The Male Action Plan (MAP) | Married Man Sex Life

Covert Contracts vs. The Princess Fiona Plan

April 23, 2013 By Athol Kay 14 Comments

Matt266: So @Athol_Kay talks about Shrek, Donkey Princess Fiona Plan in the book. One thing I don’t understand is he says that Jennifer gets Princess Fiona preference, fine. But then he goes on to say, if I rescue the princess I bang the princess. Isn’t this a covert contract? ie. if I do this for wife then she gives me sex.

Please set me straight, just trying to learn!

Athol: Okay… so the original Shrek-Fiona-Donkey post is here. The TL:DR version being, I’m framing myself as Shrek, and making the women in my life fall in either the Princess Fiona or Donkey categories. I willingly do a lot of nice stuff for a Princess Fiona, but we also have an intense sexual connection, and Donkeys I don’t have a sexual relationship with… and they are their own beasts of burden.

Jennifer is the only woman in my life on the Princess Fiona Plan. I’d usually make some kind of joke about her frowning on other women or something after saying something like that, but it actually felt oddly peaceful to say that. Huh.

Anyway…

A covert contract would be where you decided to do a whole bunch of nice stuff for a woman, and then had an unstated expectation of sexual payment for services rendered. Typically sexual payment doesn’t happen anyway and then you get mad because you did all this stuff and didn’t get paid… which isn’t fair! Meanwhile she thinks it isn’t fair that you suddenly sprung your cock into the mix like a bill collector.

What I’m doing with Shrek-Fiona-Donkey is making an overt contract. Jennifer and I both understand and agree to the arrangement. I do X and I get Y. She gives Y and she gets X. It’s a fair exchange.

A covert contract is like when you stop at a red light and some homeless guy with a bucket and sponge starts washing your windshield, then holds out his hand for money.

An overt contract is like when you go to the car wash and pay for a car wash.

So the point of Princess Fiona vs. Donkey is to clarify in your mind, what your relationship is.

(1) A sexual relationship in which you’re all in.

(2) A non-sexual relationship in which you’re not assuming any special services.

I just clear it up ahead of time what it is going to be. There’s no point wasting your entire Saturday helping a girl you’re interested in, only to discover she has no interest in you beyond your labor assistance. If you’re going to end up masturbating no matter what… well you may as well just enjoy Saturday doing what you want to do.

Filed Under: Girl Game and Sexy Wives, How To Choose A Wife, Instigate Isolate and Escalate, Nice Guys and Betaization, Sexy Moves, The Male Action Plan (MAP)

Violence Never Gets Better Until You Bump Back

April 21, 2013 By Athol Kay 46 Comments

The one minute drill on my high school in New Zealand in 1983… All boys school. Each year had classes streamed in order from highest to lowest of academic potential… i.e. smartest kids in the top class with electives like physics, economics, accounting and languages… and dumbest kids in the lowest class with electives like woodshop and thuggery. Middle school in NZ tends to be two years long – Form One and Two. High school is five years long – Forms Three through Seven.

So when you start high school, you start in Form Three… aka… Third Form… aka Turd Form.

Which makes you… a turd.

Anyway…

I was in class S3A… the top class of the nine Third Form classes. I say this to brag and to explain what comes next.

Being in the top class means expectations are high… and every single one of my six teachers gave us the “Welcome to high school, we’re going to break your will to live” supply of homework.

I mean a ridiculous amount of homework.

I remember going home and starting on all this homework and by some time past 10pm I had completed five of the six classes of homework and I just gave up in frustration and exhaustion. I just couldn’t do my science homework. It was just impossible to get it all done.

Turns out skipping the science homework was a bad choice.

Me and another five other boys, were taken out into the hall by Mr. Renyolds and caned.

Now in fairness, mum and dad had collected me for a spanking once in a while, so the concept of physical punishment wasn’t beyond my experience, but I’d always at least done something wrong related to whatever was coming. But I’d never been physically punished in school. I’d seen and heard the greatly feared the strap at St. Marks, but it was always someone else who deserved it. Except for that one time there was no teacher in the class for ages and we all got noisy and Mr. Huckleberry the Assistant Headmaster burst into the room and just bitchslapped poor Fortios for the crime of being the one sitting closest to the door… SLAP!

Thirty intakes of breath followed by the most. awkward. silence. ever.

Mr. Huckleberry kind of stammered out an apology “I shouldn’t have done that” and quickly left the class.

As far as I know, no one said anything to anyone. I don’t think a parent was told. I don’t think a teacher was told. The next day it was like nothing had happened.

No one told.

Oh… yeah… missed my science homework, lined up outside, bend over and touch your toes.

Mr. Renyolds coming down the line…

Crack! Five boys left.

Well I guess science was the wrong one to miss.

Crack! Four boys left.

This is so unfair, there was no way to do all that homework.

Crack! Three boys left.

I can’t believe this is happening to me.

Crack! Two boys left.

Holy fuck I have to do this.

Crack!

Fuck you ,you fucking asshole. Fuck you forever. I fucking hate you and I hope you fucking die like a fucking fuck.

Then I went back inside and we had science class.

Now…

Let me explain what I would have done differently if I could go back and relive that moment…

I’d hit him back. As hard as I could.

Remember, I’d be twelve years old at that point, 90 pounds soaking wet, like 4’10″ or something, facing off a grown man with a six foot long cane. I’m not actually a threat to him.

But I don’t have to win. I just have to prove I’m always going to hit back, no matter what, no matter the odds, everytime like a crazy motherfucker who doesn’t give a shit. Tit for tat baby. You do X, don’t wonder Y.

You see if I’d done that, I wouldn’t have spent the next four years of my life being the target for bullies. That finished with me getting clubbed in the face with a cricket bat and having to actually have a fistfight to defend myself during english class. A fight I actually lost… but I never was directly picked on again. Because I finally hit back.

So…

Why am I telling you all this?

Well maybe I’m cynical, but I think violence is the most awesome problem solving tool. Hitting someone beats talk every. single. time.

You simply cannot have a rational debate with someone who is prepared to be violent, when they know you aren’t prepared to be violent. Your options are either verbal agreement to what they want, or getting hit. It’s a fabulous behavioral modification tool. Mr. Renyolds was an asshole, but I never did miss an assignment after that.

There are only two solutions to dealing with violent people you’re in a permanent relationship with. (1) Smashing them back harder than they can hit you, or at least making the situation risky enough that they figure you aren’t worth the effort and they move on to a softer target, or (2) having outside use of force come and do it for you.

i.e. have the cops come in and cuff them, cart them away and have the law, courts and jails do what they have to.

I really do mean call the cops and make a report. If someone wants to use violence as a tool, greater use of force is the only thing that they understand. I’ve had to deal with psychotic patients in community settings and it’s utterly remarkable how quickly they stop wanting to beat on their roommates and smash windows as soon as the police arrive. There’s just something about a tazer that makes most crazy people instantly polite and cooperative. I’ve also seen remarkable long term behavioral improvements after court appearances, dwarfing the effects of medications and other behavioral programming.

This simply isn’t a gender issue either. If you’re being hit, you’re being hit. The main difference between men and women being violent is when push really comes to shove, women have to weaponize or do it while the husband is sleeping. Not advising things here, just stating the obvious.

Should a situation become unsafe, start videoing them, dial 911 and defend yourself / get to as safe a location as you can. Your safety is always your priority over what happens to them when the police arrive. Violent people simply don’t stop using violence as a solution if it’s getting them what they want. They only become progressively more violent until you get greater force involved to stop them. This is why police, courts, laws and jails exist…so we don’t all get caught up in a game of He Dead, She Dead.

Or even more cynically in the vein of “screenshot or it didn’t happen”.

Make a police report or it didn’t happen.

Mr. Huckleberry never hit Fortios because no one said anything.

Catching up… New Zealand did make corporal punishment in schools illegal in 1984, so I got my caning… er… just in time.

As to Mr. Renyolds… I don’t know, I transfered to another high school for a fresh start for Seventh Form. Something I’m grateful to my parents for. I did hear a rumor that during that year one of the boys collected Mr. Renyolds with a one punch KO in the hall. Don’t know who did it… but thanks.

Filed Under: Alpha and Beta Male Traits, Body Agenda and Sex Rank, Humor and Everything Else, The Male Action Plan (MAP)

Why When They Finally Act Right… It Pisses You Off

April 16, 2013 By Athol Kay 9 Comments

Forum question…

Reader: For those who have issued a for-real A or B ultimatum: have you experienced lingering resentment? Either from your spouse (“remember that time you told me you’d divorce me if I didn’t give you BJs?”) or within yourself (“I can’t believe he was only willing to work on our marriage when I threatened to leave him!”).

I’m just wondering how this goes.

Athol: It’s fairly normal to have a wave of anger hit you when they “finally” start acting right.

The longer it’s had to build up, the bigger the wave of anger is. It’s pretty much along the lines of “Why did I have to threaten you with divorce before you started start acting right? Now that you’re acting right, I can see that you had it in you the WHOLE TIME to act right and that pisses me the hell off!”

I see it a lot in the wives who finally see their husband acting Alpha and attractive… and then she suddenly flips out and nukes. Often it’s just as he’s getting his crap together and really feeling a sense of inner Alpha too. It can cause a terrible mixed message as it turns into a punishment for good behavior and it can undo a lot of positive progress made as the natural inclination is to throw his hands up and say, “What the fuck do you want lady?!?!” and quit trying.

As long as they are acting right, you kinda have to let the anger go. It’s not unhelpful to actually say that you’re experiencing a wave of anger about the situation, but refuse to go on the offensive about it.

i.e. “I know you’re doing exactly what I’ve asked of you, but at this moment I’m actually experiencing anger that it’s taken so long to have that happen. I’m not mad about what you’re doing *now*, I’m angry about what you did *then*.”

Also the further down the MAP Phases you’ve had to go, the more anger and frustration you’ve experienced, so the bigger the blow back anger is going to be when they finally start behaving properly.

They of course will always resent you putting them in a position where they have to change or lose you. People always resist difficult changes and personal growth. But the truth is, most of them aren’t happy about their situation either, so if you can get them to a position where the marriage is much better, they’ll be happier too… and embarrassed by what you had to put them through for them to finally start acting right.

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

The Best Revenge Is Living Well

April 14, 2013 By Athol Kay 10 Comments

Reader: I’m ashamed to admit that my ex and his wife were on national television recently, and they both looked pretty bad, and the fact that they looked bad made me really, really happy.

They were on a national news human interest feature. I thought my ex’s wife (I call her my wife-in-law) looked awful. She looked chubby and tired and puffy and she didn’t smile once. My ex looked grubby and sloppy and not attractive at all.

I have been trying to cultivate a general attitude of acceptance and contentment. It bothers me a little bit that it made me really, really happy to see them both looking bad on national tv.

Athol: Nah just enjoy it. Everyone loves to discover they were the winning ticket. The best revenge is living well. If you run your MAP you’ll end up looking great over the long term and leave them behind in your dust. It’s perfectly fine to use a little “fuck you” as motivation once in a while too. It seems better at getting that one last rep done with the heavy weights compared to thoughts of butterlies and inner peace.

I remember having one of those friend of a friend suggestions on Facebook a while back. *Pop* and there’s a photo of ultra-crush-from-way-back staring at me on the computer. She hasn’t aged well. I’m not saying she needs a paper bag over her head or anything like that, I’m just saying @Jen_Kay uses the stair climber machines at the gym. That’s all I’m saying.

It’s a really good feeling. LMAO it’s sooooo good.

Filed Under: Body Agenda and Sex Rank, Girl Game and Sexy Wives, Sexy Moves, The Male Action Plan (MAP)

Positive and Productive

April 10, 2013 By Athol Kay 8 Comments

Psychology Today…

The idea that “venting” anger has a beneficial cathartic effect is well entrenched in modern culture. Belief in the value of venting has manifested in the online world in the form of “rant” sites (e.g. Rant Rampage) where people not only get to freely express their vitriol, they can also read and comment on rants left by other venters. However, decades of research have shown that venting, far from releasing anger, actually makes it worse. Not surprisingly, a recent study has shown that online ranting seems to increase anger and is associated with anger-related problems. Ranting may be problematic because it associated anger with aggressive behaviour. On the other hand, expressing anger in a constructive and non-aggressive way can actually be beneficial.

So…

I totally get that bad shit can happen in your life. But ultimately, having a screaming fit about anything never fixes the problem… and it can make things worse.

The have been a couple of times in our marriage where I’ve gotten extremely angry with Jennifer and as much as humanly possible during those moments, I’ve shut my mouth until I could talk like a rational person. In the most serious ones I’ve simply taken space from her until I could calm down. I’m not naturally a ball of anger, so my calm down period is usually fairly short, your mileage may vary. All in all, screaming some toxic venom at your partner is just creating a second problem other than the one that made you angry.

You’re always going to be better off over the long term, finding a productive and positive solution to your actual problem, rather than simply complaining about it. Talking to others who can keep you on track is very helpful too.

Come join the forum. Get the free forum booklet. Buy the Primer. Get started. Whatever it is, it can’t be that bad.

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

Energy Sets and Unintentional Benefits of MMSL

April 5, 2013 By Athol Kay 14 Comments

Obviously I’ve been writing with the goal of fixing sex lives and repairing marriages, but one of the striking things about MMSL is that so often I get reports of fairly unrelated benefits from having run the MAP. The biggest and most obvious one I hear is weight loss. All I’ve said is “get to the gym” and people report back all kinds of weight loss and improved body shape. If I was running a weight loss program I’d probably be boasting about average pounds lost or something. I mean some people really do report back with 80+ pound losses.

I also hear a lot of “things got a lot better at work” and “the kids behave better now”.

The truth is that I tend to see a lot of things as a sort of “energy set” where multiple things are kinda crappy throughout someone’s life. House kept crappy, relationship crappy, job prospects crappy, fat… that’s a set that goes together. Then as one thing gets resolved for the better, eventually everything else gets easier to manage too. Eventually everything steps up to a higher set of energy. Like stepping up to… house tidy and repaired, relationship good, job better, in good shape.

Almost everything I teach boils down to having a high and positive energy. High energy is sexy. Half the reason I tell people to work out is just so they feel better and more positive about themselves.

I’m curious. Apart from more / better sex, how has MMSL helped you? Have you seen that pattern of low energy sets changing into higher energy ones?

Filed Under: Body Agenda and Sex Rank, Sexual Health Issues, The Male Action Plan (MAP)

There is No Female Action Plan

April 4, 2013 By Athol Kay 26 Comments

A mildly disjointed collection of rantings trying to bitchslap the proper understanding of what running the MAP is, into the minds of the wives on the forum. Somehow there’s this understanding that the Red Pill is in fact pink, and all they need to do is grow long hair, put on some lipstick, fall on their backs with their legs apart, and their Alpha Prince will cum.

Except all that happens when they do that is their fat, underemployed ManBetaPig just enjoys the sex and then lights up a joint and plays Diablo 3 for five hours. I exaggerate to be sure, but that’s the essential problem.

So… ranting…

There is no “FAP”

The only difference between what a man needs to be doing and what a woman needs to be doing is what creates a dopamine response in the opposite sex.

Male Alpha = more dominance, power, strength

Female Alpha = more flirty, girly appearance

That’s about it.

If you’re a female running the MAP, you should have men other than your husband throwing IOI’s at you. If you don’t, you’re not yet in Phase Three.

Why the “default yes” is a bad thing

It’s basically like dumping three tons of fish into the dolphin tank at SeaWorld and wondering why the dolphins are no longer interested in doing any tricks.

If your wife is into you, she doesn’t need a rule to want to fuck you.

Serendipity gets it

Serendipity: Yeah I learned the hard way that sex = everything is fine, but even when he wasn’t getting sex he didn’t seem to care and just gave up. MMSL helped me understand WHY I didn’t want sex with my husband for so long when early on in the relationship I definitely did. I couldn’t understand what changed and lack of sex was something my husband complained about forever and I always thought it was the kids, being tired or whatever it was. Now I know why.

So despite my FAP I had to add in an ultimatum because there was some medical involved (anxiety/depression) and possible porn addiction (since deleted and seems done with). If anything the FAP, some therapy and this site just really made me realize what my worth really is and that I was/am doing everything to fix my marriage and relationship. Been very loyal when other women may have had an affair of some sort.

Athol’s comment: “The central theme of MMSL is to get yourself into a position where you’re so valuable as a potential partner, that you no longer are required to tolerate being in a relationship with a crappy partner who refuses to handle their own shit.”

That’s exactly what did it for me. I got fed up. I was fixing my shit and now it was his turn or else I was leaving.

Female desire is reactive, but…

Female desire is reactive… but there are other men out there she can react to.

If a male 6 watches his wife transform from a 6 –> 7 –> 8 and does nothing about fixing his attractiveness and handling his shit, he’ll eventually lose her to another man if she decides to pull the trigger.

Maybe he does shape up / get to the doctor / get a job / stop being an ass…. maybe he won’t.

If he does, great. If not, well she can collect child support and be better placed to find another man.

That should all sound very familar.

If he’s freaked out and going full Beta…

When he goes full-bore Betamax you bring him to MMSL. Then he takes it all seriously because he has a pathway he can learn to walk where she ends up staying with him.

All the husbands brought to MMSL by their wives come freaking out and wanting to go full Beta. Then they learn.

Wives must work on looking hot

She absolutely must run girl game and spend more time at the gym no matter what.

Unless she maximizes her overall attractiveness to men in general, any ultimatum she pulls will be less likely to succeed.

Her hot gym body is her leverage.

If his dick doesn’t work

The ultimatum is you demanding he go to the doctor to get checked out

Stop listening to the men on the forum, they aren’t your husband

A forum wife who has a crappy husband, listening to a forum husband in a sexless marriage, can’t model her MAP on what he wants his wife to do. The problems are different.

It’s always the unhappy spouse that comes to the forum. The unhappy spouse always has to do the same thing – become attractive and strong enough to gain leverage in their own relationship and then if required, force the issue.

Why sexually rejecting totally crappy husbands can be helpful over the long term

It’s not “rejecting him”.

You are making yourself more attractive – improving the quality of the cheese so to speak – and rewarding him when he acts in a positive manner.

“No X until Y” is training him to act in a certain way…. but so is “Yes X even if there’s no Y” training him to act a certain way. It’s just training him to act a different way.

Most of the forum wives doing the “default yes” thing are simply running a variant on a covert contract. “I will X and you will Y” and then because X is given out before Y… Y doesn’t have to happen… so the wife gets pissed off and then can’t help but lower her sexual response to him.

Most women unwittingly ruin the sex as a reward by being so shitty in bed during the sex, that it becomes a form of punishment rather than a reward. Most guys would rather have 12 sexual experiences a year where the girl was really into it, than 120 sexual experiences a year where she lies there disgusted and immobile.

Offer high quality sex for his good behavior.

There’s no X until Y

I mean seriously. Would any of you as a mother walk into a grocery store and hand the kids a bag of candy and say “please be good” and then no matter how bad they were in the grocery store, do the same thing week after week after week?

If you’re a First Officer you’re meant to be able to stand in for the Captain if need be. Get a backbone, have some pride in yourself, have some standards. Stop this Nice Girl crap.

You wouldn’t let a random douchebag screw you, so why do you lower yourself to let the douchebag you live with do it?

Could you ever imagine Jennifer tolerating me being a drunken, unwashed, broke, loser and still fucking me every day? If you can, she wants to talk to you lol. We hold each other to high but not unreasonable standards. I am a better man for her and she’s a better woman for me.

That’s the MMSL model. I’ve been ranting this for over three years. I’m at a loss as to how my message is so distorted on this forum.

Jennifer: Damn straight. That is all.

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

Everything Is Better Except I’m Not In Love Anymore

April 2, 2013 By Athol Kay 18 Comments

Reader: Okay, I was a beta schlub. That seems to be so far in the past now. I am reading the post on GNO and the man trips and am thinking, if my wife really wants to mess up, I am fine with it now. I won’t put up with it, I will just move on to another woman if that happens. I am content with my wife. She has a lot of great traits. But so do lots of women. I would be giving up some good stuff and a little bad stuff for new good stuff and bad stuff. I am not about to burn my marriage down, but I look at other options as possible if she decides she wants something else.

Have I gone too far in my thinking now? Is this too much lack of oneitis? I am just so far removed from my divorce is always the last option mentality of two years ago.

Athol: I think there’s always a mental dip in love feelings as you run the MAP. If you’ve had your illusions shattered and figured out you did a bunch of stuff wrong in your relationship, it’s always hard going to own up to it and fix it. Usually there’s a sense of hope and progress as you turn things around, but it’s just not the same blind joy in your relationship you had before. It’s definitely better than the bad stuff that was going to go down… it’s just not as giddy as when it all started and before you realized it was almost about to all get flushed down the toilet.

Oneitis and the Alpha Widow effect are damn near the exact same thing, just two different terms to spin it into the frame of the man better. It’s basically just a high dopamine, low serotonin mental state and looks damn near the same as OCD focused on a person. It’s called falling in love.

That being said, learning the whole Red Pill point of view where everything gets boiled down to chemical reactions and you can consciously start doing things to manipulate your feelings, and your partner’s feelings…

…well after a while it starts seeming like the entire concept of love is all bullshit. Not only that, your entire relationship history was just slot A, tab B and a bunch of chemicals. If it’s all just this giant game, love dies. It’s all fake. Cause, effect. That’s it.

The good news is that you manage to fix your relationship and change all the structural stuff in your life Everything turns out better. You get on great. Sex is up. Kids are behaving better. More respect at work.

It’s just….

…meh.

Everything is meh.

In time though, especially once you start really mastering what you’re doing and understanding about Alpha Beta et al, and you have your structural stuff together… you’ll start to forget you need to game each other. You’ll just be doing what you need to and getting on with it.

Then you’ll read something about some other couple with some kind of freaked up problem and you’ll look across the living room and tell your partner about it. They’ll look back with that “WTF” face and come over and read it over your shoulder and groan at the cluelessness with you. Their hand will be on your shoulder as they read and for some reason, their cheek is so very kissable…

The truth.

The truth…

The truth is that anyone who tells you that Oneitis can finally be killed, is either a badly damaged individual with serious attachment issues, or someone still working their way through the process. Quite obviously the goal of learning Game is not to turn yourself into a Cluster-B personality type, but to discover and master a relationship skill set in which you can love in relative safety of not being taken advantage of. For most of us though, getting to the end of the process is something that can take several years. It takes a long time to unlearn everything we did wrong, stablize and then learn what we need to and have it become second nature.

The truth is that all those chemicals… they. feel. so. real. and. you. cannot. stop. them.

The truth is you can resist all you like, but attraction is not a choice. So you will feel love again. You can’t choose not to feel.

The truth is love will come back.

***

Though I do have one caveat about all that in relation to the woman you are with…

…she needs to be a First Officer worth a damn.

***

Video related / unrelated.

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

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)

Married Game and Diminishing Returns

March 27, 2013 By Athol Kay 5 Comments

LongTimeReader: Do diminishing returns set in? Because after all, you’re supposed to be “mixing it up”: So just being fit and staying fit, while a necessary, will over time lose some of its previous attraction as it becomes the “new normal”.

Athol: Adaptation is a problem. I’ve worked with some rather severely limited patients in the 25-40 IQ range and they all learn routines and get used to them quickly. I also have a cat that seems to have learned to meow loudly at 615am on week days for treats, and at 930am on weekends. So just imagine how quickly regular adults learn routines.

The good news is that things like fitness are structural in nature. They are “always on” and will always have a net positive effect. Having a good job/income is always a net positive too. There’s nothing you can do for them other than keep them up to speed.

What you can change… and should change up once in a while… is the other stuff. Don’t have sex in the same position every night. Don’t go to the same restaurant every night. Don’t vacation in the same place every year. Don’t bring home the same flowers every time. Don’t have one favorite shirt.

Variety is the spice of wife.

If you’re working out in the gym, doing the same thing over and over and over does result in diminishing returns. But switching your exercise to something new gets you results. Then later you can head back and do the first thing again. The idea is that you confuse your muscles and avoid them adapting to your exercise. So there is sort of an emotional equivalent of muscle confusion that gets you emotional gains in your relationship too.

Things like your job, fitness, health, house etc, are all structural in nature and yeah some of it is boring as hell to do, but you gotta. This is the “chicken” part of “everything tastes like chicken”.

But the things like playful teasing, surprises, Sexy Moves yada yada yada, are all temporary in nature and are like different spices. Those you should mix up once in a while, because you can and it’s more interesting that way. You can serve chicken a hundred different ways and it’s better for it. Just mix it up (Chicken Monkey Duck)

Though you can’t spice up a rotting chicken so it’s tasty.

Filed Under: Sexy Moves, The Male Action Plan (MAP), Uncategorized