One of the most influential books I’ve ever read I picked up from my father’s home library when I was about 25. That book was Dr. Warren Farrell’s Why Men Are The Way They Are. At the time it didn’t strike me as odd that my father would have this book in his collection – my clinically depressed, 3rd wave feminist, aging hippy of a step-mother had eventually roped him into reading it for some Unitarian book club they belonged to in the early 90s. I still have it. It’s even got her penciled-in liner notes scribbled in the margins with all the feminist outrage I imagine it must’ve inspired for her. It’s sort of a cosmic irony that the book she raged over would be instrumental for my own writing and online persona.
People always ask me when my point of unplugging came about, but if I’m honest, it was a gradual process that required a lot of bad experiences to learn my way out of the Matrix. However, Farrell’s book was a turning point for me. I’ve since had to reassess my opinion of Dr. Farrell – he’s still very much Blue Pill and will likely go to his grave never making the connection that a belief in egalitarian equalism (as taught to him by early feminism) is what’s kept him blind to really accepting Red Pill awareness. But if I had a moment of unplugging I’d say it was directly attributable to this book.
I think what got me the most about it at the time were the many stories of the men Farrell had done ‘men’s group’ sessions with while doing his research for the book. It was published 1986 (about 7 or 8 years before I read it) so it was already kind of dated when I read it, but for the most part these men sort of had these sit-ins with other men to relate with each other. If you’ve read my essay Tribes you’ll understand why these new-agey get together seem very contrived to me, but the stories these guys were relating in the early to mid 80s were about what I’d expect coming from my own Dad.
They all did everything right. Some were the products of the free love generation or the hedonistic 70s, but overall these guys were caught in the perfect storm of still clinging to the old books Beta-provisioning social contract and the expectation of 3rd wave feminists that they be ‘evolved males’. More than a few were attending these men’s groups at the behest of their empowered wives in the hopes that they’d learn to get in touch with their feminine sides or at least find some better way to meet their “needs”. I could see my father as one of these men.
Papa Tomassi was a very confused man with regard to women as it was, but to be caught on the cusp of an era when feminine social primacy coming into its own and still being part of the ‘do everything right’ social contract and the belief system that was doomed to fail in the decades to come, I can understand a lot of that confusion. One man in the book described it thusly:
“I feel like I’ve spent 40 years of my life working as hard as I could to become somebody I don’t even like.”
Each one of these guys related a similar frustration. They busted their asses for decades to fulfill the old books social contract, the one that had been the way you did the right thing in order to have a life with a woman, a family, kids, maybe grandchildren, and all of that was no longer working for men. The 24 year old Rollo Tomassi reading this book didn’t know what Hypergamy really was back then, but as I recount these men’s confusion today I can see that it was a result of being the first men to realize that institutionalized Hypergamy was erasing that old social paradigm for them.
Bad Investments
I’ve covered the fallacy of Relational Equity in a prior post, but I think it’s necessary to revisit the idea here to understand how it still undermines men in an era of Open Hypergamy and feminine social primacy. These men, most of whom are likely into their 70s now, had a preconception of what it meant to ‘do everything right’; to play by an understood rule set that women were supposed to find attractive, to acknowledge and honor. Furthermore, they were taught to expect a degree of mutual reason from these new, empowered and evolving women. If needs weren’t being met, well, then all that was necessary was a heart to heart and open communication and negotiation would set things back on track because women could be expected to be the functional equivalents of men. This was the golden, egalitarian, sexual equality, future that feminism promised the guys in the 70s and 80s.
Relational Equity is the misguided belief that ‘doing everything right’ would necessarily be what ultimately attracts a woman, kept a woman, a wife, an LTR, from both infidelity, and was an assurance of her continued happiness with her man. Needless to say, the collected experiences of men that’s led to the praxeology of what we know as Red Pill awareness puts the lie to this – but as men, we expect some kind of acknowledgement for our accomplishments. Rationally, in a male context, we expect that what we do will at least be recognized as valuable, if not honored, by other men. So by extension of our equalist social contract, women, whom we are told we should expect to be co-equal agents with men, should also be expected to see past their emotional Hypergamous natures and make a logical conclusion to be attracted to men who are good fits in a mutually understood sense.
This, of course, is nonsense for the same reason that expecting genuine desire can be negotiated is nonsense, but essentially this is essentially the idea the shifting social contract of the time was trying to convince men of. And as you might expect, those men, the ones with the insight to recognize it, saw it for the opportunism it really was. Even if they ended up at 40 hating who they’d become.
From Relational Equity:
This is a really tough truth for guys to swallow, because knowing how hypergamy works necessarily devalues their concept of relational equity with the woman they’re committed to, or considering commitment with. Men’s concept of relational equity stems from a mindset that accepts negotiated desire (not genuine desire) as a valid means of relationship security. This is precisely why most couples counseling fails – its operative origin begins from the misconception that genuine desire (hypergamy) can be negotiated indefinitely.
When we become Red Pill aware there is also a kind of Relational Equity we need to acknowledge and manage. Once we’ve unplugged it’s easy to get caught up in thinking that because we know the game, because we’ve gone through the trials, because we know we’re higher value men – if for no other reason than that we no longer subscribe to the misgivings of out Blue Pill conditioning – because of that awareness we tend to think that this should be consciously or tacitly appreciated by a wife, a girlfriend or the women we’re sarging in the club.
This can be kind of tough for an aware man because it’s often something we need to keep latent in ourselves. Being overt about Red Pill awareness with women is almost always self defeating because it exposes the Game. Women want to play the game, they don’t want to be told how it operates. In our everyday lives it’s necessary to reserve and observe or we risk changing the process.
Openly acknowledging the value a man believes he ought to inspire in a woman will alter her perception of that value. Most men who resort to forcing a woman’s hand by laying bare all the qualities of himself (real or imagined) he believes she should recognize and appreciate are only exposing their belief that Relational Equity and an old paradigm mindset is his mental point of origin. In truth, guys who attempt to set themselves apart by listing all the ways they’re valuable and playing by the rules generally get shamed by women in the end because those qualities have become so common place and expected that they’ve become debased.
So you’re a great father to your kids and a devoted husband who built himself into the guy that any woman should be attracted to, who should be a great catch? That’s great, but that’s what you’re supposed to do. And all those things you’re supposed to do, those aren’t what engender a woman’s genuine desire. In a feminine-primary social order – the same order that deliberately misdefines masculinity for men – all men need to do, endlessly, is just a bit more to do everything right.
The Awakening
On both the Married Red Pill and MGTOW Reddit forums there’s been discussed the concept of being ‘awakened while married’. Hopefully I wont butcher that concept too badly here, but I think one aspect of becoming Red Pill aware, whether you’re a young single guy or an old mature married one is that there comes a point when you are awake and aware of the conditioning and the intersexual paradigm you truly live in. Honestly, I envy the younger men who come into this awareness early in life, but I also recognize that theirs is a greater responsibility to the truth for the rest of their unplugged lives. Men awakened while married at least have the excuse of having been deluded by Blue Pill conditioning for most of their lives to that point.
For younger men the Red Pill presents challenges with each new prospective woman a man applies himself with. For the awakened married man, his challenge is reinventing himself in a Red Pill aware paradigm with a woman who is already intimately aware of his persona, possibly for decades. We always say that once you’ve become Red Pill aware there is no going back. Even for men who go into total denial and choose to live with the cognitive dissonance of what they know about their own Blue Pill conditioning and the socio-sexual game going on around them there will always be reminders of Red Pill awareness he’ll notice on his peripheries.
For a man awakened to his condition while married, his state is a never ending reminder of what his Blue Pill indenturement has made of him. Like the guy in Farrell’s men’s group, the Blue Pill husband has spent most of his life trying to become someone he may or may not like, but that process of becoming was prompted by his Blue Pill conditioned existence. Once that man becomes Red Pill aware he’s now faced with two problems – how will he remake himself and how will his wife accept that remaking?
From the earliest posts of this blog I’ve always stressed that a man’s dominant Frame in his relationship is vital to the function of that relationship. Unfortunately, most men who were awakened while married began their relationships with a strong Beta perception for their wives. We can debate as to whether just the commitment of marriage itself makes for a predominantly Beta perception of a man, but in an era of masculine ridicule, Open Hypergamy and Alpha Widows it’s a good bet that women’s impression of their husbands is rarely one of reserved Alpha confidence.
This is a tough position for a Red Pill aware husband to confront. Sometimes a wife’s impression of his Beta-ness is too embedded, or she’s built a relational framework around expecting him to be a hapless Beta. Humans are creatures of habit with an insatiable need to see familiarity in other people’s actions. Your predictability gives them a sense of control. I should add that this expectation of predictability isn’t just limited to a wife’s perception of her Beta husband. That can, and often does, extend to a man’s family or friends who also expect him to be the Beta he’s always been. This then presents another challenge in remaking himself into something new, dominant and respectable in his Red Pill awareness.
Many of the men I used to do peer counseling with back in the early 2000s only wanted one thing; they wanted their wives to have a genuine desire to fuck them with either an enthusiasm they’d never known (but believed was possible) or they hoped to re-experience (and hopefully sustain) a genuine sexual desire they’d enjoyed with their wives while they were dating. None of them wanted (at least at first) to abandon their marriages, they just wanted to do thing right so their wives would fuck them, love them, respect them. They really wanted things to work, and so much so that they would overtly ask their wives “what do I have to do to get you to love/fuck/respect me and I’LL DO IT!” Which of course was precisely the thing that turned their wives off even more.
Their overtness and desperation was only more reinforcement and confirmation of these men’s wives perception of their Beta statuses. However, these men are the descendants of the generations that convinced them that ‘open communication’ solves all relationship problems, but here they were, being open, direct, expecting a rational, negotiable solution to their problem only to have it drive their disgusted wives further from them.
Hypergamy doesn’t care when a woman’s lasting impression of a man is his Beta status. How a man’s Red Pill awareness and the changes it brings in him will be accepted depends largely on his predominant condition. What husbands want is a sea change in their wives’ impression of them once they adopt a Red Pill / Game aware way of life. Most husbands have to weigh their emotional and personal investments in their wives with the reality that their wives’ impressions of them may simply never change. Becoming Red Pill aware forces husbands into a position of having to judge whether their marriages are even worth the considerable effort of trying to improve.
In the next part of this series I’ll be exploring the challenges an ‘awakened while married’ man has to face while weighing his wife’s impression of him with the impressions women outside his marriage have of him.
[…] The Reconstruction II […]
Latin grandfathers advice: “Never all the love” and “Never all the money”. They knew what happens when you don’t manage hypergamy.
More kudos and thanks to you Rollo. Your continued refinement on this topic is raising the bar for the benefit of humanity! A personal note that may be useful to others. I believe I am lucky (smart, strong?) that I emancipated myself from my single mom and instead of being her lifelong caregiver/breadwinner, fought against the pressure and situation of working to support the three of us and left to put myself through University. While the obvious benefits of getting educated in a useful STEM field was directly beneficial, salient to me (I found out much later) was the fact… Read more »
“That’s great, but that’s what you’re supposed to do.”
No cookie.
@GW great points especially about emotional control. Emerging from or living in a blue pill coma may tend to passive aggressiveness which is counter productive to masculine virtues and family leadership.
Awesome shit
@Pinelero, re: emotional control etc Having come to RP some decade into my marriage I can attest to the challenges therein. I was always kind of Alpha in my outlook on life prior to marriage but steeped in BP bullshit. When I got married I signed on fully in the mistaken impression that you know shit like vows would be honored. Needless to say women do not honor vows, they are just place holders for men. It followed the standard arc down the hill and I got pretty fucking frustrated right away. Well after years of negotiating desire (wrong) and… Read more »
@Agent P, so what did you say in the marriage counseling after you banged that other woman? You mention at the end of your post to “don’t tell”, so I’m assuming you never mentioned the bang. Do you think your wife knew of that bang subconsciously?
I’m going to suggest your frame needs work if you use the term blue pill victim
@Agent P My low point / high point was fucking the other babe one day just before going to marriage councillng on the day of my wedding anniversary. I should get a shitlord of the month award for that move. Fuck was it ever worth it. Ha, my high point was fucking another woman in my/ex’s bed on my ex’s birthday. That felt good, for some reason. But seriously, Agent, your marriage sounds like something walking dead. For your own mental heath it may be better to abandon the thing and enjoy your new-found power. Your mileage may vary though…… Read more »
Darn italics didn’t end…
Good series so far, Rollo, and pretty timely for me. “I feel like I’ve spent 40 years of my life working as hard as I could to be somebody I don’t even like.” A while back when I first came here, I related the strange feeling that I had awoke and didn’t really know myself. I liken that feeling to the gentleman above, particularly because I also did not like myself, but then, I hadn’t for a long, long time. It was only when I started becoming Red Pill aware that I began to realize at least partly why. I… Read more »
Looking forward to the 3rd installment. In my opinion, it’s almost impossible for a marriage or LTR to stay together after a man takes the RP and improves himself. In many ways he is simply not the same person as before. And he never sees his wife the same way again. All of her games, manipulation, passive/aggressive behavior, and just general bullshit become so obvious to him. And he just gets to a “Fuck it, I don’t need this shit anymore” Point. When I see pictures of my ex wife via the kids now, it’s like: “Dear god I’m so… Read more »
I feel like I’ve spent 40 years of my life working as hard as I could to be somebody I don’t even like. I spent 28 years developing myself in my failed marriage and I must admit I do like what I’ve become. It’s the suppressed parts I missed. I used to be the biggest flirt when younger (this was before all the politically correct BS invasion of the office space) but university/CompSci/LTR somehow dominated the fun guy… It didn’t used to be “don’t shit where you work” back in the 80’s – especially in Montreal where I grew up… Read more »
Medicine and Heath
http://wp.me/p6SXrP-jk3
@IH
When I see pictures of my ex wife via the kids now, it’s like: “Dear god I’m so happy I’m not with that bitter hag anymore”.
Amen.
“Being overt about Red Pill awareness with women is almost always self defeating because it exposes the Game. Women want to play the game, they don’t want to be told how it operates. In our everyday lives it’s necessary to reserve and observe or we risk changing the process.”
This has been a challenge anyone got experience with ways to observe and have discretion?
[…] Tomassi examines the out of date myth that also imprisons some distance too many Delta […]
@Agent P, also, do you have any kids and if so, what were their ages when you decided to do what you did?
@Newlyaloof “@Agent P, so what did you say in the marriage counseling after you banged that other woman? You mention at the end of your post to “don’t tell”, so I’m assuming you never mentioned the bang. Do you think your wife knew of that bang subconsciously?” I think I probably just sat there in the MC session serenely and thought to myself, “Fuck you two chicks (wife and MC) you are full of shit.” Where I had been always encouraged to emote, or “communicate” etc, I instinctively and reflexively just shut up that day and while they blathered on… Read more »
@Aloof
Agent P, also, do you have any kids and if so, what were their ages when you decided to do what you did?
Yes I have kids and they were still kind of in strollers when it happened.
@SFC, you’d be right for sure about frame improvement, but my shorthand for ignorance (and implicit lack of power that ignorance leads to) is what I was referring to. @Agent P I have had those moments, which is healthy response to BS, and if my relationships wasn’t trending from decent to better than that consistently I’d be on a track similar to yours. 1. As you probably know, but I’ll state for clarity, no one should look at the situation of another without understanding that each scenario is different. While the limbic system of each male and, separately, each female,… Read more »
@Agent P, thanks man.
That’s the rub – tell the wife and get the crazy-bitch tornado in front of the kids, or don’t tell and she still thinks you’re beta. I think the best course of action, as you mentioned, is DON’T TALK ABOUT FIGHT CLUB, get you some on the side, and who cares if a middle-aged nag gets reinvigorated.
@Earthling Walking dead marriage, perhaps yes perhaps no. It’s most certainly not what it could be in terms of a well tuned RP marriage. I will be honest, I get frustrated looking at the likes of Eh Intellect, sentient etc and how they manage to run their lives and their relationships and of course their bedrooms. I have not achieved that level of mastery in all areas of my life. As it happens right now my business is going crazy and its really easy for me to simply focus my energy on that and what I need to do to… Read more »
“Being overt about Red Pill awareness with women is almost always self defeating because it exposes the Game. Women want to play the game, they don’t want to be told how it operates. In our everyday lives it’s necessary to reserve and observe or we risk changing the process.”
@seraph
Falling off the RP wagon, yep, that right there, I did that too and it hurt me a lot because it blew away any sense of congruency for what I was becoming. It was possibly the worst thing I could do really.
I forget who brought up the gumption trap in a previous thread, that was me.
I think I fell off for a number of reasons, Rollo has pointed out one, it still wasn’t getting me all the results I wanted trying to fix something that probably could and can never be fixed.
Lose Frame, and suddenly you’re Sisyphus — except there is never a summit.
The hill simply grows.
Always be willing to walk.
No T it’s worse, occasionally you slip and the boulder rolls all the way back down to the bottom and you have to start again.
@Agent P – if you don’t have kids the decision is easier. My youngest daughter is the only reason I stayed during some of the uglier moments of unplugging.
Now my situation is immensely better, but damn if I don’t get flashbacks that make me want to just walk away. Can’t change the past and no point in going off on something that is done and which might screw up the present and future – emotional control is frame control.
@Rollo, OT Do you realize that, considering your line of work, you could start up a whole line of alcohols (vodka, rum, whiskey) and call it “Red Pill” (or hell even Tomassi), and you’d have an instant following of people drinking your line to show support for you and the cause? I’ve always wondered how many people know of the red pill. Well, your sales numbers would be a good gauge. Think of the conversations that could take place at bars when someone orders a Red Pill vodka, or a Tomassi Rum and coke. Remember your bird dog if you… Read more »
“More than a few were attending these men’s groups at the behest of their empowered wives in the hopes that they’d learn to get in touch with their feminine sides or at least find some better way to meet their “needs”. ” I’ve been to more than a few of these. Parenting, marriage, Bible study. True, the women establish the coed groups usually, the guys are there in varying degrees of support. I sat, pontificated, ate, dropped sexual innuendo and mentally undressed the young moms. It was something to do and to me was entertaining. It does increase one’s social… Read more »
Agent p,Seraph,Newly
Right there with you guys,couldn’t say it better and not going to try.
“Do Just a bit more”LOL
Newly ,Who cares about reinvigorating an old hag?
“but damn if I don’t get flashbacks that make me want to just walk away.”
My worst BP moments, unplugging failures…honestly, I feel like I’m reading another’s story.
Me to me: “Really, EhIntellect? Did that happen? Huh. I guess it did.” (insert shoulder shrug)
I get this way thinking about college and my Army tour, too. It wasn’t me. Just a memory of somebody else.
@rollo “In the next part of this series I’ll be exploring the challenges an ‘awakened while married’ man has to face while weighing his wife’s impression of him with the impressions women outside his marriage have of him.” Wife while in a drunken should be slutty but instead crazy rage, “No I don’t want you to ________ in bed with me” More attractive married friend of family at the bar a few days earlier as I hold her neck in a friendly but very dominant and sexual gesture, “hehehehe yes P I want you to do that to me, hell… Read more »
Good stuff Rollo. I had a mini flashback while reading. My Dad iis in his late 70s. I can recall the days of the sexual revolution and how my Dad ” handled ” my Mom who was in her mid 20s at the time It sounds brutish by today’s standards, but I can recall one particular instance when my mom was going out somewhere, and she was wearing an impossibly short miniskirt. My dad disapproved and told her to change, and in a rare display of defiance she refused, saying that she could wear what she wanted. He got up… Read more »
Same basic story. Married young, drift to beta. End up frustrated and annoyed. Did everything ‘right’ but life sucks. Start looking on the internet for advice. Discover Rollo, CH, Blackdragon and others. Learn what I’ve become and start to change. I call it ‘uping the alpha’. Work out more, dress better, return to being a audacious flirt. No effect on the wife. Her contempt for me is too strongly held. Random women I encounter are really interested. Start watching what she does. Note that there is no desire. She’d rather read a romance novel or a J. Meyers book about… Read more »
This is turning into a series of very good reflections. Well written, Rollo. I’m looking forward to the new chapter concerning “RP awakening on marriages”. Even though I suspect what the outcome is. I know plenty of chicks who, despite loving to fuck Alphas, are only interested in mantaining relationships with Betas. Betas always provide more money and are more submissive. And these women are 100% aware of this. That’s why BP guys are more likely to marry than RP dudes. Most women prefer “money and slaves” to genuine affection and equal roles in a relationship. It’s a shame how… Read more »
“I admit that I’d honestly prefer a society where men and women have equal rights and duties.”
Why? What’s the point of it? Not even the “perfect” society of ants, where communism works in the real world, does anything even remotely like that.
@Rollo
You’ve said before that your wife let you know that she didn’t like picturing you with other women as the time she wanted to be dating exclusively.
What was that made you decide to stop spinning plates and date her exclusively?
My own story largely parallels those of the other “woke” gentlecreatures here, except of course for some minutiae unique to me which doesn’t mean shit to a tree, as Grace Slick sang. (Flashback to happy hippie days of bad weed and a skipping LP of the Woodstock soundtrack) Only chiming in to amplify on the “relational equity” notion: the biggest goof before I began to unplug was trying to negotiate the fuck schedule. Complete waste of time and unbelievably uncomfortable and weird. But I learned: we don’t do that again. Also from that I learned why marriage counseling tends to… Read more »
Women want to play the game, they don’t want to be told how it operates. In our everyday lives it’s necessary to reserve and observe or we risk changing the process. Red Pill Secret Agent Man. In the spirit of rugby11. http://www.jango.com/music/Johnny+Rivers There’s a man who leads a life of danger To everyone he meets he stays a stranger With every move he makes another chance he takes Odds are he won’t live to see tomorrow Secret agent man, secret agent man They’ve given you a number and taken away your name Beware of pretty faces that you find A… Read more »
In my opinion, it’s almost impossible for a marriage or LTR to stay together after a man takes the RP and improves himself. In many ways he is simply not the same person as before. The problem is not him but that SHE will never recognize he is different, will not acknowledge improvement, and will keep trying to force him into her frame where she is mommy and he is her naughty little beta boy. I am definitely in a place where her lasting impression of me is my Beta status. Yes, I want that sea change in her impression… Read more »
@Tarl: “if not for the kids, the answer would have been a resounding NO and I would have pulled the plug many months ago.”
This year I’ve decided to not think so much about pulling the plug but rather inserting my plug into new outlets.
Fred Flange in Smell-A-Rama Only chiming in to amplify on the “relational equity” notion: the biggest goof before I began to unplug was trying to negotiate the fuck schedule. Complete waste of time and unbelievably uncomfortable and weird. But I learned: we don’t do that again. I’ve read that stuff, it’s supposed to be more like having an affair, where the two people have to sneak around and schedule sexytime so that no one else finds out. But of course that would work with a high enough level of attraction – a level so high that scheduling would not be… Read more »
tarl The problem is not him but that SHE will never recognize he is different, will not acknowledge improvement, and will keep trying to force him into her frame where she is mommy and he is her naughty little beta boy. I’m not H A B D / habd, but I have to ask: how’s that FI treating you? Pushing on you? She want’s that alpha but isn’t sure that it’s sticking. Doubly so if a man was beta at marriage, but really an extended period of betaization has its own effect. Flashes of alpha mixed with beta are confusing… Read more »
The problem is not him but that SHE will never recognize he is different, will not acknowledge improvement, and will keep trying to force him into her frame where she is mommy and he is her naughty little beta boy.
Lemme put this another way. If he can develop his Game, and make his Frame strong enough, that she tires of trying to force him into her frame – he’s going to have such solid Game, such a strong Frame that the next woman will be sooo easy to lead. It’s like mental weight training.
@ Tarl “will keep trying to force him into her frame where she is mommy and he is her naughty little beta boy.” Isn’t this her attempt to maintain status quo ante? She knows change will happen without the pressure. Isn’t this your opportunity to claw some frame back, if only piecemeal, and build from there? If you’re in it for the kids, not you primarily, damn brother, it’ll be hard to raise the kids free of the dysfunction. You don’t want that legacy, do you? It was always me, not her. I’ve never explained RP to her, let alone… Read more »
@Newlyaloof Don’t know about Rollo, but you’ve given me the idea to craft a RedPill cocktail recipe. We could popularize it and ordering one could be a sort of ‘secret handshake’ lol. It will be red, and bitter. I’m thinking something like a base of whiskey (preferably Tap 8 lol), campari, Peychaud’s, maybe a splash of grapefruit, served in a tumbler with a block ice and absinthe rinse. Rather similar to a Sazerac but with a red glow and more nuance. I’ll give it a whirl. Might need some Luxardo or something depending on how it balances in practice. A… Read more »
@Forge the sky, my thinking exactly about the “secret handshake” but it would not be a secret; it would be out in the open for all to chat about. Talk about a great way to promote the red pill and Game. Ever since I’ve learned the red pill, I’ve wanted to quit my job and do something related to red pill. If I had the dough, I’d do it myself. I’ve also been curious how many red pill dudes no longer want to work where they do after learning red pill. How many dudes are doing what they do because… Read more »
@Tarl, Seraph A girl’s impression of you can change, though it’s not always an easy thing to enact. The best way to do it is via long-soft-nexting. When she sees you again after a period of absence – even if not physical absence lol, I did this with a girl I work around and just stopped talking to her for a while – you’ve changed. Barring that, she needs to believe that a new side of you she’s never been able to see before is emerging. This requires you to do things you’ve never done before, and allow new aspects… Read more »
Totally cosign Agent P on this one, but understand that mileage may vary and everyone’s situ is unique. I did the same… Finally threw in the towel and drained my balls outside of the marriage and will still do so on occasion if the circumtances are just right: Discretion is an absolute must. In my case, I actually overheard her telling her friends one time that if I did ever DBE (drain balls elsewhere), she just absolutely didn’t want to know about it. Very well then… I’m not going to say that it’s ethically right — my own moral code… Read more »
@Forge
Re: A Red Pill cocktail. Agree with the Campari, bourbon, grapefruit and bitters. I would suggest Chicago favorite Jeppson’s Malort for added masculine bitterness. It adds grapefruit, band-aid adhesive and gasoline overtones.
One way a guy can get his wife to reappraise her opinion of him is to fuck around with women much younger than her. Not have a mistress or anything like that, but have a series of short relationships or ONS with much younger women over a period of several months to a year. Then, let her find out about it. She may leave you, but that’s fine. If she stays, and you hold frame, she will have accepted your new reality.
@newlyaloof
Left my position in structured finance in mid October, working at present on a start-up. I just honestly got so sick of office bullshit, did a 180 in sector direction and off i went.
All going to plan first revenue generation should be late Feb, early March. I had anticipated a 6 month no income phase.
Funding is in place and we are pretty much set on all aspects although the 14 hour days at present are for my benefit which has a surreal feeling to it.
I don’t think I need to go over why I believe it’s a bad idea to make the manosphere a vocation. However, two my new business partners both know my online persona and have mentioned my TRM ‘brand’ has more pull than 3 of the clubs I’m working with in my new gig.
@Harry, so do you think red pill had anything to do with “getting sick of office bullshit”?
Good luck on the start-up. I was involved in one during the 2000 pre-bubble dot com era. Wild ride.
Jeremy
Re Bottom Line… Yes it finally worked when you went all in on Jeremy… That is the trigger, not the other girls.
Readers take note.
“Jeppson’s Malort . . . adds grapefruit, band-aid adhesive and gasoline overtones. . . ”
. . . and smells like Chicago.
@Rollo You are getting perilously close to addressing my biggest piece of missing knowledge. Fist off, with red pill knowledge, some women simply aren’t marriage material. They seem like they are through blue pill lenses, but after the red pill it all becomes clear. Proverbs 25:24 calls them contentious women. When you awaken while married, we often find ourselves with one of these beasts. No amount of red pill is going to change it. In today’s legal world however, men are not free to withdraw their commitment like they were in the old days. If you have kids and want… Read more »
Warren Farrell: I discovered his The Myth of Male Power in the mid-90s (when I was struggling to come to terms with what I’d learned about infant male circumcision and what it had done to me) and thought he did an excellent job of researching the subject, presenting plenty of documented backup. But then he ruined it all in the final chapter by opining that the solution to problems between the sexes is to make them more alike. Even then I knew that was 180° wrong: the solution is for men to become men again. (And women to revert to… Read more »
Forge
It’s not passing a shit test if you feel a need to pass it, or expect favors for doing so.
Exactly. It’s more like swatting a fly that’s being annoying. Or telling a dog, “Sit!” and seeing it sit. The expected result can be satisfying, but there’s no prize for swatting flies.
“Continuing to be bound by a contract when the other party no longer is, is simply foolish.”
Paging Novaseeker. Philandery isn’t illegal, per se, but may have an impact on divorce proceedings. Nothing in the secular contract demanding monogamy as far as I know. It shows up if one wants out on adultery grounds and the bar of proof is pretty low.
Catholocism’s marriage triad of monogamous, permanent and fruitful requires women to sex their husbands and frigidity has been successfully used as grounds for annulment. If she’s plays hide the vagina, she’s frustrating fruitfulness, isn’t she?
@SJF
Woa, a bitter thing I haven’t heard of before! Cool. I go to Chicago often enough that I might be able to track some down.
Could replace the absinthe rinse I suppose, though I like the imagery of opening by smelling absinthe, which is associated with delirium, and is even green, like the code of the Matrix, before sipping the Red.
@Rollo
Ya it’s a dangerous thing to monetize a movement. Grassroots, else you get doctrines rather than leaders.
Very OT, but this brought to mind something I made recently that some people might like. Haven’t named it yet, but it’s a spicy-pungent tropical liquor that, if traditional medicine is any guide, is great for digestion. -Get a 500mL jar. Put in: -1/3 cup or so of fresh, peeled and thinly sliced ginger root -1/3 cup or so fresh, peeled and thinly sliced turmeric root -a black cardamom pod -like…6-8 black peppercorns. Fill jar with good-quality vodka. Wait 2-3 weeks, shaking occasionally, then filter out and discard the solids, leaving you with a saffron-colored spicy-pungent liquor. Add some pineapple… Read more »
Such a timely post, Rollo. Your work helped save my life when I took the red pill a year and a half ago. I can’t wait till the next installment…. That said, this article speaks exactly to where I am today. I’m 46 in a marriage of nearly 12 years. I was a situational alpha to my Amazonian alpha wife. Once she got pregnant I declined into abject betahood, but honestly I grew up a pedestalizing blue pill due to being raised mostly by my mother. Sadly dad was a beta too – when he was there he wasn’t a… Read more »
“…..guys who attempt to set themselves apart by listing all the ways they’re valuable and playing by the rules generally get shamed by women in the end because those qualities have become so common place and expected that they’ve become debased.” 1 + 1 does not equal 2. The balance sheet – the mental ledger – that catalogs all of our accrued favorable attributes, benefits, services, attention and resources provided to her will not balance, and will never “come due”. They cannot. She simply does care about math or some obscure, mental chart of accounts. Plus, it “would never occur… Read more »
They’re all great posts, but somehow I feel like the message in this one is going to resonate within me for a long while.
Commute to work 3.5/4 hours round trip every day and then combined with office politics I honestly couldn’t wait to get going for myself and build a team. Top down being told the market is doing ABC when you know it’s doing XYZ and therefore no additional capital expenditure this year or next. The lip service paid to the ideology of transparency was nothing more than fleeting opaque gestures. I would honestly say I’d still be plugging away climbing someone else’s predefined steps on the ladder where it not for some very difficult questions I have had to ask myself… Read more »
Rollo, There is one thing I hope you touch on in some depth in the next segment on ‘awakened while married’ – The usually huge cost of divorce and the way the cards are stacked against a man in almost all aspects of family law. Many of the commenters above are saying they are staying in a marriage, or delayed exiting mostly for that reasons, especially when they have children. Men are usually pretty rational creatures, and they often do a practical assessment of the price they will pay (possibly for decades), figuratively and literally to take that step they… Read more »
Just want to say – I might have blown up my own LTR while being a disgruntled BPer, and may seem eager to advise others to follow suit, but I have great respect for those who discovered RP in time and are turning things around, at whatever rate.
May the odds be ever in your favor.
This was actually really well done, Tomassi. “Some were the products of the free love generation or the hedonistic 70s, but overall these guys were caught in the perfect storm of still clinging to the old books Beta-provisioning social contract and the expectation of 3rd wave feminists that they be ‘evolved males’.” Yes. How awful. I was very young, but I remember the drumming circles, the warrior men, the touch-feely evolving male stuff. At the same time, I was also reading feminist’s notes scribbled in the margins of some of those books, and trying to figure it all out. They… Read more »
@Blaximus
He got up from his chair, walked over to her, grabbed her and literally ripped her skirt off and tore it to shreds. He then dragged her to the front door and threatened to put her outside iin her panties since ” you want to go out half naked
Yeah that would be my parent’s generation. The old man was like that but also a compete bastard all-around. These guys were RP before it was cool…
@ DisgruntledEarthling
Oh fuck yeah. The old man beat mom closed-fisted regularly. Holy shit did I fear his country boy unmitigated fury. God the whipping, I’d step out of line…I really didn’t know when he’d snap…I’d get cocky a few times…sibling fights…breaking furniture…didn’t rouse him…then, oh shit scatter! After 30 years, he got tired of beating her and left for greener pastures…and she hated him for leaving her. “I’ll never forgive him for divorcing me.” was the direct quote, from the hospital, raccoon eyed. My first red pill at 16. Gulp!
@LookingForZion – “Where I find myself now is that I have this red pill awareness, I see the code in the Matrix, but life at home is a constant struggle for frame. Amused mastery, being aloof, agree and amplify…. I do it all (imperfectly, I’ll admit)…But it’s a lot of energy spent for little heat generated.” Dude, this was me for almost 5 long years! Rollo warned us that once your wife sees you as BP it’s extraordinarily difficult and time consuming to change that dynamic and he was absolutely right. My experience FWIW is that I had the RP… Read more »
@ Forge
Mrs. Eh is a ginger addict, grows it. Made vanilla before with vodka and vanilla beans, but this…oooohhh. Cut-and-paste-and-send. Done and done. The irony is thick…she tipsy on TRM cocktails. Heh.
I chortle about this shit occasionally. Whom I to tell? I’ll die with this and be o.k.
“He will act like a fucking prick, offend all of her closest friends, insult her father to his face, ignore her sensibilities and the most minor of requests, make zero investment in her well-being, and still enjoy the maximum of her sexual generosity on their first date.”
As I have no plans for this weekend, that sounds like fun. Thanks constrained locus!
“This was actually really well done, Tomassi.” How the hell did that just happen? And what’s with the “actually”? You could have left that adverb off. Great Job on your writing Rollo! It is exceptional. Separately, I have to say that the comments have been exceptional. I’ve been busy and got the freshest bit of air ever out chainsawing at my farm, so I haven’t had time to bloviate. Let’s just just say, I’m a big fan of Positive Reconstruction and raising the children well (a lot of that comes from Dr. Laura Schlessinger, bless her heart). Firstly, it is… Read more »
I have only grown up knowing strength. I am white, blue eyed and robust. I’m a scorpio and wouldn’t consider myself alpha (in the purple sense) in any way. In fact, it’s when I become too aggressive in a blue pill way that has led me to a lot of smacks across the ego. I’m a blue collar, white working minded man who has a dominant mother and severely depressed dad that has made me so leather. Ur blog has been the ben gay for my sore joints for the last 3 years but now I’m 27 and I really… Read more »
I think one reason MMSL was doomed was because the premise became about including a wife in the reconstruction process. It was disingenuous because it never occurred to Kay that he was inviting the observer effect into that process.
It was doomed when he brought the wives into the mix, but you also have to consider that he did the same to himself with his own wife. I think he’s beginning to see the consequences of that. What happens when his consults dry up and all the positivity that that money brought to his marriage ebbs?
They all did everything right. Some were the products of the free love generation or the hedonistic 70s, but overall these guys were caught in the perfect storm of still clinging to the old books Beta-provisioning social contract and the expectation of 3rd wave feminists that they be ‘evolved males’. More than a few were attending these men’s groups at the behest of their empowered wives in the hopes that they’d learn to get in touch with their feminine sides or at least find some better way to meet their “needs”. I could see my father as one of these… Read more »
Time to bloviate: Gosh, reading all these stories, I’m thanking my lucky stars for what I had to do to undergo my reconstruction. I really had more substrate to work with. I don’t know if I can derive any actionable positivity about the process for others to be hopeful. But I’ll try. I sure do get tired reading all about having been blue pill. Because I was never (A)verage, (F)rustrated, or a (C)hump. My father worked from a First Set of Books and it worked out well for him. He was never less than in a dependent relationship with my… Read more »
@ Looking For Zion Some food for thought. The past is the past, and there’s no Way Back machine or Delorean that a guy can hop in to correct past failings. Recognize and learn from the past and then relegate it to the dust bin. Waste zero time in wallow. As long as you are fairly healthy and able and willing, there is no way that the best years can be behind you. As a man ages and gains knowledge and understanding and wisdom, life is more beautiful as you move forward. How is this so? Mindset. Always mind your… Read more »
I agree with Blaximus. I would count myself as a voracious reader of books. Ever since I consumed all of the Hardy Boys and Tom Swift books in the early 70’s. And Tolstoy and Doestoyevski in the 80’s. And lately I think I consume a short book a week or a long book every two weeks. Reading books is highly advised in red pill and PUA masculine self improvement. This last year, manosphere books that dealt with eastern religions crept into my reading list and what Blaximus knows by intuition is Gold. Deal with what is and not what things… Read more »
Redux from Reconstruction I:
https://therationalmale.com/2017/01/10/the-reconstruction-i/#comment-185861
Scribbler: “I wonder what Red Pill men actually demonstrate by staying in bad marriages?
Sentient: “I question if this is even possible, truly Red Pill guy will not be in a bad marriage… either the W will respond to his increasing RP behavior and change or he will leave…”
The fork in the road awaits your decision. I submit that you should only decide once you have been knighted with Mastery and Competence. Or you admit that you can’t actually get There.
Gents and Jeremy
It does not have to be a long process. It can happen like the flick if a switch… ” I am not going to be the person i am expected to ne anymore”
https://youtu.be/oG-nnDlnWrA
flip the switch.
“For a man awakened to his condition while married, his state is a never ending reminder of what his Blue Pill indenturement has made of him. Like the guy in Farrell’s men’s group, the Blue Pill husband has spent most of his life trying to become someone he may or may not like, but that process of becoming was prompted by his Blue Pill conditioned existence. Once that man becomes Red Pill aware he’s now faced with two problems – how will he remake himself and how will his wife accept that remaking?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fKzmCHAWPc
Reinventing the self
Two anecdotes to share about adopting the RedPill and not going back. Pre RP after separating from my wife for year I said let’s fix this and go to counselling. Her response? Divorce and immediately remarried a richer older dude. Ok. Now I get it. Last week plate had a meltdown over some relatively small issue. I told her I wouldn’t use the poster she created for me because I liked mine better and it was already familiar with my customers. Lots of hamster rationalisation about how awful, selfish,mysoginistic and otherwise worthless I was. Red Pill me laughed it off… Read more »
how will he remake himself and how will his wife accept that remaking? A friend of mine’s wife blew up their marriage a couple of years back. He joined my band mostly in an attempt by me to help him break out of his funk and realize his life could be much more if he just opened himself to the possibilities.It took him a while to get used to the mind-shift that he was the prize that women would compete for after a performance. Fast forward two years. His ex-wife keeps trying to get him to “give it another try”… Read more »
@Sentient “It does not have to be a long process. It can happen like the flick if a switch… “ You and HABD came on strong in early 2016 on this blog and I Thank You Guys. It is a thought process that matters. You guys lit a spark under some of us. That spark was the Nike advertising Motto: Just Fucking Do It. I got the same from Scribbler when he suggested me spinning plates with young hotties in a threesome with my wife. I ruminated that, while doing habitat work on my farm one day and guess what?… Read more »
In support of what Blax & SJF said… for the new guys- Get through/past/over that OULDA phase- that “I’m 30-40+ and have been lied to; everything is over for me now; I woulda behaved differently; what a waste my life is; I shoulda known; I coulda been a contender…” phase. I was deep in mine for months. Divorce with kids… It’s depressing, offers nothing of added value (mine was a post-mortem of everything I ever did wrong), you beat yourself up for any & all past mistakes, then punish yourself for not having not having seen it earlier (i.e. not… Read more »
“Last week plate had a meltdown over some relatively small issue. I told her I wouldn’t use the poster she created for me because I liked mine better and it was already familiar with my customers.”
How the hell did that happen?
Red pill way for dismissal:
@Rollo “Becoming Red Pill aware forces husbands into a position of having to judge whether their marriages are even worth the considerable effort of trying to improve.” No! Not worth it. Such a marriage isn’t worth the shit it’s made of. No marriage founded on such self subjugation, cowardice and stupidity is worth saving. Marriages based on blue pill ideals and betaism are marriages based on the man being a coward and the woman being the supreme dominator of the relationship. It is doubtful that a man who allows or chooses such enslavement is even capable of really “becoming” “red… Read more »
https://www.reddit.com/r/TumblrInAction/comments/5opny1/apparently_the_word_female_is_misogynistic/?ref=share&ref_source=link
Rollo
https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/5oqd01/just_got_my_divorce_finalized_but_still_cant_see/
@ Novaseeker,
“feeling like they settled when they married you (because they probably did).”
Horseshit.
Lol.😁
Novaseeker is dead on.
Brace yourselves! The AMOGs are coming! Emoji AMOGs, no less.
He was dead on with a quote that could be inserted seamlessly into any Mark Driscoll rant?
@NBTM – “The wife of a beta, married a beta. She knew what she was getting when she selected it. It is unlikely she will remain “committed” when the beta is no more. She can, more likely than not, continue her preferred and established strategy by finding another beta to satisfy that need.” You’re forgetting a key leveller… Rollo’s SMV chart. Our SMV generally goes up as we age. We become wealthier, wiser, more distinguished and with some RP work, we have the potential to become devastating. The female SMV plummets rapidly. It’s a hell of a risk to trade… Read more »
@Kaminsky:
Why do you want to be a fungi imperfecti so badly?
Kaminsky He was dead on with a quote that could be inserted seamlessly into any Mark Driscoll rant? LOL! No, no way. Driscoll is a Blue Pill pedestalizing AMOG with a tendency to bully other men if he can get away with it – and he had his own security detail in Seattle to ensure that. Some of his recent sermons suggest he’s learned maybe a shred of humilty the hard way. But he’s still Blue Pill as ever. His stuff won’t fly here. Novaseeker? Totally different. And as Blaximus said, dead on. There’s a tie to what Margaret Mead… Read more »
He was dead on with a quote that could be inserted seamlessly into any Mark Driscoll rant? Context. Point of view. Kaminsky – RP aware – rejects notion woman “settled”. Good RP attitude. Novaseeker – referring to men still caught up in the matrix – woman “settled” for BP man. A common occurrence as BP men are lined up waiting to serve women whose epiphany stage has arrived. Most damning proof – BP man (like a Driscoll) often publicly agrees that his wife has settled, and how lucky he is to have a strong, smart woman like her, etc. ad… Read more »
“AF-BB for a lot of girls leads to frustration – the One That Got Away in their 20’s is still gone” Talk about dread…. Two old flames in the past 5 years spontaneously called me. One popped my cherry no less, she’d call late at night, hang up. Ahem, caller I.D. you dingbat. One wanted to blow up my marriage and the other just was pining away. The second was constantly pawing at me at class reunions, in the neighborhood, down girl!. I unwittingly just told the Mrs. who they were, our history (what did I have to hide?) and… Read more »
Only just:
Conversation with RN, last year hot, this year not.
“Looks like you achieved last year’s resolutions. You got married.”
“Yes. It was great and…”
“Cutting your hair too.”
“Yeah I cut it 3 weeks ago cuz…”
“i see mommy conversion almost complete. Gian 30# and hike your pants to your navel. That’d show your chump husband what for! HaHaHaHa!”
Time to switch to decaf.