When I met my husband 40 years ago I knew he was ‘the one.’ He had firm opinions on sex before marriage (outdated even then) and was a virgin. As I got to know him, it became clear that he’d never consider marrying somebody with ‘history.’ He thought sex special and wouldn’t want to imagine his wife having it with others. But, by 22, I’d been having sex for four years. Madly in love and wanting him to marry me, I lied....This is one of the problems with men prone to pedestalization; it can be ugly indeed when the pedestal finally comes crashing down. It is not surprising that the advice columnist's instinct is to be irritated at the man's principled position, to find it "stupid", and to declare the very concept of virgin marriage to be outdated. But it is a little surprising that she nevertheless sees a modicum of substance to his position, as she writes: "I know no one who would discover that they had been lied to for 40 years, and think it didn’t matter."
We had two children and a very happy and successful marriage. But a few weeks ago, an old friend contacted me over the internet, and I invited her round. My husband left us to talk and went off to the garden. Inevitably we talked of the past. After she left, I found my husband looking devastated. He said he’d gone into the conservatory to read and heard everything.
He said he felt utterly betrayed, as he had a right to expect honesty, but our entire marriage had been based on a fundamental lie. I said we’d had a wonderful 40 years, so what could it matter what I did before I met him? He moved in to the spare room and avoided me. A week later he moved to a bedsit and told me he wanted a divorce.
And it's not so much the fact that the woman lied about her sexual history - I'm hardly the first man to observe that most, if not all, non-virgin women reflexively lie about N - but the fact that she knew perfectly well that this was a major matter of principle to him and she proceeded to purposefully deceive him about it anyhow. It was more than a deception meant to be justified by the eventual ends, it was also a total lack of respect for the man, for his principles, and a shameless manipulation meant to prevent him from being permitted to make a very important decision about his own life. Notice that even now, she still fails to respect his principles.
Does that deception, manipulation, and lack of respect justify walking away from four decades of marriage? I couldn't possibly say. Perhaps the marriage was considerably less happy than the wife imagines and the man is simply taking a convenient way out. Perhaps he is so disgusted by her past that he truly wants nothing to do with her. It's not for me to say, it's really not for any of us to say. I am confident that I would not react that way, but then, I was considerably less principled on the matter than this man. As Mises asserts, only acting man can assign motivations to his actions. On the other hand, I also know that any contract based on fraud is intrinsically invalid, and there is a perfectly reasonable case to be made that the marriage was never legitimate in the first place. The woman cannot appeal to forty years of something that did not, properly speaking, ever exist, especially in light of the Marriage 2.0 principle that unhappiness is an acceptable reason for unilaterally ending a marriage at any time.
However, I'm not really interested in hashing out what the ideal response to this situation is, my purpose is merely to point to this example in underlining the fact that one cannot assume that the passage of time will necessarily erase past deceptions and betrayals. It is hard, but it is always better to be honest and risk the possibility that the disclosure of one's health, one's debt, one's family, or one's sexual history will cause the other person to walk away than to attempt to deceive them into a long term relationship in the hopes that the deception will never come to light or will be overlooked in the future.
84 comments:
I think it was the fact she came up with a clever lie to get her way. Notice he took a week to think it all out before he divorced her, it seems it took him a week to conclude that her actions were in fact being "unfaithful" as defined by the JC.
The response on the Daily Mail site was interesting. It does seem that to females the principle of truth is not held in as high a regard as it is to the male.
Very sad for both of them, but there are consequences to our actions that cannot be avoided, such is life.
This is why men should assume "guilty until proven innocent" with regards to a woman's N especially if she is not a Christian.
"Does that deception, manipulation, and lack of respect justify walking away from four decades of marriage? I couldn't possibly say."
Is this a joke? I think it's sad how "acceptable" deception has become, even to Christians. Consider that Satan, according to Jesus Christ himself, is the father of lies (John 8) and Solomon lists deception as two of the seven sins God abhors (Proverbs 6).
There is nothing more Satanic than deception; not even devil-worship comes as close to Satan as deceiving others.
The 'conservatory'?
Was her husband Colonel Mustard?
Miss Scarlet in the kitchen, and the barn, and the backseat of a Bel Air...
Good for him.
Is this a joke? I think it's sad how "acceptable" deception has become, even to Christians.
No, it's not a joke. Perhaps he loves her enough to forgive her, if she was genuinely repentant. Perhaps she isn't repentant; the newspaper version appears to indicate that she is not but feels the end justifies the means. I don't have enough information to have a position on this case and neither do you.
We all lie. And all lies can be forgiven. But forgiveness will not be asked for all lies and not all lies will be forgiven.
I hope that the Daily Mail posts a follow up to this letter. I'd like to know if the husband goes through with the divorce.
It would also be good to know if the dishonest wife brought up their children to respect the husband's views. She can't change the past, but if she's lived in a way that respects his beliefs every day since the lie, it would be a shame to have the marriage end.
"I said we’d had a wonderful 40 years, so what could it matter what I did before I met him?"
And the total lack of repentance no doubt helped.
The robber looks at you and says, "Well I got away with it, to bad, watcha gonna do?"
The interesting thing is the total lack of fear in her attitude. I have no doubt those "wonderful years" weren't very wonderful for him. He also probably deliberately listened in on them, which isn't good, but why was he in the habit of listening in on his wife in the first place?
This is just the tiniest slice of their life, and it seems as if there was a lot more going on.
He might as well stay with the ho. Doesn't matter if the whole marriage was built on a lie and the contract was invalid, after 40 years, the court's are going to sock it to him something good.
Women apparently hold little regard for morals and honesty, but they can't hold a candle to the court system.
The meta-story is interesting too: why is this woman writing to a newspaper advice column? Does she think that Bel Mooney knows the five secret words to make her husband forgive her? No. She is crowd sourcing the superego.
"The 'conservatory'?
Was her husband Colonel Mustard?"
Conservatory is Brit-speak for the sunroom. Very common over there, perhaps because houses are generally smaller and adding an enclosed porch is a good way to create space.
After a month of knowing my husband, I knew he was the one so I was honest with him about my number. Prior to telling him I remember thinking to myself, "if he doesn't forgive this about me, I may never find a man that will but I have to be honest, he deserves that."
It is humbling, the grace and forgiveness he's given me. It couldn't have been easy for him. We were married for two years when he woke me up in the middle of the night to tell me he'd forgiven me. I can't be sure that the damage I did doesn't affect his trust in me. If it does, he doesn't show it. But there isn't a soul that knows something about me that he doesn't, I committed long ago to always be faithful to that.
I can never know if there is a lack of pair bonding between us. I can't live a different life to see if our relationship would be different without my regretful past. God has been very good to me, however, I want for nothing with regards to our marriage. My husband has kept our marriage very exciting. I was aware when I met him and am to this day that he'd never be alone long if I was ever stupid enough to leave.
"Sweet women lie. Men lie to get something or get out of something. Women lie because they're good at it. The sweeter the woman, the better the liar. They're so good at it they hardly ever have to pull a trigger. Somebody always does it for them." - Dale Leopold (Loren D. Estleman, Sweet Women Lie (Houghton Mifflin, 1990))
That is called fraud and he has every right to divorce her.
A marriage based on a lie is not a marriage at all. Now if she had told him of her past and he accepted it and forgave her that's a different story. I'd say the lie itself is worse than the action.
With regard to her repentance or lack thereof, I imagine the conversation that he overheard did not consist of just a one-off mention by the old friend from her hometown that she failed to deny. According to the wife, he didn't say he heard it, or something, but "everything." I'm guessing things were gone over pretty thoroughly and clearly. So one question: how much repentance for this lie could there be if she's able to talk about it in their marital house even after the ostensibly shameful truth was buried for 40 years?
Further, note how, following the link, "everyone" including their (plural) adult children, have lined up on her side as it were and tried to talk him out of it. More imagining here, but it seems plausible to me that it's occurring to this guy that his concern about things like, possibly, his children not taking on his principles could have been in part because his wife has been undercutting him all along.
The pedestal, I'm guessing, wasn't the lack of virginity. He knew about that. The pedestal was that, truly, she didn't CARE that much about the lack of virginity, and didn't respect, even after all this time, him or his views about chastity.
I suspect the problem here is more than just the revelation of betrayal. The fact is, the husband overheard a whole conversation. If that conversation had been his wife rejecting and repudiating her history to her friend and making it clear how much she was embarrassed and humiliated by her bad choices, and how much she loved her husband and the life she had now, I'm quite sure he would've been much less offended. If he had heard his wife refusing to discuss the subject with the friend because that part of her life was over and appalled her, he would've been much less offended. I suspect what he actually heard were a couple of ex-sluts giggling about the "good old days", and he heard a side of his wife he had no idea existed, a woman who has not so much repudiated her choices but has simply moved on to something that suited her better as she aged. It's that person he wants to divorce. That would be my guess.
Trust is an emotional state. Facts may be involved, but the act of trusting is emotionally based and emotionally powered. This man's trust was betrayed, in a big way – not only did she lie to him 40 years ago, now she makes a mockery of him with her old pal, in his hearing – and I'll bet he's experiencing strong feelings about it. He may very well still feel a love for her, while simultaneously the thought of touching her creeps him out. Contrary to what women seem to believe, men do have feelings, and sometimes they conflict and are not easy to work out. Appeals to reason (40 good years, etc.) may have some effect, but a woman should know that feelings work themselves out on their own time. Were the roles reversed, all this would be understood, of course, and the woman would be applauded for insisting on honoring her own feelings first, with no consideration for anyone else.
Were the roles reversed, all this would be understood, of course, and the woman would be applauded for insisting on honoring her own feelings first, with no consideration for anyone else.
I doubt that, for two reasons. FIrst, few women would care if a man 'fessed up to having more sexual partners than he initially admitted to. As Game theorists and practitioners will tell you, women who claim they're offended by a man's sexual history are usually just blowing hot air. In the unlikely event that the wife was genuinely upset by such a revelation, the forty good years argument would likely be deployed on her, as well, as long as they actually were forty good years. If they were forty crappy years, her friends and family might well tell her to honor her feelings or whatever. Although they've probably already been telling her that all along.
No, it's not a joke. Perhaps he loves her enough to forgive her, if she was genuinely repentant. Perhaps she isn't repentant; the newspaper version appears to indicate that she is not but feels the end justifies the means. I don't have enough information to have a position on this case and neither do you.
We all lie. And all lies can be forgiven. But forgiveness will not be asked for all lies and not all lies will be forgiven.
What it boils down to is whether you believe the ends can justify the means, which is the woman's position (most women take that view after the fact). It's a fundamentally un-Christian position. If this man sticks to his principles and divorces her it will be the best possible outcome, which is not to say that it wouldn't be painful. If only more men were willing to bear the consequences of holding principles, or even held any in the first place, the world would be a much different place. Instead, even Christians have become prone to taking the position that if it all turns out well immorality can be excused, as long as the offender shows remorse.
Appeals to reason (40 good years, etc.)
That's an appeal to emotion. Reason dictates that the marriage is already null and void because the original terms were not respected.
I say let's use POLYGRAPHS.
THe police consider them reliable enough to guide murder investigations. I've often thought they were not admissible in court not because they are unreliable, but because they a4re TOO reliable.
The man's actions are that of a man with a strong sense of self-respect. Good for him. Now if she would have approached him with a guilty conscience and confessed these things to him, maybe, just maybe, he'd be compelled to forgive her and move on. But he heard it 2nd hand while they were reveling in their old slut glory. Tough break lady, hiding s*it never works out well in the end.
even Christians have become prone to taking the position that if it all turns out well immorality can be excused, as long as the offender shows remorse.
That's not quite correct. The Christian position is that immorality can be forgiven so long as the offender repents. It doesn't have to turn out well.
Christianity is all about forgiveness, not optimal human behavior on Earth.
A nice essay Vox. Character really is everything - if you don't have that, then what do you have?
Christianity is all about forgiveness, not optimal human behavior on Earth.
It's about both.
I think Philalethes's point was that, if the roles were reversed and a woman had discovered some massive betrayal on the part of her husband and a 40-year pretense to cover it up, everyone would understand that she has a lot of emotions to work through and needs time to process things before she can even consider whether to forgive him. She would have a right to any emotions she might have, no matter how extreme or how long they last.
But since the victim is a man, he's just supposed to suck it up, look at the situation logically (by which they basically mean: "Look, at your age, are you gonna find anyone else to treat you as well as she has?"), and forgive her and move on already.
"Christianity is all about forgiveness, not optimal human behavior on Earth."
Christianity is all about teaching optimal human behavior on Earth...but since we are human and will have moments of weakness where we fail, forgiveness is there to make things right with God, ourselves, and our neighbor.
I'm certain, as he sat in his own crucible wondering about everything back over forty years, it was the cackling of two dried up husks reliving their prime sluttery that was the most galling. Her behavior sounds nothing like shaving her head and wearing ashes and sack cloth for penance. She probably felt proud she swindled him for forty years.
Seems like this fellow needed to conduct a pre-marital or wedding-night physical inspection. Sure, it filters out some good girls (It was a horse riding incident!) -- but it filters out all the liars like this one.
Even better while reading it -- it's not even the virginity. She cooked up a whale of a tale:
"He was bound to realise I wasn’t a virgin, so I made up a story that I’d been in a long engagement, giving up my virginity under pressure only a month before my wedding day, then reluctantly had sex twice with my fiancé, who then dumped me, leaving me devastated and ashamed."
When one adds that to the calculus, we see that she's always been a scheming, conniving slut. She worked hard to defraud him. Then, when her old drinking buddy shows up, she's decided that she's sapped enough life from this guy that it's OK to stop pretending and talk about all those early conquests that are still alive and well in her memory. After all, this guy is 62 now; he's probably worked all his life to retire with what he thought was his fairy tale life; this woman robbed him of a lifetime.
Also, another important question. She says that she was "in love" with him. What kind of perverse "love" motivates one to defraud someone into a marriage, esp. knowing how important this is to them? I daresay that she may have had some manner of erotic/romantic feeling for him, but she did *NOT* love him, and still doesn't care for him except insofar that she can *use* him. It's all about her! And that advice columnist was horrid for just so many reasons! UGH
@ Cail: I understand, and the overall point is not without merit. But it's important to distinguish between typical male and female reactions. The title of this post references a tendency for men to pedestalize their wives. I could be wrong, but I don't think there is a comparable tendency in women to pedestalize their husbands, and thus become devastated when that pedestal collapses. I also don't think, generally speaking, women are nearly as concerned with principle and respect as men are. It would be most interesting to compare a similar situation in which a wife is devastated by a comparable lie on the husband's part, and if there is a general expectation for her to forgive or to move on.
Mr. Green Man, she is a disgusting vile wretched woman. Everything you said was spot on, except that she still only talked about it *after* he had disappeared from the room. She was still going to continue on her merry little lie. The worst part of all this is that there could have been a worthier female (esp. in 1972) who would have been truthful, respected him, wasn't a slut, and had taught their children similar values. A woman like this would have no problem pulling the loyalty card on her kids in order to persuade them to be on her side as well, but we can't know what motivated them to defend her. I can only imagine that the pain was further magnified by the kids going along with Mom. Wait for her and everyone else to try and persuade him that he is some kind of nutbar.
I'm certain, as he sat in his own crucible wondering about everything back over forty years, it was the cackling of two dried up husks reliving their prime sluttery that was the most galling.
Sounds that way. It would be one thing to overhear your wife talking about how she lied to you in her youth out of fear of losing you, and it's been eating at her all these years, and she wants to tell you but doesn't want to hurt you or destroy what you have together. That would hurt, but you could understand it and maybe get past it.
It'd be quite another thing to hear them reminiscing happily about the time they pulled a train over at Phi Eta Pi. Now it's not that she's been hiding her shame, which you could say shows at least some respect for his views. Now it's that she's been hiding happy memories, simply because she didn't want to get in trouble.
From her perspective, assuming she's been faithful and attentive these 40 years, she probably figures that proves that she wasn't really a slut at heart, and that it was silly of him to be so obsessed with virginity. She thinks, "If I'd told him the truth, he might've broken it off and missed out on 40 great years of marriage. I did him a favor by lying to him." (If I can come up with that, a hamster certainly can.) So she'll very quickly move from guilt to resentment, as he holds a sin against her that she thinks she long ago earned forgiveness for.
I don't think there is a comparable tendency in women to pedestalize their husbands, and thus become devastated when that pedestal collapses.
I have to laugh when I hear people decry pedestalization as if they're just so wise and worldly. As if a guy is going to slave his life away to support a wife he thinks is nothing special. Pedestalization is the way men love, they set up something better than themselves and sacrifice for it. Whether in reality that particular man's treasure stands up to scrutiny is a different matter and obviously something to investigate seriously before you set it up on the pedestal. But throwing the whole thing out is just an excuse for women to behave on their basest instincts and act like animals.
Instead of telling men not to pedestalize we should be telling women to worthy of it.
Stickwick, I agree completely. I was speaking to the way even his children are nagging him (after a week!) to get over it and forgive and forget. If a woman declared her intention to move out because of some heinous act by her husband, the same people wouldn't be arguing with her. They'd be telling him to accept it, to give her space, that time heals, etc. No way would they be pressuring her to stay.
As for your contention that women are less concerned with principles, I can't do better than to quote from a favorite Western novel, Smoky Valley by Donald Hamilton (avoid the poor movie adaptation). The heroine says this to the hero before he heads into the final showdown with the Bad Guy:
"Do you understand? It is nothing to me how you do this, nothing at all. You've got to believe that, my dear. Women are not honorable in things like this, remember that. Shoot him in the back, feed him wolf-bait, blow him up with dynamite, or run him down with a team and wagon. I don't care."
I think women see most male ideas of "honor" as sort of a funny thing boys do, kind of how men view the way women always go to the powder room together. They don't get it at all, but as long as it doesn't seem to hurt anything, they don't worry about it.
Instead of telling men not to pedestalize we should be telling women to worthy of it.
Right... I wish you good fortune on your endeavor and will be following your future career with interest.
@anonymous
The law or Judaism is about human behavior. Christianity or Christ is about forgiveness.
Having been involved with men and marriage for about twenty years, it's simply astonishing the mountain of lies that have eventually come to light regarding pre-marital activity. It's all too predictable when a man who openly values chastity marries a woman who was a virgin except for being raped, or had a man force himself on her, or whatever. N=1 but it wasn't her fault is the default answer, following this soon-to-be spinster's path precisely. In a recent example, the newly minted divorcee, sporting cash and prizes from her ex, sought out the man who'd "raped" her in college, twenty years earlier. Sick.
That is why I married a virgin; N=0 was the only acceptable answer, hymen intact, no stories. N>0 means N is unknown.
Pedestalization is the way men love, they set up something better than themselves and sacrifice for it.
No. Pedestalization is when you put someone on a pedestal without making sure she deserves it. That last part is critical to the definition. Many men (including myself once upon a time) put every woman way up on a pedestal automatically -- the prettier the woman, the taller the pedestal. (That's why woman aren't impressed by it, or even creeped out, by the way. If she can tell you put every girl on a pedestal, then it's not saying anything special about her. She wants you to love her because she's a special snowflake, not because she has a vagina, and discovering her special snowflakeness takes time.)
Had this woman deserved the pedestal her husband put her on, she couldn't have fallen off, and the size of her pedestal wouldn't have been an issue.
Yes, we need to press women to be more deserving of the love and care that men are waiting to give them. At the same time, men need to be taught to resist their tendency to view women through rose-colored glasses.
Right... I wish you good fortune on your endeavor and will be following your future career with interest.
The world wasn't built by cynics, you must be amazed at everything you see.
Yes, we need to press women to be more deserving of the love and care that men are waiting to give them. At the same time, men need to be taught to resist their tendency to view women through rose-colored glasses.
I agree with this, most men would rather compromise their self-respect than break a sentimental illusion.
Right... I wish you good fortune on your endeavor and will be following your future career with interest.
Incidentally, and not that I'm comparing myself with Him, Jesus told people things that seemed utterly impossible. I suppose you would've been one of the ones smirking and rolling your eyes were we living in his lifetime.
This is a stark but clear example of the mental process of commitment for a man...when a woman gets onto Ladder 1 (http://badgerhut.wordpress.com/2011/06/03/ladder-theory-for-men/) the "marriage goggles" go into place. Being a man, he takes seriously his commitment to the woman and that said commitment has benefits and costs to it. Given the relative differences in SMP over time for men and women, the commitment goggles provide a tremendous benefit to the woman in terms of long-term resources and security from a man who could, in all likelihood, choose any number of other women, or all/none of them.
However, once a woman does something that shatters the commitment goggles - be it nagging, cheating, denying sex or revealing that she lied to him on a material matter when he was deciding to invest in her - his sense of duty and obligation to her is over. It's done, she's no longer the special lady, just another chick who wants something from him.
It's a male-centric turnaround of Roissy's maxim that once the love dies, a woman can be as cold as if she had never met you. When the loved is _killed_ because a man feels deceived or betrayed, the man can and will lose all sympathy, magnanimity and compassion.
Raised on the soft feminism of my generation, when I was young I never conceived women had such shifting principles. I thought all of their rhetoric about how they wanted men with courage and honor and everything else meant they were committed to such things and expected the same of the men they consorted with. My how things have changed for me. Today, I really don't think women realize how much men, especially the "men of character" that are the endless discussion of articles like these, hold ideals and principles and fairness as a core value of their mindset. Probably another element of the Apex Fallacy, women see bad boys getting away with everything (especially with them, they love to complain about how some dastardly sexy man fooled them) and think deceptions are part of the male experience.
In fact, it's why more men in situations like this DON'T divorce their fibbing, cheating or harpy wives. They've been lulled into internalizing a sort of perverted "ideal" of marriage as "unconditional love" that itself entails a perverted concept of "unconditional forgiveness." (As Athol Kay says, the people who ask for unconditional love are those who don't meet the conditions.)
The hubbub over this letter is yet another incident that gives me great disappointment to realize that truth and honesty and idealism is just not really part of a woman's psychological calculus, not when her perceived self-interest is on the line, and that women will back each other on this abdication of accountability in herdlike fashion.
And this is why men are turning away from the deafening obligation-masculinity, "man up" shtick. Men are constantly told what they "ought" to do by virtue of having a dick, while woman ignore and destroy any pretense of consistency or accountability. Finally a sizeable corpus of men is saying, "so what? Why bother?"
In a bit of irony, pedestalization is itself an example of the "principle commitment" aspect of male psychology. Men absorb a belief that women are aesthetically and ethically superior, and stick to the thought patterns and behaviors that reinforce the belief without being willing to go against the belief or step back and consider if the premise is false. Once men come to believe something it's not easy to get it unseated.
On a more personal note, I've steered away from talking numbers with some partners simply because I knew it would be an uncomfortable conversation, probably one that would disappoint me and would almost beg her to lie to me. At the time I lied to myself and said it was an instance of magnanimity or just something that wasn't important, but now I know that was bullshit and I was just avoiding hard situations.
Since these relationships didn't work out for other reasons it's a moot point, but when you're talking about making a lifelong commitment you better have the guts to ask the tough questions, to follow up and to independently verify. Your money and your life are on the line.
Moreover, and this obviously doesn't apply to this case, I think a lot of women reflexively believe that the men they are scouting as husbands have equal or more sexual experience than they do, so the exact numbers aren't a big deal and thus can be fudged.
Remember, it's part of the apex fallacy, thinking men have it better than you do, when most women have NO idea at all how hard it is for a man to be sexually successful to the same degree even a plain woman can easily be.
To use a local reference, Susan Walsh has said as much about her husband - she said she doesn't know his count but given she hit double digits she assumed he must have hit about 20. I suppose this was partly via preselection (she saw him both flirting and going home with other women) and partly via the usually-erroneous projection-inference I referenced above, women probably assume any man they are hot for must be hot to all women and thus he must have racked up numbers before she locked him down. (Without being critical of Susan here, I do notice she has a tendency to think that what she find attractive, e.g. skinny guys, must be a universal and that the game guys are just beating their chests about what women supposedly find attractive.)
I think women see most male ideas of "honor" as sort of a funny thing boys do, kind of how men view the way women always go to the powder room together. They don't get it at all, but as long as it doesn't seem to hurt anything, they don't worry about it.
Yeah, I think you're probably right about women in general. Personally, I admire male notions of honor, principle, and respect. For that reason, I understand the husband's grief on an abstract level even if I don't completely identify with it.
I'd bet a week's pay that this slimy slut had other men besides the husband AFTER the knot was tied. She has already proven she has no morals. What would stop her? I hope she enjoys her cats.
This man should have paternity testing done on any children that allegedly are his. Just because...
I suspect what he actually heard were a couple of ex-sluts giggling about the "good old days", and he heard a side of his wife he had no idea existed, a woman who has not so much repudiated her choices but has simply moved on to something that suited her better as she aged.
I also think he heard a couple of alpha widows giggling and reminiscing over past antics, and realized that many of the times he was 'with' his wife, there was a good chance she was thinking of someone else, and that she had just settled for him and gone through the motions.
Susan Walsh has said as much about her husband - she said she doesn't know his count but given she hit double digits she assumed he must have hit about 20. I suppose this was partly via preselection (she saw him both flirting and going home with other women) and partly via the usually-erroneous projection-inference I referenced above, women probably assume any man they are hot for must be hot to all women and thus he must have racked up numbers before she locked him down.
This is hilarious given that she has referred to her husband as a 'beta'.
It's just a double-rationalization to justify her own past behavior while at the same time trying to make herself feel better about the man she settled for.
"He had firm opinions on sex before marriage (outdated even then) and was a virgin."
I see the lie was just as strong back then. Just because it's 2012 or 1962 doesn't change the fact that sex before marriage has consequences...especially for women.
I think a lot of women reflexively believe that the men they are scouting as husbands have equal or more sexual experience than they do, so the exact numbers aren't a big deal and thus can be fudged.
Remember, it's part of the apex fallacy, thinking men have it better than you do, when most women have NO idea at all how hard it is for a man to be sexually successful to the same degree even a plain woman can easily be.
True, they have no idea. Even a good looking guy, assuming he's not very socially adept or a natural alpha and has some standards (no 400-pound hose-beasts or prostitutes), can easily get into his 20s with an N of 3 or less. On the other hand, a good-looking woman, if she's "exploring her sexuality" at college or sowing her wild oats after a divorce, can easily nail that many guys in a week.
Given what we know about hypergamy, it makes sense that if most women have an N of 10-20, the most alpha 10-20% of men would have an N in the hundreds while the rest of the men could be mostly clustered at 0-3. There aren't likely to be many men who have an N just a little higher than the women they meet. That would imply that he's able to get laid more easily than a woman (rare), but he doesn't take advantage of his skills to get laid like a rock star. What are the odds?
In the Bible, women are told to respect their husbands, and the husbands are told to love their wives. When men lose the respect of their friends or co-workers, it is a scathing blow. When they are disrespected in their own home, they are undermined to the core. If this story is true, and the man has faithfully performed his duties as husband, the wife should quietly accept his decision with humility.
I know I probably wouldn't react that way (though I don't have the history of emotions and trust this man does here) but Vox is right, this man's reaction is his own and is to be respected. I will be quick to say that if she was repentant (though it appears she was not) I believe you cannot deny forgiving her because we do the same to Christ every day in our sins, betrayal. I can only hope and pray that somehow this woman realizes the WHY of this.
I have noticed that most women cannot fathom honor. Any time I've watched a film (usually a war film or the like) with a female they can never understand why a character would sacrifice their self for another or why one would go to great lengths (even unto death) to honor the wishes of another whom they respected beyond measure. It's totally alien. It really gets me as I sit there in contemplative silence and they end up somehow mocking the idea or making light of it.
It was rather clear to me that this woman simply cannot accept blame for her own misdeeds: lying to get what she wanted. It's indicative of a person who is selfish and possibly even narcissistic at her rotten core. She didn't write for advice; she wrote to have her fanny patted soothingly and to be reassured that it really was all HIS fault for having "outdated" morals, that she is blameless and innocent and that her unrepentant lying isn't her chickens coming home to roost. It means that she really isn't sorry and doesn't genuinely love him. Love requires placing someone else above yourself, but the center of her world is clearly herself and herself exclusively.
Unfortunately, that advice columnist gave her exactly what she wanted: enabling. I feel terrible for that poor man, but I can't help but hope that the woman (and the terrible advice columnist) reap well of consequences of their self-centered and irresponsible actions.
She lied about her long-term mate value and he invested in her for 40 years at a level much higher than what she was worth (at least in his mind) on the basis of that deception.
What he did was justified.
The truly sick aspect though is that this article is attempting to shamelessly alter the norms of society to one where society considers the woman's actions her justified. That her deceit, fraud and exploitation of her former husband is noble and good, and he's the bad or immoral one for not overlooking her treachery.
This is a cultural war. A battle for who gets to shape and control the norms in society. Men need to start showing up and returning fire, lest they find themselves enslaved to injustice.
It's not so much about the sexual history.
It's much more about the fraud, deception and lying about the sexual history.
It's about the lack of respect. It's about the demanding, entitlement mentality.
It's about the manipulation.
It's about her elevation of her own naked self-interest even above that of her husband, above that of her children. It was not about the greater good, of doing what was best for her family. It was, and still is, first and always, about doing what was and is best FOR HER.
deti
From someone who has been married 18 years, I cannot understand some of the responses here and/or the individual's response. If he freaked out after 40 years over something that happened when she was 22, what does that tell you about the nature of their relationship? ..or how open and honest they both are with each other?
Any man who pedestalizes a woman is asking for trouble; period. If one freaks out over something like that after so many years has issues with control.
Sh*t, there is so much crap I did at 22 that my 45 year old self chalks up to "being a single guy and figuring what the f*ck this is all about." I know my wife's history and she knows mine and we both are mature enough to handle it.
After 40 years of marriage, who gives a sh*t if one's wife was sexually active at 22. Maybe if I was a few years into the marriage and found out my wife had a higher n-count than me, was a raging whore etc. and I was 25 years old, I would be upset. After 40 years? That is whack.
I guess there are lots of guys our there who want to play the role of the "white knight," "daddy" or "master" who marries the virgin and teaches here everything in life, love and sex.
I have never heard this before, that women do not have a sense of honor, nor really understand it as men do.
I've *seen* it, on countless occasions, but my assumption has been that I was dealing with a relatively amoral person.
To what degree is this a sex characteristic? I mean, it fits with the notion of female solipsism, but...does this rise to that level of predictability? Is this a constant at least as reliable as the presence and activity of the rationalization hamster or N fudging?
I"m going to go along with the theory that he didn't hear her mourning her past sexual flings pre-marriage.
What he heard was her reminiscing fondly about past alphas who F*ed her good and hard, who showed her what a wonderful thing sexual adventure could be, and how much time she has spent in the last 40 YEARS wondering where each one of her former lovers was in his life and how much better her life might have been with them.
And the friend updating her on the information she knew about each of them, and adding her own two cents about how she "settled" for the lesser lover.
And I bet she doesn't remember a single word, laugh or giggle of that conversation, nor recall in any way how her attitude about the whole thing is what burned his soul.
You can tell this is her attitude by her word choices in the letter. No real remorse, just chastisement of his provincial attitude and morals. She is a whore, high class perhaps, but a lying whore nonetheless. How sad that her hubby had to have it so dramatically revealed to him after 40 years together.
Considering how all the children are siding with the lying and deceiving bitch, it is pretty obvious that she managed to ensure they shared her value system.
I am going to guess he had money, he was a whale she wanted to land and that is why she lied.
I agree with those who said her little chat must have been a horror fest for him.
You don't let anyone come into your marriage home and discuss old lovers. Especially if your spouse is there. Let alone join in with them.
And yes, he has every right to be horrified. He could have been chosing between her and someone else. He had the right to make the decision based on the truth. She is unrepentent and seems to just want to not deal with consequences.
She is a liar, I shudder to think what else she has felt ok to lie about for forty years.
Anon 9:49 am
I suspect it's not so much about the sex as it is the fact that she lied to her husband about it and kept up that lie for 40 years.
It's about the lack of respect she has for her husband that that fundamental lie entails.
It's about the manipulation. She used her husband for her own ends.
deti
Young whore old beggar.
Hypergamy doesn't care about your moral convictions or 40 years of relational equity.
Makes me wonder about the details she discussed about her past with the old friend that he overheard.
My guess is that what her husband overheard was typical "girls locker room" stuff -- talking about their sexual histories, comparing their husbands to past lovers re: size, sexual prowess and aggression, dominance etc., like Karen Owen did with her powerpoint.
Somehow I'm guessing that what he overheard wasn't that he was the best she'd ever had, or that he made all her past lovers pale by comparison.
"I have never heard this before, that women do not have a sense of honor, nor really understand it as men do.
I've *seen* it, on countless occasions, but my assumption has been that I was dealing with a relatively amoral person.
To what degree is this a sex characteristic? I mean, it fits with the notion of female solipsism, but...does this rise to that level of predictability? Is this a constant at least as reliable as the presence and activity of the rationalization hamster or N fudging?" - Desert Cat
Absolutely a sex characteristic. Yes, it's predictable and yes it is a reliable constant.
That wasn't easy to write. It's honor, it's a good thing, I want to have that/know it. Why was that not something God gave to both men and women?
What women really don't understand, without being told, is that it's immutable, not subjective nor circumstantial. And what men don't understand is how it could be possible that women need to be told this.
Self preservation was placed within us instead. Never were we designed to be decision makers in situations where honor is required.
Having been married to my wife for not 18, but 37+ years, I have a totally different view. I cannot be sure I am correct. I have been wrong before and will be wrong again.
I don't think it's just the fact she lied to him for forty years. I suspect something no one else has mentioned. I suspect he perceives, correctly or not, (and I think, correctly) that for forty years she has been laughing with all her friends about how she put one over on him.
To be lied to is bad. To be publicly humiliated, which I think he has been, is a zillion times worse.
He has been married to her for forty years, and my belief is when he heard her laughing about putting one over on him, he KNEW she had been telling all her friends for forty years, and they all viewed him as a gullible fool.
That is exactly what women do.
And, now, apparently, even the whole family knows she has been humiliating him publicly for forty years. And, she is still humiliating him in front of his own children and other family members.
ANONYMOUS AGE 70
Come on. You can't see through this?
After 40 years, she invites an old friend over from "back in the day" and they choose to talk about ... wait for it ... all the cock they tasted?
What kind of conversation was that (details or it doesn't count). And what kind of moronic wife would not know that her husband of 40 years was in the next room listening?
They have a garden _*AND*_ a conservatory and she decides to spend an afternoon reveling in all the poon tang she got back in her slut period?
And your point is that the husband is (even partially) to blame for pedestalizing his slut wife? He didn't pedastal her, he told her honestly and up front about his standards and she lied. She deceived him. And she lied again when she spent an afternoon wallowing in her sordid slut past.
He dumped her because she lived a life with him of fundamental dishonesty.
I have never heard this before, that women do not have a sense of honor, nor really understand it as men do.
It wasn't Adam who took the first bite of the forbidden fruit, was it?
So, the 40-year slut wife writes a letter to a so-named Bel Rooney, who in response writes this:
It’s not that I don’t have principles, just that I view human relationships in terms of nuance, light and shade
And so of course the slut Bel Rooney tries to make an argument that the husband is basically a dinosaur. Follow the links and go read the entire response. Classic.
Now, of course if you do some googling of Bel Rooney you will find that apparently she's been involved with at least 3 and probably many more men, all within her middle age. Here are some pics:
http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/04_04/mooneyL2004_468x418.jpg
http://www.kingswood.bath.sch.uk/uploads/1/Jeremy-_-Bel-MJSD.jpg
http://www.flickr.com/photos/49515958@N04/4622408506/
Apparently, one of her husbands dumped her.
Gee, I wonder why?
SarahsDaughter said...
Absolutely a sex characteristic. Yes, it's predictable and yes it is a reliable constant.
I tells ya, the "red pill" is not so much a pill, but a whole bottle of the dang things. Ah well, far better to deal in reality than the "pretty lies".
It explains a few things, and lets me make allowance for said reality. Not so much a moral failing as a structural deficiency then...
It makes me appreciate our forefathers who understood these things. THIS one item, right here, is a big reason for patriarchy. Men are designed to seek the greater good. Place: the world. Women are designed to seek the good of themselves and by extension their family, whatever the cost. Place: the home. Not at all about "oppressing" women, but about preserving civilization.
I wouldn't go so far as to say women have no sense of honor at all, but it's not one of their highest priorities, and as a result, they have no idea how important it is to men.
That's not to say men are honorable all the time. We're not perfect, after all. But all men know they should be honorable, and want to be seen as honorable, especially by other men. That's why a man will risk his life to let the other man in a gunfight draw first -- to avoid being labeled dishonorable. Ditto hanging tough in the middle of a firefight -- ducking and running would be dishonorable (and cowardly, a close cousin) in the eyes of other men. Even the kind of men who end up in prison have codes of honor there.
For women, self-preservation is a much stronger instinct, as Sarah's Daughter said. A woman might risk her life for her child or her faith, but never for a point of honor. It wouldn't even occur to her to do so.
It is not that we have no honor, it is that we are fallen. Without Christ, I could easily have been this sad women.
I saw a documentary on lions. The male lion was older and was challenged by two young males. They killed him. His Queen watched helplessly, then attempted to help when she saw him trying to fight them off. When he died, she and the other females gathered together and lay together on the ground. Their cubs were crying for them. The males smashed them to bits.
The females then mated with the males.
It was quite seriously one of the most horrifying things I have ever seen.
The narrator explained that the fact that the Queen attempted to help at all was very unusual, as the females go no where near males when they fight because they know they can be killed so easily. They said they didn't protect their cubs because, again, they knew to do so was a death sentence for them. And last, that they mated because the death of their cubs put them in a state of fertility and sealed the males to them, ensuring their protection.
When I saw this, I understood some horror stories I have heard about women practically sacrificing their children to new men in their lives.
Without a Father, a Husband, a Protector and Provider...females freak. They seek a new one, so no matter what the cost.
Only through Christ, can someone go through that loss and not do that.
I am not saying women are animals, I am saying we are fallen and fearful and without faith...we cling to the material because we think it is all we have.
And I disagree with Cail. I would give my life for the honor of my God. I am commanded to do so. But I will say I do not want to be put in that position as I have young children. Only through Christ could I be so brave.
Only through the grace of God go I.
And I disagree with Cail. I would give my life for the honor of my God.
I did say a woman would give her life for her faith, but that's not what men mean by "a point of honor." Q.E.D.
I don't mean to imply women can't do honorable things or live honorable lives. They most certainly can. The motivation for doing so, however, can not be described the same as honor that men innately understand. Women being generally aversion based ties into their innate self preservation. My contention is a woman living an honorable life has chosen to do so based on what she doesn't want and to preserve that which she has discovered she does want (not something that is instinctual).
Observations I've made of male atheists in contrast to female atheists have revealed the same conclusion. Male atheists insist on an instinctual awareness of morality (honor) that isn't formulated from a societal or religious standard. Female atheists that I've observed, model their morality off of something/someone they submit to. Ayn Rand, for example, seemed to reject the concept of an innate honor or anything instinctual and was all about self preservation. Quite a contrast to Dawkin's altruistic genes.
I've never seen a woman act with what I'd call honor. Sometimes with "not dishonor" but never "honor".
How is only expecting the same from a woman as from yourself putting her on a pedestal? He expected sexual purity and honesty, and met those expectations himself.
If that's what the manosphere means by putting women on a pedestal, the more appropriate advice seems to be "put women in the basement".
- JSR
I always thought the flick The Banger Sisters has a wholly unrealistic and stupid ending.
There were no women in VT-8.
"What was so bad about her lying about something important to him..."
In the old days, when I did not know better, when I was fully suffocated by the blue pill, when society was telling me I am sick for having standards,
A four year relationship fell apart.
A relationship during which I literally begged for blowjobs (blue pill), and got to hear that she does not like them, she never liked them, she will never like them, she has never given them, etc. the ones I got were half assed and not much fun.
After the break up, I could not get over her. Oneitis, a bad case.
We started hooking up.
One night she, without my prompting, out of the blue, gives me a blowjob. After so many years, it happens to be still one of the best I ever got.
After I came, did I think "wow that was great",
No, I was angry, I was disgusted, "Where the fuck was that willingness and talent when I was a boyfriend, bitch. Now that I am done with you, the skills come out, fuck you, fucking liar"
Those five seconds were when I got over her. The disgust, the betrayal was too much for a oneitis to overcome.
Wasted four years, out of which the biggest benefit was paving the road for the red pill.
this man wasted forty fucking years on a woman who casted a play in her head, and lied to him to get him to accept his part. She lied to him about a vital factor for him, he will feel betrayed, he will feel disgusted, and after forty years, that disgust will not be forgiven, but be multiplied.
Even his children, now on her side, are a product of this lie, if they are his product.
I thank God for the day she decided to suck the chrome out of my trailer hitch, after years of even declining to hand wax it. I saw what was available before me, and what was denied to me.
No amount of "you don't understand her", "her feelings" changes the fact that I was betrayed, lied to, and paid for the village cycle with no tires.
Forty years of this? Fuck.
That my wife had other sexual partners before I married her doesn't bother me. If I overheard her and one of her friends from back in the day reliving past glories - that'd bug me. If she'd lied to me when we got married - that'd really piss me off. There's give & take in a marriage and one of the essentials, I think, is that both people observe common hypocrisy, out of respect to each other. You lose that and the ugly truth is laid bare, usually to the woman's detriment.
CailCorishev has the best insight on what happened in this case (IMHO). If he'd walked in on the conversation and the old friend was telling his wife about her "intended's" subsequent failures in life, then added a couple of comments about how the "intended" wasn't man enough to live up to his responsibility, nothing bad would have happened (even *if* the "intended" was depicted as the love of her life.) He would have rationalised it as "That guy broke her heart and she allowed me to fix it."
Instead, he heard "everything"(and I read the article, in which the letter writer implied that she enjoyed almost everything the Swinging Sixties had to offer.) So, given the timeframe, he probably heard about the "train(s)" that were run, the holiday flings, the time(s) in the quiet bathroom at a party, the "thing" with {insert name of celebrity here}... And he felt like a fool and a tool.
Of course, reverse the sexes and all Hell would break loose. A Christian girl wants to be married to a male virgin, then meets a man who insists that he's a virgin. Forty years after the wedding, a forty-one year old man knocks on their door with her husband's ash-blond hair, crooked ears, hazel eyes and slightly downturned smile. In this case, none of the female commenters would say *anything* about the "40 happy years". In fact, if you look through the archives, you'll see that the most common actions that cheated women are told to take are get a lawyer/counselor, interrogate their friends and take a HIV test. They don't even suggest the Sally Hemings route (if someone claims to be directly related to a certain man, scrutinize his male relatives for all similarities before accepting their claim.)
A marriage is based on mutual trust.
Would it been OK if those happy forty years was based on paternity fraud? Everyone value is different, and this man valued truthfulness and chastity. It was not even her virginity because he knew she wasn't. Had she been truthful he might have still accepted her, but she was a liar and he was the joke of that lie.
To say she gave him 40 years of happiness, who is to say another woman, a truthful chaste woman, could not have provided that. The years whether 1 or 100 years are in reality irrelevant. She denied him that choice and mocked his ideals. And on top of that he has to look back on 40 years through the prism of a lie.
On top of the lie she goes and hangs her dirty laundry on the internet. Even never meeting the man, I am sure he would not appreciate that action and will only enforce his view on divorce.
What a blow that must have been. And the moronic response is pretty astounding. Yes, people today don't care about virginity that much, but this man did, and depriving him of choice in this matter is traitor move.
Post a Comment
NO ANONYMOUS COMMENTS.