Having read the quoted article I found Schwyzer's central theme to be relevant to this blog: a narrative of helplessness - as indicated by "It is easy to demonstrate that women are completely responsible for the pain they have caused without the need to argue over which sex is responsible for sex-biased family courts because not one single woman has ever been forced to file for divorce, custody, or alimony in the entire recorded history of Man." Which leaves out the fact that men aren't forced into marriage either. See: Narrative of Helplessness.There are several problems here with Jakob's nonsensical reply. First, referring to the active female choice to file for divorce does not in any way leave out the fact that men are not forced into marriage. Men are responsible for taking the risk of divorce when they choose to get married; the only way to avoid it is to not marry. But the important difference is that a man is not choosing to inflict pain on himself or his wife when he marries her in the way that a woman is choosing to inflict pain on her husband when she chooses to divorce him.
Second, the MRAs that Schwyzer is criticizing are openly and vehemently anti-marriage. So, Jakob's statement makes no sense in the context of Schwyzer's anti-MRA narrative, since the MRA argument is that because women can so easily and unilaterally choose to inflict emotional and financial pain on their husbands, men should not marry.
Third, other than not marrying, men are in fact legally helpless if their wife unilaterally decides to divorce them, take the children, and asset-strip them. Their only legal defense is to remove themselves from the judicial regime, which in most cases requires abandoning their children as well. They have other actions that they could take, of course, but none within the legal system. I very much doubt that these extra-legal responses are actions that Schwyzer supports in his call for men to take responsibility for their feelings of helplessness.
On the premarital front, CD wonders to what extent a man should follow a woman:
I thought it might be ok to get your input on this. My fiance and I have had more than a few arguments on this situation. She loves comedy, has a great sense of humor, and has an interest in the field. She wanted to attend Second City in Chicago (a comedy school) and thought that if anything came of it, I would happily follow her and her dream, move to Chicago and let her pursue the comedy thing. I'm not going to lie, I have a big problem with the idea of riding the coat tails of a woman's journey. The idea just seems absurd to me. Am I being ridiculous?Yes, CD is being ridiculous. In cases such as these, a man has two choices. Either let her go to pursue her dreams or crush those dreams and don't think twice about it. Either option is valid and they represent the full range of viable choices. Resent him? If he chooses to crush her dream, CD's fiance should thank him for doing what she most likely wants, which is to release her from her fear of failure by taking the burden of the decision off her shoulders. She doesn't actually want to "pursue her dream" of becoming a serious comedienne, she just wants to do what women often do, which is dabble in something, go to school for it, and do pretty much everything related to it that doesn't involve actually doing it or taking any substantive risks. If CD's fiance was serious about comedy, she'd already be performing in the local stand-up clubs several nights a week like men who want to become comedians do. She has absolutely no need to go to Chicago to learn that she's not good enough to compete in a ruthless and highly competitive industry.
The situation has died down now. She went to Second City for a week (about a year ago), really enjoyed it, but nothing really came of it. She talks about it occasionally. I think she would still love to move to Chicago but hides that from me given my previous reactions. I'm trying to find a middle ground, as I don't want her to resent me in her mind for crushing her dreams, but at the same time, I don't want her to feel like she can mold me into a "tag-along" that will follow her anywhere she wants to go. That's my situation, any advice and/or input would be greatly appreciated.
CD needs to sit his fiance down and have a serious conversation with her about whether she wants to be a wife and mother or if she wants to go to the big city in pursuit of excitement. If she equivocates at all with regards to the former, I would not hesitate to break up with her. I suspect that CD and his fiance are fairly young, probably in college, and so the idea of riding the carousel is most likely looking very attractive to her right now, especially if CD is her high school boyfriend. Forget comedy school, if CD merely makes the mistake of moving to Chicago with her, there is a very high probability that she'll either cheat on him or break up with him within the first six months. That's simply what young women do. As each new chapter of life begins, they want to leave the characters from the previous chapter behind.
This is a classic Game dilemma. CD has handled the initial stage pretty well, but he hasn't closed the deal yet. This is because he hasn't applied Maxim XVI. Never be afraid to lose her. To paraphrase the font of all wisdom, he who would keep his woman will lose her.
13 comments:
Vox, Good advice for CD, Maxim XVI is a difficult one any man who has had only 1-2 relationships. It is partially based in the person's personal reality, because they don't comprehend there are plenty of girls on the girl tree. CD is additionally too BETA(Roissy def) to want to confront via serious conversation. My bet is CD has been thinking about having this serious conversation for weeks, hence the email.
Moving to Chicago for her dream = building and excecuting your own s-test.
Sixteen is related to seven, which is problematic on it's face for the Christian marriage. My thought is that you need to generate the same *effect*, but by other means.
Thoughts?
I am complete agreement with VD. Crush it. Playing the middle ground is as bad as following her... Crush it.
I would add though the determining factor here is her. We're obviously talking about something she isn't serious about. If she was serious about it... you then have to ask yourself is her drive a personal thing... meaning its something she has to do alone.
If it is... run like hell.
My wife would tell you she would never have made it through medical school and residency without me. True or not... she believes it... thus it became something that the couple surmounted... a team victory... not an individual one.
Its interesting to me that women seem to cherish these team victories more.
It was a matter of me saying... "you've worked your ass off to be a doctor... and you're smart enough to do it. Come with me. Follow me and we'll get there."
Ultimately that is what women want to hear.
Crush or dump. Does CD really want to have Kathy Griffin, Jeanne Garafolo, Rosie, etc., for a spouse. Think they are dedicated wives and mothers?
p.s. spell check suggested Gargoyle for Garafolo. Winning.
Crush or dump is too vulgar.
Care for her and love her, but don't put up with her shit. If she wants to go, let her go. And make sure she knows she's leaving you. And not coming back.
It won't be the only time she'll want to go unless you get off your lazy ass and be a man she'll want to stay with.
If CD is looking for marriage, then he should have no problems whatsoever with losing the wrong woman.
Whilst standard Game focuses on how to get any attractive woman, long term Game is about being selective. You don't want to waste time on the twenty that "just wanna have fun" - you want to focus on the one that will be the best fit for your goals.
Sometimes the interests or goals of women are childish and it would serve a the woman well for a man to crush them.
Comedic dreams? I am with the go-do-stand-up routine once or twice a week, she'll get tired of it, run of out materials and go on to something else like beading jewelry or art.
"Sometimes the interests or goals of women are childish and it would serve a the woman well for a man to crush them."
True.
I'm still working towards not being so BETA...
@Desert Cat: My thought is that ones relationship with Christ is primary and the marriage relationship is secondary. Your spouse cannot fulfill you completely, because humans have failings. But Christ can fulfill. Even if your spouse leaves, or dies, you aren't alone and purposeless.
That's an interesting perspective. I hadn't thought of that. That's at least a partial solution.
CD should stop wondering and just crush her dreams, or just break up NOW. Have you seen the movie "Revolutionary Road"? It will end badly.
I suppose the best middle ground is like what VD said, "If CD's fiance was serious about comedy, she'd already be performing in the local stand-up clubs several nights a week like men who want to become comedians do." Force her to go. If she proves talented, you'll know exactly what to do.
To expand upon my original email, I believe I have already crushed her dream, but I'm still battling a little bit of guilt over it. I've already had many serious conversations w/ her about it and she's told me her choice is and will always be as my future wife and mother of my children. She wasn't serious about (comedy) but she fantasized the idea and Vox nailed down her mindset in his response. She wasn't and still isn't practicing in any local comedy clubs.
I'm done feeling guilty. I made the right decision for both of us by crushing it.
She doesn't actually want to "pursue her dream" of becoming a serious comedienne, she just wants to do what women often do, which is dabble in something, go to school for it, and do pretty much everything related to it that doesn't involve actually doing it or taking any substantive risks.
Man, oh man, it took me a while to figure this out. My wife was into photography, so I bought her a nice DSLR, encouraged her to go shoot photos, offered to print and frame them for her, set up a website, etc. Eh, never any realy follow-up from her. Now I use the camera mostly to take really nice boudior shots of her.
Then she wanted to garden and get into landscaping. Hey, I wanted the grounds to like nicer. I bought a tractor ( a freaking John Deere real diesel tractor) and cleared some land for her. Everything's overgrown now, even the little vegetable garden outside the kitchen. But I still use the tractor! Man, you can have your Ferarri or Beemer, I'll take the John Deere. That thing is seriously fun.
I forget what the next batch of hobbies were, but they all ended the same. Women dabble. The small handful who don't dabble aren't going to ask your permission about it anyway. If it's important to her, she'll tell you she's moving to Chicago. If she asks you if she should, yeah, she's hoping you'll tell her it's a silly idea and let's go eat at our favorite restaruant. "You know you'd miss it if you moved to Chicago Sweatheart."
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