Standing Long for Long Standing Issues

It's been an issue in our marriage for years. It happened way too often that BabyMan would look for attention from his wife, only to have her find someone or something else more pressing at the time. My logic was always that we have a life with thousands of hours of alone time together, and my priorities have to be carefully selected so as not to miss out on anything that may not be available later.  I remember we argued about this while we were dating, and it continued on throughout our ten years of marriage.  It was NEVER my intention to make him think that he wasn't important, and I thought he's come to understand that and find some peace with it.

Lately I've started to engage in live chat with my internet friends, a pastime that has fascinated me since I discovered  forum chatrooms and Yahoo Messenger. In the last 3 months or so, I've become embroiled in conversing with other dd wives as we discuss our husbands, lives, punishment, sex, health... they are relationships that I have come to cherish and look forward to cultivating.  Since I've begun my new found hobby, BabyMan has come home many times when I was in the middle of a chat looking for my attention, and I have given him less than my best. I have gently pushed him aside and promised attentiveness when I was through. Quite often he would back off, adjourn to another room and wait until it was convenient for me to give him my consideration.

And sometimes he would march back into my space, angry and irritated.

"You need to get off the computer now, and pay attention to your husband!"

I'd look up at him, flustered and irritated. "Will you relax? I'm in the middle of a conversation! It's unreasonable of you to demand that I stop in the middle and..."

"Now, Sugar. Right now!"

"How can you expect me to extricate myself from a conversation with no warning?"

"I walked through that door ten minutes ago. I think in ten minutes time you can find a way to let someone know that I'm here, and you have other priorities."

So I will take a minute or so to excuse myself from my chat, and practically slam my laptop closed and glare at him with my I hope you're happy attitude, and he'd glare right back at me daring me to say something cocky or impudent.

Needless to say, anything that he had been looking forward to sharing with me was off the table. He's hurt, irritated, and no longer interested in engaging me in our usual evening connecting rituals. As far as he's concerned, I had made it clear that he comes second.. He begins to threaten to restrict my use of the computer, especially my laptop because it's starting to take the place of our time together, and I have to begin to take this problem more seriously. I always promise that I will, and BabyMan would be quick to forgive.. until the next time.

Enter, my friend, K., a woman I had been cultivating a relationship with through a forum, and then through  Yahoo Messenger. Thursday evening we were discussing the possibility of actually getting to meet each other face to face when BabyMan came home. I recall typing furiously and waving briefly at him. He leaned over me and puckered his lips. I put my hand up. "Not now, Babe," I said as I refused to take my eyes off the screen.

"No!' he demanded,"You stop typing right now!"

"Wait, I just have to finish this thought..."

"No, NOW!"

I looked at him and noted the determined look in his eye. "Kiss me, dammit," he barked.

"Okay, okay, Just let me tell her I'll be back"

"No!" he was clearly fed up. I took my fingers off the keyboard and craned my neck to meet his lips. He kissed me hard, almost angrily and then walked out of the room muttering, "You've got your nose in that laptop too damned much. You need to get your priorities straight, Woman!"
I went back to my conversation with K. almost 30 minutes later I bounded into the den where BabyMan sat at the PC and wrapped my arms affectionately around his neck. "Guess what! K is flying into the city in a few weeks, and we'll all be able to have dinner together down town. Isn't that great?"

He looked at me soberly and mustered a slight smile for my happiness. "That's great, babe. When is she coming?"

"Second week in September"

"That's nice."

I turned and began dancing out of the den. "Are you hungry? I bought salmon for tonight."

"No, right now I want you to get the heavy wooden spoon from the kitchen and the bath brush and bring them to me."

I stopped in my tracks. I couldn't have heard right. I turned abruptly with my mouth open. "What?"

"You heard me."

"But... what did I do?"

"Just bring them, I'll tell you what you did."

I went into the kitchen and retrieved the wooden spoon he uses for his pet peeve relief. When I walked past the den door on my way to the bedroom to get the bath brush I stopped one more time in search of answers. "Are you gonna tell me what I did?" I said quietly.

He looked at me and spotted only the spoon in my hand. "Get the brush," he said.

I didn't like this at all.  I wasn't even going to get a warm up from the old comfortable leather paddle, just a lot of uncomfortable wood.  I consider wooden implements unreasonable, too painful, and just plain crazy.  I returned with the objects to find that he had placed a couple of pillows on the floor.

"Take your pants and panties down and sit on the floor, he said.  He turned back to the computer where he was downloading music into his MP3 player.  I did as I was told as I felt my heart beating through my chest.  I must have really pissed him off.  The waiting was interminable as I sat there with my panties around my ankles and a spoon and brush clutched to my chest.

Finally he rose from the computer desk and came over to the couch and sat down with me between his legs.  "Turn around and face me on your knees," he said.

I did.

"Do you have any idea why you're being punished?"

I knew.  I just didn't want to say it.

"Take a wild guess," he whispered.

I couldn't look at him.  "I... ignored you when you came home?"

"Talking to K was a little more important to you than I was, right?"

"No!  No one's more important than you!"

"You have the rest of August, and part of September to finalize your plans with her, but you had to do it during our time together.  And I'm brushed aside when I need you.  Do you have any idea how often you do this?"

Really?  it can't be that often... can it?

"Well, it's going to stop, today.  I'm done allowing you to go on thinking this is all right."

Suddenly I felt awful.  I looked right into his eyes and saw the anger that he was feeling, but there was something else... it was hurt.  I felt a huge tear form in my eye and spill out onto my cheek.
He gently guided me over his left knee and I felt the hard wood connect with my butt over and over again.  I kicked, and tried to raise myself off of his knee, but he held me down and reddened me without taking a moment to break between the spoon and the brush.  I couldn't believe how much it hurt, and BabyMan was deaf to my pleading cries.  Then... a final assault on my sit spot that made me shriek at the top of my lungs, and it was over.

When I was sure he was through, I slid off his knee and wound up back on the pillows on the floor.  "I'm sorry," I sniveled.  I never meant to make you feel like that."  Apparently I had been doing this to him for years, and it never occurred to me just how hurtful it was.We had argued about it many times, and I just never took it seriously until now. He had made his point, and this time I heard it.  I thought maybe on top of everything he would take away or restrict the use of my laptop, but he didn't.  He's leaving it to me to prove that I can keep my word.

And I'm going to try my best, I really am!  But to my friends who I talk to on a regular basis on Yahoo, if I disappear for a while...