44. Argument – Part I

I planned on this post being about the fun of unveiling the new toys.  While the unveiling has begun, I will save most of those stories for another post.  This post is about a disagreement Mike and I had a few days ago.

There is one new toy I want to mention before getting into details about the disagreement as it ties into this story.   The Prison Strap is a menacing looking and ominously named strap.  I ordered it because it looked so cool and I thought perhaps it would just be a novelty to own and that we wouldn’t use it in my punishments.  As part of the reveal, we of course tried it out.  It packed a wallop and had to have Mike stop even just after a few playful swats.  Suffice to say, while I couldn’t prohibit Mike from using it in a future punishment, I did tell him that he would need to be careful as it was very powerful.

So, here’s what happened regarding our argument.

My niece Emma has been going through a lot lately and she has often turned to me for advice.  As her issues impact her mother (my sister), invariably I end up talking a lot with my sister whenever Emma reaches out to me.  The result is I’ve been spending a lot of time with numerous lengthy phone calls to both of them.  (Thus a potential issue per our  Contract – Section 4.2.3).

Add in the demands on daily life, which, as I shared, have been further compounded by my son’s injury.   When he was first injured I was quite proud of doing well in keeping my commitments.  Plus Mike stepped up and did a lot more to help me out around the house.  Lastly, we backed off a little on our DD rules.  Even so, I still credit our DD lifestyle with keeping me focused and energized, the lines of communications clear and open between Mike and me, and with keeping Mike engaged in the needs of the family as a whole.  We were handling this “crisis” well.

Then, my niece’s issue arose.  Several household chores went by the wayside, plus, over about a two day period I was being messier than usual and not picking up right away (leaving dirty dishes around, cups around, trash like napkins and paper towels out, leaving towels on the floor, stuff like that). Mike had already picked up a lot of the slack due to our son’s injury, but now was doing so because I was spending several hours on the phone every day.

After the first day of spending a lot of time on the phone, Mike simply mentioned that I need to be careful as I seemed to be drifting off course.  I could talk with anyone, but it is not to interfere with my duties and it was interfering.   I dismissed it and told him I had control of it and it was just a one-time thing.  I could have been punished but I think given the recent additional stresses, Mike gave me a pass.  When it happened a second day, Mike said WE needed to return to giving all the rules our fair attention.  Our son had healed enough that we are pretty much back in our normal routine, and clearly things have drifted away from our DD structure.  Again, a punishment was in order, but Mike asked that I agree that from now on we were back to full DD-mode.  Instead of agreeing, I got mad.

I interpreted what he said as being about him having to do extra chores, so I snapped and rudely said, “Our rules do not say I do all the chores and Emma needs my help and I am going to give it.”

He calmly said,

“Yes, you do not have to do all the chores.  The agreement is that you would not talk on the phone when there were chores to do.  And it has always been our mutual expectations that we clean the kitchen, typically together, right after dinner.  And, the rules also say that you are not to be messy and you’ve been very messy lately, adding to the workload.  And I could probably name many other transgressions over the last week or so.  I gave you pass and just picked up after you, but now perhaps that was a mistake.  The situation with Emma has just compounded the distance between what you actually do and what you’ve committed to do.  Lastly, you specifically agreed not to overextend your time and emotions to family members and you agreed to that specifically because you know you tend to get enveloped in other people’s problems.”

“Oh yeah,” he added, “and you agreed to respect me in tone and manner and you did not do that with your remark.  So just how far from the Agreement do you want to get?”

Wow.  While I wasn’t in any mood to show appreciation for his knowledge of the contract, I really had no valid retort.  In hindsight I know he was making it about my commitments to myself, and not about his extra work, but at the moment I was too mad to see it.   Luckily, I wasn’t mad enough to say anything more than, “Yes, Sir.”

Mike responded, “So drop you pants and bend over.”  I complied.  He gave me a few warm up swats with his hand and then whipped off his belt and gave me about 20.   As part of our Ceremony I have to say what my transgressions were.  Part of what I said was that it included me being messy and not cleaning up.  Mike corrected me.  He said given all that had been going on with our son he was, up until that point, still willing to let the cleaning issue go with just the verbal reminder. What he was asking for was a re-commitment to our agreement going forward and that the spanking was only for rudely snapping at him.

He lectured me more than usual.  He reminded me that our contract represented my own commitments to myself and about how important I’ve been saying those commitments were.  He even reminded me that he had wanted to suspend our Maintenance Sessions given what was going on with our son and I did not agree because I felt it was extremely important not to start any deviations from our Agreement.  Yet, I was the one who deviated in other ways.  He said that after tonight he would be fully back on upholding his part of the Agreement and enforcing the commitments I have made to myself.

NEXT DAY
The next day was uneventful.  I kept all my commitments, Mike and I cleaned the kitchen together after dinner and he was looking forward to me revealing another toy.  We had planned to get right to our fun as soon as our son was asleep but Emma called just as our son went to bed.  I told Mike I would make it quick and would meet him in the bedroom in a minute.

I went to the living room to talk on the phone.  45 minutes later Mike walked into the room and gave a disapproving scowl, tapped his wrist as if tapping a watch, and mouthed “off the phone.”  I told him it would be just a few more minutes and I’d be done – basically just telling him “no.”   It was really bad timing as far as the discussion with Emma was going and I wasn’t about to just cut her off and hang up.  Whatever my reasoning, I was clearly violating my Duties and Obligations.

Mike walked out of the room and returned about a minute later and handed me a note as I was still on the phone.  It said, “Two things on the bed waiting for you.  Choose one.  I’ll be waiting in my office.”

I wrapped up the call fairly quickly.  I couldn’t get my mind off what punishment was in store for me.  I remember having this imaginary dialogue in my head where I was telling Mike how unfair this was and I couldn’t believe HE was doing this to me.  The more I repeated this imaginary dialogue, the angrier I became.

I imagined there would be two spanking implements from which I would have to choose. In addition, he wants me to meet him in his office?  It is too close to our son’s bedroom and he knows that, so he is obviously doing this for spite.  As I went to our bedroom I took a detour to Mike’s office.  I stuck my head in and said, “I don’t know what all you have in mind, but this so unfair. I can’t believe you would do this to me.”

These are words I have never spoken since we began our DD relationship. I had never blamed him for a punishment or made it about anything he was doing to me.  Only now as I write this do I realize something.  Not only was my thinking unlike anything I thought since our DD journey, it was in fact unlike my normal thinking ever.  I was trying to make him regret his upcoming actions.  I was trying to make him feel shameful.   Shame is a terrible thing to try and unleash on anyone, especially someone you love.  I really let my anger get to me.  I’ll have to reflect more on why that was, but, whatever the reason, I was angry.  My verbal volley to him made me feel even more emboldened which served to further fuel my anger.  I couldn’t wait to “defend” my actions and show him how wrong he is.

I walked into the bedroom and looked on the bed.

Two things were on the bed.  What I saw made me cry.

Next:  45. Argument – Part 2