Take a deep breath and check your heart-rate before you hit play gentlemen (and ladies), you’re in for a ride. In general I don’t necessarily promote nor disparage the MRA movement, but after watching this video I can better understand the contempt behind the groundswell. However, my point in posting this wasn’t to trigger any MRA outrage (The Spearhead and A Voice for Men has that covered), rather it was prompted by Rational Reader Dan’s comment in my 16 Years On post:
Rollo, you mention that men make a sacrifice of their desire for sexual variety and their sex life in general, when he marries.
But you are forgetting that for many men, marriage *is* the only or most feasible way to have a regular sex life. one-night-stands, flings, FWB’s, casual relationships – these are not for every guy. Most men dont get the opportunity to be promiscuous. Most men are simply not built for the going out in the jungle and hunting…physically or mentally.
I dont want marriage. I dont even want a committed relationship at this stage But I feel compelled to consider commitment and marriage because of my sexual / intimate needs. I am sure many mediocre young men are in the same boat as me. But you havent considered them here. You’re talking from the perspective of a man who is atleast relatively attractive and can sexually attract women with reasonable ease.
Forgive me Dan, I’m not trying to run you up the flagpole here. My assumption is that Dan hasn’t read Appreciation or Women In Love in their entirety. There’s much more to men’s sacrifices than just a trade off between a regular piece of ass and the potential for more varied sexual experiences. The predictable, feminized reflexive response is to presume that men would fixate on how their sacrifices would impact their sexual strategies, but sexual opportunism is only a single sacrifice among many. The feminine imperative would like nothing better than to have both men and women presume that men’s only concern is about the legs that might have been spread for them had they not opted for marriage, but there’s a lot more to men’s sacrifices.
As illustrated in this video, career, relationships, family, education, and the overarching threat of losing all of his investments in a no-fault divorce are all very real risks men tend not to consider and women would rather they not. A lot of men lament losing half (or more) of their financial assets, but what gets lost in that is the personal investments necessary to establish those assets. Those investments required a sacrifice of time, effort, emotion, determination, etc. and all whilst maintaining an intimate relationship with a woman who cannot appreciate in-full the totality of those sacrifices – because she never experienced them from a male perspective. Men’s sacrifices are only appreciated through the filter of women’s expectations and perceived benefit.
At 46 years old, I have no doubt that Charles Bruce had well over half a lifetime of personal investment into himself, his wife, their family and extended families. For most Men, and manosphere readers in particular, the initial response to Mr. Bruce’s dilemma is one of (understandable) blind rage at the feminized system. As hard as it is, I’m going to ask that readers look past this anger and see the conditions, investments and sacrifices Bruce made that makes his story so tragic.
BRIFFAULT’S LAW
The female, not the male, determines all the conditions of the animal family. Where the female can derive no benefit from association with the male, no such association takes place.
In other words, hypergamy doesn’t care about Relational Equity. It’s one set of conditions to consider this in terms of how your girlfriend might’ve cheated on you in spite of all your best efforts to invest in your relationship and play by the “rules”, but it’s entirely another when you consider fallacy of Relational Equity in terms of a life long, expected, entitled, commitment. Charles Bruce is on the sharp end of women’s inability to appreciate men’s sacrifices.
If you’ve ever wonder why no male hormonal contraceptive has ever been developed or marketed since the sexual revolution, look no further than Briffault’s Law. For all the bleating about equalism and gender equality of the past 60 years, women have effectively organized and fought like cornered animals to keep the power of controlling the family unit out of the hands of men.
I’ve read studies documenting men’s most productive, creative, endeavors being attempted and/or achieved in the years before they married; innovations, academic degrees, scientific discoveries, great masterpieces of art. etc. Then, a precipitous drop off in what we are meant to assume is ambition and motivation occurs after marriage. Roissy has more than a few links to these articles, but my impression of these studies is less about the neutering effects of marriage (i.e. the responsibilities of settling down) and more about the lack of opportunity inherent in maintaining a committed monogamy and addressing the sacrifices a man must make to advance his interests. Missing opportunities to get laid with new and varied women pales in life-importance when you consider the sacrifices a man makes in having to turn down opportunities that would advance his (and possibly society’s) better interest. Women are the Dream Killers because they cannot appreciate men’s sacrifices.
This is an interesting quote from a man citing Briffaults Law:
“Men love women, but I truly believe that women are incapable of what we men call love. “Greater love hath no man than that he lay down his life for his friends.” How many women are willing to die for their husbands, friends, country, or comrades in arms? Damn few, if any.
Yet it is commonly expected of men (made compulsory under certain circumstances). How many men continue on in their marriages, supporting their family and their wife, while the wife is making their life a living hell? Far too many. How many men choose their wives over their parents and siblings? Most.
Women do not behave like this. Men take out large insurance policies so their wives and children will be well taken care of should they die. Even if the wife is making (nearly) as much money as the husband, she will not have insurance. She sees no reason to reduce her current ability to spend to take care of others after she is dead. She could care less what happens to the husband, and doesn’t want the husband to be able to spend money on some young bimbo, after she dies. The life insurance gender statistics are well known, and widely available. None of this should be a shocking revelation. When my second wife died, her mandatory insurance (free) provided by her teacher’s union covered her funeral expenses. It would have made life much easier if her insurance had paid the over $350,000 my life insurance would have paid.
When does the expectation of mutual benefit in marriage go seriously wrong in the west? It goes wrong as soon as the “I Dos” are said, or very shortly thereafter. Why is this so? Because you, the man have just entered into a contract with the state where you have promised that you will provide everything to your bride, and where the bride has promised nothing. By the way, the full weight of the law and public opinion will support her stripping you of every thing you have, including your children, and most of what you will ever make in the future, when (not if) she decides to dump you.
Hence, once you enter into the contract you have nothing left to offer her. Everything you have, or will have, is already hers.
Seem like a harsh statement? I thought so too, the first time I heard it, during an argument with my first wife towards the end of our marriage. She asked me the eternal female question, “What do you do for me?” (i.e. what benefit do I get from associating with you?) I responded, “I pay all your expenses. I feed, clothe, and house you. And, I am paying for your college tuition.” She told me that all the money I earned was her money and that if she let me have any of it that was pure charity on her part, so I was doing nothing for her. I thought this was unduly harsh.
The divorce courts showed me that it was pretty much just a statement of fact. The wife has it all, and can make her part of the marriage contract, the portion where she is to provide you with companionship, comfort, loyalty, sex, etc., null and void at any time while keeping everything you have/had/will ever have. She has no need to associate with you further once you are married.
To be a married man entais a sacrifice of such utter powerlessness, on so many levels, that no woman will ever comprehend, much less appreciate.
August 6th, 2012 at 7:59 pm
@Kate,
I get where the influence is coming from, but I think what I am struggling with here is the fact that they can be influenced to such a huge degree. Even the cheating part, a woman being a good wife and still being cheated on is such a terribly rare thing.
Absolutely. We have men going to jail for not being able to earn enough, men committing suicide in the most horrible ways, and women who truly are having horrible things happening to them and no one will listen. This is why I don’t believe for one second that feminist care one iota about women. They care only for themselves.
@Rollo,
Yeah, I know you are right and if I didn’t all I would have to do is go to the next county over and read the laws on their books as to divorce/alimony/custody to prove it to myself. I think the thing I am having such a hard time grasping is the number of women (and men!) that think this is justifiable. That it is, in fact, fine and even desirable to do something like this to a man that has done nothing wrong. That his only crime was not making his wife happy (why is it his job to make her happy?) I can’t understand the motivations behind a serial killer either, but they are rare. This idea that women can destroy their husbands life is pervasive. Not a rare mental disorder and I am having great difficulty wrapping my head around that.
August 6th, 2012 at 8:10 pm
Stingray, they get into marriage to get something. Then they dont get it – so they extract all they can. In their minds the guy deserves it for not being up to par with the promises / expectations.
I have seen these patterns a lot on the girlfriends phase, when the girl decides to cheat, the guy always deserves it, they want to make him pay, and then repay, and then repay. This isnt new. These women are kids with the emotional development of a 4 year old or so.
August 6th, 2012 at 8:25 pm
I know. It’s really gotten under my skin for some reason today, though. Maybe it was the simple abject brutality of that video, I don’t know.
Maybe this is what I am forgetting/not seeing. It is also the other reason I so hate feminism. Teaching women to behave like children is not strength, neither is throwing a temper tantrum.
August 7th, 2012 at 12:58 am
” I think I am talking about this being beyond comprehension because for any human being, it should be”
Yes. Even if you lose all feelings for a guy and he seems sexually repulsive and weak, he’s still a human.
Movie “Box” comes to mind, You’re given a box. Push a button inside it and some person you don’t know will die somewhere, and you will get a million bucks. And the button keeps being pushed. Perhaps if a man becomes unattractive and boring, he’s like a stranger one doesn’t mind dooming for money?
August 7th, 2012 at 6:29 am
Sacrafice isn’t “sacrafice” when you live according with your own truths. Choosing healthy food over junk is “sacrafice” only to someone who is addicted to junk.
It is indeed true that women do not understand fully male sacrafice – but similarly men can’t comprehend the untimate female sacrafice – bearing a child.
August 7th, 2012 at 6:30 am
Soon when the gravy train dries up those feminist harridans will demand the government make the mgtow serfs to pay them free money.
August 7th, 2012 at 6:49 am
please stop the skool yard nonsense; this is not Heartiste.
thank you
August 7th, 2012 at 2:55 pm
Son, you need a life. There is more to life than sitting in the shrubs, waiting to nip at the ankles of those with whom you disagree.
The key tell is how you import impressions made from old statements of mine. What gave you the impression that I was a “bible thumper”? It wasn’t from my last comment, wherein I gave no indication of my religion. I am not sure I even ever spoke of it on this site. It was some little frustration you’ve got stored up inside you like an indigestible nugget, imported from site to site, which causes you to vomit forth emotion at the very sight of my name.
Seriously, look into your complex. It is debilitating you. I understand your “struggle with men’s issues,” but commiserating with thin-skinned, thinly-veiled losers like “driveallnight” who lash out randomly is not good for your cause, much less your condition.
August 7th, 2012 at 3:35 pm
I’m Having a Thought Vomit:
If we had a dollar for every time we heard a guy say “My wife or girlfriend would never…” Followed sometime in the future by “I can’t believe she did that to me!”
It seems to me now that ‘game’ in marriage is a crucial male strategy to attempt to project the illusion to her that the male still has some power and control in the relationship. It must be performed to the level that she is fooled and distracted from the fact that she is the one in the driver’s seat.
We can talk all day long about how so and so wears the pants, “not in my house”, etc., but it’s all bullshit. One day you might get a surprise summons or come home to an empty house and a note. Or even better, a couple deputies to watch you while you pack your shit and GTFO by a court order you had no idea was headed your way.
When you show up in court you’ll find out the truth of who is wearing the pants directly from the judge. The ‘trick’ is to run the game to the degree necessary that you hopefully don’t wind up there. Or to run the game long enough until the SMV flips in your favor as a whole, such as your forties, and your wife is very aware of it and feels the increasingly heavy weight of her limited options. Only then can you relax, but only a little.
I go round and round on this, but I can’t in good conscience or with a straight face recommend to my sons that they should ever entertain the notion of getting married. They can just shack up or whatever. I won’t say a peep about it. If they want kids, just have them and give them one of those cool hyphen names: Brandon Skyler Smith-Jones.
If you have kids you’re going to be on the hook for 18+ of CS payments no matter what. Why compound the error with possible lifetime alimony and asset seizure?
It almost seems to me that the very fabric of society is being pushed forward bit by bit to be more “ghetto-thug” fabulous to the point where one of the best strategies one can employ is to simply emulate the “baby mama” culture as it pertains to relationships and commitment.
Kooky to say this, but you’re seeing more and more white suburban kids emulate lifestyles and relational strategies such as unwed motherhood and thug-tastic-ness, which you would have only seen in the worst inner city wards 20-30 years ago. I think people mostly behave in the way that they are incentivized to.
My thinking has come round to the belief that given the legal, cultural and financial environment we have today, that if you really, really, actually wuv her, you should do both of yourselves a favor and do the “wrong” thing and not marry her for both your sakes. I believe that the act of refusing to marry her, aside from doing the best screening you can at the time of selection, will actually give you the best shot at some type of LTR success if that is what you seek.
Not marrying her at least removes the relational power vacuuming that will occur to you under force of law as soon as you sign the contract (marriage license) and perhaps removes her Sword of Damocles hanging over your head.
Therefore she might retain some vestigial type of self interest in behaving like a decent human towards you because you can walk away at a lower cost if she should not, and she knows it. The end result perhaps is that you both wind up happier or more stable in the relationship to whatever degree.
Of course, many women profess to ‘hate’ a man who won’t commit but I don’t think it’s that they really hate a man who won’t commit. They could have that in spades from plenty of guys. They hate a man who won’t sign the contract which is what they really want. The want the power of the contract. The guarantee.
I said in a comment over at Athol’s place that people really, really love to get and give guarantees. You know, things like: money back if not satisfied, wedding vows, marriage licenses, whatever you want to sell it as or call it. That is her guarantee, her assurance backed by the state that her future is secure.
It’s understandable that women would want that. Guys just need to remember that there is no comparable thing in the law for them.
I can commit to a woman but I just can’t enter into a legal contract with one. If I find a woman that I want to commit to long term, I could do that at a personal level but I don’t think I can ever involve the state in my private life again like that because I’ve been through it once already.
When you’ve been run through the legal process you get a Red Pill infusion even if you don’t know what to call it at the time. You discover very quickly that everything you thought you were “doing for us” is a pretty big farce, that legally speaking marriage boils down to property and money and who gets it when it’s done, and women can be some of the most ruthless mercenaries there ever were. A woman’s word is her bond sistas? Lolz.
Everything else along the way, from courting, to the altar, to your life of wedded bliss is just window dressing designed to distract you from this fact until such time as a judge makes it very, very clear to you, nose to pavement clear, what the real score is.
Per usual, I will state that if you are already married, make the best of it and stay married. Short of suffering from cheating, hitting or addictions going on, I think you can make the best of it you can, but game the living shit out of it.
Otherwise, treat marriage like a downed power line and stay very far away from it, or learn the hard way like every other guy who thought “no way will this happen to me.” Well brother, it has to happen to someone. Why not you?
August 8th, 2012 at 10:44 pm
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August 5th, 2013 at 9:12 pm
Check out the Philippines. No divorce. Foreign can marry Filippine lady. Own property. Be safe. My friends who have done this are happy.
November 10th, 2013 at 11:53 am
I have question for Guy, (the one who knows Mr. Bruce) I would very much like to know how is he doing now? I’m not a stalker or wont bother him, but I am worried and praying for him. If you know him, can you please let me know.