Hello everyone, happy Friday!
We’re in the middle of our “Many Faces of Domestic Discipline” series, which is our weekly guest posting series that features a different domestic discipline couple, what makes their relationship unique, and how they overcome challenging situations to be able to practice the lifestyle. Today we are featuring Paula’s story. Paula originally contacted us about writing for our new Learning Domestic Discipline Magazine, but we thought her story was inspiring enough to share with all of you here on the blog as well.
And now, here’s Paula’s story.
My name is Paula and I am a former elementary school teacher turned housewife, mom of 10 great kids and a domestic discipline wife to my husband of 12 years.
I have wanted dd to be a part of our marriage for many, many years but I never thought it was feasible. Most of the stories and accounts of dd I had read seemed to work wonderful for the average family, but we weren’t the average family. My husband works long hours on an oil rig, my in laws lived with us (at one point in time, when we were first considering dd but thankfully have since moved out), and we have a supersize family of 10 kids (who presently range in age from 10 months to 11 years old). I didn’t see any way that dd could work for us and so I held off mentioning it to my husband for quite some time.
One afternoon, after an argument over a family reunion that totally blew up I figured that was as good of a time as any to just see how he felt about the idea of dd. He wasn’t in love with it (as I figured he wouldn’t be) but over time he came around (with lots of help from me). We still had a lot of things to work out, like how we would make this lifestyle work, but just having him accept the idea really made me feel better.
Our house isn’t very large and the bedrooms are all close together, so the first hurdle we had to overcome was how to conduct the punishments with so many kids (and in laws!) within earshot. This took a lot of thinking, and we even considered trying dd without the use of loud punishments (like spanking) for the first little while. But, in the end, it was my husband who said he felt we needed that ultimate punishment feeling that spanking offered, and so we decided to go back to the thinking table as to how to make this lifestyle work, particularly the punishment part. The solution we came up with was that we would conduct punishments on weekends, during the day, when my husband was home from work and our kids were away at various sports, playing outside, at friends houses, etc. Weekends are always a chaotic time in our house, so I was a little worried about how this would work for us but it surprisingly went really well. The first two punishments (one spanking and one corner time) went off without a hitch and I think we were both beginning to have more faith in this lifestyle working out for us.
About 7 months into dd the in laws offered to take our kids to visit extended family at a lake house for the weekend. It was the first time in many years that we had the house to ourselves, and we were definitely appreciative! We used that weekend to go through a modified version of boot camp that my husband had recreated to best fit our needs. We made small changes to the proposed schedule and spent 2 full days immersed in the boot camp experience. At the end of that weekend, we both emerged feeling like we could definitely make dd work for our marriage and that was the best feeling.
Shortly thereafter my in laws moved out which was a welcoming change to be able to have our house back to normal again. Our kids were even starting to notice our marriage was happier and that things were better which was a good thing to hear. Dd seemed to be going well but we kept encountering one same problem time and time again and that was how to find time for dd in our marriage. It may sound silly, but dd takes up more time than I think either of us realized. My husband admitted that a few times he would purposely “forget” a pending punishment because he had a long day at work, and I admit that there were times I didn’t remind him of things I knew I should have because I didn’t want to take time out of whatever I was doing at the moment to do so.
We overcame this by implementing a set time each evening after the kids were all in bed where we could just talk about whatever. Sometimes we would discuss dd things like recent rules, frustrations, changes we wanted to make, punishments and the like. Other times we would discuss plans for the next day and family stuff. These evening meetings became a routine for us and it really helped us to stay on focus with dd, and solve the problem of not feeling like we have enough time.
The best advice that I have for a couple who wants to do dd, or is currently doing dd, and is in a similar situation that we were where they worry about how to make it work around their in laws or kids is to take time for yourself and for your marriage. This is something that is important for all couples, not just with dd, but dd makes it even more important. Setting daily or weekly “meetings” with each other can really help you both to stay focused with your dd goals.
Thank you to Paula for sharing her story with all of us. Although we have three children, which is a far cry from ten, we have found ourselves wondering how to make time for domestic discipline in our marriage as well. Paula offers some great tips that we think all couples should take into consideration, and we’re so glad to hear domestic discipline is going well for you both.
We’ll see you tomorrow. Enjoy your weekend!
-Clint & Chelsea
The post {The Many Faces of Domestic Discipline} “We Have Ten Children, and We Practice Domestic Discipline” appeared first on Learning Domestic Discipline.