What should I do to make my world more strict?

[new_boy]

I'm in a (wonderful) relationship where I get corporal punishment occasionally when I misbehave.

But it's not consistent - sometimes I get it but usually I don't, for exactly the same offence.

I'm also annoyingly good at diffusing an intended punishment - making an excuse that saves my bacon in the short term, but means I miss out on punishments that would help me change my problem behaviour. And my long face means it's usually nothing like as severe as it should be.

I'd like to live within a clear set of rules - where punishments are automatic and hard enough that I will take great care not to deserve one.

What would you recommend?

[Disobedient Girl]

This is a great post posing a most interesting question. I cannot engage with it at the length it deserves just now as I am supposed to be doing something else, but I will say that perhaps it is a good idea, and maybe easier for your rule-enforcer, to start with a one or two simple rules, easy to keep but easy to break too, and take it from there.

At risk of boring the others, as I do go on about this a lot, not being allowed to swear is working very well ... generally I incur punishment through absentmindedness (poor self-discipline GD calls it) but for the first time since the rule was put in place last year I did call her a name on purpose, and although retribution was severe, the act was wickedly satisfying.

Do you know what sort of rules you would like? Is your goal to live inside a stricter framework, or to improve your behaviour or both? What does the other party think?

I look forward to hearing more from you new-boy.

[new_boy]

[JigsawAnalogy]

i've got a couple of thoughts.

first, i agree with disobedient girl that it generally works well to start with just a couple of rules and slowly work up from there.

one thought is that, in most of the relationships i've observed, it takes a while to sort things out, and it takes work to *keep* them sorted out, in re: ttwd. so communication is key. you want to talk with your partner, but it may also help for the two of you to write about the things you're thinking about. w and i do this with a private blog, which means (since we've got smartphones) that we can access it anywhere at all. we used to put things into a physical notebook, and still do put some stuff in there, but the private blog is the main place we use for written communication. one of the things we have is a post-punishment checklist, with questions geared to figuring out what worked well, and what didn't work well. there's also a page we use to keep track of times i've earned a punishment, and haven't yet received it.

you may also try googling "EZCP", which is a "punishment generator." if one of you is even a little computer-savvy, you can edit the files so that the punishments and consequences are more in line with what you're working on, and with what punishments work for you.

you might also see if your partner is willing to join the board, and can get support from the tops on here. ttwd is a challenge from both sides, and it can take a partner a while to figure out their role.

good luck with this. i sympathize with the ways that it's frustrating to know something can help, but feel like it's not quite doing the job yet!

[GF1]

For me, one of the adjustments I had to make to get what I ultimately wanted, was to give up the "excuses to save my bacon" because it made it a lot harder for T. Now we are a little looser on that, but in the beginning, it was a strict line. I also had to guide T in the beginning by giving signals to her not to stop yet (she always wanted to stop too soon) until she learned to read my body by herself.

[Eayore]

I think these are all great suggestions to your excellent question. One I would like to add from my own experience is to check out how your partner really feels about all this, and how he wants the relationship to be.

I get that he wants you to have rules and to live within them... but the level of consistency, severity and attention to keeping you on track that you perhaps desire may be quite overwhelming in practice - to anybody who isn't genuinely hard-wired as a 100% strict disciplinarian in their own right. It may be that you need to put some limits on it (a few days at a time, or just 1 or 2 simple rules). And you may have to learn to be grateful and appreciative for what discipline you do get, even though it falls short of what you truly desire.

My other suggestion is that I find standing in the corner helps me to kick exactly the kind of habits you described here, with a far more profound and long-lasting effect than any thrashing, no matter how severe. But in my case, it does require a few hours in the corner, and a willingness to think hard about the behaviour while I am there. It amounts to a form of self-hypnosis, I think.

[new_boy]

Thank you for your thoughts. I've downloaded that EZCP program - it looks like that could be quite useful for creating consistency. If it works and my partner follows its recommendations, I might end up regretting this!

Incidentally, I've got some new restrictions. My partner has put K9 web protection on all the computers in the house, which will stop me surfing to some of the naughty places that I have frequented in the past. It's an annoyingly effective program - if installed properly (in conjunction with Windows Steady State, a limited user account and email that the end user can't access) it seems to be completely impossible to bypass. Now, if I try to go outside the boundaries it completely blocks all web access for two hours. Plus there's a complete log of all the pages that I try to visit. Absolutely incredible for a free program - in fact, way more effective than most of its paid-for competitors.

Don't worry - I agreed to this. But having agreed, I'm not allowed (or able) to remove K9.

[Disobedient Girl]

[writegerl]

I downloaded EZCP, and with the help of a friend, have begun tweaking it to fit me. We're both a bit rusty and only have 6 rules thus far.

We could use some help adding a little variety to our punishments, though. They need to be non-spanking because of circumstances, which is something of a challenge. So far, we have lines, grounding, and corner time as punishments, as well as earlier bed time if bed time is violated.

Thanks, JA, for recommending it. I love it!

[G.D.]

[writegerl]

We have *short* cold showers as one of the "extra" punishments the program can decide to hand out if I've been naughty as of late.

::shudder::

[Homeatlast]

I am now in a position to confirm that they are pretty flipping miserable.

A sorry Hal.

[writegerl]

Yeah, I really despise them.

[BickaBecka]

[writegerl]

The EZCP program is sexist. It gives males tougher punishments for the same offense!