Defining our Direction

It's no secret here that Hunter and I have had many ups and downs in regards to the consistency of our DD life.

For awhile now it just seems life everything was going in a vicious circle. He would stay consistent for a few days and I would get better with my behavior and then he would slack off and I would get worse and start testing him and round and round the story goes. We've had a lot of talks over the last three years about how to do this,that and and the other and what was effective and what wasn't and what we thought should be spankable, etc.... But, even through all these talks, I think we'd missed one of the really important ones. Just what was it we expected to achieve from DD?

Like so many other couples, I think we tried to jump into this head first and made tons and tons of rules and just thought every little problem could be fixed overnight simply by spanking. This is where the post on whether or not DD was really about spanking at all came from.

Well, last weekend took advantage of having a 3 day weekend and some "grandbaby withdrawal" from grandma time to sit down and do some talking and a WHOLE lot of spanking. We both agreed that we needed to figure out just what our goals and expectations were of DD and try to get on the same page.

First we discussed Goals and we came up with four goals that we want to see as a result of living a DD lifestyle:

1) Improved Communication
2) Peace in the home
3)Consistency in our words and actions
4) Accountability to one another

Then we each came up with three expectations that we have of the other that we agree to really concentrate on for the next few months. We thought three would be workable and not too overwhelming.

His expectations of me are......

1) He expects me to "go to work" each day as far as my responsibilities as a stay at home mom and housewife and make those responsibilities a priority just like he goes out of the home to work each day whether he feels like it or not.

2) He expects me to speak and act toward him in a respectful manner.

3) He expects me to discipline our children without yelling.( I thought maybe if I posted them here then I'd have even more accountability and you all could send positive thoughts my way . )

I expect him to ....

1) Be firm and consistent with DD even when he doesn't feel like it.

2) To make time with me in the evenings a priority.

3) To use clear communication and say how he feels about things. This pertains to if something I do upsets him or whether or not he intends to apply consequences instead of leaving me guessing.

At the end we came up with rules for our DD life and narrowed those down to 2 basic rules..

1) Be respectful
2) Take care of health and self

If you think about it, pretty much anything can fall into those two categories and this sounds so much simpler than the pages of stuff we came up with in the beginning.

After talking, he gave a very serious, long, and very hard spanking to kind of give us a fresh start and remind me of the HOH dynamic that we have both agreed to. This is something I asked for as I was starting to feel like I was putting the walls up again and didnt' want to go back there. We also used the weekend (no, we weren't alone the whole weekend, but the kids do sleep and they can go upstairs) for him to give periodic short reminder spankings reinforcing the fact that he is HOH.

He also gave three somewhat serious spankings as a reminder of each of the three expectations I am to work on and what to expect if I am not meeting them.Overall, this was a really really good weekend for us. I feel much clearer and secure in our choice to live this lifestyle and am really feeling his commitment to it as well. It doesn't feel like we're just kind of winging it or that it's jumbled in mass chaos what each expects of the other and got us on the same page.

It just seems like we've had a lot of instances lately where he says something and I am not defining it anywhere near what he intended. I also had my eyes opened to some of his concerns and how important they really are to him. We're not being naive here. I know and understand now that things are not going to be perfect all the time and I am not going to change the undesirable behaviors overnight. I have been this way for over 30 years and need to establish some new habits.

Anyhow, I just thought I'd share something that worked really well for us and kind of where we are right now .