1854. She Resents His Inattention and Lack of Affection

Her Highness Sara asked for clarification of soundbite #85 in post 1853, which reads this way:

“85. Predominately you are a giver and your man a taker. Marital strength lies with an imbalance accepted as fair by you and perceived as near equal by him. (If you expect equality in giving, it pushes him into seeking fairness and causes the imposition of his dominant nature to create it. You benefit the most when you see fairness, which frees him to make mutual giving more nearly equal at his discretion.)”

When women consider what they give to and receive from their man to be a fair exchange, they feel good about their relationship. However, when they sense it to be unfair or see a need for equality, it switches their attitude from ‘cooperate’ to ‘compete’. They want more and they go for it (usually more attention, affection, and thoughtfulness).  So, they confront him directly aka competitively.  They complain, accuse, and blame.

A man doesn’t compete with his woman once he conquers her for first-time sex. He avoids, escapes, or wins any competition by imposing his dominant nature, ignoring or squelching her arguments, and ending the matter on his terms. After that he’s less interested in an equal-enough level of giving and taking as he previously viewed it. His attitude shifts. He’s no longer obligated except to make the exchange fair, he owes her that, but his disappointment causes her to appear less likeable. Consequently, whatever attention, affection, and thoughtfulness he paid her earlier, it now declines.

Her situation worsens in terms of what he gives of himself. Ironically, she blames him and it prompts her to try harder and she pushes them through the same cycle again. Their relationship crumbles a little more each time she verbally insists that she’s shortchanged.

She has a more effective alternative. Instead of blaming him, she can put her relationship expertise into practice. Instead of directly confronting him, she can use indirectness, gratitude, and patience. With hints and seed planting, she can shape his thoughts into pleasing her better and more often. By finding gratefulness in his qualities (and ignoring weaknesses), she can increase the value of whatever he gives. By ‘growing’ her patience, she can more easily smother her negative thoughts about him.

It’s not the big things that hold a couple together, such as love, devotion, and faithfulness. Hundreds of little negatives poison those more poignant emotions. Irritants, nuisances, and annoyances—such as belittling retorts, thoughtless embarrassments, and disrespectful humiliations—accumulate until they make one or both spouses unlikeable to the other. Their relationship crumbles from the excess weight of the negatives.

1705. Dumped Wife: To Recover Before It Happens—I

This is follow-on to posts 1703 and 1704. Her Highness SS inquired: What if the wife is already employed outside the home?

Background. When wife enters the marital agreement for a two-income household, husband escapes her being 100% dependent on him. He envisions a lifestyle of two people living separate lives under the same roof but sharing each other, resources, and privileges with maneuvering room for him to arrange the relationship to his liking; any king would do the same, whether his castle or her nest. (I purposely exaggerate the magnitude to paint the picture).

The magnet of a castle owned exclusively by him disappears from his mind. ‘Ownership’ of the marriage becomes joint with intentions for him to be top dog, whenever two bosses disagree. The two-income lifestyle also assuage his fears of “Maybe I can’t do it” with one.

His escape ‘victory’ away from 100% activates his competitive urges to continue in the same direction. If she relinquished on 100%, how much further should he take her? Greater capability or more independence for her means less dependence on him. He doesn’t have to work for it; she comes by it on her own. But if he ever thinks of ditching her, his mind has been changed. Thus, two-incomes endlessly stir their marriage with his competitive spirit that applies pressure to move away from her dependence on him.

He sees to it that future events and marital decisions favor his independence over her dependence. For example, as if he never gets one, her pay raises outshine whatever sense he has of being her provider-protector. If he gains some control of her money, he can overlook his discomfort. If not, he can resent her capability to earn more on her own, which he can use against her if ever it becomes necessary. (He responds to resentment by promising himself a future advantage; it’s that primal competitive urge sprouting forth.) Thus, he gains competitive advantages in his mind while making her less dependent in his heart. With each advantage gained over her, his respect also declines.

Were he to marry based on a one-income household, his sense of responsibility would move their marriage toward more mutual dependence, not less. See the difference? Her complete dependence pushes him to improve that condition; it’s his responsibility to do so. Less than complete dependence, however, pushes him to improve his position relative to her and his competitive spirit never ends.

Moreover, in another way her natural cooperative spirit works against her. He competes and she cooperates, and he gains advantage easily.

Wife applies other pressures that work against her. In most of her homelife efforts, she seeks to bring them closer together. He senses pressure to be more responsible, which nudges him away from it.

With each step of progress for him, her dependence on him becomes less and less in his eyes. For example, unless he develops a stronger sense of responsibility for their children than for her, he likely remains forever opposed to her home schooling.

The ‘two-income’ husband expects to deliver less than he’s capable of providing. Wife also expects less than he’s capable, and the self-fulfilling prophecy fulfills once again. We all live up to the expectations of others and ourselves. When we deliver less than we are capable, we naturally produce less and less. It makes us look elsewhere to meet our capability, and men do it more easily than women. Unfortunately, both husbands and wives are in the same SFP boat. When the boat fills, husbands swim away while wives sink with prophecies fulfilled.

Foreground. So, what’s the modern ‘two-income’ wife to do? The answer comes tomorrow as post 1706.

1703. Dumped Wife: Some Causes

Her Highness Lin at 1701 asked for help to understand this situation:

“A married man finds himself in a career crisis. He seeks to find something new where he can be successful and find full expression. The change will put financial strain on the family because in the process of ‘search’, ‘adjustment’, ‘building up’, he may not be able to provide for his family as well as he used or in the way he used to. Wife, in order to be supportive of man’s dreams agrees to help support or fully support the family whilst he goes chasing his dream.

“As his dream starts to take shape and success is eminent, the man finds another woman and dumps wife.

“This scenario is quite common. Can you please break this down for me in terms of man woman dynamic and if there is an alternative scenario possible for us women, the relationship experts.”

Lin cites another of the ways that women ruin their lives by not understanding men. In her example, wife doesn’t recognize red flags; she probably thinks she doesn’t deserve them so she can’t recognize them. She effectively blinds herself to how their marriage affects husband. We’ll get back to what she doesn’t deserve, and describe husband’s likely behavior first. The quotes are from above.

• “Husband finds himself in a career crisis. He seeks to find something new where he can be successful and find full expression.” Those are pre-escape words. They sound credible to wife because she has already seen that he’s unexplainably not happy. She has honorable intentions and wants to help restore his unease and dissatisfaction with whatever bothers him. Consequently, she willingly if not eagerly buys into his newfound ‘dreams’, and his escape hatch opens even if he still has honorable intentions.
• When wife “agrees to help support or fully support the family,” she confirms that the family can do without him. Husband reads it that family isn’t as dependent on him as he’s capable. If they have to, the family can do without him. His sense of worth dissipates, and his sense of responsibility eases and will likely fade away if new challenges and opportunities arise.
• The easing of his burden of personal responsibility frees his thinking to take on other or new responsibility. He is capable and can handle it, or so he tells himself. Less responsibility at home challenges him to fulfill newfound capability. Wife and family aren’t new, but his visions and expectations are.
• “As his dream starts to take shape and success is eminent, the man finds another woman and dumps wife.” It’s the natural consequence of husband’s thinking and conditions described above.

Perhaps very minor, but his thoughts of escape start some time before. It’s not an overnight change of heart. It took much planning to convince wife and keep him in control of changes he expects to make in his life.

Let’s give husband credit and say his intentions were always honorable. His loyalty to wife and family remained steady until he found himself faced with these consequences: the challenge of a new job or career; freer expression and greater fulfillment of self; improved self-confidence, self-image, and self-respect; better image of his masculine potential; capability to handle greater responsibility; an overall improvement over the ennui that plagues his marriage; and doubt about earlier commitments to wife.

I don’t assign any propriety or respectability to husband’s new identity, views, or behaviors. I can see cowardice more easily than admiration. However, he judges himself, seeks self-admiration, and obviously if he dumps his wife finds greater self-admiration with a new woman.

Now, if I have described husband clearly and correctly, we can explore the root cause of his change of life. It started within their marriage long before he sensed a career crisis and need for greater success and full expression. Being the relationship expert and only person she can change, wife missed or ignored too many signals of husband’s disenchantment with their marriage.

A myriad of ways exist to cause a husband’s disenchantment. The likeliest cause is this: Belittling comments and well-intentioned put downs (aka constructive criticism) accumulate as irritants that continually bore deeper into a man’s psyche. Such comments can’t possibly flow out of the mouth of someone that respects him, so he interprets it as weakened respect until the accumulation compounds into disrespect. That ends his respect for her, which also terminates his love of her, and he finds himself in need of greater success and fuller expression of his capability. As a result, he faces a career or other crisis.

Wife, family, and friends don’t think she deserves abandonment. Only her husband’s bastardly conduct causes her misery, and that’s where wives go wrong. They believe so deliberately and tirelessly in the shortcomings of men that they criticize husbands and expect immediate reactions without long-range consequences. Wives also try hard and work diligently to provide a fulfilling life for their family. Each knows that she deserves better support from husband, and when it’s missing, she becomes even more deserving.

She deserves more out of her man, and it infiltrates her natural tendency to improve him. Tactics and techniques to chastise or change immediate behavior become ways to improve his persona for the long term. Wives treat their expectation as both right to correct him and duty to use the most effective means, and they fall back on their mothering instincts. As if raising a child or someone who hasn’t earned mother’s respect, wife criticizes, demeans, and uses insulting words or actions as her way of improving her man. He starts to develop an escape plan.

The female nature endows women to improve their man, and many women mistake it as a right. The male nature endows men to resist womanly influence directly applied, and men defend themselves as if a right. For both sexes, however, having the right to do something doesn’t make it right to do it and simultaneously give offense. In the end, when wife deserves better support from husband and demands it as a right, she runs into masculine resistance that takes the form of a more powerful right.

Lin asks for alternative scenarios for relationship experts. First, I suggest you assume that all the married men you know are happily married. Ask them what would really turn them against marriage if their wife did it. Keep it as impersonal as possible. Bundle up all the responses you get, convert them to imperatives to shape your thinking and living, and avoid doing such things in your life. Second, find other ways to escape this trap: Even if she does it for her man, as a woman proves that she can support herself and kids, her man’s essentiality dissipates and soon disappears. A man’s dedication to supporting someone slips away as dependence on him wanes.

Keep in mind: Wives are the relationship experts and maintenance is their obligation.

1683. Nagging and Ice Cube Trays

This is about the nagging wife. She’s overly fixated on improving her man. His shortcomings outweigh his benefits, and it leads to loss of him by her.

Nagging wives partition their respect and gratitude for husbands. Visualize two ice cube trays of a dozen cubes each. One tray represents the dozen reasons she respects her husband. For example, one cube represents his ability to provide, protect, etc. Another represents her view of his ability to care for the house, yard, cars, etc. Another represents his fathering ability and another lovemaking and so forth. The nagging wife’s respect is built upon specific reasons. She claims to respect him generally, but she’s unable to abide with his shortcomings, and she has to let him know that he should do better. Thus, certain wives chips away at individual cubes and keep other cubes intact.

The other tray similarly represents a dozen reasons why she’s grateful for him. For example, he’s good looking, he’s rock steady in performing chores around the house and yard, he’s a dependable father, etc. But the same wives also chip away at the gratitude cubes.

Everyone has shortcomings. Wife’s nagging only aims to ‘fix’ specific ones. All else about him is fine. The untouched cubes represent the respect and gratitude in which she continues to hold him. That’s her view. Thus, she justifies nagging by trying to call it something else.

Every wife seeks to improve her husband, but some take the nagger’s impatient, negative, demotivating, and demeaning method. She broadcasts his shortcomings to improve him and loses his respect for her in the process (and a man’s love is based on respect for his woman).

On the other hand, visualize husband’s expectations of wife’s respect and gratitude as represented by two ice cube trays. However, the trays aren’t partitioned into cubes. They are two solid slabs. Wife’s nagging chips away and consistently downsizes both slabs until what’s left isn’t enough for him to stay with her.

Wife views her respect and gratitude rock solid except for fixing a few minor shortcomings. Husband views wife’s nagging as attacks on his major traits, skills, and ability to fulfill his sense of responsibility. She nags about big things to her that are small things to him.

The Bible describes how men reject a nagging wife. It irritates men no end. Men resist mightily their woman’s attempts to change them. Nagging implies lack of respect, gratitude, and masculine significance, which inspires men for departure physically, mentally, or both.

1669. Don’t ‘Guilt’ a Man

Her Highness Katarina wondered: “Ummm, is it possible to induce a guilty feeling in a man? I don’t think it’s possible to make a man feel guilty…  Seems like the more a woman blames, accuses, and pouts the tougher his conscience gets. Almost like a defense mechanism?”

Of course it’s possible, but not by blaming, accusing, and pouting. What little bit of guilt may rise up from those tactics; he disposes quickly of it as either irrelevant or forgettable in the grand scheme of life and resents the finger pointer.

The sexes are very different in both the imposing and handling of guilt. Men feel guilty when it’s their independent conclusion. Not being capable of carrying guilt as well as women, they find a quick way to either compensate and feel good about themselves or forget it and feel somewhat less good but still tolerable about themselves.

A woman’s indirectness, seed planting, and patience can induce guilt in a man. But for what reason? Guilt in a man produces the opposite of what a woman wants. Consequently, a woman using blame and accusations twice torpedoes her primary interests. He both rejects her opinions and loses respect for her being so disrespectful of him. As his respect fades from her repeated attempts, so does his love.

1597. His Little Interest in Sex — Part IV: Wives

Critical for females of every age, men marry to have frequent and convenient access to sex and the promise of masculine significance if not greatness. A man marries for the promise he perceives in his woman and not the promises she makes. He marries full of self-respect. Intent on making himself more significant in his eyes and those of others, he expects to excel in three dominant roles—as sex partner, husband, and father.

Wife defeats his expectations for excellence by stealing his self-respect. She does that by not respecting his performance in those three roles. But here we focus on the most important—and time-wise the smallest—role for a man, as sex partner. After investing himself to marry his woman, her lack of respect or disrespect for who he is and what he does assaults his sense of significance and shreds his self-respect. It never registers more emphatically or harshly than for his lovemaking ability and from which a man loses interest in having sex with his wife.

It begs the question. How does wife steal his self-respect? Answer: Probably unknowingly, such as described in the bullets below. She diminishes his value as bed partner. Who he is and what he does lacks her recognition to match his expectations. That’s the crux. She lets him know they disagree about bedtime techniques and practices. His respect, regard, and desire to please degenerate into doubt. His self-respect crumbles, and his interest flows toward someone or something else.

• Wife doesn’t know men well enough to know how her actions affect husband. Or, perhaps, she’s so self-centered that she doesn’t care.
• Wife’s criticisms prevent what she wants. Criticize his dishwashing and he quits. Criticize his lovemaking and he loses interest. Men don’t continue doing what ‘the boss’ doesn’t appreciate, except to spite her or protect his self-respect.
• With every good intention, wife tries to teach husband the particulars of how she prefers to be made love to. However, he takes every comment as criticism. He can’t admit to wife that he’s less than a great lover. When she says, ‘Oh, no you’re not’ in spirit or attitude, she demolishes his bedroom significance.
• Women like to blame the male ego whenever men do whatever women don’t want or appreciate. Belittling his bedroom skills affects his ego more negatively than anything else and works directly against whatever she’s after.
• She can be grateful for all he does outside the bedroom, but if he falls short there, the rest doesn’t matter.
• She misread her fiancé and married the wrong guy. Her own self-respect disintegrates and prompts her to try to make husband over into the man of her vision. It carries into the bedroom to register as her disinterest in his lovemaking, which makes his interest wilt or fade.
• She oversold herself prior to marriage; essentially she was phony or wasn’t truthful about her expectations. When she changes to her true personality after marriage, husband finds himself married to a different woman. His rising disrespect for her easily becomes his disinterest in sex with her.
• Wife unexpectedly finds herself facing inadequate respect of her husband. She reacts similarly and perhaps overreacts. It causes mutual respect to rot away, which inspires excessive self-centeredness that exacerbates the loss of mutual respect. Disinterest in sex follows.
• Wife manipulates by refusing sex. Every denial, once he detects her method, drives the spike of disinterest into his heart.

Women want to understand why men lack sexual interest in them. Let them look for all the ways that make husbands feel inadequately respected, most particularly and emphatically in the bed. (Even if he snores she ought to love it as symbolic that her great lover simply rests to restore himself for all their tomorrows together. Her happiness flows from her gratefulness in all things.)

When cheap and easy sex are so available outside the home, why not take advantage? Especially, if wife disrespects, criticizes, or otherwise signals that husband lacks the skills of a significant lover.

As shown in parts I through III, wives don’t cause all the commotion that leads to a husband’s disinterest in sex. But wives do have most of the control over what and how it comes about. Most importantly, wives are the most qualified and energized to both prevent and recover from disinterest in the bedroom. That’s for tomorrow.

1555. Thin, Thinner, Thinnest — Part II

If you can’t finish and must flee from this post, you may face a future blight rather than find and keep a knight. We all  make mistakes, and the first step to recovery is acknowledging and facing it with determination to recover. One’s motivation changes much easier than one’s beliefs.

Part I appears at post 1525. Below are some likely motivational forces that energize women to overeat. Many women seem misguided, and these possible reasons may explain why. (I add some subliminal effects and likely responses by the male nature.)

• Their girlish hopes and dreams don’t include their appearance later in life, so their weight grows because of no early dedication to ‘hold back’ at the table. (Not likely the only reason, but it adds to a husband’s disenchantment with wife’s no-longer-attractive appearance.)
• Their ease of winning male attention with sexual willingness makes it unnecessary to keep up their appearance in order to attract men. It’s so easy they think overeating won’t interfere with their plans. (Wrong! It may not interfere with capture but definitely will affect keeping a man.)
• They’re overly self-centered and so successful and know how to handle men so well they need not be particular in their eating habits. (A woman’s excessive self-centeredness challenges a man’s dominant role in any relationship. It’s a poor start.)
• They crave immediate gratification that pushes them to overeat. (It doesn’t bode well for a man’s being able to gain her cooperation in a relationship.)
• They don’t realize that under eating symbolizes femininity, and over-eating symbolizes masculinity. (What other male behaviors do they copy? Promiscuity? Head of the house? Passing infant care to someone else?)
• They wish to appear less than ideally feminine. (Why weaken their natural strengths and give away female exceptionalness?)
• They copy masculine eating habits at the table. (So, where else? In bed? One man’s bed exclusively or does their drive signal they might look elsewhere when their man is unavailable?)
• They lack self-respect and self-esteem or have low levels of self-restraint and self-image. It accumulates and compounds to weaken their respectability to men. (If not respectable to men, they’re not very lovable by a man.)
• They dislike or loathe themselves and compensate by pleasing their taste buds or exercising their power at the table. (Dislike of Self translates into lack of self-respect, which makes them unrespectable, which makes them less lovable by a man.)
• They habitually snack to ease frustrations, anxieties, and nervousness. (Lack of calmness weakens their mystique, modesty, and femininity.)
• They lack restraint at the table, and it signifies desperation about something. (Perhaps the man’s game of cheap and easy hook up? They appear vulnerable to a new conqueror.)
• They overeat out of frustration and depression-prevention caused by a seeming lack of control over the events they wish to control better. Why? Under-eating signifies self-discipline and greater control. (Doesn’t it also reduce the risk of sexual infidelity?)
• They don’t like their body or shape of it, so they don’t care about disturbing its appearance. Overeating may even improve it. Change it perhaps, but tamper with nature as opposed to refining it and you change yourself to what you want even less.

In the final analysis, overeating even before weight gain demotes women in the eyes of men. Their overall attractiveness slips with poundage, and their keeper-ability weakens as they become ever less impressive for a permanent relationship.

1438. Fidelity without His Devotion? Unlikely! — Part V

The conclusion comes tomorrow but this comes first. Two strategies that women use are compared. Option A was described in Part I, post 1434. Option B continues here.

Option A: “Some women embrace the idea that you are single until married, meaning that even though you might spend time with someone in a romantic context, until a man proposes, you remain free to entertain the interest of whomever you desire should you choose to do so.”

Option B: “Others claim that this is disloyal, unfaithful, etc. and that if you are seriously interested in someone, that interest ought to be expressed through a committed, exclusive dating relationship where both parties are off limits to anyone else so long as you are an ‘official’ couple.” (Her Highness Denise authored the options at #1428.)

Problems with Option B continue with numbers for easy reference. 

17. Women prefer Option B because it seems to minimize risk and provide some insurance against relationship crackup. However, it’s a woman’s self-centered hope; it requires more out of him than her. He senses the imbalance even if she doesn’t.

18. It’s better to be cheated on as a single female and find out about it than to marry a guy that cheated before marriage simply because she thought that she deserved his loyalty and he didn’t think that way. (We can forget the man’s take on the subject of cheating: If she physically cheats on him before or after marriage, she’s welcome no longer except as discard, booty, or worse. Of course it’s a double standard and unfair; the male nature inevitably dominates female dreams unless and until he controls his primal urges to exclusively favor the woman to whom he’s devoted.)

19. How does a woman convince her man to be faithful? State that she expects it? Promise her own fidelity? Nah, it doesn’t work. The harder she tries to take away his independence before marriage, as with Option B, the more resentful he becomes. After that, it works this way: The more he detects pressure to remain faithful, the more resentful and determined he becomes to prove her wrong. By her showing lack of trust, she challenges him, provides opportunity for new accomplishments, and energizes his prime motivator—need for self-admiration—to work against her. Simultaneously, her prime motivator backfires; her feelings of importance for having captured him in a relationship sour when she discovers he cheated.

20. Finally, the coup de grace for Option B: Men prefer B because it provides sexual leverage denied by A. It’s a man’s game and women usually lose playing those games. Why a man’s game? Because men have or will take more latitude than women in their thoughts about commitments, exclusive dedication, yielding of independence, and alibis about off limits. Men succeed at pleasing and feeling good about themselves more easily in B. Moreover, when women use Option A, men are required to be on their best behavior, to try harder to handle unknowns, to live through a bumpier comfort zone than they like. Men thus have a greater burden to live up to female values, standards, and expectations that may go so far as to include gentlemanly behavior if she can rise to the level of Lady.  

The series concludes with my conclusions tomorrow in Part VI at #1439.