Regret to Remorse

It is not hard for me to regret a mistake but a reaching a deeper sense of remorse can more difficult.


I repeated a mistake I have made in the past because it is easy for me to justify my actions and to avoid consequences.  I frequently shop at second hand stores and on occasion, when I don't have enough money, I take something without paying for it.  Everything in the store has been donated so it does not cost the store anything, also they throw away so many items that they never miss the few things I have taken.  Still, in my conscience I know that it is stealing and that stealing is wrong.  I also know that if I were caught, I would face criminal charges and my family would suffer negative consequences as a result.  Unfortunately it is so easy to get away with stealing that I don't consider just how risky my behavior is while I am doing it.  Afterwards I realize that I have taken an unnecessary risk but because it is like reverse gambling where I win rather than lose, there is an addictive aspect to shoplifting. 

I know that the only way for me to break this bad habit is to have negative consequences in place that will help me avoid doing what I know is wrong.  Spanking is usually a good motivator for me but unfortunately I have repeated this behavior, even after being spanked for it.  Typically being spanked causes me to feel a sense of regret but I don't seem to feel the remorse that would make spanking a less desirable outcome than stealing.

On Saturday I took an item from a second hand store that would have cost $3.99 plus tax if I had paid for it.  It fit easily in my pocket and I was able to pocket it without being noticed, which is not hard to do when store employees are not very attune to loss prevention.  It is something I have been searching for specifically for many months so I was glad to have found it.  If money had not been an issue, I would have paid for it instead of taking it without paying for it.  It is something I will use frequently and could not have afforded to purchase new so the temptation to take it was greater than the internal conflict created when I contemplate doing something I know is wrong.

The guilt tends to build over time for me, once the thrill of getting away with shoplifting has subsided and the rush is gone.  It was my guilty conscience that lead me to confess my guilt to my husband Saturday night.  I tried explaining my actions in a way that I thought would gain his support of my behavior, even though I knew that what I did was wrong.  I figured that if he supported my decision to take the item then I would not need to debate the issue in my mind any longer.  He was just falling asleep so I did not think there was much threat of getting spanked right then if he decided that is what was needed.  Also, there was a chance that he was sleepy enough that by morning he would forget what I had told him and I would be off the hook.

To my surprise, my husband responded by telling me to close the bedroom window.  I asked if he thought it was getting too cold to leave it open at night and he said it was so no one would hear me getting spanked.  I managed to convince him that he needed his sleep more than I needed to be spanked right then, which allowed me to put it off and to think I would get out of it if he were to forget.  The next morning I thought he had forgotten because he did not bring it up and I did not dare mention it.

Before we headed for church on Sunday morning I made a disrespectful comment and he said that I already had one coming and asked if I was trying to add more to it.  That was when I realized he had not forgotten about the spanking like I had thought.  At least he did not have time then to spank me before we went to church and there was always a chance I could still get out of the spanking.  Comments he made throughout the day made it clear that his CRS (Can't Remember Shit) was in remission and I was in trouble.

We went to the fair after church on Sunday and while wandering around in the pavilion there was a vendor selling sandstone and mink oil guaranteed to soften even a carpenter's rough hands.  My husband has hands of steel with the texture of leather so a hand spanking can be severe enough to make implements unnecessary.  I suggested he give the miracle cure a try and the woman who gave us the sales pitch thought I was suggesting it because I was concerned about holding his rough hand.   It made us laugh because we both knew that I had a spanking coming and I was hoping this hand treatment would soften the feel of his rough hand on my bottom, LOL.

We stayed at the fair longer than we planned so it was late when we got home.  Since my husband goes to work early in the mornings he has to get to bed early at night while I stay up and make his lunch and set the coffee pot for the morning.  I thought he was heading to bed when he closed the living room window behind the couch.  Instead he told me to "come here" and I knew what was coming then.  I tried to stall and put it off another day but he had already decided what was to be done so disobedience would only make the spanking worse.  I had put it off as long as possible and he had not forgotten.

I respect my husband so in all honesty I would have been more disappointed if he had not taken care of the issue than I was with the prospect of getting the spanking I deserved.  There is always apprehension when going over his knee because I know it is going to hurt but I also trust him to be fair so I submit to his authority.  I got one set of hard swats, a brief reprieve during scolding, and then another set of hard swats.  All I could think about was how much it hurt and how much I did not want to steal again.  My bottom was tender when he held me and told me he loved me.  There is no doubt I was spanked soundly, as he is a very effective spanker, but I was not bruised and the effects did not last overnight so I am not feeling any soreness today.

What concerns me now is that last night I was thinking it was not worth it but today I am thinking that it was worth it after all.  I think that my avoidance of the spanking when I was in a state of regret did not allow me to reach a state of remorse from the spanking.  The guilt that leads to confession seems to get pushed from my mind when there is a delay between the overwhelming feelings of guilt and the overwhelming discomfort of a spanking.  It seems that to be truly effective the mental and physical have to come together at the same time or I don't gain the full impact of the punishment.  Somehow in seeking to avoid the spanking, I was able to avoid feelings of accountability during the spanking since time had allowed me to distance myself from my emotions.

My husband did not spank me as severely as he could have done because he is very capable of causing bruising that lasts a week and makes sitting a painful reminder.  This could have been because the price of the item I stole was minor and it was from a second hand store, which is how I am able to minimize the behavior when I shoplift. It could have been because he was tired and wanted to take care of business as effortlessly as possible before heading to bed.  It could have been because he had other things on his mind (we were intimate immediately following the spanking).  I am grateful that I am not sore today and that he did not mark me because those things are not essential for me to learn my lesson.  However, what seems to be missing is that I did not reach a mental state of remorse that would help me avoid repeating a mistake I have already repeated on a number of occasions. 

In the past I have had a serious problem with shoplifting so there has been a definite improvement.  Where I still struggle is with my thinking that it is not a big deal when I take things from second hand stores.  When the thought to take something enters my mind I want to be able to think it is not worth it so I won't be so tempted again.  I want to remember how painful the consequences will be if I were to do it again so I won't do it again.  I am ashamed that I have this problem and I want to do whatever it takes to fix the problem so I won't put myself at risk of getting arrested and having criminal charges on my record.

I don't know if spanking as a consequence will cure me of this problem but it has helped me in other areas of my life.  I know that if I were in Eve's position in the Garden of Eden I would have sinned and eaten the apple just as she did so I have no doubt that I need to submit to a HOH who will keep me accountable.  I have always been considered "difficult" and even "rebellious" because I push limits and cross the line.  I don't expect my husband to "cure" me of this sinful nature but I want to be held accountable and I need to be punished for my own good.  This knowledge is what leads me to confess my sins and submit to authority for punishment when it is deserved.

I don't know what it would take for me to feel more remorseful for taking this item from a second hand store.  Part of my submission is to trust my HOH to determine an appropriate punishment so I can let go of the guilt and not punish myself endlessly for something I can't go back in time to correct.  I need his forgiveness when I do wrong so I can forgive myself rather than to hide my guilt and shame where it tears me apart inside.  When he spanks me, my offense is acknowledged and when the spanking is over he forgives and forgets so I am able do the same.  What worries me is that I lack the remorse that would prevent me from repeating the behavior so I will very likely end up stealing again.

Catching Up

This summer has been busier than usual with so many life changes taking place all at once.  I won't bore you all with the details about the daily distractions that have resulted in my neglecting my blog for many months but I will say that keeping up with a newly started blog did not make the priority list.  I did not think anyone would miss reading my thoughts while I attended to more important things.  Now I am back to share my most recent thoughts.


My last spankings were related and unfortunately a case of the message not sinking in deep enough during the first spanking.  My husband even said during the scolding that accompanied the first spanking that the next time this behavior happened he would use the paddle and at that time my sincere thought was that there would not be a next time.  I am usually better at changing my ways without a need for further reinforcement.


The reason I needed discipline was my unfortunate inability to resist temptation when it came to reading instant messages that were not sent to me but were between my husband and someone else.  He had logged into Yahoo using my laptop computer and he forgot to log out.  He has done this many times in the past and on several occasions I had the fleeting thought that I could read his instant messages and even his e-mail messages but because I trust him I had not violated his trust by doing so on those occasions.  It turns out my husband is more trustworthy than me when it comes to respecting privacy because, instead of logging him out of his account like I usually do under the circumstances, I ended up violating his right to privacy by reading his messages.  There was nothing there that was truly private since he had already shared with me the nature of his conversations and who they were with so all my snooping did was to affirm that he was being honest with me and that only made my dishonesty towards him feel even worse.


Soon after I violated my husband's privacy I ended up confessing to ease my guilty conscience.  I knew that I would be spanked and I was spanked to his satisfaction so all was well afterwards.  The comment about using the paddle the "next time" seemed unnecessary because I was sure he would be less trusting of me and therefore more cautious about logging out of his account so the temptation would not be there again.  I was also certain that should he be careless about protecting his own privacy I would not have the desire to violate it again.  I was wrong in more ways than one.


Just a short week later, after the effects of the first spanking wore off, my husband neglected to log out of Yahoo again and the thought again crossed my mind that it allowed me the potential to read his private instant messages.  I had the follow up thought that it was not a good idea and yet there I was reading his messages again just because the opportunity was there in front of me.  I consider myself an honest person and I consider reading someone's private messages to be dishonest so how I convinced myself to do it a second time is a mystery to me.  I think that the "what he does not know won't hurt me" thought crossed my mind and I must have bought into it long enough to think I would get away with it.  The thought got me through the act of being dishonest a second time but then the guilty feelings hit and I knew I had made a mistake.


Knowing I would get the paddle this time actually allowed me to convince myself for a time that I should not tell my husband what I had done and only confess if he discovered it on his own.  We were so busy with other things that I avoided him as much as possible but I apparently looked guilty enough for my sister to ask what was wrong while she was helping out with a yard sale.  When we had some time alone I told her what I had done and I shared with her the consequences of my actions if my husband were to know what I had done.  My sister is spanked by her husband (they have a master/slave relationship that I don't fully understand but we have enough in common that we can talk to each other about being spanked) and she knows how much I hate the paddle so she sympathized with me in my predicament.  She also knew that the only choice I had to make was when I was going to tell my husband because not telling him was only going to make it worse, both mentally leading up to the punishment and physically when he learned that I had been hiding it from him.  I agreed with her advice that it would be best to get it over with as soon as possible because it was going to come up eventually.  She would not tell on me but she knew that I could not cover the shame for long and that confessing would help me clear my guilty conscience.

I ended up telling my husband that evening.  I had secretly hoped that his being exhausted from doing a yard sale all day would soften my punishment but a paddle is hard no matter how tired he may be when using it on my bare bottom.  It is hard enough to find words to admit to a wrongdoing the first time but when it is a repeat of a behavior I have already been disciplined for it is even harder to admit that I was overcome by temptation a second time.  As a Christian it does not surprise my husband that I would give into temptation but I am sure that he is also disappointed when I fail to learn to avoid repeating a past mistake.  I am glad to report that I have not made this same mistake again and that this took place several months ago.

My husband still trusts me and I still consider myself a trustworthy person but I fear I am capable of making the same mistake again if I am not careful.  I sometimes think that I can get away with doing something I know better than doing or that it will be worth the punishment for doing it but then I remember what a painful spanking feels like and I am not so easily convinced.  I want to do what is right just for the sake of it and yet I don't always make the right choice when faced with overwhelming temptations.  For me, knowing I will be spanked for wrong choices helps tip the scale in favor of my being the type of person I want to be rather than acting on impulse and doing whatever I want.  Being spanked also helps me release the guilt of making mistakes so I can start fresh and not allow the shame of guilt to cripple me or hold me captive.

I can't imagine how couples who don't use spanking would handle such a situation.  The confession took a great weight off my conscience but without the spanking I might still have ended up thinking it was worth it in the end and that thought is a much bigger problem for me.  I know that without physical consequences I am less likely to challenge those thoughts that lead me to believe that I can get away with doing something wrong.  I have done things impulsively in the past that have resulted in patterns of behavior that took years to correct so putting a stop to thinking I can get away with something has been most helpful for me.  Knowing that the punishment will catch up with me helps me think about the negative consequences of wrong choices rather than going with the initial impulse that leads me astray.