Helping Men With Stress

The post I did on helping the wife with stress was so enjoyed that Kim from R&K - Our journey in DD  asked me to do a post about helping the HOH with stress. So here we go. I hope you like this as much as you did the helping the wife with stress.

How many times has your husband come home dragging his behind from either a bad day at work or the ride home was terrible? He walks through the door only to be greeted by his nagging wife telling him how bad the kids were; how something broke in the house; or, on very rare occasions, that he didn’t cut the lawn or did his other household fixes.

Let us revisit the same scenario. As he walks in the door he is greeted by his wife. She walks up to him, she hugs him, pecks him on the cheek saying. “Dinner will be on the table in about a half hour. Why don’t you go and sit down on the couch and relax while I finish up with supper. Can I get you something to drink honey?”

Now which man do you think will be the happiest? Definitely not the first one. I think the second option is a much better choice, don't you?

Another way to make him forget his problems is to dress up for him. Change those baggy pants and sweat shirt for a dress or a decent pair of jeans with a nice looking top, cook him his favorite meal, and, if you have a few minutes to spare while supper is in the oven, give the man a back rub and while doing that tell him how much you missed him while he is away. If more women did this, I would wager a bet that the sports ratings would drop a few points. Now after the back rub, all bets are off on that sports rating. LOL.

If you really want to rock his world and are feeling a little feisty, have a picnic in the bedroom. Of course this will take a few minutes, or a lot, to plan depending on what you want to do. Put candles around the bedroom, a blanket on the bed or the floor, have some cheese, fruit, bread, vegies, and of course, some wine too. Greet him at the door, put your finger to his lips to keep him from asking any questions, take his hand and say “follow me”. As you open the door, I would safely say that all his problems will disappear. Once you close the door … well I leave that up to you I am sure you will come up with something. WEG

Another idea is to make sure that supper is not finished. When he walks in the kitchen he sees you only in an apron standing by the stove, sink or even the dinner table. Oh no, look! There just happens to be some type of spanking implement there. Wonder what he could do with that?

Here is another one. The poor guy is doing a home repair and he is pulling his hair out because he can’t get the pieces together. Very gently ask him if you could assist him with his project and then very, very submissively ask him if you could read the instructions so that he will have a better idea on what the project looks like and what he is trying to do.

Now a word of caution here when you do this. Do not, I repeat do not grab the instructions. Even though he probably has never seen or read them because you are now questioning his ability to put it together. Ask him nicely if you can read them. Then make a suggestion like honey have you tried to put parts aaa and ddd together? That might be easier if you do. Please don't laugh at the poor guy because real men don't read instructions remember? :)

When you see your man withdrawing into himself, just be there for him. Ask him if you could do something for him. Give him control of the remote, read one of his books so you have something to talk about, or ask him about his day and act like you’re interested in what is happening to him. Who knows you might even get to see a different side of him. In other words treat him like you would like to be treated when you’re stressed out.

Most of the time when he comes home from work all you have to do is acknowledge his presence when he walks in the door  and let him be by himself for about a half hour so he can unwind.

Bob

Walter

Almost three years ago, we asked Bobbies dad Walter to move in with us because he is at that age where he could no longer take care of him self, the things we take for granted walking, reaching out for objects that we want, even seeing, all these things are now nearly imposable or very difficult for Walter to do.

Walter has taught me a lot about being a man, being honest, how to earn and give respect to others. He didn’t give me books or impart vast amounts of knowledge to me, he taught me all this by living it every day of his life with his beloved wife. Even after my mother in law is gone now, he still teaches me to this day how to be a man for this I am eternally grateful. Before I tell my story, I want to say that I wouldn’t have given any thing up nor done it differently since he has come to live with us I truly do love the man and have the highest respect for him.

Before the days of Walter we had the full run of the house, if we wanted to go into the bedroom grab a few spanking tools along the way and have a spank fest we did it, sometimes we didn’t come out of our cave for hours. If we were in the kitchen or other parts of the house and Bobbie happened to bend over to pick something up she got a swat for her troubles because who could reset seeing such a beautiful target like that and not wanting to slap it once, twice, three...

There are times when Walter just drives me nuts with his mannerisms, he has to set his silverware in just the right order, he has to have 3 napkins around him when he eats, he even has to have his bread for breakfast cut in a certain manor and to sit there watching this unfold is madding. He is the only one that I know of that can crunch soggy cearal when eating it, Walters reach is severely limited he cannot reach any thing past the edge of the table and the poor guy cannot cut his own meat any more.

That is not my real beef with the man, he can eat, crunch his food like a horse, watch any TV program he wants even Turner Classic Movies that don’t bother me well yes it does but I can live in peace with that. The thing that ticks me off is that he is there, never goes away and he has taken my “US” time away and when you take our “US” time away then I have issues about that that is because I am not a happy camper nor is Bobbie very happy about it either.

It used to be we could give him a quarter to go to the local party store 3 blocks down to buy some bubble gum and have a couple of hours to ourselves but we can’t do that now because we would have to send out the search party looking for him. He now strays from the path to the party store because since we decked out his walker he has become a chick magnet. His new hobby is picking up chicks as he says it now, we have caught him with a lady friend sitting on his walker leaning against each other sleeping because they both got too tired to go any further to the party store. So now, when he goes to the party store we have to chaperone him and his lady friends to make sure they don’t get distracted while going to the store.

As some of you can attest, living with our parents can be challenging at times while trying to balance your own relationship with your spouse. So the question of the day is how do you maintain you’re dynamic with your spouse while taking care of our elderly parents in the same house?

Some of our problems that are cropping up are Bobbie is getting more snarky, she gets mad at her dad because of what he has said or done to her and then she snaps at me. Tending to his needs has taken alot time away from us and at times, it seems like we are starting to drift apart.

She is starting to get into her I can do it mode where she doesn’t want any help because she figures that it is her dad and her responsibility to take care of him and doesn’t want to burden anyone else in helping out. We are limited to how long we can go out and leave him alone. Now it takes the two of us to take him anywhere because he needs help to get into the van.

The things we are doing are; we disappear more for an hour at a time either when he watching TV or taking his shower. We sit outside more if we need to talk. We have learned to txt message each other through the phone this seems to be working out great because now I have a way to tell her to cool her jets. We have put a new meaning to date night we going to secluded locations to get some spanking in, Bobbie feels like a teenager again parking and doing thing that we did many years ago.

Our latest indever is that we are attempting to soundproof our bathroom so we can have some us time without him hearing Bobbie yelling “ouch, dam you that hurts, not so hard” and then…. WEG, we bought some sound deadening foam, it looks like egg crates and put it in between the studs and it seems to work so we have to buy some more to finish off the rest of the walls

For those of you that have elderly parents living with you what do you do to get away so you can have some time alone?



Bob

Guilt, Fears and Insecurities

 

Have you ever had that nagging feeling that something in your relationship is just not right? You’re looking over your shoulder, around corners looking for things that are not there, or you are reading more into a situation or the way something was said and you’re just not comfortable anymore?

Have you started to think that your relationship would be better if you had done it a different way? If you never said this or that, things would be ok? Being the HOH are you second guessing yourself reading too much information into what her actions were when you told her to do something? Was it her attitude that has changed? Did she just give you a offhanded remark to one of your directions, you think she did but you can’t be sure.

You have become ineffective to move forward because of the problems that are like chains around your neck weighing you down till you can’t move any more. You become stagnant being sucked down in the muck by the insecurities and fear that you have created and it seems like the more you fight it the deeper you sink.

Welcome to the DD Twilight Zone! Where things that are normal in a regular lifestyle are now not normal because you have this weight called guilt, fear or insecurities. How does guilt enter and take residence in your head driving you nuts, looking for tall tail signs that something is wrong?

Guilt

Let us look at this poor person named Sam. He has started to make great strides in moving forward with his wife Sami and as they are enjoying the cruise along the smooth road of life,  Sam starts thinking of something that he has done to Sami that has hurt her in the past. In his mind he is replaying the same scenario when he found out that the car insurance was about to be cancelled because Sami did not pay the bill even after the repeated cancellation letters that she had received and ignored.

Sam cringes when he sees himself yelling at Sami. How could she have not paid the bill. That she did it on purpose. That she didn’t care plus many things that was more hurtful that night. Then suddenly he grabbed her and puts her over his knees and in his blind rage he spanked her too hard and didn’t listen to her pleas to stop or her safe word.

So now all he can do is look at his wife saying, “How could I have let this go so far? I caused her so much pain”. How does one fight guilt that stops you cold in your tracks and keeps you from doing the right thing? The first thing I would do is forgive myself for my past anger. If you can’t forgive yourself there is no sense of going any further because nothing is going to work until you can put this behind you. Second, I would think back on that day and identify the stressors that caused you to lose your cool. Now you have something to gauge your future actions against to see if you are heading down the wrong path again. Then ask yourself if you did it over again how would you have done it differently? What were the signs that you started to unravel?

Talk to your spouse, tell them what is happening with you and ask them to help you to come up with some kind of plan to help you combat your guilt. Talk to a close friend that you trust, ask them for some suggestions on how to solve your dilemma.

Insecurities

Sami was chatting on line with some friends of hers and her friends were talking about how their husband has stepped up to the plate and is spanking them more. They are saying they are in nirvana now because of all the attention their HOH is giving them. Sami wants to be spanked like her friends so she too can feel the bliss that they are experiencing. Her husband says no, not tonight, I am tired because work has been taking a lot of his time and attention so she starts to think he is not interested in this lifestyle any more so she starts seeing things that aren’t there. She starts seeing ghost around every corner doubting her husband. Does he really want DD? And herself too. Maybe she is not submissive enough or too needy for his attention.

So how does this poor woman stop her insecurities? She goes to the most used tool used in her DD utility belt. Communication. She goes to her husband and tells him what she is feeling. What she is seeing, whether it is true or not, so they can work on this together.

Talk to close friends if you have any in this lifestyle so you can get a different spin on how things really are. Build a support group that you can rely on so in times of trouble you can lean on them for support until you figure out what to do.

Fear

The new HOH, with heavy heart, goes into the bedroom. It is time for him to discipline his wife for over spending her budget. But as he looks at his wife sitting at the edge of the bed, he starts to get nervous because he is afraid of spanking her too hard. He doesn’t want to make her cry so he cheats her on her closer.

The HOH in his past relationship was lied so that destroyed their marriage and now many years later he is remarried and now he is sitting at the kitchen thinking he is seeing the same signs as before. The fear starts to grip him where he can’t think about any thing else but the imagined thought of doom running through his head.

This is the hardest to fight back because as we all know that if it is strong enough it could stop you right in your tracks keeping you from the joys of this relationship. However, the same powerful tools mentioned above will work for this too, but it will take longer to gain the trust and confidence to enjoy each other.

Guilt, insecurities and fears are three of many things that can keep us from continually moving forward and enjoying each other. As long as we remember that we have our DD tools: communication, some kind of support group and a close friend to talk to that we can trust, these tools can fix a multitude of problems.

What are some of the ways you combat your guilt, fears and insecurities?



Bob

I Support DD

 

MrBBSpanker from A Domestic Discipline Society is calling all DD bloggers to stand together, in the face of criticism, to stand up and be counted. Click  HERE to read MrBB's response.What DD has done for us is that it has given us the means to eliminate the power struggle between the two of us. There is no need for two leaders. It has shown us that one can lead and the other can assist in making decisions in where they want their relationship to go.

It has shown us how to communicate more because now that we operate as a team it is imperative to know what your partner is doing so that together we can make intelligent decisions. We find that we are helping each other more because I want to be with her, I want to make her life easier as she does mine. We don’t snip at each other as much and have learned to recognize when we are having problems and when they are starting to brew so we can nip them in the bud.

This blogging community is phenomenal. There are many occupations here from students to CEO’s writing about their successes and their trials and tribulations in their DD relationships. Yes, like any large community, there is disagreements and arguing going on but when someone is hurting everyone bands together to help. If there is a problem all you have to do is ask and many will respond with either kind words, prayers or advice that you might be able to use. 

Two good examples of this is when Bas lost his battle with cancer and passed away. Most of the people in blog land reacted with tears because a close friend was lost forever and posted on his blog one last time to say goodbye and another one is when a little girl was deathly sick the DD community held vigil prayers at 9pm, it was amazing the way everyone was informed how she was doing whenever an update was released.

We laugh at jokes, we cry or show concern when one of us is hurting. When we have good news or are proud of something that was accomplished everyone that reads your post celebrates and cheers with you. In some ways we are like real family and sometimes we are real family.  

 

 

 

 

Helping Wife With Stress

Being the HOH of your household is tough. There is no doubt about it. Just ask me and I will tell you. But when the wife is stressing out be it parents, children, work, or gasp us, it is hard to maintain that equilibrium that we so desire in our relationship because when she is stressed out our world definitely goes out of whack.

There are several tools at our disposal, some good and some bad. The bad would be you pretending it isn’t happening and putting your head in the sand. If you are doing this please turn in your HOH card at the front door. You could spank her hoping to reset her or at least make her forget about her problems because her butt is on fire. This could help but then when her butt cooled down you would probably have double trouble because she will be ticked off at you. You could go back to your old ways and holler at her. But, as you have figured out by now, none of these are good options or very wise moves at all.

So let us talk about how to help our wonderful wives to get back to her happy and sassy (fun) self. The first step it to just jump in with both feet, come right out and ask her what is stressing her out. Sit down with her and grab your favorite beverage and just plain talk about what is bugging her. Don’t be the fix it guy.There will be time for that later. Just sit and try to find out what is making her stressed out and is driving her nuts. Try to figure out what the stress triggers are then you will be able to come up with a plan to help her.

Encourage her to give up some unnecessary sources of stress like not accepting to help at church, charity functions, and just helping people out because she does not have the word no in her vocabulary. Bobbie is this way if someone asks her to help she is all for it and then she gets in over her head. It then spills into our household. Make sure you explain to her why you are limiting her to certain tasks. Make sure you’re available so she can talk to you when she has a stress attack and actually listen to her.

Take up some of the slack like some of the daily chores, cooking, watching the kids and if you are capable of it, do the laundry. Make a list of things that she absolutely has to have done and let everything else go. Convince her to take one task on at a time and not to do any more until she has that one done. Point out to her when she starts to stress out and show her kindly where she is starting to unravel.

Arrange for your wife to have quiet, solitary time. Take everyone out of the house for a few hours, or arrange it so that she can go off on her own for a while. Treat her to a day to the spa to have her nails done a massage perhaps.

Do things together. Go for a walk, go to the park, to the movies, go to the gym make it fun to see who can lose the most weight in a week, month. What better way to enjoy watching your spouses better ASSests than having them in front of you for 30 min or more working those Maximus Glutinous and just be close to her. Try enjoyable relaxing activities with your wife. Take a yoga or tai chi class, or treat yourselves to a few massage therapy sessions. Listen to soothing music, play board games with each other, or read together. Do what you can to help your wife get enough restful sleep.

Establish a weekly date night with your wife. Go out together for dinner, a movie, a visit with friends or another enjoyable activity. Or, arrange for the kids to be out of the house overnight and have your date at home.

Pro's of Maintenance Spanking

JasonGril from  The Taming of the Shrew and I had a meeting of the minds again and have come up with another topic to do a point and counter point for your entertainment. Today’s topic is the pros and cons of Maintenance Spankings. I will be taking the pro and my nemesis (LOL) JasonGirl  HERE will be taking the con.

My definition of Maintenance spankings is when a couple, the husband and his wife agree that at certain times whether it be weekly, monthly, daily or whenever the HOH sees the need arise he can give her a spanking.

Now it is written somewhere in the holy DD bible that maintenance spankings are to be at a step below a discipline or punishment spanking. My thoughts are if it brings peace and harmony back to their relationship and that it helps the participating couple it doesn’t matter how hard or soft the spankings are.

Bobbie and I do maintenance spanking “US Time” approximately twice a week, a tool used by many couples that are in a DD or a D/s relationship. The purpose of this tool is to help “reset” her mind set, to bring her back to normal. No, I do not lurk in the dark corners of the house just waiting to pounce on Bobbie when she makes a mistake so I can spank her (although that would be fun). The reality is when I spank Bobbie, I want to spank her for fun not to discipline or to punish her for some errant deed that she did.

I have found that works with Bobbie because during the week she will start to get frustrated with her dad, things going on in her life, people in general, yes as hard as this is to believe she even gets mad at me go figure. When this happens, her demeanor plummets fast, she starts to drift away from US, and she starts to build those walls to keep me out

The purpose of the maintenance spanking is to bring her back to thinking about us, not her or me, and our problem individually but our problems collectively. This gets her away from building walls thinking that she is alone in this. How hard do I spank her depends on how fast I can realize that she is drifting away from me. If I catch it in time it could be just a few swats and if it escalates into something bigger then it will be much longer and at times harder too.  

Another good point regarding maintenance spankings is that if you see your spouse acting or doing something that is leading to problems you can nip it in the butt because you are stopping it before it spirals out of control and gets into a bigger mess than it might already be. While you have her undivided attention, you can tell her what you see or hear her doing and you are reassuring her that you are attentive to her needs.

Now, you’re probably saying well if you are going to spank her no matter what, what is the sense of even trying to be good and abide by all the rules and regulations? Being that you are the ones spanked, would you rather have your HOH keep quiet while you head down the road of a serious discipline session or would you rather have him step in and stop it before it went too far? The choice as always is yours.

Mind Game 2

Here's another trick of Doctor Dementia to test your skills ...

Can you meet this challenge?

I've seen this with the letters out of order, but this is the first time I've seen it with numbers. Good example of a Brain Study: If you can read this OUT LOUD you have a strong mind. And better than that: Alzheimer's is a long long, way down the road before it ever gets anywherenear you.

7H15 M3554G3

53RV35 7O PR0V3

H0W 0UR M1ND5 C4N

D0 4M4Z1NG 7H1NG5!

1MPR3551V3 7H1NG5!

1N 7H3 B3G1NN1NG

17 WA5 H4RD BU7

N0W, 0N 7H15 LIN3

Y0UR M1ND 1S

R34D1NG 17

4U70M471C4LLY

W17H 0U7 3V3N

7H1NK1NG 4B0U7 17,

B3 PROUD! 0NLY

C3R741N P30PL3 C4N

R3AD 7H15.

PL3453 F0RW4RD 1F

U C4N R34D 7H15.

Only great minds can read this. This is weird, but interesting!

If you can raed this, you have a sgtrane mnid, too.

Can you raed this? Olny 55 people out of 100 can.

I cdnuolt blveiee that I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd what I was rdanieg.

The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in what oerdr the ltteres in a word are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is that the frsit and last ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can still raed it whotuit a pboerlm. This is bcuseaethe huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the word as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? Yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! 

Answer is

This message
Serves to proves
How our mind can
Impressive things
In the beginning
It was hard but
Now on this line
Your mind is
Reading it
Automatically
With out even
Thinking about it
Be proud only
Certain people can
Read this
Please forward if
You can read this

 

Male Support

One thing that I think that makes this DD lifestyle so great is the support network that is available to the community. Whenever a sub/tih has a problem she has access to many different types of support groups from web pages of other likeminded people waiting to help their fellow sisters figure out her problems. There are blogs that talk about their problems and friends that she made along the way that she can either call, email, pm even Skype to talk about what is on their minds. To brain storm what is going on in their relationship and how to figure out their problems.

On the other hand the HOH/Dom by his own design has no such support group. If he is lucky enough to have a male friend that he is close to in this lifestyle he could choose to talk to him and most of the time he chooses to goes it alone.

Why is it that women have this huge choice of support groups and the men have hardly any support group to refer to? My theory is that women are a social group. They like to be in contact with other people and easily express their hopes, dreams, and etc. I would also say it is possibly the mother instinct in them that wants to care and nurture the person they care about, to make them happy in whatever was making them sad.

On the opposite end of the scale the men are loners, predators, territorial creatures protecting what is theirs. He is skeptical. Ever watchful of the next male coming into his territory to make sure what is his stays his. As he grew up, he was taught that talking about his problems is a sign of weakness that can be used against him or even lower his status in the group he runs with. 

The options for the male are slim. He could start researching the internet looking for answers to his problems and this is a good resource but time consuming. He can start a blog and talk through his problems that way and remain anonymous with very few people knowing who he is with some hope to get good feedback so he can get ideas on what to do. (This has turned out to be an invaluable asset for me because you have greeted me with open arms taking me at face value that I was sincere. For this you have my highest respect, and you have helped me with your comments more than you will ever know.)

He could go into a chat room asking questions without knowing if the person he talking to is real or not or, his best bet is if he has someone who he looks up to, his equal or a mentor perhaps? He could talk to him asking for advice and trusting him not to be judged but still seen as an equal trying to solve his problem.

Until we can start opening up and trusting some people making close friends that could possibly be part of our support group, we men will continue to be loners scratching our heads trying to solve problems that might have been solved already by someone else.

 

 

 

 

 

Who has the Power?

No matter what your thing is whether it is a vanilla, DD, D/s BDSM relationship or a conglomerate of the four, there is always someone who has control but which one has it? Is it the Husband, HOH, Dom, Master or is it the Tih, Sub, Slave, Wife? From here on out I will be referring to the DD lifestyle because that is the type of relationship we are in, but you can substitute whatever “ism” you want.

If one were to sit back at a mall, park or even work and watch people, (one of my favorite past times) you would probably start to notice the power exchange between the vanilla crowds. Whether it is a work situation where the boss is in charge of the subordinates navigating through the business world or, if it is sports, you have a team captain telling the players what positions to play. Even in the mall you can see husband and wife dancing to the power exchange music, it is prevalent in everything we do.

To the outsider a DD relationship can be difficult to tell who is in charge and who the follower is. At first glance the DD relationship may seem like the man is a tyrant, looking like all he does is sit on his throne barking orders, pointing with his scepter in the direction that he wants his submissive to go.

To another outsider looking through the same window of a DD relationship what they might see is a couple where the husband is telling his wife what to do. Directing her in a way that he wants their relationship to go, bossing her, if you will, and if she fails in any way he can and sometimes does spank or punishes her in other ways because he has the power and she is under his authority. They might see her as a weak downtrodden broken woman.

The outsider may be privy to see how the couple had actually negotiated their dynamics of a DD relationship where the wife agrees to live under the authority of her husband thus giving him the power over her.

In the same breath, the same outsider could also say that the woman has the power because she is the one that sets the limits on what can and what cannot be done, even if it appears that she has given full consent to let the HOH do whatever it is that he wants. The reason being is that she is the director, giving orders behind the scenes how to perform and act while she is in the submissive mode.

The person looking at the same DD couple again may be thinking that the woman has the power because she has given him the authority to do what she has stipulated. If at any time she gets bored, feels threatened or she feels uncomfortable, she can stop everything and go back to the way it was before she initiated the new relationship.

Even the people in a DD relationship say there is a division in who has the power.

Some HOH’s say that they have the power to do so because she has given them the full authority to do what they agreed upon and even if she refuses, he has the power to discipline her.

Some submissive wives feel they do because they have given it as a gift and therefore they can take it back leaving the HOH powerless.

So who really has the power, the control in their relationship is it the HOH or is it the wife?

The way I see it is that they are equal but different. Equal because they both have the same amount of power because there are two needs that has to be met for it to be successful. One, you have the wife’s desire to be dominated to be directed in what to do. Two you have the HOH’s need to dominate his wife directing her in what he wants her to do.

How can either one have total power without the other’s participation? If the HOH refuses to lead, how can the wife hold the power because there is no one to take her in hand and the same goes for the wife if she refuses to be taken in hand, how can the HOH lead?

The unique difference in a successful DD relationship is not who controls the power, whether it be the HOH or tih, the important fact is that she, the tih, has with great thought willingly given him, the HOH, the power to make the decisions to steer his family through the waters of life. The only thing that keeps her there is her trust and love for her man and to me that is were the difference is.


Bob.