By way of Foseti and Mangan, F. Roger Devlin’s Rotating Polyandry – and Its Enforcers, Part 1 and Part 2.
Edit: H/T as well to Flavia for sharing this first.
I have only made my way through part one so far, but wanted to pass it on for those who haven’t already read it. I struggle to pick out quotes because every paragraph is quotable. But I’ll share a few teasers just to pique your interest:
Like other observers of the contemporary scene, the author notes the pervasiveness of female anger. “It’s impossible . . . to understand anything about women in this country today, unless you understand that a) they’re angry, and b) their anger is directed at men. Women today aren’t seeking equality. They want retribution—revenge.”
and
Langley is on firmer ground when she suggests women actually enjoy being angry because it gives them a kind of power: “Angry people not only spur those around them to walk on eggshells, they motivate them to do exactly what the angry person wants them to do. Some women stay angry long after divorcing their husbands because, as long as they’re angry and their ex-husbands feel guilty, they’ve got power over them.”
A third factor is the unrealistic expectations women now have about marriage: “their not getting the expected payoff [of] continued excitement over getting and being married.”
and reminiscent of the plot of practically every movie or TV show involving divorce (or threatened divorce):
Eventually, women do come out and tell their husbands they are “unhappy.” But this does not mean they have any intention of working on improving the marriage; women ordinarily make no overt, specific complaints until they are
100 percent done with the relationship—meaning [they] have lost all feeling. . . . It’s not uncommon for women to eventually feel less for their husbands than they would for a stranger on the street. . . . When women start being specific to men about their needs, it’s usually only to let their husbands know all the many areas in which they have failed. In other words, their husbands have already been fired; their wives are just giving them the reasons for the termination. . . . She already has another “Mr. Right” picked out or is eager to find one. She is looking for the feeling of excitement again.
Men rarely understand this. The author found that most men blamed themselves and “beat themselves up” for the things they thought they had done wrong in the marriage. Their initial response to their wives’ stated unhappiness was to try to make them happy. “In most cases, their husbands launched futile attempts to make their wives happy by being more attentive, spending more time at home and helping out around the house. Regardless of these women’s past and present complaints, the last thing they wanted was to spend more time with their husbands.” (Langley notes that wives do often complain that “my spouse doesn’t pay attention to me,” but calls this code for “I want another man.”) In fact, wives often became angry precisely over their husbands’ efforts to please them, because this increased their own feelings of guilt for infidelity.
and finally, for all of those who are convinced that it is a man’s responsibility to keep his wife loyal and happy:
Langley reports that she interviewed just two men who responded effectively to the challenge of their wives’ disloyalty.
The first man took the initiative and filed for divorce after his wife expressed on several occasions that she was unhappy and considering a separation. Before the divorce was final, his wife was trying to reconcile, but he chose not to because of her [lack of interest] in working on the marriage prior to his filing for divorce.
The second case was a man in a second marriage who had made all the usual mistakes the first time around but, unlike most husbands, managed to learn from the experience. As soon as his second wife started talking about a vague “unhappiness,” he inferred that she had met another man. He put down in writing clear conditions for remaining married to her and refused to agree to any separation, knowing it would only be a prelude to divorce. Insisting she break off her extramarital affair at once, he wrote: “I will not allow my spirit to deteriorate because of your indecision.” Rather than attempting to remove all possible grounds for his wife’s discontent, he simply told her: “complaining is no longer acceptable. If you want me to do or not do something, you must tell me what it is. I do not expect you to read my mind and I will no longer try to read yours.” This worked.
When wives start up that “I’m unhappy” routine, you have to react immediately to it very firmly or you are going to be cheated on.
If that is true then it is sad. Women should be able to withstand the discomfort of unhappiness for at least a few years without hopping in someone elses bed.
Him or me, babe. Choose now.
You’re quite right, Piage.
Dalrock:
What this really proves, again, is that women really never feel love for men. Since men actually are capable of love, though; the truly sad part is that well-meaning men will take such advice and continue to sacrifice themselves needlessly in futile hopes of preserving a relationship.
I’ve often said that the US relationship scene is like World War 1. The real men went to the trenches and sacrificed themselves heroically—getting themselves blown to pieces for no purpose at all. Meanwhile, the punks, criminals, and defectives stayed home, made money, went to parties, and screwed the soldiers’ girlfriends. No wonder the most highly-decorated US general from that war concluded; ‘War is a Racket’. Relationships today are a racket, too.
“What this really proves, again, is that women
really never feel love for men. Since men
actually are capable of love, though; the truly
sad part is that well-meaning men will take such
advice and continue to sacrifice themselves
needlessly in futile hopes of preserving a
relationship.”
What’s even worse is that that love is taken for weakness. By women and by many of the “men” in the manosphere.
I’m surprised Devlin doesn’t get mentioned more on these blogs. His analysis is spot on and he wrote this stuff a few years ago.
Paige, this is the fount of all cruelty and manipulation advocated in the ‘manosphere’: the focus on what *objectively* is and does work, rather than any morality at all.
Yes, it’s sad. It’s also true.
“If that is true then it is sad. Women should be
able to withstand the discomfort of unhappiness
for at least a few years without hopping in
someone elses bed.”
What unhappiness? The unhappiness of not being in a state of infatuation forever? That’s the equivalent of men cheating on and leaving their wives whenever they get bored of having sex with the same woman. a few years without hopping in
someone elses bed.”
What unhappiness? The unhappiness of not being in a state of infatuation forever? That’s the equivalent of men cheating on and leaving their wives whenever they get bored of having sex with the same woman.
Sorry, posting error.
Devlin is a genius. I can remember the first time I read his articles: he precisely described a bunch of things I had observed but didn’t quite connect. It was after his articles that I started to delve deeper into the MRM.
He’s written several other good articles… you can find them at http://dontmarry.wordpress.com/2009/03/24/articles-by-f-roger-devlin/
Stumbling onto Devlin’s essay was what got me into the manosphere. I’ve read that paper a couple of times now; it’s one of several items on my “reread at least every year or two” list.
@ Ecclesiastes
Morality is a good thing, but more and more I’m convinced morality is a luxury, not a necessity. It is one of the first things to go when everything goes to hell, and as more and more people suffer for their morality, it gets tougher to convince the remaining people that they should continue to throw themselves to the wolves.
In terms of Game Theory (John Nash, not Mystery), I’m growing more inclined to see morality as the “Sucker’s Choice,” at least over a single game. Either that, or people no longer think rationally past the first game. Neither option fills me with hope for mankind.
What keeps me thinking that morality may be an objective net-good for most individuals, rather than just for “society as a whole,” whatever that means, is my understanding of intra-tribal morality as being one of the better ways to raise one’s own tribe above the others (in practical terms). But that’s a lot of thought experiments for just one principle, and I’m still pondering it.
>> When wives start up that “I’m unhappy” routine, you have to react immediately to it very firmly or you are going to be cheated on.
this is why a marriage contract needs to be enforceable, particularly when there are children. it’s relatively trivial for any wife under 40 to cheat and bust a marriage. A husband should have not to be terrorized by that possibility every time the wife starts complaining about being “unhappy”. Automatic father custody would magically make a lot of wives “unhappy” a lot less. Women who can’t accept such terms are free to have children on their own dime.
“And finally, for all of those who are convinced that it is a man’s responsibility to keep his wife loyal and happy.” Reminds me of a parent cajoling a child to keep quiet, I guess this is the stage women have reached, children who need constant amusement.
Why anyone would enter a contract revokable on a whim that financially benefits the counter party is beyound me.
Devlin is a genius. Please read all of his article. The only problem is that he doesn’t write very much.
Bob,
I understand your position.
Please wear an Auburn University ball cap so that I can shoot you on sight.
“What this really proves, again, is that women really never feel love for men. Since men actually are capable of love, though; the truly sad part is that well-meaning men will take such advice and continue to sacrifice themselves needlessly in futile hopes of preserving a relationship.”
That is absolute nonsense, Eric!
Women are as capable of love as are men.
How do I know? Well, I have been happily married to my husband for 15 years now.
I love him very much.. I have never cheated, nor had thoughts of having sex with any other man..
I don’t think that I am an outlier here..
I am sure Dalrock’s wife loves him, as does Athol Kay’s wife, Dave from Hawaii’s wife, Elusive Wapiti’s wife.. to name a few..
I really do tire of this same old rubbish..
Also the fact that this nonsense it is not refuted by men who obviously have loving and caring wives.
[D: Eric and I have very different views of the world; I assume this is obvious. I of course believe women are capable of love. But I don’t deny that what the article is describing happens to far too many men, and that the men who experience it are fed a line of nonsense which makes them ripe for the picking by unscrupulous women.]
“What this really proves, again, is that women
really never feel love for men. Since men
actually are capable of love, though; the truly
sad part is that well-meaning men will take such
advice and continue to sacrifice themselves
needlessly in futile hopes of preserving a
relationship.”
That is a very strong statement. Of course some women feel love for men. What is happening is that due to external influences women are encouraged to act entitled and without honor. Women have been spoiled.
Further, the nightmare stories you hear are only but a subset of women. Many women are able to lead very loving and stable marriages (as long as they don’t pay attention to the debased culture). I do not think that men are incapable of love because some cheat on and hit their wives.
[D: The paradigm the article details is missing an explanation for why some women act that way while a large number don’t. I have questioned the “4 year” theory previously. Overall it explains the specific pathology strikingly well, but doesn’t explain the larger system.]
I do think that romantic love is mostly a European concept, however- due to our individualistic way of mating.
BTW, Dalrock, i shared the article with you and a bunch of others before Mangan or anyone else had even posted it.
[D: That rings a bell, and I saw your comments on the original.]
Kathy – ”I don’t think that I am an outlier here..”
Perhaps not so much an outlier, yet women like you are (sadly) increasingly becoming the exception to the rule.
And, the numbers of men who are either incapable of love, or who simply chose not to allow themselves to do so seems to be also on the increase. I see it as much more a shared pathology between the genders.
And yet, I do believe that it is more readily apparent among women. The perverseness of Feminism has taught many of them not only that men are not worthy of their love and loyalty, but has also encouraged them to be more vocal in their contempt for men.
Additionally, women are sold the idea that they are “entitled” to their fantasies about what love and relationships should be. They mistake infatuation with a deeper sense of love, and are more likely to be disappointed as that infatuation fades.
When the modern influences of Feminism are combined with the historical (genetic) need for women to be more “fluid” in their attachment to men (the probable HBD basis for Langly’s observations/theory), and the end result is what is being alluded to in the apparent inability of (many/most) women to love deeply and truly.
It’s really the same thing that gets stated over and over throughout the Manosphere. Feminism has poisoned the relationships between men and women. Men are not blameless. Yet, it is women who’ve been the most affected.
You and I have disagreed on this before, but I still strongly believe that if the state of gender-relations and the institutions of love and marriage are to be repaired, the most effective way to go about doing so will be to try to effect fundamental changes in women and girls first.
”I am sure Dalrock’s wife loves him, as does Athol Kay’s wife, Dave from Hawaii’s wife, Elusive Wapiti’s wife.. to name a few..
I really do tire of this same old rubbish..
Also the fact that this nonsense it is not refuted by men who obviously have loving and caring wives.”
I cannot speak for those you mention here, but I can tell you that I often get the uncomfortable feeling that I am more fortunate than most men who participate in the Manosphere. I try not to rub my good relationship with my wife in their collective faces, as I get the strong sense that many of them have tried to find love, but have either been rejected or betrayed. I don’t want to be seen as one of those insensitive bastards who tells the less fortunate men “I found a good one, and you can too”. My heart tells me that would be a lie. I am quite certain that there are far more decent guy’s, who would make good husbands and fathers than there are women who remain worthy of marriage.
So, yes, it’s “rubbish” that there are NO good ones, and no women capable of truly loving a husband. It’s just that it’s becoming the norm for (young) women to be “Just Exactly Like That”.
.”But I don’t deny that what the article is describing happens to far too many men, and that the men who experience it are fed a line of nonsense which makes them ripe for the picking by unscrupulous women.]”
Yes and I have never denied that men are taken for a ride by some women, and I have always said as much…
“Eric and I have very different views of the world; I assume this is obvious.”
(Maybe, you never outwardly challenge him on his views.. )
I could say the very same thing about myself and DH… You misunderstood my views, and were quite happy to give me a caning as a result..
But then, I am a woman.. 😉
[D: Rather than rehash this here, I’ll post a link to the exchange in question so if there is a reader who hasn’t seen it all before they can if they wish. Note how you continued to claim that DH didn’t advocate promiscuity even after she admitted it (yet again) herself. One thing I’ve never been entirely clear on is who you were telling to get off her back. I was having a very calm respectful exchange of ideas with her, as were several others. As best as I can guess, it was aimed at Anonymous Reader for calling her “Doomed Harlot Poseur” since she very loudly advocated promiscuity but chose differently for herself.]
“but I still strongly believe that if the state of gender-relations and the institutions of love and marriage are to be repaired, the most effective way to go about doing so will be to try to effect fundamental changes in women and girls first. ”
I agree with what you say there slwerner. My own daughter who is nearly fifteen is not interested in a career. She wants to marry and have children one day.. She is very good with kids… Her father and I have fostered that attitutude.. Already she is getting much attention from the boys.. She is a very pretty girl.. She knows the score, though. I have been very frank with her…In this day and age as a parent, you just have to be!.. She understands women are the gatekeepers of sex.. As we are practicing Catholics, she also understands it would be a sin to have sex outside of marriage..
Recently there was a boy that she liked (she actually went to kindergarten with him ) who lived a few streets away..They saw a bit of each other.. He was smitten with her.. She dropped him like a hotcake when he tried to come on to her.. I am very fortunate and grateful that she confides in me..
Hey Dalrock.
“I am quite certain that there are far more decent guy’s, who would make good husbands and fathers than there are women who remain worthy of marriage.”
Both genders (particularly the youngest generation which I am a part of aka Millenials) are completely brainwashed under the norm of liberalism more and more so I doubt it. Men and women both get the people they deserve. Not to mention legal marriage has become a totally liberal institution. It’s safer to get married in a conservative religious institution (the ceremony and a paper) without all of the hassle of liberalism amok in legal marriages.
(Elizabeth Smith)
[D: Hi Elizabeth. The quote was actually from slwerner, not me. As for marrying in the church, I see two problems. 1. No one has been able to name a church which takes divorce seriously and doesn’t just pay lip service. Maybe you will be the first. Churches don’t even care about divorce enough to track it. When they get data from others, they brag about a 38% divorce rate amongst devout Christians. 2) If you say you are married, as I understand it quite often the state determines this as the same as a state sanctioned marriage. I’m afraid you can’t get out that easily.]
“As we are practicing Catholics, she also understands it would be a sin to have sex outside of marriage..”
I have been lately really interested in the Catholic church and Orthodox church. I’m going to convert sometime. Any advice?
(Elizabeth Smith)
Yes I know it was from slwerner, not you. I just came to say “Hello” Dalrock.
[D: Ah, thanks!]
Also there was a book that came out that sought to debuke typical liberal claims like “Christians are hate-filled hypocrites!” — http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_37?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=christians+are+hate-filled+hypocrites&sprefix=christians+are+hate-filled+hypocrites
Read them Dalrock if you want to.
[D: Thanks. I’ll take a look when I have some time. I’m out the door now for a meeting.]
“38% divorce rate amongst devout Christians.”
There are so many of these ‘devout Christians’ here — http://www.alittleleaven.com/
We do not know that DH was actively engaged in promoting promiscuity in “real life”
The fact that she was not a slut and has had a long lasting marriage speaks volumes.. GL on the other hand, openly admitted to cheating.. And ..on a LTR whom he considered marriage material. Not in the same ballpark Dalrock.. Talk is cheap.
I would not say talking about screwing girls is actually the same as doing the deed.. Would you?
What really annoyed me was how you all ignored the positive things accomplished by DH in her role as a lawyer. As she stated:
“I believe men and women should have equal rights in domestic violence and family law cases. You didn’t mention employment discrimination, but I will throw that in too. Not only that but I have put my money where my mouth is on this one. I have prosecuted female-on-male domestic violence. I have sued for alimony on behalf of a male client (though divorce is definitely not my usual area and my client died before getting a ruling). I have also brought a lawsuit on behalf of a man who was discriminated against based on sex in his place of employment and on behalf of another man who was subjected to sexual harassment by a female supervisor (as well as a man who was subjected to sexual harassment by other men on the job). ”
I replied:
“DH, said that she supports mens rights.
As a lawyer, she has put her money where her mouth is. (which is more than you can say for a lot of women!).
She also appears to have a solid marriage..”
Not a peep from any man.. ACTIONS! You judge a person by their actions.. DH was not an advocate for promiscuity.. She has not to my knowledge actively promoted such.. What she has said is that she does not see a problem with it.. As long as a person is not cheating in a relationship.. Hardly advocating.
Be that as it may, I still do not agree with DH’S views.. Never did. I am against promiscuity for men or women.. It’s wrong, in my opinion.
I did give her kudos for her work in supporting mens rights as a lawyer, and for her solid and faithfull marriage.. Something which mostly seemed to go unacknowledged here… Curiously..
You made something out of nothing by comparing apples with oranges..
“Devlin is a genius. Please read all of his article. The only problem is that he doesn’t write very much.”
indeed, very well written and argued.
another good article from Mises:
http://mises.org/books/socialism/part1_ch4.aspx
I am also still puzzled why you do not take Eric to task for such obviously incorrect blanket statements such as this.
“What this really proves, again, is that women really never feel love for men. Since men actually are capable of love,” What he is saying is a slight on all the good women who DO love their husbands..
Yet, you are happy to jump down my throat when you think that I support a woman who advocates promiscuity???
“Eric and I have very different views of the world; I assume this is obvious.
I of course believe women are capable of love.”
Why not say so to him , then? Point out that he is wrong. You never have called him out on his views… Yet, You thought I had a different view and you were quite happy to tell me, in no uncertain terms. 😉
@Paige et al.
Women should be able to withstand the discomfort of unhappiness for at least a few years without hopping in someone elses bed.
I think many women do. I’ve personally bided my time during rough patches in my marriages while hoping that things would get better, and I’m sure you have too.
I currently know one woman who is attempting to wait out her husband’s cheating on her. (A poor decision on her part IMHO. The SOB attempted, much to my disgust, to kino me at my mother’s funeral.)
I had a long comment about morality but then I realized I was hijacking the thread so i just put it on my blog… here is the link if anyone wants to participate.
http://likeinbooks.wordpress.com/2011/06/28/on-morality/
Kathy:
Stop trying to pick fights with people. You’re derailing the thread and missing the point.
The fact that there are SOME women who can feel love for men is not the point. The fact that you feel love for your husband is not the point. The disagreement about whether DH did or did not advocate promiscuity is not the point of this thread.
What this really proves, again, is that women never feel love for men.
Cripes, really? If so, I’ve pissed away the last quarter of a century pretending to love someone.
Since men actually are capable of love, though…
I truly had my doubts about that 25 years ago as do many of the 20-something daughters of my friends who can’t seem to meet a good guy.
Look, the SMP is a nasty place. It always has been. This constant downing of women in the manosphere (as well as the constant downing of men by the Jezebels, etc.) just solidifies attitudes that actually make it harder to find a good person.
I do think that romantic love is mostly a European concept, however- due to our individualistic way of mating.
If you were to put down your Evola for a minute and pick up a Bible, you’d see that the first literary mention of romantic love comes from Song of Songs — written of course by the ancient Hebrews. Europeans didn’t catch on to romance until the late middle ages and then only for extra-marital affairs among the very rich. Read some medieval love ballads or any of the Arthurian cycle. Romantic love is what a guy felt for his liege lord’s wife.
My European grandparents had an arranged marriage as did most of their peers. Romantic love, while celebrated in song and literature, was never a European norm. It’s always been an American aspiration as arranged marriage became one of many constraints that people through off when they left the “old country”–whatever the old country was.
That last post was to Flavia….
That article/extended review of two books by Devlin was highlighted by Roissy about two years ago, and was much discussed in comments there. It’s re-echoing through the sphere now.
From Devlin’s review of Langley (part I):
“A man cannot force his wife to be faithful, but he can force her to make a clear choice; he can refuse to allow her the opportunity of having both a marriage and an affair, of continuing in a “limbo” of indecisiveness. Langley even reports that some unfaithful wives themselves “wanted their husband to give them an ultimatum—a kick in the ass, so to speak.
Delivering an ultimatum, be it noted, is incompatible with such sacred bromides as “commitment” and “unconditional love.” One lesson to be drawn from Women’s Infidelity is that husbands need to be less committed to their wives rather than more. Without legal enforcement of the marriage contract, the threat of abandonment seems to be the only thing that sometimes keeps women in line. Rather than fulminating against men who “love ’em and leave ’em,” we might do better to hold ticker-tape parades in honor of husbands who say “enough is enough” and walk out; at least wives would have an incentive to keep their men happy. In any case, the women Langley describes hardly seem to deserve undying loyalty.”
THIS. THIS RIGHT HERE.
This is the kind of thing that makes me think the MRAs have a point, and something to shout about.
KNowing what I know now, if my wife had been unfaithful or had an affair, all bets are off. We would be done. No second chances. Game over.
If my wife did this to me, starting to make vague complaints of “unhappiness”, here’s what you do. I’ve actually been through a little something like this. You have to Alpha up. She has to make a choice right now.
Ask the questions directly: Are you having an affair? OK, you say you have been faithful. If you’re “unhappy” with me, then perhaps you’d be happier without me. Pack your things and go stay with your parents. And by the way, there won’t be any more stay at home mom for you. You’ll need to get a job. Meanwhile, I’ll be doing whatever I have to do to protect myself. I’ll be separating the bank accounts, opening my own accounts. I’ll contact my lawyer right away. You let me know who your lawyer is and I’ll tell mine to call yours. The kids will have paternity tests. You live on your money, I’ll live on mine. You have one week to decide whether you want to be in this marriage.
My wife’s discontent lasted less than one day. Her unhappiness magically disappeared.
Eric–
Nonsense.
Sad nonsense.
Both Devlin’s and Daniel Amneus’s writings have been explosive in my understanding of what the dynamic of modern relationships has become. I have (in pdf form), and have read numerous times, the following by Amneus:
The Garbage Generation
The Case for Father Custody
And Devlin:
Rotating Polyandry
Sexual Utopia in Power
The Feminine Sexual Counter-Revolution and its Limitations
Every man should immerse himself in these works.
Economics in the Home
Eric has a point but it’s oversimplified. I think the whole truth is more nuanced.
Women can feel love. But they have to unplug from the current trash culture, master their hamsters, and devote themselves to something greater than themselves – a relationship, a marriage, a family.
There is lust, and there is love. Female lust manifests as hypergamy and Girls Gone Wild. Female love is cultivated and, I think, borne of submission and need. Women don’t want to make all the decisions, do all the dirty work, or be in charge. Honest women will admit they want — they NEED — a man to do those things for them. Women want their men to make them feel secure. A man secure in himself will make his woman feel secure. When women are secure and safe, they let themselves love. And given the right incentives (financial interdependence, the needs of children, familiarity) men and women can have a love that endures the tough times.
But all this depends on men who don’t need women, who accept only truly special women into their lives, and who, when push comes to shove, can and will walk away if the woman will not uphold her end of the bargain because she is “bored” or “unhappy”. In other words, men with some good old fashioned alpha — self reliance, no neediness, playful teasing, and a refusal to put up with unreasonable crap from a woman.
Eric has a point that many women aren’t of the “special” kind. They are crass, materialistic, crude, profane, vulgar, completely self-absorbed, self-centered, and, frankly, unintelligent. They, along with the current feminist culture, have birthed the players and PUAs.
The special woman is worth the long haul, but we as men have to show some value and game them to keep them off the pedestals they want (but don’t really want). I’m up for that. That’s the reality of the current Marriage 2.0 world we live in.
The alternative is the player/PUA, the carousel, and the beta males dropping out. .
paige
If that is true then it is sad. Women should be able to withstand the discomfort of unhappiness for at least a few years without hopping in someone elses bed.
I’ll go further and point out that people should be able to withstand the discomfort of unhappiness without resorting to behavior that hurts other people. But we live in a very pain-averse culture now. This was brought home to me a couple of years ago when I had to have a particular medical procedure done. Nothing serious, but I had an IV stuck in a small vein as part of the proceedings. No big deal, I’ve donated blood off and on since college years. But this time, the nurse-tech gave me a tiny injection with a needle that reminded me of a mosquito bite first – so that the skin tissue around the site would be numbed prior to IV insertion. I was astounded, really, how much of a sissy does one have to be to expect that?
My micro-example is reflected outward. Everyone is supposed to be happy all the time; look at the overprescribing of SSRI meds such as Prozac, Xanax, etc. Pretty much any given doctor will hand out such happy pills on request, so far as I can tell. (I don’t spend much time around doctors, so someone please correct me if this is wrong). I see cereal boxes with slogans such as “Get The Life You Deserve”, for crying out loud.
Given a society as pleasure oriented as this one is, and given the promotion of haaaapiness in emo-porn that too many women consume, it really should not be a surprise that some number of women are unable to deal with any amount of unhappiness. They’ve never been taught by anyone how to do such a thing; not by their mothers, not by their teachers, certainly not by anything they see on TV or read in the likes of Cosmo, etc.
It’s no accident that poll after poll shows women are less happy than ever, and it’s no accident that American women lead the world in prescriptions for mood-altering drugs. Because as a culture, we teach that physical and emotional pain are things that must be avoided, and wiped away with drugs if need be as quickly as possible rather than endured, dealt with, and worked through.
It is trite to rant about the culture of instant gratification, but it’s still true. Clearly, Dalrock, an ability to defer gratification must be very high on the list of required properties in any potential mate (man or woman). There are various ways this can be displayed, I’m sure, such as low number of sexual partners, ability to manage money with care, and so forth. Others will have more ideas.
Impulse control / delay of gratification is clearly of great importance now.
I don’t fully agree with Eric, but I’m going to defend him a bit here.
Women’s love is DIFFERENT from men’s . It’s not that they don’t love, it’s that love is a less personal experience to women.
A woman chooses a man based on his traits, and maintains a relationship with a man based on his continued performance. It’s not personal. Who he is, isn’t nearly as importand as what he does.
Male love is based more closely on the person. It’s not her job, it’s HER. It’s not her cooking, it’s HER.
Now when a relationship ends, men almost always take longer to ‘get over it.’ Men look at a woman who swore to love him forever, and 3 months later she is unrecognizable to him. She’s not the same person, and it’s true… she’s altering herself to be compatible with the next man in her life. A woman starting a relationship will change her religion, her hair, her diet, and her leisure activities to suit the new man in her life.
A study has even shown that women pick up accents much quicker than men!
This creates natural bitterness: “She must never have loved me. It must all have been a lie.”
In fact, all that happened was he no longer met the requirements, and someone else did.
This is ‘most and some’. Most women, behave this way, some don’t. Most men behave that way, some don’t.
Once you realize the list of traits you are being loved for, you can cultivate them. Or, like me, you can decide it’s not really worth the effort jumping through hoops to please a woman.
I’m dealing with a friend who is in a divorce. Everyone saw it coming years ago, except him. He had quit his job to care for their son, who had kidney failure. She was the main wage earner. Problem was, she was from a conservative Hispanic background.
Ever talked to a conservative hispanic woman about her attitudes on men who don’t work? Anyway, I tried to explain to him years before: “You don’t meet her standards to remain married. She’s gonna run of with some guy, just because he’s employed, and you’re going to be flat on your @$$.”
He didn’t listen. “She loves me!” He would say. Nope buddy, she loves what you used to do. You don’t do it now, and she holds nothing but contempt now.
Anyway, he’s now living with his parents at 42, and about to be taken for a ride by the Divorce Industry… it’s his Second Marriage… sigh… some people never learn.
Oak- I would agree that women fall in-love with men because of their masculinity which is represented through certain behaviors. I would argue that women *stay* in-love through an act of the will…a willingness to consistently put their husband first in their minds and hearts. Masculine traits will wax and wane with time and so the mans behavior will not always *compel* infatuated feelings. That is why the wife must take some responsibility for what she allows herself to dwell on.
It is possible to maintain infatuated love even as husbands become old and frail and their masculinity naturally wanes. The movie “On Golden Pond” shows a lovely example:
@Kathy,
I would not say talking about screwing girls is actually the same as doing the deed.. Would you?
For a Catholic, you should know that this guy would. He’s a pretty big deal, I would think.
Paige, that’s a great clip from a great movie. Makes me tear up!
Thanks for your additional words as well. It rounds out my comments.
“For a Catholic, you should know that this guy would. He’s a pretty big deal, I would think.”
Adultery is not the same as fornication. The meaning of the words of the Lord should matter to you, I would think.
If a woman can’t find a guy in her early-to-mid twenties, she’s doing something wrong. Women in that age category have a HUGE advantage because all men want youth and fertility, and early-twentysomething girls have that in spades. The most likely problem is her hypergamy and her inner hamster that makes her beta peers are invisible to her.
My advice to such a girl would be: “Find a guy about ten years older who isn’t alpha but has clearly demonstrated that he can succeed in the world. And stop riding the cocks of young alphas, for Christ’s sake!” Of course, she wouldn’t take it. Her inner hamster just wouldn’t permit it.
Let’s not forget this article, which probably gave Devlin more media exposure than anything he has ever written:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/new-dating-game?page=1
I kind of wonder what he’s doing nowadays – as far as I can tell, his latest online articles are from 2008. I really liked all his writings, I discovered them on Roissy’s blog.
Paige–
You are very wise about this stuff.
As well I think men in American popular entertainment and other culture are more or less given this message about their responsibility to WORK at remaining in love with their wives and keeping it a strong relationship. Women not so much. Instead they are told in our culture that they fall in and OUT of love, that those are natural phenomenon and that they should follow their hearts to be happy. Feminism and to a good degree even conservative popular culture relieves women responsibility for remaining in love or even married to the father of their children.
Women’s love and continuing love as well is treated as an act of nature by our culture. Men’s remaining in love once married and even to a degree in LTR’s lest he break her heart is treated as his responsibility. It’s really a pretty profound difference that most people somehow seem to never really see.
Paige–
Obviously I’m saying that YOU don’t have that view about a married woman’s responsibilities in remaining in love, but you are unusual in that I think.
“What this really proves, again, is that women really never feel love for men. Since men actually are capable of love, though; the truly sad part is that well-meaning men will take such advice and continue to sacrifice themselves needlessly in futile hopes of preserving a relationship.”
This is something that I know is true and have adjusted my views and expectations of women. I came to this conclusion a few months ago. Most of what you see in society today could not happen with out this lack of love.
@Ecclesiastes
The world men live in is without compassion and mercy. And each day a new way to destroy men is made into a new factor of the man’s world.Any woman here try if you will Kathy included your husband just said he is not happy and thinks he should not have got married. You are removed from your home and kids removed from your contact and any protest is seen as abuse. Now get a job and remain civil and productive to continue to support your exhusband and his new family.
The article itself shows that a man lobving his wife and trying to actually please her is a fool. Not supposed to be that way but it is. It is the thing that murder suicides are made of. A man that lives his life based on love and depends on treating his wife right as a way of ensuring a secure and sound marriage is delusional. And our society will ensure such men are punished and seen as abusive. .
@Kathy
I can assure you that the young women reading this site and grerps (among others) are just as real as any young woman you may have met face to face. Spreading a vile message over the Internet is not less harmful than spreading it face to face, since via the web one can influence far more people. You’ve dug yourself a hole here. It would be best if you simply admitted it or at least let it go. You had a momentary lapse, and went to bat for team woman instead of team moral. It happens. 99% of the time I’m right there with you on what you post.
I’ve responded to Eric before, most recently here. I have also explained why I don’t think his suggestion to marry a foreign woman is an effective solution to the problem of modern feminist culture and misandrist marriage/custody laws. As for the specific question of women not being able to love, I very recently challenged two unmarried Christian women bloggers who made the same basic argument as Eric. The post is titled: Are the vast majority of women truly incapable of experiencing reciprocal love and attraction?<.htma>
Detinennui32:
Of course, you’re correct. The NAWALTers here like taking what I say out of context and then heaping shaming language upon it.
They’re always trying to argue, as Kathy does pointedly, that ‘the exception proves the rule’. They find one, or two, or a dozen, cases of women who ‘aren’t like that’ and conveniently sweep under the rug the 99.9% of women who are ‘like that’.
It also has nothing to do with ‘differing world views’. The facts speak for themselves. We don’t have higher rates of divorce, abortion, and single-motherhood than everywhere else in the world because American women are so loving, giving, and caring towards men and children. We don’t have men going MGTOW or leaving them for alternatives for that reason, either.
Anybody who doubts this should spend a minute or two at the newsstand checking out women’s magazines or the ‘Lifetime Channel’, See how many times you see men portrayed in any kind of positive light. Or, if you prefer reality, check out the divorce statistics and see which gender initiates them overwhelmingly most often. Or ask some of your single male friends how many girls they’ve dumped as opposed to how many times girlfriends have dumped them. Nine times more often, the latter, according to some relationship experts.
Dalrock:
True, we’ve had discussions about foreign women before, but one question that’s never been answered by you or anybody else here: “What makes American women a better option?”
Doug:
‘Nonsense. Sad nonsense.’
Thank you for condensing everything you normally say into three words.
@Eric
This isn’t how I would frame it. If you can find a quality woman from wherever, then go with it. The problem with foreign women is that very often once a man marries her and brings her to the US, she morphs into as selfish and entitled a woman as any woman in the US. As I have said before, the most shrewish wives I’ve seen have all been women from the Philippines married to US Navy men. Just my observation of a very small data set, and of course NAPWALT. If you are planning on living in the US, an American woman does have one significant advantage in that you already know her baseline after being immersed in American culture. But my main point is wherever you go to look for a wife, qualify her very carefully and consider how well she is fit to be married to in the legal and cultural environment you will be living in.
>> detinennui32 says: Without legal enforcement of the marriage contract, the threat of abandonment seems to be the only thing that sometimes keeps women in line.
if an ex-husband has to divide his property 50/50, and then gets his wages garnished at $1500/mo, the threat of abandonment has no teeth. “Game” and pseudo-alpha attitudes listed above are wishful thinking.
My advice to such a girl would be: “Find a guy about ten years older who isn’t alpha but has clearly demonstrated that he can succeed in the world. And stop riding the cocks of young alphas, for Christ’s sake!” Of course, she wouldn’t take it. Her inner hamster just wouldn’t permit it.
The young women I was speaking of aren’t carousel riders or alpha chasers. HOWEVER, ten years older is a bit of a stretch for most of them. Of those who would look for an older guy, ten years is the biggest age gap they would tolerate.
Interestingly, About a year aog, I encountered a guy who was looking for a wife among this group of young women. He was in his early forties, a tall, good-looking professional and, I strongly suspect, a former man-whore. He decided that he wanted to settle down and have some kids with a woman young enough to have several. Some friends of mine and I began trotting out women in their early thirties (not carousel riders, mind you, really decent women who had mnissed the boat for various reasons) who wanted marriage and kids. They were “too old for” him. The mid-twenties girls wo he wanted to start a big famiy with viewed him as an “old man” and also assumed a man-whore past for him. It seems a guy can put himself on the shelf as easily as a woman can by not being realistic.
“If you want me to do or not do something, you must tell me what it is. I do not expect you to read my mind and I will no longer try to read yours.”
This was my husband’s policy from the start of our marriage, before there was any crisis to avert. I suspect this is the reason why there haven’t been any major crises.
It does work.
Everyone is supposed to be happy all the time; look at the overprescribing of SSRI meds such as Prozac, Xanax, etc. Pretty much any given doctor will hand out such happy pills on request, so far as I can tell.
An interesting trend. When my mom was dying, I went to the doctor’s office to have a respiratory infection treated. It was one of those things you pick up while visiting the hospital and then just can’t kick. The PA suggested that I was having trouble fighting the infection because I was stressed and offered Xanax. Apparently, dealing with a dying parent is not supposed to be stressful.
I refused the scrip because I wanted to grieve normally.
I will like to chime in and mention that is not that American women are naturally bitches, they had been raised for the last 50 years to become so. To use a literary example Miss Havisham is Feminism and the women are Estella. Is Estella bad in herself or she had been coached into becoming a heartless harpy by the bitter Miss Havisham? In the text is clear that Estella is trapped into her upbringing unhappy and miserable, some moments she does realizes that she is in the wrong, but the hamster that Havisham has feed her to is too big and brings her under. So I think this is the big problem that modern women face, feminism and modernity had suppressed their capacity of love and sacrifice and substitute for entitlement and pleasure seeking, YMMV.
Probably posted this before… when mama’s “unappy,” ain’t no one happy.
Two more gems from countercurrents:
The Feminine Sexual Counter-Revolution & its Limitations, Part 1 http://www.counter-currents.com/2011/06/the-feminine-sexual-counter-revolution-part-1/
The Feminine Sexual Counter-Revolution & its Limitations, Part 2 http://www.counter-currents.com/2011/06/the-feminine-sexual-counter-revolution-part-2/
@anonymous
“if an ex-husband has to divide his property 50/50, and then gets his wages garnished at $1500/mo, the threat of abandonment has no teeth. “Game” and pseudo-alpha attitudes listed above are wishful thinking.”
Yup. Are there cases where you can save a marriage when you adopt some “game” and alpha characteristics? I think there are.
But there are also cases where you are just dealing with crazy. Childhood issues that are now running free as an adult. Couple that with knowing some gals who have already divorced their husbands and cleaned up with six figure settlements and significant child support. And away they go.
The most interesting part in this for me is that guys I know in this situation (including me) who make a good living still keep the family home, still save money, still act as the responsible parent, are now the most virulently opposed to remarriage. Because in my neighborhood these newly divorced women quickly start blowing through the money and get tired of the pump and dump and then start looking for the next great guy. Most of these gals are prime candidates for having nothing saved come retirement. It’s all vacations, clothes, and nice cars. It’s almost like they share a book. Once the divorce is final go out and buy expensive luxury ride. Then take wonderful vacations (several) the first year and subsequent years. Shop for new clothes constantly. Dump the kids on the ex as much as possible so they can go out and party with all their newly freed girlfriends.
Until they start running low on money or get tired of being treated as a one night stand. Then the change that occurred in their late 20’s happens again. They are now “NOT LIKE THAT ANYMORE” and think they deserve special treatment again for their transformation. And the anger directed at anyone who points out that they really don’t have anything to offer a man with options is astonishing. I see a middle aged out of shape woman in rapidly deteriorating financial condition with a huge sense of entitlement. They look in the mirror and see perfection.
Who wants to even waste one ounce of energy “gaming” that? Not me.
“This isn’t how I would frame it. If you can find a quality woman from wherever, then go with it. The problem with foreign women is that very often once a man marries her and brings her to the US, she morphs into as selfish and entitled a woman as any woman in the US. As I have said before, the most shrewish wives I’ve seen have all been women from the Philippines married to US Navy men. Just my observation of a very small data set, and of course NAPWALT. If you are planning on living in the US, an American woman does have one significant advantage in that you already know her baseline after being immersed in American culture. But my main point is wherever you go to look for a wife, qualify her very carefully and consider how well she is fit to be married to in the legal and cultural environment you will be living in.”
Quoted from Dalrock
The real damage that feminism as done to western society in general is remove any checks on base behavior. It is not the NAWALT in play for in a natural state all women are like that. That is why a foriegn woman that lives in an environment with responsibilities (real checks on primal female behavior) are good wife material for a man immersed in western culture. But as you stated normal female behavior without any legal,or social checks will revert to the childlike selfishness we see today. The concepts of game and the PUA understands this in women. It is refered to as hypergamy. It is real and normal for a woman. Just as the hamster is real to give a resemblance of being civilized. the purpose of MGTOW is to punish women to making the choice of keeping hypergamy in check. Amazingly Dalrock has an article that shows the point in a promarriage setting. https://dalrock.wordpress.com/2011/05/22/greasing-the-marriage-rope/. No amount of reasoning and conversation will change the nature of women. It is wrong ,stupid and basically irresponsible. (Maybe why men that treat women well as in pedistalizing them as good seem to get such contempt) The fix to feminism is going to require involutary spinterhood on a national scale. Then the selfish behavior of women will be civil as a results of the changed invironment and not because of some feminist enlightenment. Only a beta chump could believe in that.(see Dear Women)
I’m not sold on foreign women as an option. Bring them here, and you get double exposure of a no-fault divorce, plus the government will hold you financially responsible for them as part of the immigration process. I haven’t researched this a whole lot, but I can easily see a layer of alimony layered on top of child support to keep the foreign ex-wife off the government dole.
If you marry and stay in her country, it may be difficult to determine your legal rights. And in the relatively lawless 3rd World, where an older “rich” American might be marry 10 years or more his junior, there is no telling what happens if the wife grows unhappy yet is locked into a marriage. She will probably have a very big extended family, with hundreds of contacts, any of whom can disappear an undesirable husband, esp. a white foreigner, in a xenophobic country such as Thailand.
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@Stephenie Rowling:
“I will like to chime in and mention that is not that American women are naturally bitches, they had been raised for the last 50 years to become so.”
You have this backwards. Whether male of female we are all born selfish, introspective, self obsessed creatures. We are raised to become “good” men and women. All women are bitches by nature. Just as all men are assholes by nature. For the last 50 years far to many American women were not raised to be other than bitches. Here is the rub for the last 20 or so years American men have not been raised not to be assholes.
Not a pretty picture, nor a pleasant place to be, but this is where we all find ourselves
Athol Kay: Married Man Sex Life says:
June 27, 2011 at 8:21 pm
When wives start up that “I’m unhappy” routine, you have to react immediately to it very firmly or you are going to be cheated on.
Don’t know about all the rest of you guys, but I’ve been doing basically all the work that’s possible for some time now, certainly as much as what’s in the MMSL Primer male action plan. But I’m only human, and there are limits. As chris rock said, you can’t make a woman happy, it’s impossible. Meaning that ultimately if she’s unhappy, it’s her life to be pulled together, and she has to do it. I’ll listen if she wants to talk candidly, but as the original post to this thread said (and my experience agrees), that doesn’t mean you’ll get the real answers. I’ll try to read between the lines too but I can’t be expected to do that perfectly.
Game or action plans or no, there are just some things that aren’t in a man’s control. If it happens, it happens. That which doesn’t kill me, will just make me a cougar player who won’t recommit.
@ Jim
That which doesn’t kill me, will just make me a cougar player who won’t recommit.
Priceless and spot on.
@Jim
The goal is not to make HER happy that is a sucker deal. The goal is to have her make a decision that is in her best interest. That decision also means to treat those in her life well. Even if you need to define it for her. Otherwise take no crap from her for she has no capacity to understand empathy from others.
I wonder if there is a chance that our society will outgrow the self-destructive behavior of the last decades. I doubt if it will happen in my lifetime; and even if it did, I’m too old and disappointed to take advantage of it. More important, I’m too distrustful and I want to keep what I have earned and saved for myself … TO myself.
My only viable answer is to turn my back on the “mink-lined trap” entirely and Go My Own Way. That could be regarded as a shame, because I could have been a good provider, a caring provider, and a loving husband for some one of those women who were “too good” for the likes of me. Hope their cats bring them comfort in the long, cold, lonely future.
“Oak- I would agree that women fall in-love with men because of their masculinity which is represented through certain behaviors. I would argue that women *stay* in-love through an act of the will…a willingness to consistently put their husband first in their minds and hearts. Masculine traits will wax and wane with time and so the mans behavior will not always *compel* infatuated feelings. That is why the wife must take some responsibility for what she allows herself to dwell on.
It is possible to maintain infatuated love even as husbands become old and frail and their masculinity naturally wanes. The movie “On Golden Pond” shows a lovely example”
It’s just absurd to expect feelings of infatuation to last. Infatuation is based on a difference in SMV. A woman can only stay infatuated with a man when his SMV is so far above her’s that he literally doesn’t need her. Why would a man in that situation commit to that woman? What does love even mean in that situation, how can there be any love without need?
A perfect example is George Clooney who was recently in the news for dumping his beautiful younger girlfriend. He is at the pinnacle of the glamor industry. To think that he can “love” any one woman is a pipe dream because beyond casual enjoyment he doesn’t need any particular woman. This girl started talking about marriage and children and he casually dumped her just like that. A woman most men would thank their lucky stars to get.
What women want, as always is to get their cake and eat it too. They want a guy who is literally so attractive that he has no need for her, and they want him to pick her. Why? Why exactly would a man pick you if he doesn’t need you? Why would he commit? Love doesn’t come out of nowhere.
@ Jim: “Game or action plans or no, there are just some things that aren’t in a man’s control. If it happens, it happens. That which doesn’t kill me, will just make me a cougar player who won’t recommit.”
@ greyghost: “The goal is not to make HER happy that is a sucker deal. The goal is to have her make a decision that is in her best interest. That decision also means to treat those in her life well. Even if you need to define it for her. Otherwise take no crap from her for she has no capacity to understand empathy from others.”
Two of the best quotes I’ve seen in a long time.
I’m done putting up with crap and unreasonable demands from women. I’m done begging, groveling, supplicating, and wasting my time and money. I’ve worked too hard and learned too much truth in the manosphere ever to go back to beta. If my wife ever does go batguano crazy, I’ll never marry or even commit again. This culture is toxic sludge and most women are totally infected by it.
@ Eric: June 28, 2011 at 4:32 pm:
Spot on. The exceptions do prove the rule. Theer are some women who are loving, giving and caring to their LTRs or husbands. But what Kathy describes are exceptions. NAWALT, sure, but MOST women ARE exactly like that. And women like Kathy are increasingly becoming outliers.
The good, valuable ones are fewer and farther between than ever. The culture is infecting more and more of even the good ones, those who were raised in the Judeo-Christian ethic of monogamous marriage for life. That’s why the Christian divorce rate mirrors that of the overall population (Dalrock covers this in his next post).
Eric, re your last paragraph. When you take the red pill it’s just amazing what you see in the culture. Men — good men, hardworking men, honorable men — are put upon, laughed at, scorned, called names, and shunned — all because of our gender, and all because we aren’t exactly what the woman in our lives wanted at that particular time. In culture, men are portrayed AT BEST as well-meaning idiots, hapless know nothings, and bumbling fools (See “Everybody Loves Raymond” or any Lifetime movie). Sometimes we’re portrayed as lovable womanizers and chauvinist pigs (but women are OK with that as long as he’s hot and well built with great pecs, abs and butt). See “The Bachelor” for an example of that. At worst, the culture shows us as brutalizers of women, wife abusers, child abusers, sexual harassers, adulterers, pedophiles, pederasts, layabouts, drunkards, drug addicts, thieves and dishonest frauds. Any man in a professional capacity or as a politician is almost always portrayed as greedy, dishonest or corrupt.
detinennui32 says: In culture, men are portrayed AT BEST as well-meaning idiots, hapless know nothings, and bumbling fools (See “Everybody Loves Raymond” or any Lifetime movie).
The betas.
>Sometimes we’re portrayed as lovable womanizers and chauvinist pigs
The alphas.
>At worst, the culture shows us as brutalizers of women, wife abusers, child abusers, sexual harassers, adulterers, pedophiles, pederasts, layabouts, drunkards, drug addicts, thieves and dishonest frauds.
The omegas.
Yup, that about sums it up. Feminism has taken women’s dads-vs-cads complex and come up with its solution: Rig the system so you can just take what you want from each man. Cads to have sex and be biological fathers, betas to invent their iPhones and pay their bills, omegas to pick up the trash and fix your car. And the approved public image of each type of man reflect mostly what they want from each one, not the person’s true character.
Here is an interesting question, maybe. 🙂 of personal interest to me. This is in regards to screening/qualifying a woman for the wife position/NAWALT and these topics. It may provide a case example about some of what is being discussed here.
You may or may not remember my previous postings in comments, wherein I explained that I got burned through marriage, a cheating wife and divorce the first go around. I say with all candor that I chose horribly and I made very foolish mistakes when I was young. Here is a partial list of the poor selection I made. Many of you will cringe and say I’m an idiot. I was an idiot. Guilty. 100%.
Wife 1:
Prelude:
My wife’s mother was the product of an out of wedlock birth in an age when you just didn’t do that. It’s been downhill from there. Another man stepped up married Grandma and raised my wife’s mother as his own. His reward was to be verbally and physically abused [witnessed it with my own eyes] for his efforts.
1. Wife’s parents were divorced.
2. Wife’s mother confirmed BPD type, big feminist [men are objects to be used to serve] engaged in repeated infidelity, abandoned family and left children behind for another man she eventually married. Engaged in rather depraved swinging lifestyle for a time from what I gather. Has a definite anger towards men that just seeps out of her pores.
3. All daughters in the family came equipped with horrendous entitlement complexes and man bashing attitudes far out of proportion to the qualities they offered, though this wasn’t readily apparent in my wife until a couple years in. Verbally she would state she rejected her mother’s thinking and behavior. I cringe to this day at the things I witnessed her sisters say and do to their hapless husbands in front of everyone at Christmas and such. Not to mention me.
4. All daughters chose to marry the proverbial beta nice guy provider type [self included] after having literally run the gamut of thug boyfriends. In my defense I can only say I did not know this and was actively deceived about this. One of wife’s exes did time for attempted murder of a police officer. This was in middle school for Christ’s sake.
5. These were not trailer people, though their behavior was. This was actually an upper middle class family living in a neighborhood populated with doctors, lawyers, successful businessmen and senior government employees.
6. Found out much later that Schizophrenia has something of a history in the family but do not think this was any factor. Just another log on the fire so to speak.
My Background – [Naive Beta Sucker]
1. Parents married forever, still are. I have one immediate relative that is divorced [besides me] and the family is none too happy about it as a whole.
2. I was raised that you get married once, stay married and work your butt of to take care of the wife and kids. You don’t go hanging out in bars, you dang sure never go to a strip club and if you’re running late on your way home from work, you call so your wife won’t worry.
3. The idea of getting divorced seemed inconceivable. I see the same qualities in the men wife’s sisters chose to marry. [One after prior popping out a kid to a random dude.]
4. My Stupidest Mistakes: being very naive and believing that people, and women in particular were fundamentally good. In fact I had remarked at one point “I didn’t know people acted like this. I can’t believe parents act like that..” when I became fully aware of the situation. But it was too late, I was already married. Here is the real dumb thing I did, I got her pregnant [at this point allegedly I did, until genetic test says one way or another], [lambast me – I deserve it] and I worked hard to do the right thing. I left college, got a job, worked hard, promotions followed, VP at a young age, started my own firm, etc. to provide. I should have walked and just cut a monthly check for CS, but that’s not what a responsible caring guy does.
End Result: Wife cheated multiple times I know of, and probably more than she admitted. Not sure if one or more kids are mine or not. I got the kids, house, no alimony, so in the aftermath, things could have been worse. I felt like I went through 15 years of a lunatic asylum where I was the only one that didn’t know what game was being played. When it all went down, I had to really fight against my upbringing and personal distaste for divorce and make a hard call that was in the best interest of my kids and put an end to this crazy.
Now to the larger point: NAWALT
Not all women are as horrible as my situation, and not all women are as grounded and apparently well adjusted as Mrs. Dalrock. So that leaves probably the vast majority somewhere in between and that’s probably the more realistic assessment of the market. As a fool who would still take his chances on another woman, I find it extremely difficult to screen for the LTR I am interested in. If you want to find red flags, my God, they are there in abundance, so much so that one stops thinking in terms of finding someone without crazy, but in terms of what degree of crazy/baggage can I live with?
I don’t know if the screening [even with my hard won new experience] is really leading anywhere but to the same end, with perhaps a less dramatic conclusion than the first time around. I have been heavily reading Keoni, Athol, Dalrock, Badger, etc.and feel like I got a new education that snapped me out of my naive little world. It helped a lot to come to terms with the dumb choices I made, and to understand the why and how of the way in which a lot of things transpired.
But in light of all this information, the general state of things, etc. I have a very hard time having any confidence at all in either my ability effectively screen or given that the demographic I am in for dating: women 28-38, that there is something just fundamentally weird or statistically anomalous about women towards the end of that age range who have never married. I mean, my situation stunk, but it’s not a statistical anomaly that it happened.
You know what would be really helpful for recovering betas? Athol has that post about wife selection and Dalrock has his on interviewing a prospective wife, Badger has lots of good hints, but it would be really, really useful if the critical thinkers of the manosphere put their heads together and came up with something like that for those of us on the second go round to give serious consideration to.
I know you can’t do an easy ’10 point checklist and you’re golden’ kind of thing but the dynamic is so different the second time around, what with many in the dating pool divorced, single moms, kids, no kids, multiple cats, etc. Your not going to be finding a virgin, etc. It would be helpful I would think to have something along the lines of “Hey Mr. 35-45, You messed it up the first time around, and you’re not 21 anymore, so here are things you need to consider for a prospective LTR/Wife given the new reality of your current situation…”
Sorry if I rambled. Hopefully at least some of the first hand info might be of use or spark further discussion. I think the real burning angst of a lot of the manosphere talk is about the fact that
1. No one wants to choose poorly [like I did]
2. Because no one wants to go down in flames or fail at marriage.
I think that is where a lot of the anger, hand wringing and finger pointing generates from. Men, by and large want to be married [a large number] but no one wants to play Russian roulette. Maybe I’m still just too beta and naive. I keep working on it.
Thanks,
Outstanding comment PuzzledTraveller. I’m proud of the fact you got out of the typical american marriage with your children. That is all that matters. As for screening for a long term relationship, hate to tell you but it is not there. Your experience has iopened your eyes. The red flags you see now where there and are there for all women. it is normal. At one time we had rules in society and culture that punished or shamed women that didn’t control their red flags. We called them ladies and respected such women with chivalry and privilages with marriage. feminism removed those checks. Those checks have been removed from all levels of society from church to the law itself.
I make this comment to you PuzzledTraveller to tell you to ease your mind and clear you soul from your search and desire for something that is not there to be had.At best in todays world you will find a wamoan you can enjoy sex with that is it for you have children and there is nothing else you need a woman for. The emotional desire you clearly have to love a woman that can appreciate you has a human being that makes sacrifices for others will never be found with todays women or ever. Women never really had the ability to do that but they could and will show appreciation if it appears they will lose social status if the look ungrateful to a good man. That is how women think and always have.
Read the responses to the logic and reason of Dalrocks articles and comments from the female commenters.
The sad part is if they had any sense, this is exactly the second husband women should look for. His first marriage proved he was a good one, and the breakup was the wife’s fault. How many guys like this are just floating around out there at age 40ish, with resources and still willing to commit?
Yet that’s not the case. Husbands are passe, what’s in is taking only what you want from each man, like a buffet. So divorcees are just as likely to get alpha louts to shack up with on their ex-husbands’ dime, until they need money and look for another beta. We live in a screwed up world.
“Female love is cultivated and, I think, borne of submission and need. Women don’t want to make all the decisions, do all the dirty work, or be in charge. Honest women will admit they want — they NEED — a man to do those things for them. Women want their men to make them feel secure. A man secure in himself will make his woman feel secure. When women are secure and safe, they let themselves love. And given the right incentives (financial interdependence, the needs of children, familiarity) men and women can have a love that endures the tough times.”
@detinennui32 what you describe above sounds like it could get conditional. If my love for my husband is based on the things he does for me—make decisions, be in charge, do the dirty work—then if he loses status or the ability to work, would I then “fall out of love” with him? Not on your life, because In my own personal case, I love my husband for who he is. Yes, I’m attracted to him—but I also love his integrity, character, intelligence, razor-sharp wit—just to name a few of many other qualities.
What he does or provides to me (If he lost his job, or was injured and paralyzed) wouldn’t change who he is. I’d still be with him 150% because of those inherent qualities that he possesses—the unique person that he is and I love. I’d still completely support him and give him what he needs. I’m in it for the long haul. I don’t need the incentives. I just want to be with him. He’s my complete match in this crazy world. It’s him, or nobody.
“But all this depends on men who don’t need women, who accept only truly special women into their lives, and who, when push comes to shove, can and will walk away if the woman will not uphold her end of the bargain because she is “bored” or “unhappy”. In other words, men with some good old fashioned alpha — self reliance, no neediness, playful teasing, and a refusal to put up with unreasonable crap from a woman.”
And this is an added issue—if the woman looks for her man to make her feel secure (as you’ve described above), then she can then blame him for making her feel “bored” and “unhappy.” She needs to find her own security and strength in herself. That way boredom and unhappiness is her own problem to solve. This model of love you’re describing seems to put all the burden on the man.
[D: Welcome. I agree that it is a mistake for men to take on that burden or for women to expect them to. I’ve argued the same about her fidelity and keeping her vows. Ironically this rubs some of the more hardcore game guys the wrong way. To me it is simply the right frame to begin with, and should make marriage game easier and make more sense.
I took a look at your blog. Very interesting. I’ll have to read more when I have time.]
@ slwerner: “I cannot speak for those you mention here, but I can tell you that I often get the uncomfortable feeling that I am more fortunate than most men who participate in the Manosphere. I try not to rub my good relationship with my wife in their collective faces, as I get the strong sense that many of them have tried to find love, but have either been rejected or betrayed. I don’t want to be seen as one of those insensitive bastards who tells the less fortunate men “I found a good one, and you can too”. My heart tells me that would be a lie. I am quite certain that there are far more decent guy’s, who would make good husbands and fathers than there are women who remain worthy of marriage.
So, yes, it’s “rubbish” that there are NO good ones, and no women capable of truly loving a husband. It’s just that it’s becoming the norm for (young) women to be “Just Exactly Like That”.”
I am so with you on this, slwerner. I stumbled onto the manosphere about 4 months ago, was force-fed a red pill, and was astonished at the stories I read of man, dozens upon hundreds of them, being screwed over royally in divorce court, all because their wives were “unhappy” or “bored” or just didn’t want to be married anymore or had affairs. These are good and honest men, pouring their hearts out over the abuse they’ve suffered at the hands of ex wives. They are horror stories. What also opiened my eyes is just how well and truly screwed I would be if my wife ever went off the rails.
But equally horrific, and what Dalrock is doing yeoman’s work in, is that the post mortems are not so great for women. It’s not all “Eat Pray Love” and Stella getting her groove back. In fact, THOSE are the outliers. For most women it’s cats, spinsterhood, and grinding loneliness. And those stories are starting to come out.
I think it’s funny how women in the MSM complain about their lazy, fat, do-nothing husbands, and how their boyfriends won’t commit. Uhh, ladies, given how many of these men have been treated, why should they commit? You’ve told them you don’t need them. You’ve told them you’re independent, a Modern Woman (TM).
How often have we heard “where have all the good men gone”? But, as it is with so many women, they don’t say what they really mean. What they really mean is “where is the alpha man that I was promised once I dumped my useless beta?
How often have we heard “I just want a nice guy who will treat me right”? But what many women really mean is “I want an alpha man who is hot and good looking and fabulously wealthy and who will be nice TO ME and commit TO ME and have sex ONLY WITH ME.” .
@detinennui32
“I want an alpha man who is hot and good looking and fabulously wealthy and who will be nice TO ME and commit TO ME and have sex ONLY WITH ME.” .
When a man actually does that he is no longer alpha and will be dumped. What’s to stop it from happening?
@ Puzzled: I’m sorry to say it, but I am afraid that at the current stage of the game, greyghost and Jim are right. This is not your fault, but I think the best you can probably hope for is a series of LTRs. Were I in your situation, I certainly would not marry again in this environment. I would not marry a foreign woman and let her marinate in this culture. I would not commit not invest. I would do all I could to keep my options open. The risks of marriage now are simply too great, and losing the gamble too costly in dollars and emotion. LTRs are probably the way to go. If she breaks up with you for whatever reason, she can’t take your money, and the breakup is relatively clean and rapid.
I hate giving this advice. It triuly pierces my heart that our country has come to this. But it’s the advice I would follow if I were in your shoes.
A specific example in relation to PuzzledTraveller is the difficulty of assessing the proper relationship between the potential wife’s parents. You can find out as much as you can by asking the girl, but you can never quite figure out the dynamic between her parents. No matter how submissive the girl may be, if the father is a “Yes, dear” pussy, then all bets are off.
@PuzzledTraveller
Thanks for your very powerful comment. Your honest introspection on an extremely painful experience will help many young men. On your request for further advice, I think anything I might say would be (as my British colleagues say) “teaching grandmother to suck eggs”. In the end no matter how educated any man is, the final decision on whether the potential reward is worth the risk is something only that man can make for himself. And this of course will be very dependent on the woman he is considering. This is why I object so strongly to those who would shame men to “do their duty” and marry.
Best of luck and thanks again for sharing your insight.
Anon0706:
Like everything else, the feminist-dominated media stereotypes both foreign women and the men who pursue them with some of the most vile shaming language imaginable. That alone ought to raise a red flag that ‘somebody’s been telling the truth’ LOL.
Relationships with foreign women are nowhere near as dangerous or difficult as the media poltroons want you to believe. If you live near most US urban centers, there are plenty of opportunities to meet immigrant women already here. Some countries, like Western Europe and Japan are easily visited; and no visa is required for her to come to the US. Eastern Europe and Latin America are a little trickier; but not impossible.
As a rule, I personally would avoid some of the more questionable parts of the world, unless you’ve got a particular cultural interest there. The problem is that women from those countries often lack the education to be compatible in relationships. Typically, though, most foreign women who are interested in US men are the better educated (i.e., too intelligent to be feminists). and respect men as human beings (as opposed to male pigs like US women do).
When it comes to single mothers I think you can learn a whole lot from how they parent their children. Are they extremely permissive? If they are it is probably because they are permissive with themselves and would feel like a hypocrite imposing rules they won’t follow themselves.
Stephanie Rowling:
That’s a really good analogy—the only flaw in it is that the culture in Victorian England was on the side of the Estellas. Today, no matter where a young woman turns, she finds a Miss Markham to encourage her along the wrong path.
@Puzzled:
A couple of details on your situation would help.
From your comment I estimate you were in your mid to late 30s at the time of your divorce?
You have been divorced how long?
What are the ages & genders of your children?
I come to offer you somewhat contrary advice. It is not impossible to find a woman with whom you can share a highly successful LTR, possibly even one with whom you might contemplate marriage. They are out there but they are ever so very rare.
My friends marriage lasted about three years. I was friends with his wife too. She introduced us. She decided it was time to settle down. They were quite a couple. Palpable heat. Good fit in many ways. They had both been players. He was head over heels. Her not so much. Her hamster convinced her that it made sense. I smelled disaster before the wedding. She ended up working for a very successful guy. Broke up his marriage and traded up. She was named in the divorce action of the wife whose marriage she broke up. Leaving carnage behind, and convincing herself that it was all her first husbands fault. Since she cheated on him in all the places that they went as a couple everyone knew all the dirt. The divorce was memorably ugly.
Other than not having kids my friend was in a situation similar to yours. This was only about 6 years ago, so the demographics that he faced were similar to what you face today.
About eighteen months after his first wife walked out and about eight months after his divorce was final, I introduced my friend to the woman who would become his second wife. She was widowed at an early age when her husband, a police officer, died in the line of duty leaving her with a young child. In her case I think that being widowed was the key, because it left her belief in the institution of marriage intact She had never bought into the feminist line, had married someone with whom she was head over heels in love, and had he not been killed, would likely have stayed happily married until old age. She’d been widowed for at least two possibly three years. She was 28 years old. Despite being a single mom, the insurance and other benefits due her as a result of the circumstances of her husband’s death meant that her financial situation was stable. She worked part time. Child care was provided by doting grandparents. She did not indulge in Alpha chasing. She was a solid 8, retaining her youthful looks, despite being a mom. She understood the challenges that men face and she understood their value. She understood what it meant to lose a man like her husband. She was very popular. She was hit on quite often, but wasn’t looking for game. She wanted, but wasn’t looking for, a man like the one she lost. She found him in my friend.
He got lucky that he found her fairly quickly. As it happened, I thought of her as someone who he might like and knew that he shared many qualities of the man she’d lost. No telling about chemistry of course, but in this case it was immediate and strong. They ended up married. Have had a couple more kids. They moved away. Too many memories here on both sides. I hear from them occasionally or bump into them when they return to visit family. They are very happily married.
If you are looking for a LTR (given the realities of Marriage 2.0 we’ll leave marriage undiscussed) you want to wait to commit until you find a woman like my friends second wife. When she was at her peak as marriage material, she waited and found a man worth marrying. Fate dumped her back into the market. Despite being married and a mom, she knew that she retained a lot of marriage value and she protected it. She waited until the right kind of guy showed up, and she would have waited as long as was required. Women like her are few and far between, but they are out there. Look for the qualities that she brought to the table. Until you find a woman with them, work on your game, meet women, have fun, and don’t be in a hurry to commit.
[D: Great comment uncleFred]
Dalrock:
“The one advantage that an American woman has is that you already know her baseline being immersed in American culture.”
This is something that I can’t fully understand, Dalrock. Knowing her baseline is driving men AWAY from American women, not TOWARDS them. I don’t see why you would advocate trying to fix something that, frankly speaking, isn’t worth fixing when better options are available.
Bb:
Thanks for your response. Food for thought. I need to examine your well thought out points more. Perhaps I’m starting to get cynical but I’m starting to think that human romantic sexual love is always conditional. My wife’s cheating on me would be an insurmountable challenge to my marriage that certainly would cause me to divorce her.
Dalrock: Your response to Puzzled is good. If I have a duty to society to marry and stay married, then society and its civic and religious institutions have a concomitant duty to me to provide a framework of legal, moral, financial and social incentives and pressures. This is so that I have a reasonable expectation of receiving the benefits from my investment and commitment.
The way I see it, my society has long ago reneged on that obligation to its individual citizens.
[D: Thanks. Agreed]
@Eric
I’m not challenging your decision to find a woman outside of our culture. What I am saying is if you will be bringing her back to US culture you need to anticipate how she will react to it once immersed in it. Thinking of feminism and for a lack of a better term frivolousness as a disease, some women will catch a mild cold while others will get it full blown. It is hard to know until the woman is exposed to it. Women who are already immersed in this culture are easier to read this way. You don’t have to guess as much, because they are already exposed. You mentioned finding women in major metro areas who are from other cultures. This might be a good way to manage this.
PuzzledTraveller—
But of course being a male who got custody, you don’t get any court ordered child support, do you?
Fair, right ladies? Sure don’t hear very many of you saying how unfair this sort of thing is.
Puzzled Traveller, your case is the kind of thing Devlin is referring to. I do not wish to criticize you or bash on you, but there are a couple of things you related that stand out to me. Probably because as I read your note, I kept thinking that I could just as easily have been you, were it not for some events in my life. My background is pretty much the same as yours, for a start, and I encountered some women in my 20’s that were a strange mix of attitudes.
As you know, it’s an axiom of Game that what women say is not nearly as important as what they do, and if words conflict with actions, pay attention to actions. When a woman claims she’s not like her family in some crucial way (weight gain, attitude towards men, etc.) that calls for testing. The worse the behaviour she’s claiming to be different from the more testing is required. Given the mother and sisters in such a situation, I’d construct a series of tests over a period of months to see what happened. I’m not saying she was lying; maybe she wished she could be not like the rest of her family, for a while. This would also be a case for isolation, as in “moving 4 hours travel away” in order to keep her away from her family. Because I’ve seen that work; one woman I worked with years ago was from the “white sheep” side of her family, many of her cousins had been arrested for various stupid crimes (DUI, small time drug possession, dealing, shoplifting, etc.) to the extent that she actively did not wish to live in any state where she had relations. Not because of their influence, but because she didn’t’ want them hitting her husband up for money face to face.
You make a significant point that these were not poor or working class folks, and therefore just because a woman is from a middle class to upper middle class background it does not at all follow that she’s any less of a risk at first. Bad attitudes and bad mindset may not be as common in those groups, but that’s about all one can say.
I would urge you to reread Dalrock’s “checklist” series, although it has to be modified to fit your situation. Years ago, when I would meet some woman I was interested in, one of the first things I wanted to find out was who she had been going out with previously, and why they had broken up. In the 28-38 age group I would regard “why are you single” as a critical question to find out about, and unhappily it can’t just be asked outright. Part of being on the market in that age group must involve friends, and friends of friends. An excellent example has been given of a remarriage for a man that worked out to a widow of a police officer; there’s a “why” that works.
Another question would be just how does she regard work; if she’s working to pay her bills, that’s different from working to further a career towards some lofty goal. Some women may be offended, but in my opinion careerism puts her job ahead of the marriage, and is therefore a kind of cheating. If she has children, that’s another challenge, although I know of a few blended families that are working.
Good luck, and thanks for posting your own Devlinesque story.
@Dalrock
Thanks and understood. It’s all about weighing the risks. Life and people are good and bad, it’s the ratios that matter.
@UncleFred
That would be a positive outcome I would hope for and everyone is right about not being in a hurry to commit. I’m not so much marriage minded but I am by nature an LTR type. Having been through the divorce process I’m not real eager to involve the government in my private life again and the Church has totally abdicated any responsibility for marriage and divorce. Kids are both boys middle school and up. Been divorced about a year now. Just turned 40. Don’t need a mom figure or anything from a woman in regards to home, kids, finance.
@Doug1
Nope I do not receive any child support or contributions. That’s okay, I’ve always been the provider, wife never worked, so no real change there. Since I don’t pay alimony and just did a lump settlement there isn’t an ongoing additional financial burden.
@Anonymous Reader
I hear you loud and clear. I was young when we met and very naive. With my super-beta-stable family background I had never encountered people that acted like that. It never crossed my imagination that people would treat their family or spouses like that. I was totally unprepared to deal with what I encountered. You are correct in that I think wife on the surface did not want to emulate her parents but it is my understanding that with that background there is a good chance that they eventually will. Either they seek to create a family structure for themselves that is the opposite of what they grew up with, or often they revert back to what they grew up seeing as routine married people behavior.
I take a lot of responsibility for just being almost willfully naive and getting myself in the situation to start with. I don’t feel I’m naive like that anymore, this was like receiving a red pill enema. I have read Dalrock’s posts on selection and interviewing and Athol’s as well. It’s like a ‘I could’a had a V-8, Homer Simpson – Doh!’ moment. It wasn’t so much that I thought – ‘Oh the power of my love will change her’ as it was that she did not exhibit these behaviors the first couple years that I could see and I was just pretty clueless and young.
I thought that she at least went into it under good intentions, but I dunno, things got pretty bad not only in the final escapade that spelled the end, but then a lot of stuff came tumbling out from prior years that had been going on, ergo paternity issues, etc. I think at that point, it squashed any thoughts I had that maybe this was a salvageable situation. You know, you go into marriage with such high hopes and no one wants to be the ‘divorced guy.’ But sometimes, you’re the divorced guy. But I take heart from other people’s success stories both in having a good marriage and those who came out of a bad situation and made something good happen for themselves. That’s what I’m working on making happen.
For the record, I don’t think she’s an evil person. I think she’s a troubled person and I feel sorry for her. You can’t be with someone for years and years and not feel bad when life kicks them in the crotch. Even if it was largely self inflicted. I felt embarrassed for her and could only imagine how humiliated she felt when all the ladies in the hood got the news over the backyard fences. I know she didn’t give me the same consideration, but still. Maybe I just wasn’t the right kind of guy for her and someone with a different background or personality would have had more success.
@All
In regards to the divorce fantasy, falling out of love, jumping to a new man – outcomes. The outcomes for her were rather bad. She got involved with an older guy with a drinking issue but you know the story, ‘love of my life’ etc. etc. Entertained fantasies of riding off into the sunset, taking the kids with her and making a new life with the new guy. That crashed and burned when his wife found out. Oops – who did that? Suddenly the love of her life dumped her. I spent a couple years in marital counseling, etc. trying to put it back together, but then stuff from prior years started coming up. When it gets to the point where you’re talking polygraphs and DNA tests, I think it’s a dead issue. It just took me a long time to come to terms with the fact that, yeah, this marriage is toast.
Her outcomes are having to move back in with parents, single at 35 with no strong means of support or prospects at the moment. Though that could change for her, as I supported her through school while this was going on behind my back. Not to mention the worst outcome of all, damage done to the relationship with the kids who became well aware of all this as it was the talk of the neighborhood and eventually filtered its way down to other kids at the bus stop. Was really crummy for my kids to get teased about it.
In the words of SkyJohn:
“We run a tight unit here darling and what you have done is considered treason. Therefore you are hereby dishonorably discharged…” 🙂
Thanks for your thoughts and input, it is appreciated. I have no doubt I will bounce back okay and I will certainly be a lot more aware of what and who I am getting involved in. The information you guys provide has certainly helped a lot in understanding my situation and to put it in context and hopefully behind me.
@Doug1 I don’t think it’s fair that the a non-custodial woman doesn’t have to pay child support. I doubt the other female commenters here would either. My guess is that most of us here are a self-selected pro-male set.
@PuzzledTraveller I wish you all the support I can into your next steps forward. You’ve been through a lot, and I can only applaud your strength and perseverance. You sound like an honorable man.
PuzzledTraveller
You are correct in that I think wife on the surface did not want to emulate her parents but it is my understanding that with that background there is a good chance that they eventually will. Either they seek to create a family structure for themselves that is the opposite of what they grew up with, or often they revert back to what they grew up seeing as routine married people behavior.
This brings up a point that is often found in a few areas of endeavor, such as flying aircraft, fighting, and other matters of life or death. I first found it in a fictional work by a guy named Barrett Tillman:
You will not rise to the occasion, you will default to your training
In this context, for this thread, it has to do with the models in the “back of the head” we carry around with us that define what certain roles, such as “husband”, “wife”, “father”, “mother”, etc. look like. I’m sure that I am not the only one to have seen a man and woman marry, and one or the other or both seemingly undergo a personality change in short order. Or see a woman become a different person during pregnancy / childbirth. Not the hormone induced ones, although those can be quite large, but a shift to where she starts acting like a “mommy” all the time.
When we are under stress, we will tend to subconsciously rummage around for some model of behavior to use. And if the model needed is “husband”, that model is likely to be a father, grandfather, uncle or some other man that made an impression. If the model needed is “wife”, then it’s likely to be a mother, an aunt, a grandmother, etc. We all also carry around models from popular entertainment to some lesser extent.
So I agree that your ex to some extent may have just been emulating what she saw from a younger age. And at least some of it may have been unconscious; she just did what felt “ok” or “right” without ever examining the why or the wherefore of it. That, couple with the memories of some young women I knew whose mothers were train wrecks, spurred me to write. I don’t know where any of them are now, and pretty much don’t want to know.
Nobody is actually taught how to be a “husband” or a “wife” today, for the most part. And with men pushed out of families at a steady rate, there are not even role models to see. If churches were serious about this, they would offer more than just the pro-forma pre-marriage counseling, they would offer “how to be married” classes. Maybe pair up women who have been married to one man for 20 or more years with newly married women for informal mentoring. That way, people could have a newer layer of “training” on top of whatever they grew up with. Then, under stress, there would be some more civilized and constructive training to revert to.
For sure, the way we are going about teaching people “how to be married” now ain’t working.
“That’s a really good analogy—the only flaw in it is that the culture in Victorian England was on the side of the Estellas. Today, no matter where a young woman turns, she finds a Miss Markham to encourage her along the wrong path.”
Yeah so sad and true. Estella didn’t had any redemption and bitter feminists that drank the Kool Aid are going down the same path.
“This would also be a case for isolation, as in “moving 4 hours travel away” in order to keep her away from her family. ”
I will say that if she was that horrified of their family behavior she would had not kept in close contact with them, ever. The fact that she still talked and interacted with them showed that she was not as opposite of it as she though she was. I have a whole dark sheep of family relatives (male and female) and I haven’t spoken to them in 20 years and plan on never do so. When you are disgusted by a behavior not even the bloodline is strong enough to keep you around, YMMV.
“Maybe pair up women who have been married to one man for 20 or more years with newly married women for informal mentoring. That way, people could have a newer layer of “training” on top of whatever they grew up with. Then, under stress, there would be some more civilized and constructive training to revert to.
For sure, the way we are going about teaching people “how to be married” now ain’t working.”
You know this is one of things that affects Americans the worsts. I’m latin and we don’t segregate by age in a party of a group you see everything from young kids to grandmothers and everyone talks to everyone. The amount of shared wisdom and experiences is amazing and you learn from early on the “truth of life”, new mothers get visited by all the women in the neighborhood to help her and also to learn, when I found out that women here need to hire professionals to learn how to breastfeed I was shocked! I knew how to do that before I had breast myself!
In this culture people segregate themselves a lot, by political party, by religion, by age…. and no one makes any effort to find out what the other group is experiencing. whether to share or to guide or to learn…That is really weird and unwise from my POV, YMMV.
Stephanie, part of the problem in America is that we no longer have the tie of the nuclear and extended family. When we had our child, we were living in a city with our closest relatives being three hours away. We had newly moved into the city, so we had no close friends. Added to that is that most women work these days. If you stay at home with the baby, it’s usually just you and the baby, on a quiet deserted street. I remember so clearly realizing that only the very poor or the very fortunate woman could b’feed. Nobody else can afford taking the time off that’s needed.
“Stephanie, part of the problem in America is that we no longer have the tie of the nuclear and extended family.”
I kind of understand that part, add to that in Latin culture elders are expected to help with the kids, in here elders are expected to enjoy their retirement traveling so another disconnect. But why at the parties and gatherings? Why people don’t talk to people that are not their age or political affiliation? I admit I come from a small country so you cannot just being intolerant is not practical, but still no one is ever curious about other people? times and ages?
You know this is one of things that affects Americans the worsts. I’m latin and we don’t segregate by age in a party of a group you see everything from young kids to grandmothers and everyone talks to everyone. The amount of shared wisdom and experiences is amazing and you learn from early on the “truth of life”, new mothers get visited by all the women in the neighborhood to help her and also to learn, when I found out that women here need to hire professionals to learn how to breastfeed I was shocked! I knew how to do that before I had breast myself!
In this culture people segregate themselves a lot, by political party, by religion, by age…. and no one makes any effort to find out what the other group is experiencing. whether to share or to guide or to learn…That is really weird and unwise from my POV, YMMV.
I’m Italian and we’re like that as well. [Is Italian also considered a Latin culture? I always considered it Mediterranean…]
I’ve also noticed that typical Americans just aren’t close to their grandparents, aunts, uncles or cousins. Even adult siblings don’t bother to contact each other. The grandparents retiring to Florida thing especially strikes me as weird. No matter how awful the cold weather is, there’s no way my grandparents would ever leave my family to live on a golf-course just outside of Tampa. They want to be with their children and grandchildren.
Stephanie, when you first met your husband, did the thought “what would my family think of him” pop into your head? I thought that when I first met my boyfriend and decided to pursue him. It’s not just my father’s approval, I worry about my entire family’s approval.
In Italy, marriages have a 12% divorce rate. Obviously Italy’s extremely close judgmental family model is an effective divorce deterrent.
@unclefred-
GREAT story. maybe there is hope, albeit bleak. i’ll still keep my eyes open for a good catch.
@ Hollenhund: “Let’s not forget this article, which probably gave Devlin more media exposure than anything he has ever written:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/new-dating-game?page=1
I kind of wonder what he’s doing nowadays – as far as I can tell, his latest online articles are from 2008. I really liked all his writings, I discovered them on Roissy’s blog.”
detinennui32 says: Good article, but the author isn’t kind to Devlin. Note the attempts to discredit and shame Devlin. Allen said Devlin was trained as a political philosopher (his credentials are suspect! He’s had no training in male-female relationships, biology, biochemstry, psychology or psychiatry!). Devlin had no academic post (he has no credibility! He can’t get a job!) and writes for The Occidental Quarterly (he writes for a racist, reactionary publication!). He would not divulge his marital status and said his only experience with pies is getting “tastykakes at the Seven-Eleven” (he’s disgruntled! He can’t get laid! He obviously has no spouse so he doesn’t know what he’s talking about!)
The illustration of the loud mouth woman in the weekly standard article is just about perfect. It makes me laugh every time I see it.
Dalrock;
I agree that pursuing immigrant women already here is the best way. I have a rule of thumb about that, too: if she has family here and most of her female friends are also immigrants, she’s likely a safe bet. The second best option, though for some reason a lot of men don’t do this, is meeting women from countries like Western Europe and Japan where she can come to the US without a visa. Then, while she’s visiting, you can gauge how she’ll react to the culture here.
On the other point: we’ve all seen/experienced how American women react to the culture, and that’s the problem. While a foreign girl might theoretically become contaminated by US culture, American women are already terminally ill from it. I doubt they can be cured; whereas a foreigner might ‘experiment’ with our bad culture, but might return to the values she was brought up with. American women don’t have the experience or education of good cultural values to fall back upon when they mess up.
@Eric
I will add that asking about important things and reassuming her reactions:feminism, alimony,cuckholding, cheating and so on is a good way to measure her level of herd influence. Checking how she reacts to media examples: Eat, Pray and Love, Sex and the city and so on
I’m Latin needed to get married to be here but I had been studied the USA culture for around 10 years before coming here so I know which parts are horrible in the long run for our species. So also findinf out of she picking a foreigner is out of personal conviction or herd mentality. The first won’t be affected by the culture the second is a risk.
In my country many women were completely horrified at the way SATC women behaved. Carrie treatment of Aidan was generally loathed and no one rooted for her to get Big in my country, except for men that were more fans of the show than the women (I just watched the show sporadically) like the episode about her bitching about the shoes he forced the mother to buy, it was very shamed as materialistic and idiotic. I would say that if she recoils at women “empowering” themselves she will likely not fall into that later on, unless she starts to talk about how wrong she was after she lives here for a while, then try to separate her from whatever ill friends she has or sent her into a nice vacation back to her mother and Latin sisters, that might help her to get back in perspective, so I will say you will have more to pick up from foreigner women and in general they are less toxic than USA women, but always keep your eyes open to any red flags, YMMV.
Stephanie:
All really good advice. I’ve been in Latin America a lot; most Latinas have had considerable exposure to American women’s attitudes (either personally or in the media). They are mostly disgusted by US women and how they behave.
It’s not only true with women, but I’ve known a lot of foreign men who’ve told me that experiencing the US dating scene taught them how to appreciate women in their own countries more.
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“As soon as his second wife started talking about a vague “unhappiness,” he inferred that she had met another man. He put down in writing clear conditions for remaining married to her and refused to agree to any separation, knowing it would only be a prelude to divorce. Insisting she break off her extramarital affair at once, he wrote: “I will not allow my spirit to deteriorate because of your indecision.” Rather than attempting to remove all possible grounds for his wife’s discontent, he simply told her: “complaining is no longer acceptable. If you want me to do or not do something, you must tell me what it is. I do not expect you to read my mind and I will no longer try to read yours.” This worked”
What a smart man!
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