The best rule ever.

I told you I would share the rule that I felt helped our marriage more than anything we had done. Here is the rule Nick gave me:

You must send me an email each week telling me what you are thinking and feeling. I want to know – happy, sad, mad, misunderstood, ignored, lonely, excited, joyful, confused… whatever you are feeling. I want to know it.

Wow, I was stunned. Nick made this rule? He made this rule after a long and difficult talk we had one evening. I was feeling down and very emotional and I finally got the courage to open my mouth and talk to Nick about those feelings. It was so hard for me, you can’t even imagine. You see I have never felt like Nick really wanted to hear my feelings, doubts, insecurities, fears – any emotions.

This is why I've felt this way. Have you ever said something that accidentally hurt someone else? Maybe it was a child or your parent or your spouse. You don’t even remember saying it, you certainly didn’t mean it to hurt, but you find out later that it did hurt that person and that they still carry it around with them. That happened to Nick and me and it was over 30 years ago. I was feeling confused then too and since there was no internet I wrote him a letter explaining how I was feeling.

Nick was raised in a family that’s not really touchy feely and rarely share their emotions. They love each other deeply and that’s easy to see. But discussing feelings has always been a foreign concept to them. Nick had a one sentence response to my letter; he asked “Why are you doing this to me?” Unfortunately, that sentence bore into me and it has stayed with me more firmly than any other thing Nick has ever said to me. I’m sure at that moment I began back peddling. I have no doubt I said something like “Don’t worry, it was just silly stuff. Just forget it. It wasn’t important, never mind.” And all the while I was saying it I was hearing thick iron doors being slammed and multiple locks clicking in place within me. I knew then and there he did not want to be bothered with that mess and for the next 25 years I didn’t make an attempt.

He was not being harsh or hateful and I know that now. I know what he was saying was, “I love you and we’re happy. Why do we need to bring up all these feeling that are so confusing and I don’t know how to deal with them. Can’t we just concentrate on our happiness and leave all these feelings and emotions out of it? I don’t know how to deal with them and I don’t want to.”

When Nick and I talked and he made that rule, asking – no, insisted that I share my thoughts and feelings with him on a weekly basis I was stunned. I didn’t believe it. But I gave it a shot and it was great. I loved telling him when I was happy and what a good week I thought we’d had. I could thank him for a spanking I’d received or some great loving. I could also share when I was mad or hurt, maybe by him or even when it was something at work. But I could tell him! He wanted to hear! I still couldn’t believe it. Sometimes the week would get away from me and I’d miss my deadline or forget to write it at all, and he would spank me for forgetting. I was always stunned, could it be that he really wanted to know these things?

But it didn’t last. After many months I quit writing for one reason or another. He quit asking about it, or insisting on it or spanking if I didn’t do it. So I was pretty sure I had been right to begin with and he didn't want to hear all that. We went back to pleasantly co-existing. I’m still happier that I was before I came out but sometime I wonder what it would be like to really come out, to be completely opened, nothing held back. There is a fear in me. I don’t know it’s origin but it’s there. I’m not letting anyone in the whole way. They will see the real me and won’t like her and I’ll be alone. It’s a stupid fear. There’s no basis for it. My parents were the most loving and caring parents. I was always secure and happy as a child. Nick has been the best husband ever. He hasn’t looked at another woman in 30 years and I’ve never had any desire to look at another man. My friends, here and in real life, are close and supportive. Where does the fear come from and will it ever go away?

I still think this is the best rule ever. I think all married couples should do it. You don’t have to write a book each week – but you can if you want to. Nick usually answered, which I loved. Even when I wrote a book his responses were usually only a few sentences long but that was fine. He’ll never love writing the way I do.

Maybe I will talk to Nick about it as we’re settling into our empty nest. It could bring new closeness or it could bring annoyance. It’s pretty easy for me to ignore it all and sailing is still pretty smooth. Often when I think of sharing with Nick I ask myself “Why are you doing this to me?”


This is important –

I wrote the above earlier and between writing that, and reading the comments left on my last post and a conversation I had with Nick last night, something finally dawned on me. I finally know clearly and completely what I want. It’s not spanking – erotic or discipline, it’s not a dd marriage, it’s not rules, it’s not punishment, and it’s not dominance and submission.

I want the connection with Nick that I believe spanking brings.

It’s sharing the secret; it’s catching each other’s eye when a spanking reference comes up in the vanilla world and just knowing what the other one is thinking, it's knowing that he realized he can ask/tell me to do something and I’ll try, it's him loving me enough to spank me if I don’t keep up my part of the bargain. It’s touching in public, holding hands or having him pat my butt. It’s passing a pervertable in a store and pointing it out to one another.

Because of my lifelong connection to spanking that’s the path I’ve chosen to try to get what I need. I know it works. When I first came out we had it. Nothing in this world felt better than what we had during that time when we first opened up to each other.

You all know that Tom and Cassie are my fantasy couple. They have been in my head for 45 years. I was drawn to their wonderful spanking relationship, but that’s not all of it. If Nick spanked like Tom there would only be two choices – divorce or murder. It might have been spanking that drew me to them initially, but what has held me for over 4 decades is the total and complete love they had for each other, the fact that they absolutely adore each other, through thick and thin, and always will.

So when it comes to their love story, I feel like nodding at Cassie and saying ‘I’ll have what she’s having’ but it still scared the hell out of me. To love like that, to be loved like that make you completely vulnerable. I have all those iron door and rusty locks to break through it’s going to take time. But maybe, if Nick and I both start working on them together, just maybe we’ll get through them.