Mercy

Let me start off with a disclaimer. Like all of my posts, I’m just talking about myself, the way my own head and hurt work, and my own relationship. This post is going to talk a bit about why strict discipline feels better to me than a more lenient dynamic. This is just preference, just how i’m wired. It is absolutely not a universal truth for submissiveness, or DD submissiveness. It’s not a ‘better’ way of doing DD or D/s. I’m sure for many people this way would feel worse to them. I am not advocating for this style for anyone else. This is just me talking about what I’ve discovered about myself and my relationship. 

For a long time, we were quite strict with our Domestic Discipline. Some of our rules were highly detailed. For example, “taking my meds on time” was the rule, but we had agreed upon other details like:

Keep an alarm set to go off at ‘pill time’

Mark off on the app after taking the pills

Use a pill organizer and refill it once it’s empty.

Call in my refills on time. 

Or as another example, I had a rule about doing the dishes every other day. However it also included the details:

Check all rooms for any dishes that need gathered. 

Also wipe down the counters & stove

How our DD worked was, I could/would be punished for breaking a detail of a rule. Those punishments would be far lighter, but they were addressed. We did this because it felt better to us than being lenient did. It seemed to get rid of the vagueness and sense of uncertainty that I felt if I didn’t follow a rule 100%, but still mostly followed it or kinda followed it. More than anything else, in practice, it just felt right to us. It was in doing it this way, that we felt our power exchange the strongest. Not in the punishments themselves, but in the way the rest of our relationship blossomed when this strict discipline was in place. 

This strict form of DD is something some people struggle to understand, and I can understand why, yet I haven’t been fully satisfied with my ability to explain myself. It strikes some people as harsh, unforgiving, overly-critical, uptight, etc. They think it would make any insecurities, perfectionism, or guilt-issues worse. I understand why people who aren’t wired exactly the same way as I am see it that way. For some people I’m sure it would make them feel worse, like they were being picked on for being imperfect or something like that. I’ve basically only been able to respond to that by saying that I understand their view, but for some reason, it’s not like that for me. While sure, I can wallow in guilt sometimes, that happens for me when I’ve broken a rule that I should feel rally bad about anyway. Being punished for minor infractions doesn’t make me wallow in guilt over those issues. I still take the rule and infraction seriously, but it doesn’t make me feel low about myself. 

Still, I understand why someone would think ‘Why punish for something as small as forgetting to gather the water glasses from the bedroom? If the rule is doing the dishes, and you did all the other dishes…that’s pretty good!”

It absolutely is pretty good. I agree. When I break more minor rules, it’s not that either of us thinks I have failed, or am ‘bad’, or really anything negative about me at all. It’s just that the rule wasn’t followed, which means our dynamic is out of place, and so we address it via punishment to get back on track. 

I’ve had more leniency for quite a while now. I think it’s helped me to gain a deeper understanding of why I crave strict DD. For a while, it just seemed unreasonable to do strict DD, so we relaxed things. Then more recently, we came to the realization that while we’re under abnormally high levels of stress still, that this is going to be the case for the foreseeable future. Frankly, I don’t even want to guess how long it may be like this. But, while things are stressful, they aren’t as chaotic or unpredictable as they had been in the recent past. We’ve found some sense of normalcy, somehow. So, we felt like we could go back to stricter D/s, and we both wanted to. 

While things were more relaxed, it wasn’t that we had fewer rules, we kept roughly the same amount, they were just relaxed in how strict they were, or how detailed they were. If I was supposed to vacuum on Wednesday but didn’t get to it, I could just do it Thursday. If I took my meds but forgot to refill my pill organizer, I wasn’t punished. I tried to follow the rules, and mostly did, but if they weren’t 100% up to par, we mostly let it go. That was really all that changed, and yet it felt like we were doing what we needed to do, but it didn’t feel like thriving. It was fine, but not as fulfilling as we know DD can be for us. A piece of the magic wasn’t present. Which is why we’ve decided to go back to more strictness now that it feels like we can. This experience gave me a period of less strictness vs more strictness to compare to each other. 

So, why do I want the strictness? 

Well, it does just feel better to me. It’s like having strict discipline fills in all the cracks in my heart. Strictness feels more fulfilling, more intimate, more powerful. But why? I think it’s about feeling secure within the boundaries, and it’s about connection. Those are the two main reasons.

For me, when I have a list of rules or chores, but I’m able to kinda do them my own way or on my own schedule for the most part? That leaves the boundaries not really restricting my day to day behavior that much.  That means that I don’t feel the boundaries very much, because I can go about my week without really having to think much about them, without having to focus to accommodate them. Logically I know that doesn’t make a lot of sense. Boundaries can be farther out, but still very secure, or they can be more restrictive and also secure. But I need them to be tigher to feel them enough to relax into them. It’s like knowing that there’s a leash around my neck, but it’s so long that I move about as much as I ordinarily would and it never feels taut. And it’s still short enough to keep me from danger, but not to feel the taut feeling very often, and the taut feeling is what makes me feel safe. 

While I don’t enjoy punishment itself, it has a clear positive impact on me overall. It makes me feel very closely watched over, and seen for who I am…a submissive who craves strict discipline. It let’s me feel his presence in a really detailed, up close way. It feels like his control is deeply intertwined with my day, everyday. Feeling that really deep, detailed sense of control in my day to day actions has a really positive impact on me and on our relationship. Because the fulfillment it gives me security that helps me to really let go, to breathe deeper, to feel more free, though that may seem ironic on the surface, it’s true. When our DD is less strict, I feel more burdened and stressed, more tense, like I’m carrying more on my shoulders. With stricter rules, and more detailed reminders of his control everyday, I am more at peace and feel more submissive because I feel so secure. That positive impact on me comes back to positively impact CD and make him feel better, too.  

A small piece of it is also about interaction. The stricter the rules are, the more I have to turn to him for permission or approval. I can’t just say to myself ‘well I didn’t get to X, I can just do it tomorrow.’ if the rule says it’s done on Tuesdays. And a similar impact on his side. He has to keep a closer eye on me. So on both sides, we have to keep more in touch with each other on our DD on a daily basis, which helps us feel more connected to it, and to each other.