Instruction & Formation | Monitored Members

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onitoring is the primary tool used by this Project in helping non-participants understand the value and usefulness of accountability. This process of learning accountability and transparency with the guidance and assistance of a woman who has already gained experience with the Project is largely predicated on understanding the role of discipline and how to best take advantage of the opportunities for obedience disciplines provide. Asking for a project participant to serve in this fashion is to request a serious investment of her time—and yours. Because all monitors are not only experienced Project participants but are themselves also monitored and accountable to the Project instructor, every request is also a demand on our very limited resources.

Therefore the information on this page should be considered a good faith effort to dissuade you from seeking this approach to personal formation. Note that community membership short of monitored membership offers substantial resources in guiding your own formation. Requesting a monitor is certainly not a step you should take without careful reflection. Please read and understand the site disclaimer. Consultation with Project participants via the community forum may also be helpful. Without exception a private and confidential waiver of liability will also be required of all applicants for monitored membership. That waiver will require you to reveal personal information.

When you enter into monitoring, you are expressing your wish to understand your own submissive instincts and to commence a journey to explore the limits of those instincts. This is not a step that should be taken lightly. Even though those who wish to be taught accountability and other aspects of surrender are not full Project participants, they are very likely to be taken outside the usual confines of comfort and made to confront the reality and the consequences of their feelings and desires. It is a difficult process. This approach to formation can be extremely intimate and intrusive. It is not appropriate for every woman.

It is important to realize that monitors represent their instructor’s wishes and that those wishes are the focus of the process generally. Monitors make decisions based on their own experience and on instructions given to them, but those decisions are shaped by information you provide. If you give your monitor information that helps her understand why, for example, a particular discipline should be adjusted, even temporarily, then the Project’s primary rule—that your own best interests must always be protected during this process—will be used to supersede all other rules. For example, as a rule we are very insistent that no aspect of this formation intrude on your family in any way, except positively through your own behavior. If some aspect of this formation would be apparent to others in a way that might cause you harm or significant distress, it will be altered to afford you protection. Convenience, moods, disinclination, embarrassment and a wish to “test” the limits of a monitor or the instructor are not useful grounds for disobedience, however.

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hose who are new to accountability will often resist remaining obedient to the disciplines given to them. In fact the first response to monitoring is to seek to find ways to control the process. This wastes time and effort and can result in some emotional turmoil. As a result, the process of learning accountability is designed to encourage an early departure from this project, thus insuring that only those who are most determined to benefit from this aspect of formation remain.

Our experience shows that yielding to accountability and transparency is far more difficult than it appears to be from the outside. Most women who seek to be monitored find themselves unable to continue beyond a month or two. The apparent velocity of change that accompanies monitoring seems to slow; the gratifications that come early in the process are slowly accommodated and frustration is an unanticipated consequence. The disciplines of accountability and transparency often seem impossible. In addition, the level of vulnerability required in this process is often very distressing. Because this formation leads to a way of living, and not just to a “lifestyle,” deeper and more significant changes are not always obvious ones. Those who are able to persevere however find their patience has yielded rewards.

The process used here poses other inherent difficulties for those who are less than fully committed to change. For example, in this aspect of formation, understanding must always follow experience, not the other way around. Asking “why should I?” in response to a suggested discipline is generally not a useful line of inquiry. Understandably, most women instinctively attempt to control the process of instruction provided for them, especially when they encounter difficulties. That kind of comfort is never permitted of course. As a result, patience and trust are the first two things every member learns. In addition, monitored members are expected to reimburse the community for the effort spent on their formation by making themselves available to mentor and give help to other community members, especially newcomers.

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hile those who do well under monitored instruction are far more likely to be accepted as full Project participants, becoming a monitored member of the community does not guarantee full project participation. It is strongly suggested that if you wish to embrace monitored membership as a means of instruction that you do it because it is an end in itself, not because it is a stepping-stone to some other mode of project involvement. Full project participation must be actively sought. It is rarely offered and for all practical purposes is not available.

The primary benefits of monitoring accrue most to the Project participants who monitor others. This is quite intentional. For them, monitoring is an important aspect of their own formation, and in most cases a necessary one.

Obviously the benefits of being monitored vary on an individual basis and are always affected by the level of commitment and the desire to learn. The project’s instructor makes all monitoring assignments based on information provided as a part of a request to be monitored.

Note to those still considering this aspect of instruction:

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o one involved in the Submissive Wife project has any vested interest in your obedience to disciplines; you are expected to wish to be obedient. As in every aspect of the project, it is your understanding of your own needs that must provide the motive for any level of participation here. If you elect to request mentoring and subsequently discover it is more difficult than you thought, absolutely no effort will ever be made to convince you to remain obedient or to continue to participate in any way. In fact, the structure of your formation imposes a kind of encouragement for those less than fully committed to submission as it is understood here to leave the process as quickly as possible.

In all cases, if you are unable to maintain obedience to the disciplines given to you it will be assumed that you have left the formation aspect of the project—but always with our fondest wishes. Members who have left the monitoring process often remain active in our community.

Privacy statement governing all documents and other material submitted by applicants in support of a request for monitored membership: The information you submit to the Submissive Wife Project is private and confidential and will not be shared by the Project with anyone for any reason except in response to legal process (for example, a court order, search warrant or subpoena); when we have a good faith belief that there is an emergency that poses a threat to the safety of you or another person; or when necessary either to protect the rights or property of the Project, or for us to render the service you have requested.

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This site is not meant to recruit participants. If you have been given access to this page it is because you have sought and requested this information.

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This page reviewed and edited January 2006.