Our second week of guest post columns is almost in the books, and we’re ending the second week with Rachel’s story. You may remember from reading Rachel’s first guest post column that Rachel and her husband are new to domestic discipline and although they got off to somewhat of a rocky beginning, things seemed to be going better. We think Rachel’s story is one that a lot of new domestic discipline couples can relate to, and we’re looking forward to sharing more of Rachel’s story today.
[heading style=”1″]The First Few Weeks[/heading]
Starting D/d was almost like turning over a new leaf for us in so many ways. Both my husband and I realized things about each other that we never knew, we saw sides of each other we’d never seen before, and I mean all of that in a good way. We were only a week into practicing D/d at that point but we were both already beginning to see the drastic changes in our marriage, and loving every minute of it.
I’ve been told it’s normal to receive a lot of punishments at first but I don’t think my husband or I were prepared for what that really meant. Going into D/d I expected to maybe get spanked once a month but in that first week it had been upwards of 3 times. I couldn’t figure out why I just wasn’t “getting it” but by the second week the switch in my brain seemed to flip and I was seeing loads of improvement (and, more importantly so was my husband).
We sat down together at the end of the second week and the first thing my husband told me was how happy he was that we decided to give domestic discipline a chance. That was music to my ears, as I was so worried that he wouldn’t be very good at it or wouldn’t like it because he is so passive and laid back. But, much to my surprise, he had adjusted really well and things were on the right track. However, we both could sense that it was getting harder and harder to work D/d into our busy schedules, especially with our kids. My husband wanted to be consistent, and punish immediately, but with kids running around and a full time job there were many nights when a punishment (or even just a simple reminder of the rules) wasn’t able to occur until midnight for something that happened at 8 AM that morning.
We looked for a solution, but stopped when Chelsea actually told me something really wise. She told me that domestic discipline isn’t about finding ways to work around your life, it’s about finding ways to integrate it into your life. I told her it was hard to D/d into our schedules and she understood but said that it begins to come naturally the more you stick with it, and she was right. She gave me some really good tips, which we tried, and by the end of the month we felt like experts at this whole D/d thing (although we were still so far from it).
D/d, to me, feels like there is always a new hurdle to overcome. The biggest was getting my husband to agree to it, but then there was me feeling like I was breaking rules left and right and wasn’t really “getting it”, then just trying to mesh domestic discipline into our schedules and that was only the first few weeks of it. But what I have learned is that with each hurdle there is a lesson to be learned behind it, and with each hurdle we’re able to successfully jump over presents a new level of gratitude for each other and this way of life.
If you are someone who is new to D/d like I still am I want you to know, first hand, that there are a lot of challenges. There definitely are way more than I realized. But there are also a lot of rewards. I’ve seen my marriage go from about a 3 to about a 9 in a matter of months. We did have one more major setback so far (that post is for next time!!!) but we are well on the right path to a stronger marriage.
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We’re so happy for you and your husband Rachel! Going from a “3 to a 9″ is an incredible leap, and we’re glad that you have seen such great improvements.
We’ll be back next Thursday with week 3 of our guest post columns, and we’ll see you tomorrow for the first Five Things Friday edition of the fall, as well as the Learning Domestic Discipline September newsletter!
The post Learning Domestic Discipline Guest Post Columns – Rachel {Week 2} appeared first on Learning Domestic Discipline.