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Jennifer is The Banhammer

May 31, 2012 By 61 Comments

Receive rabid email telling me I’m Jennifer’s oppressor.

Give patient reply explaining we are a team.

Receive follow up email saying I wasn’t listening. I am crushing Jennifer’s dreams and treating her like she’s an idiot.

Reply that Jennifer and I talked a great deal about all this before we started MMSL, and how it was going to be a major effort for us and something only possible to do as a couple.

Receive a third angry email that I am intimidating Jennifer and all but Force Choking her into submission. I am insulting and cruel.

Jennifer replies, “Don’t inflict your unhappiness on me.”

No further emails…

I post a “Yay we did it / last day as a nurse / can’t wait to spend more time together and be happy / our dream is happening!”

Jennifer adds her “Woo-hoo!”

Emailer leaves two angry jaded comments explaining how MMSL is about grinding wives into hapless submission.

Jennifer rolls eyes and groans.

*click* *click* *enters name* *click*

Then we ate grinders.

Jennifer: I haz the POWAH!

Filed Under: How To Choose A Wife, Humor and Everything Else

Faith of the Heart

May 30, 2012 By 39 Comments

Tomorrow is my last day of work in my day job. For those that have been following the story much of my own personal application of the MAP has been turning MMSL into a viable income and leveraging that to leave my day job. It’s taken two and a half years to get to this point. I’m leaving on my own terms and having given plenty of notice and trained a replacement. I could have just left two months ago and watched it all pancake down behind me, but I have a few dozen staff people that I felt responsible for and wanted to ensure they were okay. I feel like I took the high road and there has been a lot of cheering me on as I prepare to leave.

Running the MAP is not easy, is not always quick and is not always a direct line of being better every day. It’s about what you can achieve as an end point. There have been several days when I have just wanted pack it all in and not write MMSL ever again. There have even been a tiny number of days where Jennifer and I have not done very well with each other as well. I’ve also had a handful of haters as well.

So if you’re struggling to run the MAP for whatever your goals are, and you feel like you want to throw in the towel… don’t. That’s very likely the sign that you are making actual progress toward your goal. Hearing a mixture of cheers and boos is also a pretty good sign you are making progress as well. Don’t fall back to where you were unless you can’t do anything about it.

***

Reader:  How do you feel?

Athol: I’m feeling very strange right now. I’m tired from 2.5 years of pushing, but also suddenly the book is selling better and better and I need to do very little to manage that.  All along I had been thinking “full time MMSL”, but it actually feels emotionally like I’m retiring. If I sleep until noon for example the books still sell. It’s totally bizarre. Like I fell of a cliff and discovered I can fly.

Many projects to do though, so I won’t be bored!

Reader: Awesome. Any idea what your typical work day is going to look like since the book is basically selling itself?

Athol:  Well most of my work day is going to look like a dude sitting at the computer… which makes for a dull blog post. More writing the blog, more writing books, prepping speaking engagement material, forming a business and yada yada yada.

Let’s talk about my personal life instead…

In many ways I’ve been living a life totally out of balance. I haven’t exercised very much at all for months on end. Been eating like crap as well, so all that needs to be focused on more. Probably working toward 1.5-2 hours of exercise of some description a day to recover things.

Jennifer has done a lot more of the housework stuff than I have the last few years. I kinda miss it a little. I really don’t mind cleaning and cooking. So I get to take some of that back from her. I’m planning one of the bigger housework chores a day as a writing break just cycling through the whole house.

Reading. I’ve barely read anything new for the last two years. I’ve got around 30-40 books piled on my dresser to get through as a starting point. I’ve been meaning to get around to the Paleo reading for over a year for example. I typically read 60-70 books a year and don’t know if I’ve read more than 20 since starting MMSL.

I’ve also to a fair extent dropped out of keeping up with the other blogs. There’s just been no time to keep up and comment. Much of the early marketing and presence building I did with MMSL was reading and commenting everywhere. It’s something I’ve always planned on returning to once done with nursing.

Daddy duty. The girls will be 15 and 13 for summer, and largely run themselves, but it’s going to be fun to be back home with them during the summer. The last two summers Jennifer has had to run ragged back and forth from work to home and eat through her time off and play taxi driver. She’s very very relieved this year she doesn’t have to.

There’s some broken items around the house as well. I’m going to give serious thought about fixing them, and then probably play Star Trek Online instead.

Walkies and talkies with Jennifer. We finally have more time to just hang out together. We like walking together and now we’ll have lots more time for breakfasts or lunches together.

There’s a vacation happening in there somewhere as well. We still have to count the beans and see how far we can go. Usually once we find a place to go Jennifer takes over as her OTPD makes everything go smooth. (Obsessive Trip Planning Disorder)    We want to go to Dallas to have a look around and see if we like it there as a possible relocation in summer 2017 after youngest is done with high school.

All in all, I’ve been a low Alpha high Beta husband for most of our marriage. The last few years I’ve been a very high Alpha and life support only Beta husband (while Jennifer has to carry the load of what I’m not doing).  Now I’m going to try and find a more relaxed balance of Alpha and Beta. So as I pick up some of the Beta slack, Jennifer gets to give some of it up… which frees her up to have more time doing her Alpha thing and have more fun too.

I’m very grateful for Jennifer’s support and none of this would have been possible without her. I’m also very grateful for the support of all my readers who have bought the books and sold more of them through word-of-mouth. I realize some of this comes off as “look at me I’m freaking awesome!”… and… well I did work really hard… but also it’s improbable that I am experiencing such success so soon. I know I’ve had a lot of help and it’s greatly appreciated.

Tell mother I feel fine.

 

 Jennifer: I’m really enjoying 2012 as our year of transition.  I’m very proud of Athol and MMSL…it’s his full time job now which is still somewhat surreal.  It’s a dream for both of us to be able to work together and spend more time together (we like each other….funny how that works out!) so I’m looking forward to what is coming!

Filed Under: Alpha and Beta Male Traits, Captain and First Officer, Humor and Everything Else, The Male Action Plan (MAP)

Game For Christians

May 29, 2012 By 78 Comments

Athol:  Via email I’ve somewhat frequently been asked to write ”MMSL for Christians.”  On one hand I dread the backlash for simply daring to write for Christians while wearing my Team Atheist attire (it’s suspicously like a Next Generation Star Trek Science Officer uniform).  On the other hand I also know that a good percentage of my readership are Christian and experience the awkward tension of finding that MMSL “works”, but finding it morally diffcult at times as well.

My primary goal is to help everyone have a better sex life and happier marriages. If via MMSL people happen to get over the image of Atheists as enraged souless baby eaters that’s great. I’ve yet to receieve a single email saying someone deconverted because of my writings. No biggie. It’s not the goal.

Below is an email part of a back and forth with a Christian reader. He asks a lot of good questions. I have some answers to all this myself, but it’s a lot of work to frame them correctly without accidently saying something that triggers violence in the comments. Just please accept that I am taking this seriously. My own answers may not be immediate.

Anyway…. have a crack at some answers in the comments.

 

Reader:  I am mainly concerned about how core Christian values and beliefs match up with married game and where they don’t.  My real question is “What are the mismatches?” and “What do your Christian readers that are taking the red pill think about the mismatches?”

For you, the mismatches are probably not a problem, of course, because you don’t subscribe to Christian beliefs (I respect that).  But I think some of your reader’s might have some problems with some things.  I do.  And it bothers me. I don’t want to go against my faith, but I do want a emotionally and sexually fulfilling marriage (and I wasn’t able to do it without game).  So there I am.  I have no choice but to ask these tough questions for myself.

Like we both have said, there is much that matches up, but here I want to list some of  the mismatches that I would like to get input on.

(1) Attracting other Women 

I can’t deny that it works to attract my wife, but the concept seems to go against the grain.  I think most any Christian has certainly been taught against this.  And even Jesus said “any man who looks at another women… is toast” paraphrased of course.

For me, I have to tone this down.  I just talk friendly with other women whether they are old ladies, homely women, or hotties.  If they show interest in me then they do, its not that I’m really after anything (or am I?  I am doing it to attract my wife, so I have a motive)  But the pre-selection really only happens when your wife sees somebody who is a potential threat to her show clear interest that is not just friendly.  And this, by Christian standards would be inappropriate, since I am essentially soliciting the attention, even though I have no plans to act on anything.  It would basically be characterized as flirting with temptation rather than just avoiding the temptation.

(2) Alpha attitude (at least parts of it)

Cocky, willingness to break the rules, being overtly sexual, indifference to female emotion.  Or how about a personal favorite that my wife and I like to laugh about and you have blogged about “women love assholes”.

I think these pretty much speak for themselves as to why they go against Christian beliefs.  Of course a lot of Alpha traits match up well, confidence, leadership, not being swayed easily off course match up great.

The persona of Alpha is basically bad boy on the outside, but deep down probably a good guy or at least the potential to be a good guy.  The female sex drive wants to have an alpha to try and tame, but if she does tame him (hello Christian marriage in many respects), then the attractions takes a nose dive.

(3) Indifference to emotion

This is one I’d like to hit on specifically.  I don’t know that you have specifically discussed “indifference” in one of your posts, but it has come up in many reader comments to your posts.  This one is important to me, because this is one of the biggest things that improved my marriage.  But at the same time, like some of your readers, this is frustrating too.  I don’t really want to be indifferent to my wife, but she finds it very attractive.  The more indifferent I am to her, the more she is all over me the way I want her to be.  Women are attracted to indifference from men and I understand why, its part of the mystery, its the wondering whether or not he’s into me that gets them going.  This creates the chase.  Indifference also appears as confidence, because when you really don’t care what somebody else thinks, well that is pretty much confidence (or at least the appearance of it).  Indifference to her emotions also sets her free to experience all her emotions without worrying about yours (this is a good thing).

The problem is indifference can’t really be “gamed” in or faked.  It has to be real or she’ll she right through it.  But as I begin to feel indifferent to my wife’s emotions and I see her attraction go up, its kind of worrisome that I actually feel indifferent where as I didn’t before.  To quote one of your reader posts “I can’t love her as much as I want to because she will only take it from me if I won’t give it to her”.  So, even with the Christian matchup question aside, this topic would make a great post.

But, the Christian matchup issue here is that indifference is pretty much the opposite of love.  Hard to match that up.  Isn’t it?

(4) Willingness to walk away

This is at the heart of the red pill.  There really is no such thing as unconditional love in a marriage.  This goes right against Christian wedding vows, for better or worse, til death do us part, yada yada.

This is a tough nut for most people in a long term Marriage.  You can’t be willing to walk away??  But, we all know, if we’ve experienced the red pill that you won’t get what you want out of the marriage unless your willing to walk if you don’t get it.

“Nice Guy” put your needs first.  Insist that your needs be met. Christianity would say always to put the other’s needs above your own.  Yet, we all know how attracted women are to nice guys who do this religiously to their wife, “hopelessly devoted” is major turn off.  But this so hard for a “nice guy” with Christian values to accept.  Personally, I am way past this, but I still wish for the blue pill here “why can’t my wife be insanely attracted to me because I am “hopelessly devoted” to her?  Based on the Christian values I learned growing up it should be this way.

 

(5) Hot Kinky Sex

This one I don’t really have a problem with but thought I would throw it in.  It does present some Christian match up questions and we all know that many Christian women have hang ups about sex based on Christian teachings while growing up (my wife did for years).

The question here is what is acceptable and what isn’t.  Christianity doesn’t seem to allow for anything goes in the bedroom.  Lots of religions have made statements against anal, oral, etc etc.  We all know that both parties in the marriage need to be comfortable with whatever is going on, but is there any basis in Christian teaching for limiting sexual behaviors in a marriage to rule out certain things?  (I’m not talking about hardcore porn stuff here either, just the stuff it actually takes to get your wife sexually satisfied. If this could be done with just the missionary position and only p & v, well then that would be fine I suppose and we wouldn’t have this question).

 

Ok, that just a shotgun of items and I’m just throwing these things out from the hip, but these are all things I have given serious thought to as I have taken the red pill.  I know that you are trying to help people have better marriages and you have helped mine.  So, even though you are not a Christian, I think it would be worth hitting some of these issues for those that are.  I’m assuming that you have other Christian readers taking the red pill with similar questions on their mind.  Of course, maybe I’m your only Christian reader :) .  In that case, well too bad for me. But I think you probably have a lot?

Let me know what you think.

Filed Under: Alpha and Beta Male Traits, Body Agenda and Sex Rank, Monogamy and Marriage 2.0, Nice Guys and Betaization, The Male Action Plan (MAP)

Money Casual

May 28, 2012 By 31 Comments

Reader:  Hey Athol, I’m a reader of your blog and I just received the book: love it!

I have an idea for a blog post: male baldness. How does it affect our sex rank  and how to best handle it.

Another similar idea: fashion/clothing. Expensive brands (display of wealth) and tight fits one a strapping body are the ideal it seems.

Athol:  Okay the easy one. Yes indeed expensive/tailored items properly fitting on a great body are ideal. Not so much tight fitting as properly fitting. For a woman tightly fitting gets a more of a boost.

Slightly less easy is baldness. It’s a mild negative in that it displays increased age as opposed to being a early twenties stud muffin. However you can do far more damage to yourself trying to cover it all up rather than just accepting it and facing it head on. The comb-over isn’t a hairstyle, it’s a extreme display of weakness and low value. It shouts out that you have no woman in your life that gives a crap about your appearance.

I have no clue whether or not any of the magical hair products and treatments work or provide value for money, so I can’t offer you any advice about them. My solution was just to buzz it all short one a week and be done with it. Jennifer cut it for me at home and it was kinda fun.

My new thing has just been to shave my head. After a few days of adjustment both Jennifer and I like it. It seems to be a slightly better look for me and I present cleaner and more put together. Also she rubs my head and giggles.

Whether it’s your hair or your clothes, the trick it is to look intentional. Doesn’t really matter too much what you are dressing as in terms of style, but that you are appearing exactly as you intend to appear and it’s not an accident you look as you do. Stuff matching helps a great deal for this. Clean clothes. New clothes. Planned and intentional. A shirt can be just fine to wear when you go out, but if you haven’t ironed properly then it’s not going to be a positive.

Something like the iconic Steve Jobs black shirt and jeans is a great example of being intentional. It’s not a high class look, but it’s well fitting, clean, new looking and well made. He’s purposely not wearing a suit. He’s obviously intending to wear exactly what he’s wearing and everyone knows it. Thus it works.

The trap to avoid is having one or two really good outfits you wear for special occassions and a bunch of dross. You’ll end up only underlining how bad you look on a daily basis the few times you play dress up. You need to set out to create a wardrobe that is consistently a little better than your social circle. Once you can do that, you get all the ladies attention as the best dressed man in the room. Just being the best dressed man in the room is like creating an instigation field around you like… okay crap… it’s like Paladin aura gravity well for pussy.

As I’ve mentioned before, this is still an area I’m working on myself – part of the issue with nursing is my day job is a little rough and tumble so fancy clothes quickly become unfancy on the job and we’ve been catching up on the money front as well. I’m not really a big suit guy either. Personally I like casual and comfortable clothes, though that easily turns into the “early K-Mart” look that repels women. And I like light colors as well. I intellectually get the black shirt and jeans look, but everytime I’m in a black shirt I don’t really like it.

Anyway a couple months back I got the brainwave about how I need to look. It’s two words. “Money Casual.” I find once you view clothes through the lens of “Does this say Money Casual.” everything becomes a lot clearer as to whether or not you should buy it.

The old rules still apply though. Get in shape first, then add the clothes.

Jennifer:  …and truly, if you can’t afford to buy high priced labels, just buy what you can afford and what fits.  It’s less important to flaunt a super expensive label than it is to be neat and clean.  If I can tell what you had for lunch the last time you wore that shirt because it is a permanent stain…points off.  If the cuffs are frayed and the knees are worn because they’re your favorite jeans…wear them when you’re sitting home alone or doing yard work, not out to our date.  If you are ironed, not stained and faded, and coordinating…I’ll take it!  (well not really, I’ve got my well dressed man…you know what I mean) 

Filed Under: Instigate Isolate and Escalate, The Male Action Plan (MAP)

Why Does Struggling To Make A Baby Sex Suck So Much?

May 26, 2012 By 17 Comments

Reader:  Just a thought for a potential blog post topic.

Making a baby the old fashioned way, by that I mean getting smashed and going at it like savages, is fun.

Making a baby because your wife is ovulating and the fertility clinic has pumped her full of hormones, not fun.

Been there, done that.  I’m assuming a variety of your readers have been in this situation.  Across the board, all of my male friends refer to “Pro-creation sex” as the most un-stimulating experience out there.  The intimacy and man/woman roles are somehow missing along with the satisfaction.

Maybe you could help explain why and how to attempt to make it hot?

Just throwin’ it out there.

Athol:  The issue is that it isn’t hot because it’s basically shouting that the person you’re having sex with is a poor choice of baby making due to the low fertility. Resulting babies are also more likely to be poorly fertile as well. Thus the entire display is extremely unsexy. Just having the thought in your head going around and around that “it’s hard to get her pregnant” is a mood killer in the extreme. If she was a one night stand you were never going to see again, your Body Agenda doesn’t worry about it. But if she’s your bonded partner and you’re going to spend time, effort and resources on the kid, you start getting as picky as a woman does about the genetic material being supplied from your sex partner.

When you’re doing it the old fashioned way and she’s highly fertile, it’s amazing because she’s such a great vagina to pour your semen into. Her babies are more likely to be good baby makers too. Very sexy indeed. Oh wow making babies sex with Jennifer was amazingly amazing.

Anyway, there’s no easy way to reverse it and make it hot when your Body Agenda hates the idea of it. Though if you ask around there are many stories of “We gave up trying to make it happen and just went on vacation and it happened!”

My suggestion would be plan ahead to plot when her ovulation should be, and plan for a night of sex then in a novel environment. Like a hotel room. Then separate for a few days beforehand. Someone go live somewhere else. Meet in the hotel room. Hopefully the damming up the seed turns into need and it all happens with more excitement. The separation creates a little added sperm competition boosting to the male as well. Also you can get away on a vacation and change the scenery a little.

Mostly though, don’t let her get away with being horribly unsexy as an approach. Her coming to you with a thermometer in hand, wearing sweatpants and demanding to be impregnated now, isn’t a sexual come on. Her bullying you into sex isn’t a turn on either. Tell her to go make herself look nice, wear something sexy, make it appear like she is trying to attract you. Otherwise you may as well be jerking off into a specimen cup and handing it to her.

And not for nothing, when women ovulate they tend to like a far more Alpha approach in the bedroom. Giving  her entire control of the sex that night isn’t going to make for good sex and likely decreases her chances of actually getting pregnant. Pull her hair a little and tap that ass well enough to make her not care if she actually got pregnant or not. Leave her stumbling incoherently out of bed for one ice pack, two Aleve and three pages in her diary.

Filed Under: Instigate Isolate and Escalate, Sexual Health Issues, Sexy Moves

Could Have, Should Have, Would Have, Didn’t.

May 24, 2012 By 37 Comments

A fair amount of angst in yesterday’s comments that the wife was a gold digger. In fairness, she may well be, but then again that just makes my point… women on the whole react positively to men with money. If you have a choice between having more money or less money, the more money route is the best choice by default.

The other concern in the comments was that the husband might fail and his wife leave him in the lurch. This is also quite possible and is simply the Hypergamy impulse. Women happen to be more attracted to winners than losers. Whatever it is that you do, I advise you to be a “winner” at it. Even in terribly geeky things there is a pecking order of winners and losers. If you’re in the chess club, at least be the big swinging dick in chess club that everyone fears to play.

Jennifer and I both have worked at a non-profit for what amounts to 95% of our entire careers. We’re by no means impoverished, but the reality is that I don’t think that was a wise choice for both of us to make. Yeah MMSL is a payoff stemming in no small part from my life experience, but writing a successful book is a very long shot to take. I tried making a break into higher earnings by going into real estate sales in 2006 and met the crashing housing market and to be quite blunt, failed remarkably hard. That’s failing remarkably hard despite genuinely putting in effort to make it work. Jennifer is by nature supportive, not crazily motivated by money and quite bonded to me. I failed and she stayed.

Jennifer isn’t a gold digger… but money is part and parcel of reality… so while she’s probably not a silver digger, she’s at least a copper digger. Take away medical insurance, ability to pay the mortgage, money for food and clothes for the girls, I would expect her eyes to start narrowing to slits when looking upon me. I would expect her rationalization hamster to start getting into motion. But that would only be fair wouldn’t it?

So I failed hard at real estate, and nursing was still being sort of a financial equivalent of a goal-less soccer match. Not winning or losing, but it’s boring as hell. So I started MMSL planning to win, but also knowing it might fail. Something I did not tell Jennifer before I started writing was that if it all turned into a second round of serious failure, I planned to offer her a divorce and cash her out with everything that was left. Note I said offer divorce, not threaten divorce. I don’t think she would have accepted, but you never know. I think she would have taken it as the most profound apology I could make. I don’t know if I would have been much fun to live with after that though.

As it is, it’s all working out quite well. I won. We’re by no means rolling in dough, but we’ve made an excellent step in the right direction. Jennifer is visibly happier and less stressed about money. We’ve had a pretty great marriage and this last year has been easily the best year we’ve had together sexually. At this point I’m more excited about making more money than she is. In the end, neither one of us is particularly motivated by expensive toys and bling, I just want her to feel unstressed by money, and for me to get to do MMSL all the time and see how it all plays out over the years. I want to travel and speak and write and talk to people. I want Jennifer to work for me so we can be together for work instead of apart. The money is just a tool to get to do that.

So enough of me, let’s talk about you…

Naturally I am not advising ya’ll to quit your day jobs and just believe in the power of your dreams. I did that once going into real estate and it was a disaster. Nor am I saying everyone needs to start a blog and write a book. Based on Amazon data I’m somewhere in the top 0.5% of authors for book sales and I make a way better royalty split as a self-publisher than 80% of the books out selling mine. So I shit you not when I say trying to make a livable income from writing books is like The Hunger Games in essay form.

However, whatever it is that you do for work, you’re at a certain level of status and income. There is as you know, another tier of status and income above you. By default, women are wired to be more attracted to you if you are at that next higher tier. So the questions to ask yourself are (1) whether or not you can realistically make that step up, (2) whether the risks and effort associated with making that step up are reasonable, and most importantly (3) whether you can afford to not try and make that step up.

Stepping up to the next tier is going to take time, effort and some risk. The world seems fresh out of easy advancement, but that just makes it all the sweeter for advancing. To be sure not all women are gold diggers, some are silver diggers and some are copper. The real gold diggers give the copper ones a bad name. If a copper digger gives you the I Love You But I’m Not In Love With You speech and waves goodbye from the passenger seat of some dudes BMW, it’s fairly likely it’s more your fault than hers.

Could have, should have, would have, didn’t.

Sometimes the biggest risk you take, is to not take enough risks. Be the Captain.

 

Jennifer: hey…I would have stayed. And boy is he happier now that we are not so money-stressed.  The truth is that he has the talent and ideas to make the switch to another career while I am stuck where I am with no hope of promotion or moving elsewhere for more money.  That’s not to say I’m not happy in my job, I am…but I am at the limit of my earning potential in my current career. 

 

 

Filed Under: Alpha and Beta Male Traits, Body Agenda and Sex Rank, Captain and First Officer, Monogamy and Marriage 2.0, The Male Action Plan (MAP)

If Money Is The Problem, The Solution Is More Money

May 23, 2012 By 49 Comments

Reader:  I’ve been running the MAP for six months and things picked up almost immediately (improving Alpha, reducing Beta), but I hit a snag recently. I’m self employed, and here in the UK our tax year ends in April, so I made my tax return. The business has always been profitable, but I’m a long way from being rich; I usually increase income by about £1000 per year, and this year was the same. The problem is we’re looking to move house and although I *never* said anything like “this year we hit the big time baby!” it was clear when I showed her the figures that it wasn’t what she hoped to hear (for the mortgage applications we need to make in the near future). What’s more, she hates her own job; I think she may have been looking to my income to compensate if she left. Long, long, silent treatment yesterday without her actually saying outright what the problem was. I got “I’m thinking about stuff”. So I think my Alphaness suddenly dropped in her perception. It was a wake up call for me, because there’s a marketing plan I developed that I’ve kept meaning to implement, just… never got round to it. So I’m starting on that! I do work hard, and she sees me working hard, and acknowledges it. But she has said a couple of times recently “you should put your rates up.” (Part of the marketing plan is changing my charging structure, so this is in progress). My question is, how do I deal with this perception drop in the short term? Do I compensate by going harder on my other Alpha qualities (hit the gym more, get a bit more bossy with the kids, etc)? And how do I show her I’m implementing the marketing plan without sounding like I’m trying to prove something (ie, being needy)? Thanks for any advice!

Athol:  If the problem is money, the solution is more money, so work on the money.

Working out and getting buff isn’t going to make her concern about money go away. She’ll just think you’re wasting time when you could be fixing the actual problem. Likewise getting bossy with the kids, (lol use the word “leadership” rather than bossy) will just make you a guy that isn’t holding up his end of the deal… who is bossy.

So here’s my advice…

(1)  Talk with her about the money issue. Talk once, get her viewpoint, see what’s up.

(2)  Regardless of her… you’ve been holding back on yourself by not doing your marketing. Are you afraid to succeed?  (A completely serious question.)  Admit that you’ve been holding back and apologize once and once only. Basically you’re saying, “Okay I get it. I need to get this up to speed and have waited too long to do it.”

(3)  Get into action and do your thing at work. Roll out the plan, put up your rates. Make some fuck you money.

(4)  When you talk about your job to her, don’t talk about what you will do… talk about what you are doing and your successes along the way.

In short, you’re just telling her you’ve gotten it wrong and set out to make her believe in you again.

Look there’s no real way of spinning this to sound like anything other than women are superficial Ferengi. Women quite like money. Given a choice between the same guy with money or without money, the one with money always wins. Women dream about being rescued by princes and not janitors. Working hard is great and all, but the bottom line is the bottom line… your resulting income matters.

In your wife’s case she wants the money to upgrade the house nest. A nice big nest is great for babies and raising kids so it’s a sexy move in her mind. She’s just trying to do what she’s biologically set up to do. It’s not like it’s evil or anything. You already knew what to do anyway. You’re just asking for me to push you a little and get you started.

Jennifer:  Not having enough money is just stressful. If there’s something you can do about it and you don’t do it, that would make me stress further.

Filed Under: Captain and First Officer, The Male Action Plan (MAP)

50% of Game is Calling Women On Their Crap

May 22, 2012 By 34 Comments

Reader:  I think another great blog posting that I’d love hear your opinion is the old married woman standby….I do it all for the kids.   It is a pretty bulletproof defense for almost anything to a blue piller.  But those who have glimpsed the matrix know there must be a way to destroy or at least work past it.  I mean … I literally got this email from my wife just this afternoon.  She’s overtired and sick because we just go-go-go so I gave her “orders” to quit sabotaging herself.  She wrote that she does it for the kids, so they have things she didn’t.  And she’s willing to push herself through (and bitch and moan constantly along the way) because its for the kids.  Never mind the fact that the kids have to deal with her being overly grumpy.  She just goes to bed at night and our sex life, despite me running the MAP is heading south.

How do you work around “its all for the kids.”

Athol:  Try this response to “it’s all for the kids.”

“Have you heard of the phrase, ‘If mama isn’t happy, nobody’s happy.”

Whatever her response is…

“Well you don’t seem very happy.”

Then immediately leave in the direction of “just out somewhere” and don’t answer the phone for a while.

When you physically leave the house, it’s both to end the conversation and to display a withdrawal of attention. This way she’s left alone with her hamster gnawing on nothing but a taste test of divorce. I’m not saying it’s a pretty tactic, or one you should use constantly, but some women simply don’t get it until they see their husband walking out the door. It is much better to do it as a taste test than let it all pile up into a victimization puke and have a divorcing screaming meltdown.

Later that week…

Reader:  We got into it a bit yesterday.  I stood firm.  When she started crying, I just looked at her and said “don’t whip out the tears here, I don’t buy it.” She kept up with the “for the kids” crap. But I just told her, “me being nice all the time isn’t working, so I might as well just be honest.” I didn’t budge one bit. I took the kids over to my parents for a couple hours. Came back she was much better, even stated “I like a workin man” which was key because she fought me quitting my job 2 years ago and now she’s acknowledging my ability to create income and run my own business. She was nice all night.  Nailed the crap out of her last night. Thumbsup!

Athol:  Sounds like you did great!

Basically if she’s spinning avoidant nonsense, call her on her crap. That’s half the battle right there. If you don’t call women on their crap they perceive you as being weak to them. Which turns them off. Women don’t want to be married to a bully, but they won’t stop saying they want a strong man anytime soon. Be strong.

And from the Captain and First Officer approach. Telling the First Officer to take a break and relax seems like a brain dead easy order to follow doesn’t it. You can actually bump back on this one fairly easily in that she can’t really complain about it to anyone else without looking like she’s losing her grip on reality…

“Oh Mom I can’t stand him anymore, he actually yelled at me just now.”

“Oh no! What did he yell at you about!?”

“He said I was working too hard and needed to take a break. He said I was making everyone else miserable.”

“And then what did he say?”

“Well… just that basically.”

“Ahhh.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Well you always did hate being put down for a nap.”

“Okay never mind, I’m calling Cheryl.”

…

“OMG Cheryl he was yelling at me today, so loud I was scared.”

“Oh no! What about?!”

“He said I was working too hard and needed to take a break. He said I was making everyone else miserable.”

“And then what did he say?”

“Well… just that basically.”

“Ahhh.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“You wanna swap husbands? I wish mine offered any kind of help.”

“Okay never mind I’m calling Anna.”

…

“OMG Anna, he was so angry at me today, over NOTHING. He was so loud, and he banged the counter too.”

“I’m at mom’s with Cheryl. We were just saying how great he looks recently. He sounds really annoyed with you. Is everything okay with you guys?”

“Oh… yeah, we’re fine. I think. No we’re fine.”

(OMG WHERE DID HE GO JUST NOW?!?)

Filed Under: Alpha and Beta Male Traits, Captain and First Officer, Nice Guys and Betaization

The Two Week Rule And Pregnancy

May 20, 2012 By 67 Comments

Reader:  I was hoping you could give me some direction on your 2 week rule.  I really like the rule, in that you can nip things in the bud before they become major issues.  However, I’m unsure as to how to approach asking about it.  (Beta, I know)…

My wife is pregnant, and for the last 13 weeks, she has been systematically taking steps away from me.  First it was in the bedroom, then it was stopping approaching me for kisses, then it was no touching at all, then it was general irritability, to now, the last 2 weeks, she hasn’t said I Love You once.

So, my rational male mind is seeing this as a problem…  To me, these are steps away from the long term goal of a happy healthy marriage.  I am just unsure of how to approach asking her what’s going on…  she is extremely against me at the moment, it seems like, and I’m not quite sure how to start the conversation.

I had thought about after work saying something like: “Babe, I’ve got a question for you about some of the communication difficulties we’ve been having lately, if you’re open to talking about it.”  Then going from there with: “I understand that you’re not comfortable and don’t feel well.  That said, you’ve been taking active steps to avoid me since the beginning…  First it was the sex, and we’ve progressed to where you haven’t told me that you love me in 2 weeks.  What’s going on?”  And then, “From my perspective, our marriage is the most important thing in this house.  We have a baby on the way, and it is going to take both of us working together to provide a solid model for how a husband and wife should interact.  Is what we’re doing now what you want to model for our child?”

What do you think?  Any suggestions?

Athol:  Too much flowery language and verbal submission to her in your statements. Try…

“You’re a bitch when you’re pregnant.”

Then leave the house for a few hours. She’ll probably apologize in short order. She knows she’s being a bitch toward you.

Reader:  Ha…  That does sound a whole lot less Beta, doesn’t it…

Just you saying that makes me realize that not getting affected by her jabs are huge…  You see it on TV… people responding to an angry woman with: “Are you finished?”  That, or your comment you would so much better than trying to convince her to behave differently.

Thanks again, Athol!

Athol:  You’re welcome.

It’s also nice in that it draws attention to the pregnancy for the cause of her behavior. Pregnancy does bring additional stresses to the marriage, but that only explains poor behavior it does not excuse it. It gives her an out to save some face and admit the pregnancy is something adding to her stress.

In general her being pregnant increases her need for Beta support. The further along she is, the more support is needed and you should help her through the pregnancy as best you can. However the standard rules apply, you don’t continue to do nice things for someone treating you badly. That just encourages them.

And circling back to the Two Week Rule, if you start to notice that she’s turning to the dark side, say and do something about it. If you let her get away with stomping all over you for nine months… don’t be surprised if your sweet wife doesn’t return after the pregnancy. Enjoy the Brood-Mother.

…

Also don’t get sucked in to helping pregnant women repeatedly who aren’t your wife. Obviously deal with any emergency and safety issues like you would anyone else, I’m talking about doing tasks for her convenience. Lifting heavy objects easily is always a Display of High Value, but beyond that, if they don’t have a man of their own that can help them, that’s their problem.

Filed Under: Alpha and Beta Male Traits, Nice Guys and Betaization

How Do You Know When It’s The Right Time To Divorce?

May 19, 2012 By 30 Comments

Marriages don’t usually just take a nosedive into the ground. It’s not like you hear a general alarm that a warp-core breatch is in progress and can’t be stopped, everything is about to explode and all you can do is get off the ship as fast as possible. When things are rough, there’s a roller-coaster of good days and bad days. Yesterday might have been good, but today is bad. You don’t know if tomorrow is going to be good or bad. It’s all so exhausting. Hence me getting the question quite often…

“How do you know when it’s the right time to divorce?”

The answer to that is quite simple. You’ll just know. Which of course sounds like a completely cop out answer at best, and airy-fairy nonsense suitable for a Lifetime channel movie at worst. It is however the truth.

There will come a point where you have what can only be described as something akin to a deconversion experience. You felt X, now you feel Y. They will do something, very likely something fairly minor and trivial, but you will experience an emotional change like you just went down the first drop on a roller-coaster.The final straw. This is your Body Agenda deciding enough is enough and rejecting them as a partner. Your dopamine and oxytocin/vasopressin production related to your spouse will switch off and you won’t love them anymore.

Your thoughts will run along the lines of, “Now I realize the last six months have been a pointless waste of effort. I should have filed for divorce six months ago.”

Now you may stay in the relationship, for whatever reasons you have to do so, but they will be practical reasons unrelated to wanting to be with your spouse. Once you’ve crossed this threshold, it’s really over. You aren’t going to want to have sex with them again, save for base ejaculation needs.

It is remarkably rare that those feelings would ever start up again. So plan accordingly. Likewise if your spouse has completely switched off on you, it’s unlikely that they return either.

But until you or they reach that threshold, things are bad, but they are merely bad. By which I mean, there’s still hope. Even on a bad bad day, there can still be hope. Keep trying until the end.

By which I mean you should be taking action.

 

Filed Under: Monogamy and Marriage 2.0, The Male Action Plan (MAP)
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