…is a powerful way that men install Headship.
Readership: All; Christians;
Theme: Feminine Submission
Author’s Note: This post is based on a comment I left under No More Mrs. Hot Mess! (2021-11-29) with some added input from Jack.
Length: 750 words
Reading Time: 4 minutes
The Misery of having Weak or Missing Boundaries
A while back, Femmy wrote about her subjective view of others in which she portrayed man bashing as a common female trait.
“I also noticed I’m really good at seeing what’s spiritually wrong in others, but blind to my own.
For example, all the wives in my family sure can pick out everything wrong in their men, but never once did they say they were wrong about anything they did, except for one: that they shouldn’t have married.
Is this true for all women?
And why do they morally pick on their husbands?
Why do they constantly bash them in front of their children?
Why are they always mad?”
We’ve been over this before many times. Genesis 3:16 means that all women to one extent or another will chafe against their husband’s authority. Wives picking out the moral flaws of their husbands to leverage against them is one way this chaffing manifests itself. Bashing them in front of their children is another way of usurping a husband’s authority.
On a personal note, if Mrs. Apostle ever does this particular one again then we’ll go see divorce lawyers the next day, which brings us to the answer to Femmy’s last question.
Wives are always mad because they are stuck with a husband who they don’t think is strong enough to set firm boundaries and enact consequences for breaking them. The insane aspect of this is that the typical unhappy wife does not understand what it is that will actually make her happy and so she grasps at shadows she thinks might do the trick, all the while petulantly goading her husband with “happy wife, happy life” in a vain effort to wring that last drop of life blood out of him. He does his best to keep up until he doesn’t see the point of trying anymore, because what he does rarely keeps her happy.
Even wives that were, at one time, Tingle crazy for their husband commonly fall into this trap. After years of nagging and nitpicking, eventually her insolent disrespect causes her to fall out of love, and her lack of humility ruins the entire marriage and family, as I described before. These women never seem to realize that what they’re looking for can only be obtained by trusting in God, not by castigating a man. However, when a husband installs boundaries, it creates a structure that can take her one step closer towards realizing this.
Installing Boundaries
In practice, husbands need to ditch all of the culture’s ideas about equality and treat his wife like the most responsible teenager in the family. This is done by setting firm boundaries and expectations and then enforcing them without letting his emotions get the best of him. She’ll be unhappy for a while, but ultimately she’ll find comfort in the security and safety of the parameters he has set.
Think of it like a sheep in a pen with the shepherd at the gate. They may not like being penned in, but the shepherd’s protection lets them live their lives more freely because they are safe from predators. The “predator” in this case is demonic — moral criticism, unthankfulness, shame, pangs of guilt, etc. Likewise, a husband’s parameters with his wife should protect against emotionally driven poor decision making that leads to painful and costly consequences.
This is, in fact, the model the Bible gives us with Christ and the church. He gives us parameters to protect us from ourselves, knowing that we’d all act sinfully against our own long term best interests. For some of these, it is easier to understand the cause and effect, such as the adulteress leading to emotional, financial, and relational turmoil, while others, like the Leviticus 18 instruction to not procreate with close relatives, make take a little longer to realize. In the case of Leviticus 18, it took a couple generations after Kentucky reached statehood along with modern genetic research to confirm the wisdom contained there. (It’s a Southern joke.)
Related
- The Rational Male: Boundaries (2014/11/17)
- Σ Frame (Jack): The Pygmalion Project vs. Shared Enterprises (2018-2-2)
- Σ Frame (Jack): Women Rely on a Man’s Frame for Redemptive Introspection (2021-6-28)
- Σ Frame (Jack): Why challenge the character of your wife? (2021-7-7)
- Σ Frame (Red Pill Apostle): 2 Old Farts Talking About Their Wives (2021-12-20)
- Σ Frame (Red Pill Apostle): The Value of Feminine Humility (2022-10-4)
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Σ Frame 
Be aware of the friends of one’s wife. Feminist wormtongues abound. Ruining marriages.
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info,
One of my boundaries with Mrs. A is that if any of her good friends start going down the divorce road, her girls trips with them are done.
The old joke about women going to the bathroom in groups also applies to family court.
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It is true. If I get married again any of her friends who do that are not coming around any more. I have yet to meet a divorced woman who takes any accountability in the separation.
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Thank you for sharing this example!!! Finally, somebody gives a practical example of a boundary or expectation! This is really helpful for me to learn what boundaries look like in practice, rather than just theoretical “boundaries”.
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caterpillar345,
Don’t overthink setting boundaries. It’s as simple as “If you do this, my response is going to be that.” I have a feeling you have set boundaries for other people in your life without even thinking of them as boundaries.
Here are other specific boundaries.
— If you don’t value my skills and contributions at work I’ll take them to a place that does.
— If you use withholding sex as a power play to get me to do what you want, I’m going to divorce you no questions asked.
— You have been involved in 3 auto accidents in 3 years, you will drive an inexpensive vehicle until your driving habits change. It will take years to prove if you are actually a better driver.
— Son, I don’t like that you always end up in conflict when you go to play at Bobby’s house. The fighting creates tension with our neighbors that I don’t want, so you are taking a break from playing with him/can’t play with him anymore.
Setting boundaries is simple cause and effect. Those times that I get on my soapbox about a man knowing his purpose and how to get there is because a man needs to know where he’s going and have a planned route in order to understand where he needs to set his boundaries. With no plan/purpose, a man is listless which puts him at risk of making arbitrary boundaries that may not make sense when enforced. With a plan/purpose a boundary is set to specifically protect that plan/purpose, and the enforcement of those boundaries becomes imperative.
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caterpillar
Your boundaries/expectations can be whatever you want/need them to be.
“You are not to hit me. You hit me, we’re done.”
“Don’t say X to me. You say X to me, we’re done.”
“I need regular sex at reasonable intervals. I expect you to provide that to me, especially in light of our vows and the fact that you expect me not to have sex with other women. If you unreasonably withhold sex or use sex as a weapon, we’re done.”
“I will do these chores/tasks. I expect you to do those chores/tasks. I may expect you to do my chores/tasks sometimes. I expect you to do them in the manner in which I ask. If you do not, I will impose X consequence.”
“If we disagree on a major issue, I will decide how we will proceed.”
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Tie all of what thedeti and I just wrote about setting boundaries with a wife to the work that it takes to enforce them with a woman who thinks you owe HER because she is the prize. When men say that marriage is a lot of work, the setting and enforcing is what the headship husband is referring to, the egalitarian husband’s work comes from doing what his wife tells him to do.
Either way, with the wrong woman marriage is a ton of work and why Proverbs 31:10 says a good woman is hard to find. Even with a woman whose parents taught her how to be a wife there is still some work involved. There is an element of truth to the idea that without the male sex drive, few men would have anything to do with women and the responsibility a man takes on when he marries is why.
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With your description of how marriage is “work,” it occurs to me that fits with the use of the word “husband” as in “husbandry – management and conservation of resources.” And a given woman may require less or much more husbandry/work. A given woman may is IDEALLY supposed to be a help to the process of husbandry rather than working at cross-purposes to it.
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Bingo. Paul was onto something when he wrote that church elders had to be the husband of only one wife. Two or more and he wouldn’t have the time/energy/focus to devote to the church. Heck, most men with just one wife don’t have the time/energy/focus to devote to the church.
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That’s not even a matter of opinion.
I’m convinced women do it on purpose. Misery loves company, after all.
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Its a Biblical Precept that “Bad Company corrupts good character”(1 Corinthians 15:33).
Feminists are false teachers.
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Relatives too, sadly. One of my buddies back in MO (and his kids) got put through the meat grinder because his wife’s female relatives convinced her that she could do better.
Spoiler alert: she couldn’t, but her family’s wrecked now.
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At times I pray about those women. That God curses them.
May their name be erased from the face of the earth.
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Info,
She cursed herself. When I left, she wasn’t doing well, and I doubt it’s gotten better. The sad part is that my friend and his kids are also doing poorly. All of it completely unnecessary.
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Yesterday a conversation reminded me of just how difficult it is for men to set and hold boundaries in modern western culture. Often, men who want to know how to change their marriage are filled with doubt and fear when it comes to setting and enforcing the boundaries that would bring about the change. Usually when a man hears what it takes he will say something akin to, “I can’t do that”, which means he’s scared of her and she sets the boundaries for him.
If she is setting the boundaries, the marriage is going to suffer and she is going to be unhappy. Any prolonged period of this arrangement greatly increases the risk of the marriage dissolving. Which brings me to an important point that I have made before, but is worth reiterating. For a man to build the marriage he wants, or save it for that matter, he has to act without fear of losing the marriage adjusting his actions. Play to win because playing not to lose is a fool’s game.
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I’m going to just throw this out there since it’s an “off-the top of my head” kind of thought. I’m increasingly coming to view women as living in an ideal kind of world for them, in every way to include their relationships. It’s not just the “curse of Eve,” but also includes all the societal conditioning and programming they receive from the time they are little, Disney anyone? Prince Charming really is out there, somewhere girls, just keep looking for him!
We’ve collectively observed this phenomenon, now a cultural meme of sorts, where the woman finds and marries (if she’s lucky nowadays), the guy who gives her the tingles, aka Chad, and then tries to “change him” into what she wants him to be. Some refer to this as the “Beauty and the Beast” syndrome.
I’ve always been a bit puzzled as to what exactly it is she “wants him to be.” So, I’ll take a stab at it, and you guys add to it or tweak it as you see fit.
She wants him to be a “shape-shifter’ of sorts. From Merriam -Webster’s Dictionary, Definition of shape-shifter: “One that seems able to change form or identity at will.” IOW, whatever she needs him to be “right now, this minute” incredible lover in the bedroom, magnificent orgasm machine, uber provider of resources, handiest of handymen, romantic lover supreme, comedian who makes her laugh, the perfect father to her kids, etc. etc. and etc. etc. ….. and more etc!
No man can do this! It’s a standard that is unreachable (leave Jesus out of this! LoL), by any man on earth, now or in history ever. Even Mr. Giga-giga Chad can’t do this for her. Hence, she’s doomed to disappointment upon disappointment, frustration upon frustration, heartache upon heartache, etc. UNLESS….. and this hearkens back to the last couple of blog posts this past week, she submits to headship. Headship first of the Lord, then her father or husband (depending on her age), and allows Christ to work on her, develop her, sanctify her. Then I think she has a chance at SATISFACTION in life because she can let go of most, if not all, the cultural conditioning that the “perfect man” exists out there somewhere, just have to keep looking for him! HOWEVER, for a woman to have this kind of transformational thinking, I assert it takes God and the power of His Holy Spirit to do this kind of work in her; otherwise, I think the “curse of Eve” will always get the upper hand over her and she will NEVER be satisfied. Why? Because he’s still out there, somewhere!
Incidentally, I’ve recently heard words to the effect of this come out of two women’s mouths, one a single late thirty something, and the other a mid forty something. I’m serious, when I heard this stuff come out of their mouths, the “perfect man stuff,” I was like, “Aren’t you a little old for that now? That’s like teenage girl language!” The thirty something summed him up by calling him “delicious,” and the forty something referred him as “dreamy.” I thought to myself, “Haven’t you grown out of that silliness by now? Hasn’t the world, aka the school of hard knocks, not taught you He. Does. Not. Exist…. Anywhere. Out. There?” Apparently not.
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RPB,
My experience is that women don’t generally know what they want, until they see it. The issue is that her wants/needs/desires cycle.
The only logical track for a man is to consistently be his genuine self no matter which way her emotions sway her. Ultimately, his consistent authority and guidance is what a woman wants, even if she doesn’t realize it from the start.
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Yes, pretty much what a man has to be; and he needs to be growing in his understanding of women as well as be “on his grind” in life. Hopefully, some women still respond to this, i.e. submit, but it’s dicey nowadays. My 32 year old son has been married now, so far so good, but he’s got a long way to go. She’s relatively submissive, but she has her moments, my daughter-in-law that is.
The one thing beyond his and other young men’s control is how she reacts to all this “headship stuff,” and what she can do to him in the divorce court if she so chooses. He can “do it all” relationally speaking, and still get his “head handed to him” in this Luciferian court system of ours. That’s a concern that’s there in the back of my mind. I pray for him and her regularly, so far God is answering my prayers.
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Boundaries are necessary. A few things I’ve learned
1) You need hard personal boundaries and you need to discuss them explicitly and clearly with anyone you date with any seriousness. You need to understand these boundaries and have that discussion before you marry.
Understand that you have every right to have boundaries. You are not wrong, bad, immoral, sick, or evil for having boundaries and wanting things from your relationships. You are one-half of the relationship. Women are not the only ones who get to have boundaries and expectations. You have every right to these things, but you are the only one who can get them for yourself.
2) You need to make clear what the consequences for crossing those boundaries will be. Again: That discussion must be held before marriage.
3) If the boundary is crossed you must impose and enforce the consequence. No exceptions. If she crosses a hard boundary and you said the consequence would be breakup or divorce, then you break up or divorce.
Boundaries are useless if there are no consequences for violating them. If you will not impose a consequence and enforce it hard, don’t put down a boundary.
4) It is much harder to put down new boundaries with someone you’re already in a relationship with. It is much harder to move prior boundaries to prevent another from engaging in conduct they used to engage in. It is much harder to say “yeah, that thing you used to say/do to me? That’s no longer acceptable to me and I won’t let you say/do that thing anymore.”
5) You may very well have to end a relationship over violated boundaries. Most people have ended relationships over violated boundaries/repeated failure to meet expectations. You probably have; you just didn’t call it that.
6) Closely related to boundaries is the concept of expectations. Most men have sexual and other expectations for a relationship/marriage. Rules 1-4 apply equally to expectations. You must discuss your expectations explicitly before marriage; you have every right to your expectations; set down and impose consequences for failing to meet them; and realize it will be much more difficult to set down new expectations than to enforce old ones. You will probably have to end relationships over repeated failure to meet expectations.
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7) Understand that if you do not set down boundaries and expectations, others will either
(a) correctly decide you have no boundaries or expectations and treat you accordingly; or
(b) set down boundaries and expectations for you and treat you accordingly.
IF you do not set down boundaries and expectations, others will treat you however they want, and it will not be in ways you want.
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If you find yourself thinking that it’s not fair how others treat you because you behaved a certain way, when you have not set boundaries to begin with, beware that you may have just dabbled in a covert contract. Covert contracts are an indication of weakness and cause damage to relationships. Adjust your behavior to be more forthcoming with your expectations.
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Adding to thedeti’s list on setting boundaries:
4a) While it is harder to set or move boundaries with someone you are already in a relationship with, it is necessary at times. Because of my history with Mrs. Apostle she has much less access to me than she did when we first married. Her untrustworthiness as a wife has earned her the new boundary. I’m confident that thedeti has acted similarly with his wife.
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This is a true story of how impossible this is.
In my first marriage, I was the person who was doing the finances. This was because 1. they needed to be done and 2. neither of us volunteered. So, I just manned up and did it.
I was self-employed (with my dad) and so my income was sporadic. I could only pay myself once all of my overhead was covered and all my employees were paid. It was a decent living, but kind of difficult to budget for. She was a public school teacher, which was an even, same amount, every other week. This helped smooth out the cashflow ups and downs on my side.
I would get frustrated, and tell her, “Let’s sit down and look at everything. All the bank statements, pay stubs. I’ll open the business books. Whatever we need to do and go over it line by line so we can have an effective and livable budget.”
She wanted nothing to do with it and just wanted me to tell her what the bottom line dollar amount she could spend each week was.
Fair enough.
Eventually, the whispers told her that I was “abusing her” with finances by putting her on an allowance!!!! All of her friends, her therapist, and the church agreed.
An allowance that SHE VOLUNTEERED FOR in spite of all my efforts to get her to participate like “equals” in the budget process.
So you can put all these healthy, rational, strong boundaries on your relationship if you want. But eventually, the forces of the ambient culture will make you the bad guy abuser. Just be ready to accept that risk.
Its the reason MGTOW exists.
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Scott — There are no guarantees obviously, but a big mitigating factor is not living in a leftist area. Leftists rot the culture and requires an unbelievably grounded person to resist their influence. Most women, my wife included, are not this grounded.
You are right, a man has to be willing to have the marriage end if he is going to enforce boundaries. The chances of the marriage ending if he doesn’t enforce boundaries would seem to be about the same as if he does so I see that as a push. Might as well enforce them which gives him a better chance at a good marriage.
I had a drawn out money argument with Mrs. A after we’d both finished grad school. It was worth it, but way way harder than it should have been.
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It’s often posited that “you can’t make someone have sex”.
No, you can’t. But then, you can’t make someone stay in a marriage with you, either.
How much sex should a couple have? As much sex as the person who wants it more, wants. The other person needs to oblige. Fake it till you make it. Find a way to take care of the spouse you chose and to discharge the obligations you voluntarily took on. Find a way to make good on the promises and vows you made.
You married them. You took vows. You made promises. You assumed obligations.
Find a way. Make it happen.
Or, let them go so they can find someone who will honor their vows and who will keep their promises.
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Just as long as everyone reading along understands.
With the Duluth model hanging over the heads of every married man in America (whether his wife says she would never….):
When a woman sets boundaries it is considered “healthy”.
When a man sets them he is insecure, weak, abusive, domineering.
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When a man sets them he is insecure, weak, abusive, domineering.
Which is why I stand ready to pull the divorce trigger if need be.
I never ever thought I’d be in this position. I never thought I’d say the things I’m saying or taking the positions I held and continue to hold. But yeah – I put down boundaries, some of which I’m prepared to leave the marriage over.
You can bet your a$$ that any woman worth her salt has taken the same position: There are some things I’ll blow up this marriage over. If she can take that position, there’s no reason I can’t.
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So its not just a risk of divorce, its a risk of a divorce that will ruin your life and the lives of your kids if you have them.
Women married to men they don’t really like understand this. They understand he is trapped.
She gets all the benefits of being married (status, nice things, security) and no downside of actually having a husband to deal with (icky sex she doesn’t want to do, shavings in the sink, whatever). She can just dispense the husband part and make him sleep in the garage with food and water like a dog.
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Now, yes. You can walk away from this treatment if you want. Its a free country. But when you are 10-20-30 years in with all the investment, kids, grandkids, house, etc it might not be that easy.
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My husband is currently spending a bit of time with a guy who decided to walk. To say this man is suffering would be an understatement, but he says he’s not doing it anymore. Period.
In their case, the kids are all adults except for a teenage son who has chosen to live with his father at least half the time. He does not want to be in his mother’s custody full time and if she decides to move, he is staying in this state with his dad.
If anyone had ever told me that this particular couple was going to split, I’d have said they were crazy. I still can’t believe it, but it is what it is.
From what I can gather (SAM is very selective in what he shares), this guy finally decided he wasn’t fighting with a rebellious woman anymore and that was that.
So I guess he had boundaries…
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Scott — The wife can apply a lot of pressure and pain to her husband, but he is only trapped if he thinks he is trapped and is more scared of the pain of losing in divorce than the pain of being married. Mrs. A pushed too far and the pain of being married outweighed the pain of ending it. That determination on my part was the first domino in a course of actions that helped me start to be me again.
It’s all how a man sees and thinks about the issue. If a man thinks his life will be ruined, he’ll wallow in that and dwell on the hardships instead of doing something different. If he thinks he’ll be ok, looks at the assets and relationships he has available to him and gets busy rebuilding he’ll have a much better outcome 5 years after the split.
You are an example of pulling it together and so is my uncle. Sure there is hurt and brokenness that is not the ideal, but trapped is not how I think about either of y’all.
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The pain of being in is worse than the pain of being out. I will attest that a good man’s threshold for pain is quite high so his ex must have been an absolute peach to be married to.
I will attest that this is a misery that should be reserved for the pits of Hell.
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The joke at the end is backwards to reality. The practice of marrying strangers rather than cousins is probably what killed marriage as an institution. Muslims still marry cousins as everyone seemed to do in ancient times, and they are holding frame a bit better even in modern times. Because there is already a closeness with this person. Duh.
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Like most things, that requires a little context. It is essentially true, but most people married cousins because they belonged to the same tribe. On a superficial level, it kept the wealth close to the family. On a deeper level, it was often to maintain a covenant of some kind that gave the tribe its identity. Covenants were very common until recent times, though not always formalized in writing. Muslims have one.
To be honest, only people from northern Europe are wide open to exogamy. The rest of the world still marries only within their tribe (for the most part), however it is they conceive of their tribe.
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Yes. Marriage among family members (second cousins and more distant relatives) had nothing to do with inbreeding or avoiding inbreeding, reproduction, or sexual attraction. It was about conserving wealth and property acquisition, keeping the tribe together, keeping outsiders out, and sometimes about forming political, military, and economic alliances. Sex, sexual attraction, reproduction, and love had nothing to do with it. Nature takes its course and reproduction tended to take care of itself.
Marriage for love, sex, and sexual attraction are terribly modern contrivances.
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Yes, deti; amen and amen. When romance is the basis, things tend to fall apart. When some other prime directive of survival determines marriage, it’s funny how strong the romance is that arises from a smart marriage arrangement. I didn’t marry for romance; I married because of a biblical prime directive, but the romance has never been missing. Before I got married, I knew that romance was a dependent variable, not the substance of the thing.
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CR
This is very good, and gets back to something that Dalrock first articulated a few years ago. It was this, paraphrased:
It used to be that marriage was the situs for romance and sex. If you wanted your romance and sex, you are supposed to get married and then work on getting romance and sex.
Now, it’s that romance is the situs for marriage and sex. If you want marriage and sex, you have to find romance, and then you can work on getting marriage and sex.
Adding to that, deti-style: In 2022, sex is the situs for romance and marriage. If you want romance and marriage, you have to have sex, and then you can work on getting romance and marriage.
SMH.
[Jack: For those readers who are unfamiliar with the Dalrock posts that deti cited, please find the links below, plus my own response.]
Dalrock: Does romantic love sanctify married sex? (2018-11-20)
Dalrock: Is it a sin to go against God’s command? (2019-2-10)
Σ Frame: The Mosh Pit of Sex Analysists (2019-3-24)
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When romance is the basis, things tend to fall apart. When some other prime directive of survival determines marriage, it’s funny how strong the romance is that arises from a smart marriage arrangement.
Something else that’s going on here is that most Red Pill men who you talk to in these parts married for modern reasons: sex, love, sexual attraction, already having sex, the sex is good, she’s hot, woman decided she wanted to get married, it was “just time” to get married, fear of being alone. They didn’t marry for any legitimate reason.
There’s a YouTuber called Thinking Ape (also goes by Stardusk) who points out, correctly, that most people are dating each other today with no telos, no purpose, no end objective. They’re dating each other because
“he’s nice and could be a good dad for my kids”
or “she’s hot and I like having sex with her”
or “at least he doesn’t drink too much or smack me around like my last boyfriend”
or “I like her well enough to put up with her and have sex with her”
Many of them end up married to the person they happen to be dating when one of them (usually she) decides it’s “time to get married” and the other (usually he) acquiesces.
Or he caves to her marriage ultimatum: “When are we gonna get married? I want to get married and if we’re not getting married, then maybe we should date other people (Translation: Either drop to a knee and offer me a ring right now, or I’ll have sex with other men.)
Or less often, they marry or shack up because she let him knock her up.
So even here, you have all kinds of marriages created for all the wrong reasons.
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I read through every Dalrock post and most of the comments over a 3 month period a couple years ago. Rereading the links in thedeti’s post at 10:41 reminded me of how good his writing and analysis are. If anyone hasn’t read them yet, his writing is some of the best at laying bare the issues of modern marriage and the church’s collective anemia on the matter. They are worth your time.
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And don’t have much staying power in the long run. What is it, like 50% of first time marriages end in divorce, and the average length of marriage in the West is now eight years or something like it?
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It’s a good example. It reminds me of how Augustine talked about freedom from sin being the ultimate freedom. Godly freedom isn’t at all like worldly freedom.
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Imagine how quickly “frigid” wives would “warm up” if they were compelled by a court of law to pay for prostitutes for their husbands en lieu of the sex that they’re supposed to be providing, but are withholding in breach of the marriage contract.
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feeriker – Frigid wives were frigid before they had the power and incentives in family court. It’s a heart problem, but I can see where having a little competition might motivate them. That motivation only lasts as long as the competition exists and unless she changes her heart, she’ll be right back to frigid when she doesn’t feel the need to compete.
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Sure. Many times, women decided after the last kid was born that they weren’t having sex anymore. Or many times it was as they and their husbands were getting older, into their 40s and 50s. These women would often explicitly tell their husbands they were done having sex, and if their husbands wanted sex they could get it somewhere else, or not, didn’t matter either way. Mostly, these women didn’t care if their husbands had affairs or hired prostitutes, just so long as their husbands were discreet, didn’t make more babies, and didn’t waste family assets.
Most women married to cheating husbands weren’t mad about the cheating. They were mad because their husbands didn’t sufficiently conceal their cheating and thus brought shame on their wives. They were mad because their wayward husbands got caught at the brothel, or because “proper society” saw their husbands in flagrante delicto coming out of Lady of the Evening’s home one night. They were mad because their husbands knocked up their mistresses or wasted money on hookers or sugar babies, thus taking food from the mouths of their (legitimate) children.
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Men, do not underestimate the power that keeping the image of the perfect loving family has over women. The image of perfect mom, perfect family, perfect kids, did I mention perfect mom, is VERY important to the majority of married women.
Women love writing anniversary and birthday social media posts about their husbands that they treat like garbage behind closed doors. They love having their husbands write glowing posts about the on those occasions even though they know they treat their husbands like garbage. Attention, validation, appearances, women go to great lengths to maintain the “right” image on these.
This concept is one of the main leverage points a husband has against a rebellious wife. It counts more than one might think and as long as he does not overplay his hand, it is effective.
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About women divorcing in groups. My wife’s more attractive friend divorced a man who’s in my industry and got a lot of assets. She’s also attractive and very nice so had many good looking guys smashing. My wife knew she wouldn’t get her sweetheart deal but thought she’d get a fraction. She didn’t get any of my business. She also didn’t get 3k a month in child support. Just 40+k in wam which she blew fast.
Also this friend divorced before I met my wife and had a 7 yr relationship so almost a decade of youth on top of looks and charm. I saw the ex on a date she looked absolutely miserable and the guy looked like he just was in a car crash!
Several women in the friend group wanted to divorce but I think after they saw the ex crash and burn they got scared straight. I don’t think any of them separated.
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Dalrock wrote about this too. He called it “the Whispers”.
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That really is an underappreciated threat point: “Go ahead, add ‘b!+ch’ on top of ‘frigid’, and I’ll make sure that the whole community learns WHY it is that I’m parking my Cadillac in another woman’s garage. YOU made the ‘alternate parking arrangement’ necessary, so you can just go ahead and own it!”
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Saw it a gazillion times in college and grad school especially. Chad cheats on his FB or GF. Usually more than once. GF finds out, comes to my dorm room cries for hours about how hurt she is, and then decides to be angry with “that B!tch that seduced or tricked him into f_ck!ng her!”
Chad was excused, and has ALWAYS been excused. Just more amplified in post war Western culture (i.e. we have too much free freaking time).
I learned then in 1989 that good looking guys can do no wrong, never. If they actually do. So what? Fifty, hundred a thousand more average, hot, sexy and ugly will line up to be next.
Life is indeed not fair.
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It’s important to put a stop to that, to nip it in the bud before it ever starts. Never, EVER let a woman who isn’t yours use you as an “emotional kleenex/tampon.” It’s “damseling” of the most insipid and toxic kind, and just fuels her emotional narcissism.
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No kidding. Easy to say NOW. This was 1989. I put a stop to this sometime in the mid-1990’s. I was then called “cruel” and “cold” and “I thought you were a guy a I could rely on” statements. I couldn’t win. I stood up for myself? I was told “oh, so you’re better than everyone else” (so they said) and if I let this happen, I was a beta / cuck / simp / white knight
By the time I hit my forties, it became clear I was deemed to be a loser, no matter what I did concerning women, and viewed even worse by most men.
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