Tag Archives: relatonships

Be a Team Player

27 Wednesday Jun 2018

Posted by in Relationships

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Want a happy and successful relationship? One of the best ways to make it happen is to be a team player. View your mate and your partnership as your number one and the rest will fall into place.

Too often women today are encouraged to see their partner as some sort of enemy in a battle-of-the-sexes dynamic. Such a relationship is marked by power struggles, shit tests, and strife. The result is nobody’s happy or feels supported and the relationship flounders and often then fails as a result.

Compare that to the team model where instead of it being them against each other, it’s them against the world. Their efforts are directed at overcoming outside threats rather that on trying to overcome one another.  It’s a much more harmonious and stable dynamic.

Perhaps the biggest key to achieving a team player attitude is to let go of striving for your individual needs in favor of the needs of the unit. For women, especially for women who have been raised to believe doing so will automatically lead to their oppression and victimization, it can be hard to do.  And yet if the team comes second (or third or fourth) it’s not too difficult to see why that team may fail.

In fact, I can’t think of a single relationship in real life where the couple takes a team approach and one or both of the partners are individually worse off for it. Instead they are among the happiest people I know.

Two are stronger than one. And two pulling together in the same direction are certainly far ahead of two pulling in opposite directions. The first can overcome much while the second may hardly get anywhere at all.

What do you think? Please share in the comments!

 

 

Choose to Follow

29 Monday Jan 2018

Posted by in Red Pill, Relationships

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It’s a controversial topic, submission, but one worth talking about more often because it’s so misunderstood.

When many people hear the word submission today, they often think oppression or abuse. But in reality it’s anything but.

True submission is a CHOICE, not something imposed or forced upon anyone. It’s the choice to follow, not lead.

And it’s not just a female-male thing. Men actually submit to recognizing a hierarchy and following the recognized leader all the time. In the military or at work, for example. Even in casual situations, an AMOG (Alpha man of the group) surfaces and the men all seem to intuitively know where they fit in the order. When they don’t, bad things can happen and AMOG may be established with posturing or even by physical force. Bar fights are an easy example of this.

Women are the ones who seem to struggle with the concept more. Women’s minds seem to function more in a “let’s all be on the same level and all have an equal say” way. This likely comes from a biological place, as in ancient times women most likely lived in villages with the young and the old and other women and things were always a collaboration/negotiation. This approach can be a strength, but not when it comes to recognizing leadership.

I have countless times observed women in a work setting, for example, not getting in step with or openly subverting their team leader or manager rather than recognizing who the leader is and choosing to follow direction. It can cause lots of problems when this happens.

The same can be said in a family. When there is no clear leader, there can be much chaos. The women I know who struggle most or are least happy in their marriages are often also fighting to have equal say or more often to be calling the shots.

If you had asked me in my youth, when I was blue pill, I likely would have argued that marriage should be 50/50 and all should have a say and so on. I believed that in my own marriage and many times actively went against my now ex-husband in decisions on finances or other matters. And you know what? Looking back I can see he was right and had I listened we (and I) would have been ahead had I gone along rather than fought for my own way. There were many cringeworthy moments.

For example, at one job I got 1000 stock options for $1 each. At one point they were worth over $100 each. My husband advised I cash out. I refused, believing it would go higher. Within a week they were at $45 a share. He advised I sell, as it was dropping fast. I refused. I held those darn options right down to $4 a share. To his credit he never rubbed that in my face. But how I wish I had just listened, chosen to follow. It was foolish pride on my part. I would have been far better off to listen.  (Eventually after my divorce I sold them for around $12 a share. Later they finally went to up to $45 again. Sigh. But anyway…)

The above is just one example, but I have learned. In my current relationship I refuse to fight for the lead. I choose to follow. I choose someone I knew I could safely follow. He’s a good man and he’s made a lifetime of good choices.  I trust his opinion and advice. I am smart but he’s much smarter. I recognize this and see going with it is in my advantage. He’s not forcing me to, in fact he’s always willing to hear me out, and still I am choosing to cede the lead. It’s working out really well. It’s by far the least drama relationship I’ve ever had, and I like it.

In short, choosing to follow can be a good thing and fighting the lead can be costly. It’s a mistake only YOU can choose not to make.

What do you think? Please share in the comments!

 

Don’t Just Go With It

16 Tuesday Jan 2018

Posted by in Relationships

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While in the car with the kids and Dancer’s youngest we were listening to the radio. It was set to a channel with today’s top music.

The lyrics of one song struck me. It basically was about relationships, advising to “Just go with it,” and “To see where it goes.”

This is popular relationship advice aimed at young women today, but for the most part it’s really bad advice.  Just like hookup culture, casual sex, and no strings attached are bad advice.

Women who get involved in undefined or poorly defined sexual relationships hoping they will “maybe” go somewhere or turn into something are setting themselves up for repeated and needless pain.

It opened the door to a teachable moment about valuing oneself. About a really good talk about how girls they knew or saw taking this route were not having success but rather multiple failures.

I encouraged the girls to take the path less travelled. While other girls are dating young and getting all wrapped up in boys, they could instead invest all that energy in themselves, in learning life skills, in preparing themselves for their future forever guy and for a happy, stable life.

Multiple rejections, heartbreaks, and bad experiences do the opposite. One only needs to look around in real life to see many examples of that. Painting it as “normal” teenage rights of passage has lead to a lot of destruction. As has the common, “just go with it” advice.

I hope a seed was planted. I wish someone had told me these things at their age.

What do you think? Please share in the comments!

What Predicts Relationship Success?

31 Sunday Dec 2017

Posted by in Relationships

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Wish you could look into a crystal ball and see if your relationship was destined to succeed or fail? Researchers think they have found the answer that separates relationship masters from relationship disasters. From here:

“…Gottman can predict with up to 94 percent certainty whether couples … will be broken up, together and unhappy, or together and happy several years later. Much of it comes down to the spirit couples bring to the relationship. Do they bring kindness and generosity; or contempt, criticism, and hostility?

“There’s a habit of mind that the masters have,” Gottman explained in an interview, “which is this: they are scanning social environment for things they can appreciate and say thank you for. They are building this culture of respect and appreciation very purposefully. Disasters are scanning the social environment for partners’ mistakes.”

“It’s not just scanning environment,” chimed in Julie Gottman. “It’s scanning the partner for what the partner is doing right or scanning him for what he’s doing wrong and criticizing versus respecting him and expressing appreciation.”

Contempt, they have found, is the number one factor that tears couples apart. People who are focused on criticizing their partners miss a whopping 50 percent of positive things their partners are doing and they see negativity when it’s not there.”

In real life I would say I have seen this to be the case. Those I know in troubled, angsty relationships are always on the lookout for their partner to do them wrong or fall short, while the couples who seem most content are those who have a positive view.

The good news is both approaches are a choice, a mindset. If you aren’t already, start giving your partner the benefit of the doubt and look for the good in them rather than the bad, assume the best instead of the worst. Not only will they likely start feeling a lot better about the relationship (and you!), chances are you’ll start feeling so as well.

It’s easy to find fault, to focus on the negative. In fact, the human mind seems geared to see what’s missing more prominantly than what’s not. And while it likely serves us well in some ways, it can also create much unhappiness because let’s face it — there will always be something going wrong, even when 99.9% is going right! And really, how often in life is even 51% or more going wrong? In mine the answer has been rarely, or actually never, even if I have not always acted (or felt) like it. Even on the very worst days (not that I am daring the universe here…)

What do you think? Have you seen this master or disaster approach to relationships in real life? Is seeing the glass half full the secret to a long and happy relationship? Please share in the comments.