I Won’t Live Alone In A Cave

The Cliff Dwellers (1906)

All too often the suggestions I hear come down to two things. One is go fuck as many women as you can. That is fun for about a minute. I am not that guy. Never have been. The other is to go my own way. Now this is appealing in some ways, it doesn’t solve the problems that I have in my life. If I were a young man without kids, I would consider this the way to go now. Make sure I can’t have kids, and disengage from the life chosen for me, and do whatever the fuck I want to.

The problem is, I do have kids, and I like the companionship of a woman. I do have a red pill view of these relationships, but I don’t see them as being something I can’t have. I just have to understand the risks that I face as I enter into these relationships. The big solution to the problem is that I could crawl into a cave and spend my time with my kids and hang out alone when they aren’t around. This is depressing. I might get some reading and writing done, but I would be unsatisfied. I do plan on doing these things, but I want a partner.

So now I am faced with building a relationship and knowing the score. I know the female nature. I also know what I am willing to accept from a woman, and what I want. All woman in my life will demonstrate jealousy of the time I spend with my kids when they aren’t “mine”. This manifests itself usually as jealousy towards my ex. It really is jealousy of the time and that I sometimes have to get up and leave. My ex uses this to cause problems, and I do have to learn better ways to mitigate the situations. She is a manipulator and likes to create strife. There isn’t much I can do about that, because she is willing to use the kids to get her way. This is not good for anyone involved. All it does is score her a win. Its not even good for her.

I understand how men walk away from their kids. Its not fair to the kids, but there is a limit to how much a man can take. There is a limit to how beneficial his presence is, when a vindictive woman is manipulating things on the other end. When the kids come to you and are treating you like crap, what do you do. When no amount of discipline teaches them what they need to know, because the other parent is working against you, there is a time where you have to say that I can’t fix the damage under these circumstances. Its the heart wrenching decision that has to be made sometimes. These men are broken and torn apart, and society will heap more and more shame on them for this decision. As I have gone through this process of divorce in my life, I have developed a new compassion for these men. Most of them are not the man who drops a litter and runs from town to town. Most are good men, who want nothing more than to be with their kids.

I have a lot more on my mind, but for now.

Ten-Foured,

JeD

Playing with Fire

I am a man, and I know that fire is cool and fun. It is also dangerous. Dealing with the modern woman is playing with fire. The MGTOW group out there likes to call men who can’t or won’t walk away from women pussy addicts. Its more than that though. There is nothing like the emotions a woman can bring out in a man. The problem is that women know this, and often manipulate it. We were built for these partnerships. I don’t think the solution is to run away from them as a gender. I do sympathize with men who choose to do so, and have no harsh words for them as they pursue other interests with the additional time that they surely will have. It is playing with fire for all the reasons these men have gone the MGTOW route. They have all the legal power. They have all the social power. Men will surely stand up for them when someone says something not nice.

The flip side of this, is most women don’t realize the real power that they have. They coast through life and these things happen around them, but they don’t register the power. They can be self righteous princesses about the things they get, and believe it was just the right thing. They don’t realize the greater ramifications of how they got what they got. Some do, and they are ones generally to either stay clear of, unless they do because they have take the red pill and are in favor of changes. Women have always liked to be fought over, so they will stage scenarios for this to happen. It is best to avoid the fight, and walk from a woman who plays you like this, because she doesn’t see you as strong enough for her, and is choosing to test you again and again and again.

I decided that I did not want to live out the rest of my life without female attention. Wise or not, this is what I decided. I did the friends with benefits thing. I picked up random women and did or didn’t do things with them as I chose. Honestly this was all boring to me. I like to spend time with a thoughtful woman. One who is not completely self absorbed to the point of not being able to recognize he people’s needs around them. I went on a few dates. I met some interesting women, and I encountered red flags that told me that I wouldn’t get the best long term deal. Women who quickly wanted me to jump on their side on things between their ex and them. Trying to paint them as a bad guy early. Women who make it clear that some of the traditional things that I enjoy are out with them. Women who have to be in charge of every moment. I also met some women who very clearly were looking for a new daddy for their kids. Not that the old daddy was not present, but that they wanted to replace him. I met a couple who thought that they should just have someone to pay for their entertainment. All these women were out the door for me.

The one I met that stuck probably isn’t that different as for how and why she broke up her marriage. She wasn’t very introspective at the time about how she was feeling. She was just feeling. I hadn’t realized it until we were dating for a while that I knew her ex-husband as a child. He was a few years older than me in Boy Scouts. I knew the kind of guy that he was, and all that she has said about him and how he reacted to her seemed to jive well with the young man that I knew. There are a few things that have really drawn me in with her.

She early on when we started talking mentioned that she is always worried about how men will receive her, because she knows that most men did not seek their divorce and that most divorces are initiated by the wife. She explained that she knew that for many men she could be a constant reminder of the pain that their ex-wife left them with. The cost of her actions was not lost on her. This was true in how she engages her ex-husband as well. She is aware that her actions forever affected the relationship that they have, regardless of whether at the end of it all, he also wanted the divorce.

When it came to the issue of sex, she was much more quickly ready for us to sleep together. She came on to me physically, and when I told her that I wanted to wait longer before we did anything sexually, she responded with a joke of she has never had to be beaten back before, but then told me that I was in charge and to let her know when I was ready. I didn’t want to have sex too early for many reasons. The most important one is that I have had too many women who after having sex become too attached and hard to deal with while the relationship outside of the physical realm just stops. She thinks she has a boyfriend, and I am thinking about how to get rid of this boring woman. I took some time, and made sure that this woman was truly engaging, and that we were able to talk through disagreements on many issues. I wasn’t waiting for a fight, but just to see that she wasn’t just reflecting what I was saying back to me to appear more attractive. When we did finally have sex, it was great. Much different than the sex with women I barely knew. Much different than the sex I had with my wife. It was the kind of sex I had imagined I would have in marriage. The kind where we were both emotionally and physically satisfied. This of course turned on my red flag radar extra strong. I do not plan on having another relationship like my marriage. In my marriage we didn’t have sex until our marriage night, and up until that time she was extremely erotic and alluring. After that night, she was demanding and selfish and quickly (before the honeymoon was over) stingy with sex.

She does not think that marriage is a good deal for the couples involved. She hasn’t quite put her finger on the whole issue yet, but has made it clear that at a minimum the level of complacency most couples have in marriage is horrible for both people. That the demands and expectations that simply wearing a ring gave each were ridiculous and allowed no room for the couple to develop a healthy partnership based on the needs of their families. She wants a long term relationship. She really wants a forever relationship, but she is not sold that has to happen in marriage. I am very much of the same mind. I am extremely loyal, and will not run away from a woman during hard times, if we are committed. Its worth the argument, the discomfort, the tears, if there is the respect that when we are done with this problem we will grow from it. I have no patience for the grudge holding that destroys so many relationships. If either person is bitter and can’t get over it, then it is time to move on. Its not going to work, and that person doesn’t see the value in the other person to get right in their head about the relationship.

She has told me that her pussy is only for recreational purposes now. She has kids the same ages as my oldest and youngest. She enjoys sex more than any woman I have encountered. There is no blackmail for sex with her. She wants it from me. She joked about it once, and then quickly responded that she could never hold out, and she wasn’t willing to torture herself just to punish me. It would be better to have the sex and forget whatever the issue was. Now we haven’t had any real issues, and when we do, it will be an interesting test of how we handle it.

Another thing that has been very nice, is that with our kids schedules we are separated for days and sometimes more than a week at a time. During that time we have lots of time to think and reflect on our relationship. We also spend a lot of time simply chatting and talking on the phone. This allows us to not become immersed in the physical relationship and stop developing in the rest of it. Its a cross between the early relationships that I had as a teenager, and then the completely adult ones that I see others having. I am really enjoying it. We talk about the lessons learned from our pasts. We catch each other falling into old habits, and we both seem to have a genuine desire to move forward in a different way than our past.

One of the things that is important to me, is that I have a playmate. Not just in the bedroom, but in life. I want to ride bikes, compete, hike, and see the world together. I want to root her on as she runs a race, and here her cheering for me as I play a match of soccer. These are things where we can celebrate each other, and have memories to remind us why we want to get through the tough stuff. This is something I did not have in my marriage. I thought it would come, but it never did. Now I know that very little comes after you get married. If it is not there when you get married it is unlikely to ever come. Some things can be lost in marriage, because she is putting on fronts to encourage you to accept her. I will be watching for the red flags of this behavior. Facebook and other social media help in deciphering things like this. Sixteen years ago I had to rely on what I saw to determine what to expect. Now I can look at a social media archives and see if she shows that she has been interested in these things in the past, or if this is just a front for me. I found that one lady I dated didn’t give me any emotional chemistry to feed off of, but she is becoming a soccer buddy of mine. She is a woman I can play with, but there is little other attraction. I am not sure why. She is athletic, sexy, smart, and engaging, but she doesn’t make my heart race at all. This is just another way I have matured. In the past I would have had trouble not pursuing her, because she is desirable to others, but now it is all about me and what I want. I don’t feel bad in saying that, because I want someone to give to as well receive from, so it just has to match.

The lessons I am taking with me into this are these. I must ensure that I am getting what I want from the relationship. No one else will do that for me. I have to be physically and emotionally satisfied, while being intellectually astute to the realities around me. Kids are an obstacle to be overcome in the process of developing a love life of any kind. They always were, even in marriage. This is not said to diminish my children in my priorities, but to acknowledge that even as first in my priorities, they cannot be my exclusive priority or I will fizzle and burn out. I will speak my mind, and without fear that she will leave. Not because she won’t judge what I say and leave, but because if she does I am better off for it. We can disagree, even dramatically if we are allowed the room to speak our minds. I expect this room, and will use it. The ramifications will play out. I spent way too much time trying to make peace in my marriage over issues and ideas.

I no longer view any relationship as life long. That is up to both people involved and the test of time will answer the question, not some piece of paper filed with the court or vows taken before a minister. I would very much like a life long partner, and that is the single biggest thing that I begrudge my STBEW for in all this. She was never a good partner, so that is a philosophical grudge not one that I want remedied by her. If this woman or the next or one down the road proves to have the staying power, I will enjoy that very much, but I will not sacrifice my person-hood to achieve it ever again. I will be vulnerable to the pain that comes with sharing my heart with someone, who may or may not have my best intentions in their heart. I will never know until I let down the shield, but I will also never feel the things that I desire if I don’t take the risk. I no longer view women as the tender flower that need protecting that I used to. The are more like the porcelain. It is more fragile than stone, and very beautiful and delicate looking. It is quite hard though. Stronger than you expect when you first look at it. I will risk relationships, but with the knowledge of the red pill, and my own lessons as I go forward. I know that I am playing with fire, but fire is fun as well as dangerous. Fire serves a great utility as well as being destructive.

Ten-Foured,

JeD