By:
In: Female led relationship with discipline, Punishment, Rewards, Spanking

As you may recall, Lion and I have been trying to lose weight. I got the idea that this weight loss procedure should play into our FLR. As incentive for Lion losing weight, I decided he should get punished if he gains weight. If his weight stays the same or if he loses weight, his buns are safe.

Aside from his kidney surgery, he has steadily lost weight. Before his surgery, he wasn’t eating so it stands to reason he would lose weight and then gain weight once he started eating after the surgery. He was sick so I didn’t punish him when he gained weight at that point. I’m not a monster.

I don’t have a minimum weight he needs to lose each week. As long as he maintains or loses, I count that as a win. Lion does too. Otherwise, he gets spanked. He does not want to be spanked. I’m not sure if the spanking itself or dreading it is worse.

This week didn’t go very well at our weigh-in. We both gained weight. Of course, we were not adhering to our low-carb diet as well as other weeks. I think eating well takes more effort and it’s boring. It’s much easier to grab a pizza or burgers. Tastier too, to me.

Right now, Lion is dreading the punishment for his weight gain. How many swats will he get? How hard will they be? What can he do to avoid it? Will I forget to punish him? He’s just a poor, injured Lion. Why would I be so mean as to punish him?

Ha! Poor Lion. He may fear the punishment, but on some level, he looks forward to it. He knows it means I care enough to hold him to his rules. If I tell him he’s earned punishment and then forget enough times, he’s upset because it looks like I don’t care. What’s the purpose of the rules if I don’t enforce them? Why should he follow them?

The truth is, even when I say the rules have been suspended, Lion tends to follow them anyway. For example, when he has his kidney stones, he still waited until I ate before he ate. Right now, many of the rules have been suspended because of his shoulder. He still follows them. Once he has his surgery, I’m sure he’ll falter, but that’s okay. They’ve been suspended for just that reason.

When I see him adhering to the rules, I try to recognize him. I think it’s important, maybe more so, to tell him when I see him doing something right. He likes to hear “good boy” too. Good boy isn’t really natural for me yet. I say it sometimes, but I bet he’d like to hear it more often. I generally just thank Lion for waiting to eat. It’s a work in progress.

By:
In: Lion's Journal

Life has sent us some difficult challenges. I’ve been writing about my torn rotator cuff and the impending surgery to correct it. Pre-surgical pain and the long recuperation after surgery make things difficult for both of us. I’ve had periods of distress when I am hurting or thinking about how my life will change for at least a year after the surgery. Mrs. Lion has been great about helping me.

I will be out of work for at least four weeks and then I will be unable to drive for another three or four months. I will need care at home for at least eight weeks. Mrs. Lion will be my care giver. She will have to lose work for at least a week after the surgery. My arm will be in a sling which will make it difficult for me to dress or feed myself.

Mrs. Lion and I have been working together to figure out how to preserve the quality of our lives while accommodating my temporary disability. I’m struck by how stress free this problem solving is for us. Yes, I am very upset about the prospect of a long, painful recovery. But I feel secure that Mrs. Lion and I will find ways to continue our power exchange.

More importantly, we both work hard to discover ways I can cope with losing the use of one arm for such a long time. Mrs. Lion has found numerous ways we can work around my disability. I’m struck by how little this affects our relationship. Without discussing it, both of us treat it as a problem we will solve. There are no emotions in this process.

It’s true that I have been upset and distressed by the pain and the fear of being disabled. Mrs. Lion is understanding and supportive. Without her help, I almost certainly would not go through with the surgery. She spends hours almost every day researching ways we can cope with my disability. I do the same.

We are approaching this challenge exactly the way I would at work. It’s a dispassionate process of discovering ways to make things work better. Neither of us can imagine being apart. So, that means figuring out how to work together. She may be in charge, but she doesn’t own all of our problems. I can’t say, “You’re in charge. Figure out how we will run our lives with my recovery in the way.” That’s silly. It’s equally silly for me to assume that I have to do everything for myself. We share everything.

The reason I decided to write about this is that I’ve noticed that many people turn every environmental situation into an emotional battle. So much energy is expended on the give and take that there is nothing left to solve the problem. Our approach is to discuss problems, even intimate ones that can be emotional powder kegs.

A good example is my complaint that since I stopped wearing my cage, the snuggles and teasing stopped. We discussed the problem. I felt a little abandoned because I love that time together. Mrs. Lion didn’t want to make my pain worse by snuggling when I wasn’t feeling good. You can imagine what a mess we could make with this. I was feeling that we had regressed.

So, we did what we always do; we discussed it. Mrs. Lion reminded me that I don’t need to be wearing the cage to get snuggles and teasing. I reminded her that snuggles are always welcome and that I love it when she tries to get me aroused even if I can’t at the time. Problem solved. Every night we snuggle and she tries to get me hard. Whether or not she succeeds, we both like the intimacy.

I don’t know how we got so good at this. Somehow we managed and we are both happy and grateful.