Another red flag: If her parents are divorced.
Readership: All; Parents;
Length: 2,000 words
Reading Time: 8 minutes
Introduction
When a married couple with children file for divorce, the children are often the worst to suffer. But how does divorce affect children by sex? Do either sons or daughters suffer more than the other?
I found a scientific research report published in the Journal of Family Psychology that answers this question.
S. W. Whitton, G. K. Rhoades, S. M. Stanley, and H. J. Markman, “Effects of Parental Divorce on Marital Commitment and Confidence”, Journal of Family Psychology, 2008 Oct; 22(5): 789–793. doi: 10.1037/a0012800
This study at Boston University revealed how daughters suffer worse than sons in regard to their future marital success. I’ve collected snippets of quotes from this paper to be reviewed below.
Summary
Based on a comprehensive reading of the paper, women are identified as being the critical link in the success of a marriage.
The current findings show that, at the outset of their first marriages, women whose parents had divorced reported lower relationship commitment and less confidence in the future of their marriages than did women from non-divorced families. These results add to previous evidence that adults with divorced parents have lower commitment to marriage as an institution (e.g., Amato, 1996) by showing that women have less commitment to, and confidence in, their own marriages. Daughters of divorced parents appear to be more ambivalent about committing to a particular partner, not merely to the notion that marriage, in general, should be forever. Further, they report less perceived confidence in being able to make their own upcoming marriage last. The effects of parental divorce on marital commitment and confidence were small to moderate, as has been found for general attitudes toward divorce (e.g., Amato, 1996).
“General attitudes” is a heavy term which is not explored in this paper. Speaking from my own experience, it can be inferred that the experience of having divorced parents foments anger, bitterness, cynicism, and distrust, and it destroys the childrens’ hopes.
Results were consistent with those from previously presented analyses; significant gender × parental divorce interactions indicated an effect of one’s own parental divorce on relationship commitment and relationship confidence for women but not for men. In no case was partner parental divorce or the interaction between self- and partner- parental divorce significant, suggesting that couples in which both partners have divorced parents are no less committed or confident than those in which only the woman experienced parental divorce.
This means that if the wife’s parents are divorced, that’s the worst thing that could be for the marriage in regard to my introductory question. If the husband’s parents are divorced, it has much less influence on the marriage. This further supports my previous conclusions that the wife has more influence over the unity, harmony, and overall success of a marriage than the husband.
These findings echo those of previous studies showing a stronger impact of parental divorce on daughters’ than sons’ risk for divorce (e.g., Amato, 1996).
This effect is well studied, documented, and confirmed.
All in all, many things contribute towards undermining a woman’s attitude about marriage, but having divorced parents is a major wrecking ball.
Women who rock the boat sink the ship.
As mentioned above, women are the critical link in the success of a marriage. Going further, two factors were found in women, commitment and confidence, which were predictive of marital outcome. Digging into these effects further, they report that low confidence affects her psychological well-being.
…in the larger study from which the current sample was drawn, relationship confidence predicted change in women’s depressive symptoms over the first years of marriage (Whitton et al., 2007).
A woman with poor confidence is more likely to be deleterious, sensitive, and moody, and this has a significant, negative influence on her marital life. Now add in low commitment, and you have the recipe for a disaster.
Variance within a similarly restricted range of commitment has predicted marital stability over 18 months (Impett et al., 2001). In a large, community based sample, minor variation in confidence that one’s marriage will last was strongly associated with marital disruption (Nock et al., in press)
This means that regardless of her level of commitment, only slight falterings in the wife’s relationship confidence can create big waves in the marriage! It gets worse…
The measures of parental divorce and conflict were retrospective, introducing the potential for distortion by current mood or relationship adjustment.
Yes, wimmin are ALWAYS subject to the Feeelz! A woman who has had a miserable emotional history in her family of upbringing tends to bring a moody attitude into the marriage, and I surmise that this happens on the subconscious level, meaning she is not aware of it. And if all this is not bad enough…
During engagement, there appears to be little variation among couples in their levels of relationship commitment and confidence, with mean levels above 6 on a 7-point scale. Nevertheless, parental divorce is predictive of who will score relatively lower on the commitment and confidence measures, which may be important given the evidence that even small variations in marital commitment and confidence can have meaningful consequences to couple and individual outcomes.
This is scary! The word “predictive” in this passage implies that the risks inherent in marrying a woman with divorced parents goes undetected during engagement, and the attitudes and behaviors that contribute towards marital dissolution (i.e. poor commitment and low confidence) don’t show up until after marriage!
Perhaps there is good reason why daughters are a special protected class; they are the Achilles’ Heel of a society.
Generational Links
In the vast expanse of human history, the character and reputation of a woman’s family of origin was a major consideration for her worthiness of marriage. A multitude of classic literary works bear out this truth. But in recent times, this red flag has been largely overlooked, much to our undoing.
I know from my own family history that divorce runs in families, longitudinally (from generation to generation), and laterally (brothers, sisters, cousins). My paternal grandparents and my maternal grandfather are divorced. My parents are divorced. I and my two sisters are all divorced. My mother’s brother and sister are both divorced, and I have three cousins who are divorced. There are more people in my family who have been divorced than not. So I have always been on the lookout for an explanation of why divorce often presents itself as a “genetic disease”, so to speak. This paper offers a few tidbits of answers.
It is apparent that the shadowy zephyr of parental divorce, and not conflict itself (nor the absence thereof) within the family, is responsible for eroding the critical attributes of emotional health in the woman.
Controlling for interparental conflict did not reduce the effect of parental divorce on women’s relationship commitment or confidence. This finding is consistent with previous evidence that parental divorce, but not parental conflict, is linked with lower commitment to the institution of marriage (Amato & DeBoer, 2001). The present results do not diminish the likelihood that parental conflict increases offspring risk for poor marital outcomes through other mechanisms, such as the development of poor relationship skills (Amato, 1996; Sanders et al., 1999); however, it appears to be parental divorce, rather than heightened conflict preceding the divorce, that affects women’s appraisals of their own marriages.
The authors offer an explanation of why this is.
It is possible that because women are socialized to be more relationship-oriented than men (e.g., Gilligan, 1982), they may be more attuned to their parents’ marital dissolution and its lessons regarding the (im)permanence of marriage. In addition, women generally suffer more negative consequences from divorce than do men, especially economically (Hetherington, 2003).
Therefore, being primed to be conscious of the fragility of marriage by observing parental divorce may lead women, more than men, to suppress levels of marital confidence and to hold back on their commitment to their marriages.
Women take childhood lessons to heart, and carry these with them throughout life.
Also, the effect of parental divorce on commitment and confidence could not be explained by its effect on general relationship adjustment, suggesting the effect is robust and highlighting support for the theory that low levels of relationship commitment and confidence may serve as specific mechanisms through which divorce is transmitted from one generation to the next.
Holy smoke! Scientific evidence for Generational Curses!
Because the cause-effect relationship is so hard to pin down, I can only assume that the fundamental cause of divorce is ultimately spiritual in nature — the shadowy zephyr of divorce is real.
Caveats
A few other noteworthy findings and conditions are summed up in this section.
There are limitations to the present research. Foremost, the sample was not representative. Most participants were White and moderately well educated, and all were married through a religious organization. Findings may not generalize to couples from other ethnic or educational backgrounds or to those who do not marry in a religious organization (although over 75% of U.S. couples do; Stanley, Amato, Johnson, & Markman, 2006).
OMG! So here we are talking about Christian/churchian wimmin and their families!
The small effect size of female parental divorce on commitment and confidence suggests that these premarital variables are also influenced by other factors, and that the influence of parental divorce on marital outcomes is likely mediated by other factors as well, such as communication patterns (e.g., Story, Karney, Lawrence, & Bradbury, 2004). The data were cross-sectional, prohibiting confident statements about directionality or causal effects.
Yes, this effect is compounded by other factors. So if a woman has divorced parents, AND she has several other red flags, then she’s definitely a no go if you’re looking for a stable marriage. I suppose some exceptions may exist, by the grace of God.
The somewhat restricted range on the measures of relationship commitment and confidence, typical of a premarital sample, may have limited power to detect effects of parental divorce for men. Also, internal consistency of the relationship commitment scale was lower than desired for women.
The Feeelz makes it all so confusing and corrupts the data consistency!
Finally, we did not assess whether the lower levels of relationship commitment and confidence observed in daughters of divorced parents eventually result in higher rates of marital distress and dissolution; future work is needed to test this hypothesis.
The answer to this question is not too hard to guess.
Despite the robust associations observed in women, parental divorce was not associated with men’s relationship commitment and confidence. Experiencing a parental divorce appears to have a stronger impact on women’s than men’s desires and beliefs about the future of their own marriages. Furthermore, the experience of parental divorce by both partners did not predict any lower commitment or confidence than did the woman’s parental divorce alone.
The author is saying that this phenomenon only affects women, not men. That is, men do not lose confidence and a sense of commitment towards marriage because of parental divorce. However, since my own parents are divorced, I have to say that it does have a negative impact, but not on confidence and commitment, per se. Going off of my own experience, I think the impact on men causes them to lose hope about ever having a joyful marriage, and to objectively rethink what marriage is all about from a very cynical perspective. It also leads men to develop certain particular sensitivities about what he can or cannot accept in a mate, to be distrustful of women (especially if his mother was responsible for the divorce), and to play the field a bit longer. If a man has bitterness and anger towards his mother (because of the divorce, but it could be for any other reason too), then this will cause him to feel attraction towards s1utty women. If the divorce happened before he reached maturity, then he may not realize this connection, and just think that he is unlucky in love. Moreover, experiencing parental divorce creates a lot of internal conflict that changes a man’s feelings towards women and leads him through a more tortuous path to marriage. I think this wear and tear does have an influential impact on marriage and especially on his choice of a mate. But I agree with the authors in that once the decision has been made to go into marriage, commitment and confidence are not affected.
Conclusions
In sum, a woman’s confidence in the marital relationship is a huge predictor of marital success. So guys who are vetting for a wife should place this trait as a high priority. Parental divorce was found to be one factor that is a major blow to this important trait (i.e. a woman’s confidence in marriage). The paper doesn’t say this, but I would guess that if a woman’s parents are divorced, but she still has a strong confidence in both her own relational skills and the institution of marriage, then that risk may be abated. However, the paper does say that you can’t know this for sure until after you’ve been married for 18 months.
I might speculate that the rise in the divorce rate since No Fault Divorce legislation was introduced in 1970, has had a snowball effect in contributing towards an ever greater incidence of divorce among subsequent generations. (See above graph.)
Despite these limitations, this research highlights the negative effect parental divorce may have on marital commitment and confidence, particularly for women. As such, these findings suggest that it may be important for relationship education programs to include specific strategies to help women from divorced families develop higher levels of relationship commitment and confidence by learning skills that promote healthy, happy, and long-lasting marriages.
More evidence for how much we need marriage education, especially for women.
Related
- Biblical Gender Roles: Why Unity In Marriage Has More To Do With The Wife Than The Husband (2016 November 23)
- Σ Frame: My Unhappiness Is Your Fault! (2018 June 3)
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My usual monologue where I talk about my situation. (Sorry if I come off narcissistic but I try to relate these posts to what I see up close.)
My wife was the first of three daughters by three different (lower/working class white) men. The mom only married the third man after the third daughter was born. Drug use, alcoholism in the house. I have to say that all three girls ended up in stable relationships with children. The 2nd sister wasn’t raised with them (given up for adoption to a UMC family). The 2nd daughter was actually the one who didn’t settle down very young and has a “history” with multiple men.
So only one daughter (the 3rd) even knew her father.
The youngest sister has some anger and loony-bird issues, but I have to say she has been in the same stable relationship with the father of her children for many years.
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My stepmother has a son who is living with a woman who has three boys from three different men, and he’s not the father of any of them. If that isn’t crazy enough, he wants to get married, but she doesn’t. (Who was it that said, “P*ssy makes men stupid.”??? Was it Deti or NovaSeeker?)
In this case, and Cameron’s wife’s sisters’ case, I’m not sure if this would have the same effects as a divorce, because they were never married.
I can just imagine her UMC family watching her do her thing, thinking “Must be her LC genetics showing through…”
Sorry! 🙂
OTOH, maybe it was because of her upbringing in the UMC family! We’ve got a post on this coming up.
D’oh!
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“Must be her LC genetics showing through…”
Sorry! 🙂
No problem – you’re quite right. Both my wife’s sisters had brief jobs as “dancers.” I think for her youngest sister it was in a bikini – not full nudity. But I think the 2nd sister was a little more, ahem, adventurous. Now she’s married to a UMC Jewish guy and lives in a big house.
So strange – my wife is nothing like them, nothing. The apple did fall far from the tree. Some girls from a young age decide they want nothing to do with how they were brought up.
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This will shock you I know.
My wife’s father was a musician (drummer).
Her youngest sister’s father is a musician (drummer).
Her youngest sister’s baby-daddy (common law hubby I assume) is a musician (guitarist).
I can’t play any instruments – she picked the complete antithesis or her family.
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Anecdotes here but I have noticed that men from divorced families often end up in stable relationships but don’t want children. I have seen this a bunch of times including in the family. It’s like the destruction of the family makes them cynical about creating another one.
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I’m surprised any man gets married because every dude knows a dude who got crushed in the courts but people are generally fools and think that sort of thing can’t happen to them
Because they are special or some such nonsense
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The divorce risk is very different with children vs without. Without children the divorce impact is often minimal. Alimony is not common in the US any longer — mostly it’s wealth transfers under the cover of child support that are the big post-divorce drain on men, so if you avoid having kids, the divorce is, financially at least, much less draining and destructive. It’s still emotionally devastating for many men, but the financial punishment isn’t close to being what it is if you divorce with children — the latter makes you your ex-wife’s slave for a time period. It makes sense that a man who has seen that is in his own father is very reluctant to take that risk himself, even if he is still capable of the relationship side of things.
My college friend, the “natural” cad, was actually married, for a fairly brief period of time, to a woman when he was in his later 30s. I literally laughed at him when he told me he was engaged, because all of us knew it was a joke for him to marry (this is a guy who ended up with two of the bridesmaids on the night of his college roommate’s marriage … not making that up, I saw all three of them walking off hand in hand myself from the reception with my young wife standing next to me shaking her head in disbelief … naturals are so fun!). He ended up divorce (what a shockerf!) but was only married 3-4 years and didn’t have kids (he wasn’t that dumb … for him to have kids would have been a disastrous error for everyone not least of which the kids themselves), so the divorce went fine for him, no significant financial impact. Suffice to say he went back to being a natural, and has remained so well into his 50s.
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My aunt married a (Puerto Rican) cad. He always had a woman on the side (he’d bring my two male cousins over to their houses while he did his thing with them) . When they were teens, he walked for another woman. My (male) cousins both have happy marriages but don’t want children. Something similar happened with my brother in law (less dramatic) I think and I’ve seen it at work too.
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Child support is the biggest penalty for male female relationships by far. You are loosing money you dont have not a portion of a pot. I would have been better off loosing %100 of my net worth and starting over. In my state mid and low income men pay %25 after taxes to exs, high income %10 with no cap. This does not include day care and medical care. Which they make you pay half of. Also they are so petty they charge interest on the dollar by the day not monthly. Never heard of that in my life.
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I have noticed this is true, not only for men, but also for women from divorced families as well. They want fewer children or none at all. I am not like that though.
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The list of red flags continues to grow
They dont seem to handle being adopted and what not very well either
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I can’t vouch for how the adopted girl was raised. Some UMC adoptive families aren’t good, loving parents even if they give the kids lots of material things. And the genetics thing – yeah genes matter too.
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Who was it that said, “P*ssy makes men stupid.”??? Was it Deti or NovaSeeker?
…….
LOL with no disrespect to them but pretty much every dude walking has said that about some dumb@$$ dude
Even when they are the dumb@$$ wrecking his life over pu$$y
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SFCTON
That was DETI!My anwser back to him was should’nt that be ”it also makes feral women stupid too”!?People think I’m joking about having a 6 year old g.f. when I was age 7?No!!The only reason why we had to split up is because her mother as I found out in 2011!Separated from her husband and wanted to punish my G.F.’S father obviously!Here we are 34&half years later and I still hav’nt fully gotten over it yet!My former G.F. clearly has’nt either!Her mother did a good job wreaking her daughters life &mines!JACKP.S.You know about the truth about that 51%/49% of husbands kill wives vs.wives killing husbands stuff?That 49% is not including the wife running over the husband or getting someone else to kill him!Did you know this?It was RMDgenactivepua who first brought this to my attention from dalrock back in ’13 theres still a post up mocking it at phychologytoday called ”70% of wives kill their husbands I read it on the internet(DALROCK!)”Yes a big non-important pychologist loved dalrock back then!
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Totally Off Topic (but we talked about this before): They’re trying to drive us out.
https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2021/02/18/our-militarys-sjwdriven-abandonment-of-warfighting-is-going-to-get-troops-killed-n2584883?181
Here’s the Navy’s new proposed SJW pledge.
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They forgot to add:
*but I will remain silent about my lived experiences if those experiences mean I grew up in a white, Christian, nuclear intact family and wish to have the same kind of family myself someday.
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The Cultural Revolution demands more than silence from privilege criminals.
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“Swear allegiance to the flag
Whatever flag they offer
Never hint at what you really feel
Teach the children quietly
For some day sons and daughters
Will rise up and fight while we stood still”
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moar, Moar, MOAR!
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: these developments are most welcome. Considering what kind of society the U.S. military is tasked with “defending,” said society does not deserve a combat-capable fighting force. Let the GQT (Girls, Queers, and Trannies) military take over completely! Those of you straight, white, Christian men who are still on active duty need to GET OUT NOW while you still have some dignity left. Save you leadership and combat skills for an organization that is worthy of them!
I thank God every day that I was able to finish my career right before the dawn of this century. I ALMOST didn’t make it to that point due to the deterioration then in progress. I can’t even begin to imagine how unbearable things are today.
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@ feeriker
It’ll be interesting to see who steps into Civil War II as the US military becomes increasingly combat ineffective. The men they’re pushing out aren’t just good at fighting, they also keeping things running.
I’m an old Reservist with worn-out joints, but I think I’d better retire before I get court martialed for “misgendering” someone.
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Agreed
It’s no longer a White man’s nation so let the others pay the price for keeping the wheels on
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Oscar
Is this for real? Are you sure this isn’t the Babylon Bee?
Seriously?
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Deti,
The pledge hasn’t been approved yet, and so far it’s only the Navy, but it’s real. The Navy’s “Task Force to Combat Discrimination” came up with it.
https://www.navy.mil/Press-Office/Press-Releases/display-pressreleases/Article/2298130/task-force-one-navy-established-to-combat-discrimination-in-the-navy/
It’s on page 12 of their report.
Click to access TASK%20FORCE%20ONE%20NAVY%20FINAL%20REPORT.PDF
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HEY, DETI
So they want to do away with the navy now too?My paternal grandfather was in the navy in ww2!I wonder if NAVYFEDERAL might try to pull this on us military families!?I reminded everyone it was you who said p@$$Y makes men&feral women stupid earlier above!
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Aaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh
[Runs screaming from virtual room]
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Good. I want our military to be weak. Very weak. So weak that they will be unable to prevent a revolt.
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That seriously down plays the push button destruction the us military can dump on people
A couple of tranny’s dropping CBU’s in your neighbourhood is going to be a nightmare
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Worked so well in Afghanistan. We totally showed them…
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Don’t mistake politically correct policy decisions with what the government will do to us
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BUT LEX that could lead to unforseen consquences including a SAVAGE NATION surviving and also
1.BORDERS
2.LANGUAGE
3.guitar heavy.MANLY MEL GIBSON/MADMAX OPERA CULTURE
KNOWLEDGEP.S.Remember after the MEL GIBSON ARE YOU JEWISH TO THE COPS INCIDENT in 2006?Michael savage so what About it?I don’t have a good memory, lex?
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@ Ton
That’s true, but all that equipment has to be resourced and maintained, and I seriously doubt that the SJWs they want to recruit are any good at logistics, or maintenance.
I’m more worried about a competent outside military (China?) stepping in on their behalf.
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Chain lacks the naval resources to cross the ocean with a military force.
So does everyone else
They also lack the gdp to create the navy that can do that
And if they did we could destroy their massed fleets with pushed buttons.
If you pay close attention you will see the military does not really play f#ck around with certain resources.
One of my many unprovable theories is….. the shot callers are fine with screwing up the dynamics of certain units because of other more lethal options.
Ex, my beloved Ranger Platoons matter a lot less when a tranny can remote control a grey eagle loaded down with hellfires to see the same target
Hate to say it. I loved being in an infantry platoon, especially a Ranger platoon, more then my extra special days but it’s still a reality.
Recon satellites, icbms, gdp per capita and geography have reduced the odds anyone can invade us to near about 0
It is possible for other folks to produce a regional parity of force, weak poltical leadership and globalist politicians here at home have made that a reality but that still isn’t a credible threat of invasion
It’s also hard to imagine that threat ever being produced given how fundamentally unsound the ecnnmoy and poltically China etc etc is
China, and Russia both are way more concerned about domestic threats. They want to expand, for more or less the same reasons but there is no sign their underlying problems will be resvloed
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@ SFC Ton
True, but I’m not talking about Chinese Marines and paratroopers conducting a forced entry into California, Red Dawn style. I’m talking about American politicians inviting the Chinese to step in after their Tumblrina Army gets their butts kicked by country bumpkins a few times. If that happens, half the Chinese Army could fly over in the comfort of chartered 747s with zero opposition.
Again, I agree. But Tumblrinas aren’t very good at maintenance, or logistics. One drawback to sophisticated weaponry is that it degrades quickly if not maintained properly. Who’s going to maintain those Grey Eagles and Hellfires, if they drive all the decent men out of the military? American men might side with the patriots, and sabotage the equipment. Chinese maintainers, on the other hand, would be reliable.
True, but I’m not talking about invasion. I’m talking about an open invitation by our treasonous politicians.
That very well may save us.
China and Russia are natural enemies. They’ve teamed up out of convenience, but as I’m sure you know, they fought several Division-level engagements along their border back when they were both Communist. The Chinese would love to get their hands on Russia’s enormous resources, and the Russians know it, and they have less than 1/10th of China’s population.
I suspect the Chinese will help our treasonous politicians, both overtly and covertly, and the Russians will help the patriots covertly, if only to make the Chinese bleed more than they would otherwise.
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Yes, I’m a Veteran too. Saw all this woke crap being pushed nowadays as I was retiring from the service–sexual harassment was the big thing then, like all of us with male parts were just a bunch of rapists waiting to dip our sticks into the next new Airwoman that walked through the door; right after I retired I heard it was the transgender thing that was next on the woke hit parade…Extremism in the military, omg, heard it all now. Thank God I’ve ben retired for six years. Not the same military I knew when I came in way back in the day. Oh, I saw a new Air Force (my branch) commercial the other day and it featured all women, like two dozen of them. Got it that they were trying to get the girls to enlist because of well…Girl power! But anyways, here’s the thing that occurred to me watching the commercial, “Yes we have women in the service, and yes, a number of them do good things-pilots, maintainers, etc-however they’re (the one’s in the commercial) the exceptions to the rule and the outliers, not the bulk of the force.” So, no slam to the ladies; however that commercial was misleading. Not only were they all strong performing ladies, guess what else they were? Good guess–the good looking ones-outliers of the outliers! During my year’s in the service it was the MEN that ran the military, and the women augmented, some very admirably for sure, but still men everywhere you turned your head. During Desert Storm, admittedly ancient history now, we had a few really strong ladies, seemed like to me maybe 15-20 of them in our large deployed multiple units working together, and the rest…well I’ll let you guess where most of the problems sourced out of during our version of Arabian Night’s, hint: think 6 to 9 month deployment timeframe, tents at first then gradually some better, more permanent accommodations that afforded more PRIVACY…do I need to say anymore? Let’s just say, all the military Brad’s, Chad’s and Tyrone’s, and we had a bunch of them due to the military “A Team” being present in spades throughout the desert had a field day bombing the enemy then returning to base and ‘bombing the troops!’ Hell, even the top half of the lower 80% of the men were enjoying themselves! Marital rings were the first thing to go MIA during the lead up to the war. Who needs those things when you’re deployed: the old saying, what goes TDY, stays TDY (civilian version is Vegas).
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Studying the impact of women’s commitment to marriage is like studying the impact of unicorn farts on global warming.
Women don’t have confidence in “the marriage”. They have (or don’t have) confidence in the man.
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Unfortunately I think you are right about this
I don’t see them clamoring em masse for a strengthening of the institution. Unless it benefits a particular woman in a particular situation
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@Scott, they’re not going to. The current law and custom serves their hypergamy. They will have to be forced I suspect.
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Yes sir. The marriage to most of them, it’s nature and very existence, is a function of their feelings, A deformed understanding of marriage.
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I had not thought about this in these terms, but I think you’re correct. The success or failure of her marriage in her eyes depends not on her relationship or on its permanence or benefits. It’s all about how her man performs within that relationship.
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This is an interesting point. Mike’s story at Marriage, Sex and More backs this up.
http://marriagesexandmore.com/2021/02/24/is-marriage-supposed-to-be-forever-maybe/
This implies that the connection between parental divorce and a daughter’s loss of confidence in marriage is more nuanced than Whitton, et al. had considered in the paper cited in the post.
My revised theory is that parental divorce causes daughters to lose confidence or faith in “something” that is intrinsic to her relationships to men (i.e. her father and husband) and this is outwardly observed in (i.e. represented by in the study) her confidence and commitment in marriage. I am guessing that this “something” is her hope or her faith in God.
I can also see how this would cause her to be more attracted to a different type of man, probably men who are less marriage minded and more caddish, and choose such a man for marriage, which would also contribute to marital dissolution.
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Also Off Topic: 47-Year-Old, Former NY Fashion Model Descends to “Lot Lizard” Status, Gets Killed
Obviously, this is an extreme case, but sexual liberation isn’t quite working out the way that women were promised. Also…
[Jack: Seeing how her parents are divorced, this is not off topic at all!]
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Landrith was the youngest of five children. She had never married. Her parents were divorced, and their father lived in Utah.
Can you spell T-R-A-I-N–W-R-E-C-K?
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This is just a little piece of anecdotal evidence to support the article and Jack’s report and opinions. This is copied from a comment I made on “Justifying the Crash Landing”, with editing for clarity.
I have two first cousins – the only first cousins I have. They are by my uncle – my mother’s brother.
He and his first wife had a tumultuous marriage. I remember being a very young kid and seeing them fighting when visiting at their home or them at our home.
In 1976 when I was 8 years old, my uncle and his first wife divorced. At the time, my cousins – his children – were 7 (daughter) and 5 (son). She left him and took the kids. Her infidelity was probably involved. He said come home right now. She said no. He said “OK, divorce it is then”. And it was a nasty divorce. They became friends like 20 years later, but for a long time there, the two of them downright hated each other. Hate is not too strong a word.
I saw what it did to my cousins. Depressed and anxious before they’ve even hit puberty. Angry. Sullen. Poor academic performance. She became promiscuous in high school. He became apathetic and lethargic. They both grew up hating themselves. She grew up learning how to use and manipulate men to get what she wanted. He grew up without even a fundamental understanding of girls and women.
When she turned 21, she underwent elective tubal ligation because she didn’t want children, ever. I remember her saying “I’m not bringing children into this world.” Her mother hated her and favored her son. We could all see it. So, one cousin grew up hating herself. The other became a mama’s boy.
Each of them have two failed marriages and are currently single. He had one daughter by his second wife. He has a girlfriend and works as a mechanic. He says he’ll never marry again. He’s now 49.
She first married a man she was dating – he wanted to marry because his mom was dying of cancer, so she agreed because she felt bad. They got married. Mom went into remission. They divorced a year later. Her second marriage was to a trust fund kid. They got divorced because they just “couldn’t get along”. She works for a state agency. She’s now 51.
Neither of them can create or sustain interpersonal relationships. They can handle only the most superficial, surface type relationships – even with close family. They can’t seem to let anyone close enough to them to keep an intimate relationship like a marriage going. They can’t roll with the punches or give/take or compromise or see a future. To them, relationships have no futures – they always end. Because the most important one to them during their formative years ended in a spectacular crash and burn.
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Your story reminds me of what happened to my two female cousins when my aunt (dad’s sister) divorced their father (her first of three husbands) when the oldest was 10 and the yongest 8. Their ultimate life trajectories couldn’t have been more different.
Both girls went through extreme depression in the wake of the divorce. My aunt, never a stable woman, pulled the trigger and moved out of the house, leaving her husband, the girls’ father, to raise them. He was pretty clueless at this, so both girls spent a LOT of time at our house, my parents being the only stable couple among my dad and his two siblings (my uncle, dad’s brother, saw his marriage collapse a year before my aunt’s did, and then left his two children, my other two cousins, orphans after he was killed in a car accident shortly after his divorce).
Of the two girls, the oldest, while still profoundly affected by her parents’ divorce, went on to mitigate the damage from it in her own way. She married during her senior year of high school and moved out of her father’s house, had five daughters (and now has four grandchildren), and is still happily married to the same man after nearly 45 years with him.
Her younger sister, on the other hand, never recovered from her parents’ divorce. She spent her teens and early 20s in and out of mental hospitals, went through a series of disastrous short-term relationships (two of which drove her to attempt suicide), and has never been long without being under a psychiatrist’s care. She did marry, finally, at the age of 31, but the marriage didn’t last (her husband only belatedly discovered just how much of a train wreck she was and apparently just couldn’t cope with it). A major blow to her already fragile psyche shortly after her marriage was when she developed uterine cancer, resulting in a hysterectomy. That probably also didn’t help relations with her husband. They eventually adopted a baby girl, but their marriage collapsed soon aftewards. Unfortunately, my cousin got custody of the daughter.
Over the last 25 years since her divorce my cousin has been involved in an endless string of failed relationships, many of them with older married men. She now lives alone, reclusively, still seeing a shrink, and essentially playing the role of cat woman. The typical scenario that is the inevitable stereotypical long-term effect of divorce.
I think this anecdote is useful mostly in demonstrating that while most women are so damaged by divorce as to make them unmarriagable, there is the example of my older cousin who, probably drive by a quest for unconditional love that her parents divorce made impossible, sought out marriage and was fortunate enough to find the right man. An aberration, to be sure, but it happens on rare occasions.
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Yes.
It’s really a crapshoot as to how people will turn out after their parents divorce. It depends on a lot of things – the personalities of the parents, the kids’ personalities, their SES, their educational levels, their intelligence, academic performance, family support systems, available resources, etc.
With my two cousins, their parents divorce was contentious. Total war. A bit scandalous in the mid 70s, pre Kramer vs. Kramer mentality. Uncle was an intense go getter type A “I ain’t putting up with this crap” kind of guy. His first wife was an intense self claimed “alpha female” who bristled at being a wife and mother. She bucked against the restrictions of marriage, and just didn’t like being a mother. So you can see they shouldn’t have married, and she should not have had kids.
My cousins – She was smart, precocious and with a sweet personality. He was quiet and shy with most people until you got to know him. They were solidly middle class. Both parents college educated and above average intelligence -they met in college.
On the negatives – they had no support systems. None of them did. They were both from very, very small extended families. There just aren’t many of us at all – and we, their closest relatives, lived 3 hours away by car. There were resources, but money was sometimes tight for them, and Uncle didn’t always pay his child support. He owed about $20K in back child support that he never paid, mostly because his ex wife never made an issue about it.
My cousins’ personalities informed their reactions and responses. Her outgoing personality led her to learn to use men to get what she wanted. She lost respect for most men after seeing how her father reacted to the divorce and aftermath. After seeing her mother’s failures as a parent, she decided she would never repeat them, even if she could have done better. She became cynical and jaded. She could not relate to anyone else except on superficial and shallow terms.
Her little brother fared even worse. His personality caused him to withdraw into himself. His mother remarried soon after the divorce to a decent but very flawed man. Her second husband – his stepfather – got into financial trouble and killed himself. My cousin took that quite hard. He developed feminine, or at least nonmasculine, traits and behaviors. When he got to know you, he would “overshare” and “overreveal”. He got needy with girls. Girls learned they could use him easily, and they did. He had no real aim, ambition, or purpose in life, finally settling on auto mechanics in his mid 20s after bouncing around for a long while in odd jobs.
I knew a couple of brothers from junior high school whose parents divorced. They lived with their mother in a subsidized housing apartment. They were poor. I mean like welfare poor. I mean like free school lunch and state medical card poor. But their mom was smart and took good care of them, and their father lived close by and was involved in their lives even though he was an unemployed layabout lazyass.
The brothers themselves were smart kids, academically and athletically talented. They were also pretty easy going, well liked guys in school and they fit in well with all of us shortly after moving to our town. They were having a hard time for a while but seemed outwardly to take it all in stride. They both ended up doing well. The older one, who was a closer friend in high school, got BS and MS degrees in mathematics and worked in industry somewhere. The younger one, about 4 years behind me in school, joined the military after graduation from high school. He retired after 20 years and still works in law enforcement.
So, it really varies a lot depending on personality, parentage, and life outlook.
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I think this anecdote is useful mostly in demonstrating that while most women are so damaged by divorce as to make them unmarriagable, there is the example of my older cousin who, probably drive by a quest for unconditional love that her parents divorce made impossible, sought out marriage and was fortunate enough to find the right man. An aberration, to be sure, but it happens on rare occasions.
Mychaels father abandoned her and her mom when she was in diapers. Has had exactly one awkward interaction with him as an adult.
She describes her love for me as “stubborn.”
I think this is what happened to her, and I’ve reaped the benefits of having a wife who is “stubbornly” in love with me.
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@Scott, not really related to this post but I thought of this. The way she looks at you – you’ve posted together photos. It’s the same way Ginger Duggar looks at her husband. Yes, my wife used to make me watch that stupid show. It’s the same look.
I thought about that because I was involved in a discussion recently where someone said women are all about the emotional connection not the physical one. It’s true, strictly speaking, but who gets that “emotional connection” isn’t random and it isn’t based on “personality” which is what they like to claim really matters.
Anyway congrats on your bride – it sounded like a long road to get there but very worth it !
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When a married couple with children file for divorce, the children are often the worst to suffer.
Not to belabor the obvious, but if their children’s wellbeing was something that parents gave a dried piece of rodent excrement about, divorce would be almost non-existent.
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Either Deep Strength or NovaSeeker had a post up about how women love in a narcissistic manner. It’s true. If women even cared about their own children, they wouldn’t step out on their husbands. They are more thank willing to destroy their children/pawns in post divorce warfare than focus on raising them.
[Jack: It was Deep Strength at Christianity and Masculinity. Here is the link.]
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They are more thank willing to destroy their children/pawns in post divorce warfare than focus on raising them
Raising children means long stretches of prioritizing the welfare and best interests of someone other than onself. That’s not exactly an appealing prospect to a narcissist.
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DS’s site – the argument was that female sexuality is narcissistic (one interpretation of it). Women’s sexuality is self focused (at least more than a man’s is on average). I think men have something similar going on but it’s much stronger in women.
[Jack: Here is the link.]
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Women don’t care about kids
If they did abortion would be illegal
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@Ton:
Jack posted a link to Rollo on this.
Most women have instincts in favor of babies/children. Their desire for the hypergamy filter is so strong that it overrides their pro-baby/child instincts (in about 50% of women) DESPITE their care about kids. So you get female enthusiasm (not just acceptance as a necessary evil in extraordinary circumstances) for abortion and their feeling (all about the feelz) that taking abortion away from them would be the end of the world.
Rollo writes:
I would add that there’s probably an additional source of their enthusiasm: It’s a way to get back at all the alpha Chads who have pumped and dumped them (or cheated on them). It’s a revenge mechanism even if the individual woman isn’t pregnant with alpha Chads baby she still relates emotionally – burning desire for vengeance.
BTW men are all alpha-Chad to them (this type of woman I mean) in the sense that men who they don’t desire don’t exist to them (socio-sexually).
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LOL that explains why women at large don’t care for kids.
I will add the very rare, for me, not all women are like that. Which I have also witnessed many times but as a general rule babies are a way for women to extract resources
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Ton, No, I don’t agree. Most women (psychologically normal women) are interested in babies – I mean the babies themselves not what they get from men because of the baby. The ones that don’t are outliers. You even see this in their obsession with owning and caring for cute little rabbits or whatever. Having 8 kids, I see this all the time. I see women who can’t have babies (or don’t want them with the man they have or their man won’t give them a baby) and when they see our babies they get really emotional – sometimes literally visibly shaken and have to leave. I have seen this with my wife’s former BFF and also with two different female neighbors. Our babies provoke all sorts of emotions in them: love, jealousy, hurt, joy, affection – the whole gambit – I’ve seen it again and again.
I agree that women want resources FOR their baby (and themselves).
Women (half of them) are pro-abortion DESPITE caring about children. That’s how strong hypergamy is.
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Abortion is child sacrifice. The whole point of sacrifice is that you give up something you value in order to gain something you value even more.
So, it’s not that women don’t value their children. They do. It’s that they value other things more than they value their children. This is empirically, observably true of most women, because most women demand legalized Moloch worship (i.e., abortion).
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Mouse Utopia
https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/americans-are-identifying-lgbtq-more-ever-poll-finds-n1258627
Look at the bright side, our descendants will inherit the country (earth).
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I am amazed at how many of my patients equivocate on orientation now
The descriptions are so laborious too.
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It’s like I’m afraid to ask anymore
“Oh, I’m furbaby gender binary nonconforming but mostly gay”
“What?”
Then the explanation goes on forever
Mars. I just keep coming back to Mars.
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SOGI is bespoke now. You know … “curated”. Living la vida “curated”.
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Scott, I have to say that I find this revelation very disheartening. I was under the impression that we are mostly being pushed a narrative but that in reality, most people are not this weird and crazy.
This is a very unfortunate development.
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I don’t know the numbers but we see it. A colleague at work – his college age daughter transitioned, changed girl name to boy name. I don’t see him very often but no longer would ask “how are the kids doing?”
Wife’s friend’s husband (3 kids together) is transitioning into a woman – clothes, hormones boobs, etc. He tells her she is a lesbian since she’s been with a woman all along. Getting divorced. Again, from a Christian mom’s group.
I assume a lot of the numbers are young girls going both ways. Boys can’t get a girl – maybe they’re all becoming gay IDK.
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Actually, you know Cameron. You’re right. We are also loosely acquainted with a family where the husband is supposedly transitioning. Or at least, we were in a co-op with them a few years ago. I was stunned beyond words.
This couple is (or was? I don’t know) on staff of a major Christian ministry with a household name among evangelicals.
What the heck is going on?
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What the heck is going on?
For females it’s mostly young girls involved — 15-25. There are, I think, a couple of things happening, each of them is different. One is that the girls who were “butch lesbians” in prior eras are now becoming trans. A second, and larger, group is the group of girls who feel like they don’t fit into “girl culture” at this age range — the sexualized culture, the makeup and heels and Instagram likes, the dating apps, all of it. So they want to opt out of it — they either go “soft” lesbian (i.e., “bisexual”, and probably that is driving that number in the figures in the link) or go into the transgender group, where they can be separate from the “young girl” culture and have a community of their own that is apart from that culture. I would guess that this is driving the big generational change in the numbers, on the female side.
I would guess that female changes likely account for more of the changes overall than male changes.
But, as for the males, it’s a question of a few things.
One is the rise of porn, which has increased male sexual fetishes because porn tends to funnel viewers into more obscure, fetishy content as a part of their novelty seeking, and some of that fetishy content veers into trans-type stuff — content involving crossdressing, full on transgenderism, and so on. Males are being exposed to this, being aroused by it, and getting the idea of trying it themselves, because of porn. These are not the ones who “knew when they were 2 years old they were in the wrong body”, but the ones who begin to crossdress sometime after puberty and it’s driven by sexual stimulus. Porn is increasing that, a lot. And more males are getting ensnared by that.
The related reason is that, of course, there’s nothing much going on for these males as males sexually in the current market — the market is all about female sexual power and a small number of males with sexual power. This, conditioned by the porn influence noted above, provides a “motive” for these guys — they want to have the kind of sexual power they see women have, and which they lack as males. They are not the kind of males who can ever see themselves as becoming one of the top males, and if they are the kind who finds themselves down porn’s crossdress/trans rabbit hole, they start to experiment with “trying on” female sexual power for themselves — and … here is the key to understanding the whole thing here … even if that sexual “power” is only being exercised over themselves, by turning themselves on. This very odd thing — being turned on by oneself when presenting as a woman — is called “autogynephilia”, and it is what most of the male transgenders are who are not of the “since I was 2 years old” variety (which is a tiny portion of male transgenders).
So that’s what’s going on.
Both are related to the broader changes in the sexual situation between the sexes and represent the growth of “margin strategies” for more marginal/excluded individuals to deal with their dissatisfaction with the current market/scenario between the sexes.
It’s all related, folks.
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Good grief it sounds like Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs.
I’m glad I was raised on good old fashioned Playboys from friend’s dads collections. Seems downright wholesome by comparison.
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Good grief it sounds like Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs.
Yeah it’s not really like that. Autogynephilia is what drives male crossdressers — it’s the underlying cause for the fetish, when it starts to get more pronounced.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22005209/
https://quillette.com/2019/11/06/what-is-autogynephilia-an-interview-with-dr-ray-blanchard/
Of course the trans lobby says that it’s hate speech, because it implies that not all transgenders (and at least a substantial proportion of the male ones) are not “women trapped in men’s bodies” but rather men who decide that they would rather be women, for psycho-sexual reasons.
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@ elspeth
Our culture has reached the “depraved mind” stage of that spiritual slippery slope that “Christian” smartbois keep telling me is a “logical fallacy”.
Romans 1:28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done.
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…don’t fit in or just can’t compete for the top males (or don’t want the pressure that comes with trying) so they “switch”. They say ugly manly lesbos were women who wanted men like other women but could only get low attractiveness males.
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Yeah there’s two kinds of transgenders: The autogynephilic types who believe their problems will be solved if they could just become the other sex. This is almost always men wanting to transition to women, and starts as autoeroticism from crossdressing.
The other kind are the “the other sex trapped in my assigned-at-birth body sex. I’m a woman in a man’s body or a man in a woman’s body.” These are a small number of people who have always felt like they were “born the wrong gender”. Most times, not all the time, these people have some physical characteristics of the opposite sex. They’re men, but they’re slightly built with gracile, feminine appearing facial features. Or they’re clearly women, but they’re large, broad shouldered women with robust, masculine appearing facial features. It’s as if the men didn’t get enough testosterone and too much estrogen; and the women got T overload.
The places where you look for ambiguously appearing features: Feminine appearing men have “gay face”: small feminine noses, unpronounced jaw lines, large eyes, and high foreheads. Many of them lack a lot of facial hair and can’t grow thick mustaches or beards. Their smiles are broad horizontally and vertically open, and naturally cause their eyebrows to raise, their eyes to enlarge, and their faces to literally “open up”. (As opposed to masculine men’s smiles which lack vertical mouth opening and produce eye squint.)
Feminine appearing men are slightly built. They’re smaller and shorter, but the big tell is that they have noticeably less trunk and arm musculature than most other men. Even average, out of shape, flabby men in their 20s and 30s are taller, bigger, and have noticeably more muscle mass than women of their same age.
And it’s the reverse for masculine appearing women. The big tells are masculine facial features, height, and waist to hip ratio closer to .9 or 1.0. These women have noticeably masculine facial features: Low forehead; small, squinty, deep set eyes; some slight facial hair they have to remove at upper lip and chin; and noticeably deeper voices than the average woman (not Brenda Vaccaro deep, but still not clearly high pitched feminine.) There is noticeable lack of hip flare and they lack the curvy hourglass shape most women have. And they’re usually on the taller side.
Examples I can think of off the top of my head:
–Music/synthesizer pioneer Walter Carlos (now Wendy Carlos), a very, very early surgical transwoman (back then it was called a “sex change operation”). Look at his/her pretransition photos and you’ll see what I mean. There are very very few photos of her as Walter. I suspect that this is because the internet scrubbed most of them to rewrite history and because Carlos is one of the earliest Western transgendered people.
–Chastity Bono (now Chaz Bono). Large, stockily built woman with robust masculine appearing facial features, famously transitioned several years ago.
I’m at a loss to explain Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner.
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I’m at a loss to explain Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner.
Jenner is an autogynephile, not the effeminate “woman trapped in a male body from age of 3” type. Autogynephiles are often not diminutive and can often look like “a power forward in a dress”, because it’s literally all in their minds — it’s a sexual fetish allowed to run amok into full-blown mental illness.
Jenner is therefore the kind that in the past would have been denied the gender surgery and hormones, back when the psych community actually treated these people and gate-kept, because Jenner is an obviously poor candidate for “transition”. They used to take guys like Jenner and say to them “look, we understand how you feel, but you’re never going to look like a woman, and so we’re going to look at other ways to cope” — said other ways including typically some combination of getting them more comfortable in their rather masculine presenting skin psycho-emotional-sexually, integrating some feminine aspects into that to allow that aspect play apart from sartorial presentation, and so on. They were not given transition therapy because the idea was that it would not help them.
The trans lobby successfully dismantled all of that by convincing enough practitioners to change their professional opinion about gender dysphoria as a mental illness, which then led to it being de-pathologized, which led to the current regime of transition-on-demand.
But Jenner is clearly an autogynephile and most of the autogynephiles are like him. “Jennifer” Boylan is another one (see: https://barnard.edu/news/prof-jennifer-finney-boylan-talks-about-being-hit-show-i-am-cait ). A key tell for autogynephiles vs “born in the wrong body” types is that autogynephiles are largely attracted to women, not men. That’s the case for both Jenner and Boylan. And it’s why there is a big brouhaha currently between the lesbian community and the autogynephiles, because the latter are demanding access to the former.
Here’s a pic of Wendy Carlos, by the way, as a boy: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0137793/mediaviewer/rm3420045057/
You couldn’t look more gay if you spent all day in costume and makeup in central casting getting them to make you look gay, to be honest. That’s a boy literally no female would ever be attracted to.
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Bruce Jenner developed a serious mental illness somewhere in there.
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Bruce Jenner developed a serious mental illness somewhere in there.
Yeah, I think it might have something to do with being around all of that blaring female sexual power in the Kardashian mosh pit. Rob Kardashian, the sole brother of the troupe, also doesn’t seem to have “thrived” in that context.
Well, at least the world got two beautiful women out of it in the form of his daughters.
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@ Novaseeker
You’d have to be crazy to begin with to voluntarily sign up for that train wreck.
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Yeah, I think it might have something to do with being around all of that blaring female sexual power in the Kardashian mosh pit. Rob Kardashian, the sole brother of the troupe, also doesn’t seem to have “thrived” in that context.
I suppose. But we don’t have a situation where brother Rob wants to become a woman.
Most men being around dysfunctional women don’t want to become women or get turned on by the thought of dressing in women’s clothes or being a woman.
So I’ll use myself as an example. I grew up around dysfunctional women who tried to, and often did, rule the roost wherever they were. They’re always “running” things and i watched my dad squat painfully under the weight of all that feminine dysfunction. From his wife, his mother, and his mother in law, especially. Dad loved his mom, but I never saw so much grief and relief in anyone before or since the day Dad’s mother died. He was in pain and yet looked as if the weight of the world had been lifted off his shoulders.
I lived in it too. But that said, I have never wanted to become a woman, dress like a woman, or act like a woman. I have never wanted to interact with the world as a woman. The thought of wearing women’s clothing and having others see me as a “woman” does not in the least turn me on or excite me. It bewilders me. I wouldn’t have the first idea of how to do it.
I am not a particularly attractive man. I am average in every way. I didn’t always know how human nature, or male or female nature, worked, or worked together. But I was always aware I was a male and not a female. From my earliest conscious memories I have always been aware I was male. I was always aware I was a boy and not a girl and that girls were different from me, because they were not boys. I was socialized as a boy. Not very well socialized, but I was socialized as a boy and not as a girl. I hung around boys and did things boys do. Sometimes I was discouraged from doing that, but it did not make me think I should always be around girls and do what girls do or I should be a girl, or dress or act like a girl.
I have not always been successful romantically or sexually. In fact most of my life has met with romantic and sexual failure. I have gone long, long stretches of life with sexual dissatisfaction. But that never translated into dissatisfaction with my maleness or with being a man. None of my failures or problems ever caused me to think that a solution to the problem was to not be a man anymore. None of this ever led me to a conclusion that being a woman, acting like a woman, or living as a woman would somehow make my life better. Nor did I think I’d have a better or more fulfilling sex life as a woman. Nor did it occur to me that i’d have an easier time going through life interacting with the world as a woman than as a man.
Not that it matters all that much, but the only way I know how to live life as a human is as a male human. I don’t know how to relate to myself, to others or to the world in any other way. Trying to live as a woman would cause way, way more problems than it would ever solve. I was put into male corporeal form and function. It is not an attractive male body. It is a far from perfect male body. I don’t always like it. It is not always easy – in many ways it is very difficult. But I was put into this male body. It is what I am. It is how I was made. I cannot change it. In many ways I cannot make it better. But trying to change that would make things worse and make life much more difficult for me.
So that’s how I view this whole thing.
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LOL drunk Ton wandered into the ladies room a few months back
They wanted to call the cops but I told them not to assume my gender….. got an apology out of it 😉
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This sounds exactly like something you’d do….
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Take off your glasses alright work ,listen&kickit!
I can do anything!When I choose!
Theres a thousand hills&valleys NEVER SAY DIE!IRON EAGLE!NEVER LOOK BACK!NOWORNEVER! NOTHINGFOREVER!
HEYDETI
THERES OUTIES&INNIES
you forgot KING/QUEEN KOBRAS MARK/MARCIE.FREE!Everybody sing along!Iron eagle!Never say die!NEVERLOOK BACK!Anybody else love that music video with ole’ lou gosset jr in 1985!?P.S.See the name!?Everybody sing!NEVER SAY DIE!IRONEAGLE!Now get out there &see what got!Everybody lets sign up for the dalrock airforce!
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My husband thought this was hilarious. “Good for him”, he said.
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Mars. I just keep coming back to Mars.
It would be just our fate to get to Mars and discover that what few fragments of life remain on that planet are the last remnants of a civilization that went collectively bat-sh!t crazy and destroyed itself. In other words, the Martians were ahead of us Earthlings in the civilizational self-destruction game.
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That’s actually HG Wells hypothesis about why they attacked us in War of the Worlds!
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I learned this the hard way once: Giant redflag? Dad in prison or dad who is referred to as “sperm donor”.
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Never met anyone who came from a divorced home until I was about 16 (prep school), and then college….everyone was from a divorced family, or so it seemed that way.
My parents had a good marriage. My grandparents (both sides). My uncle on mu mom’s side has been married since 1974. All of my aunt and uncles from the huge polish-catholic side (dad) all married, and stayed married. My dad had eleven siblings.
Interestingly….all the children of my aunts and uncles (my cousins) there are about 17 of us total. Half of us have never been married, and of that group………none of us are single moms / dads.
Something is very wrong out there for sure. Some of it is perhaps the expectations of marriage, some of it is that most of us were not in the top 20% and I personally think for most of us……..knowing how easy it can fail and be blown up caused some to not even try or bother.
SO does this blow up the Red Pill Truth of if you are some sort of “leader” this can’t happen (divorce)
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I am not familiar with any Red Pill lore that states the top men aren’t subject to divorce. The Red Pill lore only states that it is easier for the top men to get into a relationship.
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For a man, being high ranked in the SMP isn’t a stop gap vs an unfaithful woman.
It makes it easier to replace her when she goes off the rails.
Which probably makes the experince a bit easier on him but who can say for certian?
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Well…if you a red pilled take no prisoners type of man….a leader, have “confidence” your wife, and family will just naturally “fall in line” right?
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Lastmod-
That is an interesting observation.
Mine is similar. I have/had 6 aunts and one uncle on my moms side. All of them stayed married until death. Strangely, only my mom did not make that cut–was married once before my dad, and has been married multiple times since their divorce. Both sets of grandparents also made it to the end.
Then, it’s as if in one generation, the wheels fell of the bus. Almost all the first and second cousins (with just two or three exceptions of literally something 25 when added altogether) divorced, single moms, single dads. Like a bomb that went off, almost no one in that extended family survived with intact families to show for it. A vast wasteland of failed marriages, or no marriages at all. Including my own first one.
I remember Christmases and Thanksgivings when we would all get together around grandma and grandpa Leach’s, crammed into their little farmhouse. How heavenly the feeling of love and family felt, in the years before all the divorcing and other crap started.
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Then, it’s as if in one generation, the wheels fell of the bus.
Because they did fall off the bus.
Those of us around this age (50ish, either way) lived through the transition from the old regime to the new one. That is — many of us grew up with relationship models that were of the “old regime” variety, but the world we were ourselves growing up and having relationships in eschewed these older models, and a new, emergent model was being birthed.
That emergent process has still not settled on a new model, and it’s possible that it never will, but the main point for us is that we grew up with one set of expectations based on the model we saw growing up, but that model simply did not apply to the new relationships of our own era. That disconnect led to lots and lots of failed marriages. Lots of them.
At the time people were saying it’s because men weren’t “catching up” and were “stuck in the old ways of looking at things” as compared with their progressive, heroic, pioneer wives who were trying to valiantly blaze a new trail in the emergent model of NewMarriage. But in reality expectations for both sexes didn’t match the new realities, and this just created tensions that many people in our era were not equipped to resolve, at least not at those ages (in the 20s when many of us still married back then).
The exceptions to this were the people who had the personality profile type to thrive in a period of dramatic change — people who are above average in: adaptiveness, confidence, independence, resilience, positivity (always looking ahead), adeventurousness, open-ness to novelty, open-ness to change. People who were not high in these areas struggled, and people who were low in the them, or had the polar traits to them, were basically kicked off the horse, tout court.
I’m not saying we had it harder than the current young set — not at all. They are living in a Mad Max scenario for relationships. But our generation faced a different, yet equally problematic scenario because the rules were changing in real time and drastically, and many of us could not adapt quickly enough to manage to save our marriages.
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Nova-
It’s a fascinating proposition and I offer this clarifying question (not as a critique, but I really don’t know).
Who do you have in mind when referring to those who thrived in this new order?
On the one hand, you could say people like myself meet that description. Raised in the home of the ONE person in my moms generation who did not form a lifelong marriage (recall, all of her sisters and brothers did–but my mom got married, moved away to Los Angeles from what she perceived as the hick bumpkins, got divorced, married, had me, stayed married for 25 years, divorced, remarried, did whatever she wanted. She was the “maverick.”) I am divorced but it seems that of all the posters around here, I have the most fluid, chameleon like morals regarding sex and marriage and truthfully had a lot of fun through it all. I had to in order to survive without killing myself to be honest. Heart broken several times? Sure. But I am not completely psychologically damaged. I did what I had to do in order to internalize the message about sex and love that was incoming (and changing dramatically with each passing decade) from the culture around me. It’s like I got to have my cake and eat it to, because now I am in a marriage with the love of my life and having a blast.
Or, maybe you mean someone else? We all know that far left, totally secular hippie couple who got married in the 70s or 80s and are still together–like the Fokkers from “Meet the Parents.” They are out there. And for tall their free love, anything goes, peace dude, Woodstock values, they in fact, managed to do it “right.” I honestly scratch my head at couples like that. Can’t figure it out.
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Every Christmas Eve we would all end up at my Great Aunt Ida’s farm…traditional Polish thing….up to well past midnight. Aunts, uncles, cousins………this was Christmas as I remember in th 1970’s and 1980’s.
After Ida died and grandparents…people moved away (no one stayed close to home of my generation). It just died off……diffusion as well….no one spoke Polish of my generation, cooking that meal was a lot of work……people are busy…everyone is so “tired” and “overwhelmed”
Of all us in my patrirachal family line (dads side)……only two of us had the family name. Myself and my older brother. The end is nigh on that with me just left.
Sad in a way…but not surprising. Phone calls are cheap, relationships are disposable, families can’t even get along, divorce…….people move and really epople don’t care.
I get you Scott on this. I miss it as well.
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My cousins of my generation who did marry are still married (most crossing the twenty plus year mark now….or right there). Half of us never married, and never became single parents…sure they date and all…..but I am not unique in never getting married. My female cousins who never married didn’t become single moms, but all of them did live with their boyfriends for a period or a few years……
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But I am not completely psychologically damaged. I did what I had to do in order to internalize the message about sex and love that was incoming (and changing dramatically with each passing decade) from the culture around me. It’s like I got to have my cake and eat it to, because now I am in a marriage with the love of my life and having a blast.
Or, maybe you mean someone else?
Yeah, I didn’t actually have your story in mind when I wrote that, because you did have a failed marriage out of it, and a part of that failure was the adaptation issue, at least as it seems from where I am sitting. The “new rules” weren’t quite “all new” — they just weren’t “all old”, any more, either, and so they were a chaotic, undescribed, uncertain mix of rules. The “burden of performance” still applied to you, big time, in your wife’s mind, for example — that’s old rules, and it’s one of the key elements of the old rules that women have never let lapse. But at that time because the rules were in flux (they still are, but the flux-iness of them was itself new at that time as well) and uncertain, it wasn’t clear to anyone what rules applied, and it seems that it wasn’t clear to you that this particular one still applied to you … and it bit you. It’s that kind of thing that I am talking about. Now, you are generally rather adaptable as you describe, so after that, as you got a bit older, you changed and adapted … I think we all did, in different ways. It was the “first cut”, though, in the 20s that bit us, no?
As for the people I had in mind when I was talking about the ones who thrived in that context, it was generally the ones who were more robustly attractive all around (looks and achievements both), didn’t marry too early but rolled with the flow of marrying a bit later (not as late as now but a bit later), behaved similarly enough to how people did in the past in terms of their career formation and that type of thing, but being very open to very different expectations of spouses, different household arrangements and so on and, generally speaking, people who did not have an especially strong or conservative faith commitment at least when they were meeting their spouses, getting married and setting up the baseline marital relationship (some became more religious later on). Among the people I personally know who got married in that time frame and stayed married to their first spouses or, in some cases, their second ones, that pattern applies. People who have contra traits (less conventionally attractive, strayed from conventional success vectors, expected traditional marriage roles all the way through, very conservative religious from get go) didn’t do as well at all, of the people who met and married in that time frame, again among people I personally know (most of them being very highly educated people who are currently say between 46 and 55).
We all know that far left, totally secular hippie couple who got married in the 70s or 80s and are still together–like the Fokkers from “Meet the Parents.” They are out there. And for tall their free love, anything goes, peace dude, Woodstock values, they in fact, managed to do it “right.” I honestly scratch my head at couples like that. Can’t figure it out.
They tended to be more flexible people I think, as I say above. People who had more rigid expectations, one way or the other, tended to do poorly, whether those expectations were pre-existing religious ones, or pre-existing utopian/egalitarian ones. People who were more flexible but sensible — that is, who focused on getting through life in a practical way, but in a flexible way as well, rather than in a rigid one — tended to do better in an environment that featured (and still does) rapidly changing rules and expectations. The hippies, for all of their easily caricatured loopiness, were actually generally pretty flexible in many cases as we can see in terms of what many of them ended up doing in the 1990s and beyond, in terms of founding companies and so on. They just were not traditional about anything, they were flexible. That helps a lot in a dynamically changing area, provided you also have the qualities (attractiveness is one of those) and the practical skills and abilities to thrive and benefit from the flexibility — if you don’t have that, it doesn’t matter much, because you have nothing else to fall back on because all of that has been removed.
Does that make sense?
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I just think it’s funny Nova that you use the word “rules” – very much a man’s way of seeing things (yes, I know that you don’t mean formally recorded rules). It seems to me women think differently. It’s not about “rules” it’s about feelz (and power I guess). Scott at one point I think mentioned something about men and wedding vows and duty (adherence to rules) – I remember it.
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Nova
Yes. One couple we met after we PCSd to Fort Hood in 2010 are the exemplary of this
They were probably 5-7 years older than us.
Met at Texas A&M. Threaded the needle of getting married right at the end of college. He was commissioned, helicopter pilot and immediately began the climb up the army ladder. Babies perfectly timed (three boys) mom worked in school administration type positions so she could have career merit badge as an “educator” but still be “conservative.”
Methodists. Community involvement. Etc.
He made it all the way to O-6 and retired. And is now a facility department head (like communications or international public affairs or whatever) back at the old alma mater, where the three boys (all of them valedictorians in successive years at school — no kidding) are legacy students.
It’s like perfect stick the landing family.
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It’s not about “rules” it’s about feelz (and power I guess).
Yes, although it’s also about rules to some extent. Women do enforce rules on men, they just don’t like them applied to themselves. Examples are: man ask women out and not vice versa (different cultures are quite different, like Scandinavia, but this is a US culture “rule” that women enforce), men pay at least when a woman is husband hunting, men need to economically perform to an expected standard (“ain’t no romance without finance”) , etc. It’s true that when men fail these rules it causes women to feel bad, and that’s how they process and experience the failure internally, but the trigger is still a male failing what the woman sees as an objective rule/expectation.
They just don’t apply these to themselves, because historically applying rules to themselves has been maladaptive for women, as the weaker sex. Rules for men, flexibility for women is a survival formula for women as the weaker sex.
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It’s like perfect stick the landing family.
Yes. It’s like a mix of practical and flexible rolled together. Rigidity (of expectations, values, etc) tends to undermine it, because it limits flexibility and practicality both in different ways. And, of course, you need to have the underlying “ability” or “quality” to be able to execute a practical/flexible game plan for life.
My own $.0.02 is that most average people do not have that, which is why we see so much failure. The “rules” based approach works better for people who don’t have the ability and quality to execute a practical/flexible approach well … and I think that’s most people, or at least a large slice of the population. But a “rules” based approach also hems people in who have an excess of ability and quality so … the rules had to go, lol. YOLO after all.
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Explain what you mean by flexible as it relates to a successful marriage. I am sincerely at a loss there.
Well not a total loss. I think I know but not sure.
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Explain what you mean by flexible as it relates to a successful marriage. I am sincerely at a loss there.
Adaptive. Not having pre-conceived ideas about how to do things in the marriage based on any conception — either conventional, religious, progressive, egalitarian. That is — not approaching things with a pre-conceived template, but being flexible and pragmatic.
Note I am not saying this is “godly” — I am saying that it seems to be a feature in the marriages I have seen which feature people in my age range who married in their 20s and are still together in their first marriages. Some of them are religious, some of them are not, some of them now follow very conventional templates but did not always, and some started with more conventional templates and ended up with another configuration. But the key characteristic throughout is flexibility and practicality, and the ability to make that approach work (the underlying capability, in other words, what I call the “bag of tricks” each person has).
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Well yeah, they don’t apply the rules to themselves, they apply the feelz to themselves. They seem to have extraordinary difficulty acting against their feelz. Men have emotions too but find it much easier to act against their feelings.
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Men have emotions too but find it much easier to act against their feelings.
That’s because men thrive in rules-based settings. Without rules, relations between men become chaotic and violence-based. Rules set the playing field for male competition with each other sop as to prevent it from devolving into an all-encompassing chaotic conflict that prevents anything larger from being built. The key is to construct rules which allow men to compete with each other in a way that the participants all perceive and accept as more or less “fair”, such that most of them will accept the hierarchy that results from the rules without engaging in violence. So, men developed in the context of seeing rules as a vital, necessary thing which actually helped the survival of most of them.
Women developed in a context which saw these rules for men as being also incredibly helpful for women (because the rules between men also governed how the men dealt with women), but as the weaker sex it made no sense for them to develop the same affinity for rules applied to themselves as men did, because women don’t benefit from that in the same way. They benefit from rules applied to men. When it comes to themselves, they benefit from being flexible and focused on their own survival and that of their kids in a world where they can be literally killed easily at any time (not as much today, but in developmental historical terms).
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When it comes to themselves, [women] benefit from being flexible and focused on their own survival and that of their kids in a world where they can be literally killed easily at any time
The problem comes in when you bring women on parity with men, and when you do that, women say “I should get a say in what ‘the rules’ should be.” Which follows this track.
–there needs to be an ever growing list of exceptions to the rules men made.
–the exceptions need to become the rule.
–women need to decide what the rules should be.
–we need to rewrite all the rules. we need a new set of rules.
–The rules are whatever we feel like the rules should be at any given time. The rule yesterday feels unfair today, so yesterday’s rule is tossed out and we have a new rule today.
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–the rules’ application also depend on what kind of man we feel you are, and whether we feel the rules should apply. If you are an attractive man we want to have sex with, there are rules for you. If you are a man we want money from, there are different rules for you. If you are a man we don’t want anything from, there’s yet another set of rules for you.
–The rules for each group might or might not apply, depending on how we feel today.
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The rules are whatever we feel like the rules should be at any given time. The rule yesterday feels unfair today, so yesterday’s rule is tossed out and we have a new rule today.
Yes, but that makes sense because they are the weaker sex.
From the perspective of the sex that is easily overpowered by the other, it makes sense for the “rules” applying to them (including the ones that apply to how men treat them directly) to be flexibly interpreted for the benefit of the weaker party (i.e., themselves). To a woman it makes no sense for abstract rules to apply where the parties are as unequally situated as males and females are. And women perceive this unequal situated-ness in a visceral way, regardless of how actually privileged/powerful/rich/popular they are, because they know that regardless of all of that they remain ultimately physically vulnerable to any one man if they are alone with him. Everything — literally everything — gets run through that filter, gets viewed through that lens of existential vulnerability.
When you feel existentially vulnerable, it is intolerable for rules to be applied to you based on an abstraction — the rules should, instead, again from perspective of someone in that position, be tailored to the exigencies of the moment as viewed from the person who is weaker and more vulnerable — i.e., themselves.
Men thrive on abstract rules and are affronted when the rules are thrown up in the air in favor of a context-based system, because they lack clarity, and that drives us nuts — it feels very chaotic to us, and we do not thrive in it, unless we are one of the men who has higher than average flexibility and adaptability coupled with high ability/attraction traits in general. Women, by contrast, feel very threatened by the prospect of abstractly-derived rules applying to them in a way that isn’t adapted to their specific context and concreteness in every given case, because they experience life as vulnerability, and abstraction doesn’t sufficiently take that into account, especially when the rules in question (e.g., workplace rules) were established between men to govern competition between men.
The difference has always been there. It became a social problem when (1) the sexual rules were trashed/liberated and replaced with what we have today (which benefits women at men’s expense as we could predict is what happens when abstract rules are replaced with contextual reasoning which always sides with the objectively vulnerable party) and (2) women and men began working together outside the home in settings where men had previously been working with each other, creating a rules clash. And both of these overlap, of course. The whole society is pulsating with the conflicts that have resulted from these developments, certainly, and one key area where they have played out is in marriage, but the way that women have approached these things is fundamentally to be expected and, likely, not being subject to much change because it is based on a deep-seated existential sense of vulnerability that is extremely hard to dislodge.
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@ Deti
That’s a manipulation technique. SJWs do it. Marxists do it. Pretty much every tyrant does it (see Orwell’s 1984).
Make up an arbitrary set of rules, then constantly change the rules so that the “sucker” trying to live by the rules can never relax. That gives the rule maker power over the “sucker”, and the places the “sucker” in a subservient position, because he can never “win”.
Remember, authority with zero responsibility results in tyranny. That’s what women have now. Additionally, “your desire will be for your husband” (Genesis 3:16). Women have always sought to manipulate men. It’s just easier now than it has been at other times.
The only way to “win” that game is to not play. For some men that means learning to tell their wives “no”. For other men, that means avoiding women entirely.
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If anyone was wondering what other potential variables are present for risk factors for divorce, I had a bunch of lists here aside from virginity and the one discussed here which is growing up in a 2 parent household (no divorce).
Most are fairly common sense if you think about them, but they can be easily ignored if you’re not thinking about them.
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Thanks for your reply, Nova.
I was thinking. As damaging as it is for girls and young women to get into this, the reality is (as with most things female), at some point they’re going to have a change of heart and go on back to being a girl. And they’re usually going to do it while they’re still relatively young. A 16-year-old girl jumping on this bandwagon will probably jump off it by 20 or 22. Women are extremely prone to jumping on bandwagons as well as the propensity to do whatever is sexually pragmatic at any given time. So long as they don’t take the drugs, the damage need not be irreparable from a reproductive standpoint.
I find the married, male fathers who travel this route far more troubling because 1) they’re fathers and the collateral damage here is monumental, and 2) what does it say about our culture’s denigration of manhood that these men want to change their sex near middle age? And when they have kids looking to them for guidance? Especially sons? It’s heartbreaking.
I think I mentioned before, but SAM and his brothers were raised in a family and household that overtly prized masculinity and maleness. I never actually heard my FIL do this, but I could easily imagine him being the kind of person who prayed, “Lord, thank you that I am not a woman and thank you that I have 5 sons!”, LOL. My father wasn’t quite that bad, but he was pretty close. He had a wee bit more appreciation for women’s unique contributions to the family at least. I can’t imagine that they were alone in their generation. But the one after theirs (they were silents) just went bananas.
The Equality Act is making its way through Congress now, and at that point, the floodgates will be beyond anything we can corral. Feminists are going to be shut out of the debate about women as a protected class. period. Michael Knowles, who I think is great, pointed out recently (I think this is a 3-minute video), that the trans activist in this clip understood the end of feminism better than most feminists ever have. And in fact, he concludes by saying, 1st wave, 2nd wave, whatever wave, ALL feminism is bad. And make no mistake, it is feminism that led us down this road of sexual confusion and insanity.
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And make no mistake, it is feminism that led us down this road of sexual confusion and insanity.
I think even feminists themselves are now being forced to realize this, even though they’ll drop dead before they’ll ever admit it to anyone.
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So long as they don’t take the drugs, the damage need not be irreparable from a reproductive standpoint.
Ah, but they are doing that. That’s the problem. I agree that the girls who lazily identify as “enbi” because they are in an awkward phase will simply de-identify at some point and move on. They are not the issue. The issue are the ones getting mastectomies and doing hormones, and there are a LOT of these. https://www.parentsofrogdkids.com/
If I were you I would be much more concerned about this, given the numbers involved, than I would be about the much smaller number of adult male fetishists who are transitioning. Yes the latter is a problem, but it’s a rather small one. The number of male adult transgenders isn’t skyrocketing — the number of adolescent female ones is through the roof.
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I’m a wee bit behind on the young female trends so thanks for the link.
I didn’t realize it was that bad. To say we live a socially bubble-ish existence isn’t an exaggeration.
Wonder if there’s a geographic component. You’ve piqued my curiosity enough now to go and look.
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One video to you may find interesting, from a “de-transitioning” female-to-male transgender, rather young (early 20s), had surgeries etc.
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Totally off topic, but if my daughter gets married, and I got back together with the guys to jam, it would basically be like this.
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Lol. That was hilarious……We’re very different Scott. I always wanted some Bossa Nova / mondo-lounge at my wedding. Sergio Mendes / Brasil ’66 sound.
Saw Sergio Mendes perform at the Cotillion Room atop of the then named “Bank of America” building on 555 California Street San Francisco on New Years Eve 2000.
After midnight, balloons, more drinks….the whole place on the stage with him and his band……singing along with him. A Mercedes-Benz of a man
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this is going to be kind of a meta comment about Cameron’s comment about “rules” and Nova’s remarks about rapidly changing mores and norms during the time he, Scott, and I were coming up until today.
The net effect of all the rules changes and the very fluid social conventions happening from the 1980s to today were pretty much these: (1) women are brought on complete parity/equality with men, though it’s quite artificial in many ways and is a fiction we are all required to accept as an article of faith. (2) the prominence of sex and sexual conduct, pushing sex to the beginning rather than the end of sexual interaction; and (3) political correctness such that deviation or failure to follow the “new rules” results not only in correction, but exclusion, cancellation, and ostracism.
Leave aside the rapidity of these changes, many of which were and are happening so fast that even those with good adaptation are struggling and parents can’t even teach their kids about them when they are changing literally every election cycle.
Men want rules to change when there are good reasons for rule changes. To men, the “rules” are there because uniformity, predictability, and precedent provide for everyone to operate fully and fairly. Similar situations treated similarly.
Women demand rule changes because they feel the rules aren’t fair, the rules exclude them, the rules don’t include everyone. The rules need to change because they hurt women’s feelings or because a few marginalized men and women are excluded and can’t participate, and that hurts them and is unfair. Reason has nothing to do with it – the rules must change because “it ain’t fair” and “how come she gets more than I do?”
My point is: All this has had the effect of setting adrift all but the most attractive men. There is a lot of confusion and disorientation among a lot of men as to just what the rules are and what they’re supposed to do and be. Most men operate with clear “rules” and expectations. “Look, just tell me what the rules are, and I’ll figure it out. As long as I know what the expectations are, I’ll meet them or not, and the chips will fall where they may.”
Now, I see a lot of
“I have no idea what the rules are. I have no idea what I am supposed to do. I have no idea what is expected of me. I have no idea what women want from men. I know what I see women want from men, but I can’t talk about that. I know what I want from women, but I can’t talk about that either and I sure as hell cannot act on it.
“I’m damned if I do, and damned if I don’t. I want to participate. I want to be part of society, dating, having sex, having friends, whatever. But I don’t even know what “society” is anymore. I don’t even know who and what I’m dealing with from day to day.
“I don’t know what is OK to say and do anymore. I don’t know if it’s OK for me to walk into a bar and talk to someone because we exchanged glances. I get yelled at when I hold a door for a woman. I get hauled in to HR for hanging around a secretary’s desk for a bit too long. And I can’t tell what’s acceptable and what’s not. I’m supposed to pursue women; but if I do it too much or overstep a little, I’m in trouble. If I don’t push hard enough, I get nothing.
“There’s no margin for error. There’s no play in the joints. There’s no forgive and forget for social faux pas. There’s no societal lubrication that excuses and salves the inevitable blunders and missteps men make. If i mess up even a little, I could lose my job. If I don’t push it a little, I can’t get anywhere. I can’t figure out how far I can go without stepping over the line.
“I can’t operate just on feelings. I can’t operate in a world where the laws of physics change from day to day, week to week. I can’t walk out the door one day and gravity holds things in place, and then go out the next day with everything floating in the air. I can’t operate in a world where I can predict absolutely nothing about social interactions. I can’t operate in a world where nothing is predictable, reasonable, or even just a little bit safe. I’m not asking for complete safety or even marginal safety. I JUST WANT TO KNOW WHAT THE RULES ARE AND I WANT THEM TO STAY “THE RULES”. And I want them to apply to everyone. And I want there to be some mechanism for forgiveness and return to the game. It can’t be that one minor infraction causes lifetime expulsion and job loss.
“If I can’t figure out what the rules are, I won’t try to play. I can’t play a game with no rules. I can’t play “heads I win, tails you lose”. I’m just going to go over here by myself and I will not play.”
“Can someone just tell me what I’m supposed to do and be, so I can do and be it, and we’ll all go on with our lives?”
Then, men who say what I just put up there are accused of whining, complaining, acting like women, and failing to “just get it”. Look they’re trying to “just get it”. But if you want them to “just get it”, the “it” has to remain “it” so they can “get it”.
That is a huge part of what’s going on with most men. And why more are dropping out.
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DETI
I know a little bit about what you married guys go through because of my teacher who acted like she was my wife, when I was with my first G.F. Everyday at recess and her telling us to play with the other kids instead!I have to tell you she was a MS. teacher and not a MRS.teacher right?You know what I’m saying right?She did’nt like this 6 year old girl being happy right!?It was a sick world in the 80s too!Thats what we’re saying right DETI?It only gets worse!Never better!Thats why first thing you have to get as a man is ”YOUR ON YOUR OWN” see if most churchs,family&friends will stick up for any man in any situation right DETI?
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I have no idea what women want from men.
Women have no idea, either. Or, more accurately, they know viscerally what theyshould want, but these natural and God-given desires are what their feminist prog upbringing has conditioned them to suppress, to the point that they’ve become completely alienated from their own natural programming.
Of course all of this, and everything lse Deti includes in the post from which this is extracted, is the handiwork of him who rules this temporal world, the master of all lies and deceit. All part of his plan for fallen humanity’s destruction, a plan that has many willing participants – even among those who call themselves followers of The Christ.
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I have no idea what women want from men.
Women have no idea, either. Or, more accurately, they know viscerally what theyshould want, but these natural and God-given desires are what their feminist prog upbringing has conditioned them to suppress, to the point that they’ve become completely alienated from their own natural programming.
Of course all of this, and everything lse Deti includes in the post from which this is extracted, is the handiwork of him who rules this temporal world, the master of all lies and deceit. All part of his plan for fallen humanity’s destruction, a plan that has many willing participants – even among those who call themselves followers of The Christ.
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Adaptive. Not having pre-conceived ideas about how to do things in the marriage based on any conception — either conventional, religious, progressive, egalitarian. That is — not approaching things with a pre-conceived template, but being flexible and pragmatic.
Note I am not saying this is “godly” — I am saying that it seems to be a feature in the marriages I have seen which feature people in my age range who married in their 20s and are still together in their first marriages.
OK, thank you. I wondered because our relationship, which has been really enjoyable for most of our 27 years, despite marrying super young, is kinda rigid. In terms of roles, I mean. We have been a one-primary-earner family for 26 years. I’ve had a few short gigs and moderately successful entrepreneur runs, but as soon as that work threatened the stability and continuity of our home life, I had to ditch it, and he was more than happy for me to do it. I’ll be working again (extremely part time) for a private school come August, but with the caveat that it’s fine so long as it works within my primary directive. Obviously, if we really needed my meager additional income to make it, then we’d have to adapt. That’s never been the case so far. So yeah, rigid.
Within day to day living, a lots more flexibility exists. He’s not above washing a dish or changing a diaper (when we were in that season) and I’m not above cutting the grass, for example. I think I had “the plague” recently. . Didn’t get tested, but the symptoms…Just getting back to normality after about 2 weeks. He took care of my normal stuff when the older girls were working and couldn’t fill in my duties. I mostly manage the budget, and he trusts me to do it. Most of my trad homeschool mom friends? No way do they do that. But I also wait on my husband far more than most of them do.
I am of the mindset that in a marriage where there is no mental quarter given to divorce, the necessary flexing has to take place. It only fails to do so when the couple hasn’t let their roots go deep enough into each other.
This morning husband and I were out pre-dawn, taking a walk. We do most of our in depth conversing then, unless we’re jogging, but a couple of mornings a week we walk for the express purpose of being able to have those conversations. We are kinda worried about a couple we know, and how to be useful to them as they ask this or that, and I noted that without him, I would be emotionally and spiritually homeless. It would be like dropping me in the Amazon rain forest and saying, ” Okay, find your way out”. I’d die in short order.
Problem is, they don’t see each other that way, so all of our advice, however well meaning, won’t do much. But they seem a lot more flexible than us in myriad ways. Which is why I was confounded when you said flexibility and adapting makes for a more successful marriage.
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Understood, but I think your marriage works the way it does because of very specific dynamics between you and your husband that do not exist for the most part in other marriages, even ones that are “sucessful”.
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And “cannot exist for the most part in other marriages” I’d assume but I don’t want to put words in your mouth.
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And “cannot exist for the most part in other marriages” I’d assume
Most other marriages can never have that specific dynamic. I don’t want to provoke anything so I won’t elaborate.
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Most other marriages can never have that specific dynamic.
And “cannot exist for the most part in other marriages” I’d assume but I don’t want to put words in your mouth.
I wouldn’t say “cannot”, but I would say whether you do have it is almost entirely the luck of finding that person. Most people do not. The prior marital regime was not so brittle as to require the finding of such a person in order to have what people consider a “happy marriage”.
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When I read through these comments sections sometimes I get depressed. So what I usually do is send sone flirty text message to my wife to refill my empty tank with hope.
And I share stuff like this for only reason;
This exists. It really does.
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That didn’t work
Try it as a link I guess
https://ibb.co/wpt1Gjk
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You and Mychael are adorable. I know you exist, 🙂 I’m glad you do. The world needs that hope, to know that marriage is not completely dead yet.
We have grudgingly wrapped our minds around the reality that the dynamics of our relationship are atypical. It hasn’t been easy to do, because so many of the people we talk to won’t exercise their wills in even the most simple ways to create a more pleasant dynamic. And if they’d do that, we thought, who knows where they can go from there (assuming there was sincere passion there in the beginning)?
It’s not depressing for us as much as it is frustrating. And that mainly because we tend to hear so much marriage/relationship stuff. Being an example or something worth emulating to those around you pretty quickly goes from flattering to “Can we just stay in our little bubble and not be bothered? Because nothing we say helps.”
Actually, that’s not true. Sometimes stuff sinks in, at least when I talk to women. I genuinely hate the whole sage black woman thing, but I feel really strongly about the Biblical wife life, so I tolerate it. My words actually does sink in more often than you might think. I’ve heard a lot over the years, “I started treating my husband so much better since hanging around you, and it’s made a big difference.”
My husband has found it much harder to convince that men that to stand up to their wives/S.O. is actually the key to getting what they want from their marriages. Peace through strength, to borrow from Ronald Reagan, LOL. It’s far harder than he ever thought possible.
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You know what’s funny is the “standing up to your wife” stuff is the part of “game” that I have found the least effective.
I get it, but it doesn’t come up much in our marriage.
The best thing I have learned is that she REALLY likes to get praise from me for ideas, thoughts, ways to save time, save money, even when she picks out clothes she wants me to wear at the office. She is driven to please and get those compliments.
I USUALLY miss the fishing expedition and she gets crushed. I can tell within about one millisecond that this was something she was hoping I would notice.
As long as I notice them and am really animated in my praise, she purrs like a kitten.
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Also, here’s an insider tip for husbands using tricks like “negging” or whatever to “pass” s&$@ testing.
From a straight up behaviorism 101 perspective, the following is mantra we use for conditioning:
We IGNORE the behaviors we want to extinguish
We PRAISE the behaviors we want to encourage
PUNISHMENT is the LEAST effective method of changing behaviors
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Elspeth, Scott:
1) Marriages in which W’s sexual attraction to H is immediate from first sight, strong, and sustained, are the only marriages that truly work from a man’s perspective.
2) so many of the people we talk to won’t exercise their wills in even the most simple ways to create a more pleasant dynamic. And if they’d do that, we thought, who knows where they can go from there (assuming there was sincere passion there in the beginning)?
They won’t, because they already tried and it didn’t work. Most of the time there was not sincere passion at the beginning. Or they thought there was, but it was something else. There was feigned interest expressed for the purpose of locking down a beta provider. There was supplicating and pedestalizing for the purpose of locking down a permanent sex partner. It was this way for many people because of leftover status or poor relational skills or baby rabies or they’re just unattractive people.
3) “I started treating my husband so much better since hanging around you, and it’s made a big difference.”
This just tends to make things more tolerable. Doesn’t usually lead to sexual passion or the kind of marriage a man wants. Just makes her less nasty.
4) My husband has found it much harder to convince that men that to stand up to their wives/S.O. is actually the key to getting what they want from their marriages.
Because it’s counterintuitive and because she’s not staying out of genuine desire. No man wants a woman to stay with him because he threatened to leave her if she didn’t stop being such a B!tch. No man wants to have to threaten to destroy the marriage to save it. No man wants a woman who’s there only because he had to emotionally pound her will into submission with threats of divorce war.
If she didn’t want to be there without his having to go nuclear, he doesn’t want her there. She’s not there because she wants to be. She’s there because if she doesn’t comply, he’ll have no choice but to make good on the threat and drag her and the kids through divorce court. He wants her to want to be there because she wants HIM. If she doesn’t want him, he doesn’t want her to be there.
This is like God the Father’s relationship to us. He will not beat us into submission. He could, but He will not. He does not make anyone obey Him. If we do not want to obey His commands, He lets us go. He lets us step out from under His wing and protection. And He leaves us to our own devices.
So it is with a husband to a wife. The absolute LAST thing he wants is a woman who is there only because she has to be – she will obey, but grudgingly and resentfully. She’s there only because she doesn’t want to be divorced. She’s there only because she needs his financial support. She’s there only because she doesn’t want to explain to people that she’s divorced. No. No. No thanks. If that’s how she’s going to be, I don’t want it and I don’t want her. NO.
But, we men have found we have little choice but to go full a-hole and issue the threat. And then make good on it because the minute we don’t, she knows it’s an empty threat and she then takes back all the power we just fought like hell to retain.
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The best thing I have learned is that she REALLY likes to get praise from me for ideas, thoughts, ways to save time, save money, even when she picks out clothes she wants me to wear at the office. She is driven to please and get those compliments.
I USUALLY miss the fishing expedition and she gets crushed. I can tell within about one millisecond that this was something she was hoping I would notice.
This works only when you have a wife who was immediately sexually attracted from the very beginning. One of the defining features of such a wife is that she wants to please her husband, she wants him to be pleased with her, and most importantly, she is afraid of him being disappointed or displeased with her. There’s some fear there.
Does anyone here think that most women fear ANYTHING about most men, most especially their husbands? Most women don’t fear men. Most women don’t respect men. Most women don’t fear anyone or respect anything. Most women think nothing of trashtalking a man to his face. What’s he gonna do about it? Hit her? Beat her? Hell no he won’t. He’ll be in a jail cell by day’s end.
Most women think nothing of disrespecting their husbands. They trashtalk them to their faces, disrespect them in front of their kids. What? What’s he gonna do about it? Leave? She’ll just divorce rape him. Talk back and tell her not to talk about him that way? She can talk about him any way she wants and he has exactly NOTHING to say about it. He’s got a problem with it, he can step off because she’s NOT changing or apologizing. Get mad? So what if he gets mad? She doesn’t care. He’ll get over it.
Try to impose consequence on her for her disrespect? He can’t do that! That’s abuse! I’ll just leave him divorce him and take him to the cleaners and he’ll never see the kids again. I don’t have to respect him. I don’t have to respect ANY man.
Most women have thinly veiled contempt for their husbands. If not contempt, they’re viewed as equals. Wives don’t have any fear of their husbands. Most wives don’t care if their husbands get disappointed or displeased. It’s “eh, he’ll get over it.” Or “so what? People get disappointed all the time. I get disappointed in HIM all the time and what do I get for it?”
Women have been taught and trained that they can do anything they want, anytime they want, anywhere they want, with and to anyone they want. And no one can say anything about it. No one can tell them they can’t. Because…. they’re women. They just have that right. Because they just do.
And that is NOT men’s fault. It’s certainly not MY fault.
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Hey ELSPETH!
Can you imagine being the only 7&6 year old couple at recess everyday?You know sometimes it seems like it was all a dream right?You know in a lot of states they won’t allow any kids to only hang around only 1 or 2 other kids?Now you must play with all the kids period or THE LAW as it is now!
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Yeah, Scott. But most of these guys are dealing with belligerence, bitchiness, insistence on having their own way, wanting to do things expressly opposite of what the husband wants, etc. A man has to stand up to that. You can’t stroke your way out of that. Once some semblance of order has been established, then you can deal with the love languages.
I’m frankly, rather spoiled. My husband is all about doing the things that make me feel special, but he’s not beyond putting his foot down if I get beside myself and forget how it goes around here, LOL.That rarely happens, but it does on occasion.
But most of the men who come to him are not going to be doing themselves ANY favors by catering. In fact, the constant caving and catering to the ridiculous behavior is what has gotten most of them into the mess they are in.
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Also Scott, SAM would never call standing up for yourself and for what’s right, “game”. He has no frame of reference in which this can even be remotely considered game. It’s what you do as the man of our house. Not as a game. He says that as a serious and sober steward of your home., you owe it to your family not to allow it to be a place of disorder and chaos.
How, he asked me a long time ago, is this in any way consistent with “game”?
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It’s not about punishment, though Scott. That’s not at all what he is about. In his estimation, allowing your daughters to to watch their mother verbally disrespect their father, blatantly lie and disregard his express wishes, etc. Those are not things you can just “ignore”, nor should you.
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That said Scott, I get where you are coming from. You make a lot of sense, but you also have a sweet, loving wife. So any bumps are small bumps. Same here, on the rare occasion my husband has to call me to account, it’s quick, gentle and the moment passes quickly. But that’s because it’s a small bump.
If I was spending thousands of dollars an hiding it, that couldn’t be ignored. If I was denying my husband sex for weeks on end, that can’t be ignored.
I think I should have qualified my statement by making it clear that by the time my husband’s phone starts ringing, they’re way past the love languages stuff.
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If I was spending thousands of dollars an hiding it, that couldn’t be ignored. If I was denying my husband sex for weeks on end, that can’t be ignored.
I think I should have qualified my statement by making it clear that by the time my husband’s phone starts ringing, they’re way past the love languages stuff.
I agree, but … here’s the thing.
If the woman was head over heels for the husband, like M is for S, the man never has to do that. He never has to put the foot down so to speak. It’s because she’s gaga for him, so he gets compliance by stroking her rather than putting the foot down.
A marriage in which the foot has to be put down is, already, one where that is not present … if it was, she would be like M and not like the women in question.
It gets back to what deti says … have your wife be “ride or die” attracted to you or … buckle up.
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Right, Nova. Most of these people are married, with kids. high stakes.
The few men he hears from that aren’t, he tells the man to cut his losses and walk. Go find someone new. And don’t waste any time doing it, LOL.
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ELSPETH
I know what your talking about with SAM I thought I was suppose to do right by my 6 year old G.F. because thats the right thing!Not to win favor!Because it did’nt matter how well, I treated my girl I was still evil as far as our teacher was concerned!This is not most married mens situation too?Only the most famous&rich men are thought innocent until proven guilty!Most of us other guys already guilty!Right guys?
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I guess I’m just super torn, to this day over what I read around here. Have been since I found dalrock in 2011.
There’s plenty to learn to be sure.
But do people even like their spouses anymore? I mean, we just hang out. Raise our kids. Have funny inside jokes. We even crack each other up in, um, the bedroom. We’re like pals. We get really mad at each other. Drive each other nuts. Have stupid fights about stupid things. But mostly go back to the laughing and hanging out part.
I just don’t get it.
It’s sad.
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Sometimes.
But I can’t ever let up. Ever.
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“Do people even like their spouses anymore?”
I tried that. I tried being open and an open book. I tried being kind and playful and “fun”. I tried cracking her up in the bedroom. I tried flirty little things out of the bedroom.
What I got for it was called a p*ssy and ignored. My needs went unmet. Ridiculed, belittled. Disrespected in front of my kids. Fought. Yelled at.
So now all I can do is stand there with my finger poised to press the button. All I can do is threaten to destroy 25 years and a more than a million dollars worth of assets. All I can do is imply that if it’s not done my way, everything gets vaporized. Not one stone left standing on stone.
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deti, I have a friend whose marriage sounds exactly like yours. Woman is the daughter of an AF General – spoiled brat. She literally jacked him up against the wall. He used to discuss divorce (I think he said there’s something about alimony at the 20 year mark). He decided to stick it out for the kids. Sad thing is, a lot of the women at work treat him much better than his own wife.
Sometimes these women learn it from their mothers – this guy’s mother-in-law literally told him men are only good for a paycheck – sounds like a manosphere caricature.
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Things are better in my own marriage. I just never thought I’d have to threaten to blow it up in order to save it.
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“But do people even like their spouses anymore?”
Yeah, we’re best buds pretty much. A million inside jokes and references. How many chicks will get a Dumb & Dumber movie reference every time? We share funny memes. Watch movies together. She wants me to be home – looks forward to my days off. Tries to get me take days off work – she’s a spend-time-together love language type.
Most people, no. It’s a business partnership. From what she tells me a lot of spouses don’t really like each other. The people I work with – when they talk to their spouse on the phone there’s no “I love you” or whatever – very business like. A couple of times I’ve heard the husband say “bitch!” after he hangs up. Her friends say to her how what we have is different – that we spend a lot of time with each other and with our children.
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Y’all sound like us, Scott, without the added component of friends and extended family pulling you in. We genuinely enjoy each other and we don’t actually fight at all. Like ever, and haven’t for a long time. When we disagree, we do things like snuggle up and hear each other out. Sometimes we end up agreeing, sometimes we agree to disagree, but in the end it doesn’t matter because if there’s a decision to be made, it’s already been decided that I follow his lead. Sometimes my way makes sense and we consider another option. But fight? nope.
But we don’t live our lives in a bubble. My husband is too extroverted for that anyway, although I would love it, LOL. There are times when I deliberately avoid all people except those with whom I have a natural affinity. So it’s other couples like us (yeah, there are a couple of those believe it or not), my kids, our school group.
But then, I start to feel really guilty about avoiding our friends, family and acquaintances with more chaotic situations. I feel really guilty. And then, my husband reminds me that to whom much is given, much is required. We cannot in good conscience keep the wisdom we have gained to ourselves. He knows I’d rather not be bothered, and I know it’s not a very charitable posture to take.
And so we hear some of the worst of the worst.
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LOL I don’t feel guilty about it atall
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It would be cool to just snuggle up and win the fight because I’m the man. But she’s Irish.
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I was raised in a house full of stoic males during my most formative years. I learned early to corral my temper. I often jokingly refer to myself as being emotionally stunted.
Y’all have a great weekend, now.
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Had an ounce or so of hope back after my mother died of meeting someone and I arrived in Fresno having to start “over”
That was quickly dashed when I discovered the ugly truth. Resisting it caused the problems, still a bum deal and “totally unfair” but really there is zilch I can do about it.
There was a news story here in Fresno yesterday. There was a gunfight / shoot out (wild wild west out here daily). The one man shot the other in the leg, his girlfriend in the car got out, and then got into the car of the man who just shot her boyfriend. “how about you and him fight” came to mind.
I am sure she just had “low self esteem” and “didn’t know any better” she of course was hot and both the men involved with this were gangstas / banditos and just “misunderstood”
You can change the ethnicity, age, and even church attendance……same thing. Too many men will be standing around wondering “what happened, I’m 50 and single”
and many are using the same worn-rug applications of get muscles, get confidence, looks max and just be alpha.
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One more thing, to be fair and completely honest before I go.
In the first couple of years, we did fight. And ferociously. I think it was the first time I felt safe enough to let my emotions go, and go I did. There were times when it was ugly because he had some stuff to work through as well. Then he would just leave. For hours and hours. No call. It was torturous. He always came home, but still. It didn’t take long for me to figure out that lashing out irrationally would not get me what I wanted. Period.
As we grew spiritually, combined with my kind of defaulting the way I was raised, the fights got less and less and less. Even now, when things are going south, we just stop and take a deep breath and regroup. We’re all Protestanty so we try to do all the “speak the truth in love” “don’t let the sun go down on your anger” stuff.
But we haven’t always been like this, and it’s not because he is the man. Well it is, but it’s because he is THE MAN
LOL. Now I’m out. Have a good weekend.
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“For hours and hours. No call. It was torturous.”
If you want to torture a woman who cares about you, ignore her. Don’t say anything. It drives them absolutely nuts. They have to know what you’re feeling and thinking. I’m not advocating this, just an observation.
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Off Topic (’cause I’m on a roll): American Christian Bummed That Following Christ May Soon Actually Cost Him Something
https://babylonbee.com/news/american-christian-bummed-that-following-christ-may-actually-cost-him-something-now?utm_source=Gab&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=Gab
I thought The Babylon Bee was supposed to be satire.
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The few men he hears from that aren’t, he tells the man to cut his losses and walk. Go find someone new. And don’t waste any time doing it, LOL.
“Find someone new?” Someone who would be any different from or any improvement over what he’s just extricated himself from? Unless he’s willing to move to the other side of the Globe or to another planet, I’d say “good luck with that.”
No, the kindest and most loving advice to give any such man nowadays is “get thee out from the gates of Sodom, head for the mountains, and don’t look back.”
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If you aren’t constrained by Christian morals then you move on and enjoy the initial phases of a relationship where you feel desired (don’t know if this is faked by women or if opportunism to get a man genuinely drives their desire). You don’t marry. When/if her desire for you wanes you cut your losses and move on. A number of men seem to be adopting this strategy. Never underestimate the desire of a woman to “have a man.”
I’m not advocating this immoral practice of course.
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In the days of my youth when I learned what it meant to be a man I also learned what B52’s dropping 500 pound dumb bombs, CBU’s/ scatter-able mine fields, 155mm arty tubes firing for effect, MRLS etc can do. Heck I have seen tanks slew their barrels to the rear and drive through every building in a relatively modern, small town. 8 crews, no shots fired, no buildings left liveable in a few hours
Those things are still in the inventory
I also learned the us military/ government is very much in favor of unrestricted war on its citizens. Political correctness drives most decisions when dealing with threats outside the USA other wise we”d be called racist.
That won’t be an issue when some small/ mid size town full of mostly Trump voting honkys.
The shot callers are ok with screwing with the military because pushing buttons is massively lethal and destructive.
Military to dysfunction to maintain a MRLS? Print money, hire a contractor to keep the machine running so a pre op freak can keep pushing buttons
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A little late to this thread, but someone passed on this article from the Catholic Match Institute that came out just a few days ago.
https://www.catholicmatch.com/institute/2021/02/free-yourself-from-your-parents-divorce-part-1/
I have not been on Catholic Match in several years; the women there have mostly the same entitlements their secular sisters do. Even at my age, they still do. But I found this article quite readable and interesting. It cites this article from Psychology Today that in turn cites a study from 2001 about the risk of a parent’s divorce on the children’s own marriages.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/between-the-generations/201902/if-my-parents-are-divorced-is-my-marriage-doomed-fail
FWIW…
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