Monogamy and Marriage 2.0 | Married Man Sex Life

Why Wives Avoid Raincheck Sex With Their Husbands

November 7, 2012 By Athol Kay 34 Comments

A basic male complaint is that a wife routinely refusing sex with her husband, will come up with all sorts of nonsense to make sex not happen. This angers the husbands to no end.

The logic is pretty simple…

(1) We are married. (2) The purpose of being married together is to have a sexual relationship. (3) When you refuse me sex, you’re avoiding holding up your end of the bargain while I still have to earn money, fix the house and mow the lawn. Therefore, (4) you are a total bitch.

Makes perfect sense doesn’t it, but it still can’t be a correct understanding of the situation, because if the wife routinely seeks to avoid sex with her husband… it doesn’t explain why she does that.

Even worse is some nights she says she almost wants sex, but not quite, and then she offers him a raincheck of sex the next day. Then when the next day rolls around, she completely avoids sex yet again. This really pisses the husband off and makes her seem even more of a bitch.

So let’s come at it from a different angle….

Imagine you’re a husband and you watch your wife get all dressed up in some fairly revealing clothing and her best makeup job, to go for a Girl’s Night Out at a local bar. A bar noted for being a total sleazy meat market. When she leaves, you experience stomach churning dread that The Very Worst Thing In The World (TM) is going to happen. Some other dude is going to take his penis, put it in her vagina, and she’ll get pregnant to him. Thus making you a total failure in getting your genes spread into the future generations. Do. Not. Want.

Now imagine you’re a wife and your unattractive husband comes up to you and asks for sex. That would mean some repulsive loser is going to try and put his penis inside your vagina and you might get pregnant to him… which would be The Very Worst Thing In The World (TM) to happen to you. In would result in a crappy kid, who would likely fail to get your genes spread into future generations. Do. Not. Want.

That stomach churning dread she feels when her unattractive husband comes on to her, is the exact same reaction husbands have when she wants to disappear on a Girl’s Night Out.

This is why you can’t logically argue your wife into having more sex with her… because it would be from her point of view, completely illogical to have sex with you. In fact it would be pretty stupid of her on a biological level to risk it.

This is why when she offers “I’m too tired today, I’ll have sex with you tomorrow.” She never has any intention of having sex with you tomorrow. It’s just a ploy to get you to not have sex with her tonight.

Thus your solution isn’t to throw a fit, get in her face, or be threatening. Oh that can work, but it’s a very short term response as she’ll attempt to cut you back off as quickly as she can. The long term solution is to become attractive as you can be. The cockblock is you.

Now if you run the MAP and get in great shape, earn more money and generally get your crap together… objectively maxing out your attractiveness… if she then still turns you down, well then you can go back and apply the initial logic that sums out to her being a bitch that just isn’t into you. If your attractiveness is maxed out, there’s nothing more you can do to evoke her sexual interest in you anyway. So that’s the call it quits point. She just doesn’t want to have sex with you.

If you run the MAP and become as attractive as you can be, either she responds to you and sex starts back up, or she doesn’t because she never will… which leaves you at the peak of your attractiveness and far better able to find a new woman to love and want you. Either way you win. It’s just not a quick fix or easy. But it does work.

Buy the book. Get started today.

Filed Under: Body Agenda and Sex Rank, Cheating and Infidelity, Girl Game and Sexy Wives, Monogamy and Marriage 2.0, Nice Guys and Betaization, The Male Action Plan (MAP)

When You’d Rather Be Blue Pill

October 22, 2012 By Athol Kay 14 Comments

Reader: Athol, thanks again for all your help. A few questions for you. I understand the rules of isolate and escalate, and using your idea of “always be closing” I’ve been getting much more sex than ever before. I’ve ran the MAP as best i could (always a work in progress) and I’ve clearly stated my intentions to get more sex from my wife and she’s complied. But, she’s also mentioned “not wanting to make me mad” Im I attracting my wife, or threatening her?

The rejection in the past has been so bad that I feel justified in my request that things change. But theres this feeling that some of the times are just because she doesn’t want me upset. Is this the true reality of the red pill? And when, if ever, will I quit wishing for the blue pill? The “I just want to be loved for being me” feeling? The “I wish you were into me as much as I’m into you” feeling? Is my life revolving too much around our sex life now? Is resentment innate to the red pill? Thanks again

Athol: At some point we all feel a bit like this…

Yeah it can be hard when everything starts feeling like you’re working your marriage like a job. I think there’s a period that everyone goes through where it’s just grinding out some sort of change where you’re putting in the work, but not arriving at the results just yet.

What often seems to happen is that as the husband starts losing his oneitis for his wife, she starts falling for him more, while he struggles with continuing to care about her. Whoever loves the least in the relationship ends up controlling the relationship, so you’re experiencing that period of flux where you start caring less about her, than she cares about you. All of which is rather cold, but it seems to be a needed step in finding what works to keep the woman most interested in and sexually responsive to the man.

You simply can’t allow a situation where you are head over heels for her, while she is actively disinterested in you. But then if you reverse that, she wants you, but you’ve stopped wanting her and are having the hamster rolling around in your own head saying, “I’m not haaaaaaappy.” Neither situation is really what you want.

The end goal can’t be to kill all hope of oneitis and achieve a male Vulcan, female Human pairing. It’s okay as a short term phase, but not sustainable as a long term arrangement. You need an appropriate and mutual oneitis exchange. I have oneitis for Jennifer, she has oneitis for me. It’s all perfectly fine to have a rational understanding of the chemicals involved in the creation of human relationships, but understanding them doesn’t mean you don’t experience them as real.

Or more simply put; it’s really nice to be in love with someone who is in love with you.

The true desired balance is a mutual oneitis. You want to feel in love with her, you want her to feel in love with you, you both want to be holding up your end of the bargain as functional adults. The only solution then is that you both need to take the Red Pill and start having a conscious relationship. Both of you need to consciously attract the other and consciously create relationship comfort for the other.

This is in no small part why women are welcome at MMSL. When all is said and done, it’s all very well being able to Game your wife. What Red Pill men really crave though is a Red Pill woman Gaming them back…

…and making a conscious choice for a life of love.

I mean Cypher’s main problem was that Trinity was into Neo and not him. Beta Orbiter rage for the loss.

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

If I Was Single, Would I Bang Everyone?

October 13, 2012 By Athol Kay 26 Comments

Serenity: Yes, Athol, but I’m not talking about the woman’s perspective here. I’m talking about the man’s. Heck, being blunt…I’m talking about you as someone I’ve grown to respect. Okay, really over-stepping the bounds here, but do you feel this way? If single again, would you sleep with a million women just because you could? Would it really be no more than body parts to you?

Athol: It’s not over stepping bounds to ask.

If I lost Jennifer….

My Plan C: Okay this is kind of just a fantasy one lol. I’d run a free service as a sperm donor for infertile couples. Doing it the old fashioned way as the bull. The ovulating wives would get dropped off by their husbands, I’d bang them silly and then they’d leave all knocked up. Then I’d sell DVD’s of the whole studfucking thing online. I’d have to have good lawyers though lol.

My Plan B: I would run a soft harem approach. I’m not into a notch for a notches sake, but would escalate things very quickly if I was interested in someone and drop them to the bottom of the list if they weren’t terribly responsive.

No woman is just a body part to me. I love them, that’s why I’m so good with them. I mean if I liked having sex with them, why wouldn’t I keep doing it with them?

You also have to remember that I have a crazy high sex drive. I’m consciously and actively limiting myself to just Jennifer and that takes constant mental effort. I love her dearly and only my wife goggles for her makes it seem like that a deal worth making.

My Plan A: I would visit [late virgin forum member I've seen photos of] and see if there was chemistry there. I believe she would be loyal and worth the risk.

Importantly though, I’m so committed to Jennifer, that even in my fantasy where I have sex with other women, she has to die first and I have an appropriate grieving period before I go all cockzilla. That’s true love right there.

Jennifer: I think if either one of us dies the proposals will come thick and fast to the survivor.

Hmmm….

Filed Under: Captain and First Officer, Cheating and Infidelity, Monogamy and Marriage 2.0

What Your Partner Reading MMSL Really Means

September 30, 2012 By Athol Kay 16 Comments

So you either found your husband or wife reading MMSL, or they told you about it. If you’re mad as hell, or freaking out about it, this post is for you.

So…

(1) It’s okay to be mad. Being mad about finding my material in your spouse’s possession is a completely normal reaction. What you’re experiencing though is more properly called the “flight or fight” response, meaning you’re not so much angry, as you’re feeling threatened. MMSL covers some happy stuff and some very dark topics, so your first few glances at MMSL might truly freak you out as to what your partner is reading and planning to do.

(2) Your partner came to MMSL with a serious relationship concern. I don’t have some massive advertising campaign dragging in people off the street, your partner found me by sitting down in front of the computer and starting to search for an answer to their relationship concern. That problem pre-existed them looking for MMSL. If your partner came to MMSL, don’t kid yourself, you have a serious relationship issue happening right now.

(3) Good news. Your partner went looking for a solution to the problem online. Often the problem is sexual in nature and they went looking online, instead of simply searching out a more practical and immediate sexual experience with someone else. Your partner came here to research a solution and not to cheat or end things.

(4) If you’ve noticed recent positive improvements in your relationship, that may very well be related to your partner finding MMSL and applying the advice here. Your partner might also be acting more confident and self-assured. They also have probably started working out and are looking better too.

(5) Very often when people come looking for a solution to their relationship problem, the problem has existed for a while, but it’s the existence of a potential affair partner that brings it into a crisis point. MMSL has a very strong anti-cheating approach to working on your marriage. An affair just needlessly complicates recovering a marriage, and an affair typically implodes anyway during a divorce process. Very often MMSL readers detach themselves from potential affairs in favor of working on the marriage.

(6) The other thing that pushes relationships to a crisis point is one partner starting to give up on the marriage and start actively thinking about divorce. MMSL gives a plan of action to correct things. Likewise running the MAP slows the rush to divorce down and creates a plan of action to hopefully fix the relationship issue before divorce is seriously considered.

(7) Wives in particular tell their husbands about MMSL as a fair warning of impending doom. If you are such a husband you need to take her telling you about MMSL as the first, best and potentially last warning you will ever get from her that your marriage is in serious trouble. Often husbands are totally shocked when what they thought was a happy marriage is cut off at the kness by divorce paperwork, or discovery of her deep involvement with another man. Maybe 10-15% of wives give a seriously blunt statement of unhappiness to their husbands before taking dramatic action. If your wife tells you about MMSL, she’s giving you a gift.

So what to do now…

(1) You can read the blog in it’s entirety, starting back in January 2010, or the better option is to buy the MMSL Primer on Amazon and get all caught up in a day or so.

(2) Start talking with your partner about how bad, the “bad” really is.

(3) Join the forum. Hundreds of helpful people are there turning things around too.

(4) Start working out. If you’re in bad physical shape, fitness is going to be a major thing you need to work on over the coming months.

(5) If there is any hint of your partner having an inappropriate involvement, demand that they break off all contact with the other person. That’s absolutely critical to you fixing things for yourself.

A final warning…

MMSL is powerful. I know that sounds like I’m tooting my own horn, but it really is genuinely powerful. I’ve seen some remarkable turnarounds in relationships, so there is hope. I have also seen some relationships end as well. However, MMSL tends to be a polarizing influence, relationships get a lot better, or head toward resolution. So consider that you have a time limit to get yourself in motion.

We do better on the win column than the loss column though. A lot better.

And seriously, buy the book. It’s well worth it.

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

The Most Difficult Job In The World

September 22, 2012 By Athol Kay 81 Comments

Here’s the headline… Is ‘Opting Out’ The New American Dream For Working Women?

The short version: Women have started to figure out that it’s more fun and easier being at home than going to work. I mean it’s better for the kids yada yada yada, whatever… There’s started to be an actual shift out of the workforce, back to the home.

Here’s the most important part of the of the article. In fact we know it’s the most important part of the article because it’s the only thing they bolded in case men read it and didn’t know what was expected of them.

But it’s true: according to our survey, 84% of working women told ForbesWoman and TheBump that staying home to raise children is a financial luxury they aspire to.

What’s more, more than one in three resent their partner for not earning enough to make that dream a reality.

So let’s speak plainly. Huge numbers of women want to go back home and raise the kids and one in three Fitness Test their husbands into a sexless marriage because he can’t provide them with their dream in a down economy.

Look, I’m really torn by this. I think having someone at home is great if you can afford it, but if you turn one spouse into the financial dependant on the other, there’s significant risk in a no-fault divorce society of an unmitigated disaster in the future. After a divorce, no matter how you slice up one income between two households, there’s going to be a ton of pain to spread around. But at the same time, it’s a bit of a return to more traditional values and thinking. Family matters, relationships matter, kids do better with an adult around rather than a key under the mat and junk-food. Hell I work from home now and I can see how everyone looks a little happier.

The great risk is that the husband that encourages/caves/allows his wife to stay home with the kids for a decade or more, really is somewhat de facto adopting her financially. She’s become his dependant. If she then ”takes early retirement” and turns into a worthless house keeper, a crappy cook, a neglectful mother, mires herself in soap operas, trolls Facebook and even cheats on him… he’s got no easy options for fixing the situation. The minimum requirement for effort as a stay at home parent, is the threshold where the state decides it needs to remove the children from the house. So unless the state moves in, all the husband can do is choose between putting up with it, or divorcing and having his wallet removed through his rectum.

The nightmare / dream is this…

So anyway…

…here’s the deal. There’s not enough to do at home once the kids are in school to keep an adult properly occupied. There’s just not. Anyone who says otherwise doesn’t want you to know how great it is being at home. So they tell you it’s the most difficult job in the world. Plus if they have an IQ over 100 they just go stir-crazy from not seeing any other adults during the day other than the mailman.

As I’ve said many times, what a stay at home person needs to be, is a SAHM or SAHD “plus something”. What that plus something is, I don’t care, you just need some sort of productive activity that your spouse or any other person can look at and say, “Yep that’s actually something of value you’re doing.” Have a part-time job, take care of someone’s elderly parent that needs some kind of assistance, special needs kids majorly up the effort needed too, run the PTA, teach music on the weekend… seriously anything other than soap operas and Facebook. Get outside and walk around if nothing else, especially if you look like a bag of soccer balls.

The truth is many SAHMs are already SAHMs+Something, but some aren’t. You have to make very very sure of things before agreeing that a working wife should become a SAHM. It’s a very significant decision, right up there with getting married in the first place.

Also for women who want the SAHM route… you’re making a serious choice too. It’s not Marriage 1.0 anymore with copious alimony, it’s Marriage 2.0 with a lot of variance in alimony and child support. Even if you “win” the divorce and get cash and prizes, you’re still likely to have a very hard time of things financially if you can’t immediately start working. Doesn’t matter how you split one income over two households, it’s going to be worse than before. You may find yourself unable to extract yourself from a truly terrible marriage because you can’t afford it. Also assume that if you are divorced and you can’t find proper employment promptly, you’re going to have to consider finding a new male partner quickly, with his income being his most important feature. Which is to say, he might bring home the bacon, but not be someone you’re terribly into getting naked with. Blowjobs on the second date and all that. Welcome to Marriage 2.ho.

Oh and $1500 of Mary Kay cosmetics in the hall closet and you selling $40 of foundation to your mother doesn’t count as “plus something”. That’s called you wasting $1460.

Filed Under: Captain and First Officer, How To Choose A Wife, Monogamy and Marriage 2.0, Nice Guys and Betaization

Does Wanting To Have Sex With Other People Go Away?

September 20, 2012 By Athol Kay 16 Comments

Serenity: Let me ask you this since we’re being all open and honest and all…I know you’ve said that even though you love your wife, you’re still sometimes attracted to other women. Do you think that can ever change? I still have to fight that in myself. Is it possible to ever be so much in love with your spouse that you’re no longer attracted to others? It’s tiring sometimes to always have to shut your mind down.

Athol: Understanding how the three love systems work is helpful here.

(1) The basic “oh she’s hot” testosterone sex drive will never go away. A nice rack is a nice rack is a nice rack. Velly Nice. This one simply can’t be helped as long as you have testosterone and a pulse. I check out other women all the time. Not in a creepy hands doing something under my raincoat sort of way, more in a sort of a dirty anthropologist way. So if you happen to catch me checking you out, please just relax, the photos are for science.

(2) The pair bonding oxytocin/vasopressin system between Jennifer and myself is very strong. I can totally appreciate a stunning girl and have no impulse to live with her whatsoever. I really like Jennifer and she’s someone I trust and never want to hurt… non-consensually. Actually back up a little… I can totally appreciate a stunning girl and have no impulse to be her friend or trust her. Some of that is simply being 42 instead of 22 I think, but a lot is just being bonded to Jennifer. After having an orgasm with Jennifer I pretty much have an automatic nap that I have no control over, just the vasopressin pathways with a deep groove in my head.

So I’m horny and happy, and that’s all good. The potential trouble of the (1) system is handled by frequent sex and the (2) system. Being laid like tile really helps. I’ve had a couple of blindingly obvious offers for sex in the last few years (“oh nurse, can I show you something in private, I just want to know if it’s okay… how does THAT look?”) and turning them down was actually pretty easy, especially the guys.

My trouble… and likely your trouble too, comes from the third love system…

(3) Most couples have a higher desire person and a lower desire person. That’s simply in comparison to each other though, in our relationship, Jennifer is the low desire spouse, really only wanting sex for her own pleasure 5-6 times a week. If she was with a guy that only wanted sex 2-3 times a week, she’d be the high desire spouse.

So anyway, I’m the high desire spouse, and that desire is not just a sexual desire thing, but also an overall need for stimulation and attention. It’s a need for dopamine. Mix in my ADHD and I’m pretty much… pretty much…. okay fuck it I’ll say it, I’m the Crazy Bitch in the relationship.

Jennifer: Lmao, I would like to point out that he said it, I didn’t.

Anyway… I do get bored and understimulated and that’s where I go astray and get into trouble. It’s so easy for me to start chatting and flirting and BAM! I’m starting to emotionally engage with someone and I can feel myself starting to line up a set of crosshairs on them. I’m much, much better at recognizing when I’m doing it and breaking things off nowdays though. Awareness of what is happening on a dopamine level is really helpful in breaking things off. Whoever I’m talking to is simply not my soulmate or a special snowflake, they just emotionally feel that way. In reality she’s just some pleasant, attractive, interested in me woman, and everything in my head is lighting up on cue. Attraction isn’t controllable. But breaking it off early is. I’ve actually done really really well with this the last year.

The other half of the fix is understanding that it’s just a need for stimulation, there’s nothing whatsoever wrong with the relationship, me being bored doesn’t mean Jennifer sucks as a wife. Well she does suck the other way, but you know what I meant. It means I can just ask for stimulation from Jennifer. “Help I’m starting to feel nutty, I need X Y or Z tonight.” I used to meet that whole dopamine thing via World of Warcraft as a form of self-medication. Now I write the blog, swoop in to help marital crises yada yada, and ask for particularly intense sex acts.

I’ve given Jennifer near total information on what turns me on emotionally and sexually. Hell you guys can just read the blog and you’ll figure out 90% of what turns me on. It’s really not rocket science or mind reading to push my buttons. There are things that she can do that pull my attention onto her. If you ever hear that we divorce it will totally be Jennifer’s fault for not following the handy 57 page guide to my personal kink. RTFM.

What was the question again?

Oh. No, it doesn’t all vanish. Not if you’re basically high libido and have a pulse. But that doesn’t mean you’re eyeing the exit or standing at the window whimpering to be let out. All it is, is a need for stimulation that you have to pay attention to. I also get that it’s an effort to try and shut your mind down about other people sometimes, but the solution is to ask for help from your partner and clue them into what to do. You just need to have the conversation about “this is asking for help and working on our marriage” as opposed to “I’m threatening to cheat on you”. It’s completely possible to manage it forever… and have some amazing sexual experiences together ”managing it.”

Jennifer: All true. Athol is fun to live with… tiring lol, but fun.

Filed Under: Body Agenda and Sex Rank, Cheating and Infidelity, How To Choose A Wife, Monogamy and Marriage 2.0, Sexual Health Issues, Sexy Moves

Red Pill Do Us Start

September 13, 2012 By Athol Kay 28 Comments

AnonJohn: What would Red Pill Marriages Vows look/sound like?

I promise to have and to hold you, unless you get too big to hold?

In sickness and health, maybe, but definitely only in richer and not for poorer?

You’re my one and only unless you don’t give it up?

Does anyone have any real suggestions?

Athol: Well being completely Red Pill about this, the vows are meaningless because the actual legal agreement you’re making is whatever the marriage law is in your state. From ye olde achives… Dershowitz and Feinstein and the Legally Binding Threesome.

Jodi always kind of rolls her eyes a little at that. She just says that Connecticut is a No Fault divorce State, and basically anytime either one of us wants out she’ll be happy to tear up the marriage license and start deciding how to divide up half of everything. But we tell her “we made vows though”, she just sips her tea and says it’s all a verbal agreement and inadmissible in a court of law.

“In fact” she says, “you could have said nothing in that little church, or you could have said vows in Latin, Elvis could have been your best man, Joan of Arc the Maid of Honor and Moses could have done the service and it all wouldn’t matter any different.” She paused for effect… “you could have just sung Puff the Magic Dragon to each other for all I care. The marriage license is your consent to the marriage agreement as defined by Connecticut Marriage Law. That’s what your marriage agreement is.”

We look across at Dershowtiz and Feinstein. They look bored.

All that being said, it does kind of make having a get together to celebrate getting married a little awkward if you don’t hold hands and say something all sappy about getting married. Well maybe not sappy, but at least meaningful… marriage is a big committment after all.

So here’s a crack at something to say on your special day…

Do you both agree to have an exclusive, vibrant and engaged sexual relationship together? (We do)

Do you both agree to meet the other’s need for sexual consensuality and safety? (We do)

As each other’s only sexual partner, do you both agree to explore and experiment, seeking to discover and meet each others needs for variety and pleasure? (We do)

Do you both agree to love, support and nurture any children you have together? (We do)

Do you both agree to forgo the right to privacy from each other and allow each other full access to each others personal communications and whereabouts at any and all times? (We do)

Do you both agree to join your finances together, have full access to each others financial information and file your taxes together as a couple? (We do)

Do you both agree to allow to each other full access to medical information and act on any health concerns? (We do)

Do you both agree to commit yourself to maintaining good personal health, fitness and appearance? (We do)

Do you both agree to maintain a home, engage in productive work and be a positive force in each other’s lives? (We do)

Do you both agree to give each other a fair and documented warning of any potential relationship breaking problems? (We do)

Do you [Name] agree to act as the First Officer of the relationship, seeking to support, advise, respect and accept all else that entails? (I do)

Do you [Name] agree to act as the Captain of the relationship, seeking to lead, listen, appreciate and accept all else that entails? (I do)

Do you both love each other? (We do)

Anyway, that’s what I came up with this fine evening.

As off the cuff as this is, the future is going to be very interesting as this sort of thing becomes less and less of a playful concern, and the possibility of private contracts comes more and more into play. The more I wrote the more I wanted to write. It was a minor challenge to not start writing it out as a legal contract lol. I can certainly see that in the future, Marriage 3.0 might be far more of a “check the boxes for what you want to agree to” sort of deal. The legalities signed up for online via the Google Marriage app of something. Short term contracts might be a possibility too.

What I do know is this, though – men and women are still going to want to be in relationships with each other. The question is how that is managed as a society.

Filed Under: Captain and First Officer, How To Choose A Wife, Monogamy and Marriage 2.0

Do Not Take Me For Some Conjurer of Cheap Tricks

September 12, 2012 By Athol Kay 33 Comments

Some friendly disagreement about my post Why The “No Divorce” Belief Can Ruin Your Marriage from Vox and Simon. So let me just double up on my assertions.

Women are more attracted to men who can dump them and replace them at will, than men that cannot. Being able to dump her and move on to a new woman easily is heavy duty Alpha street cred and women are attracted to that. Totally removing divorce from the choice of options is a nerfing of the husbands Alpha. It’s a built in structural weakness to the regular Christian husbands ability to game his wife. It’s like you’re competing against guys running the 100m Dash while you run the 110m Hurdles.

Naturally of course a husband needs to bring Beta to the mix to reassure her that she’s not going to be dumped for no good reason, and to create overall relationship comfort. Plus to be quite blunt, I’m absolutely not in favor of frivolous divorce. Divorce is always, always, always the last resort… but sometimes you just gotta draw some total BS to a close and move on with your life.

The truth of the matter is that Christian women work just like every other woman. They get more attracted to a man who openly admits he would divorce them for slacking off for no reason, and lose attraction to a man who says that he would never divorce them for any reason. Every time you warble your unconditional love song, she eats another slice of cake. A confident man that can demand a woman be her best for him is hot. Couple that with him not demanding what she can’t reasonably do, and paying her affectionate attention, and you’ve got the sweet spot of married game.

The honest truth is that 99% of all Christian men come to me at their wits end, after everything else has failed for them and I am truly their last resort. I mean if you’re a Christian, coming to an Atheist for marriage advice must feel like asking Jamaicans for snow removal tips. So let me put it this way, having run MMSL for 2.5 years now, I’ve seen a cycle of interaction so often it’s now a cliche to me.

First the Christian husband finally reaches a breaking point with the combination of his belief and state of his marriage, and in an icy rage put divorce squarely back on the table. At that point I’m usually trying to slow their rush to divorce down… the first few days it’s usually a big victim puke session and I let them vent… and then they really start looking at Phase Three to Seven as being allowable and begin working toward it in earnest. (Which could take months or years depending on where they are at)

Then far more often than not… guess what happens…

“Magically” the wife turns herself around and starts paying him more respect, more attention, more deference and more sexy time. And that’s more sexy time after a very long time for a lot of these guys. The husband finally acting like he could potentially dump her and replace her, re-attracts her. Marriage saved, sex life restarted, kids growing up in an intact family, divorce lawyers eating Ramen noodles and missing car payments.

The truth of the matter is that MMSL has Christian women as my highest book buying demographic. I’m not kidding about that. They buy it for themselves, they buy it for their husbands, and their sons and brothers. They are turned on by the idea of being First Officers and being held to standards of behavior in exchange for compassionate leadership from their man. Let me repeat that… they are turned on by that.

Look I know if you’re a Christian reading this, it’s all utterly appalling to read and it just seems so totally wrong. Just believe me when I say I’ve seen it work over and over and over again. Where that fits or doesn’t fit into your theology or morals is up to you. As I keep saying, I don’t care what you believe, I’m not trying to make people Atheists, I’m just here to save marriages and help people. I only care about your religion as much as it gets in the way of me getting you back to a happy marriage, sex life, or whatever it is you want to happen.

I’m not trying to rob you. I’m trying to help you.

Filed Under: Alpha and Beta Male Traits, Captain and First Officer, Girl Game and Sexy Wives, Monogamy and Marriage 2.0, The Male Action Plan (MAP)

Why The “No Divorce” Belief Can Ruin Your Marriage

September 10, 2012 By Athol Kay 47 Comments

Okey-dokey, I gotta talk about this post on The Bible and Divorce over at Alpha Game.

And as my standard disclaimer when I talk about religious thought – I’m an ex-Christian and now an atheist so be advised. I don’t care about any particular belief about God / Jesus / The Flying Spaghetti Monster / The Star Goat of Thollian IV, my only interest in religion is how it affects your marriage for better or for worse. I’m not debating belief, just pointing out what I see. It’s up to you guys to figure out how well my thought meshes with your religion.

Anyway, here’s the original reader question…

My marriage is in bad shape. I have dug pretty thoroughly and do not believe there has been any actual sexual activity by my wife with anyone else. However, I have discovered other things that cause me to seriously doubt whether this marriage can ever rise to the level of mediocre. I now see her with eyes of contempt mixed with love (still). It’s a weird/unpleasant combination.

I would greatly appreciate your views on what are biblically solid grounds for divorce. I have come to the edge where I am about to prefer divorce over trying to rebuild/game up/man up/whatever. However, my preference does not matter if it violates God’s commands. I would rather suffer in obedience to God than seek pleasure in rebellion.

Minus the question of my view on biblical grounds for divorce, I hear this exact same question from a reader about twice a month. “I’ve tried everything, but I can’t divorce because I’m a Christian. What do I do?” So this isn’t an academic question to me, it’s a real world issue and I do my best to help out. Unfortunately the “no divorce” rule makes Christian men very resistant with doing what they need to do to fix their marriage. They always worry it’s going to crash and burn into a sinful divorce. So they play it far too safe and end up bringing a banana to the knife fight.

Here’s the key problem that Christians miss with their “no divorce” platform. Once you remove the possibility of divorce from the equation, there is no longer an effective consequence for what would otherwise be a genuine relationship breaking problem. Which means relationship breaking problems can never effectively be addressed and end up simply being tolerated. Oh sure you can beg and plead and pray and take her to the elders and they can frown at her yada yada yada, but that’s all just talk and making threatening gestures with the banana. Like she cares about that. Thus the “no divorce” platform can actually be a significant causal factor in a really shitty Christian marriage.

Let me explain…

Jennifer and I love each other a great deal and there’s not a whole lot we wouldn’t do for each other. But we both have a great deal of expectations about the other, that we know are simply deal breakers if broken/not met. For example, if I ever hit Jennifer in anger, I’m pretty damn sure that it’s over between us. No counseling, no thinking about it, I’m just a bit too big compared to her for her to ever relax around me again. It would be over. Jennifer can hit me once. I don’t know why that is, I think because if she ever hit me I would have earned it by not listening for way too long and generally being an asshat. But hit me twice and it’s over. Thus we have a standard of behavior and a serious consequence for breaking it. No hitting. End of discussion.

We also have an agreement that we’ll both work. Sure Jennifer and I slack off once in a while and do nothing, but that’s a rest after a long period of working. If that rest turned into a consistent pattern of one of us just slacking off and doing nothing much, that’s not going to be tolerated. We don’t have to be making a ton of money, we just can’t be permanently lazy. If lazy goes on for long enough, the other would start getting unpleasant about it. Ultimately if the other person downed tools and refused to pick them up, I don’t see that lasting much more than a couple months before divorce would be coming to the surface as a considered option. Thus we have a standard of behavior and a serious consequence for breaking it. We’ll both work and hold up our end of the marriage. End of discussion.

We also have an agreement that we’ll both stay basically attractive to each other and have a strong sex life. Jennifer knows that if she just lets herself go and/or stops being a fun sexual partner for me, I’m gonna head for the door. I also know that if I become a crappy sex partner for her, she’s not going to be able to be responsive to me the way I want her to be. I’m not going to reasonably expect her to be into me if I’ve let myself go, or if I’m cruel to her. So I treat her very well. Our marriage is a sexual relationship, that’s why we’re married. Thus we have a standard of behavior and a serious consequence for breaking it. Sexy Time is very important. End of discussion.

So our standards and willingness to enforce genuine relationship breaking issues with the ultimate consequence, means that we never actually develop those relationship breaking issues. Our willingness to divorce, averts divorce.

But, if Jennifer figured out that I would never, ever, under any circumstances divorce her because of my religious beliefs, that would allow her a lot more leeway on those standards of behavior. Maybe she could scream and yell in the kitchen about something. Maybe she could bounce a cup off my head on alternate Tuesdays. Maybe she could come home one day and tell me she just quit her job because it was all so tiring and made her unhappy. Maybe she could put on 100 pounds. Maybe she could cut me back to once a month sex. Maybe she could take all the money and go shopping for cute outfits for her little purse dog. Or maybe she could buy $1500 of Mary Kay cosmetics to “start her business” and only sell $40 worth to her mother.

Or based on the emails I get… she could do all of that at once.

Because I would never be allowed to divorce, can you see how I’m screwed? I can’t really do anything to stop myself from being trapped in this horrible marriage. I mean what I am going to do? Ground her? Be mad? Sure I can make myself look sexier and all hot, but that’s no threat if I can’t leave her and hook up with someone else. I’d have to just stick it out and love her unconditionally.

Do. Not. Want.

See how blindly being on the “no divorce” platform can ruin your marriage?

So let me come around at this from a different angle to hopefully help my Christian friends understand this better. The original guy’s key statement is this…

“I would rather suffer in obedience to God than seek pleasure in rebellion.”

Dude you have it backwards. As the Captain of the household, you are responsible for the safety, well being, happiness, and overall functionality of your household. Complaining that your wife is crappy isn’t very Captainy. My hunch is that your actual problem is that you’ve been asleep at the switch for the longest time, too frightened to actually stand up for yourself. You’ve been without effective demands for some basic standards of behavior and she’s just run riot on you. Your whole marriage is like trample porn without the nudity.* Whether you want to admit it or not, she’s always looked to you to act like the Captain. It’s not 100% her fault that you’re in this pickle. Some of it is her fault, but some of it is yours… and because the Captain is always more responsible than the First Officer, it’s more your fault than hers. The Captain is last off the ship and doesn’t ask for a legal loophole to allow him to be first to the lifeboats. That’s what being the Captain means.

Or put in Christanese… you’ve been disobedient to God the whole time you haven’t been taking responsibility for your marriage. You’re in rebellion now.

And yeah I know what Jesus said, but he wasn’t giving advice in a Marriage 2.0 world was he. Maybe he would have said something different if the wives could call the Roman soldiers in to arrest their husbands for not appreciating the meatloaf appropriately. As it was, a divorced woman in Jesus’s time was pretty much going to have to learn to turn tricks, which literally sucks… so I’m with JC on that one.

So my advice is pretty simple, put things right. Both in you and in her. Set some standards for behavior for each other. Allow time for everything to work itself out and change direction, there are no instant fixes with marriages, but you can greatly improve things. If you put in the proper effort with the right attitude, you have a reasonable chance of making things better. If you do all the right things and she proves herself to be utterly defiant and unwilling to hold up her end of the marriage agreement, that’s her choice to make and you may as well accept it. If so, then just let her go and be Gods plan for feral cat colony management.

Jennifer: The whole no divorce thing is important because you can’t over react to every little thing and reach for the divorce button. I don’t worry Athol would ever leave me for something silly, but there’s plenty that can go wrong in a marriage that isn’t cheating. We respect each other.

* No offense intended to believers of The Star Goat of Thollian IV

Filed Under: Captain and First Officer, Girl Game and Sexy Wives, How To Choose A Wife, Monogamy and Marriage 2.0, Nice Guys and Betaization, The Male Action Plan (MAP)

The New Life, Wife and Masculine Style

September 6, 2012 By Athol Kay 19 Comments

Athol: One of the things I’m clear about with MMSL is that if you run the MAP, there’s not a 100% chance your wife will respond positively to your efforts. All I say is that if you pull yourself together, someone will respond to you. Which is why Phase Seven is called “Your new life… and maybe new wife.”

So here’s Tanner Guzy, one of my blog friends from a few years back, who went all the way to Phase Seven and lived to tell the tale…

Athol: What brought you to seek MMSL?

Tanner: My foray into the Manosphere was probably fairly typical. I’ve read GQ and Esquire for a while and happened to see a link on Esquire’s page to the Art of Manliness. I devoured that site when I first found it and was pretty active in the comments and the forum. One day there was a comment by some kid that really struck home for me. I don’t know what he said or even who the (now defunct) blogger was but I followed his profile to his own site. From there I found Hawaiian Libertarian and the whole Manosphere opened up to me. Being married and a Mormon I could see the truth in a lot of what guys like Roissy and Roosh talked about but I wanted a better understanding of how it could apply to me. Dave from HL was married and had some good posts and thankfully he also linked to MMSL. It was nice to see a site that had already done the legwork of converting Game into a marriage-friendly concept.

Athol: How did MMSL help with your first wife?

Tanner: It would be a lie to say that MMSL, Game, and the MAP didn’t help with my first wife. However, there was more of an impact on me than there was on my marriage. I was able to start improving myself and implementing small things; setting better boundaries, not falling for every fitness test, and keeping a better frame. However, where it really helped was in letting me realize that the success or failure of my marriage wasn’t entirely my responsibility. I grew up in a culture that emphasizes the responsibility of manhood and the man in the marriage. Unfortunately, the culture of Mormons (especially in Utah) is about equidistant behind the rest of Christianity as the rest of Christianity is with the rest of Western Society. Basically, it’s still a doctrinally patriarchal church, but the culture is seeking more and more ways to rationalize those uncomfortable truths. This put me in a pickle because it meant that divorce was always the wrong answer. Now I know that’s not the case and there are even times when God will allow divorce in order to allow parties to move on and prepare better environments for their future children.

Athol: So having come to the point of divorce, what did you do?

Tanner: Making the decision to file for divorce was incredibly difficult. What’s difficult about it now is telling it in a way that doesn’t sound cold or calculated. There was one night about four months before I actually committed to file where my wife and I had some sort of petty argument. I left to go to a friend’s house and when I came back she was gone. She sent me a text message informing me that she’d be at her parents’ until further notice. It ended up being a full week without any contact. The sad thing was about two days in I had gotten home from work and was sitting on the couch with my dog. I realized that the house was cleaner than it had been for months because I was cleaning it myself, my dog was more relaxed than he’d been since we got him, and I was more comfortable and happy than I’d been at any point in our four-year relationship. I hated that feeling. I didn’t want to be happier with my wife gone. I wanted to be happy with her. I wanted to be relaxed with her and feel like my home was a safe haven from the battle ground that is the outside world. But it wasn’t. That week was when I really started considering divorce as an option and decided I’d put it on the table.

I spent countless hours fasting and praying trying to make the right decision. We saw a counselor and I kept implementing more of what I learned from reading the MAP and other sites. I started looking deeper into the doctrines of the Church and what its official, not cultural, position on marriage was. Every day it seemed like I came to a different conclusion until finally I realized that all my wife’s attempts to improve things were really just a token effort. She never really accepted responsibility for her part in our failed relationship and continued to expect me to be the one to make all the real sacrifices to make it work. Eventually we both realized (me before filing and her long after) that for years we had only been married and working on our marriage, it had nothing to do with each other. The final thing that made the decision for me was the thought of bringing children into that family. I was willing to accept responsibility for the decision I had made to marry, but I wasn’t willing to subject my children and her children to that just because we were too proud or too scared to split up before they arrived. So, after four long, miserable months I decided to file and end things.

Athol: What’s different about your new marriage?

Tanner: The differences between my first and second marriage are night and day. I’m the king of my castle and my wife actually gets treated better than any woman I’ve ever been with, even in my bluest of blue-pill days. The big difference is that I’m good to her and she’s good to me out of a sense of love and mutual respect. It’s very similar to what you and Jennifer have. With my first wife, any expression of love or affection was like paying taxes – I did it because I knew there’d be hell to pay if I didn’t. But now, it’s like donating to charity, I give up something of myself because I want to.

On top of how differently I treat my wife, I also expect that same treatment from her. I’m quick to compliment and I’m quick to correct if I need to. The great thing is how much my wife loves and appreciates me for it. She looks up to me and respects my opinion. She also knows that I listen to her and her opinion even when I make a decision that is counter to her. She trusts me because I expect that trust, not because I’m supplicating and asking her how I can earn it. She loves me because I’m actually attractive to her. While we may talk about what does or doesn’t work in the bedroom, we don’t have to talk about what I can do to get her going or why she just can’t feel sexy when the dishes aren’t done and other things like that. Having a marriage that’s based in proper gender roles makes things easier and happier for the both of us. It’s not one of us being happy at the expense of the other.

Athol: Tell me about Masculine Style.

Tanner: Masculine Style is a blog I started almost a year ago to help red-pill men learn how to dress better. There are dozens of men’s style blogs and magazines out there but they’re all tough to read because of the way they write and appeal to men. One thing that can be hard about taking the red pill is learning to still read and accept the opinions of those who haven’t. When it comes to things like sentence structure, content choice, and reasons to dress well, it’s difficult to read a lot of other sites. Dressing better is also one of the easiest and most neglected aspects of the MAP (you’ve even admitted to this yourself). However, the reason it’s so difficult is because the decline in societal masculinity has also effected a major decline in men’s conscious concern for their appearance. It’s something that the Baby Boomers and younger generations feel like they can’t vocalize any real concern for and so many of us grew up without dads or other mentors teaching us the fundamentals of dressing better.

What started as just a blog has turned into a consulting business. My wife and I just had our first child and she wanted to stay home. So I needed to figure out a way to earn some extra income. On top of that, I wanted to be able to transition into doing something I love. I was more than just a little bit envious when I found out you were to the point where you could do MMSL full time.

So now I’m offering different consultations for men. They can be as basic as telling you what colors and patterns will look best on you based on your build and complexion, or as complex as helping someone with a budget of 12 grand choose every article of clothing that will work in two different climates. Whatever help a man needs and whatever unique situation he’s in, I can help him dress better and increase his sex rank as a result.

Athol: And for the record, I’m not getting paid anything by Tanner, just giving him a wee push for his new project… and quietly grooming my style minion in case there’s ever a reality show or something. Ya never know lol. (And no nothing is in the works.)

Also, Tanner took the high road in talking about his ex-wife. This wasn’t a walkaway husband for no reason and lets leave it at that. If the best revenge is living well, I think he’s got a good handle on it.

Oh and a pic of the happy couple. She’s three weeks post-partum in the picture, so play nice kiddies. (Jennifer: Ummm…if I’d looked that happy and fit three weeks post partum, I would have thrown myself a party lol)

Filed Under: Captain and First Officer, How To Choose A Wife, Monogamy and Marriage 2.0, Sexy Moves, The Male Action Plan (MAP)