Learning Domestic Discipline Mailbag Monday

Welcome to Learning Domestic Discipline’s Mailbag Monday Week 5! It’s hard to believe this is the first week of May already. The year is almost half-over. Where has the time gone?!

In case you missed it, we have two exciting announcements to share with you before Mailbag Monday begins. The first is that our promos are officially underway and feature two new products (one of which is a new eBook!). Secondly, the Learning Domestic Discipline Retreat website officially launched over the weekend! Voting for the location of the first ever LDD Retreat is now open and you can vote by clicking here!

We have another round of great questions sent in that we’re answering this week. As a reminder, questions are answered in the order that they are received. If you have a Mailbag Monday question for us you can submit yours here!

My boyfriend and I are interested in building Ldd into our relationship. What is the best way to start? Should we do a bootcamp sessions for a few days? What do you guys think? I’m 44 he’s in mid 50′s.

I think the first thing you need to do is make sure you both want this lifestyle. Make sure you both understand everything it entails, and understand what exactly it is you’re getting yourselves into. The dynamic of domestic discipline can be incredibly rewarding in a relationship, but those relationship rewards only result from a strong desire to live the lifestyle and a wholehearted commitment to it. You both have to want this for your relationship in order for you both to truly grow and benefit from it.

If you haven’t already, read everything you can about the nuances of living the domestic discipline lifestyle. It’s more than just a behavior/consequence system. It’s more than a handful of punishments and spanking. It requires a great deal of leadership, commitment, self-control, support, affection, communication, compromise, love, etc. for it to thrive. Once you have a solid understanding of what it means to practice domestic discipline, and you still want it in your relationship, then I would suggest creating a rules list and beginning with a 30-day trial period with it. Re-evaluate things after that first month. If it’s going great, then continue on with it. If it isn’t working out, either identify the problems and address/correct them or revisit the question of whether or not you want this lifestyle a part of your relationship going forward.

The beginner boot camp book we just released is structured and designed specifically for a couple in your particular situation. I wouldn’t necessarily suggest you jump right into a boot camp – I would suggest you both read what it is first and decide if it’s something you feel will help solidify the foundation of domestic discipline in your relationship. That’s what the book was written for and designed to do, so we feel it would certainly help you in starting with DD, but in the end the choice of whether or not to do a boot camp is you and your boyfriend’s to make. If you do decide to do one, we wish you the best of luck with it!

Welcome to domestic discipline! There are numerous things I recommend when first beginning domestic discipline. Those things are:

Research, research, research! The more you know about domestic discipline going into it, the better. However, I think it’s extremely important to not gain a false impression of domestic discipline. What I mean by that is sometimes if you over-research, or don’t research in the correct spots, you will begin to develop a sense of “oh, this is what DD for me will be like too!” and it likely won’t be. It can then lead to a disappointment if domestic discipline in your relationship isn’t the same as the domestic discipline you’ve read about on blogs, etc. So, I think it’s important to research enough to where you both “know what you’re getting into” but not so much that you feel like you’re trying to mold your DD relationship after someone elses.
Have a discussion about the rules, consequences, and “details” of domestic discipline within your relationship. It’s important that you both are on the same page, and that you know what the boundaries are.
Ease into domestic discipline. There’s no rush, or hurry. The slower you go when domestic discipline begins, the more effective long-term it will likely become, in my opinion.

Those are just a few tips, but we have put together several resources for beginners that you may find helpful. Those are:

The Learning Domestic Discipline Beginner’s Site
A beginners packet with over 50 pages of articles that can help you learn more about domestic discipline, how to get started, etc.
The Learning Domestic Discipline Forums have a large number of beginners and a section entirely for beginners

and much more.

To answer your question about boot camp, we have developed a beginner version of boot camp that a lot of people have found helpful. However, boot camp, like all other aspects of domestic discipline, is something that only you and your partner will be able to read and evaluate if it is best for your relationship. I can say, however, that the beginner version of boot camp is designed to build a strong foundation to start domestic discipline and I think you would find it helpful. But, once again, it’s something that only you and your partner can decide for sure.

Best of luck with domestic discipline! It’s a lifestyle with many ups and downs, but it has a lot of rewards along the way.

Hi, there! I will try not to make this too lengthy considering there’s a couple parts to it. I am a Christian woman dating a Christian man and we believe in waiting until marriage to have sex and we also believe in the man of the relationship being the HoH and leader of the relationship (and family, if applicable.) I do not know your family’s religion so I know you may not be able to give me religious advice but I would like some general advice in the following areas:
Since we do not have sex right now I feel like spanking may be inappropriate because, as you’ve said on your blogs before, spanking for discipline isn’t a sexual act but by the nature of it can arouse sexual feelings. So I would like to avoid bringing that into our relationship but do you think the domestic discipline would still be effective without it?
I was also wondering what your opinion would be about the level of submission I should be giving to him as my boyfriend. Back to our religious beliefs the Bible says the woman should submit to her husband and her husband should love her like Christ loves the church. Since he is not my husband or even fiancé he is not at that point of loving me (which he agrees with) and so I feel like I should not be submitting to him in all things but then there is this grey area of where I shouldn’t and should be submitting to him.
Thanks in advance and I LOVE your blog!

I want to start by saying that I admire and respect your decision to wait until marriage to have sex. It’s not an easy thing to do, and society/pop culture makes it even harder, so I really really admire your choice (and your strength to honor it). Good for you both. Don’t let anyone give you grief for that because it’s very honorable, respectable and commendable.

I do think domestic discipline would be effective without spanking, however it would take a lot longer to “fix” issues in the relationship. You’d likely see a lot of short-term results and your boyfriend would likely have to punish frequently for repeat infractions. That could get very frustrating for you both over time. If the no spanking idea is a short term one (meaning you plan on marrying this man, at which point you will bring spanking into the marriage), then I think you guys will be fine without it. But, as my wife said, I also feel spanking would need to be included at some point to get the full benefit of living the domestic discipline lifestyle. Spanking goes far beyond correcting behaviors – there’s an intimacy that comes from it that cannot be matched through a “no spanking” domestic discipline dynamic, and it’s that intimacy that makes this lifestyle so special and unique. I’d hate to see you both miss out on that.

As far as the submission goes, I think that boils down to what will make you both the most happy. Would it make your boyfriend happy if you were more submissive to him? If so, do YOU want to make him happy by being more submissive? What about your feelings of it? Do you think you would be happier if you showed more submission? Would it make you feel good to see your boyfriend so happy as a result of your submission to him? If it’s the dynamic you both want in your marriage (if and when you do get married) eventually, I don’t think it would hurt to start “practicing” with it now. I certainly don’t think it would make matters any worse – I think it would only benefit you two and help to grow the relationship. In the end it’s obviously your choice, but if your answer was “yes” to any of my questions, I think it’s strongly worth considering.

Thank you for reading and supporting LDD. We’re honored to have you as a reader. It means so much to us.

Thanks for the kind words about our blog! To answer your first question, everyone handles spanking situations within domestic discipline differently. Some incorporate sex, or sexual feelings, and some do not. Some include erotic spankings in domestic discipline and some do not. For punishment spankings, sex is typically kept completely out of it. However, the act of spanking itself can become sexual (even if unintended) although not always. It’s really hard to say, and it really depends on the person/couple. If you aren’t comfortable with spanking yet in domestic discipline, I think domestic discipline can still be effective without it. Long-term though, I think that spanking would need to be included at some point (as you get more comfortable with DD) but there’s not necessarily a need to include it right away, in my opinion. If you DID want to include spankings but are worried about it becoming too sexual, or lead to something that you and your partner do not want, then you could consider things like spanking over the clothing which minimizes the risk of it turning sexual.

Submission is a hard subject to comment on because it varies so much from person to person and belief system to belief system. What I can say is that submission is a feeling translated into an action. Therefore, if you don’t feel like you need to be submissive in certain circumstances, you cannot force it. It sounds cliche, but do whatever your heart tells you. If you feel the need to be submissive about certain aspects, but not others, then there is nothing necessarily wrong with that in my opinion. I do think it’s important to communicate these feelings to your partner though so that you are on the same page as to the areas that he wants you to show submission in, and the areas in which you do not feel as though you need to to make sure there are no gray areas. Submission in domestic discipline is important, but it’s also something that can develop over time as your relationship develops.

Great questions, and I hope this helps you a little bit!

Who disciplines the children? I ask, we (my husband and I) I guess have a dd relationship, but not so formal as on here. But there are rules and consequences and honestly it is like your blog without cornertime and soap! Anyway, my husband works a lot (a recent change) 6 and 7 days a week. The problem is he does the discipline for the kids, but he’s not here now and the kids are running amok! They don’t listen, act out, etc. and today I spanked but did not like it all. But I believe it is necessary and they need to listen to me! I was just wanting your thoughts on the subject.

Thank you for your blog, it is a nice place to visit and read. This lifestyle works well for us and it is nice to not feel like a freak- even though I believe it is more common than most think.

Disciplining children isn’t something we’re comfortable with discussing on an adult-themed domestic discipline blog, unfortunately. Domestic discipline is controversial enough – we don’t need to bring parenting into it! Lol. I hope you understand, and I apologize if we’ve disappointed you.

I hope you find a solution to your issue as I’m sure it’s extremely frustrating (and exhausting). I wish I could offer you some help! If you do find the solution to your problem, be sure to share it with as many moms as you can because there’s no doubt that this is a very common problem.

Thank you for your support of the site! We appreciate it so much.

Thanks for the kind words about our site. I agree, it is more common than most people realize.

Our son is too young to discipline (hes’s under 2 years old). I wish I could offer you more insight on the topic of disciplining children but it’s not something that I know a lot about (as our son is still too young). There are a lot of excellent parenting blogs out there (some that touch on discipline) that may really help you out. There’s also a great social networking site for moms called CafeMom that you may find better solutions on.

Good luck!

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That’s all for this weeks Mailbag Monday everyone! Thanks for the great questions!

As a reminder, if you have a Mailbag Monday question you can submit your question by clicking here.

We’ll be back on Wednesday with another new post (with a new free download!!).

Have a great week!