What Do You Do When Your HOH REALLY Messes Up?

I've seen the posts about HOH's messing up, and how various people have handled it. I've even written one or two. About recognizing that you won't always agree with everything. About looking at motivation. About focusing on the bigger picture, and that yes, sometimes DD gets messy, but love and connection is the most important thing.

But I have to admit I wasn't prepared for this. Or how I would react. So what do you do when it's not about just being punished for something you didn't do, or when a decision  is made you don't agree with, but instead something that leaves you incredibly hurt and angry for days? When he does something that begs for a temporary implementation of the Spencer Spanking Plan?

This event happened a week ago. I've had to take that long before I could process it, or even write about it.  But I think I finally can. I'm ready to move on, and tell you the lessons I've learned. Mainly so if it happens again, I'll be able to reread this post. And if something happens to you that leaves you feeling the same way I did, you'll hopefully be better prepared for it.

So here we go...wait, I forgot to pass around the tissues box. Everyone have one? And oh, we should put on some sappy background music, too. Good. Now I'm ready to explain.
 
If you haven't gathered this information about me, I'm an incredibly sentimental creature. As such, keepsakes are important to me. I still have a shirt that belonged to a friend of mine that died in a car accident while we were in college. It's precious to me, because it belonged to her. I also kept my father's jacket, when he died a little over a year ago, and I still cuddle it close to me when I particularly miss him. And I planned to keep my child's first outfits, and someday give it to him (or most likely his future wife, lol) for his own child.

Jay, on the other hand, is not like me. He doesn't understand attachment to objects. When things are useful (like tools or equipment for fishing or hunting), they have value. But only as long as they have usefulness. Because his life has been difficult, special possessions were always stolen, and he learned not to want them. Not to mention there weren't a lot of happy times in his childhood and early life that he'd ever want to remember anyway. So it's hard to him to understand why I place such value on objects, just because of memories. But I do. That's part of who I am.

So of course I was going to keep my only child's special baby things! I kept the outfit he wore home from the hospital, a few favorites given to me by friends, and ones that particularly meant something to me. Not a lot of them, but I wanted a few to keep in the family. It was important to me. I hung a few up in the closet, and some I stashed in a pile far away from his current clothes. I told Jay they were there.

Saturday I worked a very long eleven hour day. While I was gone, Jay and his sister decided to get together, and clean out the baby room. Without even asking me, they boxed up everything that didn't currently fit him (and I mean EVERYTHING) and put it on the side of the road with a "Free" sign. I wasn't contacted, I had no say, and worst of all, the way they did it, there was no way to track anything.

When I got home that night, and Jay told me what he had done, thinking I would just accept it and get over it. Nope. I was devastated. I was furious! (Maybe change that sappy music to angry music now with loud crescendos?). Yeah, I cried, and I also cussed him out. We had a huge fight, a pre-DD fight. It wasn't pretty. I was hurt, angry, and near hysterical. It wasn't just the loss of priceless possessions either. It was the idea that all of this had been done behind my back, without bothering to even give me a say. I felt devalued, to say the least. Also too, was the idea that, even though I would never turn my back on family, I had wondered what horrible thing would happen while his sister was staying here. It was like my worst fears confirmed.

To explain, my husband seems to lose his head and all form of logic when he gets around his sister. And this is not the first time I have come home and discovered some impulsive thing she convinced him to do that made my life extremely difficult. Jay had assured me that she had changed, that now he knew boundaries, that things would be different this time. I'd finally started to relax in that knowledge. And then guess what? This happened!

So yeah, we had a lot to talk about. His defensiveness escalated with my anger. It wasn't good. At one point in the argument though, he seemed to flip a switch. He began to calm down, and he did apologize. But I was still pretty worked up. I didn't want to listen to anything he had to say, not really. I had just said "whatever" to him, and he flipped me over. I fought against him, tooth and nail. He pinned me down easily, and reached for the paddle.

"You're receiving one swat for each time you've said "whatever" in this conversation. Just four. So you might as well take it, so it's not more later, okay?" His voice was gentle, but firm.

Out of habit derived from a lot of practice, I forced myself to go beyond my current emotions and calm down a little. He actually did the swats relatively light, but I still cried. It wasn't about the pain either. I admit, it shocked me out of my current state. He cuddled me close after. Whispered words of love, and again told me how sorry he was. How the last thing he wanted to do was see me like this.

I listened this time. He told me he thought at the time that he was doing a good thing. Since I'd been so stressed, he thought he'd do something to help, and apparently clearing out the baby room was his way of helping to do that. He didn't think about keepsakes, and didn't remember that I wanted to keep his first clothes. It never occurred to him. He just told his sister to go ahead and clear everything out that was too small, as well as other stuff she thought could go. He even told her to leave the stuffed animals alone because there may be something in there I was attached to (he was right, my bear I'd had when I was a baby was in there).

He opened up about other things, too. He told me how stressed he was at work, which he had hidden before. It was a heart-to-heart conversation, and we were connected as I fell asleep in his arms.

But then the morning came. I woke up, and wished the event that had happened had been a nightmare. I wanted to forget, but I felt powerless to do so. I wondered if I was making too big a deal of things. I wondered why I just couldn't see his intentions weren't bad, and put it behind me.

Instead I found myself crying throughout the day. I tried to stuff my anger. It didn't work. I tried to get back that connectedness that I'd felt the night before, but I just wasn't feeling it, no matter what I did. I came home from work to any empty house, since Jay was visiting his father a few hours away. I was still very much a teary mess, and to be honest, I wasn't sure I was even in the right to feel the feelings I did. So I went on to the Learning Domestic Discipline Network, a place that's become like a second family, and derived strength from the support of my friends, as well as getting some advice.

After Jay came home, and we'd put our child to bed, we spent some time cuddling. There wasn't much more to say. I told him that I so loved him, and that I knew his intentions weren't bad, but that I needed time to process through all this. I explained that I wanted to just forget and move on, but the crushed feelings inside me just didn't seem to get the memo yet. But I was working on it. He said he understood.

I woke up on Monday wanting to fight. Not fight--fight, but just fight everything he said just because he said it. Submission is a struggle for me on a good day. Right then, I was still really hurting, and in spite of myself, still  a little angry, even. The idea of him telling me what to do was not welcome. This is when being in a DD dynamic becomes difficult for me. How do you show respect when you're seething? Obey when it's the LAST thing you want to do? When it doesn't seem fair AT ALL? And every fiber of your being wants to rebel?

I spent a lot of the day on the LDD network and talking to friends, mainly to keep a measure of sanity and perspective. To add to all of this mess, it didn't help too, that I was dealing with my first day home since my husband's new schedule (which meant lectures in the morning, grrr!), and a child who's currently cutting four teeth (poor kid!). So yeah, it added up to me being a pretty emotional mess, to say the least.

The next day was more of the same, although I cried less. Wednesday I was distracted by work all day, which was welcome, and by yesterday, I was back to normal, which was a HUGE relief for me. But admittedly it's been a tough week!

I'm not really sure how to wrap this up other than to say that I'm more than glad it's over! We're connected again. Yes, stress is still going on, and things are tense around here, especially in the mornings (for another post, LOL), but we've moved on. He's learned he ALWAYS needs to include me, no matter how small the decision, if it has anything to do with me, our child, or our family. And especially if it's anything his sister and him get together to do, no matter how insignificant. And I've learned how to work past an incredibly difficult situation, see beyond it, and not let it affect us in the end. That while succeeding (for the most part) to manage it with the DD dynamic. Not an easy feat to master!

I often wish that I wasn't such an emotional creature. That I could just turn my emotions off when I didn't like them, rather than having to go through the painful process of processing. I have trained in the mental health field long enough to know you have to deal with them, though, lest they fester inside, grow, and come out in ways you never intended, and a lot of times, can't even interpret.

Even so, it was hard for me not to want to deny my anger and hurt. I had to accept it's presence, and work through it. Not easy to do, combined with DD! And definitely not easy to do combined with my normal struggle with submission! I also don't like feeling anything between my husband and me; I hate it, in fact. And to me, intentions are everything. If someone does something wrong out of thoughtlessness, which is what this was, I feel guilty for not being able to just get over it, and see it for the mistake it was. Just saying the words, "I'm hurt and angry" is difficult for me. I don't like feeling that way! And then, once I acknowledge it, having to say, "I'm hurt and angry, but I'll be respectful and obey him anyway" and really mean it?! Ack! Not an easy time to go through!

But we learn from the past, right? Bad things will happen, and in spite of our best intentions, we will hurt each other. We'll make each other angry. Our way of life may prevent a lot of that from happening because of the emphasis on communication and openness. But it still happens. As we all know, DD isn't always rosy pathways. This dynamic sometimes makes things messy, trying to balance working through feelings with still not going back to the old ways of handling problems. Sometimes even we may love each other, but at the same time, for whatever reason, can't stand each other!

But then those times pass. Because we're stronger than the struggles we go through, we'll also come back together again, and everything will always be all right. And that's truly what this dynamic is all about. :)