Dear Bethany, I can't work up the nerve to ask my husband to spank me.
When we were first dating, I was a brat, going through a lot of bad
things in my life. He finally got so frustrated with me, that he turned
me over his knee and spanked the hell out of me. After that, he kept
doing it for correction only. Slowly after we got married it subsided.
It never was a sexual thing for him, but I have been turned on from it
since I was very little. I have been dying to get spanked and I don't
want to go to outside sources because I would feel like I was cheating.
I love him very much, but I am going crazy thinking about it. When I
hinted around about what he use to do when I was bad, (not mentioning to
him the S word) He would say that was when I was young and it's not the
same. I was just wondering if you had any advice on approaching him on
the subject? I read the column you had on the subject, but I don't think
that would work for me. Help!

Cathy from Florida

HI Cathy-

If you review some other questions/answers already in the advice column, you will see that other wives struggle with your same issues to varying degrees. We've got Susan, whose husband WILL spank, but can't understand the emotional facets of "discipline/punishment" that go along with it, and we've got "anonymous" from 10/20 who is convinced that her husband will never be willing to provide this. And then in the Library section of the site, we have Marie's retelling of how she successfully got her husband to spank.

Your situation, Cathy, is somewhat different. Your husband spanked you, and clearly for disciplinary reasons, at an early point in your relationship. You were young, but I assume you were sexually involved with him at the time in a dating relationship. It was, therefore, an "adult" spanking relationship. He obviously has some acceptance of "spanking" as an appropriate response for certain behaviors.

The most interesting question here is not so much why he spanked - we know that - you we're acting like a brat - but why he STOPPED. Did you REALLY get that much better behaved? Did he start feeling guilty that it was just too unacceptable? Did he start to suspect that you were getting turned on by it, and that upset him?

I've found over the years that MOST men who introduce disciplinary spanking really do have an erotic or "semi" erotic spanking interest and do this to justify it, but I have corresponded with one other woman whose husband appears to be just a really old-fashioned, dominant sort of guy who felt that warming her butt was an appropriate last resort when her behavior was simply too unacceptable. Her struggle was different from yours... she hated the disciplinary spankings but was starting to want to mess around with erotic spanking... and he could not understand THIS at all. He was afraid he'd turned her into some sort of pervert and stopped spanking completely.

Why can't life just be simple?!

You say that you love him very much... your marriage sounds closer than the one described by Anonymous. Somehow, you're going to have to find a way to reintroduce the topic.

Some suggestions:
1. Direct approaches DO work... DON'T "hint around." Ask him point blank, (yes, use the "S" word) why he stopped spanking you. See if this opens a dialogue.
2. If you find yourself fighting with him or being in situations where you wish he'd spank, mention it afterwards. (Probably in the "heat of the moment" is not the best time.) But saying something like, "You know, I don't like myself very much when I act like that. When we were first together, one time you put a stop to it by giving me a spanking. Sometimes I wish you'd still do that." See where that takes you.
3. (This is a hokey suggestion, but it might work...) Rent the movie "McClintock!" (John Wayne). It's a spanker's favorite, featuring I believe three separate spankings. Try to get him into a conversation about "adult" spanking afterwards.
4. If you work with a lot of people he doesn't know (and is unlikely to meet) you could tell a little fib... introduce a fake co-worker into the conversation one night, and mention that she'd told you at work that she'd been such a bitch one night that her husband/boyfriend turned her over his knee and spanked her. Again, see if he warms up to the topic.

All of these suggestions have the same goal: to get your husband to open a conversation with you about his feelings about disciplinary spanking in adult relationships. You have a good basis here because he used to spank so, again, he must have some acceptance of it... he clearly feels it's appropriate in some situations and not necessarily abusive... or he wouldn't have done it years ago.

Then what? Well, this is where you have to be prepared. You need to decide what you really want... do you want to mess around with erotic spanking/role play and see if it grows into a more disciplinary relationship again? Or would you prefer the structure and control that discipline spankings would provide... and hope that THAT will evolve into a more erotic thing? Whatever, you have to decide beforehand... and you have to formulate a clear and concise way to communicate that:
1. You've been thinking about it a lot.
2. You've done some research on line.
3. Other women (normal, law-abiding hardworking wives and mothers) DO get their tails tanned on a regular basis... and feel they are better people for it.
4. You feel it would help you.
5. You want to talk to him about it.

Again, I can't say enough about Robin Whittle's site as a resource for husbands and wives that want to utilize disciplinary spanking in their marriages. Marie's article from the library section might also be something non-threatening (and a little shorter than Robin's piece) that you can show him.