A few weeks ago I asked why modern Christians are so delighted with current divorce rates. As I explained in the post, Shaunti Feldhahn has a new book* and multiple articles proclaiming the good news about our current no fault divorce/sexual morality free form of marriage. I previously avoided delving into her questionable statistics to focus on what I see as a defense of our new form of marriage. In this post I’ll review some of her bold claims and the problematic statistics she offers as evidence to support those claims.
Before I dive into her claims and statistics, it is important to note that statistics around marriage and divorce can be difficult to pin down. In some cases this is because the data doesn’t exist, either because no one has collected the data or we are talking about future events. But even when the data is available and free from controversy it is easy to become confused as to what the data means. When looking at marriage and divorce data you need to always be clear about what question you are trying to answer, and what any given statistic actually tells you. For example, it has been widely reported that we are currently experiencing an “explosion” of grey divorce. There is a kernel of truth here, as divorce rates per 1,000 married women have risen in the older age brackets over the last 20 years, while divorce rates for younger age brackets have declined some. However, this has been widely misreported as couples experiencing an increase in divorce rates around retirement age. This is simply untrue, as divorce rates decline dramatically as the wife ages. Likewise, I’ve previously explained the problem with the way the marriage rate per 1,000 unmarried women is often interpreted.
The answer to these challenges is to be very careful in what data you use and what conclusions you draw from it. This is unfortunately where Feldhahn goes terribly wrong right out of the gate, with the very title of her Catalyst article: Everything We Think We Know About Marriage and Divorce is Wrong. She reinforces this in bold and all caps at the beginning of the article:
I ALSO HAD NO IDEA THAT EVERY ONE OF THE STATISTICS I WAS QUOTING – STATISTICS THAT FIT BOTH WITH CONVENTIONAL WISDOM AND WHAT I SAW REPORTED IN THE MEDIA – WERE NOWHERE CLOSE TO TRUE!
Feldhahn isn’t trying to explain some of the finer points on divorce data, she is claiming the data commonly used is nowhere close to true. This is a bold claim, and proving it would require bold evidence. What she offers instead is more confusion.
Do 40-50% of marriages really end in divorce?
To answer this question in a meaningful way we need to be specific about which marriages we are discussing. Divorce rates vary widely depending on the demographic you are looking at as well as the time frame in question. Also, if we are talking about lifetime divorce rates for a cohort which is still alive, all we can do is create our best model to guess at what the cohort’s lifetime divorce rate will ultimately be.
Feldham makes the extraordinary claim that divorce rates have never come close to the 40-50% statistic often quoted:
Now, expert demographers continue to project that 40-50% of couples will get divorced – but it is important to remember that those are projections. And I’m skeptical because the actual numbers have never come close, and divorce rates continue to drop, not rise! Even among the highest-risk age group –baby boomers—seven in ten are still married to their first spouse. Most of them have had 30 years’ worth of chances to get divorced…and they are still together.
However, her claim about baby boomer divorce rates is misleading at best, or perhaps outright untrue. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 45% of the youngest (ever married) boomers have experienced one or more divorces:
Eighty-seven percent of baby boomers born in the years 1957–1964 had married at least once by the time they reached age 46. Of those who had married, 45 percent had experienced at least one divorce.
Note that above she claimed actual divorce rates have never come close to the 40-50% range, and offered the boomers as proof of this. Yet according to the BLS, the younger half of the boomers already have a 45% divorce rate, exactly in the middle of the very range she is claiming we have never come close to. Note also that this is the floor of this cohort’s divorce rates, as more divorces will occur until they have all passed away.
Feldhahn offers her own estimate of the lifetime divorce rate:
No-one knows what the average first-marriage divorce rate actually is, but based on the rate of widowhood and other factors, we can estimate it is probably closer to 20-25%. For all marriages (including second marriages, and so on), it is in the 31-35% range, depending on the study.
As she herself points out, the kind of lifetime divorce rates she is describing are projections based on the best guess of the person making the prediction. There is no hard data on what the divorce rates will turn out to be (in retrospect) 20 years from today. All we have are educated guesses based on the past, and these are highly dependent on the credibility of the person making the guess. Nothing that I’ve seen of Feldhahn’s handling of the data gives me any reason to believe that she is better at modeling this than the demographers she is claiming to debunk.
Torturing the Barna data until it confesses.
Feldhahn also explains that the Barna data has been terribly misunderstood. I don’t doubt that, given the nature of the statistics involved. However, she goes a step further and re runs the Barna data to see what divorce rates look like for Christians who regularly attend church:
The Barna Group studies were focusing specifically on the divorce rates of those with Christian and non-Christian belief systems and didn’t take worship attendance into account. So I partnered with the Barna Group and we re-ran the numbers: and if the person was in church last week, their divorce rate dropped by 27%. And that is one of the smallest drops found in recent studies: overall, regular church attendance lowers the divorce rate anywhere from 25-50%, depending on the study you look at.
This is very problematic, because she is using current (at the time of the survey) church attendance to explain previous divorce. It could well be that going to church regularly leads to lower divorce rates. However, it could just as easily be that getting divorced tends to cause people to not attend church. The mechanism for this latter possibility could be that the person feels too ashamed of their decision to divorce to continue attending. It could also be that the person who was divorced against their will left the church in outrage when their church failed to stand by biblical marriage.
But even if we could determine that people who go to church today have a lower risk of experiencing divorce in the future, there is still the problem of telling how much of this is due the impact of going to church verses a correlation with something else. For example, divorce rates vary dramatically based on education levels:
Is there something being taught in college or something about campus life which helps women honor their marriage vows? Almost certainly not, because if so then we would expect women with some college to do better than those who never went at all. And why do those who didn’t graduate high school have lower divorce rates than those who graduated or received their GED? The simplest answer is that when we look at educational attainment it very often tends to tell us more about the person themselves rather than what they learned on campus**.
Regarding college attendance vs graduation, the key factor would seem to be the person’s tendency to see a long term project through. This is relevant to Feldhahn’s analysis of the Barna data because going to church every week is also very likely a measure of follow through. The message about sexual morality at the church could be no better than the message young people are learning at college, and we would still expect to find that regular church attendance is strongly correlated with lower levels of divorce.
Conclusion
Feldhahn makes sweeping claims about divorce rate statistics without offering compelling evidence to back them up. Her claim that we have never seen a 40-50% divorce rate is simply untrue, and several other statistics she offers are highly misleading at best. However, even with the glaring problems with the statistics she presents, the far bigger issue is the desire to put a happy face on our new sexual-morality-free view of marriage. In this new view marriage isn’t about making and keeping a lifetime vow, it is about couples therapy. Lifetime marriage is no longer seen as the moral place for romantic love and sex, but instead romantic love is seen as the moral place for sex and marriage. Nearly all Christians have adopted the same view as the rest of the culture, where the focus is now to make the couple (mostly the wife) happy enough in their marriage that they won’t choose to divorce. This new view of marriage is front and center in Feldhahn’s conclusion of the Catalyst article (emphasis mine):
Those of us who work with marriages may secretly wonder whether there is reason for our ministry, if the news about the divorce rate is better than we think. And the answer is a resounding yes. Because I have seen in the research what every marriage counselor knows intimately: divorce isn’t the greatest threat to marriage. Discouragement is.
*I have not read the book, so this post is focused on the statistics she presents in the articles. However, the articles are part of the promotion of her book, and far more people will be influenced by the statistics she presents in her articles than will read her book.
**In the case of divorce rates for those who didn’t graduate high school being lower than those who did graduate, the unexpected result here appears to be explained by different divorce patterns among first generation immigrants. When foreign born women are excluded, this paper notes that high school graduates divorce at lower rates than those who didn’t complete high school:
When analyses are limited to native-born women, the relationship is no longer curvilinear; the highest educated women have the lowest rates of first divorce (14.5) compared to those with less than a high school education (20.9), high school diploma/GED (18.0) and some college (24.2) per 1,000.
See Also: Nowhere close to true.
Pingback: Does Shaunti Feldhahn’s rosy divorce data prove that no fault divorce is working out pretty well after all? | Manosphere.com
Thanks for putting on the galoshes and wading through the excrement for us once more in pursuit of the truth behind “the truth.”
On an unrelated note, it seems Catholic Answers is quite sensitive about their lack of orthodoxy.
http://www.faithfulanswers.com/faithful-answers-to-mark-shea/
Of course, the solution can’t be to return to orthdoxy, but to chastise those judgmental people for being judgmental and smear them as pharisees and neo-nazis.
45% by age 46 projects quite well to 50% or more, lifetime.
I know of several men that were regular attenders at church that stopped completely after the divorce. It could be disgust with the churches, or it could in fact be they were only going because it was important to the wife.
Either way divorce is connected to lower church attendance.
Can’t speak re: Catholics or Jews, but in my experience, Protestant and Mormon services tend to be couple-centric. The rites revolve around marriage (at least overtly/superficially) and single dudes would have every reason to feel uncomfortable there, unless they were going with someone who could “pass” as a wife or girlfriend, for the hour spent in the pews.
This also may be a factor in TFH’s theory about “sunday morning nightclub”. Women are, perhaps, easier to approach in church, because it’s such a lonely place as a singleton. Men may feel more social pressure to approach for the same reasons.
Boxer
It always strikes me as strange when people like this agree that a 50% divorce rate would be a tragedy, but think 30% is something to celebrate. She even suggests at the end that the current rate among church attenders — which she herself puts at over 20% — might be low enough that we ought not worry about it anymore! One in five church marriages ending in divorce would be okay?
If the unemployment rate or the high school dropout rate were that high, people would surely think that was a big problem. But when it’s something as devastating as divorce, well, we just need to be understanding about it, because hey, sometimes things don’t work out.
Personally, I’d say any divorce rate over 5% indicates serious problems (not that divorce should be legal in the first place, but you know what I mean). And a single divorce between two people who were married in a church they regularly attend should be seen as a black eye for the members of that church and a sign that they need to review the way they treat marriage and prepare couples for it.
It could also be due to the fact that the divorce process was such that it put a huge dent in the man’s faith. I’ve been praying steadily for the guys who shared their experiences here:
http://faithandsociety.wordpress.com/2006/05/05/why-should-christian-men-marry-confronting-anti-male-bigotry-in-churches/
And Dal’s right when he says that the church is becoming indistinct from the rest of the world, with Evangelicals doing things like viewing online pornography at the same rate as secular folk. Ecclesiastes is right – good women are hard to find.
And a single divorce between two people who were married in a church they regularly attend should be seen as a black eye for the members of that church and a sign that they need to review the way they treat marriage and prepare couples for it.
Yes, indeed it should. However, most churchians look at the marital problems (or any other personal problems) of their fellow congregants as “none of my business” and just let it go at that, basicially adopting the attitude of “man, I’m sure glad that ain’t ME” [until it IS them]. Church, for these people, is a place to gather once a week to listen to pep talks (i.e., sermons) from the CEO (a.k.a. “pastor”), sing popular songs about Jesus, and generally make a lukewarm pretense that they believe in/care about what the Bible prescribes. Actually having to put their best feet forward and WALK THE WALK? Well, that’s something altogether different. For most, it’s “thanks, but no thanks.”
This is stupid on a kabob. This reminds me of the things that passed for heavy concepts as introduced into divorce discussions at Christian Forums. My favorite was :
Divorce is not the problem, sin is
followed closely by
if we’d learn how to treat each other there would be no divorce problem
The first then suggests a solution…..just eliminate sin! The second….treat each other better!
Feldhahn’s quote says we can address the divorce problem by encouraging people!
Yeah! Who knew?
The women writing those things are motivated to write them by raw emotion only, as Feldhahn was motivated to pen her quote that Dalrock bolded. They can state or write this, FEEL as if they have taken action, contributed to a solution or at least a working hypothesis towards one.
You picture then pressing lips together, making a quick nod, dusting hands and saying ” Hmmm” as in all-done. Fixed.
I thought I’d heard it all. But she managed to say something new. She is claiming that if we just take the present situation, and call it good, it will help improve the future. She may be right, because it sets up a new method for addressing family problems. No matter what the situation is in X years, find an angle to say its not as bad as they say it is, say therefore it is GOOD!
If you did it every 10 years, for example, after 40 years you could make the convoluted claim that you have a trend busting out…..four decades of constant improvement.
“For four decades now, since Feldhahn’s challenge to family statistics in 2014, we have seen every ten years that the experts are saying something far worse than the reality on the ground….that friends is progress”
It always strikes me as strange when people like this agree that a 50% divorce rate would be a tragedy, but think 30% is something to celebrate.
Marriage Divorce
Year Number Rate Number Rate
1900 709,000 9.3 55,751 0.7
1910 948,166 10.3 83,045 0.9
1920 1,274,476 12.0 170,505 1.6
1930 1,126,856 9.2 195,961 1.6
1940 1,595,879 12.1 264,000 2.0
1950 1,667,231 11.1 385,144 2.6
1960 1,523,000 8.5 393,000 2.2
1965 1,800,000 9.3 479,000 2.5
Read more: Marriages and Divorces, 1900–2009 | Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005044.html#ixzz36dBTVuk7
Okay! That didn’t quite work.
Let’s try it again.
Marriage Divorce1
Year—–Number—–Rate2——–Number Rate2
1900—–709,000—–9.3————55,751——0.7
1910—–948,166—–10.3———-83,045——0.9
1920—–1,274,476—12.0——— 170,505—-1.6
1930—–1,126,856—9.2———–195,961—-1.6
1940—–1,595,879—12.1———-264,000—-2.0
1950—–1,667,231—11.1———-385,144—-2.6
1960—–1,523,000—8.5————393,000—-2.2
1965—–1,800,000—9.3————479,000—-2.5
Read more: Marriages and Divorces, 1900–2009 | Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005044.html#ixzz36dBTVuk7
1. Includes annulments.
2. Per 1,000 population.
3. Excludes data for California, Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, Louisiana, and Minnesota.
Source: U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, National Center for Health Statistics. Web: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/
Not perfect, but better than the 1st one.
So for some folks 20% is supposed to be a relief instead of shameful. Yet above we see that even as late as 1965 the divorce rate was only 2.5% (unless I am misunderstanding the data).
Also, I’ve heard that the reason CA and HI don’t submit dicorce data is because it is devastatingly high. Does anyone know anything about that?
dicorce = divorce
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr049.pdf
Probability of survival of a marriage after 20 yrs is 52% in the US (page 16).
Feldhaun: “I give you permission to whistle past the graveyard.”
Me: “!@#$%”
Anytime a Biblical principle is ignored or
redefinedcreatively interpreted, the result is sin and suffering. One of the most important and most-flouted principles is “God has authorized women to teach (a) their own children and (b) younger wives, and (c) nobody else.”Who exactly is Feldhahn trying to sell her recently discovered ‘good news’ to?
Married people? Do these revelation encourage married men to continue pulling the plow even if their wives are insufferable? Or encourage married women not to implode their marriages if they’re not haaappy? I thought thats what the rest of the Feldhahn’s books were supposed to do.
Single women? Above a certain age nobody has to sell the vast majority of single women on the po$itives of marriage. Below a certain age single women are generally focused on college, career and alpha fux.
Isn’t it increasingly single men of all ages who are disinterested in marriage, particularly because the threat of divorce? Will more than 12 men in the entire country give a damn about Feldhahn’s crappy book? I doubt it. As an eligible bachelor I’m completely unimpressed with her data and wouldn’t carry this book to the toilet if it was free. I expect most of it’s paltry sales will be to under qualified churchian counselors, aged married women and bitter spinsters.
You can dress up a shit sandwich anyway you want but you still cannot sell it. Marriage rates at all time low. Young guys are not signing up anymore.
I have not read Shaunti Feldhahn’s book so I can’t say too much, but recently there has been a new trend in fudging GDP figures. Many counties now include drugs trade and prostitution income in their GDP figures only for the purpose of making the debt to GPD ratio look better. I can’t help but wonder if this isn’t the idea behind Shaunti Feldhahn figures?
After all, according to her bio she did work at the NY Fed for a while… she might have learnt to cook the books from the experts!
From the article: ‘Since then I have heard similar statements from hundreds of pastors, counselors and average men and women. They have felt as though for too long they were – as one put it – “held hostage to bad data that we couldn’t contradict.”’
Oooh, good, the Churchians are feeling the burn after all. That bad, bad, MEAN data!
JDG says @ 4:31 pm:
“Also, I’ve heard that the reason CA and HI don’t submit divorce data is because it is devastatingly high. Does anyone know anything about that?”
Divorce is catastrophic in urban CA. Nobody here asks another guy about his family in casual conversation. Outside urban areas it’s harder to say. Rural California is more conservative than you might expect; we’re off the deep end politically because the state is completely gerrymandered and the parasites don’t dare miss an election.
It’s quite possible the reason CA won’t release the statistics is not divorce but demographics. We’re teetering on the line between “illegal immigration” and “ethnic cleansing”… don’t want to derail this thread with local politics, though.
What does this even mean? Let’s say it’s true, and the 50% number is false. How is that hurting pastors and counselors? How does that hold anyone hostage? Pastors and counselors are dealing with real people, after all. If a counselor is facing an unhappy married couple, how does the nationwide divorce rate affect his ability to keep them together? Or looked at the other way: let’s say the real number is 25%, and we can prove that and let everyone know about it. Then what? What’s changed? Can all the pastors and counselors put away their marriage materials and go fishing now?
Are they hoping for a peer pressure effect, where people will be less likely to divorce if they think fewer other people are doing it? That’s the strategy they use with kids, telling them they shouldn’t smoke and drink because most of their peers don’t. That reveals a complete misunderstanding of teenage psychology, and we’re talking about adults anyway. Is an unhappy wife who was going to divorce when she thought 50% of couples did, really going to stick it out if she finds out the true number is 25%, all other things being equal? That’s ridiculous. Come on, we’ve seen how an unhappy woman can convince herself that God Himself is telling her to divorce. Statistics are going to stop her?
Thanks for this analysis, Dalrock. One problem I have with the original article by Feldhahn is the data seem opaque. That is, she does not really reference her sources in a way that others can easily examine them. Since her conclusions run counter to experience, counter to what many people see around them, a higher standard than “I sat down with the Barna group and massaged their data but you can’t see it” is needed.
As you note there is also the issue of “past performance is not a guarantee of future results”.
I disagree with embracing reality, the target market for this book is very likely preachers, counselors, etc. It’s a “So Far, So Good!” notion; if we just redefine what “successful marriage” means, then more marriages will be successful. So keep on doing what you are doing, it’s working great! No need to examine premises, no need to do anything different, it’s all good!
A kind of groupthink, in other words.
It will be interesting to see if Feldhahn ever attempts to engage with people that are both skeptical of her thesis, and informed enough to articulate why.
Cail:
Good points all. Where is the utility of her contention? Funny/strange, in my experience women eschew statistics. They say:
Statistics can be made to say anything
or
We are not numbers we are individuals
or
one size doesn’t fit all
Now, suddenly women are going to grab this new statistic and see things differently? Feldhahn likely wouldn’t know enough about the situation on the ground to realize that to impact the outcome of marriage longevity, it is women who must be reached. I’d betcha she’d whip out one of the rejoinders I listed above when faced with the fact that most divorces are filed by women. It would be fascinating to see her both embrace and deny statistics depending on the claim they make.
This women has no more grasp on what a given statistic says than she has on the heat transfer coefficient of olive oil (not Popeye’s babe).
She might actually be correct.
If 45% of all babyboomers experienced a divorce the dicorce rate for them might indeed be around 22,5% because it takes two to marry, so you have to half the number to get to the number of divorces.
On the other hand what I just wrote could be complete nonsense because I have no idea how 45% could have had a divorce without almost half of all marriages failing.
You can’t switch from marriages to individuals in mid-calculation. Let’s say 100 people get married. That’s 50 marriages. If 25 of those marriages end in divorce, that’s 25 marriages out of 50, or 50%. It’s also 50 people out of 100, or 50%. But you can’t say it’s 25 marriages out of 100 people for 25%.
Okay! I can see I totally did not under stand the graph from the link I posted. Could someone help me out with those numbers? The highest divorce rate on the whole chart is 5.3. Obviosly that isn’t right. What am I getting wrong?
I think I see it now. You have to calculate the two rates together for the ratio.
So the 1965 rate would be 2.5 x 9.3 = 23.25%, while 1981 rates would be 5.3 x 10.6 = 56.18%. Is this correct?
Another thing about this press release, er, “news” story is it basically consists of pushing back against perception by more or less ignoring reality. It’s like painting toothpaste into gap between tiles with a Q-tip rather than scrubbing the dirt out – “Look how white and shiny-clean my shower grout is! No, don’t turn the water on..”.
IMO it is not a good sign for pro-marriage folks to expend effort pretending “All Is Well” when it clearly is not. Cripes, a few years from now when divorce begins to drop because fewer and fewer people are getting married, will there be another “All Is Well!” book, I wonder?
If so, then the 1900 rates are .7 * 9.3 = 6.51%.
However, I find a 23% divorce rate for 1965 hard to believe.
Okay I give up. I suck at statistics. Dalrock, please delete all of these posts while I go hide under a rock.
JDG: I know that CA stopped taking official statistics. It is possible to generate rough statistics by counting the court cases (for divorce). It tended to fluctuate between 70 and 80%. Having said that people tend to get married in Las Vegas and then get divorced in California which skews the figures.
PJay quotes the correct statistics. Feldhahn is simply wrong.
“Cripes, a few years from now when divorce begins to drop because fewer and fewer people are getting married, will there be another “All Is Well!” book, I wonder?”
They are already pointing at the drop in divorce in articles as a silver lining of the economic hardship, so yes there will be books pointing out the number of divorces per thousand people is dropping even though at some point in the next ten years there will be more people getting divorced than getting married.
TFH:
As you noted, wars used to eliminate 10-20% of the male population per generation on average, I don’t think necessarily marriage 1.0 created ubermaginas as much as simple prosperity and an excess of males did.
Going from with 50+ men to every 50 women to 40 men is a significant difference in terms of mate competition. It is significant enough to change the attitude of women toward their spouse, toward getting married, to everything. Notice how desperate they are starting to sound as more women realize their window has closed and they have cats to look forward to.
A surplus of men makes women into what they are today, a surplus of women makes themmore feminine.
More feminine women bring out more masculing men, and vice versa.
With science being able to select gender, it probably would be best if the ratio was two girls born for every boy.
@JDG don’t worry about it- I have a PhD with plenty of statistics and this is extremely difficult to follow.
The graph Dalrock provides shows First marriages averaging just 17% or so divorce rate with really only a little variation based on the educational attainment of the wife. The 50% divorce figure includes 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th marriages etc. I don’t know though. EVERY single one of my kids friends have divorced parents and remarried. The divorced are everywhere and when you include the remarried they would seem to outnumber the 10-20+ year marriages by quite a bit. Lies…damn lies…statistics.
The graph shows only an annual divorce rate. 1.75% of all existing first marriages died in 2010.
[D: Correct.]
@Bluepillprofessor
The value of 17 is the number of divorces in 2010 per 1,000 married women. This is different than lifetime divorce rates, which are expressed as a percent. I made the same mistake the first time I looked at the original chart (the one I pulled the data from). I was initially thinking it must be a 10 year divorce rate.
CAF:
Purpose of singleness?
http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=894566
@Anon Reader
My pleasure. It really would have been much better if she had pointed more clearly to the data she was referencing. I make it a point whenever possible to point to this kind of thing so a reader can look for themselves and better understand the data set in question. In this case it is hard to tell what data she is using. Making this worse is the fact that in some cases she uses statistics which don’t really fit the question she is trying to answer.
This is it. There is a massive investment in the current “Christian” approach to marriage, which is all about counseling and spurring the husbands to jump through hoops to stop their wives from divorcing them (Fireproof). But they don’t want (too much) actual divorce, they just need credible threats of divorce to keep the system functioning as designed. The article and the book are eagerly received because they reassure the modern Christian marriage counseling industry that there really isn’t “too much” divorce under this model, so carry on as usual.
This is what I initially thought she was getting at. There are hints in the data set that divorce rates should be dropping, because the marriages at the greatest risk of divorce aren’t happening as often. Marriage gets delayed a decade or so which avoids the highest divorce rate period, and remarriages are less and less frequent. The Marriage Project claims that marriage rates are down for those without a college degree as well. Assuming the drop this suggests is measured, I expect there to be an entirely new round of celebrating. In that case however the celebration will be about how much better marriage is working now that it is pushed out past the most fertile and sexually active years, and only something the elite bother with. This is a disaster, but they will see it as a huge victory.
After all, according to her bio she did work at the NY Fed for a while… she might have learnt to cook the books from the experts!
That does explain alot. Matter o’ fact, it tells me that none of her stats are to be trusted at all.
A Masters in Public Policy and worked at the NY Fed to boot, I guess what she is engaging in is confidence huckstering. If it works for the markets it should surely work for social expectations, after all bank runs are just confidence issues.
I wonder what a bank run on the marriage markets would look like….
As obvious as this is, I’d not thought of it in these terms. While I usually disagree with th idea that its all for money, this suggests that, if not necessarily directly for money, its for in-group industry preference. Its an insular group on one hand, outsiders can join by simply towing the line. There is peer pressure and peer praise, as Feldhahn gets blurbs on the book covers and reviews from the usual suspects that praise her new work.
Its like the example that every cheesy business consultant uses when he breathlessly explains change. You know the one about the buggy whip manufacturer. The investors must have been standing around high fiving while they doubled down on obsolescence.
FDIC Federal Divorce Insurance?
I think the female imperative is so deeply ingrained that, if you were to ask most people (especially marriage counselors) what it would be like if there were a 0% divorce rate, their first reaction would be horror. That’s because they can’t even imagine a world where everyone is committed to his or her marriage vows and refuses to divorce no matter what. They’d assume a zero percent divorce rate would indicate that millions of women are being forced to stay in unhappy marriages, by law, violence, or financial need. They wouldn’t be able to see “no divorce” as a positive thing.
So I don’t think it’s really job security, though maybe that’s part of it. But their base assumption is that many women will be unhappy in marriage — it’s a fallen world, after all, and people change or choose badly sometimes — and it would be cruel to force them to stay. So as Dalrock says, they want divorce to be available, and to be as pleasant as possible for these women who have already endured the pain of unhappy marriage. They just don’t want there to be “too much” divorce, which they seem to have defined as somewhere in the range of 30-40%. Some level below that would be just peachy, because it would show that they’re doing a decent job of counseling people, and yet unhappy women — and some are bound to be unlucky no matter how well they’re counseled, after all — are able to get out and start over.
Hey, divorce insurance? Now there’s a concept whose time has come.
“After all, according to her bio she did work at the NY Fed for a while… she might have learnt to cook the books from the experts!”
“It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a Harvard graduate to enter the kingdom of heaven.” – Matthew 19:24. Sort of.
Re: “Man Up” – any of the other guys here remember hearing “you want God, AND…” when you were in your 20s and the church was arguing against young single men actually wanting marriages and families (or, *gasp*, sex)? Is it because back in the day, the average church schmoes were just getting underfoot when expressing interest in the church girls (since the alpha male leaders, who never had to ‘want’ since there is always a girl who wants to be with the guy in charge, hadn’t picked theirs yet), but now those same gals need help raising their children by other men so we’re supposed to do a 180 degree turn on marriage?
Hey, divorce insurance? Now there’s a concept whose time has come.
Imagine the actuarial tables, Imagine the charges of discrimination based on the chosen inputs used to factor the rates. It would be worth it to see the world grow that dystopian just to see that.
@Dalrock
Another Good Post Mister ‘D’:
“Feldhahn”?……This surname sounds VERY Hebrew to me(takes one to know one)…..and she is a “Christian” author?….Hmmm!
TFH says:
July 6, 2014 at 3:41 pm
I talked about this a while ago. AVfM or some similar group should simply call up insurance companies, and request underwriting for such a policy. When the insurance companies decline, citing the fact that it is absurd to think a person can be insured when the wife can unilaterally leave with the assets, the risk analysis will be there for the world to see.
Exactly!
When I read Gunner’s thoughts on divorce insurance I laughed to myself and wondered what insurance company would touch that? Answer = none.
Longtorso asks;
“any of the other guys here remember hearing “you want God, AND…” when you were in your 20s and the church was arguing against young single men actually wanting marriages and families (or, *gasp*, sex)?”
Raised in the Charismatic/ Pentecostal mega churches of the 80’s I heard a lot of messages about “prosperity” and the “power” of God, evidence of which seemed to be large domestic luxury sedans, gaudy clothing and various, often appalling displays of wealth. For those who couldn’t afford that and those who could displays of power on Sunday mornings consisted of jumping the pews, running the aisles, babbling incoherently, falling down and slobbering on the carpet etc. Various behaviors that would by any rational Christian could only be associated with demoniacs (see The Exorcist for comparison). Point being even as a child I concluded the church was lead by people who were either intellectually or morally bankrupt or perhaps both. By the time I reached my 20’s I was very disillusioned with church and 90% of what I heard and saw there yet somehow retained my faith in God. Sadly many of my friends became disillusioned with God as a result of the sham they were raised in passed off as church.
Most but not all of the singles groups I attended in my 20’s were even more poorly operated miniature versions of church with a plenty ambitious but not very astute aspiring ‘singles pastor’ giving very little emphasis on singleness or marriage but continually emphasizing “we’re not running a dating service here”. It did seem as though they were distancing themselves from any sort of dating that went on among individuals and any repercussions that might result. The *only reason* I and most anyone else ever attended one of these otherwise pointless meetings was to interact with and possibly date members of the opposite sex. The 10 minutes of mingling before and after the pastors redundant message and excruciating singing accompaniment with tambourine was the meetings only redeeming value. I met and dated numerous women from these groups and then usually moved on to the next so as to avoid a reputation as a man looking for dates, aka; evil sheep in wolves clothing or something.
Yet of course NOBODY will ever tackle the FUNDAMENTAL question… the fundamental unit in society is a FATHER with children not a MOTHER with children. The death knell for American society was written over a century ago with “tender years”. NOT A SINGLE Christian (whether Catholic or Protestant) “pastor” will EVER say this, which is why their tears over divorce are just as worthy as the tears Judas shed…
Stats always change. Does it really matter what the actual divorce rate is? Rather than worry about the rate, lets help out all the kids that are effected by divorce right?
The Emotional Effects Of Divorce On Children
>>Does anyone know anything about (high divorce rate in California?
Yes, a MRA group inputted a FOA request, and got the raw data for California. Volunteers counted them and discovered 780 divorces for each 1,000 marriages in California.
Which is exactly why MRAs should bug the companies to actually do the calculations and come up with a quote, or at least explain why they cannot underwrite such a policy. Either way, it will expose a ton to men who are not yet red pill.
I might just ask an insurance agent acquaintance of mine to do exactly that. If I do I’ll be sure to share his reaction or the results of his calculation/research.
Yes, a MRA group inputted a FOA request, and got the raw data for California. Volunteers counted them and discovered 780 divorces for each 1,000 marriages in California.
780 divorces per 1,000 marriages? That seems quite a low figure for California. Must’ve been old data.
A72,
Regarding the effect on the numbers caused by excluding California: I commented on that in the “Why are Modern Christians so Delighted With Current Divorce Rates?” thread. The time stamp for my comment is June 5, 2014 at 8:06 pm. I reproduce the relevant portion here:
Simply put, the old saying, “Past performance does not necessarily predict future results,” is true, but the numbers have been remarkably steady since the 1970’s. And the only way to escape the fact that we’ve had about a 50% divorce rate for the last 40 years is to either cook the books, like Feldhahn does, or cherry-pick the data by ignoring California, since California does not calculate their divorce rate, unlike the other states. The overall number is around 50%: that is simply inescapable if one is to be honest with the numbers.
Feeriker,
I’d be curious how your friend reacts, but unless he’s a Christian, red-pill actuary he would probably still get it wrong. Around here we all know the real risk factors for divorce. We’ve all heard the usual: income, education, that sort of thing, but even an actuary would lose money for his company unless he also included stuff like the premarital sexual history of the wife, which is a huge risk factor unless her N=0 (or N=1 if the “1” is the guy she marries).
That’s why it’ll never happen – the majority of women think it is perfectly acceptable to lie to their own husbands about their sexual history… how likely are they to tell the truth to an insurance company so that their husbands can get actual contracts (unlike marriage “contracts,” which are not contracts at all) that remove their threat-point?
When pigs fly… fighter jets.
overall, regular church attendance lowers the divorce rate anywhere from 25-50%
What’s being sold?
Church attendance.
Shaunti Feldhahn “the good news about marriage”
published by Random House LLC,
the world’s largest English language trade publisher
780 out of 1000 oh man. no wonder they quit reporting
On the missing CA data, I don’t have any data to fill the gap, but I highlighted the missing data for CA and several other states in this image.
Lyn87 says:
July 7, 2014 at 12:48 am
Yes, Lyn, I read your posting. Looks to me like you guys even argue when someone supplies data which agrees with you.
Someone else commented that it must be old data. Not that old. So, if you have newer data which shows a different number, feel free to supply it. We should be here to learn from each other, not just argue; argue; argue.
@Lyn87, re: “the majority of women think it is perfectly acceptable to lie to their own husbands”
The thing about hamsters is that they *like* to spin, even when it hurts.
Dalrock,
Could some of this statistics misuse be an attempt to make good out of a really crappy situation, without admitting how bad it is? “Confirmation bias” doesn’t quite fit, but I wonder if that explains part of it.
Things are good and bad at the same time and perhaps some filter what they see through lens that color the interpretation more than they realize. Though you may be making that point already.
A72,
I’m not sure why you think I’m arguing with you – you asked a question and I attempted to answer it. To the degree that you were making a point, I was agreeing with you and expanding on your point by introducing the CDC data. I’m not sure why you’re so prone to taking offense at everyone, but you do it a lot – can’t you take “Yes” for an answer?
____________________________________
Dalrock and others,
I looked at the excerpt from the Statistical Abstract of the United States that Dalrock linked at 8:57 am and crunched a few numbers in order to figure out what some of what it doesn’t say. For each of the three years (1990, 2000, and 2009), I divided the number of divorces that year by the number of marriages, minus the marriages of those states that did not report their divorces, so as to remove the corrupting data from the data set completely.
After that correction, the cumulative percentage in 1990 was 50%. That does not include Indiana and Louisiana. Interestingly, it does include California. To gauge the effect California has on the rest of cumulative total, I re-crunched the numbers and excluded California. The result: excluding California caused the rate goes down by 0.2%.
The cumulative percentage of the known states in 2000 was 47%. California had dropped out by then, and has never released their divorce numbers since. Colorado also did not report in 2000 and its divorce rate is even higher than California’s. Indiana and Louisiana also did not report again. Since both California and Colorado were higher than average in 1990, it stands to reason that they remained so, which means that the 2000 rate was probably around 48%, a slight dip from 1990. The same formula for 2010 yields 48%, and also excludes Minnesota, which has a slightly lower rate than average.
Regarding the states that did not report their divorce rates for some or all of the time period – comparing those states with nearby states with similar demographics and their own data from other years when available, it is reasonable to conclude that all but two (Minnesota and Hawaii), have rates higher than the national average… and those two states only neglected to report for one year, and both have small populations. In other words, the cumulative numbers 50%, 47%, and 48%, are almost certainly low, perhaps by as much as a full percentage point, excluding all other factors (more on that in the final paragraph).
Include the margin of error caused by the number of significant digits in the data set, and the original point still stands: the overall U.S. divorce rate is about 50%, and has been so for several decades.
Of course that does not address the factors that make a couple (usually the wife) divorce-prone. What we do know is that a change in the law that gives wives additional incentives for filing for divorce causes a large and rapid increase in a state’s divorce rate. I cannot find anything about the history of such legislation in California since 1990 (any lawyers out there care to take a stab at that?), but if such laws were enacted in California it could push the national average up by two or three percentage points all by itself.
re: statistics. Although it is tempting to think that they way out of the general 50% divorce hole is to behave more like people who have lower divorce rates, as others have been saying the sampling bias is too extreme to ignore.
As an example of a group of more than ten people with at least three marriages but only one divorce between them (a gross divorce rate of less than 10%!) I offer a recent convert in her 40s in my church in Houston. She has recently upgraded from the women’s shelter to public housing, with considerable help from the church. She got married in her teens, after the fact, to the father of her first child, a son who died young. He disappeared after the child died, without ever divorcing, but she thinks he’s probably dead now. Another son, from a different man, has a military career and several children with several baby mamas in various states and countries, with no marriages. A daughter married a man who already had a daughter, and divorced him and moved back in with her mother (prior to the shelter) after he went to prison for a long time. That daughter then disappeared, leaving her mother to raise the girl as some guardian-like step-grand-daughter-in-law-or whatever for whom she qualifies for SNAP and all that. The woman and the girl live in public housing with a man they are afraid of, the woman’s former boyfriend who is off the grid (since he uses women’s gridness) and who is married to a woman he is supposedly afraid of and hence doesn’t want to file anything that might give away his location.
“Is there something being taught in college or something about campus life which helps women honor their marriage vows? Almost certainly not…”
I can tell you what certainly IS taught in colleges (from the professors, and social pressure on campus) that undermines marriage in every way: modern day Slut-o-Feminism 2.0.
A man marries a college “woman” only to find out that it really DOES matter if she’s a virgin, or not.
Off topic: I have some free time this summer, and decided to watch the local syndication of *The 700 Club* this morning. I dimly remember old Pat Robertson from my childhood years, and the ancient geezer is still around and kicking.
During the program, there is a televised “prayer requests” segment, in question and answer format. An older (but still rather attractive) female read prayer questions to Pat (i.e. what is god asking me to do? pray and answer my question, like a magic 8-ball, oh father Pat) while Robertson gave his curmudgeonly, avuncular advice (I’m assuming he prayed hard to pass on this divine wisdom, or maybe not).
One question included something like “My husband looks at pornography while I am out of the house! Sometimes my kids are downstairs! What should I do?”
“Your husband needs to repent” replies Pat, immediately. “And if he refuses to repent, you need to leave and divorce his ass! Take those kids away from him!” Old Pat went on to explain in detail that looking at a skin mag was every bit the equivalent of banging hookers, and pulling a train on the local skank in the alley behind the local biker bar. “You are simply substituting for the women he really is in love with” Pat continues, “and if he is looking at pr0n, he is not being faithful to you”
While I would probably sympathize with advice to a woman (or a dude) to leave an actual cheating spouse (drug-resistant gonorrhea is no laughing matter, or so I hear) I find it amazing to think of divorcing over images. Pretty much every aspect of life is pornographied anyway, and you’re exposed to sex-charged images
Just another report from divorce happy tee-vee land…
Boxer
“It could also be that the person who was divorced against their will left the church in outrage when their church failed to stand by biblical marriage.”
This accounts for about 8 years of me being absent from church.
TFH
Just about all of your observations are coming out to be on target. The fix that will bring a biblical behavior is standing right here for all to see. But the Christian men are so nice and romantic that any solution is seen as un godly. A better solution for Pat to give the woman asking for advice would be for her to fuck her husband twice a day or even show physical affection for him because he is her husband. I can guarantee any woman reading this he will be “cured” of his observance of porn. Thanks Boxer.
I ran the numbers on my family. I think we are pretty “average.” I counted grandparents, parents, siblings & aunts and uncles for both my wife and I (& included us).
Final totals:
Divorced: 12
Not divorced: 8
Widowed & remarried: 2
Cohabiting but never married: 2
Church attendance approximately: 60% of those counted
My family is either way more broken than others (and I don’t see that at all…), or I’m not buying 30% divorce rate. I think I’ll choose option B. If I include multiple divorces the divorce number shoots up another 7.
The fact of the no-fault divorce threatpoint is hanging over this guy’s head, like so many other guys, so it is working to keep him in the marriage. For now.
http://thoughtcatalog.com/anonymous/2014/07/i-am-in-a-sexless-marriage-this-is-what-i-am-begging-young-men-to-consider-before-they-get-married/
Amanhiswife:
I looked at my ex-wife and I and our siblings, our parents and their siblings, and their parents to the best of my knowledge.
Grandparents: Eight people, four marriages, four widows, no remarriages.
Parents: Forty people, twenty-four marriages, twelve divorces, one remarriage that has survived long term, nine remarriages that also ended in divorce including one third marriage that ended in divorce, and one widow who didn’t remarry.
Kids(My generation): Twenty-one people, eleven marriages, two divorces, one remarriage.
Fourteen divorces in thrity-nine marriages = 35.89%
If you look at the next generation however, it’s chock full of bastards, divorce, and remarriage.
Lyn87 says:
July 7, 2014 at 1:03 am
Yes, no doubt. I suspect that even if I were to ask the questions in all seriousness, he would probably either laugh the whole thing off as a joke, or look me straight in the eye and ask me if I’m f***ing crazy.
You are indeed correct in terms of the futility of the actuarial calculations. There would simply be no way to verify the actual presence or weight of certain key risk factors, and thus no way for any reputable company to indemnify anyone against them.
A better solution for Pat to give the woman asking for advice would be for her to fuck her husband twice a day or even show physical affection for him because he is her husband. I can guarantee any woman reading this he will be “cured” of his observance of porn.
Yup.
Of course the next time any pastor or churchian “marriage counselor” tells a wife to sex up her husband regularly (i.e., live up to her end of the marriage vows) in order to help ensure his fidelity and preserve biblical marriage will be the first time. I think it goes without saying that we stand a better chance of seeing human excrement turn to gold first.
@feeriker
1 Cor 7:5 has been turned upside down. Instead of stating that neither spouse is to deny sex to the other lest they create temptation for sexual sin, the new interpretation is to not deny sex unless there is temptation for sexual sin.
Actually, Dalrock, I think it’s this:
Instead of stating that neither spouse is to deny sex to the other lest they create temptation for sexual sin, the new interpretation is to deny sex unless there is temptation for sexual sin.
I Cor. 7:5 says have sex with your spouse to ward off being tempted into sexual sin.
Actually, the new interpretation is for women only. It’s “you are not required to have sex with your husband unless you need to do so to keep him from sinning.”
For men, it’s “this verse doesn’t apply to you, because you’re a bunch of horndogs who would bang anything that moves anyway”.
Perhaps the red pill works better as a suppository. Try this: if anybody tells you a husband is viewing porn then your response should be “Is the wife a fat, bald Facebook zombie? Because the reason he got married was to NOT use porn and now he wants to go back.”
Awkward silence means “yes”.
Actually, the new interpretation is for women only. It’s “you are not required to have sex with your husband unless you need to do so to keep him from sinning.”
I suppose that’s true to the extent that anyone even reads that verse at all. What woman are being TOLD, even if only obliquely, by supposed “biblical authority figures” (since they don’t actually read the Scriptures for themselves) is something along the lines of “you don’t have to have sex with your husband at all unless YOU feel like it, and if he strays because of your lack of ‘attention,’ then it’s your perfect excuse for dumping him and collecting your cash and prizes.”
A better solution for Pat to give the woman asking for advice would be for her to fuck her husband twice a day or even show physical affection for him because he is her husband.
A wife who marries a decent man rather than the local bad-boy doesn’t have to try very hard. If she frequently initiates sex, stays even reasonably fit, doesn’t cheat, and doesn’t indulge in some highly destructive behavior has an approximately 0% chance of being divorced by her husband, and an approximately 0.0001% chance that he’ll stray, however that is defined. Even then, she doesn’t really even have to initiate sex regularly, as long as she doesn’t shoot him down all the time. Basically, if a wife adheres to these few items, she’ll be fine in her marriage:
1) Don’t be frigid – bonus points of you initiate sex regularly.
2) Don’t be a glutton – bonus points if you work out.
3) Don’t be a whore – bonus points if you’re modest.
4) Don’t be an addict – bonus points of you’re responsible about your conduct.
Oh… and:
5 ) Don’t be a bitch (bitchiness includes nagging, disrespect, laziness, wastefulness, being manipulative, etc) – bonus points if you’re actively nice.
Really, ladies, is that so hard? Those are all things you ought to be doing anyway, just to be a decent human being. Sadly, to find a woman who instinctively refrains from those five bad traits is increasingly rare, while a woman who gets all five bonus points… “her price is far above rubies.”
Mr D says,
1 Cor 7:5 has been turned upside down. Instead of stating that neither spouse is to deny sex to the other lest they create temptation for sexual sin, the new interpretation is to not deny sex unless there is temptation for sexual sin.
True, and if anything, that may understate the case. So I’ll see you one churchian heresy and raise you another…
1 Cor 7:5 has been turned upside down. Instead of stating that neither spouse is to deny sex to the other lest they create temptation for sexual sin, the new interpretation is for the wife to deny sex unless she’s in the mood, especially if her ongoing refusal to honor her sacred vows increases his temptation for sexual sin.
Apparently nothing quenches the thirst quite like hiking through another 100 miles of desert… I guess. That’ll teach him!
And note that Lyn isn’t pointing out things that require lots of effort.
“Don’t be frigid.” Notice that Lyn is NOT saying you have to provide sex at pornstar level skill or that you have to have sex 15 times a day
“Don’t be a glutton” Notice that Lyn is NOT saying you have to look like a supermodel or that you have to have six pack abs and 3% body fat.
“Don’t be a whore” Notice that Lyn is NOT saying you have to be a demure prude.
“don’t be an addict” Notice that Lyn is NOT saying you have to be a teetotaler.
“don’t be a bitch” Notice that Lyn is NOT saying you have to be a doormat and deferential to everyone in the world.
I just don’t understand what is so difficult about this.
Really, ladies, is that so hard?
Evidently, for most, it’s absolutely impossible. You might as well be asking them to turn stone into tiramisu.
To Dalrock: Somewhat OT but pertinent to your whole thesis.
“The institution of the family inevitably creates a vital tension which is creative as well as painful. For human culture is not instinctive. It has to be conquered by a continuous moral effort, which involves the repression of natural instinct and the subordination and sacrifice of the individual impulse to the social purpose. It is the fundamental error of the modern hedonist to believe that man [or woman] can abandon moral effort and throw off every repression and spiritual discipline and yet preserve all the achievements of a culture. It is the lesson of history that the higher the achievement of a culture the greater is the moral effort and stricter is the social discipline that it demands. The old type of matrilinear society, though it is by no means devoid of moral discipline, involves considerably less repression and is consistent with a much laxer standard of sexual behavior than is usual in patriarchal societies. But at the same time it is not capable of any high cultural achievement or of adapting itself to changing circumstances. It remains bound to its elaborate and cumbrous mechanism of tribal custom.”
From: The Patriarchal Family in History, Christopher Dawson, Dynamics in World History.
God bless, Michael
@Boxer
“”decided to watch the local syndication of *The 700 Club*””
There is a name that I have not heard in a long time.Pat Robertson.I actually liked this guy.Now I do not want to get into a mud slinging event with you or other posters here about Christian Pastors but,I have read more than one of his books in the early 90’s and I have to say that he seemed like a genuine man and author to myself.The fact that I read his books was that he was very “pro Israel” and a lot of Evangelical authors I find to be the opposite.I remember in his books how he defended us Jews and referred to Christians as “the little brothers of the Jews”.Which made sense to me as Jesus and his apostles(as well as every author of every book in the Old & New Testaments) was Jewish.Shalom!
@Anon72
“”Volunteers counted them and discovered 780 divorces for each 1,000 marriages in California””
I believe it.With stats like this,in my opinion,any man that gets married in the State of California is an illiterate moron incapable of discerning for himself the laws that will eventually lead to his undoing and downfall.Basically,you have to be mentally or mathematically retarded in order to get married with a 78% failure rate and any man that knows these stats or percentages should be embarrassed to tell anyone that he is getting married.I know I would!
“I cannot find anything about the history of such legislation in California since 1990 (any lawyers out there care to take a stab at that?), but if such laws were enacted in California it could push the national average up by two or three percentage points all by itself.”
It is something older than that. California is a community property state (there are only seven that are) and it isn’t an “equitable distribution” of assets, but each spouse gets half . . . of everything except property received prior to marriage. Half the income, half the debts, half of all property.
Community property states tend to have higher divorce rates. Some things can offset it, like limiting spousal support (like Texas another community property state limits it to three years) and as we know, California has the possibility of permanent spousal support.
So really, if you just take all the divorce laws at their worst for rewarding divorce, you have California.
The only reason the other states might not catch up to their 78% divorce rate is because the marriage rate is dropping because the marriage quality of the materials involved are going down.
Just think for a moment what the self esteem push has done to the millineals. They can’t tolerate anything that makes them feel bad about themselves or isn’t full of win.
Marriage isn’t full of win.
With stats like this,in my opinion,any man that gets married in the State of California is an illiterate moron incapable of discerning for himself the laws that will eventually lead to his undoing and downfall.
It’s even more fundamental than that. California is such a hopeless economic and sociopolitical basket case that it’s a wonder that any sane human being chooses to live there at all*. The fact that the state’s divorce rate is worse than probably all others combined is just rancid statistical icing on the moldy cake.
(* Full disclosure: my immediate family has lived in the Bay Area [arguably Ground Zero] for over four decades, so I get a constant stream of “war news” confirming the truly desperate state of things.)
Great list. I’d add one more, based on personal experience:
6) Don’t be an idiot. Just like muscles, God gave you a mind that will atrophy with disuse. If you aren’t learning and growing in wisdom throughout your marriage, you will become a millstone around your husband’s neck, a horrible example for your children, and a cautionary tale for the neighbors. Pace Deti, I’m not saying you have to be a rocket scientist, or keep up with hubby on subject X. I’m saying that you need to develop your God-given talents so as to better serve hubby/family/friends (in that order), learn from your mistakes, and grow in wisdom, to the extent God enables.
(Yes, I know that’s not nearly as tidy as Lyn87’s one-liners. Sorry ’bout that.)
Once upon a time, I liked him as well. And he’s definitely a friend of Israel and the Jews, as am I. But I’m pretty sure that if you became familiar with his mental trajectory in the last fifteen years or so, you’d agree that he should have put himself out to pasture about twenty years ago.
Dear Mark:
I won’t pretend to have read any of his books, and I’m sure he’s a complex character that many people like. My opinion is that he is giving horrible counsel on marriage. I also don’t think he’s consistent, unless his response to men who complain that their wives occasionally read Danielle Steele or buy a copy of Cosmopolitan is “divorce that sinning bitch if she doesn’t repent immediately!” etc. Of course, that’d be horrible advice too — particularly when there are little kids to be raised — but if he reacts that way, he’d at least avoid the charge of hypocrisy. (Cosmo is just the female Playboy, in my opinion; and, as with men, reading it in private is a world away from banging strangers in the bathroom of that seedy nightclub downtown).
Anyway, if you have a suggestion as to which of his books is worthwhile, I have the time to give it a crack. Always enjoy your comments, by the way.
Boxer
Dear Greyghost / TFH:
It’s a bit eerie to read TFH’s predictions, a few years on, and see them slowly come to fruition. I don’t know that he’ll be proven correct in the end, but it’s a pretty compelling essay he wrote, way back when.
Certainly that’s better advice than what he dished out this morning. I’m not entirely sure it’d “cure” a man of the desire for novelty/variety (some of us are simply wired up that way — I know I am) but it’d probably cut down on most of these episodes.
Bear in mind that I have some sympathy for women in this situation, particularly if they were raised with the delusion that a man will never look at another woman again in his life after the wedding cake is cut. I think there’s a lot of simplistic nonsense floating around for kids to absorb (Disney movies are a big culprit). Bear in mind also that every time I step outside, in any part of North America, I am barraged by images on billboards which are often just as lurid and suggestive as anything in Penthouse.
I’m sure it’s annoying to have your spouse fantasizing about other people; but grey ghost speaks the truth. Fucking that mofo with a wild passion, on a regular basis, will probably reduce the frequency of that nonsense down to once-in-a-blue-moon, and you can move on with your lives in peace.
Boxer
@Lyn87 re: “Really, ladies, is that so hard?”
No, in fact it’s by far the easiest “job” in the world. The fact that so few women perform well in that job is therefore clear evidence that women want to be lousy wives.
Bear in mind also that every time I step outside, in any part of North America, I am barraged by images on billboards which are often just as lurid and suggestive as anything in Penthouse.
Not only that, also dress in the workplace has changed in terms of standards as well. Not as lurid as the ads (mostly), but alluring nonetheless, and much more tangible.
Something occurs to me about the reaction Pat Robertson had to the wife who called in to get advice about her situation: apparently he didn’t ask her a single question. Not that it’s okay for the husband to do what he’s doing, but the Bible clearly states that wives are to be sexually available to their husbands (and husbands to their wives) specifically to reduce sexual temptation. This isn’t some “deep” theological point that one needs a Master of Divinity degree to fathom: it’s right there in black-and-white in 1 Corinthians 7: 4-5, “The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife. Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency.” That’s it: not only do married people not own their own sexuality, but the duty – yes, duty – to have sex with each other is there specifically to avoid sexual temptation.
So when the wife came to Reverend Robertson with that question, his first response might well have been to quote those two verses and ask her – point blank – if she ever turns her husband down for sex. Since we all know that the answer is, “Yes,” (and probably frequently) the next thing he said might well have been, “Then you need to repent of your failure to do your duty as a wife, apologize to your husband for withholding sex – which is not yours to withhold – and begin having regular sex with him (and not grudgingly) as often as he wants. Come to think of it, it wouldn’t hurt if you started initiating it, since nobody likes constant rejection, and he’s probably taking the easy way out rather than having you turn him down all the time. The fact that you may not “feel” like it is irrelevant – it is your duty. I’m sure your husband doesn’t often feel like going to his job, either, but he goes anyway… to provide for you.
“Try that for a couple of months and get back to me. And by the way: if you’ve let yourself go physically or ceased trying to be feminine, you ought to do something about that, too. Toss away your excuses: being fat is a choice, and that’s all it is. You would probably feel that you were defrauded if your husband was a high-earner while you were dating, then became a layabout once the honeymoon was over. Guess what? He may feel the same way if you used to be fit and feminine, but have since ceased to be, too. If you think that you’re too busy for that, then start saying to things and start saying “yes” to your husband, and to the maintenance of your marriage. I am not excusing your husband’s conduct (I am assuming you are telling the truth about that) but YOU have directly contributed to this situation. You’re supposed to be his help-meet – how about you start acting like one?”
Oops, the sentence that reads, “If you think that you’re too busy for that, then start saying to things and start saying “yes” to your husband…”
should say, “If you think that you’re too busy for that, then start saying, “No” to things and start saying “yes” to your husband…”
Another winner in the threatpoint lottery:
http://thoughtcatalog.com/anonymous/2014/07/im-the-woman-that-stopped-sleeping-with-her-husband-completely-heres-why/
“this should be enough for him. He married me and he made a vow to love me for better or worse”
Brilliant analysis, Dalrock. Thank you very, very much.
Dear JF12:
Interesting article, and lots of redpillish comments below.
One thing nobody seems to be talking about is the fact that the dude who has “gone without sex for three years” is, almost surely, getting it from someone younger, hotter, tighter than the frigid old ex-prostitute who has cut him off. It also goes without saying that she is only “too tired for sex” from her husband, as well. I’m sure she’s out getting her needs met on the d.l. too.
This is the real face of the feminist marriage. People pretend to be too exhausted to simply lay back and open their legs once in a while, and as a result you’ve got deception on all sides. Quite dysfunctional, to say the least.
Boxer
jf12, you planning to post that at Elspeth’s site?
The wife rebellion has been normalized into law and the church. Lyn87 Your list above was just a simple being pleasant list. Such a woman these days will have men killing and dying for them. A previous conversation was had about a small government enforcing biblical morality. What christian men today in this world have to realize is that behavior has to be done by our hand. men not so hung up on playing churchian can see the behavior change that comes from MGTOW, Male birth control pill, game incorporated into the Christian church. (red pill Christianity). Even with the laws of misandry in place red pill men can and will thrive. And those that like the blue pill they are fine with me, they are the food for the beast. The beast is good for the soul it is like a weight room for male spirituality and masculinity. Too much civility and men will get culture and tradition with out knowing or understanding why. They become susceptible to the blue pill and churchianship. That is how we get the foolish conservatives we have today With the cult of “nice” worship of the feminine (these clowns https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_uRIMUBnvw ) And now the constitution the foundation of our laws is over ridden by law at all levels and areas of law to make the blue pill lie function in reality.
A couple little changes and the pleasant behaviors of a submissive wife a true help mate will be the path taken to selfishly sooth her hypergamy. A masculine man knows his wife is a selfish hypergamous slut , but she is well behaved his honor will allow him to commit and love the will behaved hysterical slut. That 80% can do that. The bad boys can’t
jf12,
That article was depressing. That woman was basically bragging that once she got what she wanted from her pack mule husband, she just cut off the sex permanently. Then she had the unmitigated gall to quote a portion of their wedding vows: “For better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health” as her reason why he should just be okay with being turned into an incel by his own wife.
But two can play that game: he could quit his job and stay home. After all, she vowed to stick with it, “for richer or poorer” too, right? I’m sure she would be fine with that… (/sarc). The hidden benefit is that if he was a professional layabout, she wouldn’t be able to take him for as much in divorce court. In fact, if he was at home with the kids while she worked, it would drastically increase his odds of getting primary custody of the kids and CS checks from her. Then HE could write a follow-up article for thoughtcatalog explaining how cause and effect work. Feminist heads would pop.
@AR, I am not planning to.
Lyn87 I commented on the article and made the point that she was enabled by the two hostages she had.
jf12
@AR, I am not planning to.
Ok. Mind stating your reasoning?
Lyn87, why are you surprised? Without too much work I can find men who take their vows seriously, and who won’t divorce their wives except for adultery, so they are stuck – no matter what their wives do to them. And if they take their situation to a pastor, or a marriage counselor associated with a church, what kind of response do you think they’ll get, eh?
TFH beat me to noting the “imputed income” trap. Although increasingly I expect that will only apply to the upper middle class, with the ongoing economic situation and a real unemployment rate over 20% (short term plus long term unemployed) fewer and fewer men will have ever earned the kind of money required to fall into the imputed income trap.
jf12, you planning to post that at Elspeth’s site?
I saw the thought catalog article, AR. That woman is a loon. And yes, I know that she represents a strain of thought that many wives entertain, albeit an extreme one.
I cry “uncle!” I am wrong. You all are right, and there is nothing more to be said. I do know that I have personally influenced women (in real life as well as online) to be more supportive of, submissive to, and sexually open and enthusiastic towards their husbands. I will continue to do that while saying prayers for all the men married to women not blessed enough to have a friend like me.
I am well aware of how prideful that sounded, but I meant it. You guys have it rough, and I am so very sorry about that. If my daughters are so fortunate to meet young men willing to risk marriage, they will not have to worry about what kind of advice, counsel, and admonishments their wives are receiving.
I am saddened (greatly) so forgive my tone if it seems combative.
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@Elpeth, you don’t strike me as combative, but one reason I refrain from posting there is not to incite (believe it or no!) combativeness. Almost always my point would have been that nothing I can do helps my situation, and I consider my situation too typical in that regard.
I wouldn’t have picked that particular absolutely sexless article as an example “See? Some women are too controlling!” anyway. I would have picked a more typical one in which the woman had unilaterally determined that a few times per month “this should be enough for him. He married me and he made a vow to love me for better or worse”.
@Lyn87 re: “That woman was basically bragging”
Even worse, she considered it absolutely normal that her feelings should be the prime consideration in each and every decision in the entire marriage. “I don’t feel like it, and therefore he shouldn’t feel like it either. Period. The end.”
AR,
I did not find the article surprising – I found it depressing… although maybe infuriating would be a better choice. And I understand about “imputed income,” but this guy would stand a decent chance of avoiding that fate if he quit his job now and just became a house-husband. If he plays his cards right he could string that along for a while, and by the time his wife got tired of getting a taste of her own medicine and frivorced him, he would have already established himself as the primary care-giver of the children. House-husbands don’t always get the same sort of consideration as house-wives do, but her lawyer would certainly tell her that losing custody and getting socked for CS (in other words, being treated like a man) is at least a non-trivial possibility. Suddenly divorce would not be a slam-dunk cash-n-prizes option for her, but a gamble with a real chance of losing everything… PRESTO-CHANGO!, the threat point is reduced, especially since most women are so risk-averse. He could then meet her complaints with, “Put out or get out – bedroom or courtroom: your choice. And if you go, I’m filing for primary custody and lawyer’s fees.”
The point is not that he would win automatically, but that he might… and that would cost her everything she likes about her current arrangement.
jf12
Everything is about how she feels check out this definition of sexual harassment
If she has gina tingles legal if not you are fired. http://www.blinkx.com/watch-video/tom-brady-snl-sexual-harassment-psa/h7nIkQjgII_oYNH7gQfUpA Also it is retroactive too. Everything is about how she feels including whether or not to honor any agreements.
Lyn87,AR
Hali Berry got hit with a 26 to 20k a month CS bill loser custody of her child. Remember when anon 72 spoke of a broke state having feminism on the books and not able to afford it. CS also has matching federal funding A lot of baby mommas can be paid for off of that Hollywood income. ‘The End of Men” also means she gets to make the payments. Not an open secret yet but here and there that kind of thing will happen.
The marriage strike from men is the subconscious awareness of the futility of nesting up for a wife. making big money is being replaced with douche baggery and game. Male pill and increased gay marriage and party’s over lady.
Elspeth says:July 8, 2014 at 11:24 am
Certainly no need to apologize or explain yourself. I don’t think any man here begrudges you what you do or say; in fact, just the opposite. If some of us come across as abrupt, condescending, curt, or even rude, it’s not intentional (at least not on my part). It’s just trying to get across that the good that you do represents the rare and precious exception to today’s norm, one that most of us are unlikely to ever experience personally for any length of time.
The thoughtCatalog article jf12 posted was interesting, but extreme. The far more common scenario from what I see and have experienced, is the wife who ladles out a little sex here and there, with little to no enthusiasm. It’s not nearly as much as he would like; but it’s the bare minimum. She does this to keep him on edge, to keep him wanting more, and to maintain control of the marriage. She keeps him on the treadmill this way and is also able to keep complaints at bay. “Whaddya want! You’re getting sex! I have sex with you!! You’re not deprived!”
What he gets is grudging, duty sex. “*deep, heaving sigh* Oh, ALL RIGHT! Let’s get it OVER WITH!” She insists on missionary only. She expects him to be done in 3 minutes and then when he ejaculates, she immediately leaps up and runs to the bathroom to expel the icky beta semen he just deposited while heaving a sigh of relief.
She also uses sex as a carrot to get him to change or do things for her. “if you do X, you will get more sex.” “If you lose weight/work out, then you’ll be more physically attractive, and I will want to sleep with you more.” “If you take me on vacation, I’ll be more in the mood for sex.” “If you just do more dishes/help me with the housework around here, then I’ll be less tired and will feel like sex.” “If you would light the candles and set the mood, then maybe I’d want sex.”
Such women are simply not attracted to their husbands, and are going through the sexual motions. Theyu do this to keep the peace, to keep him running on the hamster wheel, to keep him minimally satisfied sexually to remove any basis for complaint or improvement, and to stave off intervention from church members so she can in good faith say “I have sex with him! He has NO reason to complain!”
Actually jf12, I have one other thought would leave with you for today, and it’s that a lot of these women don’t really enjoy being the kinds of wives they are. One woman I have a burgeoning friendship with proved that recently.
This woman loves the Lord, and seems serious about her faith. She’s type A-ish and her husband seems very gentle and unassuming, even though he is clearly a highly competent, intelligent man.
She said to me a couple weeks ago, “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I love my husband, and he is a GOOD man (she emphasized good so I emphasize it), but I am not very nice to him. He doesn’t now what he’s going to come home to.”
I saw that she is not pleased with the dynamic, and she wants to change it. She doesn’t know how. And my first thought was, “Are you serious Lord? This woman knows more about You than I will ever know. She has worked in ministry all her adult life and is older than me [albeit slightly]. Why did you send her to me?” And so I am praying for the right direction to take as we discuss it further.
But she knows she needs to change. All Christians who are truly converted and struggle with sin are burdened by it. That includes rebellious wives. Don’t be so quick to write everyone off as irredeemable.
jf12
@Elpeth, you don’t strike me as combative, but one reason I refrain from posting there is not to incite (believe it or no!) combativeness. Almost always my point would have been that nothing I can do helps my situation, and I consider my situation too typical in that regard.
Elspeth, I don’t regard you as combative at all. Perhaps because I have a fair idea what a combative, or if you perfer contentious woman looks like and writes like. And like jf12 I’m not trying to barge into your virtual kitchen with a heap big spoon in order to stir the pot.
I do take exception to pat advice such as “Well, if you would just do A, B, and C” or “Well, if you were just a good enough churchgoing Christian who prayed hard enough”,etc. in response to what are clearly long term (as in, years long term) situations.
Really, there are people on line (not you Elspeth) who pop off with a version of the prosperity gospel when it comes to relationships. Kind of funny that people who get angry at the “name it and claim it” teaaching, “If God hasn’t given you a new car, you’re doing it all wrong!” – those same people turn around and tell a man with years of rebellion from his wife “You just aren’t Washing her in the Word enough, or the right way”. Go figure.
Elspeth:
Take this diagnosis to the woman you just spoke of:
it always, always comes down to her lack of respect for him. Your friend DOES NOT RESPECT her husband. I know this because you described her as a type A, and her husband as competent, intelligent, but gentle and unassuming. She runs the house; he lets her do so. She berates and nags and belittles him; he puts up with it. He does these things because he has been taught that doing otherwise is unloving, mean, cruel, heartless. He also is fearful of standing up to her because if he does, he risks her leaving and divorcing him, losing half the marital assets, and him losing his relationship with any kids they have.
It’s just . That. Simple.
Elspeth:
He also does not stand up to her because if he does, he risks her calling the police, pastors, other men, etc. and saying “That big bad man raised his voice at lil ol’ me. He gave orders to me. He doesn’t like what I do or don’t do. I FEEL UNSAFE.”
Trigger white knights springing into action. Pastors removing wife and children to safe house and notifying police. Police arrive, frogmarch mild mannered hubby to county lockup. Restraining order.
Elspeth:
Another thing you might wish to make clear to your friend is that her husband does not have to earn her respect. He is entitled to it by dint of his standing at an altar next to her and saying “I do”. And because he was willing to say “I do” to her, she is OBLIGATED to give him that respect. Obligated. Full stop. That means she HAS to do it. It also means that if she cannot or will not do it, then her husband should be entitled to a legal divorce and should be relieved of his husbandly obligations to her.
If she won’t live up to her end of the bargain, I see no reason why he should have to live up to his.
@ deti
She also uses sex as a carrot to get him to change or do things for her. “if you do X, you will get more sex.” “If you lose weight/work out, then you’ll be more physically attractive, and I will want to sleep with you more.” “If you take me on vacation, I’ll be more in the mood for sex.” “If you just do more dishes/help me with the housework around here, then I’ll be less tired and will feel like sex.” “If you would light the candles and set the mood, then maybe I’d want sex.”
Such women are simply not attracted to their husbands, and are going through the sexual motions.
Concur. I addressed that recently with my wife. I told her that it wasn’t fair to either of us to put up with sex if she wasn’t attracted to me enough to initiate sex sometimes and that I planned to move out. I didn’t blame her–it was just the way that things worked out. Immediately she couldn’t get enough sex. Mrs. Gamer found all her old slinky clothing, somehow. She wanted sex only occasionally before this discussion and the thought of not ever having any again and my willingness to walk away had a powerful impact on her. I wasn’t even trying to manipulate her–I was just laying out the facts straight up. Be careful imitating me. YMMV.
We also had an incident of “The Taming of the Shrew.” I was worried (cough-scared to death-cough) that she might call the cops, but she didn’t, even though she hated it. It was a major risk, but I did it for my wife and our marriage. Be careful imitating me. YMMV.
Mrs. Gamer now calls me “Sir” publicly when I show her courtesy, which is a tremendous change in her attitude. This is equivalent to Sarah calling Abraham “Lord.”
Mrs. Gamer is going to see a church counselor. He was concerned that I might be watching p0rn. lol She wants me to go. I told her I’d see how things go with her first. I expect that she will begin to imbibe more Red Pill as time goes on and see how phony the church counselor route is.
Tagging.
asdgamer:
The only response to a suggestion for joint counseling is a firm, emphatic NO. She can go to her counselor and unburden her soul in private. If you need counseling, go alone. Never, ever go to joint marriage “counseling”, even to a pastor. It is an endeavor designed for only two purposes:
1. For wife to recruit an ally in the counselor, who then jointly gang up on the husband and begin making demands that he change/fix behaviors/conduct/attitudes.
2 For wife to gather ammunition for the upcoming divorce. (If you believe that anything said in those sessions won’t end up as evidence in a divorce proceeding, you are seriously mistaken.)
I get what you’re saying Deti. But you missed the point. This is a wife who volunteered (unsolicited) that she has a problem. Browbeating her with talk of her husband’s right to divorce is not why she was sent to me. At least that’s not what I am thinking.
You realize this woman took a positive step, right? I am not even sure why she chose me. She has only ever witnessed interaction between my husband and I twice in the year I have known her. I can only conclude that it’s a God thing. I have to get it right.
Besides, her husband wouldn’t divorce her anyway. He is devout.
E:
no, I think I got the point. Please review my 12:56 comment. I can get right to the problem your friend has. Her problem is that she doesn’t respect him and that she’s violating Scripture by harboring that attitude. That’s the point.
@ deti, Elspeth
Possibly what’s missing is that Elspeth’s friend thinks that she respects her husband when in fact she does not. Or possibly she knows that she doesn’t respect him but feels justified in not respecting him.
@Elspeth, re: “Don’t be so quick to write everyone off as irredeemable.”
Ok. But I don’t have to believe her e.g. when she (all those she’s, including my wife) says “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” and/or you and/or another woman says “she wants to change it. She doesn’t know how.” Instead, what I believe is like what deti is saying, but a bit more forcefully: she is *possessed* by a rebellious spirit AND she *knows* it, but it feels good to her so she doesn’t truly want to stop doing it.
Elspeth writes about another woman:
She said to me a couple weeks ago, “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I love my husband, and he is a GOOD man (she emphasized good so I emphasize it), but I am not very nice to him. He doesn’t now what he’s going to come home to.”
Perhaps it is a combination of habits built up that fit with her personality. If her work, volunteer or paid, puts her in authority over other people, especially men, then any “take charge” aspects to her have been rewarded and thus reinforced. Even if that authority is at the level of “Please stack those food pallets in the rear of the warehouse”, she still has been rewarded for telling men what to do.
A lot depends on how long she’s been this way. Is it something recent, that cropped up after a change in his or her daily routine? A promotion on her part, or a layoff on his part? Last child left home & the nest is empty? Perimenopausal / premenopausal? Or,rather, is it just they way she’s been for a long time, maybe years, and she’s gradually become aware of this and troubled by it – Type A’s are not known for being very introspective.
If it is a recent change, then both of them need to take active steps to remedy the situation. That includes possible medical examination if she’s approaching menopause; every woman’s different.
If it’s been going on a long time, I think she’s going to have to take the first step, and likely the 2nd, 3rd and maybe 4th as well. Because when someone has a long-time pattern of behavior, others may view any change in it skeptically – “that’s nice, but it won’t last, no point in getting used to it”.
Now, if her husband is a big-picture type, or a somewhat dreamy artistic type, i.e. not a take-charge man, then it could well be that at the unconscious, or subconscious level, she’s wanting to make him be a different man for his own good. “He could really live up to his potential if he would just…” might be somewhere in her thoughts, and not her conscious day-to-day ones.
It’s claimed that we need 21 days of repetition to form a new habit, that seems to vary a lot in my opinon, but it does point towards repeating an action in order to make it a habit. And that has to be conscious, deliberate, repetition on a daily basis. I suspect that when we have habits that are associated with multiple emotions – not just mild pleasure, but perhaps fear avoidance – it takes longer. I also suspect the clock resets every time we backslide. So say that I want to do a certain number of pushups every morning before breakfast, I have to do them consciously, no excuses. Feeling sick? Do it anyway. Too tired? Shaddup. Got a tight time schedule this AM? Skip something else. And so forth.
It is entirely possible she needs to retrain herself at the subconscious level. So let’s say, for the sake of argument, that there’s no medical issues. She just has a kind of itch, a cranky itch, that she keeps on scratching. Possibly just sitting down by herself, or with one or two trusted women, and writing down all the synonyms for “contentious”, all the different ways we can be contentious, and then discussing why those are not good for a marriage is one way to start.
Or a form of the affirmation business. I don’t mean those “I’m Special, I am Woman!” things, but rather “I am his wife. I am his helpmeet. I am not his mother. I am not his boss. I am not contentious”. Somewhere, maybe your blog, I recall reading about a woman who made the conscious decision to sit at her husband’s feet sometimes, this surely seems goofy if not ridiculous and yet body postures affect hormones as well as attitude / mindset. Maybe when they pray she should kneel while he stands, if that is appropriate to them. Doing physical things that emphasize her subordinate status “talks” to her subconscious, to the back of her head.
It could be that he could to more to be the head of the house, and naturally Sam should have that talk. But she’s the one who chooses to submit or not, and you know that “submit” is a verb, not a noun, it’s an action, not something that “just happens”.
You’ve been complimented. Consider accepting it gracefully, and talking with her / listening to her more about it.
asd:
Either answer you gave could be correct. In fact one of them is likely.
Seen this happen all the time online. The issue is always described: Wife is vaguely unhappy in her marriage. She is neurotic, on edge, jittery, irritable, small things set her off, doesn’t like sex. New feelings for her. Never felt this way before. Doesn’t understand it. Used to like sex before marriage; liked sex for a while after marriage but sex fell off soon after. Wife is go-getter, is a feminist but denies it. Husband is a nice guy, affable, gets along with everyone, good earner, competent, intelligent.
I have a great life, she says. He’s a great husband, she says. I just can’t figure out why I’m so unhappy and why I don’t like sex anymore.
So what’s the problem?
Same problem. Every. Single. Time.
She doesn’t respect him. It’s usually one of four things.
1. She does not believe she has to respect him; she only has to “love” him.
2. She believes he needs to “do things” to “earn” her respect.
3. She believes she does respect him, but really doesn’t.
4. She is fine just the way she is; he is the one who needs to change.
@ deti
It could also be that he’s too predictable and that she’s taking him for granted. He’s not “The Stranger,” who is intriguing and sexy.
@Anon Reader
Your full comment was outstanding, and I don’t have anything to add as far as advice to Elspeth. But this part while true touches on a paradox my wife and I have noticed. Women who have exercised real authority are very often more open to letting their husbands lead once they figure out how unhappy leading at home is making them. They understand that leadership is a heavy weight, and not just bossing people around for the fun of it. They also seem less likely to resent being directed, since they have been in the leader’s place. In a sense, they approach it more like a man would. Someone has to be in charge, and it works better this way.
jf12, Deti, I’m going to push back just a little bit. There are varying levels of “I want to change but can’t”. It’s one thing when some alcoholic insists “I want to stop drinking, but I can’t” to sympathetic ears, but never checks in to rehab or even goes to AA. That’s just verbal manipulation. It’s another thing when a woman who has grown up in the modern world, who is genuinely troubled by her behavior towards her husband, basically says “I know I”m doing wrong, but I don’t know how to fix it”. The latter could be an honest assessment – where in the modern world outside of famly and maybe one or two websites, will any woman learn how to subordinate herself to a man?
Recall early on in the history of this blog, Dalrock recounted a bit about his wife’s behavior, and how he’d leave the house to go fishing or some such – she had this urge to basically pick a fight and didn’t know why and had a hard time resisting. This woman’s situation could be like that. Or it could be that she’s been like that for years and now realizes it’s not good.
Suppose I walk into a WalMart and ask the sporting goods salesman, “How do I go to Camp Perry and shoot well at 1,000 yards?”, likely he won’t have a clue. The books that teach long range shooting are not common. The long range high power community is not all that visible.
Or suppose I go to Bubba’s Gun Store and ask the question, I’ll get a lot of advice but it might be just a bunch of bullroar with no real foundation under it. I could spend a fair amount of money and wind up no better off than I started. Maybe sitting around shooting the breeze, without actually doing any shooting, is what some of the hangers-on there do…
Now suppose I go to SHOT in Vegas and find the CMP booth – ding! I’ll get a lot of useful advice, a way to find the rifle ranges in my area, a list of the contests in my state. I’ll have contacts for coaches who can get me up to at least the middle of my ability in fairly short order, I’ll be given ways to effectively practice as well as “don’t try this, it doesn’t work”.
Asking the question of the right people makes a difference, and asking the question in a sincere and humble manner matters as well.
It could well be that this woman has some unconscious expectations of her husband that she’s never really examined, and those “underground” desires are colliding with her stated desire to be good to him. In which case she’ll need to examine herself honestly, and that can be difficult without question.
I’m urging y’all not to assume malice where ignorance may be at work.
jf12 says:July 8, 2014 at 2:10 pm
Yup, cosigned. When one woman confides in another in this manner, you can be at least 85 percent certain that she’s seeking validation for what she’s already doing.
@AR, re: “I’m urging y’all not to assume malice where ignorance may be at work.”
I hear you, but she isn’t ignorant that she is doing wrong (or rather, that she knows she ought to feel it is wrong. Note the difference.) Hence the fact that she continues to do wrong is evidence of malice. It’s *exactly* the same situation with alcoholics, for the same reason – doing bad feels good.
They know what’s wrong, and they know how to stop. Almost always they even know how to *want* to stop: do what someone else is telling you that has a track record of success (for example for her to start to *want* be a better wife and begin to feel *enjoyment* at being a better wife, she should act in far more submission to her husband every single day all day for several months). But they don’t want to stop.
An unspoken question is wanting to be answered, so I guess I’ll do it. Is it possible to make someone want to stop doing something bad that feels good? Yes, and the standard proven track record way to make someone want to stop is dread. When someone needs to change but doesn’t want to change, the way to get them to want to change is to make it too painful to not change.
This isn’t two-pronged advice, such as a salvation message preaching both desire for heaven and desire to avoid hell. This is pointedly one-prong advice: make it hurt to not change.
Scripture is pretty consistent about this. In wicked times there will be false prophets running around crying “All is well” while the town is burning. A delusion that all is well when it’s not!
“I’m urging y’all not to assume malice where ignorance may be at work.”
That’s possible. Her disrespect could be a result of her never cultivating that respect; in turn because she’s never been taught the necessity of wifely respect in a marriage. She’s been taught “love”, but never respect. Or she doesn’t even know what she’s doing is disrespectful.
That said, I maintain that the issue Elspeth’s friend mentions is at its core a lack of respect from wife to husband. This is usually the root cause of the problem in these fact scenarios various people bring to this forum and others.
deti says:
July 8, 2014 at 12:43 pm
Late to the party here, but Deti nails it. All that quid pro quo BS wives try to pawn off on their husbands is just that – they’re just not interested in their husbands and will construct an ever lengthening list of stuff he needs to do to get her to give up what she is obliged under pain of sin to render.
deti
That said, I maintain that the issue Elspeth’s friend mentions is at its core a lack of respect from wife to husband. This is usually the root cause of the problem in these fact scenarios various people bring to this forum and others.
I’ll agree with that. It is possible for a woman to be disrespectful or even have contempt out of ignorance, or out of a long, slow drift to bad habits. It doesn’t need to be malicious.
I’ll add that respect needs to be as close to genuine as it can be. There’s a passive-aggressive form that combines unending questioning/challenging of decisions with fake “you’re the boss, dear” flourishes around it. “Are you sure you want to go to eat at Joe’s? The service was so slow last time, you got impatient. Don’t you really want to go to the chinese cafeteria? Oh? Well, if you are sure, then that’s fine, I was just trying to help. Are you sure? Really sure? Why, what do you mean, of course I submit to your decision. LIke I said, I’m just trying to help“.
It’s possible to say respectful words in a way that is riddled with contempt, as we all surely should know full well.
(This is a tangent, and hasn’t anything to do with Elspeth’s query. )
Is it possible to make someone want to stop doing something bad that feels good? Yes, and the standard proven track record way to make someone want to stop is dread.
Disagree. Eating Snicker bars feels very good to me. Haven’t eaten one in a good long while. No dread required.
Running is hard for me. I get up and do it every morning. I’m learning to enjoy it, but I’m not all the way there yet. Either way, I’ll be out there pounding the pavement bright and early at 6 AM. No dread required.
You completely discount that a person can choose to do better for the potential benefit. Being more pleasing to God can be more motivating than dread to those who are His children.
Dread can work on the behavior but for the heart to change something more is required. And keep in mind that real life interactions give us a fuller picture of what we are dealing with. I know that this woman is disappointed with her execution of her duties as a wife and mother.
But this whole dialog actually set me to pray and gave me an inkling of how to move forward. So there’s that.
Quite a few times, maybe even half the time, especially after year 10 of a marriage, it is the man who doesn’t want to do it, and makes excuses to avoid having sex that the wife is demanding/begging for. This is not only when the wife becomes obese, but even if she looks good to the outside world, if she berates him or puts him down, his attraction for her can erode to zero.
Even if she is nice, attraction is likely to diminish. Men love variety and making love to the same person for ten years is like eating chicken every day for ten years.
They’re just not interested in their husbands and will construct an ever lengthening list of stuff he needs to do to get her to give up what she is obliged under pain of sin to render.
“Obliged under pain of sin.”
Yes, indeed. The problem, however, is that to most Christian women “obliged under pain of sin” carries about as much threatpoint weight as “obliged under penalty of a traffic ticket” or “obliged under penalty of perjury.” That is to say there’s no threatpoint weight at all. I’ve already brought up in another thread the inability to see the long-term picture (i.e., “God’s not going to punish me directly or right away for this, so I’m not going to worry about it and just do it”). This is just another manifestation of that.
Jf12, if it comes to alcoholism, naltrexone breaks the link between doing bad and feeling good. There is no such remedy for wifely obstinacy and contrariness .
Even if she is nice, attraction is likely to diminish. Men love variety and making love to the same person for ten years is like eating chicken every day for ten years.
This is why it’s so important for couples to break rapport from time to time and start The Chase all over again, which I detail in my post about Sexual Macrodynamics.
@Anon Reader
This is a good point. When I offer advice to women trying to turn this dynamic around, one of the things I suggest is to remember that leaders make decisions, and even with the best leaders sometimes those decisions will turn out to be wrong. I suggest they make peace with this upfront and look forward to the opportunity to reinforce his leadership role when one of those wrong decisions comes to light. My advice to “Ann” a few years back touched on this:
@Exfernal, re: “There is no such remedy for wifely obstinacy and contrariness .”
Not yet there isn’t, but I strongly suspect a female libido pill would cure the majority of wife problems literally overnight.
re: “You completely discount that a person can choose to do better for the potential benefit.”
No, I mentioned the desire for heaven. But someone who is actively doing bad isn’t desiring heaven. A wife being, er, inactively a bad wife isn’t desiring a good marriage.
Dalrock,
> Women who have exercised real authority are very often more open to letting their husbands lead once they figure out how unhappy leading at home is making them.
That would be consistent with the Centurion who came (or rather sent others) to Jesus to get his servant healed. He had more faith than the others because he walked under authority already. That would be a similar principle.
@Boxer
“”My opinion is that he is giving horrible counsel on marriage.””
I agree. A very good Pastor friend of mine(whose church I contribute to) has in the last 5 to 7 years started to provide statistics to single men that want to get married.I believe that I had a lot to do with this as he has always said to me for the last 15 to 20 years..”when are you going to get married’? I always replied to his comments with statistics and (bullshit)current laws.He could not refute my argument….or even try to! Now I find him using those same stats and current laws when counselling young men.I also find my Rabbi doing the same thing. I believe this to be the correct and proper “modus operandi”.I have told the Pastor and Rabbi(and MANY young men)…”If you were going to go skydiving and the jump instructor stated that ‘these parachutes only open 50% of the time’….would you still jump”??
Shutting up and not talking for a day or more can do wonders for a bad disrespectful attitude. Far better than yelling or trying to force a good attitude. The latter is unproductive and a waste of time and frustrating to boot. Harder for someone like me to not confront something and deal with it, but I have found that things general get better quickly these days when I do that rather than when I take a different approach.
I have backed out of a few planned things as well, though fortunately the need to do that is rare. I am refusing to be around strife. Though that is harder to walk out than it may seem.
Your friend really needs to meditate on the what the Word commands for wives Elspeth. She will eventually internalize it if she meditates on it enough. She must control her side, with the Lord’s help. I would expect you are there to help her see what she probably already knows.
Changing her husband could take a lot more work. Any chance your husband can talk with him? It sounds like your husband has at least a few of these things down. Her husband may never be a full alpha, but he may be able to adjust enough to help make her efforts at following the Scriptures easier, assuming she buys into that approach.
AR, one of the reasons I no longer listen to many of the prosperity gospel teachers I grew up on as a Christian is because they have focused far too much on the “stuff” and not the “action” that was more apparent (or at least seemed so) earlier in their lives. I still believe God is always good, though we still have to live in this world and I will gladly “name” whatever the Scriptures say I have and “claim” that as true over my life. Though the newest car I drive now is a 2004 (I think), so I am definitely not worried about what I drive.
I had seen quite a bit of blue pill in my father when he was alive. He did many wonderful things for my stepmother, but she still left him when he went into full time ministry. (He stayed single from that point on, pining for her and believing “in faith” for restoration that never came.) He would have had a hard time swallowing some of this, even though he was definitely passionate for God. Ironically my own skirting troubles similar to his has given me a much better appreciation for what he did survive. We would still argue a lot if he was alive today, but I believe I know how at least some things went with him and my mother and step mother over the years.
I would blame the blue pill on why he thought a husband just needed to love his wife more in many cases. I don’t think it had anything to do with the underlying philosophy, especially since many who despise that movement hold to the same ideas. I would call it a modernity problem more than anything else.
@deti
“”I have a great life, she says. He’s a great husband, she says. I just can’t figure out why I’m so unhappy and why I don’t like sex anymore.””
I have heard this a thousand times. One thing that I have noticed in the last 10 years or so which,I consider very dangerous to husbands is the “congregation of wives with their friends and co-workers”.This is just a personal observation. I have noticed at the office the ‘herd mentality’ among these women.They effectively talk each other into divorce. They need “approval from the herd”. Once one woman files for divorce the others think that they have to do the same?….WTF? kind of logic is that? Funny story for you.One of these women I know did this about 7 years ago.When they went to Family Court she had the surprise of her life.He owned NOTHING! The husband’s house(bought & paid for by him) was in his father’s name.The companies that he owned were in his brother’s name.The company paid him $1 per year.All life insurance, annuities etc. had beneficiaries listed within his family.His car was leased via the company.All the profits that the companies earned were put into a family trust,which was controlled by his father and brother.She walked away from court with………NOTHING! She even had to pay her own legal bills.I was ecstatic when I heard of the outcome.This is a guy that is a model or paradigm for young men who want to get married. Guess what this entitlement shrew is doing now?….sitting around with her friends and co-workers(who are all divorced),crying…..”where are all the good men”???…….Lmao!
CAF:
Is wanting to be a husband a worthy vocation?
http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=895212
finding a good man impossible?
http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=895190
Once one woman files for divorce the others think that they have to do the same?….WTF? kind of logic is that?
It isn’t logic as much as it is cover and support. They all have the “remating” issue (aka bio wiring to seek new mate after kids beyond young years). All the herd does is give them permission to act on it. Just like jaywalking in Germany, really — people usually don’t do it if there are only one or two people there, but if everyone is doing it, they will go right along and do it. Strength in numbers kind of thing.
@Mark
Your story makes my heart happy 🙂
Once one woman files for divorce the others think that they have to do the same?….WTF? kind of logic is that?
It isn’t logic, but it is a known aspect of female psychology. Here are a couple of links to get you started:
https://dalrock.wordpress.com/2011/06/05/the-contagious-nature-of-divorce/
https://dalrock.wordpress.com/2010/11/02/the-whispers/
re: rosy data. This morning I was annoyed by the presumptuousness of a bubblegum “gospel” song and flipped to NPR. The story was about Google rankings of news stories i.e. which headlines get the lede. The underlying algorithm is fairly objective, based on statistically valid projections (!) of recent news searches tailored for semi-localized consumption. For example World Cup stories in Brazil are emphasized there now primarily because ten million extra people are searching for futbol results.
The funny part was that Google employs teams plural of media churners, on Twitter, social news commenters, and others, who try to generate interest in specific news search terms in order to have feedback on their own algorithms. The unfunny part was that the objective-ish rankings are then reordered subjectively anyway. The example given was during and after Brazil’s loss to Germany, the Google news rankings in Brazil were specifically skewed to emphasize happy stories because the person in charge of rankings hated to see all the doom, gloom, and shame search terms negatively affecting the news headlines. There was bleeding that ought to have been leading, but the news editor decided otherwise.
That is as it should be. A wife is entitled to share in the bounty her husband provides – that’s part of the deal. But if she frivolously ends the marriage she loses her entitlement to that bounty. She should walk away with nothing, except maybe her wedding dress (whether or not she can still fit into it is her problem). And if anyone owes anyone, the one who broke the contract should be on the hook to make the wronged party whole going forward. (And notice that I said “walk away,” as opposed to “drive away.”) The idea that wives should be able to leave good husbands and receive cash-n-prizes at his expense is absurd. That is feminism in a nutshell, though – all the benefits of patriarchy (guaranteed provision from men), plus all the benefits of matriarchy (no enforceable limits on female behavior). But just as the saying “bad money drives out good” is true in advanced financial systems, “matriarchy drives out patriarchy” is true in advanced social systems. The two systems cannot coexist for very long before adhering to the patriarchal model becomes a bad bet for men… and it is the rewards of patriarchy that inspire men to built civilizations.
It’s almost like they don’t understand cause and effect.
It’s almost like they don’t understand cause and effect.
They most assuredly and clearly don’t, as many of us here ceaselessly point out. Perhaps I should be a little more generous and say that they more often willfully ignore this natural law because it does not comport with the FI.
Totally unrelated to the topic at hand, but hilarious.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/few-more-items-knocked-off-list-of-desirable-trait,36412/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=SocialMarketing&utm_campaign=LinkPreview%3A1%3ADefault&recirc=dating
@Scott
DAMN, that’s beautiful! We can always count on The Onion, a “satiric” “news” site, to paint a picture of truth more accurate than the “real thing.”
Palermo’s checklist, which as recently as 2007 included more than 38 specifically ranked physical, emotional, and intellectual attributes
This what gave it away as a fake story. NO woman has only 38 requirements on her list.
I added that Onion link to my Delicious list, Scott.
Very funny.
The solution above requires the father and brother are single or they could lose it themselves.
Gaming things only works in some cases.
Lyn87
Another thing to do as a man in a married man is make just enough and not incur debt. Always make sure she works and the primary bread winner. learn to make off books money. You may have a buddy or friend that builds decks or hauls rubbish volunteer to work as labor on the job and get to know people. Get familiar with posting and selling on ebay and craigs list. Get the nervousness and apprehension out of your system. Basically become a married MGTOW. Makes divorce unattractive and very non lucrative. Overall the red pill truth read with the bible is very liberating and confidence building That is a must for every man and is now an essential part of all conversations with young men including my own son.
Always works as long as it is founded in reality. (truth)
PS
to avoid debt as a married man let the wife play leader and get the reoccurring bills in her name (phone, utilities, cable, cell phone, internet etc.) Set up a routine of savings to make large purchases with cash. Use plenty of dread game and take advantage of the herd status to compliment her on how she is able to live without debt her peers seem to have.
Kills two birds with one stone protects you from divorce and guess what it really is good for the bitch to live like that. For you stupid righteous types that is an example of Christian game doesn’t look romantic or nice but it is running a house hold in a sea of evil.
Are you married greyghost? Does that literally work for you or is it a concept you think is right? (Asking, not trying to argue.)
Yes I am married and after about 9 years of marriage that is how my house hold works.(14 years so far) The last few years I started using more red pill in the house hold and she is really changing for the better. My wife is a semi crazy chick and she knows it. I notice she speaks the way I do about things and she has picked up on my zero tolerance for irresponsible financial behavior. There is a lot more that is rather unconventional but we are doing as well as can be expected. Most of my time here is spent with a goal of developing my 13 year old daughter.
BradA,
I agree that some things sound better in theory than in practice. My wife knows she would be hosed without me, but the real bottom line is that she fears God… and He’s not fooled, or stupid, or evil, like Divorce Court judges regularly are. Then again, neither of us has ever had the slightest thought of separation. As I’ve written before, we never even fight… ever.
That said, I don’t use “Dread Game” on my wife. I would hate to be in a marriage where I had to, but I can’t fault a husband for using it if he needs to. Heaven knows my brother could have used some before his (now ex-) wife tried to bring his world down. Then again, he married poorly – he knew she was trouble but rolled the dice anyway. Now… I did tell my wife (when we were dating) that if she ever got fat all she’d see were my tail-lights. I was kidding – that’s not Biblical justification for divorce – but it strongly signaled that I expected her to keep herself trim and that I would consider it to be a serious matter if she let herself go. That’s about as close to “Dread Game” as I’ve ever gotten with her.
A quick story: my wife and I have always teased each other a lot, in public and in private. Just the other day she was dressed up and we went to restaurant. I was dressed down relative to her. As we were leaving a guy was walking in and he complimented her on her dress. She said, “Thank you” and we continued walking to the truck. She smirked and said, “Well, somebody likes my dress,” to which I smirked back and replied, “Somebody has to.” And we both laughed. We’ve always been that way. We neg each other all the time, but we never mean it. That works for us – I don’t get upset when she insults me: I laugh along with it, she pretty clever. She doesn’t get upset when I do it to her. But early in our marriage one of her sisters was very concerned that we seemed to be constantly at each other’s throats. My wife had to explain to her that there was no malice in it – we just play rough (verbally). That reminds me of a post Dalrock made some time ago:
https://dalrock.wordpress.com/2013/09/26/if-it-isnt-fun-you-probably-arent-doing-it-right/
Fast forward to tonight. I was telling her that a couple of people commented on my motorcycle today (we’ve had a lot of great riding weather recently). She said that she wouldn’t mind me getting a small rice rocket, but that she would not let me get a 750cc one. Without me having to say anything, she immediately corrected herself and said, “Of course, it would be your final decision, but if you asked for my input, I would feel uncomfortable.”
That’s my girl.
BradA, Lyn87
Dread sucks if it is a lie. I have found with my wife that she response well to the truth. The wife is getting older and I am a big part of keeping her out of trouble in her career. (school teacher) She has a real hard time with the herd status games with the other women. So I have helped her with using merit and results as her way of standing out. Seeing that the students are most black kids (2nd ,and 3rd grades) and I’m a racist bastard and like to see black kids do well in school I spend a lot of time coaching her. And she does very well. So wicked selfishness cleverly used in a way to get a triple win. She is highly in tuned with the feminist way. So it was balancing act but over all I finding she is terrified of being with out her husband but she doesn’t know how to keep one . All she knows is the threat point. Normally I don’t take the slightest hint shit from any woman. It is those hostages that I’m worried about. Without the kids I would have been single 12 years ago. But the experience has been awesome I know the red pill truth and have something to offer my son and daughters. I wouldn’t be here if not for them and that is the whole point of having kids. Wives really don’t mean anything they are a necessary evil to get that uterus to crank out your children. To do over as a red pill man I would use a surrogate and a nanny and make twice what I’m making now.
You can see the hysteria of a women in rebellion for the sake of herd status when real comfort and peace is with her husband It took me a while to see that. She knows it but the essence of her whole being is living up to a lie. As she gives it up she has more peace and personal success.
@MarcusD
Did you see this? A negative article on the MRM by some spineless mangina………that will enhance the sphere!
http://time.com/134152/the-toxic-appeal-of-the-mens-rights-movement/
My stepmother was a schoolteacher and a feminist greyghost and I think the latter governed her thoughts and actions more than the former, unfortunately.
You had a few things, like making her make the money and take out all the credit, that seemed quite impossible in most real marriages. I know it would be in mine as I am the one who makes significantly more income due to my training and aptitude. I may have missed something though.
Lyn87 and greyghost,
I would never intentionally practice something I would consider “dread game,” but I am fed up enough with a bad home situation (especially the way things went after out children all went back to their birth family as they became adults) that I would almost certainly be willing to walk out now if it continued to be intolerable and that is clear. I would know it would be sin, but I wouldn’t care.
I do know God deeply and personally, but I really don’t give a hoot about much beyond surviving in many ways now so lost long term rewards are not a big motivator. Some Christians, including former pastors think I am backslidden, but they don’t know me very well. I have just gone through a great deal of hell and I refuse some of what I can control. (I can’t get back the children and grandchildren I thought I was building towards no matter what I do.)
Combining this with my very stubborn personality, which I have had from a very young age makes me a bit unique, even a snowflake I suppose. I am not a traditional red piller by any means, as you all have seen, but I do seek truth as much as I can.
I am still working my wife through these things. She still balks at many concepts, but I have seen enough changes to believe the overall direction will go well as long as she doesn’t make the decision to go into outright rebellion.
I am convinced God put us together just a bit under 26 years ago, but I often ask him why as some things do not seem very smart! He has no necessity of telling me (the clay) why He (the potter) made things a certain way though.
This is a bit of why I can’t see ever taking a purposeful MGTOW approach, though I suppose I already do a lot of that anyway, even married, so it may be a semantics issue rather than a practical one.
Enough rambling. Hopefully enough of this fit.
Did you adopt, Brad? What happened there?
I ask because my cousin also adopted, three times actually and I’ve heard that almost every time, they will go seek out their biological parents.
The author, James Fell, actually does some good work on bodybuilding/powerlifting topics. It’s a shame he can’t stick to what he actually knows about.
I have no idea about his personal life, but this article gives me the sense that he has one or more daughters; thus his angst is explainable by Freudian displacement (i.e. he worries about his kid falling into the clutches of one of us horrible dudes). His writing also suggests that he’s never actually read Dalrock or any similar blog. There’s really nothing scary about opposing feminism with hard facts and statistics. It’s simply old-school common sense to do so.
Regards, Boxer
As regards my practice of Dread–when she isn’t having an insecurity attack (pretty rare now), she is happier than I’ve ever seen her before.
for all
This is very true confidence in the truth is as CH would say is chick crack. telling the truth is all that dread game is. I always and still feel gaming a wife is bullshit. I was still hanging on to being nice and a good husband, reality has a way of stressing that out of you. Once a man puts his faith in red pill truth that becomes the source of peace in a hysterical wife. They throw tantrums (shit test) just stay firm. Children pick up on very quickly and just your presence solves problems. The last year or so has been a pay off for following the red pill truth (bible). Things are good and the wife has been out of character doing things to be nice.
BTW BradA I have an 800 plus credit score and I signed the mortgage and set up the financial plan we follow. She plays house with my supervision. I’m not stupid and have seen the damage a hamster can do first hand. Women do not have the capacity to appreciate what men do for them. It is especially true today. .
Re: The Time article by uber-mangina James Fell.
I don’t care how much he can lift – that guy’s a pussy. Comparing the plight of men who have to register for the military just to acquire the same political and legal rights that women get just by turning 18 is nuts. Men have to literally register for the possibility of violent death just to stay out of prison (of the 58,000+ Americans who died in the Vietnam War, more than 17,000 of them were draftees – and every single one of them was male). And let’s talk about the fact that 95% of workplace deaths are men… And let’s talk about the fact that alimony is still a thing in 2014… And let’s talk about the fact that the pay-gap he mentions has been disproved dozens of times over the past 40 years… And let’s talk about female reproductive freedoms versus male reproductive responsibilities… And let’s talk about the fact that primary and secondary education is overwhelmingly dominated by women who short-change the boys in their classrooms… which leads to 60% of college students being female… Let’s talk about the false and hateful “Duluth Model” that declares female perpetrators to be victims and male victims to be perpetrators… with mandatory arrest in many states. Let’s just ignore false rape accusations by pretending they don’t happen, or happen rarely, when we KNOW the prevalence is – at the absolute least – 8%, and may very be half or more of all such claims… Let’s talk about the fact that women are far less likely to be charged with a crime than men are under similar circumstances… and charged with lesser crimes if they are charged at all… and receive far lesser sentences if convicted of the same crimes… and released years earlier if they receive the same sentences… Let’s talk about the fact that tax dollars (mostly paid by men – even though most voters are women) pay for hundreds or perhaps thousands of “Women’s shelters” – but you can count the number of publicly-funded “Men’s shelters” on the fingers of one hand… despite the fact that women are more likely to initiate domestic violence than men are.
But this clown writes, “It is a like a multi-millionaire who whines that a tax loophole was closed and he’s losing 0.5% of his annual income.”
Since James Fell is a power-lifting gym rat who writes for a living I assume he’s probably gay, so he has no idea how much power a woman can bring to bear on a actual man simply by lifting a phone and whispering three words, and whether they are true or not is irrelevant:
He frightens me.
He raped me.
He hit me.
He has drugs.
Take your pick. But yeah: I bet James Fell knows a lot about… loopholes. Is that what they call them in the locker rooms where he hangs out doing “research” on muscle-men?
greyghost
Normally I don’t take the slightest hint shit from any woman. It is those hostages that I’m worried about. Without the kids I would have been single 12 years ago. But the experience has been awesome I know the red pill truth and have something to offer my son and daughters. I wouldn’t be here if not for them and that is the whole point of having kids.
Very accurate summary. Seems to me most married men in the US / 1st world are like this.
The “hostages” are always a factor, and I suspect at some level most women know that.
Outcome independence at the PUA level is easy, outcome independence when their are hostages…is different.
@ TFH
As regards Sunday “night club” Game:
Are there any churches where it is more difficult than others? Where the women have more ASD? I mean individual churches, not denominations. If you can discern a denominational trend, that would also be helpful.
He is, last I checked, a married family man who lives a conservative life in Alberta. He’d actually fit in well here, if he ever bothered to self-educate and quit being such a defensive white-knight.
Boxer
Boxer
If he is married with family not chance. He is blue pill and has taken the Driscoll route of through your brother under the bus game.
Dear asdgamer:
Your question wasn’t for me, but I have found it effortless to meet women at both the LDS singles ward and at the reform synagogue. It should be noted that I wasn’t even trying to meet women at either place, and I’m not a member of either religious organization. It was like fish jumping up and landing on the bank.
I’ve been to Protestant and Catholic services on occasion, but never as a single dude, so that’s all the data I have. I would be interested in TFH’s analysis also.
Boxer
“The “hostages” are always a factor, and I suspect at some level most women know that.
Outcome independence at the PUA level is easy, outcome independence when their are hostages…is different.”
Yeah. Along the lines BradA and grey are talking about, the kids are a big, big reason men stay married. In addition to the money issues, there’s a duty factor. Men are hardwired to “do their jobs”, “do their duty”, etc. It’s why shaming blue pill men is so effective, and less effective on red pill men (but still works to some extent). They know their children’s lives will be worsened if they aren’t living with them. So a main reason fathers stay is to remain involved in their children’s lives; or at least not be a factor in ruining them.
Second, most men genuinely love and care about their children. If they didn’t, they would have been gone long ago or wouldn’t have stuck around even for the birth. They want to have families because that means enlarging their territory. It means making something that will outlast their own lives and that will exceed even their own limitations. It means having people who might see you and visit you in your old age. These notions that men don’t care about their children or that men are somehow “worse” parents than women merely because they are male are just bunk.
I’m fairly certain my own marriage would have ended long ago had we not had children. I am very certain that had we not had kids, I would have ended my marriage after the big blowup we had a few years ago.
Boxer,
I don’t doubt that his persona is “straight guy” – who knows, maybe it’s even true. But any guy who spends his life hanging out in locker rooms with muscle-heads while making his living “researching their techniques,” and busting on straight men (the kind of men who have the kinds of “woman problems” he is obviously unfamiliar with)… let’s just say I’m skeptical about which way his door swings.
Let’s do an inventory of what we know of James Fell:
He’s a professional writer for a “pop” magazine (long on emotion and short on facts). – Red flag.
He’s a gym rat, who hangs around locker rooms with muscle-men. – Red flag.
He doesn’t like straight men who speak truth – at all. – Red flag.
He’s a raving male feminist of the “ManUp[TM] variety. – Red flag.
He’s never had a serious problem with a woman in a romantic relationship. HUGE Red flag – indicated he hasn’t spent much time with women.
On the other side of the scale:
He has a government-issued marriage license… from Alberta, Canada. White flag(?).
Like I said, his persona as a straight man may be real… or it may be because the kinds of guys who buy “Men’s Fitness” don’t want to imagine themselves in a locker room with a big gay power lifter (so maybe he’s a homo). Or maybe Theadsgamer is correct and he’s worried that some daughter of his might meet a masculine man – it’s not like she has one in her house (so maybe he’s a mangina). Or he may be one of those guys who attacks men because he is ruled by women at home (so maybe he’s a pussy). One thing is certain – no man ought to give his words about women anything more than a contemptuous snort. In any case, whether he’s gay, straight, or bisexual – homo, mangina, or pussy – he’s full of crap and he needs to get educated before he spouts off about things he doesn’t understand.
He is, last I checked, a married family man who lives a conservative life in Alberta. He’d actually fit in well here, if he ever bothered to self-educate and quit being such a defensive white-knight.
I agree with greyghost. This guy is incurably blue pill. In fact, in just perusing the pile of escritorial vomit to which Mark linked, I can predict with fair certainty that when this guy’s wife frivorces him (yes, you read that correctly) he’ll be falling all over himself to explain to the world why it was entirely HIS own fault.
From Mr. Fell’s article: “Wait, what? Men’s rights? That’s a thing? Yes, it’s a thing,…”
The content of the article is plainly superficial and silly but the style is what really sticks out about it in my opinion. The above quoted substance free snark could have been written by some 20 something bad azz goddezz at Jezebel. It just strikes me as very effeminate.
A dude who expresses himself like that is a power lifter? That is really interesting and surprising to me.
He’s never had a serious problem with a woman in a romantic relationship. HUGE Red flag – indicated he hasn’t spent much time with women.
Another “Big Pink Flag” is any man who makes it known that his BFF is a woman with whom he has a strictly platonic relationship.
“The content of the article is plainly superficial and silly but the style is what really sticks out about it in my opinion.”
Fell’s entire article could be translated as “Wow. Just….wow.”
amtrat,
> Did you adopt, Brad? What happened there?
Yes, our children were a sibling group from “the system”. I provided for easy contact by doing things ahead of time, but I didn’t plan on their complete rejection of my wife and I as parents. Sucks, but it is what it is.
deti,
> It means making something that will outlast their own lives and that will exceed even their own limitations. It means having people who might see you and visit you in your old age. These notions that men don’t care about their children or that men are somehow “worse” parents than women merely because they are male are just bunk.
That is very true. Part of the “pain” I am constantly walking through now is that I thought I laid the groundwork for that family through adoption, only to find out far too late that I should have pursued infertility crud far more when it was possible.
Few understand a father’s pain on losing his children, though a few here might because of similar things in divorce, but another father is not present in that case. Our society is geared to empathize with women, but not men, and it comes up in many different areas.
I am a personality type that thinks about the future and that can be a bad thing in this area.
A related question: What does an MGTOW think of in this area? What do they plan on in their old age?
BradA
Take a look here http://happybachelorsforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1780 I saw a man in his 70’s working. I also have spoken to some men about 20 years ago that described their crazy wife’s going through menopause If they got divorce she got the pension and you worked until death. These were old men (at the time) mid to late 50’s
Those alimony for life states must be hell on earth.
@deti, re: “Men are hardwired to “do their jobs”, “do their duty”, etc. It’s why shaming blue pill men is so effective, and less effective on red pill men”
Awesomely illuminating to me. In a real sense the blue pill entails a finer morality, and to become more red pill *requires* a blue piller to become less moral. Less moral simply in the sense of feeling they have don’t have to dutifully do more of what they think is right.
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“Few understand a father’s pain on losing his children, though a few here might…”
I understand that all too well BradA.
And – as I write that I want to expand on it – but my fingers freeze over the keyboard and my mind starts thinking about the risks – that if I write something more I will once again be perceived as complaining, or lying, of deceiving or merely seeking attention and sympathy as only a whimpering loser who got what he deserved can do… pathetic.
shame/blame and abandonment is what I understand about the grief a father feels for ‘losing’ his child or children. In my experience with the ‘loss’ of my child the case was more literally a state sanctioned theft (kidnapping), hostage holding and extortion scenario complete with the abuse and mistreatment of the hostage… my child. That was 25 years ago and I’m still stuck…
Yeah I really know how to pick ’em – But the reason few understand a father’s pain is because few care to get past institutionalized male hatred and see the truth of female hypermagy. Used to be women would marry and honor their vows for life thereby balancing female hypermagy with male provision and protection. Mucho bueno for family and the children. That was 50 years ago… before my time.
And now, as decades of systematic male hatred and female ’empowerement’ collectively add up, ‘a father’s pain on losing his children’ is becoming everybody’s pain… what’s coming next isn’t going to be pretty but I for one am of the opinion that any society which condones and encourages the theft of children from fathers, then blames, shames and abandons those fathers, deserves to crash and burn and die.
So – in order to hasten and assist the demise of this ‘evil empire’ and I am MGTOW and am looking forward the ‘Fall of Rome part II’. It can’t happen soon enough.
> institutionalized male hatred
That is the core problem and society will remain on the path it is on until that changes. Such a change should be led by Christians, but they participate in their own version of it. Very unfortunate.
Brad A:
I think that despite the loss of your children, you can look at your life as a constructed event, built through your own will, and take pride in the part you played in raising your kids.
As others have already pointed out, men with biological children rarely enjoy those kids help when they are old and in need of it. Most people dump their parents into an institution and move on without too much in the way of contemplation. I think it’s a function of consumerism: we see everything as disposable, be it a parent or an mp3 player.
How do we keep going, in a world which has been stripped of meaning? We make our own meaning, and keep working it out, day to day, until it’s over, and we meet our eternal reward. In the mean time, we must imagine Sisyphus happy…
http://iheartlahs.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Camus-Myth-of-Sisyphus-and-other-readings.pdf
need help here. i took the redpill last week and working on getting my balls back. we are both born again. she keeps throwing scripture back at me about both being submitting to wife/husband and that husband is to be love wife and not be harsh. I know this is sysphean, but need some help with come backs or do I just ignore here and take her upstairs and give it to here?
[D: Welcome. I would start here.]
Dear TheMud:
Aside from reading all you can on this blog (and the blog author gave you a great article to start with) I can recommend two books. *The Mindful Attraction Plan* by Athol Kay, and *No More Mr. Nice Guy* by Robert Glover.
The authors of these books are not (overtly) religious, but both do a good job with practical steps and guidelines to help the reader through the process you’re beginning. Both books are written in a non-esoteric way and will be easy to understand.
I’m not married, so that’s the extent of the feedback I can give.
Good Luck!
Boxer
themud,
Study the mutual submission Scripture a bit more. The context is not husband/wife relations, but those within the Church. You completely negate the commands to women if you make it to each other.
Though the road can be a long one. She will eventually have to decide that truth is more important than modern feminism for her to change.
@themud One of the more common heretical errors that feminists use is to include Ephesians 5:21 in context with the verses on marriage, when it really belongs to the previous passage (Ephesians 5:15-21). Of course, you’ll even get The Feminist Bible (NIV) breaking it up in the heretical way.
If you look at it closely enough (“Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.”), it’s saying that people are to submit to one another in the church. This is true, but our God is a God of order and not chaos, so he lays out an order for this to be done. Wives submit to their husbands and respect them as a function of submitting to God. Husbands love their wives as their own bodies as a function of submitting to God. You can also knock through the first half of Ephesians 6 in this same manner. But the point is there: If she does not submit to you and respect you as to the Lord, she is not following the Lord and sinning against Him.
@themud, the short version is she is not allowed to wait to do her part until she deems you to have done your part first. She is specifically de-authorized from waiting, and to be Scriptural she HAS to start submitting yesterday if not sooner.
@themud jf12 points out another heresy – that women have the right of conditional submission, that is, she gets the right to judge you on whether you are loving her sufficiently and then can submit as little or much as she chooses. I’d point you to more, but it’s so hard to pick just one thing since it’s been written about so much on my blog and others.
But this is perhaps the best start I can think of regarding what you are seeing out of your wife: The Deification of Wives
@lyn87
“”Re: The Time article by uber-mangina James Fell.
I don’t care how much he can lift – that guy’s a pussy””
My sentiments also.How I came across the article.I had an appointment with an engineering firm on the 17th floor of our office tower.I went in,told the receptionist that “I am here for my appointment”. I was sitting in the receptionist area and they have all the magazines laid out…MacLeans,Time,Sports Illustrated etc.I picked up Time and saw this article.I read it…….”ABSOLUTE NONSENSE”….then I went to the Time website when I returned to my office. I posted the link here as I thought it was relevant to Dalrock’s Blog.
@feeriker
“”He is, last I checked, a married family man who lives a conservative life in Alberta.””
Really?…..WOW!…….never knew this guy was a fellow Canuck. Very heartbreaking I must say.But,I am surprised,being from Alberta.Alberta is VERY CONSERVATIVE! Just so that you American Posters here know….Alberta has had,and still has a political party,that wants to “Succeed the Confederation of Canada”….and join the USA and adopt “State Hood”. I doubt that this schmo is one of these guys.From the “tone” of his article I think that he would be better off living in Toronto!
@Deti
“”Fell’s entire article could be translated as “Wow. Just….wow.””
Yup!
@TFH
“”I notice that all the recent articles slamming Men’s Rights, as well as all the negative articles about the recent Men’s Rights conference, are only from manginas and extremely ugly feminists.””
Very ugly Femi-Nazis! UGH! ….As I have posted on prior threads.My family and our Family Foundations and Philanthropic Trusts give away LOTS of money to the University of Toronto.Ever since the “U of T femi-nazi bullshit”(See Youtube).I have taken a stand to the donations that we give to them….as well, I have conversed with several other contributors.I have explained to my father several times…and other contributors……. “This is bullshit”. We give the U of T millions,in order for them to contradict the natural order of things?….Where is the money going?….to “Artsy Fartsy” degrees. We should be giving more money to the STEM subjects.That is where the future is.Not the bullshit “Arts degrees”….In the last 6 months I have taken a very serious stand against this bullshit….so has my brother. My father is starting to get on board….as well as many other contributors. I am at this point the “most hated” financial angel at the U of T….SO BE IT!…..We need to educate young men in STEM subjects…Not Liberal Arts!…I will not give up this fight.These young men that are educated,ambitious etc….are the future of this country.how many wimminz with a “Liberal Arts Degree”..invent anything?…or contribute to the economy?…They do not!…They DRAIN IT!
@Lyn87:
‘1) Don’t be frigid – bonus points if you initiate sex regularly.
2) Don’t be a glutton – bonus points if you work out.
3) Don’t be a whore – bonus points if you’re modest.
4) Don’t be an addict – bonus points if you’re responsible about your conduct.
Oh… and:
5 ) Don’t be a bitch (bitchiness includes nagging, disrespect, laziness, wastefulness, being manipulative, etc) – bonus points if you’re actively nice.’
Very good analysis. And how hard can this really be? Apparently, too hard for many (most?) women.
Okay, I crawled out from under my rock and reviewed some basic math (fractions) and figured out what the numbers on the graph actually represented (I think). Thank you Lyn87 for pointing me in the right direction in one of your comments (not the 1st time).
Marriage Divorce1
Year—–Number—–Rate2——–Number Rate2
1900—–709,000—–9.3————55,751——-0.7
1910—–948,166—–10.3———–83,045——0.9
1920—–1,274,476—12.0——— -170,505—-1.6
1930—–1,126,856—9.2———–-195,961—–1.6
1940—–1,595,879—12.1———–264,000—-2.0
1950—–1,667,231—11.1————385,144—-2.6
1960—–1,523,000—8.5————393,000—-2.2
1965—–1,800,000—9.3————479,000—-2.5
1. Includes annulments.
2. Per 1,000 population.
So according to the graph above, the divorce rate in 1900 was 55,751/709,000 = p/100
p = 100 x .07863299 = 7.87333% or about 7.87%.
That still seems high from what I remember reading some years ago, but oh well.
I wonder what happened after the turn of the century to cause the continuous rise in divorce rates. If this chart is accurate, in 1920 divorces rates jumped up to around 13.37%. I haven’t seen much written about marriage and divorce for that time period, and I am curious as to what was happening then.
I still find it appalling that people professing Christianity can see 20-25% divorce rates as something worthy of writing about in a positive light, let alone 31-35%.
The grey divorces I’ve seen have been when the man retires and his wife doesn’t like him permanently being at home.
When I heard a group of women discussing how the can get their husbands away from them during the day I confronted them with “how dare that man think he’s got any right to enjoy his house, especially since he’s only been paying for it, and you to stay at home, for forty years! The nerve!”
They really see possession as 9-10th of the law and, since they’ve been in the house longer, then the men must come 2nd.
When I heard a group of women discussing how the can get their husbands away from them during the day I confronted them with “how dare that man think he’s got any right to enjoy his house, especially since he’s only been paying for it, and you to stay at home, for forty years! The nerve!”
This is just one more reason why I advocate a return to some form of biblical patriarchy where the woman is dependent upon the man for resources and protection. Not only will she be more inclined to remain faithful to her vows, but she will most likely attribute a higher status to and be more attracted to her mate.
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