Punishment Without Guilt

Interesting.. I've been writing about guilt, and thinking about what causes guilty feelings. I've pretty much come to the conclusion that I feel that way simply because of ingrained habits and ways of being that I've been taught over the years. That leading my Knight and allowing him to do things for me simply goes against deeply learned habits.

Not such a great reason to feel guilty.

As I was processing all this we had a day where my Knight forgot to do something important, and then tried to keep his mistake from me. He didn't lie outright, but he didn't tell me of his error when he realized. Nor did he try to fix it at the time. I found out a day or two later.. the task still undone, him knowing he had left it undone.  This was a pretty big deal because the task was important. We are getting ready to move, and the forgotten item was something I needed done in preparation for the move.

I was angry with my Knight. I wasn't so angry that he had forgotten the task, it could be made up. I was angry that  he knew he had forgotten it, didn't tell me and didn't make an effort to complete the job.. just let me think it had been done. Our number one rule is complete and absolute honesty at all times.. about every thing. When my Knight is unable to do something, or he forgets, he's supposed to let me know as soon as he realizes there's an issue. I wasn't home when my Knight realized he'd forgotten the task, so he should have sent me a text.

He didn't. And that's why I was angry with him. I was disappointed and hurt that he wasn't honest with me.

For the first time since we started flr, I punished my Knight with something that mattered to him. I told him he was not work on his current fiction writing project for two full days. Now.. this is November.. and November means NaNoWriMo. NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Contest. The goal is to create a work of fiction that is 50,000 words or longer during the month of November. That's 1666 words a day.. and if you miss a day it's really ... really hard to catch up. My Knight and I have each done NaNo every single year for the last seven years. Except this year, my Knight lost two writing days because I told him he was not allowed to touch it.

Know what? He listened. He didn't argue, didn't pout about it, he just stayed away from the computer for those two days.

And.. I don't feel in the least bit guilty.

A Post in Progress - Guilt

I realized about a week ago that I feel guilty when my Knight is busy at some mundane household task while I relax or do something for me. This came about when I sent my Knight off to the kitchen to wash dishes and clean up after dinner while I sat and listened to my on-line class lecture. It was about 11pm, and we were both tired. I felt guilty for curling up on the couch with my class while my Knight stood at the sink doing dishes.

I've been thinking about it a lot and I realized it happens a lot. There have been more than several times that I've told my Knight not to worry about some task on his list simply because I felt guilty. Many times my Knight's daily task list is not complete by the time I'm ready to head to bed. My Knight has enough time after work to complete his lists, if he manages his time well - a lot of the time he does not. So, by 11pm or so, when I'm ready for bed, my Knight's list isn't done. He's openly acknowledged that sometimes he just needs to stay up and finish his list, but most of the time I tell him to just forget it and come to bed.

Why? Guilt. I feel bad going to bed while my Knight is still up finishing a task I gave him. Ideally, he is supposed to get everything done by 1030pm so that we have some time to talk before bed.

I'm still trying to figure out why I feel like this, and how to avoid it.