Some relationships seem to exist in the land of constant worry. Is he doing X? Is she doing Y? It’s a constant guessing game, filled with yucky feelings, insecurity, and angst.
Now I am not a psychologist, and I am sure there are multiple reasons and causes for such a dynamic. I have seen people worry constantly when there was no reason to, and also cases where they had every reason to worry. But I think the most important part to focus on is such relationships are unhealthy and unhappy, whatever the cause. It’s not a good space.
In the end the last place you or your partner should be walking on eggshells is in your relationship.
If you have such feelings in every relationship, perhaps it’s time to look within. If you don’t normally have these feelings but are Having them in a particular relationship, maybe your intuition is trying to warn you?
Of course every relationship will have good days and bad, but if theres consistently more worry than peace, it’s not good. Time to take an honest and close look at yourself, your partner, and your situation.
What do you think such a relationship dynamic reveals? Please share in the comments.
Notes From a Red Pill Girl 
I had a friend whose wife was constantly worrying about him cheating. He wasn’t. It ruined their marriage.
Note that she came from an ethnic group where the men are known for their cheating ways.
Lack of trust. Suspicion, founded or unfounded.
You’re in a relationship with someone you’re not right for, and who isn’t right for you.
It’s basically about lack of sexual attraction. It always, always boils down to her lack of sexual attraction for him. Always.
I don’t know how much you should take into account what your intiution is hinting at if you get worries in your relationship. It can be wrong as much as it is right. If you are constantly worrying…perhaps the problem is within.
That said, it’s only if the worry has no reasoning behind it. If you start seeing or hearing cryptic statements, then your worry has some teeth behind it.
@deti in the case that I am speaking about here, she’s very attracted to him. He’s likely out of her league and is known for starting something new before the last thing was over (including in her case, he started pursuing her before ending his last thing.) her worry is probably not unfounded but at the same time it won’t change anything, either. Unfortunately she allowed a booty call type dynamic at the start and it’s not advancing past that and she’s worried it never will. And that at some point he’ll find someone else. Which is unfortunately likely.
I personally would advise women to avoid relationships starting off like this, I have never seen them turn into a successful thing.
“filled with yucky feelings, insecurity, and angst.”
I think a lot of it is boiled down to the one word in your quote, “Insecurity.”
When someone is really talking about how “worried” they are that their spouse (male or female) will cheat, it stems from an insecurity. It could be based in reality! I don’t know, it always depends on the exact people involved and the situation, and then what that spouse is really up to in their own heads (which sometimes I think *they* don’t even know their own motivations and thoughts).
I read a blog post a couple of years ago from a younger Christian woman who wrote that when she’s around women who are more attractive than her, she feels like she’s literally being attacked by dogs. She had an experience where dogs got out of a backyard one time, cornered her and were barking at her – scaring the daylights out of her. And then she said that the same feeling is what she feels when she’s around an attractive woman with her husband!
*The key is “with her husband.” She even admitted she’s hoped before that her husband doesn’t NOTICE another attractive woman.
You ask what is going on here in a person’s psyche who thinks like this? In my opinion, it’s a very deep insecurity with her own attractiveness that causes her to see other women in this way.
***
Also… I saw this topic came up at Dalrock’s from Scott that his wife gets really concerned when he’s taking high T when he’ll be around younger women. See I just don’t understand feelings like that…. My dad also had to take testosterone supplements and shots even, and my mom never felt that insecure, she always knew he’d choose faithfulness.
With my husband’s job, he is almost always at a constant high T level – which is very very attractive, but it doesn’t make me super clingy or feel so insecure that I’d ask him to stop doing what he loves. He even works around prostitutes wearing super skimpy things – has seen other women’s breasts because their nutcases and expose themselves to him!
So I don’t know….
I think if someone is always feeling insecure in their own worth or own beauty or attractiveness level, it’s going to make them psychologically neurotic (worried without real cause).
I mean… feeling like you’re being attacked by wild dogs when you’re just around an attractive woman… that doesn’t sound mentally healthy to me.
“her worry is probably not unfounded but at the same time it won’t change anything, either.”
Yea, that situation sounds like she is in the position to feel rightfully insecure over his faithfulness.
What I still don’t really understand is why married women, who are married to very good men who adore them, would still feel that strong of insecurity.
@RPG
He’s likely out of her league and is known for starting something new before the last thing was over (including in her case, he started pursuing her before ending his last thing.) her worry is probably not unfounded but at the same time it won’t change anything, either. Unfortunately she allowed a booty call type dynamic at the start and it’s not advancing past that and she’s worried it never will. And that at some point he’ll find someone else. Which is unfortunately likely.
So she hooked up with a known cheater who can’t commit and is worried that he is cheating and won’t commit? I know you can’t see it, but I’m doing that “world’s tiniest violin” thing with my fingers.
Where was her intuition at the start of this debacle? Doing shots out in the parking lot with the bouncer?
Bloom:
It’s a good thing that a woman is on her toes with a man.
It is a power equalizer.
Women have immense power in today’s society. A wife has the power to utterly destroy her husband in every way imaginable: Professionally, socially, emotionally, sexually, mentally. Especially if she is more attractive, and if she is more secure in the relationship. You see, a woman who is that secure that she never thinks her man would ever cheat on her or leave her or stand up to her is a woman who runs the relationship. She will run roughshod over him and abuse him.
Women have even more power now, with #metoo all over the place and women ruining previously powerful men with one story of “he asked me for a date” and “he grabbed my ass” and “he tried to kiss me” and “he invited me to his hotel room so I could watch him jerk off”.
A man must have some modicum of power in his relationship. A woman who feels some tinges of insecurity will keep her on her toes – where she should be. The proper dynamic for a relationship is the man at +1 SMV over her.
No worries here. All she needs to do is feed him, fuck him, be nice to him and not get fat, and she’s golden.
Farm Boy – I’ve often heard that the person who is doing the cheating is also normally the one who is suspicious of the other. I’m sure that’s not always the case, but it can happen. People tend to project their own faults onto others.
I’ve also known people who WANT their spouse to cheat so that they can get an easy way out or a free pass to also cheat Pretty sure that’s why so many women might use sex to manipulate their husbands. Remove it and he will go elsewhere and then she can blame him for the infidelity (and would traditionally have grounds for fault-based divorce and alimony if it exists). No-fault changed some of that but still cannot remove the person of self-guilt.
There was a point where my ex wanted me to date other people, because she’d already decided that she wanted to leave and then could be the “victim”. Only, it didn’t work out that way at all. I don’t think that she physically cheated, but it’s possible. I do know that she was actively trying to online date to find some options before jumping ship, so… Who knows? But I think that deep down her core reason for leaving was that she was certain that I’d eventually leave her anyway for her lack of involvement in the marriage / family, so she wanted to do it while she had a chance to find a new man. The prospect of waiting 10 more years to find new romance as an “old” woman was terrifying to her.
RPG – I’m not sure that your person in question isn’t at least partially responsible for the actions that cause those feelings. There are a lot of people with a lot of baggage that put on a good show but live in constant paranoia of having anyone see behind the mask, especially a potential candidate for a relationship or marriage. Usually this is an extreme trait of someone with Cluster B personality disorders. Because when someone sees the worst of these things, they might walk before things get to be really bad. Consider that as many of 20% of women may be BPD and the number of narcissistic men is also probably as high. These types of people are like magnets for one another because they need the validation of the other, but it ends up being highly toxic as well. The reverse can be true for both genders but statistically it appears to be less common, probably due not only to biological differences but traditional gender roles as well. BPD women usually end that way as a result of their relationships with parents, and NPD men normally end up that way for the same reasons. Virtually every BPD woman and NPD man I’ve ever met came from a broken home, but what came first? The chicken, or the egg?
Stephanie: A wife should be a little bit insecure. she should be working to keep that man happy. She should be concerned with her man’s happiness and well-being, such that she (and not someone else) is taking care of his happiness and well-being.
Because rest assured: If you’re married to an attractive man, and you are neglecting him, he WILL get his needs met elsewhere.
“I think a lot of it is boiled down to the one word in your quote, “Insecurity.”
When someone is really talking about how “worried” they are that their spouse (male or female) will cheat, it stems from an insecurity. It could be based in reality! I don’t know, it always depends on the exact people involved and the situation, and then what that spouse is really up to in their own heads (which sometimes I think *they* don’t even know their own motivations and thoughts).
I read a blog post a couple of years ago from a younger Christian woman who wrote that when she’s around women who are more attractive than her, she feels like she’s literally being attacked by dogs. She had an experience where dogs got out of a backyard one time, cornered her and were barking at her – scaring the daylights out of her. And then she said that the same feeling is what she feels when she’s around an attractive woman with her husband!
*The key is “with her husband.” She even admitted she’s hoped before that her husband doesn’t NOTICE another attractive woman.
You ask what is going on here in a person’s psyche who thinks like this? In my opinion, it’s a very deep insecurity with her own attractiveness that causes her to see other women in this way.”
Stephanie – This is the key reason that I mentioned that feminists want all women to be plain and all look the same a few weeks ago. Women often cannot stand competition. Have you ever noticed that it’s the most average or ugly women that become jealous, crazy feminists and almost always the most beautiful and sweet women that are not jealous, become mothers, and love their husbands? It’s because there is a very obvious power struggle for women to maintain men with their best assets.
Life isn’t fair. Not everyone is beautiful. But virtually everyone has the potential to be kind and loving.
The women with the issues of security will need to either step up their game and deal with it or face their own self defeat.
Media likes to portray women as the victims of their own game, but most men just want a kind and loving wife. It doesn’t hurt if she’s super model hot, but it’s not normally a prerequisite. Women, on the other hand, have a lot of trouble dealing with having a wealthy or attractive husband because he’s going to be a magnet for other women.
@A Dad
“This is the key reason that I mentioned that feminists want all women to be plain and all look the same a few weeks ago. Women often cannot stand competition. Have you ever noticed that it’s the most average or ugly women that become jealous, crazy feminists and almost always the most beautiful and sweet women that are not jealous, become mothers, and love their husbands?”
^^ Yes, it’s actually proven psychologically that unattractive or plain women do not treat attractive women in a fair or positive way at all. I’m not sure if they can even control it that much since so many women aren’t even in touch with how they feel and why they act the way they do, but it unfortunately seems to be “normal” for them to view an attractive woman as a threat to them – and not necessarily their marriage or husband. But in general, they don’t *like* them as much:
Here’s where they cite I believe 3 different studies on that topic:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/science-small-talk/201108/when-being-beautiful-backfires
It’s probably a sign the relationship is too important to you. The relationship is your life, not part of your life.
Stephanie – On the other side of that though, people who are way too attractive tend to have other problems as well. Many never learn to be kind and compassionate. Some have a unique set of insecurities, especially when they are accustomed to getting their way throughout life.
Even pretty girls don’t like when less attractive women get attention, unless of course they are content in their situation. Complications exist at both sides of the spectrum.
Everybody,
I am not worried about Stephanie. I couldn’t imagine a more solid relationship.
RPG,
Is this about Dancer again? I hoped by now that she would have calmed down and felt more secure. From what you said in the OP, it sounds like he is the wrong guy. There is one thing positive to take away from this, she doesn’t hold back on investing emotionally. She is capable of a relationship. She had me worried on that point.
As for myself, I have never worried. There were times when I should have, but I just never worried.
@A Dad you’re right! Girls who always were super attractive and never learned compassion or kindness are like the stereotypical high school mean girls… very heartless! Curiously though the women I knew that were like that (which actually weren’t very many) didn’t grow up to become super attractive women. I’m sure some do though. But yea, that’s a stereotype for a reason. Another thing could be that the unattractive or “low-self esteem” women had had previously bad experiences with attractive women. That would make sense.
Fuzzie it’s funny, I asked my husband about the insecurity thing and he confirmed I was a little insecure when I was pregnant… but if I acted like that all the time, it would push him away because there’s no need to create that kind of fake drama.
walking on egg shells is never fun. my first husband evolved into a very volatile man – we never knew when he’d be angry or calm, and the switch could happen instantly. no bueno.
my husband now is amazing (not perfect, but amazing!) and there are no eggshells anywhere. very peaceful.
Stephanie,
I can see being a little insecure while pregnant. The thought of saying goodbye to my feet for months is something I won’t experience.
Just in general… the idea of wanting to control your husband’s sexiness to other women is dark. I forgot I actually did write about that a few years ago… when I was dating my husband I kind of wanted him to get fat (not really really fat lol) but gain weight so that other women wouldn’t be attracted to him. My mom called me out on being horrible to him (not wanting him to be his best self) and being really emotionally immature.
There’s that old psychological fear of a woman castrating a man. I think this movie (looks super creepy!) perfectly captures that. It’s from a even more dark and evil book. I believe he gets castrated in the end because of their jealousy.
Stephanie,
I don’t think that I want to watch that. However, didn’t Clint Eastwood star in the original?
“Just in general… the idea of wanting to control your husband’s sexiness to other women is dark. I forgot I actually did write about that a few years ago… when I was dating my husband I kind of wanted him to get fat (not really really fat lol) but gain weight so that other women wouldn’t be attracted to him. ”
Your honesty on this matter is actually kinda surprising to me.
My ex was much the same. She also tried to encourage me to wear glasses because it presumably made me look less sexy to other women. I started wearing contacts again when out relationship was nearing its end, and I could tell that she didn’t like it.
The irony of a woman wanting to control her husband’s attractiveness is that she herself will ultimately become less attracted to him.
A man mustn’t let that happen. Just going to be honest to the guys. Most women are not going to “love you” unconditionally, so slipping in this regard is like a death wish.
There is a new post at Spawny’s
https://spawnyspace.wordpress.com/2017/12/14/the-gap/
Both my parents were honest but kind people. Very very honest though… I only found out when I was in college and really talked about these issues with girlfriends, just how much their own parents didn’t tell them.
I actually taught a few of them a lot about sex and marriage and how it’s supposed to be – which was weird, because I was a virgin lol.
“The irony of a woman wanting to control her husband’s attractiveness is that she herself will ultimately become less attracted to him.”
Yea… that’s what women do though by default. We try to tame a man into a beta so that we feel less insecure. It’s not the right response, we should either leave the relationship if he’s not trustworthy, but if he IS trustworthy, we need to grow up and not try to make him less attractive overall to other women.
Fuzzie, yea I saw that he did. I’ve never seen either one or read the book, but I saw a synopsis
Bleh!!!
‘The irony of a woman wanting to control her husband’s attractiveness is that she herself will ultimately become less attracted to him.’
The irony of any wife trying to control her husband will be that.
I have never tried to make my husband less attractive to other women, even though they been -and still are- pretty brazen about their attraction to him.
I trust him completely, as he is a man of high integrity and we have a very good relationship. Still, I find his attractiveness very good motivation to stay on top of my game (not to be confused with “Game”).
“Still, I find his attractiveness very good motivation to stay on top of my game (not to be confused with “Game”).”
Elspeth, his attractiveness to other women is passive Dread Game. He doesn’t even have to try to do “dread game,” to make you feel that motivation, it’s just a natural consequence of his behavior in taking care of himself.
That’s what I think Deti was saying beforehand about that small insecurity that motivates a wife to keep taking care of him.
And maybe even “insecurity” is the wrong word there, I don’t know.
If a man is attractive and takes care of himself and other women are attracted to him because he’s high in testosterone, he’s showing he values himself and has self-respect – this is in large part WHY other women are attracted to him.
Subconsciously, a wife knows that if she treats a man like that badly, or takes him for granted, he has enough self-respect to where she should feel insecure for treating him like that (or not taking care of his needs). Insecurity there would be founded in reality (you shouldn’t be treating a man who has options, like he has no options).
If he allows his wife to tell him what to do regarding how attractive he is to younger women – to make himself lesser of a man to satisfy his wife’s insecurity, she’s basically the one in control, which makes her eventually feel even more insecure, because he’s bendable and doesn’t have a strong enough frame.
Although maybe for some women it makes them more happy to have more control over their husband’s attractiveness.
I once knew a girl who purposefully married a blind man because she felt very low in self esteem and was overweight. She started treating him badly around the year mark, complaining about him not cleaning up enough, etc. He confided this in me when we were volunteering together at an event years ago, even though maybe he shouldn’t have told me. I liked him, he was actually still really handsome even with being blind.
She took advantage of his disability though, to have more power over him. 😦
There is another thing. It’s called “preselection”. Single women are using the fact that a man is in a relationship as proof of his worth, qualifying him to her. This doesn’t lead anywhere good.
Stephanie – You recently mentioned that you observed some things in the way your mother treated your father. Perhaps the previous insecurities have less to do with you than your desire to avoid having any substantial complications in your marriage that could ruin a good thing? The impact of our parents’ relationships places a big imprint on our perception of our own marriage. Even though my ex-wife was absolutely certain that divorce was never an option, things changed as she got older. She became more like her mother after all. Her mother’s second husband is a good, honest, hardworking man. He loves his family and is reliable, but I can see even from the outside that her mother has walked all over him for many years and treated him with disdain and disrespect like she probably did to her first husband. She treats him better now, but it took upwards of 30 years to get there before she got her head on straight.
If I’m being completely honest, the thought of being like either of my parents is not a pleasant thing. And while I have not been perfect, by any means, I do feel that I’ve been successful in eliminating most of the bad aspects of my parents’ behaviors from my own. But some of it is still there, latent, needing to be controlled and repressed.
‘There is another thing. It’s called “preselection”. Single women are using the fact that a man is in a relationship as proof of his worth, qualifying him to her. This doesn’t lead anywhere good.’
I always wondered if there was some female envy of the wife too.
I have never understood the logic of pres election myself but I do see it in play. The way I see it, if a guy who is taken can be lured away, he’s not a guy worth having. And the gals I know who have started relationships this way, the whole thing is a house of cards and the trust is never there. I have always had a rule that if a guy is taken he’s not even an option and it’s never steered me wrong!
‘The way I see it, if a guy who is taken can be lured away, he’s not a guy worth having. And the gals I know who have started relationships this way, the whole thing is a house of cards and the trust is never there. I have always had a rule that if a guy is taken he’s not even an option and it’s never steered me wrong!’
I’d agree. If I know the woman has a husband/boyfriend, she’s off limits. If she cheats on him, she’ll cheat on me.
If a guy hits on me when he’s taken, he gets put on the “never” list. Even if he becomes single. Past behavior is a good predictor of future behavior, as they say.
One time my college roommate said she thought guys who were out w their kids were so sexy. That creeped me out in the worst way! I mean assuming the guys were w the mom. So yes women think this wY but I have never understood it.
Probably her ovaries were aching.
“The way I see it, if a guy who is taken can be lured away, he’s not a guy worth having. And the gals I know who have started relationships this way, the whole thing is a house of cards and the trust is never there. I have always had a rule that if a guy is taken he’s not even an option and it’s never steered me wrong!”
Yea, that is exactly right. But women do think that way. They automatically assume a taken man is high value, even more so if his wife is good looking or otherwise a status symbol, because it translates back to his own value in being able to have her on his arm. Not all the time, but sometimes it translates that way.
I think a lot of it is subconscious.
Look at Trump. The fact that he has Melania is automatically reflective of his being much much higher value than an average man.
There’s the whole thinking too that if a woman takes care of herself physically, she’s showing she respects her husband. If she lets herself go, it’s a major sign of disrespect toward him.
She has no “passive dread” to keep herself up for him, because she doesn’t respect him at a very deep level. Again, maybe not all the time, but generally that seems to be true.
FPG,
Your college roomie was not a good influence, or she was a good example of what to avoid.
The preselection saw cuts both ways. If a man is unattached, it works against him, precisely when he is free to form an attachment.
Is this even a common thing that happens? Everytime I’ve been in a relationship I haven’t see any difference in the number of women trying to come on to me.
I have experienced more guys being interested when I am in a new relationship. Even if they don’t know I am. Maybe it’s somehow a subconscious thing, preselection?
What’s the definition of interested though? More guys look at you, talk to you…or you get asked out more?
RPG: “I have never understood the logic of pres election myself but I do see it in play. The way I see it, if a guy who is taken can be lured away, he’s not a guy worth having.”
You maybe assuming Logic, this likely comes from simple Natural Selection. Behaviorally, if a woman has a man for any length of time then he can probably breed (have sex). If he has kids then he almost certainly can. A lot of Red Pill ideas need to be boiled down to a simpler level if they are actually hard wired into human behavior. Shit tests for instance. They are more likely a way of telling if a guy is impotent. If he can take abuse and still have sex then he can have sex no matter what … good for passing along genes. Getting freaked out by a shit test could possibly be a primitive indicator that the man is too fragile for rough and tumble natural selection. Natural selection doesn’t care about a lot of things we consider to be important, like how willing the woman is. Constructively riding herd on all these ancient tendencies while still moving forward is the great challenge of civilization.
Approached more, asked out more. It’s always so weird, like suddenly there is a “taken” sign and then guys are interested. Maybe I am just happier? Who knows. I just tell them very nicely, “I am flattered but I am with someone.”
‘Maybe I am just happier?’
Could be. That’s a good sign you are more approachable.
Perhaps I just never give off an approachable vibe. I’m usually the one initating though.