Cheating and Infidelity | Married Man Sex Life

Is a Religious Conversion Like an Affair?

May 8, 2013 By Athol Kay 11 Comments

From the forum…

Sleepy: I was reading Athol’s blog yesterday “Quirky Gifts and Flair” and read this line… she starts checking out of the relationship because she’s unhaaaaaappppppy and about to Eat, Pray, Love an exit.

So, my wife of 20+ years and 4 kids who has always been anti religion started to convert to Catholicism in secret. When I figured it out, I felt like she was cheating on me (about 6 months of individual and couples therapy and I still feel this way) as this was done in secret and her reason for needing god was that we were no longer good as a couple and she needed “love”. I flipped and basically took a position of no contact as if this was an affair, which she has done with just enough complaint that I know she still wants too.

Without going into all the details here (if there is a lot of interest I could add a thread in the 911 Relationship ER section) I guess my question is how evil am I and are there others out there who have felt this way?

Athol: Well Eat, Pray, Love refers to a book, but the answer to your questions is yes / no / kinda / sorta / it depends.

It’s usually a critical junction when one half of a couple changes their religious status, either becoming more religious, less religious, or changing religions. They can be a wide variety of changes in personal interests and personality from benign to quite alarming as someone changes from one religious viewpoint to another. It’s always hopeful that an inter-faith marriage will stay stable, but the more divergent the expressions of belief are, the greater the stress is on the marriage.

This is largely the same effect at work as shared beliefs of any sort. Two democrats or two republicans are likely going to be more comfortable married to each other than a democrat and a republican are. It’s all about being able to relax with each other at the end of the day instead of wanting to disagree about something. Same deal if someone suddenly becomes crazy about a diet while the other isn’t. It’s a relationship stress to have one of you wanting to eat Paleo and the other being a Vegetarian… though the old joke stands that if you really want to piss off a Vegetarian give them vegetables to eat… most of them just want to eat pasta all day.

The more fundamentalist (Wikipedia) the conversion the greater the stress on the relationship is. Note that Wikipedia link to fundamentalist covers Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Hindu and even Non-Religious fundamentalism. As soon as one half of the couple digs in their heels and states they are right and their partner is not merely in misguided disagreement, but utterly wrong… or even literally damned and/or evil for whatever reason… the relationship is heading for seriously choppy waters.

If you’ve ever had your partner educated as to your total failure of morality by their near entire social group, you’ll know just how hopeless your situation is. You could be a tax-paying, law abiding, full and complete stop on red, look both ways before you cross the street, girl scout cookie buying sweetheart, but having 20-30 people tell your spouse that failure to believe in [religious belief] turns you into a horrible fallen person hell bent on destroying everything precious and good… well, it has an effect. Speaking as a good evangelical Christian back in the day my first serious girlfriend was Catholic… it doesn’t take many people giving you “Godly frowns of concern” to make you feel uneasy about your relationship. That was a Catholic girl too, not even a clutch-the-pearls Non-Christian… that would have had people directly saying things to me like, “I’d like to encourage you to seek the Lord’s guidance”, which is how evangelicals tell you you’re retarded.

And yes I get that there are a wide variety of expressions of belief from rather insipid, to rather psychotic in intensity, even within each faith or even denomination. I’m painting with a wide brush here.

Anyway… back to the question at hand…

My knee jerk reaction to your situation is that you have two issues rather than one issue.

(1) The state of the marriage.

(2) Her interest in Catholicism.

What she’s saying is essentially, “Because of (1) I’m (2)” which is trying to turn it into one issue. This is a poor solution because the marriage issues aren’t going to be fixed by going to church and it is obviously driving a bigger wedge between you.

My advice would be to figure out the marriage issues as marriage issues, and allow the religious issue to be handled as a religious issue. So grab the free forum booklet and answer the nine triage questions in a 911 thread on the forum and people can help you get to the bottom of things.

Or put another way, if the marriage is chugging along just great, everyone getting along well, lots of sex and laughter… would it matter very much at all if she was a standard issue Catholic?

I will say this much though, I’m not convinced she’s been hiding it from you as a way of hurting you, more as a way of trying not to lose you in the process. When I became an atheist, I kept that a secret a looooooong time. I thought I was risking my marriage coming out about it, which because my faith was part and parcel of my attractiveness to Jennifer, I think it really was. When I finally told Jennifer she bawled her eyes out with me feeling like the worst husband ever. Even after that, it took fourteen years before I felt comfortable publicly identifying as an atheist.

Anyhoo…

As official MMSL policy, I personally don’t care what you believe or disbelieve in. I obviously self-identify as atheist because I don’t believe in a deity, but I’m not trying to actively convert anyone to that point of view on MMSL. I only try and get involved in religious issues on MMSL when it seems to be clearly screwing with the marriage. At this point the entire fabric of western civilization is sufficiently screwed up that individual marriages are like sandbags keeping back the flood-waters. I don’t care what type of sand you have in your bag, just that you have a sandbag that isn’t going to fall apart.

Filed Under: Captain and First Officer, Cheating and Infidelity, How To Choose A Wife, Humor and Everything Else, Monogamy and Marriage 2.0, Uncategorized

When You Can’t Tell The Difference Between Normal and Crazy Anymore

March 28, 2013 By Athol Kay 3 Comments

Way, way, way back in my Talk About Marriage commenting days, I used to have a signature line that said something like, “50% of my advice is that she’s cheating on you, the other 50% is ‘What the hell are you thinking?’”

It’s not always true anymore, but you’d be surprised at how often someone has a completely screwed up situation that they are so used to coping with… it seems normal to them. For a lot of people actually arriving to the MMSL Forum and finally telling someone else their story is what makes the light bulbs finally click on for some people…

I also need to say to you all that I was utterly shocked that you moved me into the 911 category. I feel like, with all the confusion and upheaval, that I’ve lost touch with reality. HE definitely has, at least is that way some of the time, but now I realize I don’t know what is normal any more, what is really bad and critical. I do realize I’ve been too Beta and too polite. That I should have thrown a shit fit on day one, and laid down an ultimatum. And by taking care of the house, family, bills, I was relieving him of responsibility and freeing him up to pursue his outside interests. That really pisses me off. I thought I was making life easier for him, and it turns out I was!

That one involved requests for threesomes, a workplace death, depression and an affair… yet she was shocked at the moving her thread into the 911 Category to monitor it better. More to come possiblity too.

So anyway… got something happening where you kinda, sorta, maybe think it’s a messed up crazy situation? Get the free forum booklet… Join the forum… Buy the Primer… and you’ll be on your way to sorting it all out before you know it.

Filed Under: Cheating and Infidelity, The Male Action Plan (MAP)

Old Flames… It’s Cool If We’re Friends Right?

March 26, 2013 By Athol Kay 24 Comments

Athol: Married dude calls up old flame to discuss things. To his great surprise it’s like stepping into a emotional Narnia as everything comes flooding back. They talk for 4.5 hours on the phone.

Thus the question…. is it possible to keep this on a friendship level?

Er…… no. No it it isn’t. It was a mistake to even call her.

HamsterMan: No, it wasn’t a mistake. Calling her up cleared up some mental crap I had been carrying around for a long time, so that was an unalloyed good.

My intentions are completely honorable. Geography makes a Physical Affair impossible. I don’t want an Emotional Affair.

Is there any way to get into the friend zone? Lol, when did people start to want that?

Athol: Well, okay. If you kill her sexual interest in you, it could work. Maybe you can…

Call her up and start talking about dolphins getting caught in tuna nets and cry for 10-15 minutes.

Talk about how when you watched Bugs Bunny as a kid, and he dressed as a girl bunny, you felt confused inside.

Tell her you have erectile dysfunction.

Drunk dial her at 245am her time. And 310am. And 325am. And 430am. On a Monday.

Have your wife screaming in the background of the call that you need to go to the store to pick up tampons for her.

Mention your colostomy bag keeps falling off. Your insurance was denied and now you have to use ziplock sandwich bags and they’re hopeless.

Call collect. Then ask her for money.

Use the joke, “Yes, but why is the rum gone?” seven times in the same phone call. Then text her it twice.

Ask if she’d consider making a healer for World of Warcraft.

Tell her you jizzed in your pants thinking about her. Two weeks ago. During a funeral.

I mean you realize when she Friendzones you, she’s not going to take your calls right?

What’s the point of this exercise?

No. No you can’t.

Filed Under: Cheating and Infidelity, Humor and Everything Else, Monogamy and Marriage 2.0

Counter an Affair With an Open Marriage?

March 23, 2013 By Athol Kay 16 Comments

MILF_in_training: Someone tell me why this is a bad idea.

We get lots of “s/he cheated on me, now what do I do?” stories. The standard advice is to Option A/B, with A going no contact and B being divorce. I’m wondering if the exact opposite might work:

Option C: We now have an open marriage. Honey, you can keep the affair going, BUT I need the OM/W’s contact info, and we (and the Other Spouse) need to all sit down together and set the ground rules. Give me the info now. Oh, and this means I’ll be able to find a lover, too. And let’s both go tell the older kids, and call out families and friends to let them know we now have an open marriage. And there’s this hottie at work ….

Do you think this would scare the cheater into reality? If the other cheater and spouse were forced to come out into the open, would this kill the thrill of an illicit affair?

Athol: Actually that sounds like it could potentially work in some cases, but suspect it’s easier in abstract than reality.

It’s extremely hard to get cheated on people to even focus on pulling off an Option A or B without collapsing into a pool of tears and doing nothing more than begging the cheater to not cheat. Generally we have to prop them up and support them every step of the way as they struggle with the idea of taking action that can potentially end their relationship. Most people will cling to the idea of “half a loaf is better than none” until they can see no possibility of saving the marriage any other way than truly demanding the affair stop or the marriage ends.

Generally it’s simply not believable to the cheater that the betrayed spouse wants / is willing to sleep with someone else on a mutually calm and rational level. “Oh you were banging Tom? Cool! I’ve always wanted to nail Jessica, I’ll be back tomorrow morning.”

Generally the betrayed spouses willing to sleep with someone else, are hell bent on revenge and simply fucking other people to hurt the cheater as much as they can. They aren’t interested in saving the marriage, simply having it all end in the biggest fire possible.

The spouses capable and willing to try the open marriage route, are probably sexually open enough that it’s already on the table before the cheating in some sort of fashion. “Oh you were banging Tom? Why didn’t you tell me, I told you I wanted to watch if you did someone else.”

What is totally believable though, is where a betrayed spouse simply executes an Option A or B move in an icy righteous rage. You want the cheater to have that sense of cold hard reality batting their hamster all the way up into the upper deck… “Holy crap. What have I done? I knew she was going to be upset, but I never though she would flip out like this. Oh shit, she’s got freaking divorce papers already. Oh God I’m screwed.”

What most people don’t realize is that the betrayed spouse is usually unwittingly supporting the affair by performing all their usual Beta support spouse stuff. Holding a job, watching the kids, doing the shopping, making a home, yada yada yada. Once you threaten to remove all that support, and are 100% believable, the affair relationship is going to fail under it’s own weight.

The exception being where the Other Man/Woman is willing and able to immediately bridge to making the affair their primary relationship, and their Sex Rank is higher than yours. But if that’s the case, you’re out gunned anyway. If you’re a 7 and your wife is cheating on you with a 9 and he offers your wife a permanent gig… game over.

Filed Under: Body Agenda and Sex Rank, Cheating and Infidelity

Captain and First Officer When The Marriage is Slamming Into Icebergs

February 18, 2013 By Athol Kay 44 Comments

Some follow up from the last two posts.

(1) I’ve had a small explosion of email, messages and forum comments of people vomiting their guts up about their own personal Elephant in the Room. This is all good.

(2) I’ve also had a fair number of emails and comments to the effect of, “Okay I admit to having screwed it all up, having missed how unhappy she was. But then she did [totally inappropriate behavior]. Am I really to blame for all that?”

Too long didn’t read…. hit an iceberg and it’s the Captain’s fault.

Long answer… and please, remember this is a blog post using the broad brush…

Whether the husband knows it or not, and even whether the wife knows it or not, almost always their biology is going to assume a male Captain, female First Officer arrangement. We can fill our heads with anything we want to believe about relationships, but for almost all of us, when the going gets really tough, our Body Agenda simply asserts itself and starts making making decisions based on a Captain and First Officer model.

Or put another way…you can have a wonderful equal relationship for years on end… but when something really blows the hell up… *poof!* suddenly you’re the Captain and she’s the First Officer.

I realize that sounds like a terrible cop out I’m handing the wives, but I’m just saying that this is exactly what happens routinely in times of relationship stress. This is exactly what women are designed to do. Women are programmed on a deep biological level to seek out and attach themselves to men who are “winners”. So when you suddenly start racking up some serious losses, women start reassessing the entire relationship.

That reassessment isn’t a hair-trigger thing. You’re not going to be dumped for one bad day or individual failure. Wives look at their husbands a little like a sports fan following their favorite team. You aren’t expecting a perfect season, but you want to at least see some sort of reasonable hope that this year you could get to the playoffs… and if not this year, at least it looks like someone made some coherent choices about it being a rebuilding season. But obviously watching endless grinding failure after failure… well it’s all hard going continuing to follow this team if you know what I mean.

So all usually goes quite well for a while, until there’s some sort of terrible screw up. If the screw up is hers, suddenly she’s the First Officer and she cries her eyes out and limps to the Captain to save the day. If the screw up is his, the First Officer thinks the Captain is an idiot and expects him to clean the mess up… and if the clean up isn’t good enough… it’s at this point she starts checking out of the marriage.

So almost always, the critical error that starts the real relationship momentum downwards, is the husband’s.

And once again just to be clear – that sounds like I’m blaming the man and giving the woman a free pass – I’m not, I’m just explaining what actually happens. I get that on a rational level as you read it, it’s insulting to both men and women.

So there’s some sort of critical incident that happens, and it’s very likely a completely legitimate “Dude WTF were you thinking?” incident, that the wife is pretty well justified in feeling hurt or angered by. Then the checking out process starts for the wife and the relationship starts to decline over a period of months, or vastly more likely… years. During that time of decline, the wife is typically making several attempts to signal her unhappiness with her husband, but they also are typically not heard well enough for the husband to recognize and make amends.

Eventually enough attempts to communicate that go unheeded take place and the wife gives up on the relationship completely and stops making attempts to signal distress. Typically at this point the husband can mistakenly believe the relationship has improved because she stopped complaining. In fact though, it’s in a very bad place. Once the wife is fully checked out, that’s when all the truly nasty stuff that a wife who holds her husband in contempt starts happening. The lies, the cheating, the divorce papers, the gathering up the children and fleeing out of state et al. This often takes him by complete surprise because he thinks the relationship is fine.

So… let’s assign the blame…

For the husband, whether he knew it or not, he was always the Captain. He was always the one more responsible for the relationship outcome than the wife was. Just like in any other team arrangement, the team leader is more responsible for the team than the other team members are. So the totality of the marriage is more his fault than her fault. This is an extraordinarily bitter pill for a man to swallow in the aftermath of the failure of his marriage.

For the individual critical incident where the husband screwed up, well obviously that’s his fault. I think that’s simple enough to understand.

The failure of communication about her distress to him, is again his fault. It is always the team leader that is responsible for a team’s communication. Likewise if a team leader screws up something, it should not require dramatic efforts on the part of a team member, to draw the team leaders attention to the mess. My advice in my last post, How To Fair Warning a Husband That Doesn’t Listen (Before Things Are Too Late To Fix) , lays out some suggestions for dramatic efforts for the wife to gain her husband’s attention when he is ignoring her.

In terms of all the crazy, nasty, evil shit the wife did when she’s checked out of the marriage…all of that is her fault. She’s making conscious choices when she fucks around on her husband et al.

Plus by the time the relationship is really getting bad, both parties are usually treating each other with varying degrees of anger, insult and contempt. That’s equal blame.

In terms of cleaning up the mess and starting over, that’s a whole other post’s worth of stuff to get into. Suffice it to say though, without a clear admission of wrongdoing and genuine apology for their part of the mess, it’s not going to work very well as a clean up. There’s always something for both sides of the couple to be genuinely sorry for, before major relationship drama can be gotten past and healing take place. I strongly advise NOT to try and persist in rebuilding a marriage after an affair has taken place, unless both the cheater and the betrayed spouse can understand their roles in creating the situation where an affair happened AND they make a genuine admission of apology.

Unless you can find the root cause of the affair (Often it’s The Elephant in the Room) and fix that, you’re very likely only going to have a temporary lull in the decline of the relationship.

But don’t misunderstand this point either. Sometimes so much damage is done as the relationship falls apart, that one or both halves of the couple simply cannot move past it. There may also have be serious structural changes happening that impede fixing things. Genuine apology is never a bad thing, but it’s also not a magical cure either.

That being said, I’ve seen MMSL work some impressive recoveries.

Explaining more… buy the book. Need support… join the forum.

Filed Under: Body Agenda and Sex Rank, Captain and First Officer, Cheating and Infidelity, The Male Action Plan (MAP)

How To Fair Warning a Husband That Doesn’t Listen (Before Things Are Too Late To Fix)

February 16, 2013 By Athol Kay 80 Comments

One of the common beliefs in the Manosphere is that men are calm, rational, thoughtful creatures, and that women are emotionally driven and irrational. The common word used to describe the pseudo rational verbiage to support the decisions of an emotionally irrational mindset is called The Female Rationalization Hamster. It’s where women manufacture all the crazy bitch parts of their personality.

It really is true. Women have a large part of their brains devoted to all these hamstering thoughts. It’s called a Neo-Cortex… which is obviously quite confusingly the same place men do all their calm, rational, thoughtful thinking too. I might have noticed it before now myself, except my hamster told me not to look too hard and not worry about it, because it probably makes better sense as a paradox.

Anyway…

Men clearly, just as women do, have massive hamsters capable of the most amazing rationalizing nonsense you can imagine. As soon as a guy gets a touch of Oneitis for a girl, his mind spins an endless whirlpool of her charms and finds reasons to love her even more. The guy that circles the hot girl as her Beta Orbiter, has a constant internal chatter… “Hovering about her forever and masturbating in secret is a fantastic plan that will pay off eventually.”

That whole thing where Nice Guys spin up covert contracts in their mind that their wife has no idea about? That whole contract was spun up into existence during a conversation between him and his hamster. “If I just do even more nice things for her, then she’ll have to fuck me won’t she!” “That’s exactly right!” said the hamster, “Pure genius!”

Anyone who has ever said, “No. I know my wife really well, she would never cheat on me”…. squeaky squeak squeakum. I’m totally serious on this one. There are some men who even in the face of some pretty blunt evidence, deny that their wife is involved with other men. As in really blunt evidence. As in “Dude, she left in a huff for three nights, she’s on the pill but there’s an empty box of condoms in her car, there’s thousands of text messages to a number you don’t know.”

Or how about the standard line of guys saying to themselves… “Look I know she’s married, she’s the one that wants to cheat on her husband. If I don’t sleep with her, some other guy will anyway.” “Exactly,” said the hamster, “you’re not a douchebag at all. In fact, you’re probably stabilizing the marriage and doing the husband a favor!”

And the most important one of all… “Only women have hamsters, men are the rational ones.” “Exactly!” said the hamster, “you can see on the MRI the tiny little walnut size of the female brain, and when you put a male in the MRI scanner… well… it’s just supermassive in comparison. Obviously two completely separate branches of evolution took place here.”

So… here’s where the husband’s hamster screws up the marriage…. and why the wife screws up her communication to the husband.

The only reason that really motivates a man to have an interest in a woman is sexual. I realize I’m painting with a broad brush here, I’m sure all you ladies reading have wonderful appealing personalities and whatever else it is you think you bring to the table. Trust me… your wonderful charming man that’s great with the kids… he married you for your pussy and that’s about it.

As long as he’s getting pussy from you… his hamster tells him he’s in a good relationship. Things are going great.

Now this is where the wives come in and screw it all up. Women talk about everything. Non stop. Endlessly. Continuously. Some of it’s good stuff, some of it’s bad stuff, there’s a lot of drama, a lot of emotion in there too. The wives Fitness Test and Loyalty Test and whine and nag and complain and recycle arguments from twelve years ago. Then they bring up something that happened five years ago, to another couple she knows, applies their situation to your relationship as a hypothetical scenario, which you fail to take seriously enough, which ruins a perfectly good ride home from her mother’s house.

After a few years of marriage, most men start experiencing the words coming out of their wife’s mouth as of form of white noise. It’s all just talk.

And there’s still sex once in a while, so… his hamster tells him he’s in a good relationship. Things are going great.

Then something happens with the wife and she finally stops being a whiny bitch and cuts back on the white noise.

And there’s still sex once in a while AND she’s stopped complaining, so… his hamster tells him he’s in a really awesome relationship. It’s never been this good.

Then on a perfectly normal Tuesday, everything explodes. Divorce papers / affair discovery / Restraining Order / she flees with the kids / something else really beyond the pale. Cue up the stunned and enraged husband…. “WWWHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?!!?!!?!?!?!?” “Exactly.” said the hamster shaking with liquid anger, “after everything he’s done for you over all these years. Suddenly I see you for the evil gold digging hypergamous whore that you are!”

For some reason I always hear the male hamster as being voiced by Steve Urkel. Try it. Say that line in your head in Urkel’s voice. “Why Laura… After everything I’ve done for you over all these years. Suddenly I see you for the evil gold digging hypergamous whore that you are!”

So ladies. Bless your hearts. I get that you were unhappy about things, but you were simply talking to a man you knew wasn’t listening to you. Then periodically you’d give him sex, and tell him by your actions that things were still okay. Then you nuked the entire relationship into the ground by you doing something totally over the top, and instead of trying to fix a relationship with your orginial problem set, now you’ve added a second set of issues and things are much worse.

So the real question is what works to get through to a husband that things are really NOT going well in the relationship. That you have a genuine, major and reasonable complaint that must be addressed. I’m not talking about dumb stuff like “The kitchen cabinets need refinishing”, I’m talking about stuff like, “It’s been five years of erectile dysfunction”, “We’re losing the house”, “You’re addicted to gambling.”

Well what does work are the really serious stuff like - divorce papers / affair discovery / Restraining Order / she flees with the kids / something else really beyond the pale. But those are all problematic and damaging… though do notice that they are all actions as opposed to talk. Saying “I want a divorce” carries next to no weight compared to being handed actual divorce paperwork to sign.

Some suggestions….

(1) Separate the bedrooms.

(2) Remove your wedding rings.

(3) Ask him to move out.

(4) Tell him that you are not in love with him anymore.

(5) Lock him 100% out of your online presence and communication devices.

(6) Have either his father or your father tell him you’re on the verge of leaving him. (Authority figure + not a “white noise” female talking)

(7) Tell him you are starting to consider sex with other men.

(8) Shouting out for myself, buy him the Primer and tell him to join the forum.

(9) Start running your own MAP and immediately hitting the gym and looking better.

(10) Investigate your state’s divorce / alimony / child support laws, and figure out the math on what he’d be likely to have to pay, based on a 50/50 custody agreement and non-combative parting of the ways. Give him the number.

I would also recommend doing several of those options in one heavy hitting strike. Your goal is to hit him so hard, that it bypasses his hamster and makes him sit up and take it seriously. Yet also that it’s a non-fatal blow that doesn’t then create additional problems to clean up. He’s meant to feel exactly like he heard a gunshot and felt the whistle of the bullet go right by his head. He’s meant to be freaked the hell out and start going into panic mode.

After that? Well I don’t know exactly what happens. He might pull his shit together, he might not. All I can say is most husbands when push comes to shove, really do want to fix things with their wife rather than call it quits… the odds of that being much better if she keeps the moral high-ground and he can see she was warning him out of loyalty and love, rather than cutting and running to another guy.

Men really do love their women.

Filed Under: Captain and First Officer, Cheating and Infidelity, Girl Game and Sexy Wives, Nice Guys and Betaization, The Male Action Plan (MAP)

The Elephant In The Room (Help Me, Help You)

February 14, 2013 By Athol Kay 107 Comments

Athol: I’ve now seen thousands of cases of struggling marriages, infidelity, near misses with cheating, sexless marriages, walk-a-way wives and sudden divorce drama. I really do mean thousands upon thousands. MMSL has had a busy three years.

As someone who has been part of the Manosphere and now slowing drifting mainstream, I have a rather disappointing realization. The core problem in the relationship is almost always the mans fault. Are there some really quite questionable laws slanted against men – yes. Is there a systematic miss-education about what makes up a good relationship – yes. Is the Manosphere basically right about everything…. yep pretty much. Once you dial down the rage and listen to the deeper messages, there’s not too much I disagree with.

But I gotta tell you, I’m starting to get tired of individual men not facing up to the truth about their active role in their failed relationship.

There are unquestionably a very small percentage of women who are evil, bait and switch golddigging cunts, who deserve to experience a poorly skilled plastic surgeon. But the truth is that most women who become wives, are all in once they marry. You have to actively do something wrong to mess that loyalty up. Do they still Fitness Test and generally whine that the house isn’t big enough… yes… but that’s what they are designed to do. This is normal female behavior. If you don’t want to hear occasional complaints about your income, marry an ugly chick.

Jennifer: Dear you should edit out “ugly chick”, you just lost 60% of your female audience.

Athol: But I can lead with “Everything is the man’s fault” and that’s okay? Wouldn’t that drive 60% of my male readers away?

Jennifer: You have a point.

Athol: I think you’re my sexist oppressor.

Jennifer: Don’t push it lol.

Athol: Anyway….

The hard truth is if you go long enough with the case history, every single time after the husband’s rage has died down… and it may take years for that to happen…. he makes an admission of a gross lapse of his judgment during the marriage. I really don’t mean a little tiny thing either, I mean something bad enough where you suddenly sit back in shock and can’t help but mentally re-evaluate him as 20 IQ points less smart. As in, “Holy crap dude, why didn’t you do something about that?” “Really? She told you about XYZ and you just ignored it?” ”She wrote you five letters about ABC?” “You had ED for how many years before she cheated?”

It’s the Elephant in the Room.

I’ve also several times now given appallingly bad advice because readers have withheld information from me. Some classic examples being not telling me about the abortion the husband asked the wife to get, erectile dysfunction spread over several years, endless job losses for poorly explained reasons, obvious mate guarding failure, swinging, bankruptcy, the husband’s own affair, medical issues and addictions. When someone tells me about their wife’s Batshit Crazy behavior for months on end, neglecting to tell me the whole time that just prior to the start of her Batshit Crazy behavior he had been caught with his pants down… I’m just going to give the dead wrong advice. Likewise if your wife leaves you for another man and then after six months of contact with me, you finally reveal that the other man was someone you’d done several threesomes with… ugh. Just ugh.

So here’s the deal. That thing that you really don’t want to come clean about. That thing that you don’t want anyone to know about. That’s the thing that’s fucking up your whole marriage. That’s the thing you need to face up to and get out into the open. MMSL isn’t going to be able to save your marriage, while you try and keep three tons of elephant droppings from seeing the light of day.

There have been a number of times where I have straight up told a husband to divorce his wife because of her [Totally Unacceptable Behavior], as in behavior so bad I’ve personally gotten angry and lost my temper simply reading about what she did. Then I’ve had to listen to the husband rather calmly tell me she was getting another chance because of [The Elephant in the Room].

Well maybe if you told me about [The Elephant in the Room] five months ago, maybe your wife’s [Totally Unacceptable Behavior] wouldn’t have happened. It’s almost like you planned it to happen… which is cool if you’re into that sort of thing, but please don’t drag me into email exchanges about it. And stop lying your ass off about how “I didn’t realize it was important.” You damn well know it’s important… you sure guard it’s knowledge from leaking out into conversation like it’s got fish hooks in your balls.

And to be 100% clear here. I’m not going to judge you for your problem. The only thing I care about is fixing your problem. As in if you’re a total porn addict, I’m not going to tell you you’re a horrible person that should be ashamed of yourself, I’m just going to tell you how to kick it and get on with a happy marriage. Everyone comes with a bag of trash to MMSL, no one is perfect, we all need help. I just can’t stand the lying and the time wasting trying to get your life sorted out.

So what I’m saying is help me, help you.

So tell the truth about The Elephant in the Room. That’s where you’re going to get 50% of your total progress from. Buy the book, and join the forum.

Filed Under: Cheating and Infidelity, Nice Guys and Betaization, The Male Action Plan (MAP)

Porn Addict Husband Turns Wife Down For Sex

February 13, 2013 By Athol Kay 28 Comments

Reader: I’ve spent over $3K on counseling (couple and separate)and read every Christian and secular marriage book and kinky sex tips website (not that I needed any) but your site has gave me more insight into what is actually happening in our relationship and how I feel and things I’m doing wrong.

So- my husband was an English teacher when we met, he didn’t graduate until he was 30yo, I had a fairly successful self employed career and was divorced with one kid. We dated for 10 months then accidentally got preg. I did not want or mean to get preg or married. We had 2 kids back to back, he was laid off from job and so I have been the only income for almost 3 years. He agreed to get a job once unemployment ran out- about 10 months ago. He’s not looking.

I know this because I put a tracker on our computer because we don’t have sex. It started out as 1 time a week and has moved to once a month. I figured early on it was because I was preg. Then I lost all the weight and initiated and told him I wanted wild crazy, loving, any kind of sex. I have heard every excuse in the world to its me, him, kids, job, etc. He had always looked at porn. That’s one reason I put the tracker on I couldn’t figure out why he didn’t want sex. I was never opposed to porn before, I was like that’s cool and that’s hot. Hell, I have offered 3somes for him. Anyway, he always lies about the porn, I will make it obvious that I’m taking off work and want one on one time and he will look at it before them and not be interested afterwards. This has happened countless times.

Ok- SR I think we are fairly equal. Not sure. He’s says I’m a 10 for my age-36 an an 8 for overall. I get hit on by hot fit 20yo. And women lol. I’ve been holding on for 4 years, last 2 are killing me. I need/ want sex/love with my husband and I want him to want me. He says he doesn’t. He is very beta acting in some ways and only alpha in a passive aggressive way. I have became alpha in my ways because who’s going to take care of things????

I also can’t trust him with $ because of gambling problem and just very irresponsible things like selling his car that I paid for for gambling debt or getting loans with no intention to pay back! I have realized that I have been extremely focused on my career and am trying to pull back and be a better beta wife in the way I talk and treat him. But I can’t live like this much longer. I haven’t had an affair but really want to just have that release and closeness with somebody. (To be wanted) All thoughts are appreciated and I appreciate cruel bluntness

Athol: Okay here’s the deal… you’re simply “talking to the addiction” rather than to him. Internet porn is like “rock concert loud” on the dopamine receptors in his brain and essentially deafens him to further stimulation… unless it’s also “rock concert loud”. So you offering him sex just isn’t “loud” enough to get through to him.

It’s very common for wives with porn addicted husbands to jump through all kinds of hoops trying to get his sexual attention – lingerie, toys, more porn, date nights yada yada yada… and getting still near zero response. Usually the wife gives up and then the husband just has zero impulse to break free of the porn further and it all cycles around again deeper and deeper.

The gambling and the porn use are also linked addictions. There’s sort of an addictive bubble where cutting back say on the porn, would suddenly make him want to gamble more… and cutting back on both… would make him want to do something else new and addictive. Both sex/porn and gambling are powered by dopamine and he needs crazy amounts of it to feel just normal. So there’s no easy solution where you just can talk him out of being addicted, you have to really take action and force him to make a decision to work on things.

Or in other words, you have to play things into a position where losing you is a bigger deal than losing the addiction. So you basically need to run the MAP toward an ultimatum where he dumps the addiction or you punt him. Basically right now he sounds fairly dependent on you, so a firm “Option A or B” dicussion with divorce papers on hand to sign for Option B might work very quickly. See Chapter 27 in the Primer for a run down on the approach. Porn addiction and an affair are dopamine powered so neurologically it’s not really all that different of a process you’re trying to break up.

Sounds harsh, but it’s about the only way to get there.

As a potential follow up to an Option A where he chooses to work on the marriage: I’m increasingly liking the idea of using Wellbutrin as a band-aid to get through the withdrawal phase of the addiction (and/or affair recovery for the cheating partner). The primary action being to increase dopamine and norepinephrine… thus supplying a controlled dose of what they got from the addictive behavior, without actually having to perform the addictive behavior itself. Wellbutrin also doesn’t cause sexual side effects and can even increase sexual function as well. Plus the norepinephrine can act as a kick in the pants energy boost.

Porn is an increasingly complicated issue. I personally don’t have a moral problem with it, but it does seem that there’s a crap ton of men (and women) that get addicted to internet porn. It’s all a good time until your dick starts failing to stand up straight in the presence of your wife. There is a link between excessive porn use and erectile dysfunction.

Also, come join the forum. I seem to be having a sudden influx of “Porn Widows”. http://marriedmansexlife.vanillaforums.com/

Also http://www.yourbrainonporn.com/ is an important resource.

Filed Under: Body Agenda and Sex Rank, Cheating and Infidelity, Nice Guys and Betaization, Sexual Health Issues, The Male Action Plan (MAP)

Wife Leaves For Other Man, Husband Doesn’t Cry Long…

January 26, 2013 By Athol Kay 60 Comments

I’ve had a *very* busy December. I mean crazy busy because so many of the relationships I was tracking suddenly seemed to intensify in the second half of December. I think the combination of Christmas parties and New Year’s Eve parties is almost like a “resolve the relationship” trigger. If there’s another man in the picture, she’s going to try to get to him on those special events. There’s alcohol and opportunity… and all those Emotional Affairs turn into Physical ones.

I’ve had some super salvaging of relationships in December. The husbands that have won have won big, but not everyone has won.

In January, it seems the December failures have all the shit hit the fan. In those cases wives are all leaving my guys that have been running the MAP faithfully.

But…

…the husbands are all starting to crack up laughing.

Let me explain that.

I’m 5 for 5 with the following pattern of guys who have been running the MAP and have had wives leave them in January.

At some point in 2012 the husband figured out all was not well in the marriage and sought out MMSL. They all started running the MAP and self-improving. They all had varying degrees of positive response from the wives. They started digging into the problems and sorting them out. But for one reason or another, the wife wasn’t interested in staying, and when the ultimatums came down… actually more often than not the ultimatum was triggered by the wife rather than the husband… she left the marriage.

So let’s be clear here – ALL of the husbands were very much trying to save the marriage. I’m talking 5 for 5 husbands have endlessly emailed me or been on the forum, actively trying to save the marriage and fix things with their wife. But despite best efforts, each one have been dumped and left.

But…

I am 5 for 5 for having those husbands get hit on by other women as soon as the wife is out of the picture. As in attractive other women. As in younger attractive women. As in… “Athol, I don’t understand why I was trying to save things with X anymore. I know I’m going to miss her, but being completely honest, I don’t think I want her back anymore.”

I’ve had so many emails and messages in the last month to the effect of, “My SBTX wife is 44, my new gf is 32.” The overall feeling husbands have about their wives is one of amused sorrow. They are more sorry for her that she’s fucked her own life and happiness up than anything else.

Or as a message today read…

“And good luck to her. OM is a total flake. Still living with his wife as they go through divorce. And his job is still on the line. Work wise I’m 2-3 levels above him. Even if they got together I give it 6 months max. Which means she is a forty something divorcee with four kids in the marketplace. And I’m me!”

So all in all, I’m kind of expecting about 4 of 5 of those same wives attempt to make their way “back home” at some point in 2013. Which has got to be a humiliating moment for them to admit they made a mistake. It’s also got to be a stomach churning moment to realize as a 44 year-old woman that to move back home, you’ve somehow got to outclass a 32 year-old that’s sleeping with your husband. Good luck with that.

So like I’ve said from the very beginning, there’s no magic bullet that makes the wife be into you, but if you run the MAP, there’s going to be a woman out there that will be into you. Plus I think the MAP approach of holding the moral high ground really matters in how attractive you are should she decide to bail on the marriage.

Being an attractive man, who did the right thing, and doesn’t turn fetal going…. “Whhhhhhhhhhhyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?!?!?” with snot pouring from your nose = a hot item.

Don’t misunderstand me here. To a man, the desire has been to fix things with the wife, but she didn’t buy in…

A good wife should have nothing to fear from her husband reading MMSL. But if she wants to go spread her legs for a douchebag… well… this is how it all ends for her.

Anyway… still working on the new book… but quite obviously the original one isn’t all that bad lol. Buy it on Amazon.

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

Divorce and Cheating Comes In Waves

January 14, 2013 By Athol Kay 34 Comments

For some strange reason there’s a distinct lack of cheating whores wanting to be friends with Jennifer….

…let me explain.

I now know of this situation happening with some degree of variance in four different sets of couples…

Anna and Alex are married. Brad and Brenda are married.

Anna tell tells Alex that Brenda is having an affair and cheating on Brad.

Alex is somewhat friends with Brad, but Anna swears him to secrecy. Alex complies and doesn’t tell Brad. Besides, how do you tell someone that they are being cheated on. So awkward.

Anna starts to get snippy with Alex over little stuff.

Anna starts telling Alex how annoyed she is with Brenda and how she’s changing and doesn’t like it.

Anna gets annoyed with Alex over lots of different things.

Anna tells Alex that Brenda is going balls deep with her OM.

Anna invites Brenda and Brad over. Alex extremely uncomfortable making small talk with Brad because he he knows what Brenda is up to. Alex says nothing.

Anna tells Alex how unhappy she is in the marriage and is considering moving out to figure herself out.

Alex begs Anna to stay, asks for counseling et al.

Anna agrees.

Magically the counselor suggests a separation.

Alex helps Anna find an apartment.

Alex waits patiently for Anna to find herself.

Anna finds herself in a variety of sexual positions with different men.

Alex cries alone in the dark and masturbates to the memory of Anna.

And so on and so on and so on…

Maybe it’s just me… but if I ever tell someone to blow the lid open on someone else’s affair, it’s also to protect them as much as anything. When your spouse throws that in front of you, your passive acceptance can be interpreted as weakness. If you’re weak to awkward… you’re weak to a great many things.

So maybe it’s my big mouth that doesn’t give a shit where the chips fall, that creates a whore avoidance field around Jennifer. Though it’s not like she attracts the Girl’s Night Out crowd in the first place.

And yes of course the cheater will be mad when you spill it. Fuck ‘em. They shouldn’t be whores and douchebags if you don’t want that coming around and hitting them in the ass. If they couldn’t shut their mouth or be discreet, they’re stupid, stupid, stupid.

And yes of course the cheated on person may not like you for telling them. Oh well, not like you could continue the friendship as it was, knowing they are being duped and always having to talk around the elephant in the womb.

And yes of course your partner will be mad when you spill it. Good. They won’t have any illusions what you’ll do if they ever cheat. Give them the heads up first of course. Real simple. “I can never let you think I won’t take strong action about cheating. If you didn’t want me to do something, you should never have told me.” They may not like it, but they will respect it.

Divorce and cheating comes in waves, you gotta stop it at the source.

Keep reading. Divorce is contagious, stop it at the sniffles.

Filed Under: Cheating and Infidelity, Nice Guys and Betaization