Punishment

The moment a rule gets broken is where an arrangement either proves it is real or quietly shows that it is not. Most of the work happens beforehand, and most of the damage happens when somebody improvises while annoyed.

Consenting adults only. Everything on this page is about adults over 18 who have freely agreed to it.

Written from first-hand experience or extensive research by the editor.

This concerns consenting adults over eighteen who have chosen an arrangement with each other, and either of them can end it.

What it means

A punishment is a consequence attached to a specific breach of a specific agreed rule. It may be corporal, or it may be an imposition, which in my experience works better more often than people expect.

Two things separate it from everything else that happens in a dynamic. It has a cause, which distinguishes it from maintenance. And it is not supposed to be enjoyable, which distinguishes it from play, and is the part that most arrangements get muddled.

In practice

Agreed in advance and written down. Both of you should be able to look at a document and see what the rules are and roughly what happens when one is broken. Improvised consequences invented in the moment are where nearly all the trouble comes from, because the person inventing them is annoyed and the person receiving them has no way to object without appearing to renege.

Never while annoyed. This is the rule I hold most firmly and the one I have broken and regretted. If there is heat in it, wait. Tomorrow evening will do, and the delay costs nothing except your appetite for it, which is precisely why it works as a test. A consequence delivered in temper is not discipline. It is an argument with an implement in it.

Then close it off. Delivered, done, mentioned no further. A punishment that keeps being referred to has not been a punishment, it has been the opening of a grievance, and the whole value of having a structure is that things end.

The common misreading

Proportion, most often. A rule about texting when you get home is worth a hundred lines, not an evening of ceremony, and inflation is corrosive because it leaves nothing in reserve for anything that actually matters.

Then the blur between punishment and play. If the punishment is the thing somebody was hoping for anyway, you have built a reward and labelled it a consequence. This is exactly why impositions are so useful: nobody wants four hundred lines.

And the direction of it. Arrangements where only one person can ever be at fault are unbalanced in a way that tends to get worse. If the person holding the authority fails at something they undertook to do, that needs naming and answering too, even if the answer is an apology rather than anything else.