Monday, March 18, 2013

Lets us fix you

 

It might work when you are mega star Chris Martin writing these words to the "sensitive and moody" Gwyneth Paltrow in the wake of her father's death. However, after learning of their marriage being on the rocks, I remain skeptical. One can certainly conclude the "fix you" concept will not turn out so well for a red pill, Christian woman and a blue pill, secular man:
I have a question, and the more input I can get the better, so feel free to post this if you would like, although I confess I doubt it's going to be very relevant to most people.  Still, I didn't want to derail another of your blog-comments sections.

My problem (if that's right) is this:  in trying to change to be more submissive to become a better wife to my fiance (wedding in October), he is actually saying he is very uncomfortable with me making such changes.  My motivation is (best as I can account for it!) to make him happier and be better helpmeet, to have a more peaceful home, and, let's be honest, to have that joy and peace I've witnessed among you and the other red pill ladies.  There's definitely benefits for myself too, but I feel like I want to do it for US.  As I explained all this to him, and we were trying to puzzle out why/how he was so uncomfortable with it, he asked that I put the question out to those who inspired me in the first place, so here I am.

I'll go ahead and give you some background, as well as my theory, and see what you make of it, if you can spare me the time.

So, we have been dating for almost 4 years, engaged since last October, cohabiting since the November before that.  We originally fell into a sort of flip-flop of the traditional model - he had just gotten back from the military when we met and had no job so I paid for everything. We were fairly egalitarian in our decision-making, but I took the lead in most social situations as he and I both agree that he is basically what Alpha Game Plan describes as a sigma.  I was also very defensive, and at least somewhat controlling.  I was definitely "Strong, sassy independent!"  Certainly, there were times I worried (and expressed to him) that, as a budding psychologist, some part of me was "in it" for the "fixer-upper" challenge.  While both of us have our issues, his very troubled up-bringing made his more "noticeable" - so for quite a while it was all about how WE needed to fix HIM.  He is basically secular - he has some beliefs, but they are extremely unorganized and he is pretty anti-religion.

It's been, eh, maybe a year and a half or so since I started looking into Christianity after finding To Love, Honor and Vacuum, then Dalrock, then SSM (and others, but these were the most influential in my interest in the Christian model of marriage).  He mocks the manosphere and doesn't like to talk religion, so I didn't bother talking about it with him much after he rebuffed my initial attempts.  (I also made some, eh, tactical errors in linking him to certain Rollo posts at the beginning which were probably not the best priming material) 

Instead, over the last several months, I have simply tried to be more mindful of my behavior.  Trying to make sure I am pleasant, not turning down requests, being more supportive, etc.  Definitely not perfect!  Haha!  But better than I was.  I also made my New Year's Resolution to read my entire Bible over the course of the year, rather than just the snippets from blog discussions.

In our initial conversations he expressed that he was wary of the Christian stuff because he was afraid of me turning into one of the Churchian hypocrites (not quite the words he used, but the sense) and getting all "God will provide!  (so I can sit on my ass and not try!)" and that sort of thing.  I reassured him (I thought) and he did admit that I had been easier to get along with and he liked that.

I started following some of Dalrock's advice to a reader who wanted to encourage her husband to be more take charge - the advice being to defer, to quietly transfer decisions to him, and basically to make a "leadership void" and let him fill it - and then, to appreciate and submit to his decisions.  It was working, and I did see him begin to "step up" so to speak, and he seemed more confident to me. 

Annnnnd then, a few days ago, I sent him links to amazon for the books "The Surrendered Wife" and "Fascinating Womanhood" and said, "Hey, I would like these at some point, maybe for my birthday or something."  This was the SHTF moment.  "Submission" is a bad word to him; he wonders why I want to change all this if I'm not unhappy, worries that I must BE unhappy, doesn't understand how a book published in the 60s could POSSIBLY be relevant any more, so on.  He doesn't like the idea of the traditional wife, and seems to think that I want to become some sort of doormat/automaton that is incapable of making decisions and wants to be totally powerless. 

I've tried to clarify all this, and it helped a bit, but he still remains fundamentally very wary.  He talked with his shrink about this (he goes once a month) and it helped settle his mind some, but OTOH, he and his shrink both discussed that maybe I'm taking people's online personas too much at face value and not doing my research enough - not realizing just how long I've been looking, and not pestering him about it. Next month I will be going with him to talk with him and his shrink, so hopefully that'll help, but we'll see.

SOOOOO.  That, I think, is all the relevant background (and maybe overkill - I tried to keep it short, but I'm not good at that)  My theory, which I expressed to him, and he... kind of agrees with, but doesn't seem to feel fully explains his feelings....  Is that he is uncomfortable because, honestly, I am fundamentally changing "the agreement".  I have been changing and will probably continue to change a lot from the person he first started dating.  He didn't bargain on all this, and so has to decide if he's still "in".  Part of why I recently DID start talking about all this with him is because I KNEW it was happening and didn't want to be deceptive about it - he has a right to know what he's signing up for, after all. 

I know there are places for men to go vent when they go red pill and try to change the dynamic with their wives - but I didn't know where, as a woman to go when I'm red pill and trying to change with my future husband!  Maybe I should have done like the men and just let my "game" do the work and not overtly address - but it seems to me that, while that works and is sensible and aligned with the male role for men to do, it doesn't seem aligned with the female role... 

Sorry for the long story, and I know you are probably busy with your own family, but any insight you can share with me as to why this is bothering my fiance and what I can do to smooth the transition would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks so much for your time, your wonderful blog and comments, and for the guidance you have already offered me in prior posts!
The best advice RLB and I can offer is for you to read 2 Corinthians 6:11-18. My suspicion is that you have been reading the Bible and are seeing the Truth calling out to you. You have the answers to your questions. You just want to see if there is an exclusion clause - one of the "it'll be okay if he's a good guy" exceptions." Or the "if you really love him, that's all that matters, things will work out." 

My advice to you would be drastically different if you were already married. However, you are not. You are not yet involved in a Covenant marriage with God. God blesses the marriage of a submissive wife and an unbeliever, however I don't believe you'll be able to trick God - he will know you chose an unbeliever, on purpose. Also, I don't know of a single scripture to support that God will do anything more with your fiance in light of your submission. He is the same to you as any unbeliever. Certainly not hopeless to the Good News, but not sanctified by you as a husband would be. (1 Corinthians 7:14)

As a Christian, you have come to know the significance of the marriage relationship for the two who shall become one and for the children as you go forth and multiply. Can you honestly enter into a Covenant with God with this man when he has already expressed no desire to be obedient to God's commands for marriage? When he questions the very existence of the God he'd be in covenant with?  That doesn't make sense. And I don't think it makes sense to you anymore either.

If you are just planning a state sanctioned marriage license,  I'm afraid I'll be of little help. RLB and I do not give secular advice. There's no way we can. Your fiance has a subjective morality based upon something I haven't a clue about. In no way could I understand what is bothering him or what would help him. The possibilities are limitless.

There are many red flag indicators of marital failure in just this email you wrote to me. From the length of time you've been shacking up, the length of your engagement, mental instability, differing religious views. Statistically you don't have much going for you. I would never adivse for you to have children in this situation.

I'm curious to know your level of attraction for this man. As what you've mentioned wouldn't indicate the attraction to be very high. Marrying someone you are not attracted to is yet another set up for failure.

Your theory is correct, you are changing the deal. He does have a right to know what he's signing up for - that his future wife will not agree with him on fundamental life issues and will continually seek to fix him. I think he'd be right to walk away at this point as well and preserve himself from the devastation of divorce.

16 comments:

  1. RLB if you want real red pill advice goto Athol Kay's website

    Athol Kay specializes in women who live with blue pill men

    Btw despite SD you're definitely on the path to a great relationship

    Athols site is quite probably the best resource for red pill women

    Grats on discovering the red pill

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  2. My apologies if it wasn't clear, this is an email I received from a woman asking for my advice regarding her fiance.

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  3. I am mentoring a young married woman who has a 3 year old son. Her husband is a musician on the road a lot and she said he is a believer. I think he is struggling with his faith right now but he dislikes her being mentored by me since I am teaching her about submission. Even "christian" men have been drinking the feminist's lemonade and are afraid of having submissive wives. I encourage her to win him without a word since she is married and she must obey the Lord on this issue instead of her husband since He commands her to be submissive. I think you gave this woman great advice since she isn't married to him yet.

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  4. Unless the fiance turns around his life, the marriage will not work out. The fiance sounds like he is yet another blue-pill emasculated man, one unready and willing to lead, which is required to do as a husband in a Christian marriage. I just don't see this working out.

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  5. I'd agree fully w/ SD.

    If he doesn't like this new deal, then don't force it. Frankly, you're offering the Bible-prescribed way, and he doesn't want it. Anything else will be worse. It all points to failure and sorrow.

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  6. I agree with SD's assessment of the situation. I am a Christian woman married to an atheist (25 years this spring). My advice is DON'T DO IT. It is a sad & lonely path. The Christian marriage you seek will always remain outside your grasp. No matter how much you pray, submit, fast, tithe etc. You will always be on the outside looking in. Don't count on God to perform a miracle and fix things after you do what He told you not to do in the first place.

    You are fundamentally changing. Embrace it. Seek God's will in your life through studying the Bible and attending a church. See where that takes you. You may be pleasantly surprised.

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  7. No more than you or I, David. Don't forget that the letter writer is going through a lot of turmoil on her own end, and has the convenience of a live-in boyfriend with a lot of problems to distract from her own issues.

    It is great that she has begun to see the merit in submission vs. her former "fierce independence", but there's a very important contradiction she's engaging. Ignoring her fornication for a moment, she clearly is trying to "change her man" for the better. That's not submission.

    Now, I'm not going to fault a new convert for missing the bus on a Christian practice, and I encourage her for starting to piece things together. An unbeliever isn't someone you want to submit to anyhow. How can you possibly, knowingly submit to anti-Christ as you would to Christ, after all?

    [Note: this is a much different question when conversion for a wife happens after marriage. In both cases, however, the general command to submit to a naturally sinful man (all men) is compounded by the fact that the holy spirit is not present in the object of submission]

    However, she needs to know that there's nothing more her future ex-boyfriend needs to "understand" about her (in his eyes) terminal Christian condition. What he sees is a Christian hypocrite lost to the cult. He gets it loud and clear, and he's just waiting for her turn back to "normal."

    You know that joke about how Groucho Marx would never be a member of a club that would accept him as a member? Well, from ex-boyfriend to be's point of view, why would he ever accept a Christian wife who remained in an adulterous relationship with a non-believer?

    Seriously: from his viewpoint, he gets all the preaching with none of the holiness! I don't care how dark your heart is, that's God-bait that no one would knowingly take.

    If he wants the trouble of marrying a Christian, and all the narrowness that life entails, he sure as heck knows he can go find a more virginal one who has the life down pat, or at least better than one who is okay with shacking up for a couple of years in a trial run.

    I hope this comes off as helpful, not cruel, or at the very worst, both.

    My advice, for what it is worth: pack up, break it off clean, say that you want to be a follower of Jesus, that submission is something you just can't budge on as crazy as that sounds and that's simply an obvious incompatibility. He won't like it, you won't like it. Good-bye. Move in with friends or family if you have to, no excuses.

    If you refuse to do that, at the very least, move out and stop sleeping with him. This is a hard teaching. Sexual immorality has got to stop on your end, because he's not going to lead you in that. A lot of women in your same situation just hope they can "race to the wedding line" and be absolved of the "insignificant" 24-month period of open publicly-acknowledged fornication.

    Hate to turn in to Sally Struthers but think of your children for just about 10 seconds. Do you want to tell them that mom didn't really find it necessary to live as a follower of Christ for the important things? That its okay to sleep around as long as you believe in the moment that things will work out according to God's plan?

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  8. I'm surprised no one else has raised this....I am not convinced that the letter is genuine. No....I am convinced it is not, it is no different than any description from a woman seeking advice about some situation in a relationship.
    The only alternative to it being a hamsterized false reality is worse....that it is EXACTLY true. If she is actually describing real-reality then its a very very insidious form of rebellion, not of honest to goodness desire to find an Biblically ordered marriage and submission of an Ephesians 5 sort. It is self contradictory. The posture she has taken is both self serving in that way that only churchian traditionalists can be ("what is best FOR WOMEN?")and controlling in a reverse upside down inside out backhanded way. Its a brilliant way to get away with "you lead ....where I tell you we need to go"

    With that in mind, I don't really see any of the responses as relevant, and she needs to be simply called out for this. Sort or in her defense, I doubt she even has a flipping clue she is doing this.

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  9. I am going to blog about this I think, saving it to my drafts and when I get ramped back up make a bigger entry from my comment here. That ok? I ask because I would be re-posting that email.

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    1. I didn't include her moniker so that she can maintain anonymity if she chooses. She hasn't returned here yet (to comment) since I posted this but I have seen her comment elsewhere around the sphere. Her saying "I have a question, and the more input I can get the better..." indicates that she is indeed searching for advice. I don't see anything wrong with you blogging on it.

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  10. sheesh, Im stopping after this....

    Daniel
    I don't care how dark your heart is, that's God-bait that no one would knowingly take.

    Wrong. I would offer myself as proof. That is not an endorsement of her situation, in hindsight I neither endorsed my own, nor the choice my wife made to comport with me, but finally we were equally yoked. Its a bad choice. But its not bait "no one would take"

    say that you want to be a follower of Jesus, that submission is something you just can't budge on as crazy as that sounds and that's simply an obvious incompatibility. He won't like it, you won't like it. Good-bye.

    It doesnt just sound crazy, it IS crazy. Because what you are describing is NOT submission but rather an insidious path to power. let me write the resat of the story in the BEST case. He agrees that she be submissive, he starts attending church with her, he actually is saved....then the sentiments of this letter, but with her wanting him to "be the spiritual leader" will be the next problem. You know, after she is all submissive and stuff, she has expectations that she heard from the pulpit of what a man is supposed to DO as spiritual leader. She has written that stuff down man, he should be
    Reading Bible out loud to her
    Doing devotionals alone and together
    Have all the buttons in the car programed to the Christian station
    Stay lathered up about every boycott that has to do with abortion and gay marriage
    Do bible based crafts with the kids
    Attend church 2 times Sundays, every Wed evening, meet with the guys on Thu AM's at the IHOP for bible study, volunteer for other things at the church. Confess regularly to being an over sexed weak male and efface on it often, write a "life mission statement". Say "The Lord layed on my heart" a lot.
    You get my point.

    Submit!.....to control. That is actually not even a new churchian trick. Its a very old trick, we'd see it as the way the marriages of the today's elderly have been framed. The middle aged and younger churchians have modified and modernized it....but its the same crap.

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  11. Say "The Lord layed on my heart" a lot.

    Just reading that elicits my gag reflex.

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  12. Thanks, SD. Sorry I hadn't responded sooner; every time I started to try it just came off whiny and hamstery. Obviously this is not what I was hoping for, and while I can try and argue extenuating circumstances till I'm blue in the face, it would just be more hamstering I'm sure, and that's not what I came here for.

    I do want to address empath's concerns, and clarify: I specified past tense about my "effort" to "fix him" for a reason.

    "so for quite a while it was all about how WE needed to fix HIM."

    I have since, on SSM's blog, said two or three times how harmful this attitude is, and I have taken every measure to avoid doing this. Unfortunately I can no longer link to these comments to corroborate, but I have realized, since reading the manosphere, how damaging and wrong the attitude is, as well as how arrogant.

    Honestly, I have been lurking too long, and reading too much of Dalrock, SSM, and SD to enter into a submission arrangement and try this crap. That doesn't mean I won't still have weak moments, but I am on the lookout for them, and hitherto Ephesians being pointed out (which I hadn't read yet and was not familiar with) I had planned my actions around 1 Corinthians 7, that if he does not believe, let my silent submission be its own testimony, that he might be won WITHOUT WORDS - or nagging, or put-upon expressions when I go to Church (which, I'm not sure I'm going to bother with anyhow - I may just stick with the Church of Manosphere, where real learning and dedication happens) or anything like that.

    Am I prone to pitfalls, mistakes, and hamsterizing like any other woman? Of course. But this PARTICULAR pitfall - well, I'm on a steady red pill drip, and since that's what got me to reading the Bible in the first place, that's not likely to change. I'm doing the best I can to innoculate myself against such behavior. I no longer want to "change" or "fix" him. Neither of us are perfect, and that's fine. I have other people I can discuss religion and red pill with, so if he wants to talk about it, I'm thrilled, but I'm not going to push that on him, nor anything else.

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  13. The advice I'd hoped you would have honed in on is the warning to not be unequally yoked - 2 Corinthians 5:14.

    Read what Daniel has said, several times.

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  14. That certainly is what I'd honed in on, and spent several days angsting over. It is in trying to respond to that that all of my attempts so far felt whiny and hamstery, and that most of what I would say in return would just seem like more equivocation. I am wrestling with it, I am paying attention to it, but, I will be honest: it is not advice that I want to take, and so it is very difficult. This is what I meant when I said it was "not what I was hoping for."

    On the other hand, what I was LOOKING for was an honest, serious answer that wouldn't just be the wishy washy crap I might "want" to hear - and you have certainly delivered on that, for which I thank you. I may not like it, but I do appreciate it, I promise.

    And I appreciate what Daniel wrote also - for what it's worth, I do see the kindness, and I don't see it as cruel at all.

    What I can tell you that I don't think is too hamstery (but then, it may well be) is that I have LONG since demonstrated a pattern of getting REALLY REALLY into something for a while - and then losing interest fairly suddenly. I research stuff, all kinds of stuff, like crazy. And at this point, I just am not ready to take the plunge.

    I know there are lots of problems with this too - I should be a new person in Christ, and cast off my old ways. I'm trying, with many things. But I got started in all this - everything that has lead me to the manosphere, to Christianity - has been to be better for him. And if it all culminates in leaving him, then, well, that doesn't make sense to me. So, I guess I have to apologize for wasting your time, and hope that this discussion benefits someone else who has ears to hear it. I will continue to read and pray, but as of right now, I've made a decision to stay, better or worse. I am still offering him an out, and if he takes it, perhaps it is for the best, but that is where I am right now. Just thought I owed you an honest answer. Tried not to over-hamster it.

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