When walking on eggshells, step boldly!

A deeper understanding of the risks and benefits of opening up to a woman.

Readership: All
Length: 2,100 words
Reading Time: 7 minutes
Reader’s Note: This is the 8^th post of a series on masculinity. Here is the full list of posts in this series.

1. Σ Frame: Redefining Manhood as Boyish Immaturity (2021 June 14)
2. Σ Frame: Do men need talk therapy? (2021 June 16)
3. Σ Frame: Entering Manhood (Rite of Passage) (2021 June 18)
4. Σ Frame: A Man’s Ability to Read IOIs Depends on Having a Firm Grasp on His Personal Archetypal Mythos (2021 June 21)*
5. Σ Frame: Men’s Fantasy of Emotional Intimacy (2021 June 23)
6. Σ Frame: 8 Things that Increase Discernment (2021 June 25)
7. Σ Frame: Women rely on a man’s Frame for Redemptive Introspection (2021 June 28)
8. Σ Frame: When walking on eggshells, step boldly! (2021 June 30)
9. Σ Frame: Answers to the Exit Questions for the Series on Masculinity (2021 July 2)

Of note, this series received a few responses from around the Manosphere.

• Radix Fidem: God Doesn’t Play Games (2021 June 23)
• Radix Fidem: Don’t Kill It (2021 June 24)
• Christianity and Masculinity: The fallacy of teaching men to be emotionally honest part 2 (2021 June 24)
• Christianity and Masculinity: “That all changed after we married…” (2021 June 28)
• Adam Piggott: Husbands must not unburden themselves (2021 July 6)

This post will summarize the major conclusions from this series.

Definitions of “Maturity”

The subject of maturity was introduced in the first post. It was noted that self-centered, solipsistic women are prone to psychological projection, and have their own definition of maturity that fits the following descriptions.

1. Any symptom of human frailty is boyish immaturity.
2. Anything she feels is undignified or makes her feel embarrassed or ashamed is juvenile.
3. Any interest in stereotypically masculine interests (e.g., drinking, fitness training, sports, hobbies, territory marking behaviors, etc.) is seen as immaturity.
4. A lack of “respect” is regarded as immaturity.*
5. Anything extraneous to the feminine imperative is labeled boyish immaturity.

* Women have their own definition of “respect” as well. He must defer obeisant fealty to her royal pain-in-the-@$$ imagined feminine dominance, and if he doesn’t, then he is being disrespectful to her.

As Deep Strength pointed out,

“The issue is not maturity though. A woman’s preconceived notions of what they think is “mature” or not is their will manifesting as pride: they think they know what is better than the man they are with and are setting themselves up as the judge of that.”

Yes, and although this is a false concept of maturity, being aware of this fact allows men to translate the femtalk code.

IMHO, immaturity may be better understood as a lack of maturity. Maturity is a complex topic that I will address in a future post. &

Definitions of “Weakness”

In previous comments, the discussion of mens’ weaknesses were generally contained within three different categories.

1. Weaknesses due to Human Frailty – Depression, emotional wounds, errors, failures, flaws, foibles, hurts, illness, injuries, imperfections, joblessness, mistakes, pains, screwups, setbacks, and personal struggles.
2. Weaknesses in Character/Personality – Evading responsibility, lack of applied intelligence, lack of self-control, lack of self-discipline, mental issues, moral defects, physically abusive, rebelliousness, self-justification, sexual promiscuity, substance abuse/addiction, etc.
3. Weaknesses in Confidence/Faith –Cowardly, effeminate, having a flaccid will, indecisive, insufficiently determined to “finish the job” well, and a willingness to fold at the first setback, loss, or difficulty.

Generally speaking, Alpha’s don’t show weaknesses of any variety. It seems to be their personal code of situational ethics. Alpha’s are exceptionally good at covering their weaknesses, and/or recasting/transforming their weaknesses into strengths. Some women will be blinded by the Alpha-ness, and only see a man who has a resilient ego and is impervious to weakness. Women may choose to be content with this impression and consider this to be sufficient for their hypergamous ego needs.

Robin Williams and Paul Dooley star as Popeye (foreground) and J. Wellington “Wimpy” (background) respectively (1980).

Concerning womens’ weaknesses, a previous scientific study of Conflict Structure and Marital Satisfaction (2017 November 15), revealed that women who have the following traits are usually considered (by men) to be weaker than others.

1. Women who have been abused, or who are more emotionally needy, i.e. who have an intense craving for closeness.
2. Women who are rude, ungrateful, disrespectful, domineering, and therefore cannot maintain a satisfying relationship with a man who desires to be close to them.
3. Women who have been rejected by men, who consequently have a greater desire for closeness.
4. Sexually frigid women, or women with an exceedingly low SMV/MMV, whom men do not want to be close to.
5. Women who have had intimate, sexual relationships with a number of men, and thus have gained certain emotional needs/expectations which cannot be satisfied through closeness to any one man.
6. Women who lack the skills and abilities required to meet others’ needs, which reduces the power they have in maintaining closeness.

It is interesting to note that all of these indicators of womens’ weaknesses fit within the second category of mens’ weaknesses — Weaknesses in Character/Personality. Women are not considered weak because of their Human Frailties nor their lack of Faith/Confidence. After all, they are women!

Aside from the Alpha-apex fallacy, different women have different views of mens’ weaknesses. In general, more mature women are more forgiving of human frailty, and less so about character flaws. Less mature women prioritize human strengths, and are more accepting of character flaws. Men are strongly disqualified by most all women for weaknesses in Confidence/Faith.

The interplay between mens’ and womens’ views of emotional vulnerability and weakness will be explored in the next four sections. Remember that the arguments about weakness are subject to the respective definitions given above.

The Difference Between Emotional Vulnerability and Weakness

This is Deti’s first point in a comment. He describes the case in which a woman is blinded by Alphaness/Tingles and is never faced with existential concerns.

“There’s a difference between vulnerability and weakness.”

“A woman is fine seeing a man’s vulnerability, IF AND ONLY IF:

1. She is very sexually attracted to him, so hard sexually attracted to him she can’t even see straight (e.g., Elspeth, Liz, and Mychael)
   1. Those vulnerabilities do not affect her personally, threaten her home or children, or threaten to put her in the poorhouse
   1. Those vulnerabilities are temporary and resolve on their own with no action or intervention from her.

She is NOT EVER fine seeing him weak, or wounded, or down and out, or down on his luck.”

An excellent example of this is the famous interview with Flex Lewis in which he talks about his pain and suffering in his efforts to win a championship, while the two female reporters are totally $h!t faced with visceral desire for him.

The Difference between a Man’s Desire for Love and his Desire for Respect

This is Deti’s second point.

“There’s also a difference between a man’s desire for love and his desire for respect.

It is NOT the “desire of a man’s heart to be loved on the basis of [her] intimate knowledge [of him]”. That’s love he gets from Mom. It IS the desire of a man’s heart that his wife respect him on the basis of recognition of his abilities, strengths, and position.”

“…a man does not “desire to be loved on the basis of intimate knowledge”. He desires to be RESPECTED based on her knowledge of his abilities, strengths, and position.”

Superposed on top of this is the fact that men feel loved when they are able to open up in humility and Heart Trust, and speak freely about their thoughts, emotions, fears, and desires, without any fear of backlash, and still be respected by the woman!

The problem is that men often fail to exercise discernment as to whether a woman is actually capable of offering either love or respect, and therefore he opens up under the assumption that it is right to do so, or that honesty is important, or merely because he desires to be loved by her. As a general rule of thumb (for those men who are weak in discernment), a woman is not going to offer this kind of acceptance, understanding, and love unless and until she is already in the regular habit of offering respect.

The Difference between How a Woman interprets the Intimacy of Emotional Vulnerability and her Revulsion of Seeing Certain Weaknesses in Him

Here’s Deti’s third point. This is where things get confusing for men and sticky for women.

“And yet another difference between a woman knowing a man intimately; and a woman seeing a man at his worst when he’s down, down on his luck, knocked down, wounded and weak.

Knowing a man intimately is a woman knowing her man’s likes, dislikes, personality, foibles, quirks, idiosyncracies, routines, and the way he lives his life day in day out.

A woman does NOT want to know intimately a man’s wounds, weaknesses, injuries, hurts, pains, failures, setbacks, mistakes, screw-ups, and struggles. Or, if she knows them, she wants to just know of them, and know that he’s taking care of them on his own with no help from her, and that those things will not affect her, her kids, or her access to resources. She needs to make sure that no matter what, the resource flow to her and her kids continues uninterrupted. No matter what else is going on with him, he needs to make damn sure she’s getting what she needs. Doesn’t matter if he’s hurt, in pain, dealing with wounds, or whatever – the money needs to keep flowing, or else she’s OUT.”

Here, Deti is describing a very specific kind of interaction. In more general terms, whatever weaknesses the man has, it cannot be something that affects her peculiar set of emotional and psychological needs. Again, this varies somewhat from woman to woman. The problem is that most men bumble into a relationship while being totally ignorant of what she sees in him that is attractive to her. Because of his lack of self-awareness, he doesn’t know what to reveal to her, and what not to reveal, and so she becomes upset and offended by those things that she is sensitive to, and he is totally unaware of why she lost her cool. But if a man can show emotional vulnerability without crossing her sacred inviolable combination of Tingle factors, then this can increase intimacy between them.

For most men, this is more trouble than it is worth, given the insufferable quality of women that are available these days. They’ll never come out and explicitly say what they want and need, and they’ll never do what Hanging with Mi suggests in the next video.

To some extent, a woman must take up the slack. In the following video, Hanging with Mi describes how women can restrain themselves from their own relationship destroying habits. These habits allow a man to come out of his shell and experience humility, peace, and joy in the relationship.

The next section will address the main reason why women cannot do this.

Women are Fearful of Weak Men

Deti wrote about how women are incapable of dealing with perceived weaknesses in men [edited for clarity]. Ultimately, it boils down to her own personal weaknesses combined with a lack of faith.

“What also factors into this is the women’s/wives’ character flaws. Because of those flaws, those women are damaged if not completely broken. A damaged or broken woman cannot handle vulnerability or weakness in men. She can’t countenance damage or breakage in others – because she herself is damaged and broken. She needs him to be strong because she can’t do it- things in her are damaged and broken. This prevents men from showing vulnerability because if she sees a man vulnerable or wounded, alarm bells go off in her head –

“He can’t take care of me!  He can’t help me!  He’s gonna get killed!  He’s gonna get me killed!  He’s gonna get our kids killed!  We’re gonna lose everything!  We’re gonna end up in the poorhouse!!  OH MY GOD!!!  GET ME AWAY FROM HIM!!”

That’s the dynamic.”

The problem here is that every man has his own set of weaknesses, and these weaknesses cannot be made to vanish overnight. To some extent, the woman must accept this as a fact of life, and those who cannot will always be disappointed with the man.

NovaSeeker further explained why men cannot show vulnerability, and why this is more important after marriage.

“[Women] catalog everything we [men] say or do that shows any sort of vulnerability or weakness away in their brains and later on that information and knowledge is deployed against you in some way. It often doesn’t happen immediately, and in the context of a BF/GF relationship with a woman who is not naturally toxic/BPD/etc., it can seem to work ok. But when the marriage comes into force, the entire power dynamic is forcibly shifted, and you will eventually have all of that info come back and be used against you, either openly or covertly, in how she decides to “manage” you.”

Emotionally healthy and spiritually mature women are exceedingly rare. Most women are like hungry, wounded animals. Even though you might be trying to help them, they will still lash out and bite, and they will hit you where you are most vulnerable.

Conclusions

Red Pill Apostle wrote a summary which forms an excellent conclusion here.

“…the reality [is] that many women, when faced with her husband being open about his fears, his doubts, his desires, react very poorly. Shaming. Manipulation. Anger. These are the responses many of us get from our wives. It only takes so long before a man, me included, realizes that the burden of not opening up to his wife is less than the burden of opening up to her.

Part of the burden is not having someone to ease the load at times. Part of the burden is knowing that the girl you have chosen as your one and only, the person who your heart should be safe with does not have the same capacity for depth of intimacy. So we assess our relationship in the world we actually live in, determine the pleasantries, some fun times in each other’s company, enough physical intimacy to satisfy the itch and common goals are enough to continue to build a life that is better than most.

But get to the point where you can trust your wife with your heart when she’s been so reckless over the years? It’s a long shot that is probably not going to work out well. This is why Proverbs 31:10-12 says,

”A wife of noble character who can find?  She is worth far more than rubies.  Her husband has full confidence in her and lacks nothing of value.  She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life.”

If a man has such a wife, he might be able to feel the freedom, heartfelt love, and joy that comes of sharing his whole heart, mind, and soul with her. But for some men, this deeper understanding only comes in old age, after being married for decades, when nothing really matters anymore. The majority of men never make it that far, probably because they say too much, too honestly, in their desire for greater intimacy with their wives.

Related

1. Σ Frame: Confidence and Authenticity in Speech (2009 December 28)
2. Illimitable Men: The Game of Power (2014 April 22)
3. Illimitable Men: Understanding Female Psychology (2016 March 16)
4. Σ Frame: Conflict Structure and Marital Satisfaction (2017 November 15)
5. Σ Frame: Disciplined, Submissive, Happy Wives (2018 February 15)
6. Σ Frame: How To Get A Better Response From Your Girl (2018 February 27)
7. Σ Frame (J.T. Anderson): Moulding an Excellent Wife (2018 March 5)
8. Σ Frame: Apprehending True Humility (2019 April 7)
9. Σ Frame: The Trust Factor (2019 April 18)
10. Σ Frame: 2 Frames of Reference for Identifying the Trust Factor (2019 April 23)
11. Σ Frame: Creating and Maintaining Heart Trust (2019 April 28)
12. Σ Frame: Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. (2020 January 27)