Tag Archives: breaking up

Stay The Course

12 Sunday Aug 2018

Posted by in Relationships

≈ 177 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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!

 

 

 

Advertisements

Dating Dilemmas Decoded

22 Tuesday May 2018

Posted by in Relationships

≈ 280 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , ,

Ladies, if you find yourself puzzling over dating dilemmas such as what to do when a guy doesn’t call back, what men think about sex on the first date,  a simple way you can stand out from the rest, and more you’ll want to go to this informative dating blog written by a man cluing women into all those things about dating that never made sense, but suddenly will!

Now some of his advice may come across as blunt or even harsh at times, but if you take it like advice from a brother to his sister, his no holds barred, cut to the chase style becomes more a form of tough love to save you from many mistakes, broken hearts, and go nowhere situations.

In fact, I would suggest you go to this page that lists all of his posts, and start reading from the bottom up a few a day until you have read them all. By the time you do, dating will no longer be so much of a mystery and you will be armed with the knowledge you need to succeed in relationships, rather than wondering time and again what went wrong.

What do you think? Please share in the comments!

Facebook Follies

27 Wednesday Dec 2017

Posted by in Relationships

≈ 22 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

Several couples I know in real life with a lot of strife in their relationships would do well to step away from Facebook and other forms of social media.

Why? Because in their cases rather than it being a place to truly check in on the latest from family and friends it has instead become a place to monitor the every friend, follow, and like of their beloved.

I know it may sound silly, but I truly have seen and heard spats over the most innocuous things.

I keep wondering why these people don’t simply COMMUNICATE with each other, rather than try to read the tea leaves of likes, posts, check ins and such. I mean I suppose one could like Sherlock Homes catch their partner red handed in some lie (why were you checking in at the club at 1 am when you said you were going home?) but why? I mean if you even have to have ask that type of question, isn’t that your answer?

I am sure most of these behaviors come from a place of insecurity, but to me they just come across as nails in the coffin — bad experiences rather than positive ones, accusations that will lead to less disclosure, not more.

If you find yourself Facebook stalking — stop! Stop and ask yourself why, what you are trying to find out, and if the skepticism is healthy self-protection or a warning sign of major troubles ahead.

Let those with ears hear.

They Don’t Speak Vesuvian on Mars

05 Monday Jan 2015

Posted by in Relationships

≈ 17 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , ,

Ladies, this weekend was a good reminder for me that I cannot lose sight of the fact that they don’t speak Vesuvian on Mars.

Or in other words, men and women are different. We just are. We think different. We experience the world different. We want and are motivated by different subconscious and/or biological agendas and desires. And we have been since the beginning of man meets woman.

I can hear it now, “But these are modern times, things have changed.”

I would argue they haven’t. You may be reading this on the Internet from halfway around the world, on your phone, while eating a meal you didn’t kill, raise, forage prepare, or even cook while I sit here and have my morning coffee made from beans grown in a country I have never visited that were picked and processed and transported and roasted and ground by people I have never met using a process I don’t understand any better than putting the little plastic cup into the machine, adding water, and pressing a flashing blue button — but the reality remains that we’re not really that different than homo sapiens who lived in mud huts and barely understood fire.

Ok, maybe you can explain the chemical in’s and out’s of fire (or not), but if I am honest, the only thing I know about fire is that I flick a cigarette lighter or strike a match and it happens. Without that, I’d be in bad shape.

But back to my point. From the dawn of time, or however you believe man and woman came to be, men performed certain functions of survival that required a particular skill set and women performed an entirely different set of survival functions that required another skill set. They needed each others skills, but there was little overlap between what skills and knowledge he needed and she needed to do their set of survival tasks. They were specialists and their brain functioning reflected that.

We could get distracted by the nurture or nature thing here, or one off scenarios where maybe occasionally a man or woman was outside the box and that worked out, but let’s just simplify it to say that either way, overall and most of the time, men and women who survived did so because their brains worked in the way they needed them to in order to do it. And it hasn’t changed and (like it or not) it probably won’t ever change.

Men lived in a world that required largely physical and logistical prowess: hunting, fighting, securing resources, inventing/building stuff, and (ahem) impregnating women. It was a world requiring few words (but very complex just the same.)

Women lived in a world that required being able to do something with the resources provided and read the tea leaves of nuance: or in other words they lived in a village filled with women and children and old people. Survival meant navigating the complexities of that world, reading between the lines, making deals and alliances, and concealing any ulterior motives that might rock the boat because without that village odds of survival were slim to none. It was a world requiring a vocabulary and understanding of syntax and meaning and what was being said without it being said or in addition to what was said that would stump a trained linguist.

Fast forward to men and women today. Man talks to woman. He says a short and simple statement that means exactly what he said. Woman translates that simple and literal sentence to mean what it would mean if she was saying it, including all of the hidden subtext, then responds. Perhaps she responds with a soliloquy or a sentence, but guaranteed whatever she said, she has said, but not said, about 15 other things as well.

He is trying to process how things went from what he said to what she said. He either repeats what he said, or tries to respond to some or all of the gazillion plus one things she said (but misses the 15 she didn’t say).

She feels misunderstood. He feels misunderstood. Maybe they start to get upset at the things that were or were not ever said or meant or how the things they said or didn’t say were misinterpreted. Maybe they try to keep talking, maybe they get mad and stop talking.

Then add to it, not only are they talking out loud, they are also talking internally.

From what men have told me anyway, inside his head the dialog is again pretty straightforward and literal. There’s no “unsaid” or “secret”  or “hidden” message.

Inside her head, the dialog is more like a complicated decision tree, complete with multiple rabbit trails, twists, turns, and numerous contingency outcomes. Oh and about 15 more things she is not saying but expects him to understand because, duh.

And whether it was 1500 years ago or this past weekend, it all boils down to this: they don’t speak Vesuvian on Mars. But somehow in the heat of the moment, it is all too darn easy to forget that.

Either right then, or after everyone settles down, they hopefully kiss and hold each other and don’t say anything (except maybe “I’m sorry”) and then somehow magically everything is OK again.

Let those who have ears hear.

“Nobody will ever win the battle of the sexes. There is too much fraternizing with the enemy.”
― Henry Kissinger