No… Not officially. Never on paper… but something happened. There’s this thing that happened. Ya know? An emotional part where the switch is turned on. That’s always what marriage meant to me. That moment where you say that you’re all in. Where you take hold of another human. You grow some shared skin and you know there’s no coming apart again. Even when the magic wears off. Even when times get bad. Even when you hate each other..: and you acknowledge in advance there’s gonna be times where you hate each other. But it doesn’t matter. You’re stuck together now and there’s no rerouting. You are one and the same and the reseparation isn’t even a metaphysical possibility… that’s what the concept of marriage meant to me.
Yeah… I thought that once.
She told me that that meant everything to her. Haha. That stupid scene from the notebook where the guy just keeps coming and is so fucking certain even when she’s told him no… ha. I believed it.
And I don’t know how to turn that off anymore…
Am I in love with her still?
Not at all. I don’t even know who that person is… That mirage died when the person emerged.
But I was married once… if only to the mirage. And with that definition… you don’t get unmarried once you’ve been married once…
And that’s… still sitting there… somewhere I can’t reach yet.
“In so many words, I just don’t trust your influence anymore.
Not mad. I’m not vengeful. No need for a pound of flesh.
There’s always been this feeling that to make this work, I’ve got give away a certain amount of head space to someone other me. To trust that they can see something or understand something that I can’t fathom and follow their lead against my own intuitions.
I’m done with that phase now.
…I think the final straw was the dog.
It’s a petty thing, but I caught you telling me I was wrong when I wasn’t wrong. Demanding it.
I watched you.
You’ve never been able to cope with being insecure. Rather than deal with it yourself, it came back out with you trying to distort my reality. With you trying to hammer down and twist my brain and it leaves me wondering how many times you’ve done it before.
And once I saw it, I couldn’t unsee it again.
Realized that staying meant agreeing to navigate by instruments that might not point me north. And that I could make that choice but with a terrible cost.
And I know that’s not fair… To be honest, it’s not about you. It’s about me realizing that hanging around here would always mean trading a certain amount of clarity for a certain amount of security… Playing in someone else’s sandbox.
Agreeing to read from a script that someone else had written.
Maybe if I was s stronger person I could stay and balance those scales… Wrestle with that influence and keep my world true… But I’m not. I’m not that person.
And I’ve accepted that.
And so now I’m moving on.
…
I would say that I’m grateful.
I’ll probably be more grateful in the future than I am now.
Even though my brain is still running hot and my eyes still see red.
I do know that I’ll be grateful looking back, even if it’s not that moment right now.
But I’ll be grateful in the future.
When all of this is behind me.
Just not right now.
A Reddit Thread:
I FEEL LIKE MY MARRIAGE IS SLOWLY DYING
OP:
We only got married 5 months ago, and it's honestly been extremely rough.
My wife is from South America, and we're both waiting for her visa to get approved. It's tough, because she only takes language classes twice a week. She's not allowed to work until the visa gets approved, and she really misses working.
We've both been working hard at understanding each other and supporting each other, but things still feel so stale. It's Sunday, and she once again woke up in a terrible mood. She won't talk to me really, and seems really uncomfortable around me. I went into bed and cuddled and kissed her, and told her I loved her. She didn't say anything. The time is now 1 PM, and she's still in bed. I have to walk around carefully not to wake her up. I was supposed to do some work in the kitchen, but that would make too much noise. I'm so tired of it. I work hard to support us, and really need to decompress on the weekends, but usually most of the time is spent sitting quietly somewhere until she gets out of bed.
I always feel very anxious when I hear her get out of bed, because I never know how she's gonna be. Sometimes she looks fine, but more often she looks very discontent, and I have to walk on glass around her not to make her more upset.
We never really do anything together either these days. We used to enjoy going for long walks together or bicycle trips, but anytime I suggest anything she's not in mood, and more often, when I do plan something, she has a bad day, so we cancel it.
I know she's going through a seriously difficult time, but I don't even feel like I'm much of a support to her. I provide for us, help her with the doctor, her homework, exams etc., but emotionally I've become so exhausted that I feel incredibly guilty sometimes, because it almost doesn't register anymore, when I see her having an especially bad day, where I really need to be there. She forgets incredibly important things, such as that she needed to pick up her new passport. If she'd forgotten, our application would've been rejected, and we'd have to divorce with her going back to her homecountry. It's exhausting to have to keep track of all her appointments for her, and even worse is that she never does the things that she promises me, her psychologist or psychiatrist that she'll do.
We have talked about it a little now, but anytime I bring up something she did that hurts me, she claims that I'm calling her a monster, packs her things, and leaves the apartment. It makes me feel like I'm worthless, like I'm not allowed to feel hurt that she spoke to me in a harsh way or that I'm not allowed to ask why she hasn't kept a promise.
I really love her, and we can have a lot of fun and she can be incredibly sweet, but I'm so mentally and physically exhausted.
REPLY >>
Simply put: She’s tired of you. You’re not a challenge. You’re doing too much for her. Being a doormat. She doesn’t view you as a man and she’s probably thinking that she could do better than you.
The very fact that her bitchy behavior has you cowering in your own house, seeking advice on Reddit and is affecting your ability to work means she has emasculated you.
She doesn’t find you attractive but she’s beholden to you for survival and so her whole system is in gridlock.Her ovaries hate you. Her brain says that she needs to behave correctly and be a wife and be grateful for the effort you’re putting in, but Mother Nature, deep inside her, thinks that you’re weak and a bad choice and that she should fly the coop.
Welcome to female nature.
If you want to fix it, get aloof. Hit the gym. Build a better life in front of her very eyes. Make yourself look appealing enough that someone else might want you and she’ll sweeten up again.
If you wanna shake her out of it, sit her down on the couch and tell her she seems miserable and that if that’s the case, she should go home. You don’t need to threaten her or be mean. But let her know it’s an option and don’t plead with her about it.Tell her that she knows where the door is. If you’re supporting her and she’s acting like a bitch, it means she’s testing you and you’re failing.
She doesn’t have a medical condition and isn’t going through a traumatic event. She just isn’t attracted to you anymore and it’s making her miserable and she doesn’t know what to do about it.
For toxic women, the Disney story fantasy of lovingly embracing each other and swearing to be open and honest and loving to the end is a lie. you made it past the wedding. The fairy tale is over. There’s no big party to look forward to and now she’s stuck with you.
Now she wonders if she could do better and you begging and pleading and being sweet to her is a turn off and she will spurn you for it.
Go get busy on something that isn’t her. Don’t fall for it when she starts acting sweet again. Hold the line until one of you dies.
XXVIII
A. I used to call it, “the bridge.” it’s how I imagined love.
That like, you have all these people in the world looking for partners. Their other half. Out looking for love.
Like I always saw it as this narrow bridge over rushing water somewhere in the woods. And I imagined that when you were old enough or mature enough or met the right person, that you went to the bridge.
And you could only walk halfway. Like you could journey to the center point and wait there for them. That was falling in love.
When you found someone that was a good match and you were both old enough and mature enough and no one was in a bloody-minded phase of life and did something to fuck it up--then maybe you could meet in the middle and make things work.
Q. But you don’t believe that anymore?
A. Nah.
Kasey, you should just get married. Simplify the problem. Get right with god.
XXVII
“I love you. I want us to be together. And you won’t meet me on the bridge.”
No. I’ve just been here before.
You don’t want me. Or at least, you’re not sure what you want. There’s nothing keeping us together.
You’re just afraid if the world and want someone to settle you. All bits and pieces and flying parts. That’s your world. And when your world changes, you’re gonna change with it. And where will that leave me?
What do you think you’re going to become if I agree to make you safe?
That remains to be seen.
XXV
Nature abhors a vacuum. Pull a rock out of a barrel of water and something rushes in to fill it.
Question is, what has rushed in to fill the hole in you?
I don’t feel a strong need to make this important...
…
Yes. I know I’ve changed.
…
Because you asked me to.
…
No. Not with your words. With your actions.
It’s what you were giving me. How you were responding. Like… it doesn’t feel good to just get hammered, and nagged, and punished for being soft.
…
And it just kept happening. Yes I talk too much. Yes I tend towards the emotional and the feminine. That’s a big part of me and I thought that maybe it was useful to have that here. But I was getting hammered for it. I kept telling you that I didn’t like being shushed or talked over, and you didn’t pay attention.
So yeah.
I boxed that up and put it away.
…
No. I don’t think we’ve communicated as well or as deeply since. But you haven’t embarrassed me again since then either.
…
I know I go too far sometimes. It’s not intentional. I’m still calibrating… it’s just that… I’ve largely lost the willingness to play soft anymore…
I’m not saying I didn’t deserve it or didn’t earn that treatment from you somewhere along the way.
For me, like, I think the hardest part of this stuff is wondering if you’re getting suckered. Like if you’re falling into someone else’s game where they’re getting the best of you but you’re getting only a part of them.
I get it.
I deal with it.
Ha. Still.
But look.
You’re enough.
I really like you. There’s parts of me that want to spin up a future right here. In these moments I can see us ten years out. Still figuring it out. Still making it work.
It’s in there.
You’re in there.
But I’m sticking with this project right now. This is the way the game works.
I’ve told you I’m going to do something. And even if I wasn’t sure. Even if I had a change of heart I don’t think changing my mind would be the right choice right now.
I’ve let girls drag me off before and you’d like me less for it. You’d start wondering “Oh he changed his mind on this, what else is this wishy washy mother fucker liable to change up on...”
... Ha. So I’m gonna stick with what I’m doing. But if you’re ever wondering... Yes. We got there. We’re doing it... For real.
There’s relationships I look back on in my past and I realize how good they were and how I didn’t realize what I had. And maybe this will be one of those.
... But I'm still working on something right now.
XXII
A back porch Conversation
“...No. It’s not who I want to be... Like... I don’t want to become that thing. It’s a rabbit whole that people disappear down and I’m wary of that. But like... You absorb information and perspectives from everywhere. And if you’ve got some experiences or dots in life that you can’t seem to connect, you try to find a lens or a perspective that shows the pattern. And yeah. Like, I don’t want all of this stuff, but some of it maps on.”
1. Ignore her words focus on her actions
2. Don’t chase women become the man that women will pursue
3. Women you previously pursued and got rejected by Will later be interested when they see you have a different woman
4. Women think about marriage as a wedding day and not a lifetime supporting and respecting their man
5. Embrace rejection it will make you stronger
6. Disdain women who rejected you, ignoring them is the best revenge
7. The more attractive she is the harder you have to be, DONT SIMP
8. Stay away from single mothers
9. Prioritise your appearance no matter what
10. Never fully commit
11. Don’t share your weaknesses with a woman, seek professional help in a serious rut
12. Women cheat more than men, don’t let her accusations blind you
13. Be low tolerance, be ready to walk away at any given moment
14. Don’t be bitter, accept female nature and adjust
15. Keep playing the game and make it difficult. People come back to difficult games to try and beat it, easy games get played once and put on the shelf
Yeah.
And I worry sometimes that it might’ve fucked me up.
So we made it back from the road trip and she disappears.
“We’ll start over,” I kept thinking to myself. “We’ll start over if this is important to us. If we meant a word of what we said to each other. We’ll find our way back.”
And so I wait, ya know. We opened this whole bloody relationship on the premise that we didn’t wanna play energy games. No push pull. No bluffing. Two adults who thought they could fall in love and have something to offer each other.
But I waited…
And watched.
And it became a game.
Turned the energy up and down. Watched as the less I gave her, the more she sent back.
And then if I ever went soft, watched her go dark.
And here’s the ugly part…
For a long time, I thought she was intentionally playing with me. Yanking me around. Punishing me. And I spent a couple of months feeling like I was going crazy. Like I couldn’t sit still. Chili powder in the blood vessels behind my eyes.
I could’ve filled up libraries with the raw volume of shit coming out of my brain during those days.
And I don’t remember when the switch flipped. It just kinda snuck up on me and one day I realized it… That this is the way it’s supposed to be. We’re supposed to do this to each other.
It aligned with every other romantic experience I’d had in my entire life. It all lined up. it’s like when you finally see the hidden picture and you can’t unsee it afterwards.
The same way the pheromones fly during a break up.
The same way that we get crippled and bloody thirsty at the thought of someone else touching our mates.
It’s all built in for a reason. Mother nature knows what she’s up to.
We’re aimed at each other’s soft parts.
The toxic energy game. The push pull. The back and forth. There is no escaping it… Not really.
And that thing you want from another person
That deep sigh. The surrender. The dissolution of yourself into another human.
What if it’s not really there? It’s just a mirage to keep you wandering in the desert.
And that’s the thing man. I’m angry. I’ve been angry since that day in New Orleans. There’s still days when I go to the slow yoga classes in the dark and find tears running down my face for an hour.
In some ways… I think I’m in mourning.
Like… not with her. Not over the girl. People lose their power over you after you figure them out.
But I think I’m just in mourning over something I believed in.
Something that I wanted.
Something that I don’t think is coming back.
And I’m still trying to figure out what to do with that.
“... But like, whats the end game... Like where do you want to end up? Underneath all the bullshit. Underneath all the bravado. What are you afraid of? Like, what are you hoping to create? ”
*Sigh*
“Like... At the end of the day...
I don’t get enough credit... Like people misunderstand a lot of stuff about what I say... Like... I’m a good guy. I don’t abuse my girl. I just don’t want her abusing me. I want her to value me. And understand that... this thing I’m giving her... It’s not natural to me. It’s not easy. It’s not what men are...
“Like... people value the things that they work for. And, as a man, that’s how you end up in a miserable relationship.
Like... women don’t have to work for it. Society is on their side. Polite Culture is on their side. Like, they just end up here and think it’s how it should be.
“Like... I didn’t do this because I wanted to. It’s just how women taught me to be. It’s what they responded to.
“And so... At the end of the day. I just want my girl to appreciate me. That’s what it’s about.
-Patrice
Day 8 and I’m hanging off a balcony in New Orleans doing chin-ups. Push-ups. Squats. Just trying to get the blood moving.
She’s off a long walk somewhere. We haven’t been happy for days. Just trapped in a car together, viciously unhappy.
I remember this feeling.
18 years old standing in a sonic parking lot with a girl that hates your guts. That distant, icey, disposition like they’re grinding their teeth and wishing you would disappear from the Earth.
Or worse. 27 when you realize a girl is just playing with you. That she’s found power over you and watching you dance.
So yeah. New Orleans. We’ve finally had one decent night together. Not great, but we’re at least not miserable and maybe that’s something to build on.
She goes for a walk and I’m doing push-ups in the Airbnb while trying to put together a plan.
I feel strained. Self conscious. I’m desperate to keep the good vibes going and not let slip this little bit of peace we’ve found and so I’m filing through ideas.
Maybe we’ll extend the road trip. Maybe we’ll go to the beach. Maybe we’ll splurge on expensive dinners and an Airbnb with a hot tub to help make this right. Weve already burned some real money but maybe it would be worth it if would help us reboot and get through these fights.
My thoughts are spinning up and all at once I connect the dots.
I pause. Open the mental box. Scheodingers cat is dead. Undeniably dead.
It doesn’t matter that we’ve had one decent night and we’re playing nice.
This thing is dead and it’s not coming back.
Everything about this interaction is wrong.
I know what fun feels like.
I know what attraction feels like.
That warm, bouncy, pliable feeing of a girl who is happy with you and wants you to take her home and fuck her against a wall.
I know what that feels like and I’ve never seen it come back once it disappears.
This ain’t it.
We might survive today.
We might survive a week.
But I’ve lost the frame. Her mood is now in control of both of us, and we’re not going to live that way.
This relationship isn’t going to work. So what do we do?
Bail out. Cut our loses?
You can’t restart a relationship.
Maybe it would be possible to have a different relationship with the same person. But to do that, we’re going to have to burn this one down and start again.
I’m going to burn it down and plant something new.
Somewhere deep inside, the ancestors murmur a seismic appproval.
XVII
A seven year old boy doesn’t like a girl.
But a girl likes a seven year old boy.
This makes the boy think.
One day, the girl is babysitting in his neighborhood.
On his bike, he rides past the house with the girl inside 100 times that afternoon. And the next Afternoon as well.
Just in case she is still around.
Here’s what women do alright.
You know how girls like to take dogs and put sweaters and shit on them? That’s the game, ok?
They look out in the world. They look around. And they see a man who doesn’t look like they need them.
They see a guy who HAS something. And when you have something that a girl doesn’t have, that makes you sexy.
Maybe it’s a hobby. Maybe it’s a girlfriend. Maybe it’s just that you look fucking happy on your own.
And women look around, and they wanna know… “Am I more interesting… than THAT. Than that THING you have.” If she could force you to choose between her and that THING that you have. Would you choose her?
See, women don’t know themselves in an absolute sense. They learn themselves by comparison. They have to have something else to rank themselves again.
And so a woman’s game is to try to make you unsexy. To make you give her what you have. To see if she can dress you up stupid, replace your girlfriend, separate you from your friends, make you act fucking goofy on camera.
And if she can do that, she knows that she’s more valuable than the other stuff you have in your life. And once you start giving her things, she wants to know that you’ll give her bigger things. And then once you’ve given her everything, she has nothing else to compare herself against and she needs to go find someone else with something more valuable to test herself against so she can continue testing.
You ever heard girls complain that a guy was stuck or wasn’t growing? That means he’s running out of things that she can compare herself against, and there aren’t new ones coming and she starts to wither.
So that’s something you need to integrate. That’s a pair of lenses you need to have in for every interaction you have with a woman if you want to keep her in your life. Every time a girl tries to change you or take something from you, the question you need to hear in your head is “hey, will you hold still? I wanna see if I can make you less attractive.”
And your answer needs to be “no.”
That’ll settle her down.
That tells her “this is where you rank. This is as far as you go.”
“... No. You’re right. I don’t have all the answers. I don’t understand everyone or have a perfect grasp of the why things fall apart the way they do. But there is something that I know with clarity.
I’m old enough to know a few things and see a few patterns.
And I know that, if I look back over 2 decades, all of my relationships, no matter what path they took, they always ended up in the same two folders.
Group 1 is girls that are still around.
It doesn’t matter how I treated girls or what we went through. It doesn’t matter if we fought. Doesn’t matter if we broke up. I went though phases where I was dating several people at once and I absolutely drug some people through 8 miles of misery. I know that, as long as I kept my course, no matter what amount of misery I put a girl through, those girls are still around. We’re different. Our relationship is different. We maybe hang out in person sometimes, or work together, or they might just show up in my phone on some random night of the week... But no matter what we went through, those people still value me.
We didn’t always end clean.
Sometimes it took a few weeks. Sometimes there was a solid year that they disappeared before resurfacing. But those people, they still show up in my life. I never really lost them.
And there’s a second group of girls... Girls I went soft on. Girls that I listened to, let make a mess of me. Let get inside the control box and play with the controls... Girls that I told were important to me, or that I was willing to sacrifice for and proved it...Those girls are gone.
They chipped a couple of pieces off and left. And those bitches are gone.
And after a while, you just get tired of losing people...
Ya know?
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