, feeling way: a kind of compassionate, soulful thoughtfulness that is sometimes found in men who have come through episodes of depression (as Mick tells us he has). Two, he’s faithful. I don’t just mean he doesn’t stray; I mean that Lynda is his focus, the center of his emotional life. You can sense that his purpose is to serve her, and therefore to lead her. And three, he’s a very good writer. Each post has a point that he leads us to by means of very short, well-composed paragraphs. Mick wastes no words. He favors the short, declarative sentence. There is little ambiguity except where ambiguity is inherent in what he describes.

There are a number of posts I can recommend to anyone reading this who is unfamiliar with Mick’s blog. For example, if you want an introduction to Mick, to Lynda, and to how discipline works in their marriage, I’d start with To Begin, Finding Our Way, Hold the Phone, and Discovering Her Voice.

Then there are the posts that have been particularly helpful to me. Some of these I’ve actually internalized, so that I had to review to realize they came originally from Mick’s blog. Others I’m still learning from.

Spanking is for Grownups

It is no surprise to me that many of the people I know who practice DD come to it in their forties and fifties….When Lynda lies across my lap, she gives me a gift of vulnerability that she gives to no other. Only a fully grown person can give that to another.

It’s Never Easy

The deal is that if I’m going to spank her, I have to be man enough to face her resistance. I have to be secure and confident enough to follow through while she’s telling me it’s not fair, that I don’t understand, and it won’t help anyway. I have to be willing to experience her anger before, during, and after the spanking. If I show uncertainty she gets even angrier, and sometimes disdainful….Each occasion requires me to gather my courage. Perhaps it shouldn’t ever be easy.

Also helpful (and delightful) are the posts where Lynda chimes in to answer questions. Why is it no surprise that she’s articulate and charming?

• Ask Lynda: The First Session
• Ask Lynda, Session 2
• Ask Lynda: Art and Punctuality
• Ask Lynda: What Have I Gotten Myself Into?
• Ask Lynda: What Goes Through Your Head?

There’s plenty for you to read, but let me close with something Mick wrote earlier this year. He tossed it off early in a post, as if it were an aside. But it’s important. It’s central to his character. I wouldn’t spank if I didn’t think it were central to my character. And I would suggest that if you are a woman who wants a DD relationship, you should make sure that it’s central to your man’s character.

I’ve looked hard to make sure domestic discipline is not just a nice word for domestic abuse….If this were abuse, she would decrease in spirit. By that I mean her personality would be diminished, her self esteem would evaporate, and she would be more fearful, as happens with abused spouses. Abuse takes away what makes a person who she is.

I need feedback to make sure ttwd is helping her feel happier. If it is only for my benefit at her expense, I wouldn’t continue.

I speak as if I know exactly what I’m doing, and of course, I don’t. But I believe the main thing is that I lead with confidence, not only in myself, but in her that she can find her strength.

Even if I have to spank her to get her to do it.

She Accepts My Leadership

Thursday evening we had a trivial dust-up at the very end of the day. She knows that foul language bothers me, but it’s been creeping back into her vocabulary at home a bit. (It doesn’t help that many of the shows we enjoy use the F word every minute or so. And I’ve used it too, though never since I told her I didn’t like it.) On Thursday, as she dropped that word into a comment, it seemed to me she was looking at me as if to check whether I’d caught it.

When we got up at the end of the movie to do our pre-bedtime chores, I gave her look without thinking about it: a kind of I-know-what-you’re-up-to look with a little “watch yourself” mixed in. I realized my mistake when she challenged me, in her aggressive, demanding way, over its meaning. If I told her at this point, I could tell she’d push back hard and probably cross the line. Then I’d have to deliver a punishment I didn’t think served either of us particularly well. Probably the next night, Friday, when I prefer to let Anne unwind from the stresses of the week.

I didn’t want Anne’s second spanking to be over this. The second spanking is important, because it’s when spanking starts to change from an aberration to a policy.

So I wouldn’t answer her despite her pushing, and I told her we’d talk about it later. She finally stomped off up to bed, where she fell deep asleep almost instantly. When I saw that, I knew I’d judged correctly—she was exhausted.

She was in a good mood Friday, and I didn’t bring up the subject. But I did this morning. “What do you want to do today?” Anne asked. “I think we need to have a mini-summit,” I told her. She gave a grimace. “Really?”

I chuckled a little. “It’s okay. It’ll be just talk. Nothing else. I think we need to talk about Thursday night, don’t you?”

She wanted to talk right there in the kitchen. Her stance was defensive. “I think we need to talk in bed,” I said. She protested. “When we talk here in the kitchen,” I said, “or in the den, there’s an adversarial atmosphere.” I pointed out how we were standing—her facing me, me facing her, three and a half feet apart, like co-workers having a disagreement. “This isn’t a battle and I don’t want any barriers.”

She grumbled all the way into bed. She kept her pajamas on, and I allowed it, though I’d taken off mine. “Is this so terrible?” I asked.

“I don’t want another chore,” said Anne. I asked her if working on our marriage was really a chore. I put my arm under her shoulders so she had to snuggle to me.

I explained about Thursday, owning my mistake and conceding that she had a right to clear communication from me. I told her that I hadn’t explained the look because I thought it might start us down the road to a punishment neither of us wanted. And I reiterated my feelings about foul language. She argued a bit, but it was feeble and I could tell that she wasn’t in basic disagreement with my feelings.

She started talking about the issues in her life. Not the angry, frustrated venting I hear some evenings, but in a soft way. I’m aware of the issues. I share a lot of them. She talked for twenty minutes, my arm around her, wiping her eyes occasionally.

Eventually it was time to get out of bed again. “Wasn’t this better than talking in the kitchen?” I asked. She nodded gratefully and a little ruefully. She kissed me a few times before leaving the room.

---

When I said the word “punishment” my arm was around her. She didn’t tense or flinch. All she said when I explained that I didn’t want things to go in that direction was “Well, I knew that.“

I realized a lot this morning. It’s all what I knew, but today I know. That it’s okay to lead, when there’s love in your heart. That you have to trust yourself and trust her—to let her have her reactions and make her protests, then maintain your position.

Anne didn’t need a spanking this week. I didn’t need to give one. But when the time comes, we’ll both be OK.

Hidden Qualms

Commenters have been very supportive about last Saturday’s breakthrough.

Anne’s sweetness and upbeat mood lasted through Tuesday evening. (Wednesday wasn’t bad. It’s only that work-related stress made its way back into her demeanor that evening.)

A correspondent suggested that I probably had some overwhelming feelings. I said that “overwhelming feelings” wasn’t quite on the mark. Overwhelming wonder, yes. I surprised Anne with something she considers deeply unpleasant—a spanking—on Saturday, and on Tuesday she still was notably more upbeat than usual. Sure, I’m struggling to understand, but it’s not just wonder and curiosity, it’s because the more I understand, the better I’ll be able to proceed correctly.

Was it my firmness? My dominance? Was it just my love? Was it the spanking itself? Was it the release from guilt? I don’t know any of these things. So next time, I don’t know what to avoid and what to repeat.

I don’t want to give the impression that I’m paralyzed with anxiety. I’m fine, and I know enough to project an air of confidence whatever my inner doubts. But I am very aware that an incorrect move on my part next time could derail this whole thing and set us back, not just to square one, but to square zero. I want to avoid that.

I’m completely accepting of the fact that I will make mistakes, and I’ve told Anne as much. What I don’t want to do is make a mistake next time. Our new way of life is too new and too fragile.

Anne has neither a good understanding of why I’m leading us this way nor true commitment to it yet. That means I’ve got to be very skilled (and perhaps very fortunate) in my choice of how to proceed from here.

I know that no one can advise me what to do. My own resolve and good instincts are what got me this far, and I know they’re my best tools for making future decisions.

But these are my thoughts and feelings, five days into DD, still sailing blindfolded and conscious that the smoothest seas can turn choppy in an instant.

Sailing Blindfolded

Sunday was one of the nicest days of our married life.

We didn’t do anything special. We just spent the day together, having fun, enjoying each other’s company and laughing a lot.

There was no tension. There were no moments of doubt, miscommunication, worry or regret.

Our “Sunday Summit” consisted only of making love. I took the lead and made sure it was great for her. I didn’t think of it as work, but she thanked me for working so hard to please her. She said she’d make sure that she focused on me next time.

The Summit is Anne’s time to talk to me, to ask questions, to bring up anything she needs to bring up. Despite the events of the day before, she didn’t have anything to say. She was relaxed and happy.

This woman denies being submissive. Doesn’t even like the word. Spanking has never had a role in our life together, even in play. I’d expect the spanking she got on Saturday to have led to some confusion, or at least some sober reflection. I didn’t see any sign of that.

I don’t want to reject good fortune or examine happiness too closely. But I want to ask her: what is going on? Why did you wake up in a good mood? Why aren’t you troubled?

You showed every sign of not wanting this. You say you’re going along with it for fear of losing me, not because you understand or believe. Is it that I pushed past your resistance? Is it that I didn’t back down from what I believe in? From what I want? Or is it something else, something that’s never occurred to me?

I’m not just in uncharted waters. I’m sailing with a blindfold on.

Resolution, Part 2

The conversation was civil but it wasn’t pleasant. I started by letting her know how I felt during Tuesday morning’s incident. I tried to explain that it wasn’t about her needs versus my needs on weekday mornings, but about her being aggressive when it wasn’t called for, treating me as the enemy. I pointed out that it was exactly the behavior I wrote about in my letter: a pre-emptive attack in lieu of simply stating her needs. I told her I’d been beating myself up all week over my not stepping up the way I’d promised to in my letter. That I felt as if I’d failed my duty to both of us by lapsing into our established pattern, defending myself instead of letting her know right away how out of line she was.

She told me how she’d been feeling at the time. That she felt I was just riding right over her (uncommunicated) needs, that the “new regime” (her words) meant that I could do whatever I wanted and she had no say in it. My taking charge—although as yet hardly acted upon—made her feel defensive, leading to her aggressiveness. This was good information for me, and I talked with her about it until it was clear to me that she knew her feeling wasn’t based on fact. I repeated that I viewed my leadership as a serious responsibility that meant making an effort to meet her needs whenever they didn’t clash with mine, which I view as equal in importance, not greater. I understood her feelings, but they didn’t excuse her approach.

When I thought we’d understood each other’s positions, I asked her if she remembered what I said I’d do if she disrespected me the way she used to. “No,” she said. “I said I’m going to punish you,” I said, gently.

“So what does that mean?” she asked, her face hardened.

“I’m going to spank you today. I’m not going to punish you hard, because I should have handled this earlier…”

“What do you mean, you’re not going to punish me hard?” Her voice was challenging.

I was confused by the question. “I’m not going to punish you hard,” I repeated.

“What do you mean, not hard?”

“I mean I’m not going to punish you as hard as I might in another circumstance.”

“But what do you mean by hard?” It was her voice that was hard. I felt interrogated, but I didn’t feel threatened. I tried to explain in another way.

“Well, I’m not going to make you cry…”

“You’re telling me that you would actually try to make me cry?” said Anne, shocked and offended.

It’s a story for another time, but I had spanked her once before, almost two years ago. Just three slaps, exceedingly light. All the same, she had sobbed uncontrollably and told me several times in succeeding months how I’d spanked her hard. Because I literally could hardly spank her any more lightly, I had a good indication that tears were likely to be a part of any future spankings.

“Yes,” I said evenly.

To my surprise, she didn’t follow up on that with a lecture on the innate cruelty of my character. She changed the subject, and the next ten minutes ran the gamut of protests and hard questions. What about the humiliation factor? Did I think she was a child and I was her father? Spanking is for kids. Exactly why did I think that spanking could ever be a good thing in an adult marriage? Didn’t I see how arcane, how weird, how off-the-wall it was? Didn’t it turn me on sexually, and wasn’t that icky?

To say I had good answers for all of these questions would be a lie. Many of them were good questions, and Anne was utterly convincing in her outrage. I had two advantages: I was calm, and I was resolved. I listened to everything she had to say, and gave her the respect she deserved.

“If you can look me in the eyes,” I said to Anne, “and tell me that this isn’t fair, I won’t punish you today.” She looked at me, but she didn’t say anything.

When she’d spent her arguments, I told her that being equal and without a plan for the first ten years of our marriage had not worked out for us. And while she had great talents in business and in many other areas, between the two of us, she was not the most qualified to run the relationship. She didn’t read books about marriage and love, as I did, and when I asked her to read them, she had no comment on them. She wasn’t patient or interested with research on effective communication, either: it was just so much pop psychology to her. By contrast (I told her), I spent quite a few hours a day thinking about how to make our marriage better. I couldn’t keep living the way we’d been living, and I wanted—needed—to give this radical change a try.

“So you’re saying it’s this, or…” Anne said. She meant I wasn’t giving her a choice, that it was DD or end the marriage.

I thought. “How do I put this? If we don’t try this, Anne, I don’t know what will happen. We need a change, and I have no Plan B.”

I could see her think. She had no more questions to ask, no more charges to level, and I was still resolved. Her face changed. It was not a happy face, but she’d made a decision. “All right,” she said. “I have no Plan B, either.” And she was done talking.

I stepped away a few feet and pulled a straight-backed chair from the dining room. She went over my lap on her own. I don’t know how it felt to her, but for me, it was a strangely comfortable feeling, as if she’d always been intended to be there. She was wearing elastic cotton tights over panties. I ran my hand over her bottom and slapped her very lightly, on the left and on the right.

She wasn’t sobbing, but she was weeping softly. She didn’t struggle. I gave her ten, about two seconds apart. I increased the force slightly. The last slap was still short of the force I use when applauding at a concert. “Okay,” I murmured. “We’re done.”

She stood up and buried her face in her hands, crying. I put my arms around her and told her I was proud of her, that she was a strong, adult woman. I held her for a little while, but she didn’t relax into me. I let her go and watched her. I put my hand on her back. “I can stay here with you. Would you rather I go away?” She nodded, still turned away from me, not speaking. “Okay. I’ll be here if you need me.” I went into the kitchen and started doing dishes.

In about ten minutes she came in and silently started working beside me, setting out the ingredients for the meal she’d planned—chicken breasts stuffed with feta cheese and kalamata olives. A few minutes after that, she started conversation, just as naturally as ever. Dinner included not only the chicken, but a great salad with homemade chili-lime vinaigrette, something we hadn’t had before. It was delicious and I made sure she knew it. She seemed happy and easy. We had a normal evening. As we went to sleep, she took my hand. “Good night, sweetie.” Content.

Resolution, Part 1

Continued from last post.

The rest of the week was unremarkable. Our weekdays are busy and our weekday evenings rather short, so the fact that on Wednesday night we were merely companionable instead of affectionate was not out of the ordinary. On Thursday we watched sitcoms on TV. She was over the events of Tuesday, and I was thinking too hard about the situation to have a viewpoint with which to talk about it with her.

The situation was not closed for me. I’d been treated terribly, and I had to decide whether to punish Anne for it. It would be the first time. But the situation was ambiguous. If I’d drawn up a pro and con list, it would have looked like this.

Reasons Not to Punish

• Appropriate time to punish has past. “Statute of limitation” applies.
• Anne didn’t use words that explicitly insulted me, mocked me, or denigrated me—behavior she knows will have consequences. It was all a matter of aggression, tone and attitude.
• I told her in my Tuesday morning e-mail that she hadn’t crossed a line. Although it quickly became clear to me that the line was drawn in the wrong place, I did tell her it hadn’t been crossed.
• It could ruin her day, and by extension, mine. (Not a very worthy consideration, but it did occur to me as a factor.)

Reasons to Punish

• Her behavior was objectively disrespectful. I’d told her in December that disrespect would be punished.
• If I didn’t punish, she would have doubt in her mind about whether I ever would.
• If I didn’t punish, I would have doubt in my own mind about whether I could bring myself to do it.
• I still felt resentment toward Anne, and I also felt shame for my failure to step up. Both those emotions would likely go away if I spanked her.

I thought about this all day Friday. (It’s amazing I got any work done.) By Friday afternoon I’d decided to spank. Probably in the morning, after she’d finished her coffee. On Friday nights, Anne visibly lets go of the work-related tension she carried all week, and I didn’t want to spoil that.

Deciding to spank didn’t set me at ease. In fact, at times I felt almost sick with anxiety. I’d never done anything to deliberately cause Anne pain that I could recall.

On Friday night we watched a movie, with whiskey and wine.

In bed, scenarios ran through my head. What she might say. What I would say. How hard. Her reactions. I got out of bed at 2:30 and stayed up until almost 5:00 before returning to bed until 8:00.

Anne got up an hour later and circumstances didn’t cooperate. There was coffee, and then there was breakfast. Without a pause, she was making her to-do list. We’re trying to sell an old house that requires constant maintenance, and as she cataloged the various minor repairs she became anxious over whether anyone would ever buy such an obviously challenging home in this market. I soothed her. She started soothing herself by dusting and neatening. I started my own chores. She was in get-it-done mode, and she wouldn’t have the headspace discipline requires until she felt ready to take a break.

It was the afternoon before it happened. I got back from shopping and she was curled up in a chair, watching a video on her laptop. By the time I had things put away she was looking at spreadsheets from work.

I asked how long she thought she’d be working. “Why?” she said. I told her I wanted to have a talk with her about Tuesday morning. “Okay,” she said. She shut down her computer and turned to me to listen.

To be continued.

First Failure

They say that failures are just stepping stones on the way to success. If that’s true, then I’m definitely on my way.

It started with Tuesday’s blog post disrupting Anne’s morning routine. It’s a long story, but because I wrote and posted first thing in the morning, I got in the bathroom after Anne instead of before. And because of my work schedule, I couldn’t wait until she was completely done in there. Pardon my Anglo-Saxon, but it pissed her off when I showered and dried my hair while she was still in our shared bathroom, listening to the radio and applying her makeup. There’s plenty of room for us both, but she likes to be alone in there. She values that time, and when I turned on the hair dryer, she couldn’t hear the radio.

And instead of saying anything about it, or explaining respectfully why she was upset, she waited until something else pushed her button, and she let me have it. She didn’t technically cross the line. She didn’t call me names, insult me in so many words, mock me, or engage in extended sarcasm. But her voice was loud, her stance aggressive. She dismissed my point of view, and she left me in absolutely no doubt that she considered me selfish, thoughtless, rude, unreliable, and uncaring. She couldn’t believe that I would change the morning schedule “on a whim.” I was the enemy. The enemy of her needs. A big problem in her life. She made sure I knew that.

I had no response except to fall into our old pattern. I tried to explain how I hadn’t meant to be thoughtless. I pointed out the changes I had made to my own routine to make sure her morning usually went smoothly—setting the alarm for a time earlier than I’d really prefer, buying a clock for the bathroom so I’d know when I had to get out of there and wake her up. In other words, I tried defending myself. I did everything but let her know she was way out of line.

After we each went to work, I got a message from her as I was writing mine to her. She said she felt bad for how we left things and apologized for “overstating her case.” She said she did understand my point of view about the morning’s disagreement. But it’s clear to me she doesn’t. I don’t care how demanding she is about her morning time. A bathroom routine is not something to fight about. What I can’t abide is her setting me up as a contemptible, self-centered monster.

She had her walls up and crews pouring boiling oil over the side.

Now I have another confession to make. I’m very emotional. And not in the attractive, Latin way, but in the moody, brooding Northern European mode.

My e-mail to her on Tuesday morning was very reasonable and reassuring. She didn’t respond to it. She’s very busy at work. And besides, she’d apologized, so I suspect she felt that the case should be closed.

But throughout the day, it hit me with increasing force how nasty she’d been, and how badly I’d failed. I had completely betrayed the spirit of my letter by not being prepared, by not seeing her walls for what they were, and by not meeting the challenge they presented when I most needed to step up.

In the evening she was cheerful and I could barely say a word. I wanted to tell her what I was feeling, but I was pretty sure she’d see it as weak. And I was feeling weak. I hated myself for my failure. I didn’t know what to do. I’m pretty sure I had a hopeless look on my face. We spent the evening mostly apart. She wasn’t mad. In a sense, she’d won. Although in reality, we’d both lost.

To be continued.

Training Without a Coach

Last night, I got tired. It often hits me like a switch has been thrown. At some point, I make the last little decision, exercise the last little bit of willpower, and then I’m done. I’m ready for bed. It’s not that I can’t make any more decisions, but I do back away from voluntary situations that require them—in last night’s case, looking online with Anne at hotels for our next vacation weekend. “That’s it,” I suddenly said. “I’ve spent enough time on the computer today.”

And, as usual when I seem to exhibit a lack of fortitude, it set Anne on edge. A few minutes later, she thought I was being short with her. She put on the grim face and shut up suddenly. I had to insist that she tell me what was bothering her. She did, and we worked through it quickly. (She talked about the immediate trigger, not her reaction as being a response to a perceived lack of strength on my part. That’s my own diagnosis, based on many instances.)

All this is trivial, and not the point of my post. What struck me, and what I woke up thinking about this morning, was my response to her apology later. “I’m sorry I snapped at you,” she said. “You didn’t snap at me,” I said in a tone of gentle reassurance.

Forehead slap. Okay, so I couldn’t call to mind anything she said that I necessarily would identify as “snapping.” She thought she snapped, and she apologized. What the HoH was I doing telling her she was wrong about that—implicitly telling her that the small acts of resistance and defensiveness that I did notice were okay, and not a cause for apology?

Like all of us, I’m a creature of habit, and my habit is to be soft, gentle, and reassuring. But often, my natural gentleness would be more helpful around a firm core.

It’s times like this when I really feel the lack of a coach or a program to help me make the changes I need to make. Because Anne needs my leadership to make the changes that she knows she has to make.

I know from the blogs that some couples try a “boot camp” program. It’s deliberately harsh. The goal is not just for the submissive partner to learn to submit automatically, it’s for the dominant partner to learn that he can be very demanding without breaking the relationship. Boot camp will never be for me and Anne, but I do need a lot of practice developing the mental and emotional muscles I’ll need to show Anne that true joy can come from adopting complementary roles.

And I have resistance of my own to overcome: a lifetime of behaving as if being plush and cuddly is always the best way to soothe a woman in a tense situation, and the corresponding mental mindset that suspects anyone who desires respect (hmmm), obedience (what??), and submission (get real!) of being a jackbooted fascist.

At this point, I’ve read almost all there is to read. I’ve thought an encyclopedia’s worth of thoughts. It’s all in the doing, and that’s new.

I need to build muscle, but there’s no high-tech weight room and no trainer. Just a room with a few books on the shelf, a few rocks, and a couple of milk jugs filled with sand.

Waiting

It’s been a good week. Anne’s resolution is to take more opportunities to have fun in 2012, so we went to two concerts (one by a favorite ’80s cult band and one of new music by modern composers—this last featured a 1970 work that included amateur musicians scattered throughout the audience, so Anne brought her instrument and attended rehearsal before playing in the piece later in the evening). Being a bit of a stick-in-the-mud, I wasn’t privately enthusiastic about either event beforehand, but of course I went and had a terrific time at both shows.

Anne’s been her best self all week (and I guess I’ve been a pretty OK guy, too). I’ve been making sure to be decisive while eliciting and respecting Anne’s preferences. Meanwhile, I’ve been observing Anne consciously monitoring and modifying her behavior patterns in our interactions. There was one weeknight incident that started to head down the familiar path to petty bickering, and I heard her put on the mental brakes and back away. I don’t mean to be gushy, but it was heartwarming.

On Saturday morning I went out to do errands while Anne stayed at home to do cleanup. Before I left, I handed her the letter I wrote last week and posted here in the last entry. I told her that I wanted her to read it, and that in fact I recommended that she read it carefully once, put it away for a few hours, then read it again. She smiled, as if she liked it when I insisted.

Later, in the car, she took my hand and told me she liked my letter. I kissed her hand and told her it was a love letter. She said she knew she had some changes to make. That’s about all she said about it.

So—we’re on this journey I’d often wondered whether we would ever start, and the changes that each of us is making are encouraging the other. As I become more confident and set on my course, she becomes softer, sweeter, more appreciative. Although it wasn’t my primary goal, our sex life has improved dramatically. She acknowledges that I’m the leader of the two of us. She likes it when I tell her where we’re going to eat, what we’ll do on such and such a day, how we’re going to become closer and how I plan for us to get there. And, of course, she’s even consented to spanking should she ever lapse into the kind of disrespect that used to be frequent.

I don’t know when that will happen. Until it does, I’ll always have anxiety over what hasn’t been shown yet: whether I have the fortitude to physically take my strong, beloved, protesting wife in hand; whether such a course will represent a long-needed improvement to our relationship or will introduce new, unanticipated problems.

In October, I wrote her that I believed in spanking, and as I wrote it, I realized that it was true. But you can believe all you want in something before it actually happens, and your belief is put to the test.

So I’m impatient. But this is a case in which my slightly overdeveloped conscience and my natural reticence to action are serving me well. I can’t force this or rush it. When it’s time, I’ll know, deep down, just as I knew last year that it was finally time to step up and go for what I wanted in our marriage.

A Letter

I’ve written a handful of letters to Anne over the years, but as I mentioned recently, she would rather I didn’t. Nor does she much like to write them.

I don’t understand it. Both of us are quite good with words. I’m a moderately talented writer, though by no means a professional, and writing greatly helps me understand my thoughts and feelings. By contrast, I’m not terribly articulate in speech, unless I’m perfectly relaxed. So the more important the things I have to say, the less likely I’m going to be able to say them verbally.

Nevertheless, I accept this about Anne, and choose to look at it as an opportunity to learn to identify the core of what I need to say, and say that core idea aloud.

I wrote a letter to Anne last week. It was as much for me as for her. I needed to have everything in my mind down on paper so I could see it. As it happens, she didn’t read it.

It’s personal, so I had to consider whether to post it. I finally decided that everything here is more or less personal, so I might as well post. After all, as always, anything that could compromise our privacy has been changed or excised. This blog is to explain myself (to myself, to you, and maybe someday to Anne), and that’s what this letter does. Maybe there’s a man out there who’s trying to come to terms with his desires; maybe a woman might want to know what’s in one man’s head as he starts DD.

Here it is.

Dear Anne,

Sometimes, when your defenses are down, you ask me for reassurance. The things you ask me—not to give up on you, not to get tired of you, to always love you as you are—are yours without asking. I love you as much today as I did the day I asked you to marry me. And in some ways, knowing you better now, I love you more.

I know you’ve been working to please me in the last couple of months. I love what you’ve done, and even more, that you’ve done it for me.

And I appreciate the effort you’ve made to understand the process I’ve been going through: figuring out where I’ve been, understanding where I am, and deciding where I need to take myself.

I’m going to take myself farther down the road I’ve been exploring. I believe it will benefit us both.

Let me tell you what I see when I look at you.

At first I see the strong, capable, independent woman that everybody else sees. That strength is no mere veneer. Your competence serves you well in many areas, as it will serve you well if anything ever happens to me. I know that if I ever am very sick or in mortal need, you have everything that’s needed to take care of both of us. There is nothing weak about you.

But what I see next is a woman with a very soft, sweet core super-defended by thick stone walls of toughness and challenge. You built these walls over the whole course of your life to protect yourself against mistreatment from all sides, and they’ve done that well. But you keep challenging and defending, against me most of all, out of habit and fear for that vulnerable person inside. In a way, I think you don’t even know who you are without those walls anymore. I wonder if you’re not only afraid of being hurt as those walls come down, but of not liking what you find behind them.

By now, the walls feel as if they’re you, so you don’t just use the walls to keep you safe, you try to keep the walls safe. You say you’re afraid of losing your self in a relationship, but you’ll always have the skills you built when you built those walls. In fact, as those walls come down, you’ll not only feel freer, you’ll find parts of yourself you’ve missed. But meanwhile, an attack on those walls feels very threatening.

Sometimes you let me see that soft, sweet girl behind the walls. I wonder if you realize that the times when we’ve felt the most loving and the closest to each other are the times when you’ve let her out?

When you’ve let your defenses down.

But more often, I see not her, but the hard walls you’ve put up.

Most often, they are walls of aggression. When you snap at me, that’s a wall. When you use sarcasm as a weapon, that’s a wall. When you deride me or my feelings. When you lash out at me instead of letting me help you.

You resort to these things less than you used to, but your defenses are still high. I understand that willpower alone is not enough to lower them.

In the past, I didn’t recognize your aggression as a wall. I thought it was an offensive weapon, and I either took the blows and blamed you (like a victim) or blew up and brought out weapons of my own (by fighting with you). Neither of those responses did well by you or me, because they didn’t help you bring down your walls, and they didn’t help make me a man I could be proud of.

I mentioned to you once how I think we were meant to be together. About how the problems of your aggression and my passivity complement each other so eerily, it’s as if it took being together to confront them.

I’ve told you how I’ve realized I have a dominant nature and a need to be the leader at home. I don’t blame you for not acquiescing. It’s as if I walked up to those massive walls and asked you to simply turn the latch and let me in.

I also made the mistake of taking steps toward definite leadership at home, and then backing away.

I’m not going to back away again. My love for you is deep, and it won’t lead me astray. In 2012, Anne, in our marriage, I’ll be the head: the captain of our two-person team. I will do this not only to meet my needs (and I DO need this), but to rescue that girl behind the walls.

I am confident that as you work with me on this, you will eventually realize that we are better together for it.

It will be difficult, but it will have benefits. It will be difficult, of course, when I take charge in a way you don’t like. But I know that as time passes, we will feel closer. We will communicate more, and more effectively. We will confront our issues and work through them. We will fight less, and when we do fight, we will fight fair.

You will learn to lower those walls, as you learn that they are not needed at home.

Because I am human, I will make mistakes. But I will never lead you into harm. The lines of communication will always be open. And as we work in this way together, I will become a better man for you.

You’ve asked me for reassurance. I want you to know:

You do not have to worry about my leaving you.

You do not have to worry about my not loving you.

You do not have to worry about my looking at or bonding with another woman.

You do not have to worry about my not loving you for who you are. I will never try to change who you are. (But I will let you know when a particular habit bothers me.)

You do not have to worry about being micromanaged.

You do not have to worry about my becoming a bully or a cad. Your needs will NOT be neglected.

You are not going to lose yourself or become a “Stepford wife.” I will not let that happen.

You are going to learn more about yourself, and I believe you will like what you see.

And as long as you are truly trying to cooperate with me and make our marriage work better, you will never have to worry about my being disappointed with you or losing patience with you.

You don’t need to fear. I expect that most days will be good days, and the good days will be just as they are now. You will always have my support when you need it—and I hope you will learn to ask for it more often. But, always, I will be the one in charge until neither of us needs me to be.

I know, Anne, that whatever you’re feeling right now, whether it’s anger, or worry, or any negative emotion, that you love me and that you will always be a full partner in our journey together. Do you understand that I don’t want a slave or a servant, I want a partner? And this is what I need from you as a partner, right now.

I trust you and have faith in you.

I love you!

Kevan