11/22/09 - 11/29/09

This Week in DD

First I must apologize for my tardiness in this post.  In addition to a lengthy holiday travel my laptop had some major issues that prevented me from posting this weekly update until now.  So here is installment two of the weekly update.

This week was a moderate success.  The week began with an early opportunity to regain my stride as an HOH.  Jenna leaves very very early in the morning for her current rotations at the hospital.  When she does leave she will from time to time forget to ensure that the dogs end up confined.  Certainly not a huge deal, but as something that has been expressed as an issue on a couple of occasions it gave me the opportunity to get back in the saddle so to speak.  It was also a perfect type of situation because it gave me the opportunity to have an issue that spoke to a larger issue rather than having to force a fake anger or upset disposition.  As an HOH it always has left a bad taste in my mouth when I know that my wife needs a spanking but I feel as though I need to create a reason to provide that for her.  A bigger issue is important for me because spanking because the dogs could have made a mess seems trivial.  Spanking because an issue that we have addressed makes a return, that to me, is significant.  Because in order for us to be better as partners in life when something is an issue we have decided to address I have a responsibility to hold us accountable to that decision.

The rest of the week was travel travel travel.  While I don't think I would have had any apprehension figuring out a way to spank while away from home the situation never arose.  So a good week from my point of view and I hope it gives some insight!

11/15/09 - 11/22/09

This Week In DD

This will be the inaugural post in what will be a weekly update in what has been going on with an HOH during the past week.

This week was a fairly disastrous HOH week.  Jenna is on a very time consuming rotation for the next 6 weeks at the hospital as this is the area she is hoping to impress to stay on as a resident after she completes medical school.  What that means is she is up by 5 am gone before 6 am and home around 6-7pm.  Unless she is on call in which case after 10pm or she stays at the hospital all night.  My office hours are relatively flexible and often I don't have to get up until almost 9am.  Additionally, as a side venture I am currently taking a class that runs from 6-10pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays and 8-5 on Saturdays.  Essentially that means 2 days a week she leaves before I get up and comes home after I have left and goes to bed before I get back.

With that as a backdrop I will continue to explain a bit.  For DD that is almost the worst case scenario I can think of.  Yes day shift spouse versus night shift spouse would probably be worse, but even if 2 different cities are going at least both people know why DD is suffering and it can pick back up when both people are together.  This week has just been bad for DD.  The house has become a mess and typically I try to do quite a bit of that work since I actually have the time.  Jenna is more responsible for ensuring that she doesn't create disastrous messes and is extremely respectful and communicates with me what is going on and what her needs are going to be this week with her schedule.

Part of the reason I haven't been the HOH I prefer to be this week is that I haven't done all that I need to do.  Much of the house mess this week is my fault and anytime I fail to complete what I need to I find it extremely difficult to hold my wife rigidly accountable.  It then feeds itself until I break free of both cycles at the same time.  I also have been in deep contemplation this week about some potential job changes for the future, and anytime that I am in that mode I question if I am being overly sensitive.  Therefore I flinch when it comes to spanking.

Have Jenna and I had a bad week?  No, not from my end at all.  She has been wonderful and things have been very good.  But I know that 2 times I flinched when I should have spanked.  They were not one of our major type of problems, but nonetheless I should have spanked.  So its time to pick myself up dust myself off and prepare for a new week.  I know better what to expect from this new block now, and can ask better questions and also make better expectations for both of us for this coming week.

So, until next time!

Paul

A recent comment and question

Hello All,

I recently received this post and wanted to talk a little about it and also answer/provide some of the requested insights.  So here it is.


I'm excited to see input from the HOH point of view. My husband and I are very new to this wonderful lifestyle. We only have about a month under our belts(yeah, sorry, pun only half intended), but we have already seen amazing results in our marriage, our sex life, and even my son (from a previous relationship) has made huge changes in his attitude toward my husband for the better, since one of the bigger rules in our home is that I NOT undermine my husband in front of my child. I happened upon a LDD website by accident and just started reading. As these people were describing their thoughts and feelings on their pre-LDD relationships I felt as if they were plucking words directly from my head and "stealing" my thoughts. As I read on I could see how much richer and rewarding and intimate, just plain happier these couples' relationships were and I wanted that for my marriage. So I introduced the idea to my husband and read him articles that I found, pulling a lot of material from the Taken in Hand website. He agreed that this could be good for our marriage (he especially liked the part where he is never again sexually unsatisfied, as he would have free reign to take me whenever he wanted me, lol) But seriously, I think we both realized, based on our personalities and tendencies, that this is what we have wanted and needed all along and neither of us realized it until now. He also felt that we should start implimenting it and see what it can do for us. As I mentioned above, we only just started out and already we have seen huge improvements. I'm still in, shall we say, "boot camp" where we are trying to break a few of my really bad, lifelong habits and he has been oh so patient and fair. We struggle with consistency since we have a 6 year old in the home whom we don't want to know all the gory details and I am 6 months pregnant, so its really hard to get enough privacy to go to the bedroom and conduct business when I need it. Plus we work odd hours so we have some hurdles. But we do what we can as soon as we can. Back on point, though, there are quite a few blogs and posts from the perspective of the woman, or submissive, which are hugely helppful, but I am extremely interested in the viewpoint of the Head of Household. I see that this site seems to be designed tastefully and is intended to answer questions regarding the lifestyle, but I'm really hoping to also hear personal experiences and thoughts from Paul in addition to Q & A. I can't wait to read more from your standpoint, Paul.


I wanted to first congratulate you and your husband on finding DD and the benefits that you are already seeing from this lifestyle.  I agree that there are very few resources for men and women who are interested in DD to see things from an HOH perspective.  Even fewer that are from the perspective of a vanilla HOH.  That is part of the reason this blog is here and I am always happy to have posts or emails asking questions either for this blog or just answered in private.  But enough of all that lets get to the post!

I actually have planned a larger set of posts that talk a little about LDD, but haven't yet completed all my research.  So, I will not yet delve into all of that, but I will quickly say that there are some aspects of LDD that I am extremely uncomfortable with.  There are things within LDD that I do not and will not practice in my marriage.  The quick version of the longer posts to come is this.  LDD has some wonderful things in it that then lead to a slippery slope that leads away from the love and mutual respect that I have found in my DD relationship.  One comment that caught my eye in the post was the one that referred to the husband taking her whenever he wanted.  I need to make sure that I state a couple of things.  First, I can't tell you if that is a right or wrong thing in your relationship.  I only ensure that I say that it is important to be very careful when making arrangements such as this one because what may seem not only desired but perfect can become something else entirely weeks, months, or years into the future.  Clearly the writer says its working for her and her husband and that is fantastic!  But since this blog is designed for a larger audience I want to make sure that I point that out.

Next, this post has inspired me to give a weekly thoughts post each and every week.  It will chronicle whats going on with me as it relates to the past week and DD.  So tonight I will cover the week of 11/15 - 11/22.  So starting tonight that will begin and I hope the perspective will help others out as they begin, contemplate, or trudge along after many years!

Paul

Questions

Questions can be submitted in one of two ways.  First, you can make a comment in any of the posts or in this question post.  I will attempt to put up new question posts from time to time to keep that at the top for easy access.  Second, you can email any questions to paul.belding@gmail.com if you are looking for a more private question that you do not want posted to the blog.

Thanks and I hope to hear from you soon!

DD one name MANY reasons (What is it and Why)

So you may be asking what is DD and why do people do it.  Those are both very good questions and both have tremendously complex answers.  I will go through some rather simplistic answers and hope that questions from you will help fill in any unanswered questions as well.

What is DD.  Well to answer this question there are some things that I will describe that ARE DD and just as importantly some things that I will define as NOT DD.  Again these are my opinions and there will be some who probably disagree, but knowing where I stand will help anyone reading understand how my definitions color my responses.

DD is domestic discipline.  Within DD there is a wide range of how people choose to carry out what they define as DD.  DD has two distinct roles.  There is a Head of Household (HOH) and their partner.  There are DD relationships in both heterosexual and homosexual couples but I will quickly admit to you that I know very very little about homosexual DD relationships.  If you are looking for advice or guidance in that area I will be more than happy to answer what I can and find resources where I am lacking.  At this point I need to make sure that I explain and differentiate a HOH from several other types of relationships.  A HOH is not master/slave relationship.  Not even close.  DD is also not simply just a sexual kink.  You may or may not yet know that DD is typically linked with spanking.  It is important to note that spanking does not mean someone is involved in DD and not spanking does not exclude someone from being in a DD relationship.  Spanking is one of the most confusing things in the world of DD and I expect there will be many times that it will be discussed both here and in relationships everywhere.

So with a few small potential questions discussed I invite men, women, young, and old to fire away with questions.

A Vanilla Husband

No, in the context of DD vanilla doesn't mean I like ice cream.  In DD there are two common terms to describe one's interest or predisposition to DD.  Vanilla and Wired are these two terms.  I am a vanilla, and understanding this fact is important to understanding my point of view in everything that I will write.  Vanilla is as the flavor might suggest boring  :-)   Wired is the person in the relationship who is predisposed to some or all of the facets of DD.  In my marriage my wife is the wired one.  For us, this means that she brought DD to me and wanted for us to introduce it into our lives.  You may be here as a man who has no idea what DD is or how to react to being told this is something your wife is interested in implementing in your marriage.  Please know that this can be an excellent forum to ask questions and get answers.  When Jenna (my wife) brought DD to me I wanted to learn quite a bit to understand what she was looking for from me, and I was looking for the perspective of someone like me.  Hopefully this blog can help accomplish that goal.  So whether you found this blog on your own or you have been gently nudged here by your partner feel free to ask and learn!

The Beginning

This is the first in what I hope will be a long future of posts on the topic of Domestic Discipline.  Over these first few days of this blog's existence I will attempt to answer several questions that you might have as readers and also better explain what I am hoping to use this blog to accomplish.  First, know that if you are looking for information or simply to ask questions about DD this is the place.  My opinions are based upon my personal experience and certainly are not indicative of a greater DD community.