I received the following from Mark Minter in this week’s comment thread. Regardless of what your or my opinion of Minter is, I will admit this is an area I haven’t explored before:
I have a request for a post. It is for a rework of a Rational Male post sometime back about sons of divorce that try to be “better than dad”.
I would think you might have more to say on the topic since a couple of years have passed since you posted it.
Or perhaps how a newly red pill divorced father might approach his son, especially if there has been a period of estrangement.
I have a “date” for a phone call with my son after quite a long period. You might imagine my relationship with my “old family” is sort of “interesting”, to put it euphemistically. My daughter has dropped my last name from social media accounts. My son calls himself “Younger Minter” and his assumed “middle name” is “Fucking”. Sort of a throwback to mine back in the day, but he seems quite pissed though.
I have been told these things can be quite emotional, and then a flurry of contact, but then a “backsliding” away from contact. Inevitably and probably rightfully so, he has innate loyalty to his mother. And he grew up in one of places that is so liberal it is often referred to as “The People’s Republic of …”
So the question is “How to bring him along?”
If by “bring him along” you mean convince him you’re not the asshole he’s convinced you are, that’s really subjective to your personal history and how amenable he is to listening to your side of the story. That said, there’s a world aligned against you that’s likely conditioned your son not just to hate you, but to loath his own sex by association with your past decisions and circumstances.
My intent with this weekend’s discussion isn’t to run Minter up the flagpole, but rather delve into a tough Red Pill area – reestablishing a lost or misguided connection with a son or daughter, from a post-Red Pill awareness perspective.
The post Mark is referencing was Promise Keepers. In that post I hit this situation from the opposite side:
Slay the Father
One common theme I’ve encountered amongst the more zealous beta White Knights I’ve counseled over the years has been this determination, bordering on fanaticism, with outdoing the life-performance of their asshole fathers. Before I go on further, many of them had legitimately rotten, alcoholic dads, who were abusive to them and their mothers. Others had the perception of their fathers colored for them either by their ‘strong independent®’ single mothers, or by watching their fathers resolve their own beta tendencies in a post-divorce life. Whatever the case, each of these guys had a mission – to be a better man than their father was, protect their mothers, and by extension the future mother their girlfriends and wives would become for them. His father’s personal failings would be his personal triumphs.
Being the father in this scenario and attempting to reestablish an after-the-fact, positive connection with a son is a very tall order. It’s almost easier to address the particulars of a daughter with ‘daddy issues’ who’s absent father contributed to her ‘victim status’ condition than it is to consider the upbringing and feminine conditioning a boy receives in his father’s relative absence.
The difficulty being that a son will have every negative perception of his father reinforced for him by a feminine-primary social order. Even in the rare instances when an insightful mother doesn’t resentfully color her son’s negative perceptions of his father during his formative years, there is an entire world of feminine social conventions pressing and affirming that impression into him.
From Daddy Issues:
Matrix Fathers
Have a look at postsecret this week. It’ll all be gone by Sunday so have a look while it lasts. This week’s thread is the usual fare for Father’s Day, a hearty “Fuck You Dad!” or “You’re the reason I’m so fucked up!” interspersed with a couple ‘good dad’ sentiments so as not to entirely degrade the feminized ideal of fatherhood – wouldn’t want to discourage men’s perpetual ‘living up’ to the qualifications set by the feminine imperative. There has to be a little cheese in the maze or else the rat wont perform as desired.
I always see a marked difference in attitude between mother’s day and father’s day, especially now that I’ve been one for 14 years. I was listening to a local talk radio show on the ride home Friday that was opening lines for callers to express their ‘gratitude‘ for their fathers, as they’d done the previously in May for mother’s day. Damn near every caller had the same “fuck you dad!” story about how shitty their lives were because of their father’s influence or his lack thereof. One girl had called in to bleat out her story about how her dad had left her mother 30 years ago and for the last 10 years she’d sent him a father’s day card with a big ‘FU’ on it to tell him she’d never forgive him. Another guy called in to say how horrible his dad was for leaving his mom and how he sends her a father’s day card because he thinks she fulfilled a masculine role for him that he owes some gratitude for.
Father’s Day is a slap in the face for me now – not because my wife and daughter don’t appreciate me as a father, but because it’s become a big “fuck you” Mr. Man. It’s now a reminder (as if we needed a special occasion) that masculinity, even in as positive a light as the Matrix might muster, is devalued and debased, and we ought to just take it like a man and get over it.
It’s a difficult task to unplug a man who’s a friend and open his eyes to Red Pill awareness. That guy has to be seeking answers to really be open to having his ego-investments in his conditioning challenged and realigned – you can’t really make a man Red Pill aware, he’s got to come to it in some fashion. This is a very important distinction to make when the man you’re attempting to unplug is your own son.
A father in this predicament has the double jeopardy of clearing his name as a father and as a representative of masculinity – the representation of all the negative aspects the Feminine Imperative has ever embedded into him about the taint of his own masculinity. As I mentioned in Promise Keepers, some of the most ardent anti-conventional-masculinity crusaders I’ve ever encountered all had the common denominator of a ‘bad dad’. There are no ‘deadbeat mothers’.
Minter’s not the first father to ask me for advice about this. One of the more painful aspects of waking up and accepting Red Pill truths is coming to terms with the consequences of basing your past decisions on a Blue Pill paradigm. I can empathize with younger unplugged Betas getting angry with themselves for having wasted part of their lives with the effort of chasing after the carrot of Blue Pill goals, but it’s an entirely different anger older men feel after coming to realize that their lives and the lives of their children (the only reason to get married, remember?) are the results of their Blue Pill decision making.
Fortunately I had my Red Pill awakening prior to my daughter being born and had the foresight to live by example. However I know enough men in similar straights as Minter to see what an impossible task it is to untangle the past Blue Pill version of themselves with the Red Pill aware men they’ve become. I do not envy them.
I think the questions for the weekend are obvious:
I understand that Mark is seeking reconciliation here, and it may not even be warranted, but what would advise you men in a similar situation?
Attempting to unplug a friend, even one in a trauma that makes him ready to hear Red Pill truths, is a difficult task, but when that man is your own son how do you go about it?
Bear in mind I do understand that raising your son by a Red Pill example would be ideal. I’ve written about it before. What I’m asking is how to approach a young man already steeped in a Blue Pill feminized conditioning for the better part of his life and make him Red Pill aware? That kid may be a son who’s made it his life’s mission to be a “better man” than you based on the definition of a feminine social doctrine that’s taught him to hate you, his own sex, or at the very least would prefer he remain confused about masculinity until after he’s committed himself to useful Beta provisioning when a woman needs it most from him.
I’ll give my own response in the comments.
Related:
Dreams of the Future Past
I had an abusive father and an intact family. It took me years to straighten him out. But he was the product of an extremely abusive mother. I forgave him. After he changed.
[…] Father Knows Best […]
Just to start, I’d try to engage him in comfortable, non-emotional events. Have him over for a barbeque. (Assuming he’s close. I’m guessing that he’s not though). It will be rough over the phone. The only thing I could really recommend is to not mention his mother. Let her be the one filled with bitter hatred. He needs to see how a man behaves, and men should be able to move on and make the best of things without harboring enfeebling resentment.
If the father failed to set the RP example for his son during his upbringing, then I’d say the conversation, the ‘unplugging’, begins with acknowledging that, and calling it what it is.. a mistake.. Therefore you are saying, yes son, be better than I was, don’t make this mistake. Accept now that if you don’t understand some simple truths about women, you will unconditionally meet a similar fate. If you did manage to set an RP example to some degree, it shouldn’t take much to get the boy back on your side, at least for the duration of the conversation.… Read more »
“Jung said that when the son is introduced primarily by the mother to feeling, he will learn the female attitude toward masculinity and take a female view of his own father and of his own masculinity. He will see his father through his mother’s eyes. Since the father and the mother are in competition for the affection of the son, you’re not going to get a straight picture of your father out of your mother. “Some mothers send out messages that civilization and culture and feeling and relationships are things which the mother and the daughter, or the mother and… Read more »
With the middle name mentioned, I can only guess that we’re referring to a young man past puberty. The Mark Minter writing style indicates a good supply of testosterone, so a “Younger Minter” would likely have more testosterone passed to him than most young men these days. Testosterone means strength, focus, calm (not hysterical) behavior and healthy desire for sexual intercourse. One thing most young men understand is the desire for sex. The drive is quite strong then. For whatever reasons, things didn’t work out. Usually, the connection between two people that is sexual intercourse, stops. Often that’s not the… Read more »
Low T soap/bowl ad:
I have nothing to do with my father to this day. The man is a fucking traitor who has always allowed his bitch ex-wife to treat me like shit when I was a kid. The man also took the side of my baby’s momma when she tried to get me arrested. I would be able to forgive him for being a drug addict and being abusive, but I will never forgive him for taking the side of a cunt over his own flesh and blood. When this cocksucker dies I will personally take a shit on his grave
The question I hear Rollo asking is: “How do you unplug someone from the FI Matrix?”
For boys, express the Blue Pill and Red Pill ideas forthrightly and ask the boys to observe the behavior of woman vs. what the women say and see which ideas are more accurate. Focus on the top two or three, as in 1) hypergamy (women’s tendency to branch swing), 2) what about men attracts women, and 3) beta provisioning and frivorce.
Not sure if it matters to daughters. Got some and don’t care much.
… Cambridge, MA? Just wondering.
Well it depends, It’s a natural thing that boys or girls tend to see mothers as the softer/weaker and fathers as strong and intimidating . So no mater how good the father is the mother still try to manipulate boys to be on her side. When fathers are not there due to divorce and shared custody don’t even try , the boy is completely brained washed against his father by his mother + the help she gets from the feminine imperative. It’ll take years and years to unplug and it’s not going to be by his father (because he-the boy-doesn’t… Read more »
Most fathers with sons, assholes or not, will be disappointing to them in some (or many) ways at some point. Not to downplay the difficulty or the headwind of the FI or the divorce toll, but I’d do my best to see this as an opportunity, a gift. For both of you. Which isn’t to say it is all pleasant or nice even. You still have each other. My dad passed before we could ever have these conversations. He was a self-made man; solid granite. But through the years of FI driven hailstorms and my bipolar mom, with hammer and… Read more »
In a sense I’m “lucky” in that my red pill awaking took place around the time of my son’s first birthday. And after a year and around $55,000 wasted I now get to visit in his life eight days a month rather then four. I’ve had a discussion on the red pill reddit forum a few months back where a few folks brainstormed ideas for teaching the truth amidst being steeped in the feminine imperative. I have no control over what tv shows my ex wife is going to be sitting my son down in front of while she goes… Read more »
“Jung said that when the son is introduced primarily by the mother to feeling, he will learn the female attitude toward masculinity and take a female view of his own father and of his own masculinity.” Jung, disliked by Rollo for valuing the irrational (I understand your hesitation Rollo), was on to this feminizing shit 70 years before his time… “There is only so much vital energy in any human being. We call that in our work the Libido. And I would say that the Libido of the American man is focused almost entirely upon his business, so that as… Read more »
@Nathan, RE: Jung
Lets just say Game recognizes Game.
There is a great story recounted by Carl Jung in his autobiography, ‘Memories, Dreams, Reflections’, from his his time as a practising psychotherapist. I will quote it here at length. It is quite an illuminating passage, entirely relevant to the original article. — “In contemporary psychotherapy the demand is often made that the doctor or psychotherapist should “go along” with the patient and his affects. I don’t consider that to be always the right course. Sometimes active intervention on the part of the doctor is required. Once a lady of the aristocracy came to me who was in the habit… Read more »
He could send his son some links to the manosphere. Just the links, without any explanation that might be interpreted as self justification or excuses. The idea is to implement a seed in the mind of his son that will lead him to question the current situation. It will take a long time and the boy must travel his own journey and reach his own conclusions at his own pace. All Mark can do now I think is try to get him started.
Indeed. The boomers lost the country. A generation of weak men. Saddled gen x with hell, and the millennials and younger have a ton of work to do. I’m not sure they can do it, almost none of them growing up in a nuclear family.
Q1. what would advise you men in a similar situation? A1. The high road. To those of us whose ex-wives’ hatred poisoned everything, this maybe longshot phone “date” would be a definite positive but only if it can be leveraged into continuing in order to promote your views. Thus, there is no need for you either blaming OR taking any blame. Q2. when that man is your own son how do you go about it? A2. My two daughters, from my 1st wife, responded totally differently to the divorce and post-divorce life. One has remained in contact but the other… Read more »
” I can’t reconcile the truth about what works with women (i.e. sexualization and Dread and domination) with what remains the foundation of morality (you really should treat people nicely).”
that requires so much nuance maturity anticipation intuition understanding excetera excetera
And still not even an attempt to answer Rollo’s question. Or was he just being rhetorical?
I cannot offer any real personal experience to Mark. In my situation, my father was a documented criminal who did a lot of time in jail. My brother and I both grew up with the mentality of “I will not be like my father”. It would seem to depend upon what the mother told him about the father. The social-media thing with the daughter is a huge tell. Parental Alienation. I guess it will depend upon how level-headed Mark is. I am vaguely reminded of a female blogger in the Manosphere, who reunited with her father. Once she found out… Read more »
My issues with my daughter are quite different as we were never estranged until she was 24, I was always in her life and provided for her. So I can’t relate personally. My suggestion is humility, Mark. If you haven’t been there for him, own up to it. Realize that he may be quite pissed at you and rightfully so if you haven’t been there. Don’t play Daddy either, if you haven’t been one to him, he will resent it. Start slow, peer to peer. My brother’s son from his first marriage pulled away from him when he was 21… Read more »
This is the reason I stay married. There is no way I would end up with as much contact with my child post divorce. I wish I had taken the red pill earlier, but such is life. The best I can personally hope for is to ride this hellish train as long as I can until my son is of an age where he can not be redily swayed. For this gentleman, I would start out by telling his son that there are two sides to every story, and when his son is ready, he would be happy to share… Read more »
I don’t know what it’s like to have a son, estranged or living under my roof. I still don’t know if I ever want to have one. But it certainly gives a man a whole new reason to be a man. Not only for himself, but now for his son, as Razorwire expressed from the son’s perspective. I can understand the base need to intervene or subvert your son’s FI social conditioning, and set him on a better path, both for himself and those he interacts with. I think most fathers want their sons to be better men than themselves,… Read more »
On my father. I certainly committed myself to being a better father than my Dad was, and I succeeded. It was one of the most important goals of my life to not pass on the physical abuse and violence and insanity. That’s why I did 15 years of therapy and other work. It’s hard for people who aren’t victims of serious childhood abuse to understand how central this experience becomes to your life. I feel like trying to be a better Dad than him was a healthy reaction as I had to be very conscious of myself to not be… Read more »
Start him off by giving him a copy of the book: “The Manipulated Man” by Esther Vilar.
Also:
“The Predatory Female” by Lawrence Shannon.
Whoops, almost forgot: The Rational Male by Rollo.
HeHeHe …”The Peoples Republic of Vermont ” where we showcase to the entire nation what a bunch f kooks we are by electing Bernie Sanders to the US Senate. I know it well oh I know it well
@bluepillphilo…….
Here is my answer :
DO NOT TELL WOMEN HOW MUCH MONEY YOU HAVE.
Beat me to it.
You’re not his Father. The FI is his father and has plans for him to fulfill. This is the first part to understand.
@Bill
So no matter what he does to change it is never good enough for you here on out?
Re , don’t tell woman how much money you have.
I have to admit, ,,,those weren’t my words! they were uncovered by archiologist in Sumer the real cradle of civilization 4500 BC ! .(this is where Abram STOLE all his stories from).
Those words were found in a man’ bedroom.
This post strikes home. I’m a father. I was the one who left and I’m still estranged from the kids. Daughter still won’t speak to me and my son has the most knight-ish attitudes you can imagine. I lost frame in my marriage early. When I think of my father, he seemed RP but he was also cold. Always a rock, never lost control. I never got to know him and he haunts me. I’ve always felt that I couldn’t live up to his example. I resolved to not be him so I married a women from a feminine primary… Read more »
And what if your father is the blue one, Rollo?
It affects a son deeply to watch his father fall from his graces. Mine is a living deadman to what he, at least, appeared to be previously.
No idea how to help Minter. My own experiences with my dad were strained as a kid. I think he expected a baby adult but I was a putz as a kid, and usually in trouble. My old man was one of those very tough guys but extremely sensitive at least to me. He was red pill all the way, loved my mom to death but never relinquished the upper hand with her and was familiar with her very typical feminine shortcomings. What I mistook as anger when I fucked up as a kid was hurt. He expected more and… Read more »
off the top of my head, take from as required….. “How to bring him along?” Don’t think you can initially. Anything red pill will bounce. Just be the example. Let it be emotional from his side but not yours. Make sure he knows you’re hearing him. You can’t say too much because it will likely be discussed with the ex. He doesn’t need your mistakes, regrets or ideas – right now he needs your love. No apologies you didn’t know any better. A lot must stem from your own father; how would you have liked your father to have communicated… Read more »
I love reading TRM, and I’ve gained a lot of insight from reading it over the years – for that, I give all the respect and brofives to Rollo for continuing it onward. I’ll be reading as long as you’ll be writing. However … This post is a bit off the mark. My personal history is one of a shitty father. I grew up very poor, and he was there maybe half the time, at clubs the other half, and blowing money on whatever hobby fancied him at the time in between. My mother somehow did her best and an… Read more »
I took the RP about two years ago and I’ve been slowly coming to grips with alot of the decisions I’ve made based on a BP mentality. Not pretty. My father committed suicide when he was 20. I was just 6 months old at the time. My grandfather was a womanizer and ended up in prison for murdering a woman he was having an affair with. My dad’s sister has told me that my grandfather would write letters to them from prison just to let them know how much he hated all of them, how ugly they were (false, my… Read more »
My main suggestion is not to talk about these things over the phone. In my opinion the phone is a terrible, terrible medium for serious conversations. Any hope of rebuilbing your relationship with your son will be face to face, over a period of years. Actions speak louder than words, like with a woman, you’ll never convince her why she should be with you through debate, you show you’re a man worth being with and respecting by your character, achievements and accompanying behaviors. I don’t know your personal situation other than the laundry thats been aired in comment threads, but… Read more »
“What I’m asking is how to approach a young man already steeped in a Blue Pill feminized conditioning for the better part of his life and make him Red Pill aware?” Disclaimer: I’m no father (yet) – but have plenty of dicorce cases around me in my old SC. With that out of the way: I can only think of one way to not activly ‘do’ this in the way of a prescribed formula, but passivly *achieve* this over time: 1. Keep a casual contact, so that information filters through. 2. Be the best man you can be according to… Read more »
I think the best move would be to ‘lead by example’ and give it time. I’d say get involved in his life and then show him the way (by example, don’t force it). I believe that over time the FI conditioning (plus any bad blood or feelings about dad) is “washed away” and a new foundation (a masculine one) is set.
Time is going to be the key here. The son wasn’t programmed over night…it’s going to take a bit to make the crossover.
@ Rollo – Be careful about conflating things here. Without trying to start another argument with Minter, it seems that he voluntarily abandoned his kids for a long time and also didn’t financially support them. Divorce is a disaster and fathers face many challenges as I’ve shared on these pages. But if you abandon your kids, there is more going on the “the Blue Pill”, yeah? There is a related issue known as Parental Alienation that I think is well informed by the FI. It’s how father’s who don’t abandon their children and meet their financial responsibilities have their parenting… Read more »
@Fromm, re: “You want a relationship with your kid? It depends. It has nothing to do with RP. What kind of father were you? If you were like mine above, there’s probably no chance. If you were there, if you were responsible, but the wife booted you and kept you away (be careful, you can rationalize she did this, but you did it yourself – children see that shit miles away), then you might have a chance. But do not mention any RP truths or anything related. It has no place in that conversation.” I disagree. Most lousy fathers like… Read more »
It is never good to aspire to be a negative example “Don’t you do like I did.” But, and this is the key point, very often it makes sense to be a third-party negative example “Don’t you be like him.”
For reasons we have not plumbed yet, women try very hard to explicitly raise their sons to be unreproductively successful with women. A post with this theme could be titled “Mother Knows Best”.
Sometimes you have to cut your loses because there’s no going back. No one has control over the feelings of another person, and never will.
“and also didn’t financially support them. ” Not arguing for neglecting children here – but even in Germany (where divorce laws have been unintentionally ‘shot in the foot’ in some very minor aspects by accidental ‘over-application’ of feminism) well-earning middle-class men (accomplished craftsmen, university degrees, stuff like that) are easily reduced to the living standart of what is called “burger flipper” in some parts of the English speaking world. From my my first game experiences with low-hangig fruit (picture HB5-single-moms here 🙂 ) I can tell you one thing: Those bitches (yes, intentional use of that word here) WITHOUT EXCEPTION… Read more »
” But against a nice guy father whom you hate merely for him being weak enough to love your mother, there is no such venting possible.” I think jf12 touched a very important dynamic here: A “jerk father” (!= criminal, child abuse etc.) or a father that discovers his “inner jerk” (=normal masculine behaviour) after divorce offers: 1) cognitive dissonance versus his mother’s FI-indoctrination: “But women hate that mom said and it SHOULDN’t work…” on a subconscious level 2) a role model by indirect transmission 3) unconscious attraction in the sense of triggering “copy”-behaviour: All children copy & assimilate what… Read more »
It’s all very Freudian, of course. “Your light saber is bigger than your father’s!!” Padma thinks hers is big too. http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/padma-lakshmi-jokes-penis-new-ph-article-1.2097322 This silly article nonetheless reinforces two important concepts. 1) The *least* bit of visibly bulgey penisy-looking stuff counts as penis-y for women. It really does. Size isn’t nearly as relevant as over tpresence. You’d be surprised, very very surprised, if you didn’t already know this: If you visibly bulge, at all, she will notice. Yes, she will. 2) Women are overjoyed at thinking of themselves as having a penis. Due to the apex fallacy, EVERY woman imagines that if… Read more »
With the era of open hypergamy and normalized sluttiness
http://www.rooshv.com/the-decimation-of-western-women-is-complete
a “better man” is always a semi-reformed player. There is no alternative in a FI world. If you aspire to be counted as a “real” man to women, and to women-influenced boys, you MUST be (have been …) a player.
This is off-thread but I had to share it with you guys. I am working away here, listening to Pandora in my favorite coffee shop in town and this Stevie Nicks song comes on. It was recorded with Sheryl Crow too, but really, I never processed the lyrics of it before from a Red Pill POV. So much stuff like this hits me all the time now, it’s crazy. Okay, for your perusal. Strong Enough God, I feel like hell tonight Tears of rage I cannot fight I’d be the last to help you understand Are you strong enough to… Read more »
re: “Do other aggressive, dominant guys here find Beta guys just lashing out at them sometimes?”
I’ve never had a problem with beta or alpha men, ever. I’ve always been a hyperactive dork, thoroughly beta but thoroughly socially dominant (scfton knows my type very well btw, the weaponized nerd whom he has no problems saluting), and besides some prissy artsy types and the occasional foreign royalty, I’ve never had *any* man really AMOG at me.
A lot of women AMOG at me, though.
@Glenn, re: “Back to Vegas for this coming week and will be doing my best to game some hotties while out there.” Do be, uh, “safe”. Come to think of it, it has been a while since I spent any time in Vegas. The last big trip was a vendors conference for a few days, and at the time, several years ago, I was the designated fuddy duddy. I don’t drink or gamble, and even going with some “other” old ladies to see Celine was quite risque for me. But even at safe locations like restaurants, shopping, venue hospitality suites,… Read more »
My father did some really fucked up things and I got zero encouragement from my mother to reconnect with him later in life, in fact quite the opposite. My mother is no saint but we know how imbalanced life is for men in general these days. I was only able to forgive and forget after my emancipation (red pill awakening). I was able to play devil’s advocate and view life from his perspective as far as my mother was concerned. Without this realization and the drive to figure out the truth, it would’ve been impossible. I would’ve gone to the… Read more »
@jf12
‘I disagree. Most lousy fathers like the one you described would be given more of a chance than, what I believe is far more common situation of, the alienated nice guy that Glenn further discusses. With real problems the grown child can vent “How could you have been such a drunk all those years?” and then feel better. But against a nice guy father whom you hate merely for him being weak enough to love your mother, there is no such venting possible.’
What? No.
Agreeing and amplifying on Rollo’s statement that the FI is the Father–strategize as if the kid thinks of the FI as a god and become the devil who asks leading questions designed to open eyes. Don’t pretend to be a hero–instead say that you have made some mistakes and have learned a lot.
Bring the young man into a man circle centered around some masculine activity like auto repair or fence-building, where the other old men are also RP. Then you RP guys occasionally discuss some RP concepts and give examples.
@Fromm, re: “What? No.”
Oh, because you said so.
In actuality, the guilt that people feel for having wrongfully hated is much more self-sustaining, because imaginary wrongs are evidently harder to forgive than real wrongs.
@ Rollo Taking a cue from Nathan and Jung above…we could go old-school Freud on this idea. Specifically, this can be seen as an Oedipal issue. Freud described the Oedipal Complex as a young boy falling in love with his mother (first love object) and competing with his father for her affections. If the father is a strong leader and man, the boy realizes that he cannot win. So, he “resolves” the conflict by identifying with his father and trying to emulate his masculinity, hoping to get a woman like his mother in the future for his efforts. With divorce… Read more »
@Rollo, (tangent alert… obviously I can’t really answer the posted question)… but you deserve an update on my brother (24)… we just met with him this morning out for coffee at a bookstore, and he just looks so amazing – I am so freaking proud of him. I honestly haven’t talked with him much, he’s been finishing up his school and applying for jobs while working 2 jobs all at the same time, and SUPER involved in his school’s government chamber(?). This past year, he was elected their Senator (one of their top ones) and won the respect of so… Read more »
Humiliating your man: http://nypost.com/2015/01/30/humiliating-your-man-funny-but-not-a-great-idea/ As Francis Childs put it in a column for the Daily Mail UK, “Get any group of women together and you can be sure they’ll talk about their husbands — and it will rarely be complimentary.” It’s become so commonplace to run down our spouses that Sally Bercow, publicity-mad wife of the speaker of the Commons, felt totally at ease painting her husband John as a henpecked domestic drudge on national television.” I’m not the first and I certainly won’t be the last person to say that there is a “fatherhood crisis” in America. A third… Read more »
@DrJ, re: “Let his son bond with her, see how nice she is, and transfer some of his attachment/interest as a “love object” onto her.”
Yes! I am in total agreement.
@Rollo, re: “Those consequences will most certainly undermine moms”
Oh, yes. By far the most important aspect of humiliating her husband is that it slightly negatively affects her in the long run ….
@gwadt, re: “I think women have to marry someone they consider better than their father in some way.” Yes, because hypergamy. But I think possibly I, as a skinny, ugly (honestly), poverty-stricken nerd, was brought home to her rich snobby parents by my Southern belle of a first wife as a way of rebellion, as a way of showing that even someone like me, in that way, was better in so *many* ways than her father. And, (again honestly), my second wife’s father thought I could have done a whole lot better than his daughter and was mightly confused what… Read more »
@gwadft, re: “So in short, he is “glowing” with the results of confidence and masculinity you could probably smell from miles away. It’s amazing to see him “in frame” I guess the words would be… it makes me so proud of him. It was wonderful to see it in person (I haven’t seen him in so long) this morning. Just thought the update might be nice….” Your feelings are nice, but I’d like some behavorial details if you’d be so kind. What is he *doing* that you consider so masculine? Showing dominance? I.e. the ability to force himself? Anything else?… Read more »
Hi everyone, especially Mark. First time I comment something in the Rational Male, I have been in the red pill for the last year and half and mostly I owed my successful triage treatment to you Rollo. I will share my story to you all since I am one of those blue pill conditioned kids you talk about in this post. I think is an interesting story and could be kind of exotic for you there in USA. I am a thirty eight year old man from Spain. My father was a bullfighter, not a matador but a banderillero, a… Read more »
jf12 on January 31, 2015 at 1:07 pm
@Fromm, re: “What? No.”
“Oh, because you said so.
In actuality, the guilt that people feel for having wrongfully hated is much more self-sustaining, because imaginary wrongs are evidently harder to forgive than real wrongs.”
Imaginary wrongs? There’s nothing imaginary about not paying for or seeing your kid.
You don’t get a ‘reconnection’ 20 years later once the kid is self-sustaining & already raised.
@Fromm, re: “There’s nothing imaginary about not paying for or seeing your kid.”
Those are the real wrongs, which as I’ve said are easier to forgive. But instead of those bad guys, there are millions and millions of nice guys who didn’t do anything wrong.
Second to Glenn’s advice and ‘Is This Thing On?,’ and props to Razorwire. I don’t really have too much advice for Mark. I’m in my late 20’s, my parents are still together and have a great relationship with each other and with me. Posts like this remind me of what I all have to be grateful for; lots of men here have dealt with worse than having a strong one-itis bail on them, like I did. But it strikes me that it might be helpful if I describe the way I’ve had to grow the relationship I have with my… Read more »
It’s almost easier to address the particulars of a daughter with ‘daddy issues’ who’s absent father contributed to her ‘victim status’ condition than it is to consider the upbringing and feminine conditioning a boy receives in his father’s relative absence. I actually don’t agree with this. Try teaching empathy to a woman who’s never learned it and instead was only taught that her own needs are of primary importance at all times. It’s damn near impossible. Women learn empathy from their fathers. As for the questions. The only thing you can do that’s worth anything is to be the best… Read more »
@Glenn – re the lyrics of songs from a red-pill perspective, you are not the only one. Eventually you will gravitate to Red Pill music and pure instrumental music, to get a break from having feminist bullshit memes rammed into your mind all day long.
Constant indoctrination is acutely painful.
TL;DR your original post Rollo… To answer this: “Or perhaps how a newly red pill divorced father might approach his son, especially if there has been a period of estrangement.” I already know the answer here it’s actually really easy. I had this friend (Bob) who was fri-vorced by his suburbanite princess wife. Yes she was a mid manager moving up and he.. well he was just a techie doing network administration (pullin wires really no Cisco certs). He had a son who was 12 at the time of the divorce. The son was doin ok until the Ex married… Read more »
You see Beautiful Vanessa was a Stripper. I know I know all of the “WTF with his son in the car” comments are probably justified but hear me out. After Bob’s divorce he was a wreck. Productivity dropped and frankly I think his boss was probably going to get rid of him. I let him join a team I was leading doing a network update for a financial system. I don’t know how it came up but Bob said something like “I would give a lot just to touch a woman again.” Bob post divorce was a pathetic figure 50+… Read more »
loved the Vanessa story, thanks suggestions: be authentic, in particular promise to and do answer questions honestly accomplish things and post about them, often the kids are using the net to find out about bio-dad (even if they are not on speak terms with you). Keep your linkedin/fb/twitter etc. up-to-date with good stuff, and don’t post bad stuff (got totally pissed and fucked two whores) keep contact info on your site/post/whatever if providing help, don’t provide money alone, but time and money or just your time maintain frame, no strong anger Questions: @glenn on the 19th you wrote, in part:… Read more »
Nice picture selection… I think that’s the exact moment when the words “I am your father.” are being said.
I understand that Mark is seeking reconciliation here, and it may not even be warranted, but what would advise you men in a similar situation? Having been the child in this situation (marriage ended when I walked in on dad hitting mom, tried as best as a 7 year old can to stop him, got thrown against a closet door by my 31 year old father), I’d say there’s a strong possibility you’re fucked if you blew things up the way my father did. His is an extreme case of being a genuine scumbag, but then mom abused me a… Read more »
@jr12 ‘Those are the real wrongs, which as I’ve said are easier to forgive. But instead of those bad guys, there are millions and millions of nice guys who didn’t do anything wrong.’ Are you serious with this? I’d rather my father be the biggest beta chump in existence and be a responsible father, regardless of the relationship or lack thereof with his wife/my mother. I’d much rather have someone to help me along as a child instead of an asshole drunk who’s never there or is never responsible for anything. Being a nice father from a failed marriage is… Read more »
Keeping in mind that John Hughes, the consummate beta, married his first and only girlfriend, no different in that way from millions or billions of other men, he managed to write a redpill soliloquy, spoken by Ferris, containing: “he’s gonna marry the first girl he lays, and she’s gonna treat him like shit, because she will have given him what he has built up in his mind as the end-all, be-all of human existence. She won’t respect him, ’cause you can’t respect somebody who kisses your ass.” The difference in his case was Nancy kissed his, too. He gave up… Read more »
@Fromm, re: “Being a nice father from a failed marriage is much, muuuuch easier to reconcile than the asshole father who was worthless.”
That makes rational sense and hence is wrong when applied to humans. Seriously. My younger brother was an alcoholic asshole, inveterate cheater, worthless scum of a father, and beloved by his wife and daughters because of it.
I was raised Red Pill and I didn’t even know it. I never heard my mother say anything bad about my father, ever. Not even once. All I remember is she’d always be at his service whenever he called to her, immediately, no questions asked. They would joke around a lot too. But my dad always did whatever he wanted to do. It was one of those “I’m the king and this is my castle” situations — except he walked the walk. My grandpa was the same way. Whatever he said was how it was going to be, no questions… Read more »
@ redlight – The context wasn’t clear. When I informed my ex that I would cease paying child support to her and instead use that, and much more money to pay for my daughter’s college, she flipped out. But she’s stupid. You see, there was no language on paying for college in our divorce agreement. And in ’94 in NY, there was no positive obligation to pay for college, just as there was none for married parents. This changed under the law since then. So, when I said I would pay for college, I was going from paying 15k in… Read more »
@ Redlight – If I really wanted to fuck with her, I could have taken her to court and had her court ordered to pay 1000/month towards college. That would have been mean, but still, I should have done it.
Thank you Rollo, for editing that comment – we respect you so much, thank you for everything you’re doing for these men.
@Sun Wukong – I agree with all your points… I’m so sorry both your parents failed you so horribly 🙁 You’re right about parents who are honest – their honesty when it will paint them in a bad light even, is what makes such a difference. And this statement is just so true: “Part of being a man is learning to independently make your own decisions. Give your kid the example and the world view, and let him draw the logical conclusions on his own.” @JF12 – I tried to reply, but I think it got stuck in moderation. Basically,… Read more »
Don’t know what to tell anybody with this kind of experience. Will try to relate mine in as few words as possible. I’ll turn 52 in a couple of weeks. I’ve been into redpill for about 2 years now. I live with a woman (wife) who I have because I received her in my house for 3, max 6 months, to help her (unknown to me at the time) out of a shitty situation, without an afterthought – I’ve never been able to get rid of her since. My parents divorced when I was p’haps 1 y/o, my mother eventually… Read more »
I’m so sorry both your parents failed you so horribly Eh, I don’t need people feeling sorry for it. I’m not. I’ve fixed a lot of the damage they did, and I think in the process I’ve become an strong, introspective person. I’ve gotten a later start on a lot of aspects of life than I should have, but I think the end result has been a man that truly is his own person. When your parents are both shitbags, you tend to reject 99% of what they say and build your own beliefs and values. You come to realize… Read more »
The beginnings of my “red pill awakening” started before I got married. Unfortunately, I married a terrible woman. However, she knew that I would stand up for myself when I needed to, and I displayed it constantly throughout our marriage. After we had our son, I came up with one simple goal when it came to raising him. That goal was to teach him to become a successfully independent human being. He is now 8 years old and has taken to heart everything that I’ve taught him thus far. After me and my wife split up, I made it a… Read more »
Sorry, I just found this post. I don’t seek reconciliation in the true sense of the word. I continue to say you all don’t know the whole story. And frankly, now that this process is going on, this all reminds me of what it was like “back in the day”, of being newly divorced, and the whole deal of dealing with the “ex and them” was very reminiscent of dealing with something like a flaky girl, dealing with her options. I was put into a position to tailor everything to deal with reality of choices other people made, yet tasked… Read more »
Sorry for the bad grammar in my previous comment. I also forgot some stuff. With my mother, I had a bad relation in childhood, and essentially stopped speaking to her at about age 14. As a consequence of redpill readings – here, Chateau, Roosh, RoK and a few others – I’ve come to the conclusion that she was less than a stellar woman – just read the articles over at RoK about negative traits for women to have and you’ll get an idea. As a mother she was pretty much what you can read in the books about toxic parents,… Read more »
Women against criminalizing manhood:
http://reason.com/blog/2015/01/31/why-libertarian-feminism
As a general observation, there is a diversity of commenters’ experiences with their fathers, and their experiences with women were basically uncorrelated with their father’s redpillness.
@glenn thanks for the reply. the “absurd your idea” was not mine but introduced by you when you said “I could have helped her or been more flexible to work out a transition”, I was wondering what your daughter’s feeling was about it, in particular how much your ex blamed you for the financial disaster to your daughter. In your reply, you told how you explained the numbers at the time to your daughter, and she became pissed at your ex. Still after this, might your ex be ranting on and on to your daughter how you caused everything bad… Read more »
@mark
you had asked “perhaps how a newly red pill divorced father might approach his son, especially if there has been a period of estrangement”
In your reply this morning, you discussed how you would “like to counsel the boy”, not so much a “reconciliation in the true sense of the word” but trying to help. I would suggest there would need to be some form of reconciliation before he would be open to counsel, and this process would need several meetings and a lot of listening.
@ redlight – My issues with my daughter stem from a well known phenomena called “Parental Alienation” – you seem to be unfamiliar with it. I was replaced as Dad and my conflict with her stemmed from me insisting that she treat me with respect as an adult, which she was not doing. She doesn’t really see me as her father after her mom’s (and the erstwhile step-dad’s) 13 year campaign of undermining and belittling and lying about me. If you are trying to help. you aren’t. If you think you are being clever, you’re not. My situation is nothing… Read more »
jf12: “As a general observation, there is a diversity of commenters’ experiences with their fathers, and their experiences with women were basically uncorrelated with their father’s redpillness.” I think that’s a good observation. There are a lot of things involved in RP awareness I suppose. My father is a natural leader and alpha, but that didn’t totally translate – I was BP as all hell. In my case I think it was an abusive (BPD) older brother; from a young age he punished any attempt from me to do or express what I wanted or felt. It was his reality… Read more »
Who ever acknowledged that children or ex-wives will appreciate you for what you contributed in the past? That wasn’t part of the red pill doctrine. And it is not just in regard to ex-wives and girlfriends. It extends to any person you deal with with a blue pill mindset. My son’s former baseball coach was all blue pill and he was famous for criticizing the players if they didn’t “perform for him in the last inning”. I had red pill wrestling coach in the ’70’s and after a prominent match in which our team lost by a few points and… Read more »
@Mark “But I’ll be goddamed if I am gonna chase him around and plead with him to take it, to try to rebuild his relationship with me. I am nobody’s orbiter, nobody’s whipping boy.” You have this attitude, you’ll never have any kind of relationship with your kid. ‘The money wasn’t there’ can mean lots of things. It could mean you spent in on yourself. If it truly wasn’t there, then you should’ve communicated that to them if they were old enough at the time. If they weren’t, then bring that up with them now – that you regret not… Read more »
The question I keep seeing in these comments “How can I lead him to the red pill?” is misguided WRT grown sons.
They are their own people. You can impose anything on them.
What you can do, though, is inspire them to see the need for the red pill, and to want it.
It can only come from within, they can’t be dragged there somehow, but you can open a new window for them and show them a new world through that window. That’s where inspiration comes from.
Rollo writes some of the most insightful pieces in the manosphere. I just forwarded several RM articles to a buddy who is having trouble with his girlfriend. Although I’m a huge fan I’m not the first person to notice that in the comments section Rollo can sometimes come off as angry. I think I understand why. Pure and simple this topic contains enough emotional TNT to set off any man. I don’t have a single, significant complaint about my wife. She’s beautiful and I love her. And yet the more I delve into the manosphere, the more I become suspicious… Read more »
@ sifrellc – “My dependents don’t owe me anything.” – Really? You don’t believe that children you raised and provided for owe you at least basic respect and civility? What kind of world is this that you live in? Fyi, when my daughter was 20 and 22, it appeared that we were getting along just fine to most people. Just see what happens if you get sick or lose your job and have financial difficulties. It ripped the scales from my eyes. The best part is that I’ve recovered. My business is going really well, i’m healthy, I’m approaching being… Read more »
@ Fromm – Good luck providing wise counsel to Minter, lol.
@ Fromm “You have this attitude, you’ll never have any kind of relationship with your kid.” Yep. “See, from the grown up kid’s point of view, you just absolved yourself from your responsibility as a parent, and like I told my father, go fuck yourself for wanting a relationship 20yrs after. You have to confront that fact – and the attitude above will just make it worse, not better.” Double yep. Hit that nail right on the head. Whatever a person’s problem is, it’s real TO THEM. That has to be respected and acknowledged to maintain a connection. If you… Read more »
All throughout my childhood and teen years, my father would frequently tell me one thing, and it was a big part of how I became aware.
“Never listen to what a woman says. Watch what she does.”