Maintenance missed

I know maintenance is not right for everyone but it (mostly) works for us.

When I first presented the idea of maintenance to Clark he was a little hesitant, he couldn't wrap his head around spanking me when I hadn't done anything wrong if it wasn't a fun & sexy kind of spanking.  But we had several conversations over a few weeks and I would give examples of times where maintenance might be helpful, and unfortunately (for both of us), we had a week where I got punished almost every day for various infractions but many that centered around attitude & disrespect (I am ashamed to say).  We were very connected but exhausted from the emotional roller coaster that comes with punishment.  We had another long discussion & Clark asked some very specific questions about maintenance and decided we would start having a session every Saturday night.  There was a noticeable positive effect which seemed to last a few days each time, and greatly reduced the frequency of punishment.  We hit a very rough patch a few months ago with not having enough time together due to work & kids & life & we needed to sit down & revamp everything DD related & at that time Clark decided that maintenance needed to be upped to 2 days a week. So Wednesday  night was added as the second maintenance night.  It was hard at first to admit that it was what I needed but when I went 5 weeks without a punishment & then 6 weeks it became pretty clear to both of us that this was in fact what I needed-correction-what we needed.  Clark is very adamant about maintenance being something that we both need & he stresses that in the lecture he gives both before and during the spanking.  

We had had several late nights in a row and a long conversation late Friday night/early Saturday morning about many things including the fact that I couldn't handle staying up as late as we had been as I was starting to feel physically & mentally run down.  It was a good conversation, we both felt heard but it was another very late night, & we had to be up early the next morning, so we went to bed without any reconnecting activities.  We had a very busy day and due to being tired, didn't really handle a few situations as well as we could have.  We got home much later than we planned that night and it was after midnight once we had the kids in bed and were officially "alone".  "It's already after midnight baby girl," Clark began, "so we are not going to do maintenance tonight, we will try for tomorrow night instead.  We just talked last night about the late nights and so I wanted to talk to you about it & be clear that we will just move maintenance to tomorrow rather than not communicating what I was thinking and going to bed."  I felt upset that we wouldn't be doing maintenance because I felt like we had had a stressful day and I had been hoping we would have time to reconnect, but I also wanted to be his good girl & follow his lead and not question or push when he was trying to honor the commitment he had made the night before to help me to get more rest. Another emotion added on top of this conflict inside me was fear.  We had been very inconsistant which was one of the reasons for adding maintenance in our relationship, and I was very afraid of going back to that inconsistant frustrating place that we had been before.  So I took a few deep breaths and say "Yes Sir, thank you Sir, I am very tired."  Now some of you may think that it was dishonest to keep these thoughts to myself and instead say what I said, but I felt that what I was choosing to do at that moment was to not shake my husband's confidence by adding those emotional responses to the situation.  As I said we were both very tired and I felt that holding back for that moment was what I needed to do. I needed to let my husband's words be the final ones for that night.  We snuggled and fell asleep.  The next day was another busy one, but being a work night we did get home and get the kids in bed at a much more reasonable time.  Once we were alone Clark told me to go use the bathroom if I needed to and then meet him in the basement.  He didn't forget, he didn't push it off another night, and we actually didn't have too much tension throughout the day because we had slept and felt much more refreshed.  I felt very good about the choice I had made the night before to hold off on voicing my concerns.  Maintenance for us has always been done with "just" his hand, but I recently made some new implements and Clark decided that from now on we will be using different implements for part of our maintenance spankings so that he is able to become more comfortable with & gage the effectiveness of our implements in a non punishment setting.  I was really nervous because it was new, but Clark did a wonderful job of reassuring me and then he began.  It was intense, but it ended up to be a great session.  We had an even better time reconnecting once the spanking was over ; ) & I went to bed very happy, content & submissive.  We both write in our journals after any spanking that takes place & then read what the other has written to help each other know what was going on internally before, during and after the spanking.  So it was there that I told my husband about my emotional struggle with his decision to move maintenance, but that I felt that the outcome was a  very positive one for both of us.  He was pleased with my effort to follow his lead even when it initially felt "wrong" to me, and he thanked me for not second guessing him and causing him to doubt his decision.  I may not always have an easy time following his lead & he may not always have an easy time leading but I was very proud of us this time around & it really made me want to try even harder to follow him when it's "uncomfortable" to do so.  Oh, and the new implement?  It was a loopy Johnny & yeah it HURT!  It felt like I had a sunburn on my bum all the next day....which I told him in txt, but I followed up by saying "but, it's a good reminder, so thank you Sir" and his response was "sorry it feels like a sun burn honey, but I am glad I could help my Babygirl".  

And that is just what he did ; )