Tuesday, July 28, 2015

Marriage in the 21st Century? Is it Really This Bad?

Earlier today, one of our Facebook group members posted this cartoon:


While we got a good chuckle, it perfectly illustrates the trap that befalls many men and women in our modern world. In fact, most of the men that have shown interest in the San Diego Man Camp project have recognized this narrative occurs all the time and do not want to fall into this trap.

As an armchair experimental social psychologist, I'm interested in the hows and whys of this cartoon. Specifically, what dynamics make it true. More importantly, what can be done to change this situation. THAT is one of the things I do in the SDMC project. 

So... let's break this down frame-by-frame. Before we start, it's important to note this narrative doesn't define ALL relationships, just many modern relationships. This specific scenario usually involves a woman in her mid-twenties to early thirties who's educated and spent a few years casually dating and doing a little partying, and a man that has beta male tendencies with a strong desire to make his wife and kids the focus of his life, and has been searching for his one special soul mate after years of being mostly friendzoned by his various crushes. Here's an easier-to-follow numbered version:

The easier-to-follow version

Frame 1: After years of casually dating hot guys that were not long-term relationship material (i.e. - unwilling to commit OR were unwilling to be monogamous), the woman "matures" and starts looking for a nice guy that will treat her right. We call this "The Wall"; it's the point where a woman's sexual market value starts to decrease and her sexual strategy shifts from seeking exciting alpha males to safe beta males (hypergamy.) She finds that in this dude. He's ecstatic because this is the first good woman he's found that loves him for him and really appreciates his willingness to treat her like a princess. Sure, she partied in her past, but he's willing to forgive because, well, he believes she's special and they were meant to be together. And she's giving him advertising sex, which is probably the best and most frequent he's ever had. 

Frame 2: Both men and women have a primal drive to reproduce; it's how our species survives. Women control reproduction in our species (by choosing who gets to father their children.) There's a lot more to this dynamic, but we'll save that conversation for another day. For our purposes here, let's just assume the new bride has her new husband's children. Yay!

Frame 3: This represents the honeymoon phase of a relationship. Everyone is happy, fulfilled, and content. If we could bottle this feeling and sell it, we'd be billionaires. In modern American society, we generally expect this phase to last forever. For the beta male, this stage is incredibly affirming. This is the exact scenario he's dreamed about his entire life. All his hard work at being a nice guy is finally paying dividends. Instead of the intermittent sex he's gotten in previous relationships, he's now getting regular, pretty good sex, he has an emotional connection to a fantastic woman, and he has a growing family. This is his Utopia. For the woman, this phase is great, too. Riding the high of the honeymoon, she's still sexually attracted to her husband. The sex isn't quite as passionate as she had with her past alphas, but she convinces herself this is what "mature" relationships are supposed to feel like.

Frame 4: This effectively marks the end of the honeymoon. The beta male (probably enjoying a little World of Warcraft) starts getting nagged by his soul mate. Given that he's not educated in female behavior, he doesn't recognize the nagging is just a shit test. As such, he fails miserably, thus lowering his perceived value in the eyes of his wife. Had he handled it properly (and continued to handle it properly), this would be the end of the story and they'd live happily ever after. 

But he doesn't.

Instead of standing up to her, he acquiesces. He does so because he has a genuine fear that if he does stand up to her, she will stop giving him affection and sex, which he believes is an affirmation of her love. His unwillingness to rock the pussy boat will cost him dearly by, ironically, causing the exact thing he fears most - a withdrawal of her love (and sex. Never forget the sex. The beta male puts up a front of being nonsexual, but it's a facade.)

Frame 5 and 6: Being the good provider he is, the beta male husband busts his ass at work and around the house. His wife's friends are envious of her "getting lucky" to find such a nice, hard-working guy.She may mention that to him, which just reinforces his willingness to do anything and everything for her. The dirty little secret beta males don't like to admit, even to themselves - he's busting his ass in the hopes she'll appreciate all his sacrifices and reward him with more/better sex. Instead, he gets maintenance sex - infrequent, unenthusiastic, inhibited sex. The sexual arousal she felt in the honeymoon period is dying fast, and she can barely contain her revulsion of his touch. she begins using the kids and work as an excuse ("I'm too tired"), which motivates him to do even more for her. Instead of realizing HE'S the reason for this, he begins to think maybe there's something physically wrong with her. This is how women get screwed (not literally, obviously) in this narrative.

Frame 7 and 8: The shit tests continue. The failing of shit tests continue. His value to her continues to plummet, which effectively kills any arousal she may have felt. This is a critical point that's often lost in these discussions, and it's an important lesson in hypergamy. The beta male is a provider, and a damn good one at that. He genuinely believes THAT is the attention his wife wants (and needs.) Like someone frantically kicking and flailing their arms in quicksand, he just makes the problem worse and worse. He doesn't realize she also has another side that desires a manly man that will be able to pass her shit tests that he fails... All. The. Time. She used to get that all the time before she met him. She really believed that was just a phase; she didn't realize that desire for a male that sexually arouses her (alphas) would never go away. That leads us to frame #9...

Frame #9: At some point, she begins to seriously question the relationship and probably her health and begins confiding in friends. Female sexual arousal disorder is one of the most frequent complaints of women in long-term relationships. Per our society's tendency to want to fix everything with drugs, this situation has led to the pharmaceutical industry's race to discover the "female Viagra." Nobody really stops to consider that the women, even though they feel emotionally-bonded to their husbands, simply aren't aroused because, well, the beta men act like women. 

Frame #10, 11, 12, and 13: The woman craves alpha cock, whether she consciously acknowledges it or not. Either way, this is where pickup artists that focus on married women ply their trade. Manly alpha dude the provides that alpha attention she craves steps in and does what he does best. She goes along because she experiences feelings (namely intense sexual arousal) that she hasn't felt in a very, very long time, and it reinvigorates her. Makes her feel young again. Make her feel things her beta husband never made her feel. 

There are two interesting and divergent narratives that typically arise from this after frame #13. In some cases, the woman is now satisfied and goes back to her hum-drum life. She may occasionally dip her toes in the alpha pool when the mood hits, but she's not willing to jeopardize her relationship with the man she loves. This, of course, is the reason why beta males have such a vile resentment for "damaged" women... they just don't get that women need more than a loyal provider. The other path women take brings us to frame #14...

Frame #14: Sometimes, after a woman gets a taste of the delicious alpha fruit, they get a "grass is greener" mentality and decide to end their current relationship... usually to be with the alpha that seduced them. That leads to divorce, lots of heartache, and a broken family for the kids. The beta male is destroyed because he genuinely does not understand what went wrong. Worse, he now has to pay alimony and child support, so his financial future is likely ruined. Hello, sleazy apartment! 

On the surface, it seems like the woman really won, but she's a well-past her peak value on the sexual market AND has kids. Her alpha male seducer would have left her (because he can attract much higher value women), so she's left with dating. She was appealing to him because she was unlikely to want any sort of commitment (she was an easy piece of ass.) She's left to pick through the remnants of low-value available men, which are basically seriously-flawed alpha males (criminals, those with serious mental disorders, con artists, etc.) OR beta males. In the latter case, she may get remarried and the cycle plays out again.

Isn't This Incredibly Cynical?!?


Yes. Yes it is. But, unfortunately, it's the reality for all too many people. Go to the /r/DeadBedrooms subreddit and read through some of those stories. You can see this exact dynamic playing out again and again and again. The reason I talk about this isn't to play a "men are hapless victims" card or "we need to abandon monogamous relationships." 

Rather, I talk about this because it's entirely fixable

However, it's the MALE that has to do the fixing. This entire narrative can be avoided if only the beta male would, well, man up. That's basically what the San Diego Man Camp projects aims to do... give men a road map and mutual support to learn to get better at being a man. 

Interested? Join our Facebook group. We have a lot of enlightening discussions. In the near future, I'll start offering workshops to explicitly teach the skills needed to turn betas into alphas and avoid this entire scenario. Stay tuned!

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4 comments:

  1. How about both parties work together. It's called a freakin' RELATIONSHIP, not a "woman-ship." I'm sick and tired of all these asinine theories that excuses the obvious faults of the female example in the pictures above. Home-girl needs to get off that damn pedestal of hers thinking sex is the only thing that drives the marriage. Apparently she wasn't ready to mature from her lame past because eventually she was still looking for dick other than her husband's; and the nerve to risk the marriage, INCLUDING the kids describes her mentality. Ain't no damn beta male tendacies here; stop playing stupid and start calling these hoes out. A real lady would understand the importance of a marriage and sees that her man works hard to make it work. And most of these young women these days wonder why they can't find a good man; no good man wants damaged goods, especially if she's still trying to "make her way around the neighborhood." Women need to start learning the word accountability and own up to it when it calls.

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    1. Welcome to the world of open hypergamy, dman. Gone is the social shame of premarital sex, the legal and social consequences of infidelity, the advent of no-fault divorce, alimony and child support that heavily favors women, the glorification of single motherhood, an extensive welfare system, the sexualization of MILFs, etc.

      I personally am okay with all of that because I like the challenge of finding new solutions, but it's a far different world than it was a generation or three ago.

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    2. I should of held back on the soapbox a bit. I just think some of these women need to be held accountable for scenarios like this. They get away with too much crap, and they know it.

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  2. Passing "shit tests" is really just another term for men keeping their backbone and not giving into a woman's dominance. I've dated women who were pretty far up the corporate ladder, managing mangers, etc. They're bosses of a lot of people and used to bossing people around on a daily basis--and I don't mean boss in a negative sense, just that they are used to telling people what to do.

    Naturally she'll try to bring that into our relationship. At some point, she'll try to boss me around. It usually seems innocuous on the surface, but she'll command me to do something ("Put the butter back in the fridge") instead of asking me ("Can you put the butter back in the fridge"). I never let her get away with something like this.

    While this may seem small and nitpicky, it demarcates a clear line that she cannot cross. She knows she needs to treat me with a different kind of respect than how she treats her underlings.

    The effect of this is magnificent. SHE feels so much better about being with me. When she's at work, she's guarded, responsible, professional and serious. But when she's with me, she can be unguarded, vulnerable, have fun and let me take the lead a lot of the time. This makes her happy and me happy as well. It's just a matter of me being willing to maintain that boundary every time she tries to cross it, which happens less and less as the relationship wears on.

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