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advice, break up, breaking up, breakup, breakups, divorce, finances, financial problems, income, marriage, marriage problems, red pill, retirement, seperation, unemployment
A friend whose husband was recently laid off from a high level executive job confessed the other day that she doesn’t know what to do.
They have been married since she was 24, he 31. They are very much a “Barbie and Ken” type couple and make a striking pair. She’s now 49, he’s 56. Both still look very young for their age.
They waited several years after marriage to start a family and now have three teenage sons ranging in age from middle school to a senior in high school.
She was a career gal in her 20s and early 30s and then has been a stay at home mom since the kids arrived. She dabbles in fixing up and reselling vintage furniture and other part time activities to make extra pocket money. She’s contemplated going back to work but admitted there’s no way she could earn enough to meet their expenses.
He has had a successful career in management, working his way up to the executive level. He’s worked for many household name companies over the years, increasing his skill set and marketability. His most recent job, the one recently lost, paid $190k a year.
Like many American couples they have saved little over the years despite his income, mostly because they live right at or perhaps even above their means. They do own their home but after a recent extensive remodel and expansion have little or no equity in it.
As one might imagine, with little cushion to absorb this unexpected blow, she’s panicking. She opened up to me that their marriage is struggling and she’s been contemplating divorce.
Knowing the red pill, I wasn’t shocked at all by this and was glad she shared it with me. I explained to her that the feelings she was having are a normal knee jerk reaction women often have during such times of crisis, but that having such feelings did not necessarily mean they needed to be acted upon.
Women are hardwired to survive, and self-preservation is a natural go-to mode in crisis. This drive is a primative one, coming from deep within the brain stem. It’s the same drive that allows women to survive disasters, wars, famine, disease, kidnapping, rape, and other threats to survival. (See “war bride theory” for more in depth explanation of this. https://therationalmale.com/2011/10/03/war-brides/)
The problem with this urge is it doesn’t come from a logical, reasoned place and unchecked it can lead to disasterous decisions or overreactions when survival isn’t truly at stake but it just feels like it is.
My friend seemed relieved to get these dark thoughts about abandoning ship out of her head and to understand just because she has such feelings doesn’t mean she must act upon them or that they were even in her best interest.
We discussed some alternatives, and also talked about how the current marriage struggles seemed to be situational rather than unresolvable. I helped her understand what her husband might be feeling, and how pulling together as a team would be far more constructive than splitting apart.
I also verbalized what I suspect might have been her biggest fear — at his age he may not find another job at that income level. I have seen many men (and women) downsized a decade short of retirement face this. Unfortunately the work world can be brutal, and often companies will hire the younger candidate for less than someone in their late 50s. It’s ageism, but often not directly so. She admitted this was a huge concern.
Then we switched to outside the box mode. One reason for their home remodel is that her husband dreams of running a bed and breakfast in retirement. He’s burned out in his career, and has been longing to shift gears for some time.
Downstairs they have two spare rooms with bathrooms that are fully ADA compliant. What did she think of the idea of leasing those rooms out right now to two elderly folks looking for an assisted living situation, I asked? Last I heard such arrangements paid up to $2,000 a month, or more. (Still less than assisted living or a retirement home, so such rentals are much sought after.) I saw a light of hope click on.
She also shared they have a fully wired and plumbed RV hookup on the back side of their 10-acre property. Again I asked had they considered renting that spot as well? They are going for $600+ a month and it’s hard to find an available space. Turned out she knows a young couple building a home that are looking for just such an arrangement!
I could see the tension dissipate as she realized these options that are already ready and waiting could help make up for their current lack of income and also supplement it to the tune of $4600 a month so that if her husband can’t replace his $190k salary, it would still be OK. If he could, then they could plow that income into savings and be well set up for retirement vs. not having any.
She could hardly wait to get home to share these ideas with her husband, and seemed completely excited at the idea of taking in some borders. They both love to entertain and love people, so she seemed jazzed at the thought. (It wouldn’t work for everyone but for them may be a perfect fit. She would still be able to be with her sons and work from home.)
She was almost in tears as she thanked me for being a sounding board and for helping her brainstorm some solutions. I told her I was happy to and thanked her for opening up so I was able to, and that I hoped the ideas would help take the pressure off.
Without what I have learned via the red pill and the manosphere I don’t think I would have been able to understand the dynamics at play or advise her why she felt as she did, or why despite those fear-based feelings, the best path was to stay the course, stick together, face the challenge, and not just survive but thrive.
I am hoping they put the ideas into play quickly and take some of the financial pressure and strain off their marriage. I will be doing my best to encourage her through this storm.
What do you think? Please share in the comments!
OT –
An 11-year-old boy on Friday was able to hack into a replica of the Florida state election website and change voting results found there in under 10 minutes during the world’s largest yearly hacking convention, DEFCON 26, organizers of the event said.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/an-11-year-old-changed-election-results-on-a-replica-florida-state-website-in-under-10-minutes
The other premise it hangs on…”. As a group, who has the strength to impose the ethic of no work, no eat?”
And I give you San Fransico, Venezuala, the new socialist whatshername.
If I was her husband, I’d make the move and divorce this no-good, opportunistic b*tch ASAP.
The guy did yeoman’s work in providing for her ungrateful ass for all those years. Granted, he should’ve led the family better by not permitting them to live at or beyond their means, but now that the chips are down, her first thought is to leave him, rather than her first thought being how they could reverse their luck as a team and make things work. As if at 49 years of age with 3 kids she’s going to be such a catch out there…. please. RP Girl had to suggest all these potential solutions, they didn’t spring to the woman’s mind on her own.
I understand the concept of a man not having an expectation of relational equity with a woman, but this story is a prime example of why it’s a bad idea for a man to get married. Life has its ups and downs, but if a woman is going to look for the exit door as her first reaction when things are down or you hit a rough patch, why bother?
Ame…”An 11-year-old boy on Friday was able to hack into a replica of the Florida state election website and change voting results found there in under 10 minutes during the world’s largest yearly hacking convention, DEFCON 26, organizers of the event said.”
Actually, it apparently wasn’t the legally-binding voting results; it was just a website used the the state to report returns to the public & the media. Still bad, but would not have changed the outcome of the election.
(Paper ballots are the way to go, IMO. It won’t kill people to wait a day or two for the count)
btw, a lot of good, very thoughtful comments on this thread
The other premise it hangs on…”. As a group, who has the strength to impose the ethic of no work, no eat?”
And I give you San Fransico, Venezuala, the new socialist whatshername.
If they don’t eat in San Francisco, that would fix their “shit in the streets” problem
‘Life has its ups and downs, but if a woman is going to look for the exit door as her first reaction when things are down or you hit a rough patch, why bother?’
This is why along with abortion laws…no fault laws needs to die in a tire fire.
I’m going to suggest that we (as a culture) have some work to do on agreements. There was a time, before contracts, before responsible government, when a man would die before breaking his word … or be discredited and banished from the functional society of those who did. The market of commitments sorted out those too unreliable or incompetent to keep up. As a system it was like many natural things, it was extreme and didn’t tolerate nuance. Contracts were better, especially on the nuance side.
So we enter into an era of contracts but nuance gets the better of us; the Constitution vs contemporary laws hundreds of pages long, laws no one can understand, laws with loopholes built in. It’s been getting worse for awhile. Initially, the force of society kept people to their contracts. Long, detailed, and highly negotiable documents killed that; after all, who knew what other people’s contracts actually said. Hell, a lot of people don’t know what their OWN contracts say.
Marriage contracts, the fundamental contract that is marriage, pre nups, etc. These seemed like an answer when people lost the fear that god would hurl a thunderbolt their way if they didn’t toe the line. As we drift away from traditional religion it’s hard for the culture to enforce whatever rules there used to be.
There are a lot of people who share the Subjective (in this case some might call it Post Modern) viewpoint that there is no 100% Objective reality, thus everything is negotiable, fudgeable, debatable. I might even agree with them in the strictest interpretation … BUT I don’t think that it is a state to strive for, quite the opposite. Acknowledging that nothing is ever 100%, we should try to get as close to 100% as possible. Post Modernism is useful an occasional thought tool, an experiment to check your own BS, not a freaking dogma.
The Subjective has been a big part of women’s culture since before language. That’s not to say it doesn’t appeal to some men too. More and more, I fear. But, because of their lack of immediately available power, women had to appeal to emotion, trickery, complexity, and ambiguity. Those qualities probably increased everyone’s (men’s and women’s) intelligence, sensitivity, and no doubt also increased the scope and depth of every language. But it is a constant challenge to Objectivity and, in this example, coherent and trusted agreements.
There has probably been an ebb and flow over the millennia where humans often approached the edge of agreements breaking down. The modern contract flowing out of the a man holding to his word being the most recent. The way forward possibly lies within our concept of agreements between men and women.
Many here consider the issue of rape claims vs the strength of supposedly SIWs. Many decry the fact that a pre nup can be nullified by a woman’s claim of “being so in love she’d sign anything.” It’s crazy that a man’s life can be ruined by having to support an ex-wife who actually has more capacity for employment these days than he does. Add in marriage and you have a system that is collapsing left and right. BOTH sexes need better, more realistic agreements or everyone is going to opt out. The Subjective types have added so much emotion and ambiguity and subtlety to the system that is can barely function.
This may require breaking down two of women’s sacred institutions. Marriage (or, in this case being a BRIDE) and alimony. If we can get away from women’s desperation to be Princess For A Day and insist that Marriage (if undertaken at all) is only ever coldly and Objectively undertaken. And if we accept that, given that the economy we live in is equally beneficial to women, and thus alimony is no longer a thing, we might have a chance. Obviously DNA tests being required for child support might be another aspect. Marriage needs to be equal or it needs to go and be replaced with a clearer social contract. One that both parties want to engage in. Of course this can get messed up, like with government paying women to be mothers and similar issues. It’s NOT going to be easy or clean. It’s not going to be something everyone likes and it may not be something that anyone is really in control of. First thing, and this is where the feminism freak out is occurring; we have to accept a loss of control. In the grand scheme of things it’s not like anyone has a choice.
I’m only screwing around with the edges of the issues, I really don’t understand them all. But if they are not more fair, if men and woman can’t find peace, then a different system will pass us by, perhaps briefly, perhaps forever. People, however, have been working this stuff out since the beginning of time. It will happen. A balance will be restored either now or a thousand years from now. Intermediate steps could be force (from one side or the other), a new religion, a new sense of meeting our obligations.
If you look back across human history you can see it has happened in the past, where did the idea of formal marriage come from to begin with? What IS interesting is that we are here at the moment when THIS renegotiation is being considered and we are a part, maybe an important part, of the discussion. It’s actually pretty interesting, and highly civilized, that it’s a discussion at ALL!
it’s just like the people who are saying that financial abuse = domestic violence. Or that tax cuts are like Armageddon.
over exaggeration to try to support their position…
Yikes! That was TOO long. LOL!
according to the judge in my divorce case, the marriage was worth 40.59% of my retirement pay, for the STBX. lol
So that’s how much incentive they give women to blow up their marriage and families.
There is a new post at Spawny’s
https://spawnyspace.wordpress.com/2018/08/13/using-sex-as-a-weapon/
Or what some call “hate speech” is physical violence
according to the judge in my divorce case, the marriage was worth 40.59% of my retirement pay, for the STBX. lol
my Oldest and i were talking just this evening about how/why their dad was able to do something with a court order, and i told her that when you divorce, the court now has control … and if you can get a judge to sign off on it, then … well, i guess depending on which side of the coin you’re on, you’re either elated or screwed.
@ Alan, “Yikes! That was TOO long. LOL!”
Not at all! Lots of interesting breaking it down stuff going on in your and other’s comments! Please continue… 🙂
@fml ouch re 40.59%.
I am sure this is probably not much comfort but imho she’s a fool to think that’s better than you both having 100% together. 😦
In my previous post I said Dawn (and others) escaped, only because there was someone other than herself to rescue her.
Maybe better said only because there was a place to escape to. My original wording could be interpreted that I thought Dawn was not capable of rescuing herself. I only meant to say that one can remove themselves from a situation, dogma or not, only if there is some other place to go that will receive them. Dawn (and others) are fortunate in that regard. There are no doubt many others who did not have that other place to receive them, and so had to stay.
@Horseman – thanks for the kind words.
Bottom line for me on the subject being discussed here and elsewhere: throughout history, there have been a number of major social collapses, for whatever reason. Yet here you and I sit, talking to each other online. Seems that humans have a way of pulling themselves out of the rubble and connecting in a way that creates other people, regardless of the ups or downs of a particular society or government. Men and women will probably continue to get pregnant right up until the elements melt with ferverent heat (a Biblical reference). And he will be he, and she will be she (genetics based, you know), and the same old struggle between the two will continue. But so will babies, if history is any guide.
She’s set herself up for homelessness, by taking on a $164k mortgage on her “income”. It already tastes delicious…