I Got an HOH for Christmas

*Warning this one is a long one.  I won't be offended if you decide to skip it*

The new year is all about changes.  Pick something you want to make better, and just do it.  Never mind that the pesky one about going to the gym is usually long forgotten by March.  This year it seems that the changes in our house started early.

You know how when you start out researching TTWD you end up on blogs with very strong HOH figures, and you get an idea in your head of what an HOH is supposed to be like?  And then you know when you bring the idea of DD to your husband it never measures up to the idea in your head?  When I brought this idea to Bucko I envisioned this magical change that would happen over night to turn him into the HOH of my dreams.  (He was already the man of my dreams.)  You can guess how well that worked out.

I know, I know we aren't supposed to compare ourselves to other couples, but let's face it we are all guilty of it at one time or another.  That's where the frustration comes in.  Our HOH isn't acting the way he's supposed to and so we think we aren't doing it right, or that what we are doing isn't working.  The problem being that the whole time we are focusing on what he isn't, we are missing what he is.  I can't tell you the number of times in the beginning of our adventure that I missed him stepping up, because he didn't step up the way I wanted him to.  It's really just that, I missed out on seeing how great things were, because they weren't what I expected.

The other problem with comparison being that we don't see everything that goes on with the couples we compare ourselves to.  I know that here in blogland we often share our struggles, but we don't know what is left out.  We don't know what goes on behind the scenes so to speak, where we do in our own lives.  It leads, at least it did for me, to feelings of inadequacy.

All of that is not to say that things were perfect and I just missed it.  They weren't.  Some days, boy howdy they weren't!  A great deal of the time either he, or I, or both us just weren't in it.  We spent a lot of time in a revolving door of just not there.  He wouldn't step up, for x,y, and z reasons.  I wouldn't submit for a, b, and c reason.  Life got in the way.  This was crazy, or that was crazy.  Take your pick.  We had excuses a plenty, and we just kept seeming to miss each other.

Then one magical day in the land of Bucko and TL something amazing happened.  We talked!  We found out why we kept missing each other.  Then we talked some more.  Then we had a misstep and fought.  Then guess what?  Yep, we talked some more.  It was that point where we both started trying to meet the other halfway.  We understood each others motivation, and we found common ground.  We both wanted this and we had to work together to get there.  We loved each other and that became our focus.

He started to understand what I wanted and needed.  I started to let go of the ideas in my head and let him take control his way.  Funny how you have to let go of the control for him to take it.  Then things were great for a while.  We hit our stride.  I had the HOH I wanted, and he had a wife a wife who trusted his judgement, loved and respected him.  Then because life is a jerkface that way, this happened.

 

Up until recently this is the phase that Bucko and I have been living with.  We haven't completely regressed back to the very beginning.  DD was still there, just sort of stagnant.  We were both busy, or tired, or it just seemed there were bigger fish to fry.  DD got put on the back burner.  At first it didn't seem like a big deal, but after a while we could feel ourselves moving away from each other.  We didn't have that warm fuzzy new DD glow about us anymore.  We would talk about things being off, and we'd acknowledge it, but neither of us did anything about it.  It seemed like we couldn't get around the wall.  We had the fall funk, big time.

Then the holidays hit.  I thought this was going to be really bad this year.  Holidays always throw me off my game, but add in the lack of TTWD around our house and I was prepared for the worst.  I tried to remind myself to keep breathing and stay calm.  I wasn't confident it was going to work. 

That's when I noticed another change in Bucko.  He started asking me things.  Did I take my pill?  Did I do my stretches?  Make this for dinner.  Don't worry about this, go home and relax.  This helped a little, but I was still discombobulated.

Then we talked.  (There's that darn talking thing again)  We realized that if we didn't commit to making TTWD a priority it was too easy to let it slip.  Then we made a rule, and it's not for me.  We made the three day rule.  

We talked about what the right amount of time between R/A was to make us feel connected.  We decided that a week was too long, and made it too easy to say what's one more day.  We decided on three days.  So we wrote it in our book to make it official.  The rule states that we can't go more than three days without some sort of role affirmation.  So far it has worked out really well, and we find ourselves checking with each other about what day we are on.  Many of these spankings have been light and fun, but they let us know we are still together and on the same page.

Then there was Christmas Eve.  Christmas Eve was my ah ha moment.  It let me know there was a new Bucko in town.  Christmas Eve is my cookie making day.  I had Christmas Eve service at church that evening and we had to head to his parents house early the next day, so Bucko told me as he was leaving for work to get the cookies made before he got home.  Well I procrastinated and I didn't get it done.  Then I ran out of brown sugar.  Bless his heart I had to send Bucko out at 8:30 on Christmas Eve to find an open store.  Then dinner was late because of it.  Let's just say it was a mess.

When I finally got things settled and dinner going, Bucko took my arm and led me to the bedroom.  He's never physically led me to the bedroom in this kind of situation before.  Then he sat on the bed, pulled me down next to him, and shocked the hell out of me.  He lectured. He really lectured. It was like something out of a lecturing textbook.  I've often told Bucko I need him to talk to me.  Whacking away without the words doesn't do it for me.  I guess he heard me, because this lecture had me near in tears.  I can't remember everything that was said word for word, but there were a few highlights.

"I asked you to do this for you.  As much as I love the stressed out ball of cookie making mess you become on Christmas Eve, I'd much rather have my relaxed and happy wife to spend the evening with." 

Then my personal favorite:

"You undermine this thing we do when you don't listen to me, honey." (Ouch! That one hurt.) 

Then he proceeded to spank me.  Was it the hardest spanking he's ever given me? No, but it didn't need to be.  It hurt, and I had a lasting reminder while I finished making the cookies, but he also held me and told me he loved me.  It was the safest and most connected to him I've felt in months.  It was like a giant reset button. (No my butt is not that big!)  

Things have been better.  The other day I had a horrible PTSD episode.  It was one of the worst I've had in months.  I'm still feeling the effects of this one, but Bucko had been wonderful. 

Bucko seems different.  He's throwing out words like boot camp.  (I'm not entirely sure how I feel about that, but we have a while yet to think about it.)  He has been more vocal about telling me what he wants from me.  He's been doing even more checking up on me than before.  It seems instead of reacting to my mood or the situation, he's taking a more proactive leadership role.  It seems to be working because this is the busiest and least stressful holiday we've had in years.

I couldn't tell you how it happened.  Maybe sometimes you just need to muddle through the funk until you come out on the other side.  I'm sure this won't be our last funk, but it is the last one of this year.  Things seem to be looking up, and I am sure we will work through whatever comes in the new year.