Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Two Sides...

There are two things I need from my husband.

1. I need him to be my rock. I need to be able to lean on him, to rail against him, to push with all my might – and I need to him to be immovable in his care and affection of me. Immovable.

2. I need him to be the soft place I land when I fall – my safe place in this world.

Is it fair for me to ask both these things of him?

I ask these things with the understanding that he’s human – he will not always come through for me. But I need him to try with unwavering commitment.

We’ve had several conversations about how he struggles with balancing in these things – or at the very least understanding how they can coexist.

I really feel like they are two sides of the same coin. If he is all of the first things to me – my immovable rock, then – and only then – can I trust him to be my safe, soft place.

A phrase is coming to mind I can’t quite bring up – something about velvet steel. It’s an accurate image in my head but I can’t think of the phrase.

I hate having DD compared to parenting but there just are some comparisons to be made. I am those two things to my child. I am the boundaries she needs, her guide through everything, and I am the place she runs when she needs comfort.

I want those things from my husband. I think from our conversation today he understands now what I mean but…

Is it fair? Am I wrong to ask this of him?

Monday, November 2, 2009

When the cat's away the mouse totally ignores the house

The kids and I picked Dan up at the airport after he'd been out of town on business. We had a nice dinner out and then came home well after dark. We pulled into the garage and he went to get the mail. While at the box he called all three of us outside with him claiming there was a problem with the house. As he's told me in the past that I forget to turn the lights off too much I correctly figured I'd left some lights on and I immediately started laughing. I knew exactly where this conversation was going to go and what the result to my butt was going to be and I couldn't stop laughing. I thought that was a bad sign for my laughing problem. He led us around the house like a haphazard troop until we had all but circled the house and literally every single room was lit up like Christmas. Even the unfinished basement. And me... I was nearly hyperventalating I was laughing so hard. He was trying to get the kids to guess what was wrong with the house and they weren't getting it and I had tears streaming down my face.


With my history of hysterical laughter at the wrong moment, you can imagine I was more than a little worried this was not a good sign of things to come. Due to our schedule it took several days before it was time to deal with my inattention. He pulled out the small leather paddle that had bruised me so intensely the last time it was used and told me that not only was it for the fact that every single light was turned on in the house while he was away, but several other issues of inattentiveness as well;
- I’d not brought in a single newspaper while he was gone (I don’t read them and despite the fact that he’s mentioned it in the past it almost never crosses my mind)
- He IMed me on trash night reminding me to get our son to take out the trash. I confidently assured him it had already been taken care of (I mean what kind of idiot can’t remember to take the trash to the curb) I’d even pulled our 2nd trash can oub because we’d gone over our normal one can load….. Well it turns out in my cockiness after I put the extra trash in the 2nd can and took it to the curb.... I went inside and totally forgot the original, bursting at the seems can. Oops.
- While he was away I had not signed our younger son’s agenda even once signifying he’d done his reading for the night. I did make sure the reading was done; I just didn’t sign the paper. I’ve got no excuse for this one – well I do, but it’s so bad that it just makes it worse.


He had me lean over the bed and he pulled down my pants and underwear and began. He started out really lightly and very slowly built up the intensity. He got to a medium intensity and held there for a while and I definitely got the feeling I could get seriously turned on by some more playful domineering in the bedroom that would include that kind of thing. It seemed inappropriate to be having those thoughts so I pushed them away and before long he was going harder and those thoughts were completely gone all by themselves.

For the most part I was really concentrating on making sure I didn’t laugh, though as it turned out I really didn’t have the urge to which I was very happy about. Well that is until he asked me if I’d gone over the health review with our older child that evening. He’d specifically asked me to after I mentioned I wanted it to get done. I didn’t tell Dan, though I knew that our son had a few more days before it had to be done so it wasn’t that high on my priority list when I mentioned it. But I never told Dan that and he had very specifically told me it was my responsibility to make sure that got done that night. Oops. Once I told him no that I hadn’t done it, I didn’t go into any explanation as I knew it was irrelevant, he went a lot harder. Then he asked me to list the four reasons, no make that five reasons I was getting spanked. Man was that hard. And then I couldn’t come up with the signing the agenda one. I got to that one and said “I have no idea what the fifth one is” okay that was a painful answer. Eventually it came to me, but not before I collapsed to the floor a couple of times to get away from the paddle.


My overall impressions were that I thought he did a good job of heading down the road towards helping me get in the right mindset for this, though I think the world series being on in the room (which I wanted to be on as much as he did) took away from that a bit. While he was talking to me, not quite lecturing, he kept looking up at the TV which was behind and above me. I think a more serious tone about the stuff that matters to him would continue to push me where I think I need to go, maybe even reiterating what he said from time to time.

As far as the intensity is concerned overall it was pretty good though it could have either been harder or longer, or maybe both. It didn't feel quite finished, but not in a bad way. He seemed physically uncomfortable during it, standing and sitting repeatedly, so maybe we need to work on a different position.


I would be very interested to keep going at the medium intensity that he spent a bit of time on for a much longer period of time. I'd be interested to see how that effected me. but I'd need to know it was going to last longer going in. I'm wondering if maybe more time would let me think more about the issue and give my mind time to let go of my astonishment that I'm actually in that position, but only of course if he was comfortable doing that.

Let me tell you when he asked me questions in the middle - That was really, really good. That was the place in the whole experience that was the most.. uh.. real or intense or something as far as my mind was concerned. The whole way he handled that - how when I didn't know the 5th reason he just calmly went a lot harder - it brought it home to me in a different kind of way that this was his show, not mine. Even when I finally did remember and managed to get it out he told me I wasn't specific enough and asked for more detail and until I said what he was looking for he was wailing away really hard. I can't say I liked how that part felt on my butt, but I definitley liked how real that felt for my mind.

Overall I'd say it was a very good and positive experience - one that leaves me feeling closer and more connected to my wonderful husband.

Kelly