Head colds and the world's longest Christmas break have gotten in the way of our weekly check-in. Christmas break really has gone well but it is time to end. Our children have been out of school over two weeks with several days below freezing and a whole lot of family time. Kicking off December with an adults only getaway and a short leash when we returned was the perfect way to get me through the holidays. My darling sister came to town and I usually want to strangle her. She is best described as completely unsubmissive to the point of just being a jerk to her husband. But I didn't lose my cool. The spanking endorphins did the job.
But after an endorphin rush comes a crash... and my crash came on top of a cold and a far too long Christmas Break. This house needs routine. We are a mess without it. The kids' bedtimes were off and my head felt like a pressure filled brick for over a week. I thought I was feeling better on Sunday. Sunday is our regularly scheduled but doesn't always happen maintenance night. I desperately wanted to re-connect and get back to our normal connection. I didn't even last ten spanks with his hand. (Which are no joke, but I can take plenty more.) So he stopped. I went to bed. Dominic gave me Nyquil and brought me a large glass of water that he wanted me to finish before I fell asleep.
A few days later we had our absolute worst adventure in parenting to date. So tonight I hoped we were back to normal as I attempted to make dinner. Homework drama turned into the world is ending kind of drama and another kid tried to "help" with the steaming Instapot. And I was all done. So I grabbed the curious little helper (who did not get burned, thank God!) and snuggled us in bed with a movie. I just walked out of the kitchen and shut the bedroom door. The baby* and I ate cookies for dinner and I'm not really sure what happened with what I cooked, but no one went to bed hungry and the kitchen was relatively clean Everyone went to bed early except me. I started at my Kindle for a few hours.
*The baby is not a baby anymore but my last kid will always be the baby.
Why are these random, vanilla stories important? Because I didn't make crappy nights worse. That's major growth. My reaction to being too sick to spank and too emotionally exhausted to finish dinner didn't turn up the shark music. In our rookie DD days, I would have either sucked it up and let Dominic keep spanking me because I wanted to "be submissive" or I would have been mad he didn't know I was sick. It's been years since I thought our roles involved mind reading. What a relief. I tried because I really felt like I could handle it and I let Dominic know when I just couldn't. Communication is all he wants. Submission looks like talking. I didn't stew on the failed spanking. I went to sleep because I was sick. I didn't worry about when we'd try to make it up or if I should try to show my submission somehow. I used to worry about "doing this right" all the time.
New to DD, I would have powered through dinner growing angrier with myself for having a chaotic house and feeling like a "failed submissive" because I couldn't even get dinner on the table. Serving dinner at a special time is not one of our rules. Looking back I see how much I stressed our dynamic out and handicapped our progress by putting unspoken expectations on myself for what Being Submissive should look like. Add messages buried deep in my brain from my youth group days of misguided purity & marriage Bible studies + my real desire to be a good wife and have our home be somewhere my husband was happy to return to + my frustration at my own manic work schedule and just generally feeling like I had no control over my life.... and the result was a DD beginning that was a hot mess.
I knew I was reaching a meltdown point tonight. So I left the kitchen and said in a normal tone of voice, "I just can't." Dominic knew what I was talking about. He didn't complain about not having a family dinner. Just two years ago I would have LOST MY HEAD and lit into him at that point. I would have probably thrown some kitchen utensils and then sobbed at another failure. The rewards at sticking to this dynamic are unique to each relationship. For us, one of the biggest has been ME letting go of my own expectations. I know that above all, Dominic wants me to come to him before I'm at the point of no return. We're on the same page when I'm tuned into him and not the many outside influences telling me what a motherhood, marriage, and being a woman should look like. I've certainly not "arrived" or become a Stepford Wife, but I did reach that point where I just want to know what Dominic wants. Better late than never, I guess. ;)
The blog of a feisty, mostly submissive wife who has dreams of being a calm, cool, and collected grown-up.
