I’ll confess that there was a time in my life, several years ago when I though domestic discipline could solve just about any issue under the sun. Looking back, that was naive and simply not true. However, at the time, it seemed like everything that we used domestic discipline for worked like a charm. But, as we grew with domestic discipline one of the things we began to see is that as great as domestic discipline is, it isn’t always the right answer for some circumstances.

Have you ever had one of those days where it feels like there just aren’t enough hours in the day for everything you need to get done? It’s an overwhelming and stressful feeling, no doubt. That was me a year or so ago. There were a million things that I needed to do that day and it seemed like the hours were ticking by faster than I could get things done. I was overwhelmed, and that was an understatement. Clint was pretty busy that day as well, and it just seemed like things were never going to get done on time. In the midst of all the chaos, the running around, and the craziness I’m pretty sure my attitude began to slip..a lot. What started out as one of those, “okay, I can handle this!” type of day quickly turned into one of those, “no way can I handle this. I need a vacation!” and went downhill from there.

I don’t remember the specifics of what I said, which is probably a good thing, but I remember standing on the staircase in our entryway yelling at my husband. And, anyone who knows me personally knows that yelling is something I never do. I have to get either really pissed off, really frustrated, or just really overwhelmed to even get to that point. That was one of those days.

Clint responded in a typical HOH way – that behavior is uncalled for, and unhelpful to the situation. Therefore, he opted to punish me. Looking back on the day, I can totally understand why he did. My attitude was spiraling out of control. So, he opted to send me to our bedroom for awhile to calm down. The problem was that the reason I was so overwhelmed in the first place (thus triggering the attitude issue) is because I felt like I just didn’t have enough hours in the day to get everything I needed to done. So, in my eyes, how was an hour or so in the bedroom going to help that? The answer is that it wasn’t. It made it worse.

I, reluctantly (very reluctantly) went up to our bedroom, but the entire time I was in there I wasn’t thinking about why I was being punished. Instead, I was far more concerned with the fact that me being in the bedroom wasn’t helping my to do list (thus being overwhelmed) at all. By the time Clint came up a little while later, I was actually more upset than I had been earlier.

My attitude hadn’t improved, that was for sure. And, although I semi-tried (aka- not much effort was really put into it) to be in a better mood, it just wasn’t happening. I think Clint was frustrated with the lack of change in my attitude, and I was frustrated with his reaction to this entire situation. I felt like bedroom time was probably the worst punishment he could have done for this, at the worst possible time. I was getting angry, no doubt.

He ended up flipping me over his knee and spanking me with his hand and a wooden spoon. Not real hard, but hard enough to get the “drop the attitude message” across. But, once again, throughout the entire spanking my mindset wasn’t on, “wow I really handled this wrong and I need to fix my attitude and approach this day better because this attitude isn’t helping”. Even though I know those statements were true, and that my attitude wasn’t helping, and I did need to knock it off, in that moment that wasn’t what was going through my mind. Instead, I was too focused on the fact that I was getting spanked for something that I felt could have (and should have) been handled in a different way all together. Therefore, it made the spanking pretty much useless. If I wasn’t learning anything from it, then it wasn’t working.

It took awhile that day for everything to calm down. Clint apologized for how he handled the situation, and I apologized as well. The way I handled things was wrong. Bottom line. But, the way he handled things definitely escalated the situation instead of doing what he had intended for it to do, which was make it better. A few hours later we sat down and devised a plan that would help both of us to get everything we needed to done. We split up tasks better than we had before, were communicating better, and as a result, stress levels were going down. I feel like if we had both done that from the beginning it would have minimized the need for any sort of punishment to even occur.

We both learned a lot that day. Clint learned that maybe punishing isn’t the answer, even if there is a misbehavior that occurred. Yes, I broke the rules that day. I snapped, I yelled, I had a bad attitude, and I didn’t listen real well (and that’s an understatement). But, in that moment, punishing me for it actually made things worse and that wasn’t his intention. Since that time he hasn’t punished me while I was angry, and if a punishment did need to happen he has waited until both of us were in the right mindset, thus causing it to go much smoother.

What I learned is that sometimes it’s okay to ask for help. This is something that I’m still not great at (to be perfectly honest), but I’m working at it and the instances that day taught me that if I would have just went to him and asked him for help earlier that day when things first started to get overwhelming it likely would have prevented the days events later on. I also learned, like he did, that domestic discipline may not be right for every single situation. It also reaffirmed to me the importance of both of us communicating effectively.

So much of domestic discipline is trial and error, and so many times you have to (unfortunately) actually experience something going wrong in order to better understand how to fix it for the future. This was one of those instances, and despite how much that day sucked, I’m glad it happened because it taught both of us things that we still carry with us to this day.

-Chelsea

The post {A-Z Blog Challenge} B: Bedroom Time Gone Wrong appeared first on Learning Domestic Discipline: The Blog.

It feels like forever since we did domestic discipline boot camp for the first time. In fact, it practically was forever ago. But, the experiences that we shared during that boot camp will probably be etched into our brains forever. From the not so great, like the punishments, to the awesome parts of spending so much uninterrupted time together and the homework assignments..the entire weekend was definitely an experience that we’ll never forget.

As part of that first boot camp experience, we purchased an implement that we’d never used before. The point of the implement was to be used during one of the punishment sessions, and so when Clint sat down to choose the implement I wasn’t real thrilled at first. To begin with, I thought it was nuts that he was considering purchasing a spanking implement online. You know they sell hairbrushes and wooden spoons in stores, right babe? But, we had used those implements before (and, in fact, at that point in our domestic discipline relationship the “store bought” type implements were the primary ones that we were using). This implement needed to be different, unexpected, and one we hadn’t tried before.

I didn’t have a great knowledge of domestic discipline spanking implements at that time, to be honest. I knew of the basics (hand, wooden spoon, hairbrush and paddle) but beyond that I was still learning, and so was Clint. So, when a thin little brown box showed up on our front porch a few days later I didn’t think much of it. Whatever implement was in that box couldn’t be that bad, right? Wrong.

When Clint opened the box the implement looked exactly like I had imagined from the size and the shape of the box. A stick. A thin little brown stick although I would soon find out it was actually not a stick, it was a cane (this cane, to be precise). I’d heard about canes briefly before, but other than the warnings of “those really hurt, be careful!” I didn’t know what else to expect. And, to be honest, I thought those warnings were a little overkill. I was convinced that something more dense, like the paddle, would hurt way worse than something like a cane.

If any of you have ever been spanked with a cane, you’re probably rolling your eyes at me right about now and I can’t say I blame you. I had a lot of misconceptions and assumptions about domestic discipline in the beginning. This was just one of them.

I knew we would be using the cane during boot camp at some point, but for whatever reason (probably the look of it) it didn’t really seem to instill fear in me like I thought it would.

Boot camp had begun and the cane became the last thing on my mind. But, when it was time for the severe spanking (the worst part of boot camp, FYI) I began to wonder just what that little wooden stick really felt like. I would soon find out.

The cane is really deceiving. I learned that after 1 swat with it. I wasn’t sure, at the time, if it really was the cane that was causing such intense pain, or if it was the overall severe spanking and the combination of implements used. Probably both, I concluded.

The first swat with the cane was intense. It’s the kind of sting that stays on the surface, and although I’m usually pretty quiet and still during a spanking, not so much when the cane is involved. It makes me jump around, that’s for sure.

I was thankful that Clint knew the boundaries with it, and knew that anything more than a few swats would be too much. He was right. Because the sting of the cane stays on the surface, it hurts pretty intently the first few minutes after each swat. So, although I only got a few swats with it during that spanking (and the rest with other implements) it was definitely memorable and by the end of it I was pretty much begging Clint to throw the dumb thing away.

One of the things we did after our boot camp weekend had ended was sat down and discussed the weekend together – what we liked, didn’t like, what was effective, what wasn’t, and what we thought we would want to carry over from boot camp into our domestic discipline relationship, and what we wanted to reserve solely for the boot camp experiences. I expected Clint to say the cane was going in the trash can like I did. But, his response was different. He wasn’t a giant fan of the cane, citing that it was definitely more severe than he had wanted it to be (and, keep in mind, we were relatively new to domestic discipline at this point) and it was the kind of implement that he definitely couldn’t see using on a regular basis. Things were looking good for my “get the cane thrown out!” petition. It didn’t help that we were having this conversation while I was remembering exactly what the cane felt like every time I moved around in my chair. Having conversations like that after being spanked recently is never easy.

But, despite Clint’s flaws with the cane, there was some good he saw in it which he began to explain to me. Every domestic discipline relationship that incorporates spanking needs some severe implement, he explained. There needs to be some ladder of severity, and he didn’t like the idea of making severe spankings an extremely long, drawn out session with the paddle only (our most severe implement prior to the cane). I definitely didn’t like that plan either. The one thing he liked about the cane was that he was able to use it during severe spankings (which he knew would be rare) and the spanking would be over with much faster, yet the spanking would still be severe enough to get the important message across. He had a point. I’d rather take a shorter spanking over a longer one any day..even if it did involve the cane. Plus, knowing we still had it tucked away up in our closet was (and still is) enough to make me behave.

Since that time we have rarely had to use the “evil implement” as I call it. It still remains the most severe implement we have, tied with the tilt wand (but that’s another story) and it only makes an appearance if the mistake is something that is severely repeated and nothing else seems to be working, or if the mistake is so severe that he feels it’s necessary. One thing is for sure though, I am perfectly fine with the cane collecting dust.

The post {A-Z Blog Challenge} C: Caned for the First Time appeared first on Learning Domestic Discipline: The Blog.

You’ve probably seen it mentioned on our site a thousand times – domestic discipline isn’t easy. It’s rewarding, no doubt, but it isn’t easy (especially in the beginning). We’ve been practicing domestic discipline for awhile and it feels like we’re still learning new things and figuring new aspects of it out. Throughout the years we have learned a variety of valuable lessons that we thought might be helpful to pass along to you.

1. Don’t set expectations. It may sound impossible, and we can understand that. So, maybe instead we should say set as few expectations as possible. When we first started domestic discipline we each entered the lifestyle with a set of expectations and learned quickly that was a bad idea.

For example, Chelsea envisioned that inconsistency likely would never occur (because both of us were so dedicated to the lifestyle) and therefore had an expectation that consequences and rewards would be delivered on a dime. Needless to say, we’ve suffered two instances of inconsistency since we began domestic discipline and while that might not seem like much to most, it really threw us both for a loop. Having the expectations that it would never happen just made it more of a letdown when it did.

For Clint, he expected to not have to punish for the same thing more than once or twice. Since domestic discipline worked so well right off the bat for us, and we instantly began to see results, he felt that the pattern would likely continue with all offenses and, as a result, consequences wouldn’t have to be handed out more than one or two times for the same offense. Let’s just say that didn’t happen either. And, because he had those expectations, it made it more frustrating to punish when rules were broken more than once. That frustration could have all been avoided if expectations were never set in the first place. Moral of the story? We’ve learned that setting expectations, no matter how realistic you may think they are, is not a good idea with domestic discipline.

2. Don’t be quick to punish. We discussed this a little bit in the “Bedroom Time Gone Wrong” post earlier this week, but we felt mentioning it again was a good idea because that was just one example of several that taught us the same lesson. Sometimes domestic discipline or a specific punishment is not the right answer for every problem that occurs within your relationship. Sometimes Clint doesn’t punish right away, especially if it’s a tricky situation, and we’ve both become okay with that. It occasionally takes him some time to decide what punishment would be the most fair, or generate the best results. If it’s a situation we haven’t been in before, or a rule that has never been broken before, he’s learned that it’s best to not jump to the first consequence that comes to mind. Consider all of the factors before making a decision on what consequence, if any, to hand out.

3. Don’t be quick to judge something you don’t understand. This lesson learned primarily goes back to our pre-DD days, but it has also been applicable a few times as we’ve grown in the lifestyle. We both thought this entire lifestyle was crazy at first. Clint very candidly opened up about this particular lesson almost two years ago, but to quickly recap — Clint thought the lifestyle was crazy and jumped to an incorrect conclusion that it wouldn’t help a marriage before giving it any kind of consideration whatsoever. He hates to admit that he was close-minded and judgmental about domestic discipline before ever trying it. It’s a mistake he regrets to this day, but the lesson he learned from it has been an invaluable one. Something that you THINK is “weird” or “crazy” could really make you happy if you just give it a try.

4. Don’t be afraid to change up domestic discipline every now and again. We’ve learned that the way we began practicing domestic discipline isn’t necessarily the way we should be practicing it now. Although Chelsea thinks it would be pretty great to still get spanked like she did in the beginner days (a couple of swats, over the clothing, with a light implement) it’s clear that as we grew as a couple, domestic discipline needed to grow and change as well. We’ve made many changes to how we practice the lifestyle over the years, and we’re learned that revising our rule list every 1-2 years (as our lives change) is something really beneficial. Clint has also learned that changing how we spank can be really effective and whenever he does that it definitely makes the message get through more (for some odd reason). On the same token, we’ve also learned that incorporating new elements into the lifestyle, such as our semi-recent One Day Boot Camp experience, helps to reaffirm and re-establish certain rules, consequences and roles.

5. Get involved in the community. We can’t stress this enough. It’s hard to think about where we would be today if we wouldn’t have integrated ourselves into the domestic discipline community. One of the key foundations of Learning Domestic Discipline was to ensure that no one felt alone within the lifestyle, and this comes from a time where we, ourselves, did feel really alone and it was hard. Although we knew one other couple (at the time) who practiced the lifestyle, we definitely felt like outcasts for the first little while, and keeping it so private from our friends and family was really, really hard. One of the best things we did was create Learning Domestic Discipline which therefore allowed us to reach out to people all over the world who believe in the same traditional relationship values that we do and practice a similar way of life. In turn, we’ve been able to meet (both in person and online) tons of different couples who have taught us so much about this lifestyle, opened their hearts to us, and whom we have formed long lasting friendships with. We’re telling you guys – there’s nothing like having friends that truly understand the lifestyle. If you haven’t yet gotten involved within the domestic discipline lifestyle we highly encourage you to. Make friends within the community, get to know each other, and support each other through this challenging yet rewarding lifestyle. It just makes it all the more worth it.

We could go on and on with what all we’ve learned with the lifestyle, but these five lessons stand out as ones that we’re thankful we know, even if we had to learn them the hard way at first. Like we’ve said before, domestic discipline may not be easy. But we’ve learned so much and we hope it helps you all in your domestic discipline journey as it as helped us.

Enjoy your holiday weekend, everyone!

-Clint & Chelsea

The post {A-Z Blog Challenge} D: Domestic Discipline 101: The Top 5 Things We Have Learned appeared first on Learning Domestic Discipline: The Blog.

Happy Easter everyone!

With the 5th day of the A-Z Challenge falling on Easter Sunday, and the 5th letter of the alphabet being E, we couldn’t help but post something Easter related today, you know? It just seemed so right. But, although this post is short and sweet and doesn’t have much to do with domestic discipline, don’t worry. There’s still a few days at the end of the month that we’ll fill with personal posts as bonuses for you guys (consider that your present from the Easter Bunny).

Easter means a lot to us this year, for many reasons. Most importantly, it’s a significant religious holiday for us as we’re Christians. It also is a fun time to celebrate with friends and family, and, let’s face it, our 3 year old is really into holidays (must take after his mom, huh?) so it’s great that we’re able to make it special for our kids. We weren’t sure how this Easter would go, to be honest, with all of the health issues we’ve been facing throughout the past few months and although they’re still ongoing, we’re so grateful to be able to spend this day together as a family.

From our family to yours, we hope you have a wonderful Easter. We’ll see you tomorrow!

– Clint, Chelsea & family

The post {A-Z Blog Challenge} E: Easter Blessings appeared first on Learning Domestic Discipline: The Blog.

Over the 7+ years that my wife and I have been practicing domestic discipline, I’ve come to learn that following through on what I say I’m going to do plays a major part in the overall success of the lifestyle.

I admit, however, that it isn’t always easy to follow through.  While my intentions are always to do so (of course), there have been times when I didn’t, or times when I wasn’t able to.  When I don’t follow through, it messes with the whole “flow” of our domestic discipline dynamic and usually has a negative impact on Chelsea.

If I say I’m going to punish Chelsea for whatever she did wrong, she expects it to happen (same goes for rewarding).  If I were to fail to follow through, even if the punishment was going to be a spanking, she would be disappointed in me.  Yeah, I’m sure she would playfully try to convince you, me, and everyone else that she would be thrilled if I “forget” to spank her, but I know deep down she would be disappointed.  I know my wife better than anyone and I’m telling you, no matter what she says, she would be disappointed that I didn’t stick to my word.  It doesn’t matter if she expects a punishment or a reward — if I don’t follow through, it hurts Chelsea.  It lets her down.

I know that failing to follow through confuses Chelsea, too.  It goes back to her expectations.  The majority of the time Chelsea already knows what’s going to happen to her even before we get a chance to discuss it together.  She expects me to handle things a specific way, and she knows which infractions will earn her which punishments.  That just comes with experience, and we’ve been doing this for a long time.  So, if I don’t handle things the way I’ve been handling them for years — if I don’t follow through — it confuses her and leaves her with many maddening questions.

Was what she did acceptable, or wasn’t it?  What makes this particular instance different from the others?  She was punished for this infraction last time, so why not this time?  Are we going to deal with this tomorrow, or is he letting it go this time?  I don’t want her to have these questions of uncertainty keeping her up at night simply because I didn’t follow through on what I said I was going to do.

I know that following through strengthens my word, too.  As Chelsea said in one of her past personal posts, following through builds a track record.  Every time I follow through on a threat, it strengthens said threat in the future.  After several instances of consistently following through, it eventually gets to the point where the threat alone curbs Chelsea’s behavior.  That’s helpful, particularly in public situations.  If I were to only follow through half the time (or less), Chelsea would know it’s basically an empty threat and she would therefore be much less inclined to change her behavior.

I’ve learned to choose my words very carefully over the years.  I’ve learned to only promise things when I KNOW I can (and will) deliver on them.  I know that I’m only as good as my word, and I want my words to always mean something to my wife.  Problems and/or emergencies may keep me from having a 100% follow through rate, but I strive every day to improve and to always be a man of my word.

In our domestic discipline marriage, and in our lives in general, it’s very important that I make it a priority to always follow through.

The post {A-Z Blog Challenge} F: Following Through appeared first on Learning Domestic Discipline: The Blog.

If you would have asked me when we first started the lifestyle if  I would ever ask my husband to spank me, the answer would be an easy “heck no!”. I wouldn’t have to think twice about it. No way would I ever voluntarily get spanked, and after experiencing a few spankings in the beginning of domestic discipline I realized why the punishment is meant to deter your behavior. It sucks, plain and simple.

As we moved on with domestic discipline I began to see that, although spankings are not fun at all, there is some good that comes out of it. It really brings my husband and I closer together, which is always a bonus, and it provides a means to an end faster than other punishments would. I still think I’d rather be grounded over getting spanked, even if the spanking is over with far quicker, but it is nice to have everything forgiven and the slate wiped clean within just a few minutes.

Those are just a few of the major bonuses I’ve seen since we started using spanking as a consequence, but the truth still remains that I never thought I’d be one to ask for a punishment, let alone a spanking. The thought of that just sounded so crazy to me (and, in some ways it still does).

To me, there’s a big difference between confessing something to your husband and knowing that it will get you spanked, and actually coming out and asking for him to spank you for something. The first thing I’ve got down pretty well. Confessing is difficult, no doubt, but there is still that little ray of hope that maybe I can talk him out of it (I think that maybe has happened twice in 7+ years, lol) and it leaves the final say completely up to him, which is one of the roles I entrusted him with when we entered into this lifestyle. So, confessing? Got it.

But asking for him to spank me is entirely more difficult. It’s like a mental block or something. “Hey babe, can you spank me tonight?” just isn’t something that crosses my mind. However, there have been times where I shocked myself (and him) and felt the need to do so, and let me tell you guys, it wasn’t easy.

I have said before that asking for a spanking is one of the hardest things about being a domestic discipline wife, and I truly believe that. It’s the hardest for me, at least (maybe that’s why I rarely ever do it!).

I think I got pretty blessed to have a husband who is (for the most part) very consistent with domestic discipline. As such, the need or want for me to ask for him to spank me hardly ever occurs because he is on top of it before it even gets to that point. However, there have been a few instances where I just knew that a spanking would help to resolve the issue, reduce my stress, and get us back where we needed to be.

Last year we had an incident where I went over budget at (you guessed it) Target. This isn’t something that happens often, but I know he puts the budgets in place for a reason because he hates when I come home with hundreds of dollars of “pointless stuff”(like any husband probably would, but it’s Target and they have such cute stuff. I can’t help it). Ordinarily, this would get me spanked. But, on this particular occasion he didn’t. I came home, and he knew pretty quick that my “run to Target to just pick up like three things” had easily turned into a several hundred dollar trip in which he wasn’t crazy about. I definitely didn’t even have to confess what happened there – it was obvious. But, to my surprise, instead of spanking me he just got annoyed and borderline mad. He had a right to be, especially since I know that wasn’t the first (second, or third) time that week I had went out shopping for our new house. But he didn’t handle the situation with domestic discipline. Instead, he just shut down.

If there’s one thing I hate it’s lack of communication. If something is wrong, just tell me for pete’s sake. I’m a “fixer” by nature, and although this situation was a little difficult for me to fix, since the damage had already been done, I at least wanted him to communicate with me about it. Eventually he did, but it still seemed like there was no ending or resolution to it. The conversation just kind of ended with me apologizing and vowing to not do it again, and him giving me a hug. Although things had, mostly, went back to normal, tensions were still a little strong and I hate that feeling. It reminded me of the “pre-DD” days, and then I started remembering why domestic discipline works so well – it provides a resolution to where we can both feel like this situation is resolved and we can move forward.

It was clear that Clint wasn’t going to spank me for the offense, and a part of me was glad. I mean, these instances were rare so I should just enjoy it and move forward, right? But it was hard because I knew that being spanked for it would help both of us feel better. It would help Clint feel like the problem was corrected, and that it would reduce (or eliminate) the chances of it happening again, and it would help me to feel less guilty and just resolve the situation in a way other than simply being upset with each other. So, I “got brave” (for lack of a better term) and asked him to spank me.

It wasn’t easy, at all. It’s one of those things that no matter how many times you rehearse the conversation in your head, it becomes difficult to actually do.

I started by explaining to him how sorry I was, and how I really did feel bad for buying all that stuff that we definitely didn’t need. I knew it would make him upset, and I wasn’t thinking. For that, I apologized. I knew I needed to have a, “how would my husband feel about this?” mentality on me when I’m faced with decisions such as what to buy, or how much to spend, and I had let him down. I felt awful, truthfully. I was glad he understood, and accepted my apology.

Then I explained to him the reasons I thought a spanking would be beneficial for both of us, and I could tell he agreed. It made me feel better knowing that we were on the same page, although I could tell that he really didn’t want to spank me. He’d had a long day, and I could understand that. I just felt guilty for making it even worse.

He left the conversation with one of the infamous “I’ll think about it” lines (that I hate!) but I could tell that he was happy I asked him. It showed initiative and responsibility, which are two traits that I know are important to him. I think it is also easier for him to spank me in situations when he doesn’t want to if he knows that it’s something I’m not going to fight him on, or become non-cooperative.

I ended up getting spanked that night, and although it definitely wasn’t as hard as it would have been if he would have initiated it, it was definitely effective. Not only did it make me think twice about shopping for a long, long time but more importantly it helped us both to get over the Target issue. Within minutes, I could tell it was resolved and so could he. That was a great feeling and it reassured to me that, although I was in quite a bit of physical pain and the burning sensation was getting pretty intense (I’m telling you guys, the paddle stings) it made me feel better knowing that the situation was behind us. The next morning it was like it never even happened (well, other than the slight stinging/soreness still being there when I sit).

It’s definitely rare for me to ask for a spanking, and since that time I haven’t had to ask for one since. But if you find yourself in a situation similar to mine where the “non-DD” route just isn’t working to resolve a conflict you and your partner are experiencing, remember that there are other options, and this is one of them. Resolving conflict through spanking may not be easy, but I’m telling you, it really does work.

-Chelsea

The post {A-Z Blog Challenge} Gaining the Courage to Ask for a Spanking appeared first on Learning Domestic Discipline: The Blog.

Right around Thanksgiving this past year, I wrote a post called Confessions of an HoH.  It was a lot of fun writing it and readers responded well to it, so I figured as part of our 2015 A-Z Blog Challenge, I would do another round of HoH confessions.  So here we are!

Remember that these confessions are mine (Clint) and mine alone.  They do not reflect the thoughts/opinions of all HoHs living the domestic discipline lifestyle.

• I’ve never liked the term “Head of the Household.”  I feel like such a tool when I refer to myself as that, or if my wife refers to me as that.  But, after living the lifestyle for this long and writing about the lifestyle for several years, I’ve come to accept that there really is no better term (that I’ve heard) to use for the role.  If you have one, I’m all ears.

• Practicing this lifestyle gets more and more challenging as our children get older and older.  Sometimes I have to get rather creative!

• I prefer spanking when my wife is leaning over the bed rather than having her over my knee/lap (OTK).  We do it both ways, but over the bed is more comfortable for both of us.

• I loathe talking on the phone.  Text me.  Email me.  Snail mail me.   ANYTHING besides talking on the phone.  Getting me on the phone is extremely difficult for anyone not named Chelsea.

• I rarely listen to my voicemails.  You’ll get directed to my voicemail since I very likely will not answer your call (see above confession), but if you leave a message, there’s MAYBE a 10% chance I’ll actually listen to it.  Maybe.  If I’m bored.  And in a good mood.  Maybe.

• My favorite implement to spank with is the wooden spoon.  It’s so versatile and I use it in some capacity every single time I spank, regardless of what kind of spanking we’re doing.

• My least favorite implement to spank with is the cane.  I use it maybe once or twice a year.  If I’m using it, my wife really really messed up, and that really really sucks for both of us.

• Some decisions are so difficult that they literally keep me up at night.  My decision to move my family to Charlotte was one such instance.  I lost several nights of sleep trying to decide what was best for my family before ultimately deciding to make the move.

• I watch an unhealthy amount of HGTV.  If I wasn’t currently doing what I’m doing, I would be doing real estate.  I love that stuff.

• I have absolutely no idea how my wife summons the strength, courage and patience to deal with and handle all the things she does in one day…and do it with such grace.  It’s truly remarkable.

• I’m a big fan of the essay/report punishment.  It works great for us.

• I’m not a big fan of the soap in the mouth punishment.  We haven’t used it in years.

• One Biblical question I’ve pondered for years is whether or not Adam had a belly button.  Any theologians and/or pastors out there that can help me out?  The best answer I’ve gotten is that man was created in God’s image, so yes he did.  But I just wonder…

• While it can get stressful at times, I like having a lot of responsibility.  It makes me feel great when I deliver.  Sometimes it’s nice to know I’m needed, and that I can make a difference.

• I often want to skip the lecture part.  Lecturing isn’t very fun.  I’ve skipped it a time or two before and the results are always terrible.  Regardless of how bad I don’t want to lecture sometimes, I still do so in some capacity every time I punish.

• I didn’t think I’d like blogging/running a website as much as I do.  It’s a lot of fun interacting with so many great and interesting people.  Thanks for making it so enjoyable for me.

I think that’s enough confessions for now.  I need to save some for round three (if I ever decide to do another one)!  Keep an eye out for some more submissive confessions coming from Chelsea at some point in this A-Z challenge.  They’ll certainly be interesting.

Enjoy the rest of your week!

— Clint

The post {A-Z Blog Challenge} H: HoH Confessions – Part II appeared first on Learning Domestic Discipline: The Blog.

It’s pretty much a given that, at some point during (or after) the spanking I hear the phrase – “is this ever going to happen again?” or “am I ever going to need to spank for this again?”. It’s become routine over the years.

My answer to either of those questions is always “no”. I mean, let’s be honest here, does anyone really answer that with a yes? Just like it’s become routine to hear those sorts of questions before the spanking ends (or, right after it) it also has become a habit for me to blurt out no without truly thinking about it. Call it a flaw if you must, or a complete failure in thinking before I speak (which, admittedly, is not one of my strong points).

The truth of the matter is that the offense has the potential to happen again. Sure, there have been times where I’ve been spanked for an offense one time and, to this day, it has never occurred again. But, there are other offenses where it has reoccurred at some point in the future. A few examples of these would be texting while driving (that was a hard habit to break!), speeding, and other habitual type behaviors that one spanking likely won’t fix.

When we first started domestic discipline I had this vision in my head of getting punished for an offense, the slate being wiped clean, us moving on and being so proud that it never happened again. Things like texting while driving I thought would stop instantly, and same with cussing..one spanking should be all it takes, right?

I think Clint and I quickly realized that the thought of all offenses only taking one spanking to correct was an unrealistic expectation and, I’ll admit, it was pretty discouraging at first. It was confusing because I knew the spankings were working and I saw a decrease in the frequency of them (which was definitely a good thing) but I didn’t understand why I would get spanked every few months for the same offense. Was it something Clint was doing wrong? Or, was it me? A mix of both? Or was this just how domestic discipline was designed to work?

Although it took a couple of years, I eventually figured out that it wasn’t solely Clint, and it wasn’t solely me. The way he was spanking was effective, even if I knew the anti-DD critics would be shouting from the rooftops that there’s no way the spanking could be working if it was having to be a repeated thing. I’ll admit, it was hard not to believe that from time to time. So, I did some thinking and discovered that it was effective based on the following reasons:

1. Mindset. To me, the biggest thing has always been that I want to (and need to) be in a submissive mindset at all times. If I’m not, things start spiraling out of control and I don’t think either Clint nor I are as happy. Our family just starts to not function as well is the easiest way I can put it. What I’ve come to learn is that the spanking, no matter how frequent it occurred, really does bring that mindset to the forefront. Even if the spanking isn’t for something like attitude, it still is really effective at reminding me the roles that we’ve chosen for our marriage, and that’s important to me.
2. Deterrence. We’ve said before, many times, around Learning Domestic Discipline that spankings really should be a deterrent to negative behavior, and I’ve definitely experienced first hand how it can be. Instead of thinking, “well, it’s fine if I send this one text while driving because if Clint does find out it’s just a spanking, right?” it switches to “I really, really don’t want to deal with a spanking tonight. The text can wait. It’s definitely not worth a spanking.” I’ve actually learned, over the years, that there’s pretty much nothing worth getting spanked over.
3. Behavior. And finally, the behavior does change, even if it doesn’t seem like it at first or even if it takes awhile. With habitual behaviors it definitely takes longer than offenses that haven’t yet became a habit. But, eventually the behavior does change and we’re able to start seeing results immediately which is nice. For example, even though I still get spanked for driving related offenses every now and again, the spankings have drastically decreased. When no texting while driving first became a rule I got spanked for it sometimes weekly. Now it’s a few times a year (if that).

I’ve learned to not get so discouraged when repeat offenses happen, and not be so quick to jump to the conclusion that I’m a complete failure of a wife, or that my husband is just not punishing correctly because neither one of those is accurate. It’s taken several years to get to the point of realizing that it’s okay if spankings do occur again, and that when Clint asks the infamous “am I ever going to have to spank for this again?” or if the offense is ever going to happen again that it’s okay to answer with no, because that’s where my intent truly is. I don’t ever plan on the offense happening again, and that’s the truth.

If you’ve struggled with feeling guilty, ashamed, or frustrated with the fact that you’ve been spanked for repeated offenses before, I encourage you not to. I know that’s easier said than done, and it’s hard to remember sometimes that we aren’t perfect. The saying is true – you’re your own worst critic. But it is also true that no one is perfect, and that domestic discipline is never designed to make you feel like a failure, or inadequate. I recommend doing something similar to what I did, which is think about the ways that spanking does help and become content with that.

And, if your HOH asks if the offense is ever going to happen again, answer with what your intent is and strive for that intention, not for perfection.

-Chelsea

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Just a quick reminder: Tomorrow through Sunday we’ll be celebrating Learning Domestic Discipline’s 4th Birthday!! As such, we’ll be taking a short break from the A-Z posting series and it will resume Monday. In its place we’ll have several fun announcements, including a few surprises of things we’ve been working on over the past several months that are now ready to go! We can’t wait to celebrate with you starting tomorrow.

The post {A-Z Blog Challenge} I: “Is This Ever Going to Happen Again?” appeared first on Learning Domestic Discipline: The Blog.

Today is the big day! Learning Domestic Discipline is officially four years old! Can you believe it? Neither can we.

It’s amazing to us how much Learning Domestic Discipline has grown over the past four years. What started as a small blog, hosted on blogspot, quickly grew to something we never imagined. We’re so proud of how far we’ve come, and so thankful for the incredible community we’ve formed along the way. You are all awesome.

We’re so excited to celebrate this special event with you guys this weekend! We’ll be announcing a few projects that we’ve been working on behind the scenes that are (finally!) completed, as well as sharing plans for Learning Domestic Discipline’s summer posting schedule (which we think you all will love!) and more. This is our favorite time of year – thanks for being here to help us celebrate this special event!

The Submissive Wives Book Club

The idea for this began in October 2014 and has quietly been in the works since then. It originally came from an (awesome!) group of women who suggested something similar and we took it and blew it into something that we think is going to be great. It’s definitely the first of its kind, but hey, we like to be revolutionary!

So, what is this book club all about? Here’s a quick overview:

What is the Submissive Wives Book Club?

The book club is a 24 week in-depth study of the book The Surrendered Wife by Laura Doyle(more on the book below). In addition to being a study of the book, the book club will also take a detailed look at what being a submissive wife is all about, how you can improve upon your own submission for the greater good of your family, and more. The club is also a great way to meet other submissive wives, make new friends, and get more involved in the domestic discipline community.

Where does the book club meet?

This is an online (virtual) book club so that women from all over the world may participate. Discussion groups will be held every Monday night (with the exception of a few Monday’s due to prior commitments and holidays) at 9:00 PM EST in a private chat room with text, video and audio capabilities.

What is the cost to join the club and what is included in my membership?

The cost to join is $15.00 if joined before May 1st. After May 1st membership fees will be raised to $25.00. Your membership includes:

• A physical copy of The Surrendered Wife or digital copy (for your Nook, Kindle or laptop in PDF format) – You can choose which copy you prefer.
• A physical copy of the workbook/study guide created specifically for this book club or a digital copy (you can choose which copy you prefer)
• Access to a private book club forum to discuss the book, domestic discipline, and anything else with other members
• Access to all discussion group chats each week (held on Monday evenings). If you cannot attend, a transcript of the weekly discussions will be emailed to you.
• An invitation to the 3-night submissive wive’s girls weekend retreat (held in January 2016 in Myrtle Beach, SC) (limited spots are available)

*Note: If you are an LDD Member your discount is eligible to be used to join the club. To apply your discount, simply enter your member number in the promo code box at checkout. If you need help locating your lifetime member number please email us.

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We also put together a little information sheet for everyone, which you can find by clicking here. 

You can also sign-up by clicking here.

We’ll see you tomorrow for more birthday fun!

-Clint and Chelsea

The post {Learning Domestic Discipline Turns 4!} Birthday Kickoff Celebration + The Submissive Wives Book Club is HERE! appeared first on Learning Domestic Discipline: The Blog.

We’re kicking off day two of Learning Domestic Discipline’s Birthday Weekend celebration today by announcing our summer posting schedule that features 3 brand new posting series each week! Also, in case you missed yesterday, we announced the first ever Submissive Wives Book Club!

In late March we announced that we’d be blogging every day in April as part of the April A-Z Blogging Challenge. We asked everyone to vote on what theme they wanted for the month of April, and of thousands of votes, the personal posts won..but barely. It became obvious that all the theme suggestions we thought up were popular, which was great, except we could only choose one. So, we went with the personal post theme for this month (since that’s the theme that won) and decided to try to work the rest of the themes into our summer posting schedule.

Without further ado, we present you with the Learning Domestic Discipline 2015 Summer Posting Schedule..

Monday: Q&A Series which highlights a different DD dilemma each week and our recommendations on how to handle it.

Tuesday: HOH Series which is the “partner series” to the Submissive Saturday series and features a different HOH-driven article each week.

Friday: The Many Faces of Domestic Discipline Series which is our new guest posting series where we feature a different domestic discipline couple and their story each week. The goal is to show that domestic discipline doesn’t have a “one size fits all” model, and that everyone from lawyers to stay at home moms to polygamists and much more. If you’d like to participate and send in your story, you’ll receive a Learning DD prize package and payment! Contact us for more information on what we’re looking for to see if you’d be a great fit.

Saturday: Submissive Saturday Series which is our weekly posting series geared towards submissive partners and the different issues they may face, along with exercises and tips.

Sunday: Personal Posts Series which is our weekly personal column on different domestic discipline issues and stories from our personal domestic discipline marriage.

If you’re missing Mailbag Monday and/or Five Things Friday, don’t worry, they aren’t gone forever! Both series will return in the fall.

We’ll also be including some of your suggestions from our annual feedback survey into our summer plans, including more podcasts and workbooks. Stay tuned!

In the meantime, we’ve got one more big announcement in store for tomorrow as we wrap up Learning Domestic Discipline turning 4! Thanks for coming along this awesome journey with us over the past four years.

-Clint & Chelsea

The post {Learning Domestic Discipline Turns 4!} Our Summer Posting Schedule w/ Several New Series! appeared first on Learning Domestic Discipline: The Blog.

Learning Domestic Discipline’s 4th Birthday celebration is coming to a close, but before it does, we want to share one other special announcement with you all. For about a year and a half now we have been working on our latest book. This one is different from the other books that we offer, and we’re so excited to tell you all about it!

If you’ve read (or looked at) domestic discipline fiction before, you may have noticed that almost all of the books available nowadays are short stories or novellas, which we think is great.  However, as we tend to do, we wanted to do something different. So, we set out to make the first full-length domestic discipline novel and we think we’ve succeeded. The book clocks in at just under 100,000 words. But, it isn’t just about the word count. What’s more important is the story it tells and the manner in which it’s told. It was incredibly important to us to write a story that was completely realistic and mimics a real life domestic discipline relationship. We also aimed to make the book educational and show how this couple handled different situations that arose within their domestic discipline relationship in hopes that it will help others struggling with similar dilemmas in their own relationship. We think we succeeded with that as well.

The finishing touches are being completed now and we finally have a release date! The book will be available on June 1st, 2015. Further information (such as the cover reveal and official description!) will be given throughout the month of May. We’re not meaning to keep everyone in the dark..we’re just excited to share what we’ve been doing for the past year and a half!

We also have several other books in the works (both fiction and non-fiction) that we’re hoping to release this year as well. We’ve been busy behind the scenes, but we think the end results will be fantastic.

On a separate note, thanks for coming along on this incredible four year journey with us. We don’t think anyone would have ever predicted that Learning Domestic Discipline would have grown as much as it has over the past four years, and we’re anxious to see what the next several years have in store. We’re grateful for your continual support, friendships, encouragement and readership as we continue to grow.

Also, in case you missed it, we announced two other fun things this past weekend – The Submissive Wives Book Club and our 2015 Summer Posting Schedule which features three new series beginning in June. Feel free to check those out.

June is shaping up to be a busy month for Learning Domestic Discipline (and for us!). After taking March and now most of April off, we’re looking forward to returning and getting back to the grind. We miss you all, and we’re hopeful that we’ll be able to return to Learning Domestic Discipline soon although no official date has been set as we still have a lot going on, and we’re still at a pretty scary stage health-wise. In the meantime, thanks for helping us celebrate this past weekend. We’re grateful for you.

The A-Z Blog Challenge will resume tomorrow. In the meantime, enjoy the rest of your weekend!

-Clint & Chelsea

The post {Learning Domestic Discipline Turns 4} Our Latest Book Is Coming! appeared first on Learning Domestic Discipline: The Blog.

Earlier this month we posted about things we learned throughout the many years we’ve been practicing domestic discipline. We mentioned five of the main things we have discovered throughout that time, but one thing we left out was about the importance of not jumping to conclusions when it comes to domestic discipline.

Take this story, for example:

It probably goes without saying that I have an issue with speeding although, let’s be real, it has gotten way better. But, I’m just not great with watching my speed in certain parts of this city. One good thing though – I rarely get speeding tickets! Thing is, I’d rather get a speeding ticket than a spanking..and those I always end up receiving.

One day last year I was driving home from the grocery store when I heard on the radio advertising the huge megamillions jackpot drawing that was taking place that night. Lottery tickets are something I have bought maybe 3 times in my whole life. It’s just never really occurred to me to do so, and plus we lived in Utah for awhile where there is no lottery and gambling is illegal. So, it just was something I never did. But, I had to stop and get gas anyway, so I figured hey, why not? Let’s buy a mega millions ticket! Or two. Or three. Everyone else does it, right? (This is a bad mindset to have, FYI. Fellow submissive wives, take note).

I know my husband really, really well. We’ve been together for many years, and we spend a lot of time together. But, it dawned on me that I didn’t really know how he felt about gambling. Since he grew up in Utah, and we lived there for several years, I worried that maybe he wasn’t exactly thrilled with gambling and the lottery (after all, it is illegal there..) but I decided hey, if I win the second largest lottery prize in history he wouldn’t be too upset, right?

So, I stood in line for-ev-er. Apparently the lottery is a big deal! I got my ticket (or two, or three), shoved it in my coat pocket and headed home.

I don’t remember how it came up (he may have seen the paper since my coat pocket didn’t have zippers..) but he asked me what was in my pocket, and I started acting guilty as charged. I didn’t want to show it to him because I didn’t know how he would feel about the lottery tickets, and although I thought it would be okay, I didn’t want to take that chance right in that instance. I was going with the “I’ll just deal with this later. Let me put away groceries!” attitude.

I couldn’t figure out why he was acting so weird about it and wanting to know what it was. It was paper, okay? So I kept it shoved in my pocket and went about putting away groceries. Meanwhile, Clint’s suspicions were growing and I couldn’t figure out why.

A little while later, he came up to me. “Be honest. Did you get a speeding ticket?” and then it all made sense. He had jumped to the conclusion that the reason I had been so standoffish about the random piece of paper in my pocket is because he thought it was a speeding ticket. And, to his credit, he had a decent reason to think that. It wouldn’t come as much of a shock to him if I got a ticket, especially when he knew I was rushing to get home in time to make dinner.

Once I realized what he thought I felt like I immediately had to correct his assumption. I took the paper out of my pocket and nervously handed it to him, although I knew that there wasn’t many things he would think was worse than a speeding ticket so I was probably fine in that regard.

“Lottery tickets?” He asked, confused. I just kinda shook my head yes, and went back to making dinner waiting for his response. He stuck them up on the fridge. “Sweet, that would be crazy if we won!”.

“Really, you’re not mad?” I asked. He knows lottery tickets are something I never buy so this was a situation we’d never really been in. He looked at me like I was crazy. “It’s kind of a waste of money, but of course I’m not.”

He was relieved the white paper he saw in my pocket wasn’t a folded up speeding ticket, and I was relieved that he didn’t really care about my lottery ticket purchase. In fact, looking back on it, I feel stupid for thinking he would care about something like that.

It’s situations like this where I’m thankful that my husband didn’t jump to the conclusion to punish me anyway, because I can definitely see why he thought it was a speeding ticket. But, we did both jump to conclusions that evening and we both learned a valuable lesson. If your conclusion is based purely on assumption and without evidence, communication is crucial. If we would have both communicated better from the get go the entire situation would have been avoided. So, lesson learned. Jumping to conclusions purely based on assumptions is a bad idea.

Oh, and by the way..we didn’t win the lottery.

The post {A-Z Blog Challenge} J: Jumping to Conclusions appeared first on Learning Domestic Discipline: The Blog.

I don’t know how anyone lives life without keeping some sort of schedule.  I know my family wouldn’t be able to function without schedules.  Keeping even basic schedules keeps all of us productive, happier, stress-free, and perhaps most importantly, sane.

My wife and I outlined solid schedules for both of us, and our boys, when we did boot camp.  Prior to boot camp, we all ran on makeshift schedules, and truth be told, that approach worked okay for us (for the most part).  Some days were better than others, of course.  We were still happy and productive, but there were too many days that were “fly by the seat of our pants”, or “winging it”, or “going with the flow”, and it was on these days that I knew there had to be a better way.

When we didn’t have solid daily and weekly schedules, we overlooked things, we forgot about things, our days were more stressful, and we had a general sense of chaos more frequently than I liked.  It wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t great (or efficient), either.  “Winging it” may work out well and be fun for some, but for our family, “winging it” doesn’t work so great.

So, as I mentioned, my wife and I sat down together in boot camp and created more defined schedules for all of us.  We made schedules for each day of the week.  We designated blocks of time to specific things in our lives and we vowed to stick to our schedules as closely as we could.

Life has a way of throwing schedules off, naturally, so we made sure that all of our schedules had plenty of room for error.  After all, keeping a strict, no-nonsense schedule isn’t any fun whatsoever, not to mention virtually impossible to do, especially for people with children (like us).  Strict, military-style schedules in day-to-day family life would only create MORE stress for us, I think.  There has to be SOME spontaneity and room for error to keep things upbeat, interesting, and running smoothly.  That’s what I believe, anyway.

I expected things to run better and more efficiently after creating these schedules, but I was a little surprised at just how well they worked out.  My wife and I were both much more productive and less overwhelmed, which I had hoped for and expected when we created them.  What I didn’t expect, however, was that by keeping these schedules, it actually created MORE time to spend together as a family.  We found that when we kept to our schedules, and got things done faster and more efficiently, it freed up a lot of spare time for both of us.  It was wonderful.  I couldn’t have asked for a better result than that.

We’ve hit some bumps in the road, though.  Despite the room for error we consciously made in our schedules, we’ve still had to overcome some challenges along the way.  Remember me saying that life has a way of throwing schedules off?  Well, we’ve had several of those “life moments” impact our schedules.  We’ve moved, we’ve welcomed new members to our family, we’ve worked around pregnancy…things like that have forced us to modify our schedules at times.  I’m not complaining, because those are all exciting “life moments” that have enhanced our lives, but as they pertain to keeping schedules, they all presented unique challenges for us.

I’m thankful that domestic discipline has brought this element to our marriage, and to our house.  This lifestyle is more than correcting behaviors through punishments (and rewards), and keeping solid schedules is a perfect example of that.  If we didn’t practice domestic discipline, we never would have done boot camp, and likely would never had the opportunity to create schedules that work for all of us.

Yes, perhaps my wife and I would have sat down together at some point and outlined some schedules, but I don’t know if we would have been able to keep them as well as we can with domestic discipline ensuring it.  With domestic discipline, I know I have the tools to keep all of our schedules on track, and that’s comforting to me.  Thankfully I haven’t had to use DD to keep our schedules on track very often, but it’s nice to know DD is there if I need it.  I think the results we’ve experienced from keeping our schedules is motivation enough to follow them as best as we can.

If not, there’s a big wooden paddle in our closet that is always a great motivator.  

— Clint

The post {A-Z Blog Challenge} K – Keeping Schedules – Learning Domestic Discipline appeared first on Learning Domestic Discipline: The Blog.

Over the years we’ve become convinced that there are three big things that can damage (or even destroy) a domestic discipline relationship. One of those things is coming into the domestic discipline lifestyle with a false or unrealistic sense of expectations.

I think everyone goes into domestic discipline with some sort of expectation..and we are definitely no exception to that. In fact, I think we had more expectations than most couples do. The reason is because we entered this lifestyle with both Clint and I being pretty against the idea of domestic discipline, and really only decided to try it based on an experimental idea. I had to see if something like this would ever work. Because of that mindset, I had a lot of expectations, mostly bad ones. The biggest expectation I had was that this whole domestic discipline thing would totally fail (because I really didn’t have a good grasp of what domestic discipline was at first, and the assumptions I had were obviously completely false). Clint also didn’t have the highest of hopes for giving this a shot, but we did so anyway.

After we began domestic discipline and immediately began to see improvements, thus transitioning into using it in our relationship full time, our expectations changed. I had a lot of expectations (and by a lot, I mean a lot) at first. I expected Clint to be perfectly consistent. After all, he wanted this too, right? I also expected myself to rarely ever get in trouble because after we made our first rules list I remember looking at it thinking okay, piece of cake. Let’s just say those weren’t exactly accurate. Another expectation I had was that every punishment would work. Hey, that was the point of domestic discipline, true?

I quickly found out that my expectations were set too high. This lifestyle was going to have bumps in the road, and we were going to go over them. We were going to experience highs and lows. Inconsistency was going to happen..and it wouldn’t just be from Clint. These were all things that were a part of life, and a part of domestic discipline, that I just needed to accept. But, because I had set my expectations so high, it made accepting those harder and harder.

It can be hard to not have any expectations..trust me, I know. I still remember one of the first time I expected to be punished for something (and expected the punishment to go a certain way) and it just didn’t happen. This was many, many years ago when we lived in Utah and the closest major city was about 2 hours away. A fellow domestic discipline wife and I had become good friends, and since we lived so close and both were off work that day we decided to go have some fun while our husbands were at work. So, we headed up to the big city..and forgot to check in. Like, at all. Okay, so maybe forgot wasn’t the right word. Let’s just say we didn’t check in, and although we were home at a semi-decent hour, both our husbands weren’t real thrilled with our little spontaneous road trip without their knowledge. She talked a lot on the way home about how much trouble she’d be in, and I tried to sympathize with her knowing that I’d probably be in just as much trouble. I knew Clint would have a pretty short fuse for something like that, and I should have checked in with him at least once. I definitely expected to get punished (and, for the record, was really not looking forward to it).

I came home that evening and Clint wasn’t happy..just as I expected. He sent me up to our bedroom, and I just knew I was really in for it. He didn’t even come with me, which was odd (as he almost always does..) but I just chalked it up as him being upset and needing to cool down. I had expected to get spanked, no doubt.

A few minutes later he came in, and I got into position over the bed. But, instead of spanking me, he lectured me (a lot) and then gave me a hug. That was it – no spanking, no punishment (other than the lecture) of any kind. I was blown away, and I didn’t know whether to jump up and down and thank him for “letting me off the hook”, or to get upset because it felt like a let down almost. Not that I wanted to be spanked, of course, but I could tell he was really upset and I felt like if there wasn’t some sort of resolution to this issue, him being upset would continue.

I was wrong, and he was able to move past it rather quickly. But, I couldn’t help but feel tricked somehow. He had totally set me up to think I was going to get spanked, by having me go into our bedroom, and get into position. Yet, no spanking occurred and while most domestic discipline wives would be super happy, I was just left totally confused. Why? Because I had expectations.

Long story short, I eventually found out that he felt the offense was just worthy of a warning, since it was the first time it had happened, and I think he felt that “scaring me” (for lack of a better word) into thinking that I would be spanked would be, or should be, enough of a deterrent for it not to happen in the future. While he may have been right (it didn’t happen again for a long long time), it didn’t change the fact that the expectations I had set up lead the situation to seem like the easy way out, or the start of inconsistency. Looking back on it I now know that wasn’t the case.

I’ve spoken with countless domestic discipline wives about this similar issue, and there’s one thing that we all have in common – when expectations are set it does nothing but cause problems.

I’ve come to realize over the years that expectations in domestic discipline really do more harm than good. I started this post off by saying how one of the things that can really damage, or even destroy, your domestic discipline relationship is by coming into it with a false sense of expectations that are just totally unrealistic. But, one thing I’ve also come to learn is that the quicker you let those expectations go, the easier the lifestyle becomes and the more it reduces your risk of that damage occurring.

All in all, I wouldn’t say I don’t have expectations anymore (for example, I definitely expect to get spanked for texting while driving since I know that’s a really important and big rule) but I have learned to set expectations that are totally realistic and based on past experiences instead of assumptions and guesses and that seems to be working okay so far. Overall though, my advice (especially if you’re new to domestic discipline) is to go into it with goals rather than expectations and remember to trust your HOH and his reasoning.

-Chelsea

The post {A-Z Blog Challenge} L – Letting Go of Expectations appeared first on Learning Domestic Discipline: The Blog.

Since we began domestic discipline we’ve had our share of memorable moments, from the time when the cane got “lost” during a move, to getting spanked in public, we’re sharing the moments that stand out the most to us today.

Clint’s Top 3 Most Memorable Domestic Discipline Moments:

1: Our first boot camp experience.  It seems like I mention boot camp a lot, but I suppose that’s because it had such a huge impact on my life, and my marriage.  Our first boot camp experience changed everything for me personally, and it obviously changed how our marriage worked.  We accomplished so much over those few days and going through that experience is why domestic discipline survived (and went on to thrive) in my marriage.  I don’t know where we’d be without that first boot camp experience and it definitely stands out as my top memorable domestic discipline moment.

2: The very first spanking we ever did.  The first spanking was so awkward and I was worried about so many things, particularly how my wife was going to respond to me afterward.  The way I felt before that first spanking is something I’ll never ever forget.  The anticipation, the worry, the nervousness, the apprehension, the “what am I about to do??” factor…it was quite the range of emotions.  From start to finish, the first spanking is something that will always be a very memorable moment in not only my marriage, but my entire life.

3: The hotel spanking in New York City.  I wrote an entire post about this experience so I won’t elaborate too much on it here, but the worry I felt when I couldn’t find Chelsea and the awkwardness of having to spank in a hotel room definitely make this experience one of my top three most memorable domestic discipline moments.

Chelsea’s Top 3 Most Memorable Domestic Discipline Moments:

1: Starting the blended spanking method. I wouldn’t say that spankings were ineffective before that, but when we started blended spankings something “clicked”. The spankings instantly became more effective, and it just felt more like how they were supposed to be (if that makes any sense). It’s been some time now (several years) since we made the transition to using blended spankings, and it’s still the main spanking method that we use. It’s amazing to compare the results from the traditional spanking methods and the blended spanking method.

2: Getting spanked in public. There’s just something about that whole experience that will probably never leave my brain. The crazy part is it wasn’t even like a full-blown spanking, but it was enough to where it a) stung really bad, b) definitely got the message across and c) made me realize that Clint is capable of spanking in public, so it’s probably best not to push the limits. Needless to say, it hasn’t happened since. Sometimes one time is all it takes for it to be etched in my brain forever.

3: The first Learning Domestic Discipline Retreat. Getting to meet several domestic discipline couples all in one place for a little weekend getaway last June was a ton of fun. We made some friendships there at the retreat that will last a lifetime, and I’m already looking forward to the next retreat this year!

It was hard to pick just 3 moments each, no doubt. There’s still so many others that come to mind, but these are the ones that stick out the most.

What moments stick out the most in your marriage?

The post {A-Z Blog Challenge} M – Most Memorable Domestic Discipline Moments appeared first on Learning Domestic Discipline: The Blog.

So you want to hear an interesting story about me (Clint) messing up?  Well get comfortable, because I’ve got a doosy for you.

We wanted to get a new car, so we were selling ours.  It took a while, but we finally sold it to an out-of-state buyer.  The timing of it all was very interesting, to say the least.

The registration on the vehicle was set to expire on April 30th, and the out-of-state buyer had arranged to have a car transporter pick it up on May 10th.  Since the window was so small, I didn’t bother renewing the registration on the vehicle in North Carolina since it was heading out of state anyway. I didn’t want go through the hassle of doing so, nor did I want to spend the money to do so, since the vehicle wasn’t going to be ours in 10 days.  It seemed like a good and logical idea at the time.

Chels and I were living in the Raleigh, NC area, and we were strongly considering our move to the Charlotte, NC area.  Since Chelsea’s birthday is May 3rd, we thought it would be fun to go to Charlotte, scout the areas, look at a few homes, and just spend some general quality time on a little mini-vacation to the Queen City over her birthday.  It’s what Chels wanted to do for her birthday, so we made it happen.

We took our car that, as of May 1st, was not registered.  (I’m sure you can see where this is going.)

We were out looking at a few homes in the Charlotte area on May 3rd.  Yes, literally on Chelsea’s birthday.  And, of course, as you may have guessed, we got pulled over by the police.  I repeat, on Chelsea’s birthday.  *sigh*

Since our registration was only expired for three days, and given the reason I hadn’t registered it, I figured the police officer would understand.  Well, he didn’t.  He pulled us over for an expired tag and wrote me a ticket for it.  The fine was over $200, and my court date was set for June 2nd.

June 2nd, you say?  Well by golly, that’s our anniversary!  P.E.R.F.E.C.T.

I couldn’t go to the courthouse in Raleigh, where we lived, either.  It had to be in Charlotte, where we got pulled over, which is almost three hours away.  Oh, and I had to be there by 9:00 AM, which meant I had to be up and on the road no later than 6:00 AM.  This was also on a Monday, but I had already taken off work since it was our anniversary.  Isn’t that convenient?  Yeah, I thought so too.  *sigh*

To make a long story short, I was able to get the ticket dropped.  We didn’t have to pay the $200+ fine, which was wonderful, but I still ruined both Chelsea’s birthday and our anniversary because I chose not to register our car.  To say I felt like a complete loser would be the understatement of the year.  I really messed this one up.

I had no idea how to make this up to Chelsea.  I felt like the frontrunner for the “Worst Husband of the Year” award.  Messing up her birthday AND our anniversary?  I mean, come on.  It doesn’t get a whole lot worse than that.  The timing was seriously unbelievable, but this is all absolutely true, sadly.

Of course, I apologized to my wife profusely.  I felt awful.  I hadn’t felt that terrible in a long, long time.  I knew I had to make this up to my wife, so I did the best I could.

To make up for ruining her birthday, we celebrated it a week later and I made it as special as I possibly could for her.  We ate at her favorite restaurant and I got her a really nice gift.  It may have been late, but we were still able to celebrate her birthday the following week.

To make up for ruining our anniversary, I booked a three night stay in Gatlinburg, TN later that summer.  We were able to make babysitting arrangements, so it was just her and I in the beautiful city of Gatlinburg for those three days.  It was really nice.  Chelsea appreciated me doing my best to make up for my mistakes, and she forgave me for being such a bonehead and ruining both of these special days that year.

After writing this story, and thinking about that whole situation again, I still feel really bad about it and it happened quite some time ago.  It was, without a doubt, my biggest mistake since we’ve been a married couple.  I may not have gotten physically punished/spanked for this, but I’m here to tell you that it still feels like I got punished in a big way.  The stress and inconvenience I caused to my family, and the special days that I ruined, make it feel like I was very harshly punished for my mistake.  It is NOT a good feeling when your family is put in this position over something you did.

The point of this whole story is to illustrate that nobody is perfect, and that certainly includes me.  I make mistakes too.  While I may not be held accountable for them the same way Chelsea is, I still feel the “pain” of messing up.  Domestic discipline really puts the pressure on you, as head of the household, to do and say the right things and to set the right example.  When you don’t, as I didn’t in this story, it impacts everyone.  It affects my entire family.  That’s hard to accept.  There’s no question I learned a very valuable lesson that I will not soon forget.

None of our vehicles will ever go one single day without being registered again, I can tell you that much.

— Clint

The post {A-Z Blog Challenge} N: Nobody Is Perfect appeared first on Learning Domestic Discipline: The Blog.

I’ve said before that I think one of the hardest parts about being a domestic discipline wife are those times when you feel like you have to ask for a spanking. But, second on that list of hardest parts has to be confessing things to your HOH. It doesn’t matter if you’re brand new to domestic discipline or a domestic discipline veteran..it is never easy.

I’ve been in the (unfortunate) circumstance of having to confess things to Clint many times, and I don’t think it gets any easier every time it happens. I’ve been asked many times before why I do it. If it’s a situation where he will likely never find out about the offense, why do I willingly confess to something that I know will get me in trouble?

Here’s a good example of why:

In the summer of 2013 I went with my sister and some friends to the Mall of America for a girls weekend (quick side note: if you’ve never been to the Mall of America, you must go!).

We spent 4 incredible days shopping (and shopping, and shopping!) and it was a great getaway for a few days. On the last night we were there we saw a late night movie in the theater inside the mall, although the rest of the mall had closed much earlier. It ended after midnight, and the group and I (there were 4 of us) walked down to the lower level parking garage where the bus shuttles were to take the bus back to our hotel (approximately 1.5 miles away). Since it was so late, we weren’t 100% sure if the bus was still running, but decided to chance it and wait anyway. After like 10 minutes of waiting, my phone died, and at that point I really wanted to be back to the hotel. I was pregnant with our second child, at the time, and since it was still the early stages of pregnancy the morning sickness (which is really codeword for all day sickness) was pretty bad, so I just wanted to go to sleep (especially because we had to be at the airport in just a few hours for our early morning flight home). So, I did what any logical person would do (not) and decided to say screw the bus service..and walk back to the hotel. In the middle of the night (it was closer to 1AM at that point), while pregnant, alone, in a city I’d been to like two times before. Oh, and don’t forget, my cell phone was dead. What a brilliant plan, right?

My sister and my friends swore up and down that the bus was coming, but I really wasn’t too convinced. So, against their wishes (and my better judgment) I left before any of them really had time to come with me. I eventually made it back to the hotel (I didn’t get lost, but there wasn’t really a “direct shot” to the hotel without walking along a main road for a mile, and then cutting through parking lots and woods for the remainder) but it was significantly later than the rest of the group. Turns out the shuttle bus had came just a minute or two after I left.

When I got back to the hotel, I immediately plugged in my phone and had a few messages from Clint just telling me he was going to bed, he missed me, etc. I don’t think he thought anything was up (he probably thought I was still at the movies, to be honest) which was good because the last thing I wanted to do was worry him. It didn’t really hit me until the following day just how dangerous what I did was, or how many rules I broke.

I headed home the following morning and was so excited (seriously SO excited!) to see Clint and my son. That was really the first time I’d ever left my son (who was almost 2) at the time, and I was ridiculously excited to see him (and Clint of course). Because of all the excitement, I just kind of brushed the incident into the back of my mind.

Later that night, as we were going to bed, Clint started asking about my trip. I could tell he had no idea about the little incident the night before. He just wanted to see what all I bought, asked how the movie was, if I had fun, what all we did, all that fun stuff. But, although he probably never would have found out (unless my sister told him, which was pretty unlikely) the guilt was definitely starting to build up.

I felt awful because I know that safety is one of our biggest rules, and that Clint already had hesitations about me being out in a strange city after midnight with him 1,000+ miles away. I tried to reverse the situation and put myself in his shoes, and I know that I would have felt the same way. And, if I knew he was out wandering around by himself that late at night, with his phone being dead, and walking down some random road, I’d be extremely worried (and upset!). It just wasn’t a safe thing to do.

The more I thought about it the more I decided I needed to tell him for a few reasons:

1: Domestic discipline is about trust. Obviously he can’t be there to “monitor” me 24/7 (I think we both would hate that) and so he, like any HOH would, expects me to let him know of things that he might not have seen. If he feels like I’m keeping things from him (or vice versa) then the trust is diminished, and we’ve got a big problem to work through. So, I knew that telling him was important because it helped to ensure that I was open and honest with him (even though it was difficult).

2: I felt so guilty. Seriously, I have like the worst guilt complex ever (which is why it is amazing that he didn’t pick up that something was wrong in this situation because 99.9% of the time he can). I just felt really, really bad about being so impatient, putting myself in danger, etc. It wasn’t worth it, and I knew the only way to make that guilt start to diminish was to come clean and let him know what happened.

3: He deserves to know. My husband and I have an open dialogue with each other at all times, and we don’t keep secrets. Similar to what I was saying in #1, trust is really important and I didn’t want to keep anything from him, good or bad.

4: I didn’t want it to happen again. Similarly to how I’m sure Clint never (ever!) wants it to happen again, neither did I. I knew I needed his help (whether it was through the use of domestic discipline/punishment or even just him talking it through with me) in making sure that I stayed safe in situations like that in the future.

So, with those four things in mind, I sat down with him and told him. I imagined him being pretty upset, and getting pretty strict about the whole situation almost instantly, because I know safety is so important to him. I was surprised that his reaction was almost opposite. You could see the genuine worry and fear on his face, and even though I was home safe and everything was fine (and I reminded myself why telling him in the situation would have been an awful idea because he would have been so worried) you could tell that it really scared him to think I would ever do something so dangerous and stupid. To be honest, I didn’t blame him. It scared me too.

Once he calmed down and repeated for the millionth time how happy he was that I was okay, he went into that “strict mode” that I totally expected to come at some point. The lecture was definitely intense (and so.freaking.long.) but he had brought up a lot of great points that I had overlooked when I was thinking about it (see, that is just another reason why I knew it was the right decision to mention this to him, even though it was hard to do so).

The spanking for it was, without a doubt, severe and I can’t really say I blamed him for it. I don’t remember much of the details, other than the cane was used at some point (which we always reserve for serious offenses and this fell into that category) and I was really sore the following day. It was definitely a memorable lesson learned.

But, although the spanking was intense and severe, I could tell he was impressed by me coming clean to him and letting him know of the situation so he could resolve it and ensure it doesn’t happen in the future. By me doing that, it helped him to not only trust me more (especially when one of us is out of town) but also to give him (and me!) the peace of mind to know that this is very unlikely to happen again because of how it was dealt with.

Needless to say, it’s been almost two years now and the situation has never happened again, and likely won’t in the future. I learned a lot from it, not only about how dangerous (and stupid) it was, but also how important it is to come clean to your HOH in situations like this. Domestic discipline is a partnership, and requires both parties to be open and honest with one another. Although it may not always easy..it is always the right thing to do.

-Chelsea

The post {A-Z Blog Challenge} O: Opportunity to Come Clean appeared first on Learning Domestic Discipline: The Blog.

Yesterday we wrote a post about a time that I confessed something to Clint and subsequently got spanked for the offense because of how serious it was. Some of you may have noticed that in that particular story we shared with you I was pregnant at the time (in the early stages of pregnancy with our second son).

To be honest, it didn’t really occur to me when writing the post how people would react. From the beginning, we’ve created a blog where we wanted to be open, honest, and share the realities of the domestic discipline lifestyle. So, I wasn’t going to leave that part out of the story simply because of how people would react. I’ve been spanked while pregnant. That’s a fact.

However, we wanted to do the “P” post on punishing (specifically spanking) while pregnant because it’s something that many of you seem to have questions on, and that’s understandable. I know we’ve done a few posts on the topic in the past, but keep in mind this is the personal A-Z posting series. That means that this isn’t necessarily our recommendation, nor how we feel about spanking while pregnant as a whole (but, we do have posts about that if you’re interested in reading those). This post is simply how we, personally, have handled spankings during pregnancy.

Some of you have pointed out, or may remember, when Clint stated that he wasn’t real thrilled with the idea of spanking while pregnant. That statement is absolutely true. But, keep in mind that we have three children. So, our thoughts and feelings on the topic have evolved a little bit with each pregnancy.

With our first son we were semi-new to domestic discipline (a few years into the lifestyle) and we hadn’t had to address the topic of spanking (or really domestic discipline in general) while pregnant before. It was new to both of us, and because there was virtually nothing on the internet about domestic discipline while pregnant (neither good, nor bad) we had to just kind of “wing it” (yeah, I know that sounds bad, but we’re being honest). Thankfully we did have a doctor, who was (and is) also a friend of ours, that was able to give us medical advice for our specific situation on spanking while pregnant.  He’s the same doctor, Dr. Tom, that did this interview for us in 2012. He’s awesome.

My pregnancy with our first son was the easiest of our three pregnancies, and therefore we handled domestic discipline a little differently than we did with the two that followed. Under Dr. Tom’s recommendations for our specific and unique situation, we definitely made changes to how we spank, such as using lighter implements (his hand and a wooden spoon were pretty much all he was comfortable using, with the exception of a hairbrush a time or two for more severe offenses). We changed the implements and the position, but the strength of the spanking stayed pretty much the same. However, as that pregnancy went on, it was obvious that Clint was making a pretty serious effort to incorporate more alternate punishments into domestic discipline (that’s when things like grounding and corner time started to play a much bigger role than in the past) and less of an emphasis on spanking. I got spanked significantly less than probably deserved, but it worked out okay in the end. Our son was born totally healthy, the pregnancy was fine, everything went great.

So, fast forward to our second son. That pregnancy wasn’t rough until the very end, aside from the morning sickness (which is really all day sickness) in the beginning. During this pregnancy is when the story I illustrated in yesterdays post occurred. However, despite the fact that spanking may have seemed really intense, it was actually significantly lighter than it would have been had I not been pregnant. He used the cane, which is a very light implement and because of the severity of the implement, it meant that the spanking itself could be a lot shorter. During our pregnancy with our second child, Clint really toned down the amount of spanking to the point where I think I only got spanked 2 times throughout the entire time. Both spankings were done with light implements (either the cane or something like the wooden spoon) and both were short, but definitely effective. As the pregnancy went on, alternate punishments took more of a forefront again, and then we also experienced quite a bit of inconsistency towards the end, which really threw domestic discipline off track of both of us. But, nevertheless, spankings during the pregnancy with our second child did occur but were very, very infrequent and done with light implements where the sting (and pain) stays on the surface. Things that we would normally use, such as a paddle, collected dust for those 9 months.

With our last pregnancy things were a little different. Without getting overly personal on the medical stuff, I’ll just say that things started out okay and then progressively got worse and worse (and worse and worse and..you get the idea). Spanking was never even considered during the pregnancy with our third child. I wish I could sit here and tell you it’s because my behavior has been just so amazingly awesome, but that isn’t really the case. Instead, things like me literally fighting for my life took priority (obviously) and things such as spanking were never even mentioned and we were both okay with that. But, the point of me including this was to say that we transitioned from spanking a few times, to spanking maybe two times, to not spanking at all over the course of the pregnancies with our three children.

These transitions had to do with things like my health, and just our personal views on spanking during pregnancies changing. At first, we were both pretty okay with it as a last resort. However, by the third pregnancy, even if you look past the health issues for a moment, our views have changed. While I would, in no way, judge a couple who chooses differently, we’ve simply realized that spanking during pregnancy isn’t a risk worth taking. I think it likely has to do with the fact that we have now been doing domestic discipline for a really long time and have learned what alternate punishments are effective and what aren’t, and because of that we’re able to incorporate those more while pregnant. Granted, they aren’t as effective as spanking, but they get the job done. So, because we are more experienced with domestic discipline now, our views on spankings during pregnancy have definitely underwent a transition.

However, I don’t think neither Clint nor I regret how we handled the spanking while pregnant situations in the past. I can honestly sit here and say that the few spankings I did receive while pregnant were 100% justified, and were done at a time when Clint felt he had very little alternate options. I don’t regret those moments because I learned something valuable from them, and it helped us to shape our views on the spanking during pregnancy topic that we have today.

So, when you see us say in posts (both in the past and future) that we only recommend spanking during pregnancy as a last resort, with light implements being used, or not spanking during it at all, that is completely where we stand on the topic today and our stance is based on how it has evolved for us and the things we have learned. But I’m not going to sit here and tell you that I’ve never been spanked while pregnant because I have been. I’ve been spanked a few times while pregnant. The spankings have been toned down for us while pregnant (justified, but effective too), but I don’t regret any of them.

Listen, we’ve made mistakes with domestic discipline, and we’d be the first to admit that. Spanking during two of the three pregnancies, even if it was rare and infrequent, is something that very unlikely to ever occur again, nor is it something we would recommend. But, we aren’t perfect guys. Spanking while pregnant isn’t something we’re real thrilled about doing but it still is something that happened, and it’s a reality. Like I said earlier, we wanted our blog, from the beginning, to be honest, raw, and real and this is a part of that, even if it means sharing stories (like yesterdays) that have some less than perfect moments, which may subsequently result in us getting judged by some for it. I’m not afraid of that. This was a part of domestic discipline for us, and because of those experiences we’re able to evolve in the lifestyle and change how we handle it today.

– Chelsea

The post {A-Z Blog Challenge} P: Punishing While Pregnant appeared first on Learning Domestic Discipline: The Blog.

A potentially dangerous mindset in the domestic discipline lifestyle is believing that punishments must increase in intensity in order to see better long term results.  Yes, that IS true to an extent, however if that approach is taken too far, it can/will put the submissive partner at risk (particularly when it comes to spanking).

When Chels and I started living this lifestyle, our punishments were very mild.  Obviously over the years our punishments have increased in intensity as we’ve learned what to expect of one another, what is and is not excessive, and what works best for us.  We know the limits and we know when not to exceed them.  As with anything else in our lives, the more times we did something, the better we got at it.  The concepts in our domestic discipline marriage were/are no different.

I can’t pinpoint exactly when it was, but at some point along our domestic discipline journey I knew I had reached the “limit.”  The “limit” being defined as how much Chelsea can handle, particularly when it comes to spankings.  At this point I have spanked Chelsea a countless number of times and I know exactly how much she can handle, and how much she needs in order to correct whatever problem we’re addressing.  I know if I exceed that “limit” it would put Chelsea at risk and would create unnecessary problems.

So yes, increasing the intensity of the punishments yield better long term results, but there’s a “limit” to that concept.  Once Chelsea and I reached that “limit”, I learned another very important lesson in the domestic discipline lifestyle — it isn’t the quantity of the punishment, it’s the quality of it.

What does that mean?  Well, before I explain, I’ll talk specifically about our spankings, since spankings are everyone’s favorite punishment to talk about anyway.  

For us, it isn’t about the number of strikes (quantity).  It’s about how well I lecture, and how efficient each one of my strikes are (quality).  Simply put, the more effort I put into the spanking and the better I do at it, the better the results are.  It’s a straight forward concept really, but not always an easy one to accomplish.

It’s no secret that I don’t enjoy spanking my wife.  This actually presents a minor problem for us because, since I feel this way, I obviously would rather NOT spank my wife if I don’t have to.  This naturally creates a tendency within me to want to simplify the spanking and cut corners where I can (because I dislike doing it so much).  I want to get it over with as soon as possible, probably as much as (or maybe even more than) my wife does.

See the problem?  I may “want to get it over with as soon as possible”, but I can’t rush through it and conduct a poor spanking because the results won’t be as good.  I have to make it a good, solid, quality spanking, and that doesn’t always mean it needs to be harder or longer (increased quantity).  In fact, for us and where we are at in this lifestyle, that’s rarely (if ever) the case.

A good example to illustrate this is our use of swats.  Chelsea has had her moments where she has a very poor, disruptive, and/or unhelpful attitude.  It doesn’t happen often, but it has certainly happened before.  I think that happens to everybody.  We all have our bad days and our bad moments.  I understand that, so does my wife, and so do YOU, I’m sure.  It happens.

In these moments of poor attitude, I’ve used swats before and it immediately corrects the problem.  Swats, for us, are nowhere near the same intensity as a formal punishment spanking.  They’re not even close in fact, BUT they’re highly effective for us because the quality of them is high.  Immediately after the offense, I swat extremely hard with my hand anywhere between 7-10 times or so, bare bottomed, while lecturing the entire time.  They’re quality swats…not just a few lack-luster strikes on her bottom as she’s passing by or something.  They’re meaningful (and painful).  My swats immediately curb Chelsea’s attitude.

(For the record, yes, Chelsea has pushed her attitude before, which has led to a formal punishment spanking or two, but I would say 9 times out of 10 I can curb her attitude with 7-10 quality swats.)

The point of this example is to show that, for us, sometimes all it takes is a handful of swats to correct a problem, and I believe that’s due to administering quality strikes.  7-10 strikes with my hand.  That’s it.  That’s all it (usually) takes and the attitude is gone.  I don’t need to swat upwards of 25+ times to get the point across.  If I do the swats correctly, with quality, I rarely have to escalate things into a formal spanking, which — trust me — consist of a whole lot more than 7-10 strikes.

The whole quality over quantity thing I’m illustrating in this post isn’t just for swats and spankings, either.  It’s a concept that is quite consistent over all domestic discipline punishments.  For instance, sometimes all it takes is 5 minutes of corner time to curb a behavior, rather than, say, 20 minutes or more.  If those 5 corner time minutes are quality minutes, in which I give a proper lecture and Chelsea follows the corner time rules the entire time, the punishment is (usually) effective.  A 5 minute corner time can be perfectly sufficient if I do a quality job of administering it.  I don’t need to escalate the number of minutes.  I don’t need more quantity (generally speaking).

It’s a delicate balance, to be sure.  I do take comfort in knowing, however, that if I do punishments the right way the first time, it saves us both a lot of headaches.  When I do quality punishments the first time around, punishing for repeat behaviors is less frequent which is better for everyone.

— Clint

The post {A-Z Blog Challenge} Q: Quality, Not Quantity appeared first on Learning Domestic Discipline: The Blog.

You’ve probably seen us mention a time or two before about how important it is to us that our site is kept as open and honest as it can be. We want to showcase both the good and the not so good about this often complicated and misunderstood lifestyle whether that is from an informative standpoint or a personal standpoint.

We don’t want to sugarcoat how we practice this lifestyle, and we also don’t want to hide anything. I mean, let’s be real here, there’s a photo of us on the sidebar of this blog (so now everyoneeee knows who we are), we use our real names, and even our family and friends read our site (which can have pros and cons, in case you were wondering). This is as real as it gets.

So, for the “R” post, I thought of a lot of topics. R is an easy letter! But, the one that I kept coming back to was the word “real”. We have so many posts about how domestic discipline has worked for us, and all the positive results we’ve seen. While those definitely fit into the real category, I realized we don’t have many posts that balance out the other side of the word real. You know, the side where the spanking totally failed or things just completely didn’t go as planned? How about the time we almost quit domestic discipline? Yep, that is the other side of the word “real” (or realities) and the side that I think we sometimes overlook (I mean, who really wants to focus on the negatives, right?).

So, what are a few of those realities? Well, at the risk of being completely (understatement) judged, let’s take a look.

I’ve been spanked while pregnant. I won’t go into all the details because we did two posts on it this week (here and here) that you can read, but the bottom line is it was a mistake. Do we regret it? No. But will it happen in the future? No.

We’ve broken implements. We’ve always recommended using the Aveda paddle brushes if you’re looking to use a hairbrush as a spanking implement. We stand by that recommendation, because they really are good (and, not just for spanking – they are awesome hairbrushes too! But that’s beside the point..) but some of you may be surprised to know we’ve went through two of them. In fact, the one we currently have (that I use for its actual purpose) is split down the back..as a result of when we used it as a spanking implement. That spanking was, perhaps, a little too hard. So, yeah, we’ve broken implements before. And I’m not going to sugarcoat the reason – it was because of the strength of the spanking. Oh, and our wooden spoon has broken a time or two also.

I don’t get spanked the instant something happens. There have been times where I’ve purposely delayed telling Clint something that I know he needs to know, or when I’ve purposely not reminded him of a pending punishment that I remembered because I was tired. Likewise, there have been times were Clint has purposely put off a punishment to another night simply because he was tired. We try not to make this a regular thing because it really isn’t great for either of us, but it has happened in the past and it will happen in the future. That’s just life. One thing I will say, though, is that Clint never (ever) forgets so at some point the punishment will happen. But, does it happen instantly? Not always.

Our first silent spanking experience “wasn’t so awesome” as Clint puts it and I’d have to agree. I won’t go into all the details, but last summer we wrote a whole post on it (which does go into all the details) and you can read it here.

I’ve been spanked in public. This is another one of those experiences like the spanked while pregnant ones. Do we regret it? No. Did Clint have a pretty good reason? Definitely. But, will it happen again? I doubt it. I wouldn’t say its off the table (only Clint can make that call) but it is very unlikely to. I don’t think either of us are proud of the fact that behavior got to the point where that was even warranted and I think, looking back on it, we can admit that we both should have handled the situation differently.

We preach consistency over and over again. But, the reality is, we’ve struggled with it a time or two ourselves. Come to think of it, maybe that’s why we preach it so much is because we know what it feels like, how common of a problem it is, and how big of a downward spiral it can cause. Whatever the reason, I know we talk about it a lot and it’s definitely an important issue to us. We’ve struggled with inconsistency a time or two ourselves, both from Clint being inconsistent with the rules and consequences or me being inconsistent in following the rules (remember, consistency goes both ways guys). Either way, those inconsistent experiences have taught us a lot, but the way we’ve handled them (specifically me) isn’t really something I’m proud of. I wouldn’t say it has ever gotten to the point of “bratting” (ugh, I hate that word..) but it definitely has gotten to the point of pushing the boundaries a little bit too far just to send a message to him. And, for what it’s worth, I would not recommend that.

One of my hardest spankings to date was for something that I was (and am) totally ashamed of so I have never talked about it on the blog before. Maybe I will someday, but here’s the short version for you all. Let me start by saying I’m usually really, really nice to people (even ones who have totally screwed me over in the past, but we won’t get into that). However, there’s a site (that has nothing to do with domestic discipline..it’s like a parenting forums/groups site) that I used to belong to. One of the women on there found out we did domestic discipline and I don’t even have the words to really describe how she handled it. But, let’s just say, it wasn’t pretty. She attacked me as a mother primarily, brought my kids into it, and just would.not.shut.up. This went on for weeks, and I handled it horribly. So, instead of doing the right thing (which would be either a) ignoring it or b) staying off that site for awhile or c) defending myself in somewhat of an appropriate way) I attacked her back..and it just turned really ugly. And that’s the short version. The even shorter version is Clint found out, and I got spanked because my behavior was so completely ridiculous. It’s been a few years since that, but I still feel awful about it. It’s definitely made me change how I react to people now.

There’s still a lot about domestic discipline that we’re still learning, and we’re still figuring out. We don’t claim to be perfect because we aren’t. Domestic discipline has done wonders for our marriage, but it hasn’t been without some stress and challenges along the way. These are just a few of them, and perhaps we’ll post more later. But, there are a few points to this.

First, we’ve struggled. Just like you have, or just like you will at some point with this lifestyle. And, I’ve come to accept that we’ll probably struggle some a little more in the future too. We’ve had ups and downs with domestic discipline and a time or two where we’ve almost thrown in the towel with it and said, “let’s go back to life without DD!” but never have (and, the chances of us ever quitting domestic discipline are probably 0% at this point). But I want people to understand that we might run this site, and we might help a lot of people with it, but we’ve helped you guys because we’ve been through something similar, or because we’ve struggled like you have. This lifestyle isn’t easy, and we know that firsthand.

Second, we want you to learn from us! Take our horrible experiences, our crappy decisions and our ridiculous mistakes and learn from them. That’s a large part of why we do these personal posts. Learn from the positive experiences we’ve had, and the negative.

And third, domestic discipline isn’t all roses and rainbows guys. It isn’t like what you read in some fictional books where a husband and wife have a great relationship, struggle in an area here or an area there, she breaks a rule, he immediately punishes her, they kiss, hug, make up and the mistake doesn’t ever happen again. Does that happen from time to time? Absolutely. I’ll be the first to vouch for that. Does it happen all the time? No, it doesn’t. It’s important to us to convey a message of truth, of reality, and of openness with this lifestyle. We want you to have some sort of realistic idea of what to expect (especially if you’re a beginner). We want you to understand all of the domestic discipline options available to you and pick and choose which of them works best for your own relationship and part of that means showing the great and the not so great parts of each of them. On the same token, we want the people who are just checking out domestic discipline for the first time and have absolutely no idea what to expect (or if it is even right for them) to have a very good idea of what domestic discipline is, and isn’t. We just want to convey honesty and openness, even if it means being judged along the way.

So, with all of that being said, you may find yourself reading more posts in the future that show somewhat of the negative undertones of domestic discipline, such as some of the “confessions” (for lack of a better word) that you read above. This is just part of us balancing out the super “highs” we’ve had with domestic discipline with the stories of the times where it really didn’t go so well. You know, balancing both sides of the word reality.

Thanks for sticking by us through our domestic discipline journey over the years. As the saying goes, “it may not be easy, but it’s definitely worth it” and that is so true.

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