A brilliant comment left on Orgasm Self Control And Rough Sex by Confidunce. He did have a blog up, but it appears to have vanished when I went to link to it. This is an important comment in that it also sums up a large part of what I’m trying to do here. My blog isn’t for everyone, and what I advocate isn’t going to work for everyone, but for a decent sized group of people it might just save your marriage. Obviously I want to make some money on this work eventually, but it’s meant to be a win-win proposition for me and the reader.
I definitely got into the Nice Guy / beta spiral with my ex-wife. I didn’t learn until after the divorce about Game, and it kills me. I think it might have saved my marriage.
I stumbled across some emails I wrote her a couple of years ago while searching for an old email at work. It was when we were going through a rough patch (i.e., the marriage), and it was full of “Darling” this and “Baby” that. It made me sick — I nearly caught diabetes from the over-sweetness — but I was basically begging her to quit with the constant negativity and disdain she had for me. I had no idea that I was making it so much worse. How could she respect me as a man — i.e., someone who could protect her and our future children from evildoers — if I couldn’t stand up to her? I honestly think a little bit of firm but controlled anger, and the withdrawal of affection, would have been far more effective than redoubled efforts at affection and sweetness. I thought I was demonstrating strength by showing off my capacity to take whatever she threw at me. But what I was really doing was not defending myself and not demanding that she act like a good wife to me. By the time she left, she had no respect for me as a man, and thus our sex life was dead. And we’re in our late-20’s.
People reading this will react that Barbara was a bitch, and that’s probably true. But my extreme situation illustrates perfectly the theory David is expounding now. Chasing after a woman with increased sweetness in the face of coldness is pathetic. It’s weak and un-manly. And women are attracted to… men.
It’s easy to judge game as manipulative and misogynistic based on other blogs out there. And just like anything else (religion springs to mind), if taken to extremes it can be quite poisonous. But it works.
The proof is in the pudding.
-Confidunce
It really must be be a horrible roller coaster feeling in the pit of your stomach to figure out what you did wrong after the divorce is final. And it’s not that hard to fix things and turn it around from “blahs” to “good” as long as it hasn’t faltered into cheating or she is already start reaching for the divorce card. Even then it’s still possible.
If you know someone that looks like he’s walking the road in the wrong direction and risking it all, tell them about what I’m doing here. And thank you so much for your comment Confidunce.
(And change your moniker! Don’t define yourself based on a failure in the past.)
David Collard says
Most men, certainly in the West, want to be nice guys at some level. Unless they lack consciences. I do seem to be naturally a bit cold towards women, which has probably helped my marriage. But I am not a bastard. And I have dipped deeply into the beta well at times myself. I have just learned that you need plenty of alpha as well as beta in a good marriage.
For example, I like to drop by the bookshops on my way home after work on Fridays (now in Australia). How do I get my wife's "permission"? I don't. I just tell her I am doing it. This makes us both happy. I don't have to supplicate, make up a feeble excuse, lie about the time it took me to get home. Tell your wife what you really think, feel and want – it's the manly thing to do.
Getting back to my original point. It eventually dawns on a successful husband that it is sometimes the moments when he feels he is being harsh and cold that his wife, weirdly, reacts best to. I rarely lose my temper, but when I have done, my wife never seems to mind. Even telling her off heatedly doesn't seem to phase her. Beats me why. Women!
That's the fire. Now the ice. Being cold can draw a woman to you. I have occasionally made really "cold" remarks. I thought she'd be upset, but she actually seemed to be titillated. Remote can be attractive.
I don't do cruel. I think it is wrong. But you can do blunt, cool, even harsh on occasion. And women, at least in my experience, respond in a highly paradoxical way. They seem to be turned on by it.
The first thing men have to learn is that women are not just from the moon, they are from the dark side of the moon. They really do react quite differently from us men.
Anonymous says
🙂 Thanks for the star billing, AK.
This is an important message, and it's one that occurred to me after a few months of bona fide, "professional" therapy and reading blogs like this one. In my early days as a new divorcee I was also highly influenced by the Roissysphere.
Athol correctly notes that my blog has been removed, which I did because I didn't like the Roissy-like tone I had taken with my story. As I stopped reacting to the divorce out of anger, vulnerability, and a lack of confidence, I found Roissy's advice less and less relevant to my life. The man has some excellent advice about Game in general, but I want to pursue Game in order to strengthen my relationships, not just to achieve hyper-promiscuity. And since a lot of my old blog took a very self-congratulatory, aren't-I-the-stud kind of tone, I removed it before girlfriends and co-workers could find it.
Which is kind of a shame, because I know that a lot of my friends could benefit from reading a couple of my posts. I see lots of men who have always been "Nice Guys" falling into the same traps I experienced with Barbara. They need to see what they're doing.
I also removed it for the reasons Athol suggests — "Confidunce" was a one-note dude. And I'm not wild about defining my existence now in terms of a failing, especially one that I've now largely corrected.
So yes, I write under a new alias now. It's probably not that hard to guess what it is. But damned if I'm going to document that connection outright. 😉
So, Athol: I guess this is kind of a valedictory for ol' Confidunce. Thanks very much for what you do. PLEASE write your book. I'd be happy to proofread it for you if you ever need a second pair of eyes.
-Confidunce (or, the artist formally known as).
SerenaDante says
Definitely interesting stuff, thanks for sharing.
Anonymous says
Great blog Athol. Damn.
David, Can you give me an example of a "cold" remarks…one that your wife would be paradocixally "drawn" to.
– Simpleman
Athol Kay says
I will follow up with you Confidunce with the book stuff.
David Collard says
Simpleman
I will give you one example. Maybe others later, but I have to do a few things now.
I once told my wife that something was "your problem". It was unlike me, and I was ashamed of saying it. But she seemed to relish the remark, and kept repeating it over the next day or so. Looking back, from the vantage point of the years, I think it titillated her.
I can be a bit cold and autistic towards women. It is my nature, but I have learned to be more sensitive, partly for religious reasons. But occasionally I notice it still, in the images of women I am instinctively drawn to, and so on.
I think this cold, hard streak turned my wife on when I first knew her. I was pretty rough with her sexually at first. I think I just thought: she is a woman, that is what she is for. I wasn't being deliberately cruel, just a bit insensitive.
I think she sort of resented it, but it also sort of titillated her. Years later, she used to say to me, at a time when I was a bit more "beta" with children and a job I didn't like, she used to say wistfully, "You used to be so macho".
I don't recommend being cruel to women. Not at all. But a bit of firmness sometimes works. Not abuse, just directing proceedings as if it is your right. Which it is, I think.
David Collard says
I hasten to add that my wife is not the most sensitive woman herself. If she were a shrinking violet, I would treat her differently.
Anonymous says
"I don't do cruel. I think it is wrong. But you can do blunt, cool, even harsh on occasion. And women, at least in my experience, respond in a highly paradoxical way. They seem to be turned on by it.
The first thing men have to learn is that women are not just from the moon, they are from the dark side of the moon. They really do react quite differently from us men. "
As a woman: no. No no please no no. Blunt, yes; honest, yes; playfully teasing sometimes, yes. But harsh, cold, brutal – I don't think this appeals to the women I know any more than to the men I know, which is to say, not very much at all. It has actively turned me off when men I've been interested in have done it, to the point that it's killed the interest entirely. It's true of your wife, but don't generalise it out, please.
"I think this cold, hard streak turned my wife on when I first knew her. I was pretty rough with her sexually at first. I think I just thought: she is a woman, that is what she is for. I wasn't being deliberately cruel, just a bit insensitive."
I would dump a man for this kind of thinking. Not for rough sex – the kind where we negotiate it or we play with it – but this casual attitude of using me.
Athol Kay says
Anon I think David covered your concerns when he posted…
"I hasten to add that my wife is not the most sensitive woman herself. If she were a shrinking violet, I would treat her differently."
I believe it's a relative thing. Some women are much tougher than others and respond positively to treatment that would terrorize softer women. Jennifer for example is pretty squishy, so the playful threat of a spanking evokes a positive reaction. Actually holding her down against her will and spanking her would have her leaving to her mothers in tears.
Z says
I'm most of the way through a divorce from a man who couldn't tell alpha from beta, or bullying from either.
He would blow his temper at me for fairly trivial things, tell me it was the only way he could make me behave, then whine that I didn't "adore" him. He would complain I was frigid, then cheat on me, blaming me for his cheating because I wasn't attacking him with lust. Never a positive word.
I urge men who need more alpha to try the James Bond approach first.
Z