2159. Dating in Mid-life — Part B3: Elephant in the Room

Here’s politics in the raw. During your first date, two conquerors face off. He seeks sex without obligation, but expects to pay some price that you determine and he hopes to minimize. You seek a permanent relationship by doing whatever you think it will take.

I think of successful relationship development in four stages that develop progressively and remain dependent on each other. 1) His interest matches your likeability. 2) His loyalty matches your love. 3) His commitment matches mutual promises of sexual fidelity. 4) His devotion matches your plans for your future together. But an elephantine risk for you lurks in the background.

His primal and endless urge to conquer attractive women has spotlighted you as a target. Don’t disregard the importance of that urge hardwired in his psyche. Be prepared, know what’s forthcoming if you yield sexually.

This is the elephant: He will reveal a different persona if and when he conquers you. The elephantine risk is whether you will end up as keeper, booty, or dumpee.

Conquest releases his nature to hunt again, and you discover what you really mean to him. You tame that elephant if you successfully develop a mutually loyal relationship while dating. Then in courtship you expand promises of loyalty to commitment and on to mutual devotion, which effectively ties the elephant’s leg to a well-anchored peg in the ground.

Your importance to a potential conqueror does not guarantee that you will remain important to him after conquest. If he hasn’t pledged exclusive loyalty based on good character, committed faithfully based on words of integrity, or become devoted to you so obvious in his actions—all before you yield—then he feels no obligation to refrain from hunting elsewhere.

Devotion to one woman is the only thing that truly tames—not kills, just tames—a man’s hardwired hankering to conquer attractive women. Devotion develops out of his daily actions and reinforcing words designed to please himself by pleasing you. Growth toward devotion also energizes him to not disappoint you. He routinely if not often enough pleases you and finds opportunity to please himself for lifting your spirits whether you need it or not. He goes all out on your behalf when you hurt inside or outside. Furthermore, his actions and attentions are consistent and persistent and not dependent on his convenience.

When we see a man who falls in love at first sight, we see devotion formed instantaneously. It isn’t the love that females sense and claim. Masculine loyalty and faithfulness spring out with effects that match female love.

A lot of time is required to tame and then peg that elephant to the ground. Months and perhaps a year or more depending on you and your romance target. You have by far the greater challenge, which is why God gave you relationship expertise. You  hold him off sexually while making and keeping yourself attractive, likeable, and loyal to his satisfaction. Your wordy expressions of love don’t work nearly as well as those qualities; his primary sensor is eyes and not ears, his expectation is satisfaction and not happiness.

However, a natural process exists that you can use. No guarantees, but the odds favor you as successes accumulate inside the process described as He Walks Himself to the Altar (coming later).

I almost forgot. In the dating arena, the elephant shrinks in size with aging. Huge at age 30, by age 60 it should be dwarf-size, perhaps self-tied to the peg in the ground, and of little risk or threat. You ladies know how to adjust according to the age of your romance targets.

Risk takers win, and that’s for tomorrow at #2160.

1124. Respect and Trust

Respect and trust rise and fall between individuals. One would think that when one goes up or down, the other would follow. It does for males but not females. (As used here, ‘trust’ covers more than just sexual fidelity.)

The male nature produces these consequences:

• He expects a female’s respect, but he doesn’t expect to be trusted.
• Men more easily respect than trust a woman. Husbands and wives especially
• Men expect a female’s respect for who he is. He expects her trust to come from what he does, says, or promises. But it doesn’t, unless she dislikes herself (aka low self-esteem).
• When husband detects a decline in wife’s respect, his duty as trustful spouse also declines. As her judgment moves, his sense of duty follows. Respect is a gift that he earns. Take back the gift, and he’ll react at significant cost to her.
• Husbands belittle, demean, or shame wife and expect her to remain respectful of and faithful to him. Why? Because of conqueror’s rights. Once earned and confirmed by conquest, her respect and trust are due. (You shout, “It’s unfair,” and I reply, “It’s Nature.”)

The female nature produces these consequences:

• Women more easily trust than respect a man. She can lose respect and still trust her man and vice versa.
• Respect of a man depends on how she values what he is and does. Trust of a man depends on how she values herself as deserving of him. So, because it depends on how well she likes herself, trusting a man is easier than respecting him.
• Wives more naturally trust than respect their husbands. If not, low self-esteem is at fault. She presumes husband is faithful to her until signs show otherwise. It’s a natural ‘preventer’ of unneeded distress. The potential pain inherent in life, plus her constant focus on brightening her future, makes her mind naturally steer clear of anticipating husband as being distrustful.   
• She expects a man to love her for who she is. His trust should come from how he loves her. She’s like that, why shouldn’t he be? But his trust comes from how he’s respected and trusted, and not from his love of her.
• Wives belittle, demean, or shame husbands and mistakenly expect them to remain trustworthy. Much less will worsen a wife’s life. For example: Wife finds faults and shortcomings that override husband’s good qualities and downgrade the respect she has for him. Because men link respect and trust together, he perceives that her trust is also downgraded. Unintended consequences follow. Less trust generates two adverse effects: His weakened sense of duty to be trustful, and his distrust of her as good wife.

Trust shown neither proves nor guarantees trustworthiness. However, trust someone without reason, unconditionally, and it indirectly sends and subconsciously earns respect for both parties.  It energizes mutual trustworthiness and makes life less risky for both.

708. Make Mr. Promiscuous Faithful — Part 2

Yesterday I mentioned mistakes and recovery. I need to recover before proceeding with original plan. Let’s look at cheating before we get to preventing it. So, we need to examine these identical terms—cheating, unfaithfulness, and infidelity—as they register with husband and wife:

• Faithfulness is the gigantic commitment and mutual expectation that operates in the marriage background as both gift and duty one to another. It generates very little marital glue, because the threat of the opposite also lurks in the background—infidelity. It’s a continual seesaw especially in wife’s mind: promise of his goodness vs. threat of his badness.
• To husband, wife’s cheating means sexual relations with another man, period. It goes so far beyond his ability to forgive and so disrupts his sense of significance and mental wellbeing that he dumps her before or after unforgivable abuse or even violence.
• To her, cheating comes in three degrees: (1) Sexual infidelity without emotional attachment to another woman is a first degree ‘burn’. (2) Emotional unfaithfulness is second degree burn, as represented by repeated sexual infidelity or emotional attachment to another female. (3) Any suggestion or danger of his abandoning her is third degree infidelity.
• The first degree she can handle, once she proves to herself that the second is absent. She can forgive, act as if she’s forgotten it, and move forward to brighten her future. (Feminism discourages this as different from how men react. So, women should act more as men do? I’m not personally endorsing either way but pointing out anti-female pressures that women face from the sisterhood.)
• The second degree is far different. Husband’s emotional attachment to another woman attacks her sense of female importance. It overpowers her self-love with self-loathing pressures of inadequacy. She can’t live with it. Note that it’s not so much him, he’s only the trigger. She can’t live with herself in his company. The frustration and humiliation usually triggers separation, so they can separate under her terms rather than his.
• The third degree ends the same way as the second for women of action: She senses the danger of his departure and beats him to it. For women less inclined to jump the gun, especially co-dependents, they await his departure with dread so great it causes indecision and often mental paralysis.
• If she gets dumped without any early warning signs, she endures the worst-case agonies of emotional unfaithfulness.
• She cheats for only one reason: Another emotional involvement, even though she may be prompted by revenge for his cheating.
• He always has an excuse for cheating. The more it reflects badly on him, the more likely he’s truly sorry (but don’t overlook possible manipulation if possible in his character).
• He’s not sensitive about emotional infidelity, and so he lacks understanding of wife’s inability to forget even if she forgives.

Unfaithfulness is a dirty game regardless of how it plays out. As with anything else, prevention helps prevent it.  We return there tomorrow.

566. Femmy Secrets for Harmony — #4

♦       She doesn’t pester her man at his work to reaffirm her feelings or relieve fears.

♦       She intuitively senses that gratitude for her man must precede his full appreciation of her.

♦       She stresses fidelity to her mate over everything else except faithfulness to God.

♦       She teaches and guides daughters to mature first, love next, and leave sex to marriage. It’s how fathers want daughters to grow up.

♦       She dreams about herself and her man as team, and what they should and can do.

♦       She uplifts his manliness and masculinity to get what she wants.

♦       She routinely keeps her own spirits uplifted by prettifying herself for different events of the day.

432. Sex and the fickle girl — Part 20

♂ Happiness flows from gratefulness for something or someone. If she’s not grateful for him after marriage, he never had the potential for Mr. Right.

♂ A successful marriage is not in finding the right person. It is being the right person. As the relationship expert, the obligation falls heaviest upon the woman.

♂ A woman has to sell a man on fidelity, marriage, and her female worth as comfort partner and companion. Otherwise, men focus on frequent and convenient sex as comfort from their daily ‘battles’.

♂ The wrong woman easily finds Mr. Wrong. It takes the right woman to find a man with high potential and then fine tune him into Mr. Right.

♂ Women jump at the chance to call a boyfriend the right man to justify behavior she knows is not in her best interest. She thus dooms a relationship.

♂ Calling a man Mr. Right elicits intuitive female actions that turn him off—e.g., overloads of affection, possessiveness, eagerness, co-dependency, desperation.

♂ Men are turned on by challenges and opportunities that prove them capable, and not by unearned claims that he’s already Mr. Right.

335. College girls: Dateless??? — Posts 186-200

One Duke University senior claimed she never had a date in college and knew no one that had. So, coed now means guys and booty?

Hear the rest of the story at these post numbers.

186.       Hot tips for hot lips.

187.       Our education system has corrupted the term ‘self-esteem’.

188.       If her boobs ain’t displayed right, she’s starting to look older.

189.       One thing kills a man’s love, and another ends his presence.

190.       Women energize men to pursue the next score, notch the bedpost, and go after more.

191.       Girls acting like boys.

192.       Nurture in the weans, lead in the tweens, coach in the teens.

193.       Most body movements require little thought.

194.       Mom was right. We do become like those with whom we associate.

195.       He’s the left hand rhythm end of life’s keyboard. She’s the right hand melodic end.

196.       Feminists want to treat his and her infidelity the same, but they’re not.

197.       Baby-care adults breathe self-esteem into each of us.

198.       He changes after conquest.

199.       Male virginity, disconnected from romance.

200.       What daughters should hear.

Escape or dodge the booty label. See the CONTENT page in the blog header.

318. His Mindset About Sex

The female mindset: Women worry about three phases of sex: foreplay, intercourse, and intimacy afterward. Men don’t.

Background

·        Adolescent male nature:  Intercourse is just intercourse. Foreplay should be unnecessary but can be fun. Intimacy interferes with recovery. Who’s next?

·        Mature male nature: Certain emotional involvements—such as respect and affection for her—add meaning and necessity to a man’s foreplay and intimacy. Her likeability adds too, but her attractiveness does not. (Attractiveness inspires the chase, but its emotional involvement fades after foreplay.)

A man’s sense of responsibility, significance, and permanence with his partner add considerations and connectedness that she appreciates. But his devotion makes him far more receptive to fulfilling her needs, especially after romantic love fades in a year or two.

The male mindset: Men are hormonally loaded to conquer attractive women. They plan around and worry about three things different than females: pre-conquest, post-conquest, and avoiding loss of their independence to hunt and conquer.

Of course, some men plan for and seek marriage. Being devoted to marriage is not the same as devoted to her, so she still has worries about his foreplay, intimacy, and even permanence.  

For more on the male mindset, see the Content page at the top for this series. Also try Do women know jack about Jack?

 

315. The good, the bad, and the ugly — MORE OF THE GOOD

♀ Think and act as if your man is valuable, and your gratefulness will make him better and you happier.

♀ Think and act dignified, and you’ll earn respect.

♀ Think and act feminine, and you’ll attract a husband.

♀ Think and act like a good Christian, and you’ll develop a servant’s heart and vice versa.

♀ Think and act like a lady, and you’ll be treated as one—although you may have to teach others how to do it.

♀ Think and act like a virgin, and you’ll lead men to make themselves worthy of you.

♀ Think and act morally exemplary, and you’ll influence others to duplicate your character.

♀ Think and act pretty, and you’ll make yourself prettier.

♀ Think and act unselfishly, and you’ll become a helpmate.

♀ Think and primp in front of a mirror every day, and you’ll become prettier.

This ends the good, the bad, and the ugly. More at posts 314, 313, and 312. Scroll down.