172 – The Masks We Wear. The figurative ones.

i like to read books… occasionally. i’m not an avid reader, but when i find an author that holds my attention and isn’t predictable, i devour everything they have to say. At least until they become predictable and then i am done with that one too.

i wouldn’t say i necessarily have a favorite genre because the authors i like most, are vastly different in their writings. In case you are wondering, here’s a few of my favs (in no particular order): John Grisham (lawyer-mystery), Kristin Hannah, Sara Bruen and Kathryn Stockett (general fiction), Veronica Roth and Suzanne Collins (Teen Fiction), (also general fiction)…. and i’d be amiss if i didn’t mention Erotica too (Annabel Joseph and Cara Bristol).

Even still, i don’t typically read everything from those authors because within themselves they tend to become…. predictable.

Recently i read a new author and I haven’t decided yet if i like her work or not, but she talked a lot about “the masks we wear.”

The author wrote the book long before covid was a thing. So she wasn’t talking anything about germ-protection, but rather fully about how very different we are to one person compared to another. Say for example how we act or say at work with co-workers, compared to what we say or do when we are at home with family would not necessarily be the same.

What we reveal to one person about ourself wouldn’t be the same as what someone else knew (or thought they knew) about us.

It made me think about how (sometimes) if someone knew that “one part of me,” they may think differently about me and would they think good/bad about it?! And for me, that one thing would be about my DD marriage. i tell you here about my DD life because i think you understand but many people probably wouldn’t. And if they did understand, they possibly/probably wouldn’t approve.

i think disciplining a wife was so commonplace at one time and in a prior, different generation that people didn’t talk about it. Meaning, in the 1950’s and prior, husbands spanked their wives and it was so common then, that people didn’t talk about it anymore than they’d talk about cleaning the toilets. Something like, “We all do it and it’s part of life, so there’s nothing noteworthy to even talk about.” Or another analogy might be like if you asked someone then, “anything exciting happen today?” That because spankings were just part of the norm, it wouldn’t even have registered as an “event” worthy enough to even be discussed.

Now, in this generation, post the 60’s women’s movement, it’s turned into something of a faux pas that no one talks about it still now either. It’s hard to know who spanked their wives in that 50’s and before generation(s) because people didn’t talk about it. And it would be the same now not knowing who is spanked for people still not talking about it. But now people don’t talk about it because it is a hidden, under-a-mask (or a veil) kind of topic.

i suspect if you met me in real life, you’d not even know we do this. Because i don’t talk about it in real life either. Part of why i don’t talk about it is because (like the 50’s housewife), it is just the norm of what we do, but also (like the 2021 wife that i am), it isn’t socially acceptable.

i quite literally put on a mask outside my house to protect myself from covid, but also i put on a figurative mask to hide my “secret” about being a spanked wife and that’s ok. As in the quote from Batman, i wear a mask “not to hide who i am, but to create what i am.”

And i am a submissive wife, who is spanked regularly.

Why do we wear masks? Why can’t we be ourselves? Why can’t we reveal ourselves, fully, to those around us?

i think it’s for fear of being rejected or judged. We all want to be liked and rejection is hard. It cuts to the core. We don’t want that other person to dislike us for any reason.

But in the process of trying to be liked, do we end up masking ourselves so much that we morph into someone we aren’t? i would say, i don’t (morph into someone i am not).

While yes, it is more or less a secret to most of my world that i am a spanked wife, other than that one thing about me and my marriage, i am (mostly) the same person to everyone i interact with.

In fact, it’s kind of a secret that David and i do this that we have “hidden in plain sight.” We make comments sometimes that only we would get the double-meaning and no one around would even know. Like for example, tonight i was going to take the dog for a walk and i told her to sit (to get her leash on) and she just wouldn’t. i said, “she is so stubborn. If she’d be a bit more cooperative it would be helpful.”

To which my husband said, “smack her on her bottom if she needs it. It works well when she feels the burn in her butt to get to do as she’s told. Right?”

And i laughed and said, “yes Sir, that is true.”

Our son heard it all and thought nothing of it, other than she’s a disobedient dog.

Looking back, i am pretty convinced my grandfather spanked my grandma too. She would get all wound up about something and he would raise his eyebrows and call her by her first and middle name with a tone that said, “calm yourself down now or else….”. And she did.

i always wondered why saying nothing other than her name would get my fiesta grandma to her change her tone and behavior so quickly. Even though i never saw or heard anything definitive to know this for certain, i am now convinced she was spanked and a submissive wife. i wish she were still alive for me to ask her about it.

But i doubt i would have the courage to ask because… we hide behind masks. Literally and figuratively. And we only show the parts of ourselves to those around us that we allow them to see. Because rejection stinks.

i guess i will never know for sure.

What do you think… was your mom or grandma a spanked wife too? Would you have the courage to ask?

(Oh, and i am hoping the literally mask-era comes to an end soon.. but i am not too optimistic either.)

Hugs,

Marie