Back in July the New York Times ran a surprisingly good piece on marriage titled: The Wedding Toast I’ll Never Give. It isn’t a great piece, but it is far better than what usually comes out of either Christian or secular media.
“The way to stay married,” my mother says, “is not to get divorced.”
“My parents were too poor to get divorced,” a friend told me that very day in Minneapolis as we walked through the book fair. “And so they stayed married and then it seemed too late, and now they’re glad.”
Those are the things I think about when yet another person I used to think of as being part of a happily married couple messages a friend of mine on Tinder.
The conventional wisdom on marriage is that intensive counseling accompanied by large doses of groveling by the husband is required for a marriage to stay together. But the advice from the author’s mother is a far better perspective, and is backed up by science. From Does Divorce Make People Happy? Findings from a Study of Unhappy Marriages:
-
Two out of three unhappily married adults who avoided divorce or separation ended up happily married five years later. Just one out of five of unhappy spouses who divorced or separated had happily remarried in the same time period…
-
Many currently happily married spouses have had extended periods of marital unhappiness, often for quite serious reasons, including alcoholism, infidelity, verbal abuse, emotional neglect, depression, illness, and work reversals. Why did these marriages survive where other marriages did not? The marital endurance ethic appears to play a big role. Many spouses said that their marriages got happier, not because they and their partner resolved problems but because they stubbornly outlasted them. With time, they told us, many sources of conflict and distress eased. Spouses in this group also generally had a low opinion of the benefits of divorce, as well as friends and family members who supported the importance of staying married.
-
Spouses who turned their marriages around seldom reported that counseling played a key role.
Marriage counseling = Last stop before toll.
It’s almost like staying true to your vows is good for you, or something.
How ’bout that, huh?
I’m sure you could have figured this out, D but–
Man I could tell some stories.
Pingback: The secret to staying married | Manosphere.com
@Scott
Ha. I think every married couple could.
Oh, I know. But with thousands of clinical contact hours telling husbands “its probably your fault because you aren’t communicating” and pretty much ZERO saved marriages with that method…
@Scott
Ah. Got it now. Looking at it from the outside, I’ve never heard of a case where counseling didn’t make it worse. I have a follow up post to this which I’ll write over the weekend looking more at the counseling side, specifically from the Christian culture. Christian culture is even worse than secular culture this way even though it should be the opposite.
Communicating. Heh. Have sex with the wife, then she won’t stop talking for two hours.
Pingback: The secret to staying married | Neoreactive
“Spouses who turned their marriages around seldom reported that counseling played a key role.”
There’s a reason why that is, and it is one thing Mark Driscoll did get right: In one of his sermons he remarked that marriage counselors tend to have the worst marriages; family counselors the most screwed up kids. He even got their motives right; that they got into psychology to figure out what’s wrong with themselves.
I’ve seen it firsthand. The last people in the world who should be counseling anyone on anything related to marriage want to do it. As James Bond remarked in Casino Royale, “Why is it that people who can’t take advice always insist on giving it?”
To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part. It’s almost like standing by your word is better than breaking it.
Nah, that’s crazy talk! /sarc
Romans 5:1-5 (ESV):
1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoiced in hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
Our modern society hates “character” and utterly hates the production of it. For the modern Woman, the entire concept is anathema, since it would require personal responsibility.
It is always hard for the woman to take responsibility for the marriage so she blames the man. The difficulty in marriage is actually started by her. She is unhappy so she wants out. This unhappiness is a temporary problem and can be overcome by circumstance. Counseling doesn’t work because the therapy doesn’t focus on the women. Women don’t like to get blamed for their psychological problems (unfixable) that contribute to marriage instability. Instead, it is easier to blame the man for their lack of empathy and compassion.
You’re right that we need lessons on how to stay married, but what we’re really missing in our culture today is an emphasis on the benefits of getting and remaining married.
TGW, It’s almost like staying true to your vows is good, or something.How ’bout that, huh?
Well said, sir. I’m LMAO at the simplicity and obviousness of it. If remarriage is accepted for any reason when one’s spouse is alive, said “vow” is bullsh*t. Period. It’s really not that hard.
Of course marriages can collapse (folk sin). But that don’t mean the vows must fail, or said Christians must accept those who remarry (mortal sin). But OSAS has taken it’s toll.
“Spouses who turned their marriages around seldom reported that counseling played a key role.”
I keep hearing this is the last stop before walking out the door. It’s very sad that third party help doesn’t do anything except add fuel to the divorce fire.
..wait, what?! Surely EPL is far more important to the modern, independent and empowered woman than staying married. This is a load of hogwash!
I think it’s funny to hear warnings–“I never thought divorce was something that could happen to me, but then…”–from women who have initiated divorce.
Lots of terrible things “happen.” Illness, death, unemployment, natural disasters, etc. Choosing to divorce is not on that list; it is an act of will.
Cognitive Dissonance at play.
I have suffered through this, it must be because this marriage/person is important to me.
People always value more what they have to work harder for, even for a smaller reward. (sometimes a bigger reward makes the struggle less palatable actually)
“The way to avoid divorce,” my soul says, “is not to get married.”
@Looking Glass
It’s amazing St. Paul wrote that about 1850 years before Nietzsche.
Communicating. Heh. Have sex with the wife, then she won’t stop talking for two hours.
I just had to laugh. My eldest brother used to tell me when I was a teenager that sex with the wife solved all problems. According to him, when there was a fight between him and his wife, once they had sex, the problem seemed to look smaller, or quickly disappeared. One of his requirements from the women he dated was that they must never turn him down for sex, no matter the state of the relationship. I am not sure he will be able to find an American woman to marry these days.
Spouses who turned their marriages around seldom reported that counseling played a key role…
Counseling = admission that the couple are unable to solve their relationship problems, or have given up on them.
The fact of the matter is, NONE of us is a fantastic catch. Not one of us is easy to live with. We are all selfish bitches and bastards. BUT the one thing we all want is someone who will put up with us and tolerate our idiosyncrasies and wventually realize they love us and we love them and putting up with our various shits is one of the best benefits of a long-lasting marriage.
I look forward to being at my wife’s bedside in the hospital, caring for her, helping her get better, just as I hope she will be there for me.
Perhaps instead of making love such a big thing, we should instead say, “I tolerate you so much, Darling!”
Dave,
Rather, counseling is the wife’s instrument for “working on the marriage”, which is, being interpreted, “working on her husband”. Women love counseling and the self-importance that comes from having problems to brag about. A counselor will “validate” her feelings, meaning that he will require the husband to jump through whatever hoops, while allowing the her to cut him off until he gets up to snuff, which is never. I think every husband knows at some level that if it’s not getting him more sex, then it’s bu115#!t, which is why counseling is approximately 97.638% ineffective.
I call counseling “the licensed field of crisis maintenance”. How much incentive is there to solve a problem when $75/hour is at stake”? Or how much money is there in telling women, “Your husband is your counselor. Go bow at his feet and seek his will.”
We’ve seen at least 10 couples get divorced over the years we’ve been married. It’s true that no matter what you go through, you just persevere through it together, clinging to each other, and remaining faithful to your promises.
The couples that experience adultery… I really wonder how much of it could have been avoided if they were taking care of their marriage properly.
And then there’s the whole male/female difference of cheating. When a male cheats, it’s usually because the wife is denying him sex continually, treating him horribly, unattractive because she’s let herself go, or it’s a toxic combo of all three. I think it’s rare for a man to cheat just because. In those rare cases, he’s got an extreme character disorder. But that’s rarer to see, especially in the
Christian scene.
With women though, it’s more complicated. They seem to lack the basic loyalty or reciprocal appreciation that men have to keep a good marriage together. I’ve heard of women cheating when things get hard financially, when their husbands are going through career changes or training and need their support the most, when their husbands are sick (or like that one that was DYING of cancer). Anytime the man needs her support emotionally, mentally, or even physically, it seems she is tempted to look for a better deal of a man. Rollo calls it branch swinging I believe, and it’s fueled by a woman’s hypergamy.
Hard times are an invitation to God’s metamorphosis of your soul and character, developing you into a stronger and better person and spouse; I don’t understand why wives just want to check out instead of persevere through with their love of their life. If they really loved him and cared about him, they’d make it work.
I wonder if counseling (Christian kind) fails so much because they aren’t allowed to teach the couple that the wife should be submitting to the husband in marriage, in the Bible’s words, “submitting to her husband in everything.”
Instead, I bet they’re trying to get them to “mutually submit” to each other’s needs and wants… usurping the husband’s authority and giving her validation that he’s not her leader. It’s worth a thought at least of looking into.
Also from that study:
“We were somewhat surprised to discover that, among the spouses we interviewed who saw marital unhappiness as caused primarily by bad behavior, very few husbands and no wives saw the wife’s behavior as chiefly to blame.”
You’re right that we need lessons on how to stay married, but what we’re really missing in our culture today is an emphasis on the benefits of getting and remaining married.
Oh, come on. Lots and lots of people want to get married. Bridezillas want to get married. Carousel riders approaching the Wall want to get married. Homosexuals went to the Supreme Court so they could get married. Polys want to get married. There’s plenty of emphasis in the culture on getting married.
It’s that being married part that isn’t so popular. As the divorce rate, and the fact that women file 60% or more of divorce actions clearly shows.
A counselor who requires a woman to adhere to the scriptural principles of marriage will be called a spiritual abuser.
@Dragonfly
It is even worse than that. Mutual submission would be better than Christian counseling teaching that the husband is to submit to his wife. I have an upcoming post on just one example of this. The reality is Christians strongly believe in one directional submission, they just don’t like God’s order.
“We were somewhat surprised to discover that, among the spouses we interviewed who saw marital unhappiness as caused primarily by bad behavior, very few husbands and no wives saw the wife’s behavior as chiefly to blame.”
That’s pretty easy to explain with The Glasses on, which means it is totally inscrutable to the blue pill people.
When a male cheats, it’s usually because the wife is denying him sex continually, treating him horribly, unattractive because she’s let herself go, or it’s a toxic combo of all three.
I believe that’s true. And it’s something that churches don’t want to address.
I think it’s rare for a man to cheat just because.
I’ll explain the secret that churches also don’t want to address: if a man is getting affection at home, it boosts everything about him: his mood, his attitude, his confidence and his physical appearance. Then he starts to become more attractive to other women, and at times opportunities show up. Those guys are feeling pretty good about themselves and can readily succumb to temptation.
In those rare cases, he’s got an extreme character disorder.
No, it’s pretty much the universal sin nature.
But that’s rarer to see, especially in the Christian scene.
Among Christian alphas? A little rarer, but not much.
But here’s the rest of the secret, this is why church leaders teach their congregants to be beta-schlubs! Because it pretty much removes that temptation from ever occurring for most of the men. It’s also keeps the leaders viewed as alphas.
A grossly flawed strategy w/ all sorts of unintended consequences, but there is a rationale behind this.
@DrTorch:
You actually see a similar push among Christians when it comes to positions of Power & Authority. If you’re a “good” Christian Man, you should never seek out one of those positions unless you can claim you are “called by God”. Funny that the Women driving hard to place themselves in those positions never get chided for it. This was a trend I figured out years ago, even before I hit High School. There was something really, really off about the way Christians view positions that have Responsibility with them. (It’s the heavy influence of the FI within a lot of circles, but the specific aspect that’s taken hold is wanting to not be responsible for Results. But Men understand, generally, that every action is going to have consequences, so the only way to avoid that issue is to never take a position with any Authority. It’s a pretty good way to run out those that are competent from positions they would be good in.)
The reality is Christians strongly believe in one directional submission, they just don’t like God’s order.
One huge problem with those in rebellion is that rather than asking “Am I getting bad results because I am doing something wrong?”, they double down and think to themselves “I am getting bad results because I am not doing what I am doing often/harder enough”.
Jeremiah 6:15:
“Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush…”
Isaiah 44:20:
“He feedeth on ashes: a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?”
“One of his requirements from the women he dated was that they must never turn him down for sex, no matter the state of the relationship.”
THIS should be a requirement of ANY AND ALL relationships. For marriage, it should almost, like, be part of the vows of something.
This is precisely why I advocate Dread- especially in Christian households. The good Christian wife knows that her husband is completely trapped by his religion while she is free to take advantage and treat him horribly. Watch how fast things change once she realizes that his religion no longer binds him like an anchor to a withdrawing, unpleasant wife. It doesn’t take an entirely new religion to say that taking a “second” wife might be the best option. Of course in most cases when he does this, the withdrawing, unpleasant wife suddenly becomes sweet and sexy and submissive. Who knew?
I have a description for”Marriage Counseling”:
Marriage Counseling is giving your wife and another person baseball bats so they can take turns swinging at your crotch. “Therapy” consists of the other person and your wife encouraging you to tightly squeeze and isolate your testicles so the blows are more effective.
“It’s very sad that third party help doesn’t do anything except add fuel to the divorce fire.”
That’s not true. My cousin’s marriage counselor not only broke up her marriage, she went on to gay marry her, which is evidently not unethical because gay. Or something.
That counselor is now a mainline ordained minister.
If one were looking for a Dalrock post to introduce one’s family/friends/congragation to his ministry, this one would be ideal.
heh. One’s congregation might also be interested.
@BPP:
…and at the end of the session, the husband pulls out his wallet and says, “How much do I owe you? Same time next week?”
@Dragonfly, thats a good write up and fairly accurate. Most men can remain faithful unless she is repulsive physically or personality. Even then, men will mostly just detach but sty in the relationship.
Men have a much higher x10 ability to remain in horrible situations than do women.
The divorce\separation rate initiated by women is almost 90% for this reason.
@DrTorch “: if a man is getting affection at home, it boosts everything about him: his mood, his attitude, his confidence and his physical appearance. Then he starts to become more attractive to other women, and at times opportunities show up. Those guys are feeling pretty good about themselves and can readily succumb to temptation.”
I’m not sure if I’m just not understanding your communication style or you really are projecting the female mindset onto men. Regardless of your worldview there are 2 fundamental concepts about men that I think everyone can agree on:
1) Loyalty and keeping your word are very important to men. Look at what happens to snitches in gangs, even in a system that breaks the law there is nothing more important than keeping loyal to those you have pledged yourself to.
2) Men operate on weighing cost VS benefit, or risk VS reward constantly. Even if they are working with a perceived cost or inexact benefit they do their best to quantify these unknowns so they can make a smart evaluation of the situation.
With these in mind, simply ‘succumbing to temptation’ on a dime is not a realistic scenario. Men don’t jump into commitment immediately BECAUSE commitment is so important and serious to them to not make halfheartedly. If a man vows to stay with only his wife for the rest of his life that is loyalty that is very difficult to waver. On the cost VS benefit spectrum, a husband has already spent a considerable amount of time, financial, emotional, and physical investment on his wife during the courtship process, buying a home, building a life together, etc. For him to throw all that investment away (MASSIVE cost) for a short-term benefit is simply illogical. It is not the universal standard behavior for men.
Rather your paragraph describes women almost perfectly: if a woman is getting affection (and commitment) at home, it boosts everything about her, her mood, her attitude, her confidence, and her physical appearance. Because of her increased confidence, she projects that this makes her more attractive to other men, and then opportunities just show up! It has nothing to do with willfully spending time in certain environments and scenarios that allow opportunities to occur, they just happen! These girls are feeling pretty good about themselves and can readily succumb to temptation (It just happened!).
If you are looking to criticize men “It takes 2 to tango!” I can give you several hundred thousand websites that will happily indulge in that conversation with you.
Pingback: The secret to staying married | Reaction Times
@Looking Glass, on the the-sound-of-a-rebellious-woman post, you were asked by 2 different commentators about the statement you made on Mark Driscolls wife blue balling him. I take it you pulled this out of your ass ? If you lied, at least say so.
My 25+ year married parents once told me a story where, very early in their marriage, they mentioned to their families that they were considering a divorce.
My great-grandfather, I believe, got them in a room with him, sat them down, and told them “Don’t be ridiculous, that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Of course you’re not getting divorced!”
They never seriously considered it since.
Dave, your brother is highly unlikely to get married since he believes (I am assuming) sex before marriage is fine. Thus his wife has already broken the “no sex outside marriage” border and will have the incumbent problems of having done it with others. Best case (for him) is that he is screwing up the women he dates for other men who might marry them in the future.
Marriage is either a sacred commitment or it is not. Currently it is not in most cases, with the results we see.
If marital counseling is as bad as the premarital counseling we got, its no doubt people are divorcing. My husband and I couldn’t believe the stupid stuff they tried to teach us. It was all extremely wife based and the husband just got to come along for the ride. This was our church’s required classes in order to be married. Awful.
@Caspar
I find it horrific that so called christian marriage counselors fail to support let alone bolster the husband’s authority and admonish wives to submit to their husbands in all things. The do not condemn a wives for withholding sex or respect, but rather shame men and frag them in the presence of their wives. They attempt to re-frame the marriage in to the wife’s sphere. Communication they say is a key, but they reject clear language like “make me a sammich” or “let’s go to bed and have sex that wakes up the neighbors”. The counselors want men to get in touch with their feelings, but not their feelings for food and sex. Men have feelings of hurt and anger when they are betrayed by so called Biblical counselors. They still see love as the ability to provoke warm fuzzy feelings rather than sacrificial leadership. They think like egalitarian feminists not like Peter,Paul and the patriarchs of the faith.
From page 27 of study:
The Divorce Threat: “He knows I would walk out.”
Many wives (but no husbands) reported their own threats of divorce to be a useful
tool in improving the marriage (and husbands also sometimes reported that the wives’
threat of divorce was key to changing their behavior). Wives were far more likely than
husbands to report attempting to enlist the help of outsiders, from divorce attorneys to in-
laws, marriage counselors, and psychologists (and in one case a bankruptcy attorney), to
solve marital problems. Many wives but no husbands saw themselves as vulnerable to
exploitation by their spouses, unless they stood up for themselves and got help from oth-
ers. Independence, especially financial independence, was mentioned by many wives, but
no husbands, as an essential ingredient to a happy marriage.
Wives claim this improved the marriage. It seems like it would’ve had the opposite effect.
@Lilac
What that tells you is the difference between how men and women think, not whether it is actually a good practice. So when women say they think threatening divorce is a good tool, this means they think it is a good tool.
@BradA
Dave, your brother is highly unlikely to get married since he believes (I am assuming) sex before marriage is fine. Thus his wife has already broken the “no sex outside marriage” border and will have the incumbent problems of having done it with others. Best case (for him) is that he is screwing up the women he dates for other men who might marry them in the future.
Marriage is either a sacred commitment or it is not. Currently it is not in most cases, with the results we see.
I totally agree with you. He is not a committed Christian, though he claims to be one. He smokes often and has almost drank himself to the grave. He is much older now, and is divorced.
Or a widower, as the case might be. His first wife left him. The second one died from pregnancy complications. He currently lives with his children.
@Dalrock and Scott…
Good story: My wife and I actually met with a relationship “coach” a few years back. This was on my wife’s insistence. Now, by this time in my life and in our relationship, I was already red-pill savvy when this came up. My own marital misery had led me to first discovering “game” and later “relationship game.” So, I knew that this idea of my wife’s for “working on the marriage” was code word for “working on her husband.” And I fully anticipated hearing heaping amounts of fem-centric bullshit from the marriage-help industry. But I figured, “Hey, what’s the worst that can happen? My wife and I are likely going to be miserable and divorced either way. So, there’s nothing to lose but a few $$ which will soon be half hers anyway.” Besides, with a Ph.D. in the social sciences myself (not in counseling) I was kind of looking forward to telling this female counselor in her very own jargon exactly how biased she and her industry had become, the damage they were doing, and to go F-herself.
But I was 100% surprised and contradicted.
This “coach” totally got it. On the first day, she knew my wife’s script was like that of most other women dragging their husbands to counseling. She saw right through my wife’s bullshit. This “coach” was an odd combination of Warren Farrell, Athol Kay, Harville Hendrix, and even a bit of Mystery all rolled into one. She knew what shit tests were and why women pose them. She poked through my wife’s facade and explained to her how many women, once their children are old enough, are hard-wired for hypergamy and how this leads them to seek faults in their husbands and rationalize divorce. And get this: on our 3rd visit or so, this female marriage coach wanted to explore and fix my wife’s resistance to blow jobs and swallowing–telling my wife all the reasons she should do so. (I’m not making this up). And my wife was actually humbled enough to listen. …I could go on. For me, it was money and time well spent.
Lest this all look one-sided… I confess this coach also helped me see why and how *I* was letting myself get baited and sucked in by my wife’s drama, how the past was influencing the present, those things holding *me* back from being the rock, the oak, etc.
My marriage (and blow jobs) are much better now as a result. Was I just lucky? It was the only counseling attempt I’d ever made and, so, I have no comparison point. Maybe it’s the fact that we saw a mere “coach” who is unlicensed and needs no formal credentials? (By contrast, a formal “marriage counselor” or “therapist” needs X-years of accredited schooling and indoctrination before s/he can use such a job title). I have no idea. But I’m actually glad I went.
Why the Millennials are not happy (apply to most western women and marriage):
http://brightside.me/article/why-generation-y-is-unhappy-11105/
I think it’s rare for a man to cheat just because.
Racial discrepancies are important here. Last I read, 70% of black pastors & worship leaders are screwing around with women in the congregation. White, latino, and Asian rates are much lower–on the order of 3%, if I recall correctly.
Racial discrepancies are important here. Last I read, 70% of black pastors & worship leaders are screwing around with women in the congregation. White, Latino, and Asian rates are much lower–on the order of 3%, if I recall correctly.
Actually, it is not. Sinfulness has no racial predilection. Most of the celebrated preachers caught with prostitutes have been whites (Ted Haggard, Jimmy Swaggart, etc)
One inherent flaw in marriage counseling is that it must take place within the reality of secular law. Even if the counselor places some value on preventing the breakup of the counseled family, the reality of no-fault is that it is the one who is unhappy who must be appeased if breakup is to be avoided. Given the realities of so-called “family law,” no one should be all that surprised that the unhappy one is usually female.
So when a wife gets them into marriage counseling (often by issuing an ultimatum) even a good counselor is going to be biased toward becoming her advocate instead of advocating for the couple and their marriage.
And that would be true even without Sturgeon’s Law (usually cited as “ninety percent of everything is crap”). Sturgeon’s Law may not be true in general, yet it almost has to be true in a field in which there are no objective standards of performance. If your job is designing bridges and they collapse, well, you’ll have to figure out another way to make a living. But if you’re a marriage counselor and your clients marriages collapse, well, who’s keeping score, anyway?
And so no one should be all that surprised that most marriage counselors are little more than clock watchers, and that when they are they almost always fall into the trap of becoming adocates for the unhappy spouse who dragged the other spouse into counseling. As if appeasement ever did or ever could put the joy back into a failing marriage.
[i]I think it’s funny to hear warnings–“I never thought divorce was something that could happen to me, but then…”–from women who have initiated divorce.[/i]
My ex did say “I never thought I would get a divorce.” So at least she took ownership of getting the divorce. Then again, adding another “I” into the sentence allows for more narcissism.
Ex also refused to do counseling at all. So we saved some money. Ex is actually willing to play the villain, such is her chutzpah.
We do all suck, we’re all average, and marriage is one place where suspension of disbelief helps. Don’t question who your spouse is, or who your children are. Just live and love.
@ Dalrock
What that tells you is the difference between how men and women think, not whether it is actually a good practice. So when women say they think threatening divorce is a good tool, this means they think it is a good tool.
That does seem like an more likely explanation. I could see a divorce threat helping with an unfaithful husband or a man who know that he deserves to be divorced, but it seems like a bad idea otherwise.
I wonder if the some of the people who threatened divorce and things improved were also in this group:
Occasionally a spouse sometimes rated their overall marital happiness high as a way
to “pat themselves on the back” for their achievement in building a happy life despite dif-
ficult marriages. Georgina, for example, who is retired, gave her marriage a six on the
seven-point marital happiness scale. Yet she described an emotionally disengaged mar-
riage without much respect or affection, in which husband and wife lead separate lives.
For her this was a vast improvement over the past, when her husband was overbearing,
critical, and dominated her. Her married life improved when she threatened divorce,
silenced his criticism by speaking up for herself, and developed interests and friendships
outside the marriage. Georgina: “I answered him back. I got ‘the Mouth.’ It was me that
did the changing. If I wanted to go out with the girls, I went out. I got wings.”
Also I wish the study mentioned how her husband rated the marriage now.
@Lilac
“Also, I wish the study mentioned how her husband rated the marriage now.”
Do they care about that?
And, as the age comes to a close….feminism is relentlessly dismantling the West, brick by brick, pillar by pillar, institution by institution….until it reaches a stage when everything remaining will come crashing down….making way for the rise of the Antichrist.
Well, I only needed one marriage counseling session after she ran me out. The guy said
“If both of you are willing to do whatever it takes, I can help you.”
We all knew he meant if *I* was willing to do everything I was told in an exemplary manner, it might work. Unfortunately, I was already spent and beaten. I knew we were screwed right there.
he also said
“Well, you aren’t meeting all her needs” which turns out was true. She needed discipline, but he was teaching everything but that.
As for the guy above talking about remarriage being a mortal sin, I wonder- where in the bible are there wedding vows? Vows survive? I can appreciate the hard-line stance of one and done. I really can. I do not subscribe to OSAS. However, what you suggest also seems to say that God’s grace is not sufficient.
Also, Jesus’ definitions of adultery in Matthew… none of them allow for when a wife puts away her husband, and our threatpoint laws of today. It all involves the man sending the woman away. It never addresses her slaughter of the marriage (impossible in that time) so I wonder what provision (if any) might be made for a man who gets very distinctly run out and cut off by the state and the woman. Is it unthinkable that the Lord could not forgive and ever make provision for him to have a wife ever again? Is it unthinkable that the Lord would want him to marry again?
>Many currently happily married spouses have had extended periods of marital unhappiness, often for quite serious reasons, including alcoholism, infidelity, verbal abuse, emotional neglect, depression, illness, and work reversals.
It’s unfortunate that our culture lumps in ordinary problems like depression and alcoholism together with (usually) made-up problems like “abuse” and “neglect” and also with infidelity, the only problem on that list that should be fatal to a marriage. I bet there are people out there who think of infidelity as just a bump in the road of marriage when it is actually a perfectly good reason to leave your spouse.
From my wife-to-be (about 16 years ago) I had one piece of advice … which she also took to heart.
“You’re not always right!”
We need to teach women not to divorce.
Solomon:
As far as getting needs met, my pastor did give me a copy of His Needs, Her Needs. I determined that in the recent years of the marriage I was the one with fewer needs getting met. Yet she was divorcing me…
As far as taking another wife, I have been through this before. I believe Jesus allowed for divorce and remarriage in case of adultery. My wife left me for another man, though she (likely) did not consumate with him until after she separated. That is still adultery. The people here that think otherwise I believe to be in error.
One poster here, Lyn87, has talked about churches coming up with “strict” interpretations that are not scriptural. Like bans on dancing or drinking. Those are not Bible based. Not allowing for divorce in case of adultery is not Bible based.
Dr Willard Harley noted when working on his PhD that couples who sought counselling got divorced at the same rate as couples who skipped counselling.
I’m with DrTorch….
Just had an affair with a married man (didn’t know he was married, didn’t sleep with him but wanted to) and from everything I can tell his life is AWESOME
Not just a little awesome…But SUPER AWESOME
In fact, I’m really upset because my life is so shitty in comparison to his. That was probably part of the allure on his part. Extremely hurtful. Very big power differential.
He and his wife are definitely a bonded pair. She could have done more looks wise (tanning, stop it!)…but I doubt she’s denying him sex. (He claimed she was denying him sex when his lies unraveled.)
I really wanted to think that he was a poor guy whose wife had rejected him, but I’m sorry. He’s living the dream. The dream home, the dream job, a bit wrinkly-from-too-much-tanning wife but overall they are a Perfect fit with one another, gorgeous intelligent kids, more money and vacations then he knows what to do with….and well….side chicks.
I feel like shit. I read that the English aristocracy had a rule that you were only to have affairs with married women. I get that. Leave us single ladies looking for love alone.
It’s just cruel.
Depends on why the divorce happened. I can’t afford to get divorced but being in year six of a sexless marriage will not make me wish I had stayed in this hell. As far as staying together for the kids it is a good lesson for my son. He can learn that marriage means no sex or affection literally since his birth. Nothing like starting the important lessons in life early.
@Striver
It’s the adultery in the heart thing. People seem to forget that here… And to be frank, once a woman has an exit man as it were, the relationship is done. Now as for repairing marriages where the man was cheating (physically and/or emotionally), much better track record. Best of course if the wife knows, doesn’t bring it up with him, and cleverly maneuvers the Other Woman out of the picture. Generally speaking, openly discussing adultery doesn’t have a very good effect.
@Striver, you are correct. Adultery is a valid reason for divorce. Remarriage is allowed, but you would have to be mad nowadays, but you may find that unicorn farting moonbeams !
Also, one thing thing I know in all relationships, the one who wants to leave is the one who holds all the power at that point. And a woman who wants to leave holds the cards, any counselling to persuade her otherwise just feeds the power mad beast within her. She will feel drunk with power and not likely to give it up for anyone.
I think only men who want to leave can be reached with reason and consequences, even holding all the cards, he can still have compassion. For a woman, absolutely no chance. She will have never felt so powerful and with the full backing of the law to financially screw him over as well, its unthinkable that she would give up her new found absolute power of a man and his future earnings and if he gets to see his kids or not.
In regards to the wife threatening divorce, my wife was doing that about four years ago I just told her I didn’t love her any more and she was just an ungrateful roommate. I pointed to a mediation website for divorce told her that’s all we can afford and she can get a job and get out. She never brought up divorce again. Literally ever.
@Isa says:It’s the adultery in the heart thing. People seem to forget that here
What do you mean ? The adultery in the heart verses – “he who looks at a woman with lust” is prob one of the worst translations from greek to english that we have. Its about a man wanting to possess or covet earnestly another man’s wife, like he would a car or a cow.
What do you mean ? The adultery in the heart verses – “he who looks at a woman with lust” is prob one of the worst translations from greek to english that we have. Its about a man wanting to possess or covet earnestly another man’s wife, like he would a car or a cow.
It’s worse than that. By my read of the original text + historical/grammatical use it means he is actually mulling over ways to accomplish it in his mind.
Today’s Christian pastor (and the wives that adore them) means “finds another woman attractive.”
This is great advice, but it’s the kind of advice people – especially young couples – don’t want to hear, because it’s not “romantic”. Families go through rough patches, and sometimes you get through them out of sheer, stubborn tenacity. That doesn’t sound like fun because it isn’t, but it’s the truth, and people need to hear it BEFORE they get married.
This is why the vows couples write for themselves nauseate me. Not only are they invariably saccharine drivel, they miss all the important stuff. It’s easy to love during the better, healthy, richer times. It’s tough during the worse, sick, poorer times.
This is also one reason (of many) why eloping is a bad idea and community is so important. The phrase “before God and these witnesses” is there for a reason. The purpose of the witnesses (everyone who attends the wedding) is to remind the couple of the promises they made – and to hold them to those promises – when things get tough.
My parents had some rough times, especially when we moved to the US. The stress of raising four kids on little pay and working ridiculous hours in a new country where we didn’t even speak the language took a serious toll on both of them. But they stuck it out and learned to love each other again.
My dad is now in his 80s and his health is declining (mom’s younger and healthier), but he’s being cared for by a loving wife. He’ll die surrounded by three sons, a daughter, twelve grandchildren and maybe a great grandchild or two when his time comes.
The worse, sicker times are back, but they know how to get through them, and this time around their children and grandchildren can help. None of that would be true if they’d bailed out before.
@Scott says:”What do you mean ? The adultery in the heart verses – “he who looks at a woman with lust” is prob one of the worst translations from greek to english that we have. Its about a man wanting to possess or covet earnestly another man’s wife, like he would a car or a cow.
It’s worse than that. By my read of the original text + historical/grammatical use it means he is actually mulling over ways to accomplish it in his mind.”
Totally, like King David watching Bathsheba bathing on the roof who then got her husband killed. It’s that kind of intense desire that will possess someone to cause great harm.
With today’s pastors\white knights\christian feminists\total idiots, its looking at internet pr0n.
@Scott, glad someone else gets it !
I spent five years thinking that if I just stayed true to my vows things would eventually get better. I encouraged my wife to overcome her drug and alcohol problems, I suggested changes that I could make in what I did to better support her, and changes that we could make in our lives to help her. After five years of my wife getting progressively more blatant about stealing from me, and our friends, as well as lying about stuff that didn’t even matter, including bragging to my friends and family about things she was doing behind my back, I gave up. We had been married for fourteen years at that point and I suppose that we might, right now, be happily married had I stuck it out, but five years of absolute hell and stress was enough for me. I understand how one could suggest that a “rough patch” is worth sticking through, but at some point enough is enough and you have to take care of yourself. Even my parents, devout Christians (my dad is a theologian, I am an agnostic libertarian but believe in taking promises seriously), were supportive of my divorce. I am now, seven years later, financially stable and living without stress, after spending five years on the edge of losing everything, and two years of being on the verge of losing my job due to my inability to absorb the stresses of work on top of what was happening at home.
I know, there are exceptions to everything, but I would hope that the findings of the study, that the key to happiness was “outlasting” problems, would still allow people to recognize that sometimes the problems aren’t going to be outlasted, or that maybe the price isn’t worth it for one party.
The adultery in the heart verses – “he who looks at a woman with lust” is prob one of the worst translations from greek to english that we have.
In regards to divorce it really doesn’t matter. Even though lusting after a MARRIED woman is adultery in the heart, it would not be grounds for divorce even if Christian women could have biblical grounds for divorce (I don’t believe they can). We may as well stone the guy then. We’d also have to execute people for wanting to kill someone and force someone tempted of thieving to repay what the wanted to steal. Such thinking is ludicrous.
I say again, why oh why would anyone want to marry a western woman in this day and age. Even the majority of church going women are not fit to be wives.
@JDG says:”The adultery in the heart verses – “he who looks at a woman with lust” is prob one of the worst translations from greek to english that we have.
In regards to divorce it really doesn’t matter. Even though lusting after a MARRIED woman is adultery in the heart,”
Define “lusting”.
If you are using it in the regular english meaning, then your statement above is wrong, even though it does say that in our translations.
@Minesweeper:
See the Sound-Rebellious-Woman thread. I honestly missed your response.
@LG, thank you, I replied on that thread.
Minesweeper my intent wasn’t to refute your position but rather to point out that although sin’s in the heart can have eternal consequences there are no biblical grounds for punishing the offenders.
@JDG, yes, thats really why I’m bringing it up again. A bad translation being used in an unbiblical way to promote and encourage divorce, couldn’t be further from its original meaning. Our translations are pretty good, except when it comes to the whole idea of sex and attraction, then it defaults to what “perfect christian culture” would believe and departs from the original text. Which is really quite dangerous and very foolish.
Dal, could you make, or direct me to, a post that shows how to implement everything you’re speaking about with leading and what not? I read a bunch of posts and think I’m doing some of the things in it, but for the most part I see you pointing out the “What-not-to-do’s”, and can’t find the “here’s what you do”
Heresolong @ October 9, 2015 at 11:25 pm:
I spent five years thinking that if I just stayed true to my vows things would eventually get better. … We had been married for fourteen years at that point and I suppose that we might, right now, be happily married had I stuck it out, but five years of absolute hell and stress was enough for me.”
Don’t carry guilt. You did right to the bitter end; if she couldn’t be bothered to participate or care about the marriage after five years of serious misbehavior, it’s 100% on her. I would probably have hid her body after only one year so you have some excellent fortitude.
Glad to hear things picked up for you afterwards. After trying that hard, you deserve a rest.
…
Oscar @ October 9, 2015 at 11:05 pm:
“This is also one reason (of many) why eloping is a bad idea and community is so important. The phrase “before God and these witnesses” is there for a reason. The purpose of the witnesses (everyone who attends the wedding) is to remind the couple of the promises they made – and to hold them to those promises – when things get tough.”
I was once almost in a position to be the officiating priest for a family member’s wedding, post-red pill, and I gave this issue some serious thought. What duties do these witnesses actually have, and to what extent should the officiating priest be involved in the marriage for “quality control”?
My conclusion was that the witnesses have no real responsibility–marriages are legally enforced today, as they ought to be IMO, and I doubt having one’s extended family second-guessing the spouses is a useful way to keep the modern marriage together–but as the representative of God, it would be my duty to involve myself in any divorce proceedings to punish the guilty party and protect the innocent party.
Would be nice to see pastors taking that kind of interest in a marriage’s stability. Sadly, such willingness to confront evil seems to be entirely absent from the modern church.
Scott,
You basically neuter that verse and I don’t think it fits with the context. The idea being pushed is that sin in the heart is the problem, not just the preplanning for outward sin. Jesus was challenging everyone that they needed to be perfect, not just that they needed to not head towards a bad goal. I am sure many in his audience, including the Pharisees, would have never even planned such things, but they did ponder brief fantasies, because those are the nature of life.
I would have to dig farther to expound completely on that and make sure I am not missing something, but limiting it as you do does not fit with the overall idea. The problem is the small lusts. Fantasies are never good, contrary to what some preach. It is the small foxes that spoil the vines, not the big foxes just starting out.
Dave,
Some cultures accept more sin than others, especially by those in the pulpit. The ones you mentioned fell, the others are often celebrated as the pastor becomes the AMOG. We are all subject to sin, but it can manifest different ways. Of course we are not supposed to acknowledge that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_is_the_enemy_of_good – this saying is older than Voltaire.
@Anonymous for today says:”This “coach” totally got it. On the first day, she knew my wife’s script was like that of most other women dragging their husbands to counseling. She saw right through my wife’s bullshit. This “coach” was an odd combination of Warren Farrell, Athol Kay, Harville Hendrix, and even a bit of Mystery all rolled into one. She knew what shit tests were and why women pose them. She poked through my wife’s facade and explained to her how many women, once their children are old enough, are hard-wired for hypergamy and how this leads them to seek faults in their husbands and rationalize divorce. And get this: on our 3rd visit or so, this female marriage coach wanted to explore and fix my wife’s resistance to blow jobs and swallowing–telling my wife all the reasons she should do so. (I’m not making this up). And my wife was actually humbled enough to listen. …I could go on. For me, it was money and time well spent.”
I hear you, and, waaoowww.
You really did find the unicorn farting moonbeams in terms of life coaches\counselors. Incredible.
@The Question
Great point. It’s like the plumber with a broken toilet or the mechanic with the busted vehicle.
@Dragonfly
Another great point. The Western World would not be what it is today without Christianity in relationships. Even if they aren’t Christians, but behave as the Bible says, then they are usually successful. I think a lot of Christians, which includes counsellors, are trying the equalist bs. Equalism=Nihilism. Men must always be the leader of the household.
It’s also refreshing to see you admit what Rollo has stated multiple times about how women seem to not possess the ability to love like men. It’s nice to see a woman admit to that. Marriage is a major sacrifice for men, and women need to acknowledge that and not be a competitor in a relationship but a complimentary companion.
Dalrock says:@Dragonfly ”
Instead, I bet they’re trying to get them to “mutually submit” to each other’s needs and wants… usurping the husband’s authority and giving her validation that he’s not her leader. It’s worth a thought at least of looking into.
It is even worse than that. Mutual submission would be better than Christian counseling teaching that the husband is to submit to his wife. I have an upcoming post on just one example of this. The reality is Christians strongly believe in one directional submission, they just don’t like God’s order.”
Good point, submission reversal. even if its not explicitly declared, this is how the churches work. in fact this is how almost all female+male relationships work not just marriages. Women are so overbearing generally in their relationships with men, God has to tell them to submit completely just to bring balance to the situation.
Being an Alpha, is being a “Head”, no wonder they flock to it.
Brad-
When my son was 10 we were walking by a life sized Victoria’s Secret poster in the mall of women in their underwear.
He said to me “that picture makes me fell funny.”
I said, “I know. It does that to all men.”
Whar “sin” were we committing?
Scott, you saying your son committed adultery with a victoria secret model when he was 10yo, now thats alpha and a half.
(churchian translation 2015)
btw jokes aside I actually had our homegroup leader say that to me, that looking at images of women or watching pr0n was committing actual adultery and I’ve still got the book he recommended that says that too !!! And I even paid for it. Bonfire season is coming up soon.
(although to some its only classed as adultery if you molest yourself while looking at said images)
Scott,
Whar “sin” were we committing?
It may have made him “feel funny” because he partially recognized sin. Teaching him of the dangers of lust would be far better than ignoring it and saying “it is a part of life.”
We all sin. Call it what you will. We live in a society devoted to amplifying those desires.
Churches should not be focusing on that as much as they are now, but that does not make the requirements of perfection Jesus noted as no longer applicable.
[Mat 5:27-28 NKJV] 27 “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 “But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
Negating the importance of this by only applying it to someone planning to act on it greatly reduces the importance and becomes a “you have to know what it really says” item. I choose to believe what is written as it is rather than imparting some deeper limitation.
Brad–
Got it.
But in the context of a discussion of how most pastors use that passage, your argument amounts to sophistry.
Having grown up in a standard American church I was led to believe that if I was walking down the street and saw a beautiful (and even a fleeting sexual thought crosser mind) and was hit by a car, my soul was in danger because I had committed a mortal sin.
Modern pastors use that same crap to make standard red-blooded men feel like 9 olds do when they get their first hard on.
Argue about something that is actually happening.
Unhappy couple (likely due to the woman as 70%+ divorces are initiated by her) end up happy if they stick it out in 5 years? What changes?
First, the man will gain 5 years of work experience, which will translate into a 20-50% increase in his earnings.
Second, the woman will age 5 years.
These two combined result in the wife being worth much less on the sexual marketplace, and the husband much more, and so she starts to think he’s the best she can get with her current aged appearance and settles in to “happiness”.
“feel like 9 olds do when they get their first hard on”
TMI.
On several levels.
“requirements of perfection”
Required for what?
Salvation is the beginning of the New Life in Christ, not the End.
But yeah, still sin.
“I pointed to a mediation website for divorce told her that’s all we can afford and she can get a job and get out. She never brought up divorce again. Literally ever.”
That’s awesome.
TMI.
On several levels.
Ha! Got me. I of course was not referring to myself. 🙂
Dalrock and others talk about dread and radio silent… I have done thos from day 1 when rejection started. It works for the week or month, but it gets old doing it over and over again.
Most of my venting on here is when i have to resort to radio silence. To give the wife credit i know she really wants to be on board with being submissive. The problem is when it is good i think i can rely on her to continue in her submissiveness. This is where i get it wrong. I have many alpha traits that many men defer to me, even secular men, but total beta with the wife.
To those asking what to do, i can only say work on you. Do what you want. That is not sin if you are providing. She is your helpmeet. Do not believe her and continue to do what you want. I do all the house fix ups, but havent done dishes in years. Bless you and keep from letting her emotiona dictate.
@ Gunner Q says:
October 10, 2015 at 1:26 pm
“I doubt having one’s extended family second-guessing the spouses is a useful way to keep the modern marriage together”
I don’t know what you mean by “second-guessing”, but I’ll explain what I mean when I say Christians should hold each other accountable.
Back in college, and Army buddy of mine (he and his wife were professing Christians) and I got together with a bunch of other former and current servicemen. He was married, but his wife stayed home with their two boys – a toddler and a baby. I was single back then (about 25, I think).
My friend and his wife were going through a rough patch. Having a 2-year-old and a baby will do that. He was feeling a bit too liberated that night, had too much to drink and was getting much too close with a girl at the party. I walked up to my friend, the girl he was talking to had a friend with her and the two of them pretty much propositioned the two of us. I pulled my friend aside and told him, “what you’re thinking of doing isn’t just betraying your wife, it’s betraying your boys too”.
He came to his senses, we left the party and I took him home. The next day, he thanked me for preventing him from making a huge mistake.
That’s the only such experience I’ve ever had, but that’s the kind of thing I’m talking about.
How that would look among women, I don’t know, but I’m confident that Titus 2:3-5 covers it for them.
3 Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. 4 Then they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, 5 to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.
I like it, Titus2:3 “no to wine much enslaved” i.e. don’t be alcoholics. Organic wine\beer is an extremely good detoxifier and healer of the body particularly from heavy metals, it makes sense you would want more of it when aged.
@Wibbins
I’m not sure of the specific question, but hopefully one of these will help:
Perhaps also of interest:
Going to counselling means that the headship of the marriage now passes to the counsellor. It is he/she who the woman looks up to. At this point, the marriage is dead. Usually the wife wants a counsellor because they know that they will put down their husband and humiliate him. It is akin to a sheep being sled to slaughter and both the counsellor and the wife know it. When the husband finally has had enough and doesn’t want anymore of it, the wife now has the excuse that it was he who ended it and she knows everyone including the church will now back up her decision to destroy the marriage. The husband always has had enough of the kook counsellor not his wife but it doesn’t matter. She will tell everyone he didn’t want counselling and it was HE who destroyed the marriage.
In the event that they survive the counselling, the marriage will take a turn where now the man learned to grovel to keep it from dying and the wife knows it. The headship is now hers.
@JDG
>Even the VAST majority of church going women are not fit to be wives.
FIFY. Although, if the religious professionals were willing to live out a proper example (Titus 2:6-8) and teach women what Scripture requires of them, I think many could become worthy of marriage.
But I think such is not to be.
There are some good counselors out there, but they are so few that I would not recommend a couple seek one out. The stakes are just too high.
Although, if the religious professionals were willing to live out a proper example (Titus 2:6-8) and teach women what Scripture requires of them, I think many could become worthy of marriage.
But I think such is not to be.
No, indeed. As long as modernism continues to infect the Church, Titus 2 women will remain relics of a bygone era, at best treated as embarrassing historical artifacts of a less-than-enlightened age not to be mentioned except in scorn, or at worst forgotten altogether (“Titus? Isn’t that in the Old Testament somewhere?”).
Dalrock,
Thx for the links. From Romance 101:
“I struggle to define it, but my frame was more of a playful cocky/funny one. This was actually fairly natural for me, but I had made the mistake of listening to the conventional wisdom on how to please my wife.”
I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that this applies to situations that go beyond just leading one’s wife (although that is ultimately the foundation/training ground of all meaningful leadership).
My take is that this phenomenon is why our society, and especially the church, is so lacking currently in effective leadership. Our natural leaders have been talked out of it.
My take is that this phenomenon is why our society, and especially the church, is so lacking currently in effective leadership. Our natural leaders have been talked out of it.
Don’t discount the extent to which marginalization, shaming, and threatpoint play a role in forcing this abdication of responsibility.
Ok, yes, “talked” is too narrow.
@Solomon: “I wonder what provision (if any) might be made for a man who gets very distinctly run out and cut off by the state and the woman. Is it unthinkable that the Lord could not forgive and ever make provision for him to have a wife ever again? Is it unthinkable that the Lord would want him to marry again?”
Sin requires forgiveness. Is “remarrying” after a woman divorces you even a sin? Clearly you can take a second wife even if you keep the first wife. So why can’t you take a second wife if the wife leaves? The entire FI and Churchianity arguments about marriage become more and more outrageous to me the more I think about it. They are deliberately interpreted to benefit women and harm men. However, that is NOT what the original words actually say. Jesus was clearly talking about putting away a wife- basically putting them on the street- not about the desolate abomination that isn’t even a shadow of the actual institution of marriage created and sanctified by the presence of Jesus.
@Well:
You think because he had an over-tanned pretty wife, a nice house, and a few kids that she hasn’t cut him off? You can’t be serious. I bet plenty of guys on this blog and on /r/marriedredpill are speechless.
@Scott: “It’s worse than that. By my read of the original text + historical/grammatical use it means he is actually mulling over ways to accomplish it in his mind.”
>”Today’s Christian pastor (and the wives that adore them) means “finds another woman attractive.”””
My Bible footnotes say: “More than a passing glance” but you are right about the common Churchian interpretation. These people infuriate me.
@Brad: “I choose to believe what is written as it is rather than imparting some deeper limitation.”
Some of you catheter licks remind me of the Shiites in Iran beating themselves bloody with whips. That was a thing in Middle Ages Christianity and it never went away. They just beat themselves to death (pun intended) reject porn and pull a rule completely out of the Ether that masturbation and barrier birth control is a mortal sin!
You same people go to church on Sunday and willfully violate the Sabbath. Do you “choose” to read what is written? Honor the Sabbath and keep it Holy. So since what is WRITTEN AS IT IS WITHOUT IMPARTING SOME DEEPER LIMITATION this OBVIOUSLY means to hold Saturday services on Sunday (/s). IT IS WRITTEN NOT AS IT IS NOT TO EAT OR DRINK BLOOD. Yet you drink the wine and blood just like you were told.
@Observious Rex:
Exactly! Staying together instead of divorcing means the woman gets older and less valuable while the husband gets older and more valuable. Her impossible hypergamy in her 20’s and very early 30’s becomes manageable in her late 30’s and early 40’s. She “settles in” to happiness, but all the husband notices is that she stops being a bitch all the time.
Scott,
That 9 year old needs to be fully aware of the dangers coming on his life.
I know you think I flip flop, but I aim at putting the Word of God foremost. That must always be our standard, not how men twist it. Pastors that only berate men are wrong for their lack of focus on other things.
I doubt I would preach a whole sermon on that either, unless in the context of “sin is in the mind as much as in the actions.” Jesus words also point out to us our need for a Savior. We cannot meet the requirement on our own, as much as some think they live by the Sermon on the Mount. Not preaching that as it is ends up leaving people thinking “I am not that bad” which is a very hazardous attitude for anyone, including men.
I would be just as hard on female fantasies, perhaps more since they are more socially acceptable today and require a bit more exposure, but principles are just that and we cannot compromise them or we may as well give this all up.
We may miss focus on a principle, but you can only steer a ship that is moving, and that means aiming at purity. No one really does that today, for all the talk about it.
Note that the solution is to stop encouraging the delay of marriage. That won’t completely solve the problem, but would do a lot to avoid the bad habits that so many indulge in because they do not have the proper outlet for such things. Definitely not at 9 years old, but 18 may even be later than it should be. This is a whole can of worms though, so note that focus on the principle and ignore the rest if you wish.
BPP,
Believe what you want. I think I will rely on God’s Word more than yours.
Clearly you can take a second wife even if you keep the first wife.
Not if you seek to live consistent with Biblical principles. God didn’t make Adam, Even and Suzy. He made marriage to be one on one. He may allow other things, including a certificate of divorce, but that is not the way it was in the beginning.
Multiple wives did those who had them had it good as well, right? It has been a while, but I can’t think of a good example of that, though even a few would pale in comparison to the many problems seen by those with multiple wives.
Many things are allowed, but not profitable nor preferable. It is foolish to think the way we will correct female idiocy is by pandering to male idiocy. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the pendulum swing back to that, but it will not have good results either.
Dear Brad A:
Thanks for pointing out the obvious. People like Blue Pill Professor always kook out when asked for a source in the New Testament to support their *ahem* “unique* interpretations. They usually bitch-out of the debate with various weasely and womanly excuses that boil down to well, god didn’t expressly forbid polygamy. This is true, but the text doesn’t explicitly forbid lots of stuff (smoking marijuana, jaywalking, picking fights with drunken bikers, etc.) that anyone with an ounce of common sense would find stupid and socially corrosive.
Normal believers probably find it reasonable to assume that since God created us with a brain, he expects us to parse these ethical issues ourselves, rather than resenting the divine monarch for not handholding us through life with a rule for every conceivable situation.
Ultimately, Freud would probably explain that weirdos like to rely on legalistic loopholes to support their bizarre sexual proclivities because they lack the manly courage to stand on their own without the support of the Bible (which they don’t want to lose moral cover of, despite clearly rejecting all its most important moral teachings). BPP would be more respectable if he just came out of the closet, divorced his wife, and quit with the pretense, but then he’d be unable to tell himself he’s better than all the rest of us. It’s a hard knock life, I suppose.
Regards,
Boxer
@Boxer
”They usually bitch-out of the debate with various weasely and womanly excuses that boil down to well, god didn’t expressly forbid polygamy”
There is a huge social cost involved with polygamy. Societies with it have higher rates of crime and other pathologies that come with excess bachelor males that result from polygamy.
Islamic societies were very violent internally partially for this reason.
80% of human societies have been/are polygamous.
20% of humans live in polygamy.
If you want to be on the wrong end of Pareto optimality (i.e. the weak horse), choose polygamy. Monogamy means better soldiers. More than conquerors, not less.
@infowarrior1:
Limiting Men to 4 wives was a selling point of early Islam. (Explains how it was pretty easy to find a willing army in Vedic Arabia)
In the modern days, prostitution is functionally legal in Shite Islam, while “get your head lopped off” in Sunni Islam. One of these has little issues finding suicide bombers. I’ll leave it to those reading to figure out which.
“well, god didn’t expressly forbid polygamy.”
Not only did He not expressly forbid it, all of the righteous patriarchs were polygamous. Some of the disciples were polygamous.
Not all that is ‘not beneficial’ or even harmful is a “sin.” Because I choose to watch rather than participate while you beat yourself bloody does not make you holier than thou. Paul also wrote that people like you should just get it over with and castrate yourself right now. Go ahead but give us a link on Youtube for the entertainment value.
OT, but I gotta rant about this a bit.
So, I wake up this morning to the local “Christian” radio station. It is playing a song with a female lead, with a male singing with her in parts so that it is a duet.
The song is called, “Bless The Broken Road”; partial lyrics below, taken from http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/rascalflatts/blessthebrokenroad.html:
Others who broke my heart they were like Northern stars
Pointing me on my way into your loving arms
This much I know is true
That God blessed the broken road
That led me straight to you
Now, apparently this was originally a song for a group of men (originally by Nitty Gritty Dirt Band), but the song I heard had a female lead, so that is how I interpreted it.
The lyrics see good in her having spent time with her various McRockBand bad boys, ’cause they pointed her to the man she needed to be with. And she “knows [it] is true That God blessed the broken road That led [her] straight to you”. And the male singer joined her for that part of the lyrics, thus giving agreement by singing the same words.
So lemme get this straight; I am supposed to agree that it was God’s blessing for her to go through the muck with various other guys, because after all, that helped her to find me. And hey, she will no doubt appreciate me all the more, since they all broke her heart, right? She certainly would not be pining away for any of the alphas who got what they wanted from her and then dumped her.
And of course, as she is pure as the driven snow, she would not have slept with any of those bad men. She’ll still be able to offer her virginity, with the stability in marriage that this brings. (See Dalrock’s article re the CDC stats on how marriage stability goes down with the number of extra-marital sex partners she has.)
The lyrics continue, claiming:
I’d like to have the time I lost and give it back to you
But you just smile and take my hand
You’ve been there you understand
It’s all part of a grander plan that is coming true.
So I see I am not supposed to hold her accountable for her continuing, repeated decisions to give her youth, beauty and prime fertile years to various other men. After all, she really wanted to be with me. I “understand It’s all part of a grander plan that is coming true.” And it was God’s Will ™, no doubt.
Heaven forbid a woman be guided to giving her youth to a good, stable, if boring, man, instead of the various hunks with whom she gets distracted.
And this from a Christian radio station. The whole lot of them can go jump off a cliff. I have no desire for some 30 year old woman who spent her youth with a bunch of other men. I would ask what is wrong with these people, but Scripture gives the answer in 2 Tim 2:22-26 and 2 Peter 3:8-9:
“[you are to hope that they will] escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will”, and, “Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”
They are serving the devil, who seeks to destroy. And they are doing an effective job at it. This is the reason for their actions and teachings.
Disgusting.
On the various polygamy rants by others:
BradA
>Note that the solution is to stop encouraging the delay of marriage. That won’t completely solve the problem, but would do a lot to avoid the bad habits that so many indulge in because they do not have the proper outlet for such things. Definitely not at 9 years old, but 18 may even be later than it should be.
I find fault with Brad’s additions to Scriptures re forbidding polygamy, but I have to completely agree with Brad’s statement above. Including the “under 18” portion. I doubt I am alone in having had a strong desire for marriage and sex by the time I was 19. And since women typically want an older man, she would need to be under 18.
Yes, marriage would have been difficult at that young age, but with both parties in obedience to God, it would have worked.
InfoWarrior1
>Societies with it have higher rates of crime and other pathologies that come with excess bachelor males that result from polygamy.
I do not doubt this statement, but I have to ask if our society will be any better? Yes, having a society where one man has 4 wives, and 3 other men have none, is not optimal for “putting sex to work” (per Daniel Amneus). It would be good for having many single guys who choose to be destructive, as you indicate.
But in my city and prior English churches, I did not see all men having a wife, in spite of the “no polygamy” laws. Most men in their late 20s still had no wife.
So whether the men have no wife ’cause some greedy man took 4 wives, or whether the men have no wife because the women have been trained to think they should give their early to mid 20s to their career and “finding herself” with various other men, what is the difference?
At least with a polygamous society, it is possible that the women are giving their youth to a husband, building a strong marriage. In our culture, most women give their best years to no husband.
And yes, I think each man having his own wife is best, as we see in 1 Cor 7. That is the only passage I can think of that could be used to make a case for no polygamy for anyone.
BPP:
>Not only did He not expressly forbid it, all of the righteous patriarchs were polygamous. Some of the disciples were polygamous.
I’ll agree with you on the patriarchs. David, Abraham, Jacob/Israel etc. Although not all; Noah and Isaac had only one wife of whom we know, and same with the vast majority of the people given in the lineages.
I am curious about your claim that some of the disciples had multiple wives. Source?
“The secret to staying married……”
For men, don’t marry an American woman.
@ bluepillprofessor says:
October 11, 2015 at 10:18 am
“Not only did He not expressly forbid it, all of the righteous patriarchs were polygamous.”
The patriarchs serve as examples of what NOT to do as much as they serve as examples of what to do. On the subject of polygamy, they serve as examples of what NOT to do.
“Some of the disciples were polygamous.”
Name one. Provide evidence.
How do we know that God does not desire polygamy for us? When the Pharisees asked Christ about marriage, He did what Brad did, He went back to God’s original design.
Matt 19:3 Some Pharisees came to [b]Jesus, testing Him and asking, “Is it lawful for a man to [c]divorce his wife for any reason at all?” 4 And He answered and said, “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.”
The scripture Christ quoted, of course, is Genesis.
Gen 2:18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper [o]suitable for him.” 19 Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the [p]sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the [q]sky, and to every beast of the field, but for [r]Adam there was not found a helper [s]suitable for him. 21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. 22 The Lord God [t]fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. 23 The man said,
“This is now bone of my bones,
And flesh of my flesh;
[u]She shall be called [v]Woman,
Because [w]she was taken out of [x]Man.”
24 For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.
How many women did God make for Adam? Obviously, He created one woman for the one man. God’s plan for marriage then, according to God the Son, is one woman, for one man, for life.
Man can – and often does – rewrite God’s plans. But to do so is to believe man to be wiser than God. Man did redefine marriage, for example. But it wasn’t SCOTUS that redefined marriage, it was Lamech, descendant of Cain.
Gen 4:17 Cain [j]had relations with his wife and she conceived, and gave birth to Enoch; and he built a city, and called the name of the city Enoch, after the name of his son. 18 Now to Enoch was born Irad, and Irad [k]became the father of Mehujael, and Mehujael [l]became the father of Methushael, and Methushael [m]became the father of Lamech. 19 Lamech took to himself two wives: the name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other, Zillah. 20 Adah gave birth to Jabal; he was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock. 21 His brother’s name was Jubal; he was the father of all those who play the lyre and pipe. 22 As for Zillah, she also gave birth to Tubal-cain, the forger of all implements of bronze and iron; and the sister of Tubal-cain was Naamah.
23 Lamech said to his wives,
“Adah and Zillah,
Listen to my voice,
You wives of Lamech,
Give heed to my speech,
For I [n]have killed a man for wounding me;
And a boy for striking me;
24 If Cain is avenged sevenfold,
Then Lamech seventy-sevenfold.”
If a man thinks he is wiser than God and would rather follow Lamech’s example than God’s plan, let him do so.
I hear all the countries where polygamy is common are wonderful places to live.
Doesn’t the system with divorce and remarriage (where men remarry in higher numbers than women) create a similar sex imbalance to polygyny?
bluepillprofessor @ 10:18 am:
““well, god didn’t expressly forbid polygamy.”
Not only did He not expressly forbid it, all of the righteous patriarchs were polygamous.”
God ordered that people must not be forbidden to marry; letting a few Lotharios corner the market is a more effective way of doing that than passing legislation.
Do not make the mistake of believing God is a rulebook. He is a person. That is the secret to why wretchedly unrighteous men like Abraham, Jacob, David and Peter were among God’s favorites while the legally perfect Pharisees were, ah, not among God’s favorites.
…
“Doesn’t the system with divorce and remarriage (where men remarry in higher numbers than women) create a similar sex imbalance to polygyny?”
Not really. I suspect modern women don’t remarry often because doing so would forfeit their chilamony loot. That’s robbery, not polygamy.
Dave,
Many things may be lawful that are quite unprofitable.
Everyone should keep in mind that seeking a bad situation because it seems better than your current one is like jumping from the frying pan into the fire. Leaving a bunch of males around who have no hope to be married is not a good plan either, without considering how God set the ideal.
(Some have said this already, I am just agreeing here.)
@Gunner Q
Think it through once again, in terms of relative numbers of single men and women remaining. Polygyny creates a surplus of single never-married men. Isn’t there also a surplus of never-married men in the other system? I don’t count female divorcees as the equivalent.
@Exfernal
Injustice not withstanding. Polygamy guarantees a shortage of women for bachelor men. Monogamy alleviates this. The chances of finding a wife under monogamy is much greater after having controlled for variables.
Obviously our system due to leftism constitutes soft polygamy.
“Obviously our system due to leftism constitutes soft polygamy.” – but its polygamy in the wrong way. the women are still “owning” the men particularly his finances (+freedom if he fails to provide) after marriage while having the new bf in the marriage bed.
And some women have multiple husbands that they collect money from while banging the next one. Sounds like ownership to me and matriarchal polygamy to me.
I think one of the key things is to keep the wife busy during the day. Devil makes work for idle hands.
Found a old manuscript from some Church or other with a letter by Annie S Swan entitled ‘How to Make a Marriage a Success – A letter to a young woman.’
Some good red pill truths in it but also some very blue bill ideas.. any idea how to post a scan here or it? Thanks.
Dear Oscar et. al.:
Thanks for such thought provoking warnings about polygamy. It may seem like they’ll fall on deaf ears, but a lot of people read these comments and they’re certainly valuable. I got tired of this nonsense long ago, so I don’t bother with the extended flaming that erupts monthly whenever the Christian swingers club comes out the closet talking shit.
My people did polygamy and some of them still do. I was born a Mormon in Alberta and am related to American and Mexican Mormon colonists who still live “the order”. Men who think this is an alternative to the current situation have a rude awakening. Women do not behave better in polygamy, they behave worse. Having a bunch of “sister-wives” like the Old Testament prophets did, living under your roof, is a fool’s paradise. Most fundy Mormon men are absolutely miserable, henpecked simps. Their kids are raised in what may as well be single-mom households, with very little male involvement (imagine having 15-20 kids and figure it out). All the usual dysfunctional behaviors are evident out on the collective farm. Go visit if you don’t believe me.
Not only is Biblical morality clear on this matter, but secular Atheists like Sigmund Freud also pointed out that polygamy is a step backward, toward a matriarchal hellhole. High culture and civilization is the result of the channeling of male libido toward worthwhile pursuits, and that’s only efficiently done when every man is promised a chaste, loving wife as a reward for real-world achievement and controlling his violent/sexual instincts.
Freud pointed out that polygamy was a step in the right direction when people were in the stone age, but it wasn’t the end game. Monogamy and strict social sanction against fucking other men’s wives is what drives all the great human achievements. Across all racial, linguistic and cultural lines, this is evident, and so obvious that only a fool or a liar would deny it.
But hey, all you wannabe polygamists who don’t believe me are welcome to move several new ho’s into your house and start your little social experiments. Please come back in a year and tell us all how easy your lives have become, now that you have four or five women to step and fetch for, who are all scheming and plotting when you’re out at work. heh heh
Best,
Boxer
@ Exfernal says:
October 11, 2015 at 2:29 pm
“Polygyny creates a surplus of single never-married men.”
This is one reason for the aggressiveness of Muslim culture. Muslim slavers raided European villages as far as Iceland for centuries. One major product was brides and concubines for wealthy men in Muslim lands. European women brought the highest prices, but Muslims also began the African slave trade, and brought so many slaves over from India that they ended up naming a mountain range the Hindu Kush (grave of the Hindus) because of all the slaves that died along the way.
Today, Islamic culture no longer dominates militarily the way it once did, and is therefore incapable of procuring slaves like it once did. That leaves most young men incapable of earning honor by marrying and raising families. Many of those young men turn to Jihad to earn honor. In fact, one DIA study of captured suicide bombers found that most of them are younger sons of second or third wives. Their families had invested their resources on the older sons, and therefore had no resources left to procure these younger sons a wife.
And let’s not forget that the sex slave trade is a major draw for IS recruits.
It gets worse, because many Muslim countries have fewer women than men, because boys are more valuable to the family.
Those who think Polygamy is a great idea should go live in a Polygamous country and report back on their experience after a few years.
Well said.
First counsellor told me she was going to leave me and I better do something really quick, like buy her an expensive present from Tiffaneys, make her happy, submit to her, and so on. I gave up on that one, though I let it run for about 10 sessions.
Second counsellor tried to get her to visualize how to make our marriage work. She walked out on that one after 2 sessions.
Third counsellor was hers alone, and was ‘helping’ her figure out how to leave me. She took over 10 sessions to figure this out, and only stopped when I wouldn’t pay anymore.
Fourth counsellor told us to live apart, but I could only date her, and no sex, which I hadn’t been getting for well over a year anyway. Plus lots more expensive counselling sessions. I walked out on that one after 1 session.
Now we are talking to a pschiatrist would works with family situations, but wife is really reluctant to see him, since I choose him. He’s the only one who has made any sense to me.
Wife isn’t happy, I’m apparently not meeting her emotional needs. I hold down a steady job, make good money, saved for our retirement, and am basically a boring old husband who did his part in the marriage. That’s not enough according to the counselling business which tells her to go get fulfilled in her own.
So we are separating, which is devastating to our grown children and the rest of our family. But she will be fulfilled, and dreams of meeting Mr Wonderful, who will be everything that I’m not. She’s had enough counsellors telling her that she’s right, and that I’m the problem, that her head is filled with dreams of eat, pray, love.
The psychiatrist said something very interesting. The one in his office was the angel, could do no wrong, and the one waiting outside his door was the devil, who cause all the the problems. Then when they switched, the other one now in his office was the angel, and the devil who caused the problems was now outside the door. He was saying that he sees through each of their angellic positions, that they were a bit of both. Hence my wife’s reluctance to see him after I told her this. The counsellors were better at believing her spin that she was the angel, and I was the devil who needed to be brought to redemption. She may very well walk out in him after 1 session.
I think one of the key things is to keep the wife busy during the day. Devil makes work for idle hands.
How do you keep her busy in the day when she has only 1 or 2 kids to take care of, and she is a stay at home mom? Most women who marry in their late 20s have already completed their families by age 32, when they are still very fertile. I say, keep her busy in the day by keeping her busy at night. Knock her up so often until she has her quivers full of God’s blessings. The doctrine of small families is a feminist doctrine that should have no place in a Christian household.
@John
First counsellor told me she was going to leave me and I better do something really quick, like buy her an expensive present from Tiffaneys, make her happy, submit to her, and so on.
Sounds like it used to be in kindergarten when a kid would bring a gift for another kid, and say “I want you to like me”. Nothing beats marrying a decent woman who has already internalized the doctrine of a lifelong marriage, rather than any of these broken women who do not even begin to understand the meaning of commitment.
Dear John:
Very sorry about the bad news, man.
Not wishing your wife ill, but these castles-in-the-sky she has been building, about being liberated to find some handsome second husband who will endlessly dote on her (and perhaps play professional ball and count his millions on the side) is not very likely. The reality is that your wife is still the honorable Mrs. John. The minute she signs those divorce papers, she becomes just another aging ex-prostitute. If she is old enough to have grown kids, no quality man will even touch her for sex.
Sounds harsh, but if she’s too stupid to see this, then she deserves what she gets. Everything is no fault these days, so it’s all her decision, and she will have to live with this decision.
Sure, you’ll have to pay a bit, and it will sting, but in a year, you’ll be banging some nice looking 35-year old while she enjoys a series of 4-month “relationships” with winos and layabouts, while she whines about how men are all pigs &c. This is a pattern I’ve seen many, many, many times, and I’d be glad to realtalk to your wife if she ever reads Dalrock. Sure would suck if she became one of those bitter old skanks that we all point and snigger at, wouldn’t it?
Long ago, I read an article (surely written by some radical woman hater) about Elizabeth Gilbert. Rumor has it she married an old, bald, short, pudgy fucker who may be a closet homosexual. He married her banged-out ass, allegedly to get residency in the USA.
Here’s the happy couple. Her husband, well, he married the hot 35-year old, and has kids with the new second wife. I’m sure she’s more sensible than the first one.
Regards,
Boxer
hello Dalrock I am a long time lurker and i like your content a lot. I am only eighteen but im trying to get this stuff into my head early so i can know what to do when/if i get married. my church currently has a marriage seminar going on called “what did you expect?” since i haven’t gone yet i was wondering your take on it?
here is the link to the promotional video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vq6fkniCUCU
Speaking of Driscoll, has anyone heard from him lately? I’m religiously curious (why I’m here) and watched several of his online video sermons long before I “officially” found the red pill glasses…and his sermons on men, women and marriage were vomitous.
I always feel like sending him an email letting him know that lots of us out here really are hoping he is keeping his wife happy and in a “style she is accustomed to” with his departure from whatever church that was. I want to make sure he is probably mounting his horse, taking up the shield and engaging in all sorts of White Knightedry to keep her happy. Sure hope he doesn’t hit financial straits that would cause her to question his “Calling” and perhaps divorce him.
Oscar, yep, Warren Farrell was pointing this out decades ago. Being “second wife” to an Alpha, means some bricklayer doesn’t get her as first wife…and it’s actually true serial divorce cultures too…a rich, well-to do guy (e.g. “Sultan”) can marry and divorce many women, having children with them and “aging” them into or through the wall…over and over again. Not judging, just sayin’…this whole idea that polygamy (polygany) is some great deal for “men” is completely false.
It’s actually where we are at now, increasingly…lots of omega males that are doing well financially at work, who go back home and “game” all nite…they aren’t even necessarily unattractive, they just live in a culture they do not understand (one gal for every guy)
We saw that with that half-white/half-asian mass murderer a year or so ago…the one with the $50k car that had never gotten laid.
“High culture and civilization is the result of the channeling of male libido toward worthwhile pursuits, and that’s only efficiently done when every man is promised a chaste, loving wife as a reward for real-world achievement and controlling his violent/sexual instincts.”
This is what the conflict between Agamemnon vs. Achilles in the Iliad embodies.
Odysseus and Penelope in the Odyssey is the type of monogamy.
What is the secret to a happy marriage? Happy for whom? Can a beta drafthorse ever have a happy marriage? Is the secret of a happy marriage communication? Does “communication” mean that the wife runs her yap for two hours after sex?
Wibbins, you need options. Possibilities of sex with other women. Then your nonverbal signals will let your wife know that you have options.
I go out dancing solo. To bars. I have options. I’ve been doing this for a couple of years. For five years before that we had had a dead marriage. After six months of my plan, which included dancing, dieting, walking, and lifting weights, I lost enough weight so that Mrs. Gamer noticed me again. Finally, she decided that she wanted sex again. Then she discovered that I was heavily preselected by other women and had lots of options, which made her very insecure. Frequent loyalty tests followed. Then I figured out how to manage Mrs. Gamer’s emotions, giving her comfort and validation when she needed it, so Mrs. Gamer’s emotions stabilized considerably and there has been a lot less drama for the past three months.
This works. Leadership includes managing your wife’s emotions.
Good Guys Don’t Exist
http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=982524
Am I overreacting? Husband and female coworker
http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=982491
(Churchianity/counseling/Pastors) removes that temptation from ever occurring for most of the men. It’s also keeps the leaders viewed as alphas.”
Exactly correct. This is what is happening on the psych/spiritual Identity level, and it should be seen for exactly what it is and for what it is correctly noted as in the manoshphere – the elimination of competition – a very feminine behavior and tactic.
The fact that it occurs in the Churchian environment which is supposedly the source of Revealed Truth just adds that extra, twisted confusion for those who Identify with the Institution and the “leader as unequivocally representing God and serving and playing shepherd to the sheep”.
Husband: “Honey, I quit my job today.”
Wife [suddenly looking very concerned]: “Why?”
Husband: “Well, you know I’m not happy there. I’ve told you that many times.”
Wife [stuttering]: “Well, I suppose you can find a new one, and I can ask Jim to give me more hours at the office in the mean time, and we can take Joe and Suzy out of daycare…”
Husband [interrupting]: “No, No! You’re not listening! You never listen! I’m not in the mood to find a new job right away. Also, I’m not going to just be a homemaker. I need to find myself. The first thing I’m going to do is start drinking more beer with the layabout across the street. I also plan to get back in to playing basketball with the kids at the park. Maybe if my old boss changes, I’ll go back to work for him. He’s got to earn me back. In the mean time, I need time, to find myself…
@John –
It is true, you aren’t “metting all her needs”, just like I wasn’t. She needs rebuke. She needs discipline. She needs a skilled, firm hand. Consider ways to implement wise and powerful rebuke
@ BradA:
You basically neuter that verse and I don’t think it fits with the context. The idea being pushed is that sin in the heart is the problem, not just the preplanning for outward sin. Jesus was challenging everyone that they needed to be perfect, not just that they needed to not head towards a bad goal. I am sure many in his audience, including the Pharisees, would have never even planned such things, but they did ponder brief fantasies, because those are the nature of life.
I would have to dig farther to expound completely on that and make sure I am not missing something, but limiting it as you do does not fit with the overall idea. The problem is the small lusts. Fantasies are never good, contrary to what some preach. It is the small foxes that spoil the vines, not the big foxes just starting out.
I’m agreed on this take of that passage (Matt 5:17-48). The main idea is, “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
One of the examples Jesus used is that the Law says “You shall not murder” – but even an angry “You Fool!” will be “liable to hell of fire”. Murder is obviously right out, but even the angry statement is sin that deserves judgement.
So with this other example, Jesus points out the Law says “You shall not commit adultery”, but adds that lust is adultery in the heart. Do we want to play a game where we try to determine whether a half second glance at a Victoria’s Secret ad is NOT “lust”, but a 5 second look is borderline “lust”; and only the 10 second where you fantasize an interaction qualifies as “actual” “lust”?
“Phew, I almost went over the 10 second threshold, but I killed that thought in time; I didn’t cross the line!”
If that’s a Christian’s standard for sin, I think that he has been defeated already. Note also the following point about gouging out eyes and cutting off hands rather than allowing sin.
@ Scott:
When my son was 10 we were walking by a life sized Victoria’s Secret poster in the mall of women in their underwear.
He said to me “that picture makes me fell funny.”
I said, “I know. It does that to all men.”
Whar “sin” were we committing?
Do you think those ads can inflame lust in some men?
I think the sin is that the mall uses blatant sexual imagery to create lust in its viewers, for men to watch and women to exhibit; to the shame of both.
Whether either of you two personally sinned at that moment depends on factors beyond a mortal’s ability to judge, but developing a defense against lust is every man’s battle.
To switch appetites; we’re to avoid drunkenness. Some men merely need to decide not to get drunk. Other men must abstain from alcohol entirely. I think there are similar differences at work for avoiding lust. Some men can notice the ad and not lust; other men must avert their eyes and perhaps just avoid the malls.
In any case, we “take every thought captive to obey Christ”. And we do what we can to encourage our brothers to do likewise.
Pingback: Never let a crisis go to waste | Dalrock
Pingback: Never let a crisis go to waste | Dalrock
In any case, we “take every thought captive to obey Christ”. And we do what we can to encourage our brothers to do likewise.
This is a key principle we should teach all men (and women too of course), including 9 year olds. All of them need to know that lust seems mild at first, but can tear us apart if we don’t passionately work against it.
I believe the first part of the book of James would also apply to that.
Scott, I would think that moment with your 9 year old would be great to teach him about the power of such images, the reasons to avoid them, etc. You don’t have to condemn him to start getting him to see reality as it is an prepare for it. How many dads back away from such teaching opportunities?
Note, I am not “blaming dads” here. I am just noting that they must teach things like this, as well as many other red pill truths. Many young men don’t get such straightforward instruction today and are left poorer without it.
@Gordax
Welcome Gordax.
They don’t get into much detail in the promo, but what I would be on the lookout for is basically Oprah type relationship advice dressed up as biblical wisdom. The Bible has a good deal of direct instruction to husbands and wives, but this is almost always left out or minimized and instead the focus is standard modern conventional wisdom with a claim that this is different, because we are talking about sin, God, etc.
@Dalrock thanks for the reply! i might go one week to see a little if i do ill keep ya posted.
I disagree. Bridezillas et. al. don’t want to “get married”, they want a big blow out wedding ceremony & a party at which they are the center of attention. See the difference? $20,000, $50,000, $100,000-plus later and when the party’s over, they don’t want to be married. Never did.
Your concern about wedding vows in the Bible is a non-sequitur, Solomon.
That a man and woman choose to join together in marriage is the matter and form of the sacrament of marriage, not any specific wording of wedding vows.
Review the readings for October 4, 2015 Sunday Christian worship.
Zero in on Mark 10:11-12. There’s really not any room to be a rabinnical lawyer and wriggle one’s way out of that clear teaching of Jesus. If one loves Jesus, one will keep His commandments. If one offends Jesus by doing what He hates–and God hates divorce–then one may have committed a deadly (mortal) offense (sin) against Him.
If you or your boy began to imagine undressing ’em with your eyeballs, groping, peeling down, or jumping in the sack with those females, I’m sure you can figure out that you were quite likely committing the sin of lust in your heart.
If you and your boy appreciated the glory of God’s creation when you happened upon the Victoria’s Secret poster and that was all you willed to do, and then you took custody of your eyes, steering yourselves clear of the near occasion of sin that the poster presented, you committed no sin. I’m sure you could have figured that out on your own with a little thought. Glad to be of help.
Oh, come on. Lots and lots of people want to get married. Bridezillas want to get married. Carousel riders approaching the Wall want to get married. Homosexuals went to the Supreme Court so they could get married. Polys want to get married.
—Anonymous Reader
Micha Elyi
I disagree. Bridezillas et. al. don’t want to “get married”, they want a big blow out wedding ceremony & a party at which they are the center of attention.
That’s called “getting married” in the modern world. Most people don’t elope, or drop by a registry office, or have a family service in the back yard, etc. right?
See the difference? $20,000, $50,000, $100,000-plus later and when the party’s over, they don’t want to be married. Never did.
Congratulations, you restated my point rather nicely. There is a difference between getting married and being married, lots of people want the first but not the second.
Having a party where you are the center of attention & get to wear special clothing is fun. Living with another person under a set of rules? Not so much.
“Congratulations, you restated my point rather nicely. There is a difference between getting married and being married, lots of people want the first but not the second.
Having a party where you are the center of attention & get to wear special clothing is fun. Living with another person under a set of rules? Not so much.”
I agree with you, but do you maybe just mean having a wedding+lifetime legal +financial advantages over your helpless slub you’ve conned into getting this far.
Pingback: Ride The Rapids | Notes From a Red Pill Girl
I agree with you, but do you maybe just mean having a wedding+lifetime legal +financial advantages over your helpless slub you’ve conned into getting this far.
Some women are that mercenary but a distinct minority. IMO women’s emotional state is always a factor, and the whole pagentry of My Day is like catnip to women approaching the Wall. The boredom aka “problem with no name”, dead bedroom, cash & prizes comes later. Recall Scott’s first wife who said that she meant “till death do us part” at the time she said it? There you go.
Perhaps part of vetting a future wife should include letting her ramble on about what kind of wedding she’d like to have. Now this is not to say a big fandango is a red flag by itself, I’ve known women that came from big families where the culture demands a major family reunion as part of weddings. Life isn’t complete until some uncle gets a little sloshed & falls down on the dance floor, some cousins wind up puking (hopefully someplace private, or at least in the parking lot), grandparents who haven’t danced in years get enough champagne to get on the dance floor for a set, and so forth. Judgement must be used. Why someone wants something is often as important, or more important, than what they want.
But personal observation over the years has showed me that some number of people want the big day, the big party, and do not even think about what it’s going to be like to clean the toilet every Saturday. That whole “being married” part…
>There’s really not any room to be a rabinnical lawyer and wriggle one’s way out of that clear teaching of Jesus. If one loves Jesus, one will keep His commandments. If one offends Jesus by doing what He hates–and God hates divorce–then one may have committed a deadly (mortal) offense (sin) against Him.
You have to bend over further backwards to justify this view than I do to justify my view.
God may “hate” divorce but he regulated it and permitted it so it can’t even be a “sin” much less a mortal sin. Jesus was presenting an archetype example of holy living. Or do you take Him literally (when He says literally in the very same breath) you should cut off your hand and pluck out your eyes? Why is that explained away with rabinnical precision but when it might threaten the stranglehold on power held by women it is suddenly a mortal sin that cannot be forgiven by the angry Jesus dangling you over the fires of Hell? And what does that have to do with the Holy Spirit?
As an aside in bed tonight after some great sex my wife looked at me lovingly and asked: Why did we make it when so many other people didn’t?
I smiled and answered with the Dalrock principle:
The secret to avoiding divorce is to stay married.
bluepillprofessor said on October 18, 2015 at 9:41 pm
First, I will posit that the Old Covenant no longer applies, because the New Covenant has replaced it. Therefore, what God allowed prior to the New Covenant does not mean it is allowed in the New Covenant.
I cannot find where the Bible says divorce, in itself, is a sin. When divorce occurs for a reason other than fornication/immorality (or an unbeliever abandoning the marriage), then remarriage results in the sin of adultery.
However, divorce always results from sin. I think this why God hates divorce. In other words, divorce itself may not be a sin, but it certainly proves that the divorcer (outside of the 2 exceptions above) has sinned.
Sin means “to miss the mark” and divorce definitely does that. I don’t care how many angels can dance on the head of a pin either, I just know that angels can do things humans can’t.
Divorce destroys lives even without remarriage. Claiming is is not a horrid wrong is idiotic.
I don’t believe in mortal sins however. All sin will kill you unless you accept Jesus’ payment of the penalty for it. This must lead to an inner transformation which may or may not be seen outside. (It should be seen outside, but it may take a while for that and can get masked by outward behavior.) This is too deep for this blog, but people who believe that should look at what really happened in the first sin by Adam and Eve a lot more closely.
Pingback: She lost her best friend. | Dalrock
BradA said on October 19, 2015 at 9:54 am
As a frivorced man, I absolutely agree with this! In my last comment, I was intending to refute bluepillprof’s claim that divorce is not a sin using Matthew 19:9 (“And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.” [NASB])
But, to my surprise, I realized this does not say divorce is a sin, but does say remarriage results in sin. (Note: This is repeated in Matthew 5:32 [“but I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for the reason of unchastity, makes her commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery. (NASB)]”)
Nor does Paul say divorce is a sin. In 1 Corinthians 7:10-11, he says “10 But to the married I give instructions, not I, but the Lord, that the wife should not leave her husband 11 (but if she does leave, she must remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband), and that the husband should not divorce his wife. (NASB)” [Note: the highlighting is to show that Paul considers her “leaving” to mean she is now “unmarried” (equivalent to divorced).]
You say that divorce is sin because “it’s missing the mark”. I agree divorce is missing the mark, but what specific scriptures say wrongful divorce is sin? I would like to know, because the best I have found so far is Matthew 19:6 (“So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate. [NASB]”), but even this is not binding in all cases, for we’ve already seen that Jesus shortly afterwards (in Matthew 19:9) allowed “man to separate” on the basis of immorality.
Just in case it happens (and I’ve seen it before), I’m asking you to simply provide your arguments without going “ballistic” because you think I’m being asinine or an asshole. I hope to learn, and for this to benefit other readers, too.
“I don’t believe in mortal sins however.” Take it up with St. John the Apostle (from 1 John 5):
RSV: “16 If any one sees his brother committing what is not a mortal sin, he will ask, and God will give him life for those whose sin is not mortal. There is sin which is mortal; I do not say that one is to pray for that. 17 All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin which is not mortal.”
If the buzzword “mortal sin” sounds too Catholic to your ears, the 1599 Geneva Bible translates it thus: “16 If any man see his brother sin a sin that is not unto death, let him ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death, I say not that thou shouldest pray for it. 17 All unrighteousness is sin, but there is a sin not unto death.”
“You lay your bets, and then you pay the price. The things we do for love.” Yep.
Pingback: Repenting of sexual morality. | Dalrock
Pingback: Status and Marriage | Spawny's Space
Pingback: Suckers | Dalrock