When I was a little kid and I didn’t finish my supper, my mother would tell me that there were poor children in Europe who would be very happy to eat the food I left on my plate. I was a bit of a wiseguy and my usual reply was why don’t we mail these leftovers to them? That invariably earned me a dirty look.

I think parents everywhere use comparisons like this to inspire gratitude in their kids. I’ve been very lucky from the first day of my life. I had two parents, plenty of food, good schools, and everything else a kid could ever want.  You may be wondering what this all has to do with with male chastity or domestic discipline. The answer is simple: absolutely nothing.

Lately I’ve been wallowing in worry in anticipation of my upcoming surgery. I’ve had a chance to think about it during this business trip. I realized that absolutely everything about my life, save the rotator cuff injury, is exactly what I’ve always wanted. How many people can say that?

I have a wife who is willing to try anything I suggest. She loves me enough  to put my happiness before her own. She’s the best thing that has ever happened to me. As they say on TV, that’s not all. I’ve got the job I always dreamed of. I am a very happy lion.

That doesn’t mean that things are always easy or straightforward. We’ve both had to endure hardships of various sorts and every one we’ve conquered has brought us closer together. I admit that I am a glass-half-full kind of guy. Mrs. Lion is a bit more pessimistic. We balance each other nicely.

I’m not trying to jinx things by bragging about our perfect life. If you are in so inclined, I’m sure you could find many reasons why things are quite miserable for us. I’m convinced that a positive point of view creates positive changes. A negative point of view, pretty well assures  success will be hard to find.

I believe that what success we have at male chastity and domestic discipline is the direct result of our mutual commitment to make anything we start work. Mrs. Lion, when I come up with a new idea, will generally agree to follow it until I get tired of it or we both decide doesn’t work. Of course, if it does work we are both happy. The point is that she’s willing to go along until either I realize I made a mistake.

In the case of chastity, and even more so, domestic discipline, she was sure she would never like either. But, she was determined to continue as long as I wanted it. Lo and behold, over time, Mrs. Lion not only accepted but actually learned to like both practices. I’m not saying that if I really wanted to stop, she would force me to continue. But I am very sure that if I want to stop it will take more than a simple request for it to happen.

We’ve lived through all sorts of situations – good and bad – to prove that both male chastity and domestic discipline work for us. In our case that cliché, “be careful what you wish for…” Is absolutely false. I feel like Charlie from “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”. When Willy Wonka asked him,   “Charlie, do you know what happened to the man got everything he ever wanted? He lived happily ever after.” I think I’m Charlie.

Sometimes Lion can see the future. Well, not exactly, but he gets a feeling that something is wrong. At times he can be very specific. Other times it’s just a vague something-isn’t-right feeling. I tell him if he sees something wrong with me I don’t want to know about it. It’s kind of creepy.

I can’t see the future. I don’t know how his surgery and subsequent recovery will affect us. I just know that all his doom and gloom of my leaving him won’t happen. I may want to clock him with a frying pan a few times, but I won’t really do it. He may want to yell at me for making him do his physical therapy that hurts, but he won’t. I’m not delusional enough to believe things will always be rosy and sweet. We will be trapped together for over a week with very little outside contact. He gets cabin fever on a weekend. What will he do over the course of a week?

The one thing I do know is that we will get through it. We’ve gotten through unemployment and financial uncertainty. We’ve gotten through a cross-country move. We’re coming up on our twelfth wedding anniversary in August, and our fifteenth year of being together. We haven’t killed each other yet. If anything, with domestic discipline and female led marriage, we have ways of dealing with things that other, non-practicing couples don’t have.

I know we’ll get on each other’s nerves. There’s no way to avoid that. But I have the power to let Lion know he’s being a toddler or treating me badly. I could do that without DD and FLM, but I never really did. I just absorbed all that negativity and didn’t stick up for myself. I’m learning how to stick up for myself now. Maybe I haven’t developed “the look” yet, but I’m more likely to tell Lion when he’s near or across the line.

Lion may not be aware of his actions because he’ll be drugged and in pain and I know he won’t be a toddler on purpose. He’ll just need some gentle, and perhaps not-so-gentle guidance, from time to time. I’m sure I can use what we’ve learned over these past three years to help get us through his recovery.

I think it’s interesting that Mrs. Lion is focusing on how to maintain some level of our domestic discipline in the face of my recovery. I think she’s on to something. I generally get really grumpy when in pain and impatient with caregivers who I perceive as not paying enough attention to me. Time seems to stretch when I hurt. Waiting just a few minutes for a glass of water feels like an eternity. My mouth feels parched and I’m sure that I will die of thirst if I don’t get that drink soon.

Rationality just goes out the window. Mrs. Lion’s current theory is that she can snap me back into reality with a growl. She proposed a plan to track infractions and good behavior using pennies. It makes sense. I don’t think that I will care one way or another about whether I am gaining pennies or losing them while I’m suffering.

Of course, if Mrs. Lion reminds me of future punishment or reward frequently enough, whether or not I’m into caring about the actual outcome, I’ll probably enjoy the game. The big question is whether  Mrs. Lion will grow weary of both me and the game.

My concern goes well beyond mere pennies. I worry that my lioness will exhaust any emotional capital I have with her and will just avoid me. After all, she’s human and has a finite amount of patience.

You see, I worry about both of us. Do I really have the strength to suffer through the difficult healing and physical training that follows this sort of surgery? What will happen if I do run out of patience? Will I try to disappear in a drug-induced haze? Or will I lose control of my emotions and lash out at the one person in the world I can trust with my life?

I’m starting to think that the key to my survival centers around distraction. It’s hard to be in a lot of pain when something is fully occupying your mind. Boredom is probably a greater risk than physical discomfort. I can only take so much of daytime television. Even though there are a million episodes of “Law and Order”, I grow very weary of watching  for hours at a time.

I realize that I have an amazing array of choices when it comes to movies, books, or magazines. Between my iPad and Netflix, there’s no end of available content. The problem isn’t content. It’s just how long I can stand not doing anything other than watch TV or read. Hell, I’m getting bored listening to myself whine about this.

What’s a lion to do? That’s a serious question. It’s the whole point of this post.  I’m not going to become a drug addict as a way of escaping. It wouldn’t work anyway unless it put me to sleep for two or three months.

I just can’t come up with a good reason to go through with the surgery. Yes, I really need this operation; but I wonder about my ability to emerge whole after recovery. There are just too many ways I can get lost in the months that it will take me to recover enough  mobility to lead some semblance of my old life.

Yes, I’m whining. My doctor said I could. The thing is, my problem is not the fear of the unknown. It’s the sure knowledge that the painful period of loss of functionality will push me to the very edge of my ability to endure. I think I have a lot to consider before that preoperative visit to the surgeon next week.

I guess I had a “eureka” moment the other day when I came up with my penny idea. I’m not sure why it took me so long to figure out that if I want Lion to have rewards, I just have to give them to him rather than give him the option to take them. To a point, I understand his point of view. If he decides when to get a reward, then he has a certain amount of power.

However, if I want to give him a reward, there’s no guarantee he’ll be receptive to it. Well, that all depends on the reward. I don’t think he’ll ever turn down the chance to not be punished for gaining weight. He might turn down an orgasm if he isn’t in the mood, but never a punishment reprieve. So I just have to make sure the rewards are something he wants no matter what.

I have to decide how many pennies Lion has to have to earn a reward. Should it be different for each reward? Does a punishment reprieve on a regular punishment night cost more or less than a punishment reprieve for not losing weight? Of course, I’ve only thought of those two rewards so far. There may be more as we go along. And we’ll have to see how fast he accumulates (and loses) pennies. If I decide he needs ten pennies to avoid the gaining weight punishment, but he never gets there, we’ll be done before we start. What happens if he has one penny and is rude to me? Can the balance ever go negative?

Rules are frustrating. Not just for the recipient. The rule maker has to figure out every angle. Not that Lion will try to find a loophole. There are just a lot of “what if”s. And then I have to keep my eyes open. It’s not like I have a speed camera that will snap a picture of Lion being rude and automatically mail him a ticket. Wouldn’t that be a great invention, though? Nah. It would take the personal investment out of the equation.

Naturally, Lion and I will work through the details and when we find something missing, we’ll try to fix it. Nothing we’ve tried has worked out perfectly the first time around. Isn’t that part of the fun of doing it?