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My boss had me into the conference room.  Immediately, he began railing about an annual report that was two days late.

“This needs to be done the same time every year,” he said, eyes wide with anger.  “First of the month.  Every year.  Same time, dammit!”

And indeed, this is true.

Here’s another truth:  the boss had relieved me of the responsibility the previous year, and had given it to Dave.  Furthermore, I oversaw the job for years and never missed a deadline.

I calmly reminded the boss of these dismantling truths:

“You gave that responsibility to Dave last year.  It’s his job now.  Dave failed, not me.  I never failed to meet a deadline.  Never.  Not once.”

“You’re supposed to help Dave!” the boss replied—still angry, completely ignoring the dismantling truths.

“And I did.  Dave assigned me my portion.  I finished a week early, and turned it in.  Dave is organizing the work, not me.  I used to organize it.”

“This report is important, dammit!  We can’t have all this dilly-dallying around.  I won’t put-up with it, I tell you!”

This is the point at which I tapped a pretend microphone in my hand—

Tap-tap-tap—“Hellooo?  Is this thing on?”

It was a sarcastic attempt to lighten the mood; it did not have that effect.

So for “truth’s” sake, let’s review:  there is a report that needs to be done the same time every year, and by the first of the month.  I had been responsible for the report for many years, never once failing to meet the deadline.  The boss relieved me of the responsibility and placed Dave in charge.  Dave organized the work, and delegated my portion, which I completed and turned-in a week early.  The ultimate report, however, wasn’t completed on time.  Dave failed at his task and in his responsibilities.

And, voilà!  The “truth” of this annual report matter.

There isn’t another brand of truth.  This is it—the truth.  Yet, I could’ve recited the previous review—the truth—to my boss verbatim, yet again, and the truth would have been ignored, yet again.

Why?

Because the boss is angry.  He wants to chew somebody’s ass over the late report, and he has clearly determined it’s my ass he wants to chew.  Not Dave’s, who is truly responsible and deserving.

The point is, the truth doesn’t make any difference.  In fact, it’s a nuisance.  The boss isn’t interested in the truth or in my subsequent exoneration, either one.  He’s interested in venting his anger and frustrations over the late report.

The fact is, I can throw incontrovertible fact after fact at the boss and it isn’t going to change a thing—the previous incident being:  Exhibit A.  Yet, despite it not changing a thing, this is precisely what people in these circumstances continue to do.  In an effort to persuade, they keep throwing out facts, thinking their accuser will finally see the light and offer absolution.

Yet, accusers rarely see the light.  They don’t want to see the light.  Thus, they don’t agree.  They don’t offer absolution or vindication.  They don’t apologize.  They just continue with the accusations.

Why?  Because the truth is a nuisance, a hindrance.

The boss could’ve immediately said, “Oh, that’s right.  I’d completely forgotten that I’d given that responsibility to Dave.”  And he could’ve followed with, “Considering the report is late, perhaps I should have left you in charge!  Hahaha!  Forgive me.  You may go.”

Yet, the boss doesn’t say that.  He’s emotional—mad.  Not to mention, he’s committed to his accusation, and faces humiliation if it proves false and unjustified and unfairly issued.  Thus, in venting his anger and frustration, and in avoiding embarrassment, the truth is both a hindrance and the enemy.

The more the ass chewing continued in this particular incident, the more I didn’t like it—and not because I’m above an ass chewing, I’m not.  I didn’t like the truth being blatantly ignored and totally ineffectual—at the expense of my ass, no less.

Personally, nothing makes me more indignant, especially when I have a vested business interest.  I sent one across the bow.

“Look, you’re gonna stop chewing my ass, or you’re gonna see me put my shit in a box, and leave.”

Stunned silence.

“I’m not the problem,” I quickly returned, preventing a defensive, ego-driven response.  “And if I were the problem, I’d sit here and take an ass chewing without uttering a single word.  Because I’d deserve it.  But I don’t deserve it.  Dave deserves it.  Yet, you persist in chewing my ass, instead.  I’d recommend that you stop chewing my ass before my shit goes in a box.”

The approach is in line with one of my life rules, which is:  you’re a business person first, and an employee second—always, and in everything.  Employment doesn’t make people slaves.  Leasing themselves and their services to someone else, people are commodities, each their own private business.  Hence, they have jurisdiction and authority over their business affairs.  Simply, they have the freedom to do whatever they want.

If people don’t like what they’re being paid, they can negotiate better wages.  Or they can find another job, and leave.

If they don’t like the way things are being done, don’t like inefficiency at their expense, they can say so.  They can offer remedies and improve things.  Or, they can leave.

If they’re getting their ass unfairly chewed, they can fight back.  Or, they can place their shit in a box, and leave.

This is a “business person first” mindset.

Most people think like employees, or utilize an employee first mindset, because, after acquiring mortgage and college tuition payments, they lose their nerve. They’ll endure an unfair ass chewing without saying a word.  And rather than act like business people and assert themselves, they’ll go home and pick a fight with their spouse to vent their own frustrations.  Better still, they’ll become liberals and espouse hatred towards business owners and capitalism the rest of their lives—or until they begin running their own companies, where they learn what they don’t know about the challenges and injustices of running a business.

Nevertheless.  People should view themselves as business persons first, and employees second.  It’s all business, and from a mindset of ownership is exactly how people should treat all of their affairs.

I finished by saying to my boss:  “If I have a boss who is going to give me an ass chewing for something I’m not responsible for, that I can demonstrate I’m not responsible for, and that he then knows I’m not responsible for, then I don’t want to work for a person like that anymore.”

My boss softened his expression and tone.

“Look,” he said gently, “this report is important. We just need to make sure it’s done.”

“You’re talking to the wrong guy,” I said brusquely.

His softening was supposed to make me soften.  Yet, he continued, if subtly, to maintain that I was to some degree responsible.

In other words, despite all that I had said, and proven, he still wasn’t interested in the truth.  The only brand of truth.

Finally, and with no apology, “I’ll have a talk with Dave,” my boss said soothingly.

I took it as an apology.  Because that’s what it was, which is good enough.

People get caught-up in wanting/demanding a direct apology, and with hearing the actual words, “I’m sorry.”  Frankly, it shows subordination and weakness, that of an employee mindset.  It isn’t how business-minded people behave.

Via his comment, my boss accepted Dave was the problem, and that I had been correct all along.  This was a business negotiation, and I won.  Sorry was an ego-rescuing, “I’ll have a talk with Dave.”  It’s a symbolic peace over war bow, as in martial arts.  And for the confident business person, it is sufficient.

And the boss didn’t chew my ass again, either.  In fact, he became quite fond of me, wanted to know what I thought about things, how I’d do things.

Why?

Mainly because I was right about Dave.  But also because I had nerve.

The point is “truth” isn’t a mysterious and elusive aspect of life.  It’s a present and discoverable aspect in any and every situation.   The problem is, truth is always buried beneath a pile of self-serving, political BS.  Consequently, truth is a chore to unearth and expose, which is a reason people don’t pursue it.  And clearly, even when it is unearthed and exposed, it’s yet defiantly ignored for people wanting and needing to disregard it for selfish reasons, which is yet another reason people don’t pursue it.

Yet, present and discoverable, there it is in any and every situation for all to access.  It’s just, nobody wants to do the digging.  Most would rather keep piling on the crap, which is waaay easier.

If people want better lives, and better relationships, they’d stop shoveling.

Why do they shovel?

Because it delays the two most loathsome admissions of the human existence:

“I’m wrong,” and “I’m sorry.”

Instead people say, “I’ll have a talk with Dave,” which is sufficient, but actually rather pathetic.

So here’s the preventative:  one, before chewing someone’s ass, do some thinking and digging and know the truth, so as to not unfairly accuse, and so as to avoid having to say, gulp!, “I’m wrong,” and “I’m sorry.”  And so as to avoid having to defiantly continue an argument to save yourself the embarrassment of thoughtlessness and laziness and ineptitude, too.

Two, know the truth so you can fiercely and effectively defend yourself, and so you can go on inexorable attack.

Three, know the truth so you can be respected, and valued.

In the grand scheme, the truth is a rather formidable asset.  Actually, it’s the ultimate asset.  Everyone recognizes the truth when they hear it, too.  And everything else?

Well, it’s just cheap whiskey.

There is but one brand of truth.  It’s top shelf.  And despite its crappy storage, it ages well, too.

©JMW 2018 All Rights Reserved

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Born of government, public education is inherently political.  It is subject to the political winds of Washington, DC and state houses, and thus to the politically motivated decisions and ultimate strategies of politicians.

To the point, there is a hierarchy in public education, a food chain.  Government leaders, government agencies, administrative personnel—they’re at the top.  And at the bottom?

Teachers.

Despite their costly, hard-earned, and neatly framed Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees, teachers are public education’s interns and errand runners.  Or, its go’fers—go’fer this, go’fer that.  Manage this problem, manage that one.  And in being treated as such, it doesn’t matter which political party is in power.

The point here is simple:  teaching in public education is no different than any other job.  At least, it shouldn’t be any different.  Yet, allowing their employer to ignore the fundamental rules of business, and allowing their union to ignore their employer’s disregard for the fundamental rules of business, teachers seemingly think their job is different.

Despite what teachers allow, their job is not different.

Yet, teachers do indeed have a different employment reality, an abusive reality, in fact, one that would not be tolerated anywhere else in the world of commerce.  It is a truth teachers need to recognize, and a problem they need to address and solve.

As to this abusive reality, I made some general notes.  I offer the insights to teachers:

1) Teaching is a job. Meaning:  teachers are employees who punch-in and punch-out—and not just physically, but checking out mentally and emotionally, too.  Teachers don’t take the job home, as public education is not their company to manage.  Employees, teachers are exempt from ownership’s responsibilities, worries, and obligations.

2) It isn’t the responsibility of teachers to figure out how to get a volume of work into contract hours, aka, paid hours. That’s administration’s responsibility.

3) Teachers aren’t a lot of things they are asked/required to be on the job, namely social workers. In fact, teachers are degreed professionals paid to instruct, and only to instruct.  Issues that require social work are administrative concerns.

4) Teaching is a vocation: a summons or strong inclination to a particular state or course of action, as in a divine call to religious life.

In other words, education is more than a job to teachers.  It is a calling, a predestination—for which teachers become more emotionally involved in their work.  Passionately invested, teachers are then more readily given to feelings of responsibility and guilt for professional failures—in this case educational failures, and specifically, public education’s failures.  And this unwarranted and misplaced guilt isn’t discouraged or left to waste, either.  It is employed to advantage, if but implied, by public education hierarchy:

“Do it for the children” whom you have clearly failed based on test scores and statistics—“it” meaning:  whatever we require (for your professional failures), even if you have to stay late, take it home, and work for free.

So, however passionate toward their work, teachers shouldn’t allow that passion to be exploited.

5) When does government accept blame for the problems in public education and its failures? More pointedly, when do politicians and administrators accept blame?  When are they filling out yet another form on their own time?

Politicians and administrators don’t fill out forms.  They generate forms—for the interns and errand runners to complete.  And while teachers are filling out forms on their own time—meaning:  without compensation, and at the expense of their families and social lives—politicians are either blaming teachers for public education’s problems and failures, via classroom observation and effectiveness ratings, or they are allowing teachers to take the blame.

Administration, namely politicians, manufactures forms and tasks so as to appear concerned to their various voting constituencies, and proactive on their constituency’s behalf.  It is political strategery at the expense of teachers, who are expected to selflessly and charitably participate “for the children,” whom teachers have clearly failed based on test scores and statistics.

6) Public education is a cake with many ingredients: government and politicians, administrators, teachers, parents, students, and curriculum.  When the cake doesn’t turn out well, why are teachers the problem ingredient?

Why not the curriculum?  The provided curriculum, no less—designed, chosen, and approved by administration.  Common Core math, anyone?

Why not administrators?

Why not entitled, lazy, negligent parents and recalcitrant students?  Why not related family and social issues?

The facts are, government isn’t going to condemn its curriculum, and thus blame itself.  Administrators aren’t going to blame the boss, the boss’s curriculum, and themselves by extension.  Products of their environment, students are never to blame, recalcitrant or otherwise.  And entitled, lazy, negligent parents?

The boss needs their votes, of course.

Who’s left?

Teachers—the problem ingredient.  They’re given forms and programs and an ever increasing list of things to do to, so that administration doesn’t have to condemn itself; so students receive Mother Teresa-like compassion they lack; so that entitled, lazy, negligent parents are pleased, and moreover accommodated, for their much desired votes on Election Day.

Bottom line:  administration doesn’t hold any other ingredient in the public education cake to account.  All the responsibility—the work—is placed on teachers.

Don’t like it, teachers?  Here’s a complaint form.  Take it home, fill it out on your own time—take you 15 minutes, at most.

7) Clearly, public education feels itself entitled to teachers’ time.

8) Teachers unions—they’re part of the political, public education paradigm, too. In other words, teachers unions are loyal to public education, not to public education’s employees.

I asked a friend, a union representative for an international company, what he would say to union members were the company requiring them to work for free, and past contract hours.

Contemptuously grinning: “That’s not going to happen.  We work; we get paid—overtime and double-time, too.”

So, teachers.  Is your union standing up for you with this sort of loyal defiance?  Is it raising holy hell about your unpaid time and defending your contract provisions?  Defending your families and personal time?

Is it dealing with the mounting stress and strain of too many responsibilities beyond classroom instruction?

Is it saying “No” to out-of-pocket classroom expenses?

Is it championing teachers and addressing problems with the remaining ingredients in the public education cake—government and politicians, administrators, parents, students, and curriculum?

Is it demanding that unnecessary and failing programs be abolished, that there be less forms and paperwork, and that work be streamlined to fit contract hours?

No?

So then, union dues—what are you getting for all that hard-earned money?  A one-percent raise every 5 years?  An increase immediately swallowed-up by rising insurance premiums and more classroom necessities.

“I know, I know.  It’s hard on everybody.”  Or, “It’s those damn Republicans!”  Is this the union representative response to your complaints about unpaid hours, the growing workload, and the ever-increasing stress and strain?

Well, a union paid to protect and serve your interests has nothing whatever to do with Republicans, or any political party.  A union’s defining purpose is to defend teachers from employment injustice—a service purchased with union dues.

9) While public education clearly feels itself entitled to teachers’ time. The union clearly feels itself entitled to teachers’ money—sans the service and protection.

—

So, question: where in the private sector would these employment conditions be acceptable?

Answer:  they wouldn’t be acceptable.  In fact, aggrieved private sector employees would march directly to their union stewards or to the Department of Labor to lodge complaints, which would be fiercely serviced.

Yet, when it comes to the employment injustices in public education, teachers not only bite their collective tongues.  They log countless unpaid hours in dutiful, Mother Teresa-like service to the public education cause—while being blamed for all of its problems, no less.

So let’s briskly review:  teachers are to blame for public education’s problems and failures—despite being mere employees, despite teaching established and supplied curriculum, and despite being but one ingredient in a multi-ingredient public education cake.

Meanwhile, administration caters to voters with endless forms and programs and ideas, while it overworks teachers to accommodate those voters.  The endless accommodating creates a workload that strains and surpasses the limits of union-negotiated contract hours, yet is a workload nonetheless required to be completed on teachers’ personal time, without compensation, and at the expense of teachers’ families and personal lives.

And finally, all of this occurs without protest from administration officials and teachers’ unions.

So, beginning with a few fundamental principles, let’s talk solution:

One, the problems in public education are not your problems, teachers; they’re the boss’s problems.

Two, it’s not your job to organize and streamline work, and to figure out how to fit 12 hours of tasks into however many contract hours.

Three, it’s your job to instruct for however many contract hours, and to leave thereafter not only physically empty-handed, but mentally and emotionally disengaged, too—as does every other employee.

To that end, four:  it is administration’s responsibility to make this the standard for teachers, by organizing and streamlining work.

And lastly, five:  it is the union’s responsibility—it’s paid obligation, in fact—to see that this standard is established and enforced and upheld.

Now.  If teachers want this new normal, as opposed to the abusive normal, it requires the collective, and collective action.  Teachers can begin with a potential pay raise for themselves by demanding the new normal in exchange for union dues.

The Mother’s Milk—it’s always the place to start.

Normal is what we allow it to become.

©JMW 2018 All Rights Reserved

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First and foremost, and completely overlooked, and most assuredly ignored—liberals were once again wrong in their silly prognostications about an upcoming election.

Evidently, being wrong is a preference.

Second:  President Bill Clinton lost 53 house seats and 9 senate seats in ’94, a scalding performance rebuke from voters regarding his first two years in office.  Likewise, Barrack Obama lost 63 house seats and 6 senate seats per his first performance review in 2010.

In contrast, Donald Trump lost 27 house seats and gained 3 senate seats.

So, while the midterms weren’t a bloodbath for democrats, they were a pretty good woodshed beating, and yet another voter repudiation.  Which, of course, self-deluding liberals will choose to see otherwise.  Why?  Because they must.  Because an alternative reality is better, is a safer-space, than reality itself.

Three:  for two years liberal voters have been witness to the obstruction and resistance of democrats, at the expense of the country, it should be noted.  These same voters have been given ample evidence as to the existence of a liberal establishment—news media, Hollywood, Democrat Party—and thereby cannot, one, deny the establishment’s existence, and two, deny its political efforts on behalf of the Democrat Party and liberalism.  These same voters have also witnessed the attacks of every abusive stripe on Republicans—Donald Trump, Ivanka, Melania, Barron, Pence, Huckabee-Sanders, Scalise, Kavanaugh, now Carlson, and a host of others.  Attacks both encouraged and sanctioned by the entire liberal establishment, no less.

And yet after two years of visible, incontrovertible political treachery performed by liberals and the liberal establishment, the voting margins between 2016 and 2018 remain virtually the same.

Which means but one thing:  liberal voters endorse the treachery.

In other words, given an opportunity to speak, to object, liberal voters spoke.  And they said:  “We like what we see.  Keep it up.  Continue with more of the same.”

There may not have been a “Blue Wave” in terms of liberal voters sending a message, and helping democrats to arrest majorities and regain control of the government.  But liberal voters did, however, send an equally seismic message:

“We’re with stupid–>.”

Conservatives were fair-minded.  They gave liberal voters the benefit of the doubt, allowing voters were ignorant of all these hidden political secrets about democrats, the news media, and the liberal establishment.  Except, now all has been made manifest, and there are no more secrets.  And via their voice in Tuesday’s mid-term elections, liberal voters unmistakably chose sides.

So let it be.

Liberals wanted a fight?

Having the damning evidence, and having declared their allegiance despite it, now they can have one.

©JMW 2018 All Rights Reserved

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“Men don’t take the time to end things.  They ignore you until you insist on a declaration of hate.”—Joan Holloway-Harris

“Them’s the consequences.”  It’s a line I’ve delivered unsympathetically to guilt-ridden men several times over the years.  Men who’d finally and to great, if somewhat burdened, relief pulled the plug on their marriages—some 5, 10, 20, even 40 years in.

Why my lack of sympathy?

Because women were getting exactly what they deserved.

Why were the men guilt-ridden?

Because they’re good men—men of virtue and quality.

Responsible, good-natured, compassionate, industrious, loyal, principled, moral—these particular men are the virtuous sorts women profess to want.  They don’t philander, are home by five.  They attend little league games, drive mini-vans.  They’re affable, agreeable—actually, too affable and agreeable.

And after pulling the plug on their marriages, interestingly, they’re men who suddenly become menaces to society worthy of Child Protective Services raids and supervisory parental visitation.

And this after being exemplary and lauded husbands and fathers for years—decades, even.

But let’s stay on point.

These are quality men.  In fact, hold a man auction for single women and place these traits above a particular man on an overhead sign, and a bidding war and catfight will erupt.

Booze should definitely be forbidden at these events.

And these auction men don’t have to look like Hollywood, either.  For a shot at all this dreamy and securing male virtue, women will rollback their appearance demands considerably.

In my early years, the fact so many of these quality sorts of my acquaintance couldn’t survive a marriage got my attention.  And throughout my life, the trend continued.  Seeing so many end up in divorce court, I thought, If these guys can’t make it in marriage, why bother?

Needless to say, “I do” wasn’t on my list of things to do.

Difficult and elusive, I was regular old milk.  These guilt-ridden souls I’ve had to encourage on occasion, however, were the proverbial cream.  The fact they feel guilt over ending their marriages is proof of their creamy superiority.

Narcissistic jerks don’t feel guilt.  Only the good guys feel it.  They feel it not only because they’re considerate and responsible, but because they understand and appreciate consequences, as much for themselves as others, namely their women—who they’ve just dumped.

So, why should men care about the consequences for women they’ve just dumped?

Answer:  men shouldn’t care.  Yet, given the guilt they clearly do care.

And why?

Because they’re good men, men of virtue and quality.  That they care is yet more proof of their quality, which, sadly, inexplicably, was never acknowledged by their respective women.

So, these good men being the type women desire, and the type women presumably want to hold on to, what caused these men to pull the plug on their marriages?

Well, the exit story is virtually always the same.  It’s a collection of things that encourage men to pull the plug.  Actually, it’s a collection of small things:  lack of attention and isolation, perpetual criticism and accusation (which are actually one and the same), constant acrimony and bickering, sexual tyranny, disrespect, female defensiveness and control and entitlement.

The main reason men pull the plug is the fact nothing ever changes in their favor, despite their attempts to communicate, inform, and to ultimately improve their relationships.  And the cumulative effect of all those small things is to men like Chinese torture and its death by a thousand cuts.

Phtt, phtt, phtt—they’re all small cuts, distressing but tolerable … at least for a while.

Eventually, the cuts take their toll.  The frustration and resentment slowly, silently builds, and turns into secret defiance and loathing.  Until one day—5, 10, 15, and even 40 years later, the feelings manifest.  And without warning men pull the pin and pitch a live grenade into women’s laps:

“I’m done.”

And women are shocked, literally shocked—which is rather surprising, actually.

Women become so comfortable with the way things run relationally, and with their ability to abuse men and to avoid punishment, that they literally convince themselves men are happy and will never leave.

And then, the grenade.  And the consequences.

And in fact, justly deserved consequences.

And despite the consequences being just and deserved, men still feel guilty.  For which they must be told, “Them’s the consequences,” and consoled and encouraged.

Why must men have their decision to exit validated?

Because they’re good men, men of virtue and quality.  Men who have respect for the consequences of their actions, especially as those actions pertain to others—namely the women they’ve dumped.  They’re men whose virtue was unappreciated and taken for granted and ignored.  They’re men whose patience ran out.  Men whose virtues and quality should have been acknowledged to avoid the grenade, and the subsequent waves of shock.

In other words, women should have recognized what they had in these men, appreciated them, and should have both behaved and participated in a relationship as though they were indeed appreciative.

—

Who like’s consequences?  That, of course, depends on the type of consequences.

The fact is people like good consequences, or favorable consequences, and dislike punitive consequences.

In other words, the thief likes all the free stuff he can steal, but doesn’t like getting caught and prison time.

Likewise, women who aren’t paying attention to their men, who are perpetually critical and accusatory of them, who are engaging in sexual tyranny, and who are defensive, controlling, entitled, and disrespectful—they like the favorable arrangement, too.  And likewise, they aren’t too keen on the consequences of their actions, either, which is the grenade and:

“I’m done.”

And deserving as women are of these consequences, are women going to impose them on themselves?

No.  No more than the thief is going to march into police headquarters and return all the free stuff and confess his crimes.

So then, who has to deliver the consequences to women?

Men.

And there it is:  the element responsible for staying, if temporarily, marital execution.

Imposing the consequences, men have to become the bad guys.  For pulling the pin and tossing the grenade.  For taking action to put an end to the relational inequities, to their captivity and misery, men have to become the assholes—and soon to be menaces to society worthy of Child Protective Services raids and supervisory parental visitation.

And this after being exemplary and lauded husbands and fathers for years—decades, even.

But again, let’s stay on point.

And in fact, precisely for having to impose the consequences and become the assholes, men choose to stay in marriages and endure the abuse and neglect and disrespect for 5, 10, 20, and even 40 years.

Why do they choose to stay?  Again, because they’re good men, men of virtue and quality.

This is one of the aspects these virtuous, guilt-ridden men don’t understand, or perhaps don’t realize.  Exiting the relationship they have to punish women, which doesn’t at all sit well with men in general, and particularly virtuous men.  Hence the guilt after they pitch the grenade and the need for exit validation.

And for the discomfort with this punishment, men will endure a lot, and for a long time.  They ignore a lot.  They sweep things under the rug.  They keep their mouths shut, keep the peace, and endure.

That is, until one day.  When they pull the pin and pitch the grenade.

Another aspect men don’t understand, or perhaps don’t realize, is that women listened to their complaints all those many years.  They just didn’t hear the complaints.  Women dismissed the complaints because they didn’t care.  They cared about getting their way, about having things the way they want them, which is the way that maintains their security and comfort.

In other words, there were plenty of opportunities for women to hear, and to adjust, and to help improve the relationship.   They just didn’t want to hear, to adjust, or to help improve the relationship.

Why the inaction, the lack of participation?

Other than selfishness and not caring, what other answer is there?

If women cared, they would have heard—which is to mean:  taken to heart—what men were saying, and would have taken action.  Yet, they chose inaction, because they cared about their comfort, and because they like the control and security which maintained that comfort.  Take sex for example.

My friend Rick said, “I complained about sex for 12 years.  It finally dawned on me that I’d complained about sex for 12 years, and that nothing had ever changed, or was going to change—like so many other things in our marriage.  So, I left.”

Rick’s ex- had set the sexual schedule, which was basically when she wanted it.  And she was in control of that arrangement, and thus comfortable with that arrangement.

Consider Rick’s schedule?

Accommodate his desires and appetite?

Why, that isn’t the arrangement.  Besides, the days of men dictating and having their way are over.

Thereto, the fact is when men complain about sex, women are immediately put-off.  Women feel obligated, as though sex is being demanded of them.  So basically, women resist having sex.  They resist hearing men’s complaints and requests, too, which, goes on for years, obviously—twelve in Rick’s case.  Furthermore, sex becomes unnecessarily weird and awkward and unnatural.

And all because men had to ask for more sex—and had to continually ask, which they should not have had to do, which they nonetheless had to do, which became annoying and off-putting and defiance-worthy, which made sex weird and awkward and unnatural, and not to exclude problematic.

Women like relational control and security, and they care about maintaining their comfort.

That’s the arrangement.

And despite men’s complaints, complaints women listen to but don’t hear and take to heart, the arrangement will be maintained—until the bitter end, which involves a surprise grenade and shock waves.

So given there was ample opportunity for women to hear, to adjust, and to help improve the relationship, the question to men is:  why feel guilty over pitching the grenade?

Men like Rick have lived the same, repeating frustrations and misery for years, and the circumstances never changed or improved.  Further, there was never any effort to change or improve the circumstances.

In fact, this is what repeatedly happens:

Men grow frustrated with the circumstances—the accusations, the control, the sexual tyranny—and they make a stand.  A week-long fight erupts.  Faced with the revolt, women dole-out a couple of complimentary, unsolicited blow-jobs so the relationship can get back to running as it does the other eleven months and three weeks of the year, which has them in charge and calling the shots—all the shots, including the sexual shots.

So that men don’t realize things are returning to rest-of-the-year normal, or that nothing has changed, or is going to change, women ease seamlessly back into the dictating role one small, familiar, and comforting step at a time.

Of course, basking in the relieving and satisfying warmth of a few complimentary, unsolicited blowjobs, indeed, men don’t realize a thing.  They allow things to return to rest-of-the-year normal, where the accusations continue, the sexual tyranny returns, and where nothing at all has changed.

And this pattern repeats for 5, 10, 20, even 40 years.  Until men wake-up one day and realize they’ve been complaining about the same things for 12 years with no results, and pitch a live grenade into the marriage.

 And at that point, the relationship is over, really over.  It’s the point of no return.  A point from which there’s no getting men to return, either.

Calmly, soothingly, and with faux-remorse—men say things like, “I’m just, emotionally spent.”

Of course, this is what men gently say.  What they mean is:

“The thought of being with you another day makes me nauseous.”

That’s what men are really thinking.  They’re just too considerate, too virtuous, and too gentlemanly to say it.  And there’s no rekindling their passion or respect, either.  In fact, everything women attempt—begging, tears, guilt projection—repulses men further.

None of it works.  It’s ineffective, repulsive.

The fact is, women aren’t going to change in ensuing years and the circumstances improve, which history well proves.  Things will remain the same, will remain rest-of-the-year normal, which is what men finally realize at various points in their marriages, a realization that provokes reaching into the rucksack for a grenade.

In other words, women are going to continue in a comfortable arrangement and dare men to do something about their frustration, dissatisfaction, and misery in that arrangement.  Women use marriage as leverage, and to avoid doing things they don’t want to do.  For the legal and financial consequences facing men and their exit, women essentially dare men to do anything about it.

So as for any consequences being served, the responsibility falls to men.  They not only have to be the initiators.  They have to endure the resulting emotional and financial and legal BS, too.

So for men, bringing the consequences sucks, which is precisely why they put-up with an unfavorable arrangement for years—decades, even.  Until they finally pull the pin and pitch the grenade, an act for which unsuspecting women are completely unprepared.

After ignoring and dismissing men for years, and with a live grenade now in their laps, women are suddenly frozen in shock and ultra-attentive.

Wha, wha—you don’t want to be with me anymore?  Why?  What’d I do?

 And then the tears start, and the pleading.  After that, the tactic changes to accusations and blame—the stratagem both implying and employing guilt.  Then it’s vengeance, and the Child Protective Services raids and the demands for supervisory parental visitation.

Thereafter, it’s maintaining legal tethers of control and making their men’s lives as miserable as humanly possible.  Because, of course, men took the dare and made women’s lives miserable by exiting a frustrating and inequitable arrangement.

Consequences.

And why the consequences?

Because women didn’t want to relinquish a favorable arrangement, and because they refused to hear men, refused to adjust, and refused to help improve the relationship.  And at the baseline, they neglected/refused to realize they were in relationships with good, virtuous, quality men.

And that presents the question for women:  why?  Why is it so difficult to recognize good, virtuous, quality men?  Take Rick, for example.

Rick is a solid guy—rock solid.  He’s nice looking, too, and a really good salesman who does extremely well.  In fact, everyone recognizes Rick’s outstanding quality.  Rick’s wife?

Not so much.

Rick’s wife criticized him, which led to an argument.  He told her he had friends and customers who thought he was terrific, and that his relationships and sales numbers proved it.  And yet, through her constant criticisms, his own wife seemed to think he was a perpetually awful and unworthy human being.

“Can you account for that disparity,” he asked her.

“Well, they don’t have to live with you,” she said.

“Neither do you,” Rick replied, and he started packing his stuff.

“That’d been coming for a long time,” Rick told me.  “I can’t say I was planning it, but deep down I had already disconnected.  I was going through the motions is all, staying because I was supposed to, because I didn’t relish throwing her to the wolves.”

“Did you still care about her?” I asked.

“I despised her at that point.  No desire for her whatsoever,” he added with a nasty frown.  “Which is weird, actually, considering she’s all I ever wanted.  But, you get tired of all that shit.  I didn’t want to mistreat her, but I definitely wanted to get rid of her.  And I did.”

And Rick’s a terrific guy.  Well-liked by his friends.  Respected by his business associates.  Yet, looked at constantly as a first-rate asshole by his own wife.  And Rick and good men like him are supposed to endure such treatment and hang around “until death do us part?”

The relationship being dead fulfills the obligation.

So, the advice to men is to feel great about their decision to exit a marriage and to deliver the consequences.  It takes guts, especially considering the legal and financial and emotional costs.

The fact is women have had plenty of information and opportunity afforded them before the grenade.  They just waved it all off in favor of favorable consequences, and in favor of maintaining an arrangement they control, which caters to their desires and comfort.

The virtuous quality of their men?  Their stellar reputations?  The securing things they bring to the relationship table?  Their desires and appetites?

Why, that isn’t part of the calculus.  And isn’t the arrangement.

All relationships start out setting the world on fire, and in ensuing years men are blamed for putting the fire out—and for everything else, for that matter.  Thereafter, their penance becomes dutifully remaining in a marriage where they’re justly ignored, dismissed, disrespected, and taken for granted.

At least, until the grenade—which is most unnecessary.

Marcy, Rick’s wife, she had to return to work after the divorce.  Life became significantly more difficult for her thereafter and, now over 40, the pool of men from which she was able to draw had withered considerably.  By every measure she’d had the one of the best men.  Yet, arrogantly, selfishly, unwisely, she didn’t hear what Rick was saying.  She didn’t appreciate his virtue and quality.  She didn’t value him, and she didn’t participate in their relationship as though she did, either.

“I realize now all that Rick did, and all that he was,” she said, surprisingly humbled.

And not only was it all unnecessary.  It was too late.

©JMW 2018

JMWs latest:  New Rules:  Relationship Logic for the Darkside

 

 

 

Regarding the challenges for men in modern relationships, I wrote the book.

Literally, I wrote it.

And as to the aggravating and frustrating challenges men endure for, uh, femininity, who’s telling men’s story?  Who’s describing their troubles?  For that matter, who cares to listen to men’s story, much less tell it?

In fact, whenever men do try to communicate their frustrations, women say things like: “Women—they’re sooo awful.  Pooor you. The world would be better off without us.”  Or, “Oh, I’m sorry you’re in a relationship and have to tolerate another human being.”

Women can be very sarcastic.

The point is, women say everything but, “I hear you; and I understand.”  Everything but, “I never realized,” and “Perhaps I need to improve on some things.”

Women don’t say those things, because they’re too busy demanding that men say them.

If men want someone to listen to their story, men have to pay someone—as in, a couple’s therapist.  Yet even in the counselor’s quarters men are merely listened to, are more or less tolerated, but not heard—

“Mr. Warren, do you hear what your wife is saying?  I mean, what she’s really saying?”

“Uh, does anyone hear what I’m saying?  What I’m really saying?”

“There it is, doctor—the defiance, the anger.  See what I was talking about?  It’s my life, day-in, day-out.”

“Yes, yes.  Indeed I do see, Mrs. Warren.  Much worse than you described, too.  A very deep-seated defiance and anger.”

“I thought we were paying you to listen to us both, doctor.”

“Yes, well.  I think we’ve heard all we need to hear from you, Mr. Warren.  We get the picture, and it tells the story.”

And then the good doctor spends the next 2 years debriefing Mrs. Warren every week as to my progress, while they both construct a better Mr. Warren, a more compliant Mr. Warren—the tolerated and unheard counseling participant, who’s cutting the checks, no less.

Nobody is telling men’s story, and nobody really cares to hear it, either.

Nevertheless.  The challenges for men, and me having written the book on it—I could have summarized the manuscript this way, and perhaps I should have summarized it this way:

Men don’t have to tolerate the feminine crap that comes with modern women and relationships.

I actually did outline the feminine crap in the book’s epilogue—rather thoroughly, in fact.  I just never directly told men they didn’t have to tolerate it.  Maybe the point was implied, I don’t know.  But I should have communicated it directly.

The point about toleration has to be made to men because they remain traditional-minded in their view towards women, towards relationships, and towards their role in relationships, while women have largely abandoned traditional ideas and roles.

For example, women are working.  And they want to work—if nothing more than for the income that affords them independence from men, which is ultimately a mechanism of control over men.

Interestingly, women complain about not feeling needed and thus wanted by their men, and claim they want to feel needed and wanted.  Yet, here women are wanting their own income and independence, and essentially telling men they don’t need them, by financially arranging it so they don’t need them.

Like I said, it’s interesting.

And of course, women have become exhausted and angrier and more resentful for having to work so hard to overcome their dependence on men.  And for all this effort at independence, women also fancy themselves more entitled—entitled to being served, to being heard, to being accommodated, and so on.

I mean, they do all that extra work, and all.

Naturally, this fresh female perspective towards men and relationships comes with relational acrimony, the likes of abundant criticism, accusation, bitterness, resentment, defensiveness, and uncontrolled emotion.  Otherwise known as the feminine crap men tolerate for remaining traditional-minded in their views toward women and relationships.

Frankly, I’ll never understand why men tolerate the crap.  Yet, they do indeed.

But, why?  There’s no rule in the nuptials dictating that men tolerate it.  Even if there were, who wants to be involved in an acrimonious relationship?  Who wants to live such a miserable existence?  Further, who deserves to live it?

And there’s this:  when all the acrimony finally comes to a head, it’s men being held accountable and severely punished.  The accused, men are alcoholics and drug addicts and various themed abusers.  It’s men, not women, who are the general, all-around assholes that made the marriage a nightmare, and who pay handsomely for the nightmarish ordeal via child support and alimony.

And all of this after enduring years of criticism, accusation, emotional tongue-lashings, and soul-crushing acrimony.

How do you like them apples, big boy?

Why would men want to endure all that?  What man wouldn’t look back on such an ordeal and say, “Gosh, I’d have rather avoided that woeful chapter of my life.”

Trust me.  Men have said it.

And women have said it, too.

Only, women are the ones with the fresh, conventional perspective on men and relationships.  They’re the ones defensively and bitterly and resentfully dishing out the criticisms and accusations, the ones rendering the emotional lashings, and the ones responsible for the acrimony.

Most importantly, they’re the ones refusing to acknowledge their role in the “woeful chapter” that all involved would’ve rather avoided.

The bottom line is men are made ultimately responsible for making relationships and marriages work, and thus, for them failing.  It is an expectation slowly imposed on men for the never ending female need and subsequent demand for multi-faceted security.

In other words, the success or failure of relationships is dependent upon male conformity to the rules women, however slowly and subtly and incrementally, set forth.

Women want good relationships, too, mind you.  They just don’t want to be responsible for the work that makes relationships good.  They don’t want to perform all that outdated, traditional protocol formerly expected of women.  They want men to do the work, and they expect men to do the work.   The traditional work, too.

Women are victims, a role they take to quite naturally and readily.   Why so naturally and readily?

Well, in what aspect of modern society are women not “the victimized?”

Precisely—in every aspect.  Thus, women take to victimhood quite naturally and readily, and even warmly.  Why?  Because it’s advantageous and beneficial.

Here’s how victimhood works relationally:  women are the abused, the undervalued, and the underappreciated.  They make men their victimizers.  Disproving the status, men become the relationship’s employees, doing all the relationship improving work.  Women get used to men doing the work, and to men making concessions.  And ultimately, women come to expect men to do the work, and to carry the relationship bags.

That’s precisely how it works.

Of course, the baggage transfer isn’t something that happens overnight.  It’s a process, slowly evolving, one that gets worse and worse, and more onerous.  Women don’t expect men to carry their bags in the prenuptial phase.  No.  It’s when the documents are signed and the vows are spoken—that’s when women start demanding, and start offloading their bags.

Men aren’t romantic enough.  They aren’t attentive enough, aren’t paying enough attention to the children, and thus aren’t committed enough or involved enough.  They aren’t trying hard enough, aren’t ambitious enough, aren’t sophisticated enough, aren’t fill in the blank.

The process slow and subtle, men never realize what is happening to them—that they’re being held responsible, that they’re conceding, that they’re subject to soul-crushing acrimony, and that they’re the only ones lacing-up relationship work boots to improve things.

Women tend to get angry when this reality is exposed.  They don’t argue that it isn’t reality, mind you, and that these things don’t occur.  Rather, they get defensive and start pointing out men’s flaws.

Only, there’s the reality—the slow and subtle process to establish dominion and the related expectations, which actually does occur.  And rather than getting angry and defensive, women should acknowledge that it occurs, and should simply rid themselves of the bitterness and resentment, stop the criticisms and accusations, end the acrimony, and take responsibility for their own bags.

Yet, women refuse to recognize themselves as merely a part of the problem, much less the problem in total.

It proves the point:  women want good relationships.  They just don’t want to be responsible for the work that creates good relationships.  They want men to do the work, and they expect men to do the work, and to carry their bags.

Being responsible for a relationship’s failure?

Doing all the improvement work?

Expected to do all the improvement work?

Forfeiting my life and desires and happiness, and living a miserable existence in exchange?

I can’t speak for every man but, personally, I can’t love a woman that much.

I don’t have that kind of love in me, in fact—whatever kind that is.

It’s a new age.  Men are living in a fresh relational paradigm, one that has them carrying the bags.  Yet, men are stuck in the past, stuck in traditions that have been largely abandoned, and that are no longer applicable.

Hence, men must be told they don’t have to tolerate the feminine crap—the acrimony—that comes with modern women and relationships.  Men must be told because there seems to be a switch that’s flipped or a button pressed that makes men feel they have no alternatives relationally, and that they are obliged to endure whatever feminine crap is thrown at them.

Men come home from work to their suburban homes like zombies:

“Hi, Jim.”

“Hi, Bill,” they say to one another deadpan, and listless.

Then men go inside their respective dwellings to be griped at by women and disrespected in so many ways.

And how do men respond to the acrimony?

Subordinately.  Compliantly.

Men tell themselves:  It’s part of the deal.  It’s my job as a husband.  I need to be patient and understanding.  I need to be more attentive and involved.  I need to be more sensitive, more sensitive to her needs.

Men justify their women, too:  She’s exhausted.  She works all day, too.  She has a difficult job.  The kids are rambunctious.  She needs a break.

Once in relationships, men turn into mindless zombies.  Brainwashed worshipers at the altars of:  I have No Choice and This Is Life for Me Now and I Must Endure This Feminine Crap.

Once in a relationship men are like never-before-caged Bengal Tigers.  They anxiously pace the fencing of their confinement—back-and-forth, back-and-forth.  They hiss defiantly when their captors bring them food—Hissss!  Only to pace some more.

Pretty soon they just accept the bars and their fate and, well, they lay-up.

No more pacing.

No more defiance.

No more vigor.

Resolved and listless, it’s:  “Hi Jim.”  “Hi Bill.”

And when their food is delivered they purr with contented satisfaction and lick the hand that feeds them.  And once fed, they’re responding to the captor’s whip and are poised like ballerinas on their hind quarters.  After which, they return to their comfy straw bed to lay-up, until the food bucket arrives again, and until being commanded to perform.

Woo-pishhh!

Women won’t recognize their role in any relationship problems, or that they need to improve in any particular area.

And why would they?

Women have willing, traditional-minded, zombie-like men taking all the blame, doing all the relational work, making all the relational adjustments, and who then head back to the straw to … lay-up.

Men don’t have to lay-up.  They don’t have to take any feminine crap, either.

What is a relationship, anyway?  That’s the idea men need to rethink.

Let me help:  a modern relationship is a business venture—that’s what it is.  And if men think it isn’t, they should visit the courthouse and learn how the legal system views relationships, particularly those acrimonious and that haven’t fared so well.

It’s untraditional thinking, to be sure.  Yet, unfortunately, it’s the conventional type required to manage feminine crap, and for modern relationships.

©JMW 2018 All Rights Reserved

 

Gender equality.  Given it is women who feel they aren’t treated equally, who are demanding equal treatment, and who have gender equality as their objective.  Which gender is then destined to not only concede to the other until this objective is achieved, but to ultimately lose in every conceivable aspect of life, particularly relationship life?

Right.  Like, there’s another gender.

And, it’s worse.

Somehow, I managed to find my way to a television show a while back involving a couple of famous, or rather, infamous, feminists who were discussing the world’s problem:  men.  Of course, feminists never actually say, “Men are the problem,” because they’d sound like bitter, contentious nags.

No-no.  That isn’t how it’s done.

Feminists describe how women are mistreated and taken advantage of in every segment of society, leaving the oppressive villain and the subsequent problem implied, which is of course men.

And being the oppressive villains, men are then the equality-denying foe who must concede to everything and all the time, and who need to ultimately lose in every conceivable aspect of life, particularly relationship life, until the objective of gender equality is achieved, which will of course never-ever be deemed achieved.

I mean, why forfeit the power to control men and to dictate gender relations?

Nevertheless, among these two infamous feminist icons was an adolescent high school girl—the indoctrinated.  Finished with their indictment of men—it left implied, of course—the icons looked to the immature 15 year old girl for comment, who, with palpable hostility said, “Men and women are just, equal.  That’s all there is to it.”

And all present grinned with delighted satisfaction.

So, despite having virtually no experience with men on any level, this adolescent girl is already angry, embittered, and resentful toward men.  And trust me when I say, her feelings are widely embraced by women in general, and particularly women her own age.

In other words, there’s a built-in resentment among women toward men—the enemy.  And it’s a premise that has been developing and intensifying and establishing itself for quite some time.

And in terms of courting, and particularly marriage, what does this resentment mean to men?

It means everything is driven by inequality, is seen through a lens of inequality, and is an ultimate fight about gender equality.  It means women will disregard whatever inequities, natural or otherwise, that exist between themselves and men, to both ensure and maintain gender equality—albeit, equality of the manufactured and forced variety.

It is to say, women aren’t going to acknowledge any inadequacies or incompetency in themselves that might render them unequal to men.  Which means women aren’t going to acknowledge their dependency on men for their inadequacies and incompetency, either.

Moreover, women aren’t going to give men credit for anything that proves men superior, and that actually makes them superior.  To do so would prove that men and women are indeed unequal, and that men are indeed superior in certain respects, which would then nullify the entire gender equality premise.

Hence, men must never be given credit for their superiority, natural or otherwise.

And how does this manifest relationally?  How does it work practically?

Like so:

Jeff owns quite the collection of properties; investment property is Jeff’s life and career.  Exceptionally skilled and experienced in multiple trades, Jeff remodels the properties he buys, and performs all his own maintenance and repairs.  And not only is Jeff an expert tradesman.  He runs the office, too.

Finding properties, negotiating, banks, lawyers, renters, problems, billing, accounting, and so much more—Jeff does it all.  He’s a rather formidable business man, in fact, having fashioned quite the luxurious lifestyle for himself and his wife of many years.

Jeff’s wife, on the other hand, has no appreciable involvement in the business, which is the way Jeff prefers it.  In fact, all he wants his wife to do is to enjoy herself, and to be supportive.

Given his abilities and talent, Jeff is obviously far superior to his wife.  Anyone on the outside looking in would certainly think so.  And in fact people do look-in from the outside, and they’re totally impressed.  Jeff is a man of considerable reputation, respected not only for his accomplishments, but for the professional way he comports himself.

In short, Jeff is a superior business man and individual to those who know him.

Yet, Jeff’s wife doesn’t think he’s superior in anything!  Despite his obvious skill and his clear success, she contends with Jeff over everything.

For example, when purchasing property, she feels it compulsory to advise Jeff on the deal—the property is overpriced; it’s too much work; it’s in a bad location, and so on.

Finances—she says Jeff is spending too much money and isn’t being thrifty.

Remodeling and repair projects—she knows better than Jeff how the project needs to proceed.

Jeff’s wife knows nothing about property value, and wouldn’t recognize a financial opportunity if one were to walk-up and bite her backside while wearing a nametag.  And she can’t hammer a nail, either.  Yet she has the unmitigated gall to challenge Jeff, who actually does understand property value and financial opportunity, and who actually can hammer a nail—things his success clearly validate.

In other words, Jeff’s wife is a lost ball in high weeds, comparatively.

It’s interesting.  Everyone else in Jeff’s life stand in awe of his skill and ability and success.  Yet, Jeff gets no respect at all from his so-called “loving companion” along life’s journey—and no credit, either.

When discussing business matters with his wife—any matter, actually—nothing should prevent Jeff from saying, “I’m sorry but, you’re not in my league.  You’re an amateur!  You need to do less talking and more listening and learning.”

Incidentally, I get annoyed at women who take offense at such remarks, saying they’re domineering and demeaning and disrespectful, and whatnot.  As if, what Jeff’s wife and women like her do to men isn’t domineering, demeaning, and disrespectful.

Give me a break.

Nevertheless, the statement is incontrovertibly true.  Jeff’s wife is the amateur, and isn’t in Jeff’s league.  And Jeff could point this out to his wife, but does he?

No.  What does Jeff do instead?

He does what most men do:  he patiently endures the questions and the ultimate disrespect.  He explains everything in vast detail so as to validate and justify his decisions and actions:  This is why you do this, honey; this is why you do that.  And in doing so, Jeff not only ends-up subordinating his proven superiority to someone eminently unqualified.  He ends-up arguing with someone eminently unqualified, too.

It’s one thing when women want to actually learn something.  Men love to teach women about the things they know, particularly the things for which they have a passion.   But that isn’t what this is.  This is making someone less superior and not giving them any credit.

So basically, Jeff doesn’t receive any credit from his wife for his proven talent, skill, business acumen, instincts, intellect, or for his ultimate contributions to the relationship.  One would think all this a source of pride to his wife, and that she would appreciate his success—the fruits of which she enjoys, no less.

Yet, that isn’t the case at all.  She acts as though Jeff doesn’t know what he’s doing, and as though she’s actually the one with superior experience and expertise.

Predictably, Jeff grew weary of this crapola, long though the exhaustion was in developing.  Over beers, we had an impromptu discussion about it.  I gave him some insight, er, direction.

“So, what?  Being superior to your wife is too uncomfortable to admit to yourself?”  I asked.  “That you’re the expert and the success seems too egotistical to openly say?”

In a humble gesture, Jeff shrugged.

“Your problem is you’re a nice guy,” I said.  “You’re bent on being respectful, while your wife clearly has no interest in it.  Ask her how much respect and credit she deserves from you and see what she says.”

He grinned.

“In fact, when you challenge her, what’s the first thing out of her mouth?” I asked.

“That I’m disrespecting her.”

I smirked.

“Whatever,” I said, annoyed.  “Look, the reality is you’re superior.  And what are you supposed to do?  Pretend you don’t know what you know, and that you can’t do what you can do, all so she feels better about herself?  So she can pretend she’s not inferior?”

No answer.

“Excuse me,” I said, “but, the life she lives?  She should be hugging your hairy bean-bag every night—giving it a warm tongue-bath and laying it on a silk pillow.  That ought to be a nightly ritual.”

Jeff laughed.  “Bean-bag,” he muttered.

“It’s true.  Something breaks, you fix it.  Dragons show up, you kill them.  Luxurious vacations, sports car, a palatial estate, hair and nail appointments?  Dude,” I said, half-eyed for the gall.  “Bean-bag.  Silk pillow.  Nightly ritual.”

More laughter.

“Laugh all you want,” I said, “but why doesn’t that happen?

A reflective pause.

“Because you’re too nice, that’s why.  You allow the disrespect,” I said.  “When you’re the star of the show, for chrissake.  Can your wife lay carpet?  Does she know anything about property investment?”

He shook his head no.

“So what’s she bringing to the relationship table, exactly?  Clean laundry?  A few cooked meals?  That makes her equal, gives her standing?  Provides the authority to challenge you?”

“She doesn’t cook,” he said, behind a sheepish grin.  “She’s too tired to cook, she says.”

“Too tired to cook,” I muttered.  “Well, she’s never too tired to challenge you, is she?  Has plenty of energy for that.”

Jeff chuckled.  “She complains about the laundry, too.”

I was speechless.

“And if I complain about cooking or laundry, she calls me a misogynist,” he added.

I remained speechless.

Jeff might be many things, but he is by no stretch of the imagination misogynistic.  Incidentally, “Misogynist jerk” is a caricature women perpetuate to dissuade men from bearing any sort of resemblance.  And women have expanded the definition of misogyny to include men being honest and direct with them.  Men don’t have to actually hate women, as would be misogyny properly defined.  They can merely tell women the truth and be labeled misogynists.  It’s merely a designation used to intimidate men, to control them, and to give women the upper hand in disputes.

“So let’s get this straight,” I said.  “You bend over backwards to accommodate your wife.  To spare her feelings, you aren’t as direct and honest with her as you could and should be.  Knowing she is totally unqualified, you nonetheless explain things to her patiently, trying to win her over to your ideas.  You both endure and overlook her criticism and BS, too.  I’m sorry,” I said, “but that seems like love of women to me, not misogyny.”

“I guess it is, now that you explain it.”

“And what do you get in return?” I asked rhetorically.  “Disrespect for what you know, for what you can do, for all you contribute and provide.  Pfft.  Misogyny?” I said dismissively.  “Sounds more like misandry.”

“Misandry?”

“Hatred of men.  I mean, women certainly don’t love those they undervalue, underappreciate, and disrespect.  Do they?

“No, I guess they don’t.”

“You’re the reason your wife lives like a queen and doesn’t have to worry about anything.  And not only don’t you get any credit, you get disrespect.  That make sense?”

“No.”

“Sure as hell doesn’t to me, either,” I said.  “You need to start handing out ultimatums.”

“Ultimatums?”

“Indeed.  Ultimatums.”

In terms of ultimatums, women are pros.  They say to their men, “Well, I’m not going to tolerate this or that.  So, you need to decide what you’re going to do!”  It’s a very effective tactic.

Men are forced into response, forced to address and solve a problem.  They’re left to make the decisions and the ultimate concessions, like, forfeiting golf and fishing and beers with the guys.

The ultimatums are so common and subtle, men don’t even realize how often they are responding to them or how much they are conceding.  Whenever women are dissatisfied they simply complain, and demand that men change.  Basically, there’s an ultimatum for men in every single argument.

It’s:  Do this so I’m happy with you, and not angry.

Do this so I’m more secure.

And even, Do this so I don’t end the relationship.

“It’s true,” Jeff said.  “So what do you do?”

“Simple role reversal,” I said.  “The ultimatum model is predicated on the notions you’re wrong; that you’re the bad guy; that you’re the troublemaker who needs to change, and who will change—which is exactly what men do, by the way.  Thus, women aren’t prepared when men say, ‘Well, I won’t have any ultimatums handed to me.  So now, you need to decide what you’re going to do!’

“Leaving women with the ultimatum, that ends that,” I said.  “Now they’re forced into response.  They have to figure out how to solve the problem.  They have to decide and concede.  Leave-stay-get happy, they have to choose.  Men never do that.  To end the squawking and to keep the conflictual dust down, they concede.”

“There’s a chance they might call your bluff,” Jeff said.

“It isn’t a bluff—at least, it wouldn’t be with me,” I said

I eyed Jeff significantly, “Do you honestly think your wife’s going to leave the plush life she lives and enjoys?  Leave an attractive, fit guy as hardworking and successful and as big-hearted as you?  Dude.  Please,” I said, my nostrils flared for the apparent insanity.

“And if she does leave, good!  You’ve freed yourself from a disrespectful and contentious nag, relieved yourself of relational baggage you don’t have to carry anymore.”

Jeff laughed.

“The real question is, why would you want to be in a relationship with someone like that, anyway?”

Contemplative silence.

“You’re too nice,” I repeated.  “The fact is, the ultimatums never cease and men can’t concede enough to satisfy women.  Is your wife satisfied?” I asked.  “You getting any credit for anything?”

Chuckling, “No.”

“No.  The dissatisfaction continues and the ultimatums keep coming.”

“Yep.”

“Start issuing your own,” I said.  “Trust me, you have the leverage.”

So, as to men never getting any credit, this is precisely what it looks like relationally.  Frankly, I’ll never understand why men resist not only acknowledging their superiority, but openly professing it when required.

Further, being obviously superior in so many demonstrable ways, natural and otherwise, I’ll never understand why men tolerate the disrespect of that superiority from women, either.

There’s no problem acknowledging and openly professing superiority, really, other than men being robustly rebuked for it.  And rather than endure the grief, men spend their entire relationship lives trying to get credit for their contributions, and trying to prove themselves acceptable, worthy, and of all things, equal.

Women not issuing men credit keeps men under control, keeps them striving, and continues the ruse that is gender equality.  Only, considering men are superior in so many demonstrable ways, natural and otherwise, why don’t women ever rise to meet the higher standard of superiority, instead of working so hard to make men less superior?

It’s because superiority can’t always be bested.  Mainly it’s because making men less superior is easier work.

An acquaintance, Madison—or Maddy as she is called, is extremely attractive.  The kind of “attractive” women think men want and would never abandon.  That kind.  Maddy had a terrific husband, too—ambitious, hard-working, loyal, himself attractive—whom she never gave any credit.  She was arrogant, contentious with him, always acted superior.

Her husband walked in one day and said, “I’m leaving you; I found someone who appreciates me.”  And not only did he walk out.  He was right; he wasn’t appreciated, and was never given any credit.

Suddenly, Maddy was alone.  Suddenly, she had to get a job.  Suddenly, she realized everything her husband actually did, all that he took care of, all that he contributed, and all things for which she never game him credit.

Suddenly, she realized her age, and that her dating pool had shrunk considerably.  Suddenly, she found the humility and appreciation she’d always lacked, which had thrust her man into the arms and bed of a woman who was herself not lacking.

To her credit, and much to the extraordinary, Maddy took the blame.  Rather than call her ex- a rotten, disloyal asshole.  Rather than manufacture a narrative to exonerate herself and to convict him.  She said, “I realize now all the things my husband did, and was.  I didn’t value it.  I should have.”

It was the result of newfound humility and appreciation, too late though it was being discovered.

Maddy is a much different person—humble, more appreciative, more sincere.  It’s a transformation that didn’t have to happen.  But then again, it did have to happen.  And then again, it doesn’t have to happen.

 

Get my meaning?

©JMW 2018 All Rights Reserved

JMWs latest:  New Rules: Relationship Logic for the Darkside

 

 

 

 

 

 

What aren’t liberals griping about?   Racism, social justice, inequality, male oppression, gun control, the environment, climate change, losing an election, Russian collusion—pick a subject.

No, seriously.   Pick a subject, any subject.  Then turn on the television or the radio, open the newspaper, or surf the internet.  To what are you exposed?

Griping liberals.

They’re The 21^st Century Nags.

And sing the phrase like Morrison:  “They’re the—bump, bump—21^st Century Nags … They’re the—bump, bump—21^st Century Nags.”

It totally works.

And incidentally, nagging is something traditionally ascribed to women.  Women are the nags who do all the nagging.

Well, not anymore.

Nagging can now be ascribed to men, specifically liberal men, and particularly millennial liberal men.

Look at these pillars of manhood—weeping over an election loss, totally distraught, and looking for safe spaces.  And nagging?  Well, tune-in to cable news and watch one of these male liberal political pundits throw a hysterical fit.

Nag, nag, nag.

It’s like, C’mon guys.  Reach down, grab a handful of sack.

Theeere it is.  The ol’ manhood.  Feel familiar?

Let’s pull ourselves together, now.  Women and children need some damn strength and leadership, for chrissake.  Some emotional stability.

These liberal men—just the type every woman is looking for, right?  Weepy and inconsolable over an election loss.  Totally irrational and unhinged.  Just the sort of emotional incontinence with which every woman wants to share a relationship.

Women are like, Yeah, these are Thor-like centurions we want guarding the palace gate. 

It’s embarrassing.  Bile rising in my esophagus, that’s all I dare say.

And women know it’s all true, too.

So, men and women alike, liberals are The 21^st Century Nags.  And being perpetual nags, it’s absolutely no fun having them around.  Take news media liberals, for example.

Turn on the news and a liberal host or political pundit is vomiting accusation, criticism and complaints.  And there’s the ever-present sense of impending doom and the totally unappealing dark cloud that follows them around, too.

It’s like:  Yet another day of endless nagging and doom and gloom brought to you by liberals.  Terrific.  Everybody have a nice day!

 Oh sure, that’s possible.

And late night television.  It used to be fun, relaxing, entertaining.  A pre-turn-in respite from your crappy day.  Carson’s Carnac the Magnificent—late night was lighthearted, inoffensive, and actually funny.  You laughed a lot, and went to bed with a relieved smile on your face.

Now late night is one big liberal complaint fest.  An hour-long nag session that only liberals can enjoy—in a sadistic sense.

And Hollywood.  People want to sit down on the sofa and watch an awards show, to watch the grandeur, to hear actors and actresses talk about their lives and their accomplishments.

And what do viewers get instead?

A political lecture.  Or, lectures—about the poor, the starving, about sexual abuse, inequality, racism, about pollution and our suffering oceans and planet, about the need for cleaner energy, about opioid addiction.

Nag, nag, nag.

Liberals—The Misery Makers.

And the misery makers aren’t just in the media.  They’re right there in your office, in your neighborhood, in your social circle, perhaps even in your home—nagging about inane and totally unfounded crises nobody cares about, and about some injustice somewhere.  Harping about the disappearing bumble bee population and rain forests, about plastic bottles, inorganic food, and dirty coal.

Again, pick a subject, any subject.

And of course, liberals themselves are never responsible for any of these problems.  It’s the rest of the world.  It’s You!  Asshole.

Know why liberals complain about so many things?

It’s because they’re miserable people.  Well, that and because they like to attach themselves to causes for the image-related public relations benefits:  I’m for clean water and air!  I’m for starving children!  I’m for rain forests and bumble bees—look at me!  Look at how caring and compassionate I am!  Yes, yes!—heap your adulation upon me!!

 In terms of cost-effective PR it’s a pretty economical strategy, actually.

Stay around liberals long enough, however.  Get past the social layer, the public protocols that force them to pretend happiness and to say nice things.  And it isn’t long before you’re exposed to the real them—pissed-off, unhappy, victimized.  The real person comes out.

And as to their misery, everybody else is responsible.

Liberals—they’re one big miserable indictment waiting to be issued on anybody and everybody.

Men, women who like and appreciate men, white people, police officers, the wealthy, Republicans—basically everybody that isn’t a liberal is to blame.  Everyone but liberals are greedy.  Everyone but liberals are racist.  Everyone but liberals abuse women.  Well, every liberal but Matt Lauer, that is, who presses a button and locks women in his office where he bangs them into unconsciousness.

Only, Lauer, Harvey Weinstein, and every other female abusing liberal gets a pass.

Why do liberals get a pass from fellow liberals?

Because miserable people stick together, that’s why.  Because misery loves company—needs company, actually.  And because miserable people can’t allow themselves to be honest for it revealing the self-inflicted nature of their misery.

Liberals don’t want honesty or personal responsibility either one.  That’s why they’re headline readers and believers.  Liberals can read “Tax cuts for the rich!” for example, and that’s their mantra for the next 18 months until election time.  Questioning the headline’s veracity?  Gaining more insight into the country’s taxation system to know how “Tax cuts for the rich” might actually transpire?

No interest whatsoever.

The headline is sufficient.  All liberals have to see is “Tax cuts for the rich.”

Why the uninquisitive, unintellectual, knee-jerk reaction?

Because liberals are miserable, and intellectually lazy for their misery.

A headline, a talking point—it’s red meat for elite liberals.  They dish it out to their equally miserable voters, and then the collective sits and complains.  Why?

Because they’re collectively miserable, that’s why.  And they don’t want to improve their condition, either.

Dealing with liberals is intellectual childcare.  There are those who care about the country, about freedom, about the rule of law, and who ask questions.

Hence, they’re the ones doing all the intellectual work—deciphering all the lies and mischaracterizations and distortions of a deceitful liberal media.  They’re the ones putting the pieces to truth’s puzzle in their proper place.

And most annoyingly, they’re the ones having to inform and convert a bunch of intellectual toddlers, aka liberals, who don’t know anything but headlines and talking points, and who don’t want to hear anything the informed adults have to say.

Liberals would rather sit in their misery than hear anything that might inform them, that might elevate their opinion of things, that might amend their perspective, that might lift them from their state of misery, and that might ultimately change and improve their lives.

That’s liberals—The 21^st Century Nags.

And not only are liberals nagging everybody to death.  They’re locking women in their office and banging them into unconsciousness.  They’re luring women into their hotel suites and offering film roles for peep shows.

They’re telling everybody, namely children, and specifically innocent little girls, how “Naaassty” women are, while wearing vagina suits and hats, no less.

And they’re organizing marches over a “grab ‘em by the pu**y” remark—a remark, for chrissake.  Meanwhile, liberals Lauer, Weinstein, John Conyers, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Al Franken and a host of others are actually treating women like hand-me-down luggage.

Locker room remarks?  Please.

Liberals don’t waste time with remarks.  They actually take action!

And to that abhorrent action, where are all those angry liberals who are so offended by everyone else?  Why aren’t they taking to the streets against their own ideological kind?  Where are the protests?  The signs?  The chants?  The condemnation?

There is no time for that because liberals are too busy condemning everybody else, too busy chasing a Russian collusion fallacy.  Yet another red meat headline and talking point swallowed whole.

Why pursue Russian collusion?

Because that’s a headline liberals want to believe, an idea they want to be true.  And when it isn’t true—and in fact, when anything liberals believe turns out to be untrue—do liberals amend their perspective?  Do they adjust?  Do they say, “Maybe that was a load of BS I shouldn’t have believed?”  Or, “Maybe the voices I listen to are liars and frauds?”

No.  Hell no!  They move on to the next issue, to the next thing they want to believe, and to the next reason to be pissed-off and miserable.  Where they can then jump on board with that idea and continue vomiting their misery on everybody else.

That’s liberals.

That’s all they do.

That’s all they want to do.

That’s all they know to do.

Meanwhile, everybody else is out there trying to make sense of things, trying to solve problems and to get things done, all in an effort to be ultimately happy, at peace, and more secure.

And in that effort they have the continuous, burdensome task of both bringing and keeping intellectual toddlers, aka liberals, informed and up to speed, people who only want to be miserable all the time and to nag everybody to death.

Complaining, debating, ignoring the facts, ignoring truth, ignoring reality, ignoring the obvious—whatever it takes to continue the misery, to continue the dysfunction, and to continue to ensure everyone shares their gloom and despair.

Think about it:  environmental desolation, climate crisis, rising ocean tides, disappearing forests and wildlife, a starving and thirsty planet … again, pick the subject, any subject.

Given all these liberal beliefs and the dire circumstances associated.  Given the subsequent and ceaseless fear and anxiety.  What do liberals wake-up to every day?

Misery.  That’s what they wake-up to.  Deep, overwhelming, abiding misery.

And they want it shared by everyone.

Ergo, liberals:  The 21^st Century Nags.

©JMW 2018 All Rights Reserved

Domestic Violence.  The phrase implies a villain.

Whom might that villain be?

Not women.  Never women.

Men are the relationship abusers.  In fact, not only are they the abusers.  Everything that isn’t right and that goes wrong in relationships is their fault.

This isn’t true, of course—not even close.  Yet, one can’t deny the abuse of women at the hands of men.  It’s true; men can be and have been abusive towards women.

But one doesn’t have to deny the abuse of men at the hands of women, because it’s never really been proposed.  Something must be proposed to necessitate denial.

Who admits to lying without being first called a liar?

No one.  Denial and defense aren’t required.

So, that’s what we’re officially doing here:  proposing it—“it” being the relational abuse of men at the hands of women.

And to this proposition is to be applied good ol’ Rule Number One, which is:  the accuser is almost always guilty of doing the very thing of which they accuse.

In other words, it’s the accuser, not the accused, who deserves some serious side-eye, which is particularly true in this case.

So then, as to this domestic abuse, how bad is it for men?

Well, open up a newspaper, turn on the television, or surf the internet.  The evidence is certainly out there to support the abuse of men at the hands of women.  Again, it’s just that no one makes the men are victims of domestic violence proposition.  Hence, women aren’t then implied in the “domestic violence” phrase, and don’t have to deny the accusation for not being charged.

See how it works?  It’s a wonderful arrangement, is it not?

Nevertheless, our question:  how bad is the abuse for men?

Let’s begin with this above-the-fold headline from my local paper:  Domestic Violence Victims Are Not Alone.*

“In Indiana last year,” the article began, “63,671 Hoosiers called domestic violence crisis lines, 10,531 women and children were housed in the domestic violence shelters, and 67 people died from an act of domestic violence in our state.”

It was Domestic Violence Awareness Month.  The article was raising awareness.

“The roots of domestic violence run deep, cutting across social, economic, religious, and cultural boundaries,” the article noted.  “Too many Hoosiers are being victimized and many of them are suffering silently.  We must spread the word that help is available, and empower victims to end the cycle of abuse.”

Let’s cut to the chase:  the article mentioned women and children were being housed in domestic violence shelters, and that 67 non-descript “people” died from domestic violence.  Also, that Hoosiers in general were suffering in silence.

So what’s missing?

Men.  There was not one mention of them or male victimhood in the entire piece—not one.

Why was there no mention?

Because men are the ones committing all the domestic violence.  That men are the reason for Domestic Violence Awareness Month is implied.

Be that as it most certainly is, the following from the article is what should be the most troubling for men:  “Domestic violence is usually thought of as physical abuse, but it can also be financial, emotional, and sexual abuse.”

So, we have moved beyond defining domestic violence by mere physical violence and subsequent abuse.  Included now in the domestic violence line-up are financial, emotional, and sexual abuse.

Why, that’s quite the range of abuses.  Cruelties that offer quite the range for subjective definition, too.

In other words, how do we define domestic violence of the financial, emotional, and sexual varieties exactly?

Perhaps this way:

If for affordability men say “no” to a particular vacation destination, or “no” to brand name items in favor of generic items.  The decision can be classified as domestic violence of the financial abuse variety.

If men make their women cry or angry either one.  If men generally upset women with their practical, hardline recommendations.  Then that can be classified as domestic violence of the emotional abuse variety.

And if men complain about how much sex they aren’t getting.  If they put too much pressure on women to fulfill their sexual obligation to the relationship.  Then that can be classified as domestic violence of the sexual abuse variety.

“No” means “No,” gentlemen.  And it’s a standing “No,” too.

And in fact, what does nearly every woman say about their defunct relationships?  They say they endured every sort of abuse—physical, verbal, emotional, financial—at the hands of awful men, of course.

Abuse—the contemporary and universal female excuse for failed relationships.

Women would scoff at the previous abuse classifications, would say they are silly, and blown way out of proportion.  Of course, women can scoff because they don’t have to live with the domestic violence stigmata.

See how it works?  It’s a wonderful arrangement, is it not?

Women certainly commit domestic violence and abuse, however.  They just get to high-heel their way past the stigmata:

Why, lil’-o-vulnerable me?  Commit the heinous acts of domestic violence?  Why I neva’!  That is so ungentlemanly of you to suggest such a thing.  Whack!  You quite deserve that slap across yoah face!  Whack!  And there’s anutha!

What.  Women don’t commit domestic violence?

Please.  Eye-rolling so hard, I just sprained my eyes.

The Center for Disease and Control (CDC), a federal agency under the United States Department of Health and Human Services, released data from its 2010 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey.

A few highlights for non-believers, and notice the italics:

• By the study’s definition of physical violence—including slapping, pushing, and shoving—roughly 5,365,000 men had been victims of intimate partner physical violence in the previous 12 months, compared with 4,741,000 women.
• More severe threats like being beaten, burned, choked, kicked, slammed with a heavy object, or hit with a fist were also tracked. Roughly 40 percent of the victims of severe physical violence were men.
• The CDC repeated the survey in 2011, publishing the results in 2014. The numbers were almost identical, with the percentage of male severe physical violence victims slightly rising.

Commenting on this apparent revelation of female abusiveness was Karla Ivankovich, PhD, an adjunct professor of psychology at the University of Illinois, Springfield.

Ivankovich acknowledged the decline in women reporting abuse, and the increase in men, but admitted there wasn’t much buzz about the changing statistics or the implications because, simply, nobody knows how to handle intimate partner violence against men.

“Society supports that men should not hit women,” she said, “but the same is not true for the reverse.”

Along with not knowing “how to handle intimate partner violence against men,” Ivankovich’s comment is interesting.  Considering the line in the newspaper article stated clearly, “Our message to victims is simple:  You are not alone, and help is available.”

Oh really.  We don’t know “how to handle intimate partner violence against men,” and society doesn’t support that women not hit men.  Yet men “aren’t alone” and “help is available” for them?

I think men are indeed alone, and I think there is no help at all available for them.

That’s what I think.

Actually, men need to just, shut-up and play the villain, so as this problem of not knowing “how to handle intimate partner violence against men” goes away.

That’s what men need to do—crybabies, momma’s boys.

Nevertheless, men should not commit domestic violence against women, right?  So, shouldn’t the same standard apply to women?  Why doesn’t society support men as it does women?

A retired professor of family law, Anne P. Mitchell, has the answer.  She said that woman-on-man violence is often turned into onscreen amusement, such as on a slew of reality shows.

In other words, whatever abuse women dole-out to men is fun and entertainment—good fun and entertainment, in fact.  Because of course, those abusive bastards deserve it.

Being a retired professor of family law, and one of the first fathers’-rights lawyers in the country, this isn’t how Mitchell sees it.  She believes domestic violence towards men is neither fun nor entertainment, and that men no more deserve abuse of any kind than women.

Mitchell mentioned the Lorena Bobbitt incident, Bobbitt having cut off her husband’s penis, and having been acquitted by reason of temporary insanity.

Mitchell pointed out, “If something remotely similar had happened to a woman, there would have been a very different response.”

And men can bet their penis on that!

Nevertheless, the one-way street view of domestic violence of the physical variety can be laid to rest.  It is indeed a two-way street.  The so-called experts may not know handle “intimate partner violence of the physical variety” toward men.  But there is no doubt intimate partner violence of the physical variety is being performed on men!

Yet, unlike women, men have to endure intimate partner violence of the physical variety until the so-called experts figure out how to handle it.

Well, the experts need to get on the stick, because it isn’t just intimate partner violence of the physical variety being performed on men.

In another article, a woman explained how ground beef inspired an awakening to the fact she was emotionally abusing her husband.

The wife had asked her husband to pick-up some dinner items from the grocery store on his way home, one of those items being the infamous ground beef.  She began pulling the items from the grocery bag after he arrived, only to learn he’d purchased 70/30 ground beef—which means 70% lean and 30% fat—instead of the 80/20 she preferred.

Displeased with the 10% crisis in leanness, a displeasure I’m sure most rational people can understand, eh-hm, she launched into him.

The wife berated the husband for not being smarter, for not reading the labels, and for not being trustworthy.  She yelled at, criticized, and demeaned him in such a way that, having been the recipient of the same treatment herself, would have prompted a call to the domestic abuse hotline.

To the attacks and to the demeaning disrespect, the husband responded as most modern men have learned to respond:  “I never noticed.  I really don’t think it’s that big of a deal.”  And, “I’ll get it right next time.”

His affability was of no benefit, however.  To his abuser, it was like blood in the water.

Of course, this wasn’t the first time the wife had scolded him.  Admittedly, she had done it for years.  It is why domestic violence of the emotional variety came so natural and easy to her.

“I scolded him for not doing something the way I thought it should be done,” she admitted.  “He was always putting something away in the wrong place, or leaving something out, or neglecting to do something altogether.  And I was always right there to point it out to him.”

Let’s reverse this situation.  Imagine if women were being treated this way.

Hmm.  Seems vaguely familiar, like we have already been there.

Why yes, of course!  We have been here!

These sorts of things happening to women is why we have Domestic Abuse Awareness Month and the Domestic Violence Hotline.

It appears we are back at square one.  Only, with a different victim this time.

The self-described “hamburger meat moment” was this woman’s wake-up call to the fact she was abusing her husband emotionally.  It was a reckoning that, I’m sure, came too many abusive and misery-filled years late for one guy:

Glad you saw the light, honey.  It’s been terrific living with you all these years.

The wife seemed genuinely embarrassed and remorseful, and she made one comment that stood out.

She said, “Too many women have fallen into the belief that Wife Always Knows Best. There’s even a phrase to reinforce it: ‘Happy wife, happy life.’”

Then she added this, “That doesn’t leave a lot of room for his opinions, does it?”

Nope.  It does not.

And women wonder why their men end-up banging other chics—other women who merely listen to them, appreciate them, value them, respect them, and who actually pursue them.  Well, initially, at least.  Long enough to bang the newness off, anyway.

The newness banged off, they’re ranting about hamburger meat, and are themselves abusing men, too.

Unlike this poor guy who had become “resigned” and “demoralized,” I’m not one to sit around for years waiting on an abusive woman to see the light.  When she began pointing out my faults and abusing me, she’d have gotten a rather curt “Screw you” of the profane variety.

Upon which, the question would surely be:  how could you be so, abusive?

Well, let’s make a comparison.

Issuing a curt “Screw you” of the profane variety would be deemed both verbal and emotional abuse.  Curtly issued, it would draw gasps and incredulous expressions, and would incite accusations and threats.  It may even prompt an EPO (Emergency Protection Order), followed by mandated anger management courses.

And of course it would not matter to women, or even register, that their never-ending and demeaning criticism prompted the well-deserved “Screw you” of the profane variety.

“Screw you” in the profane is disrespectful, intolerable, and will not stand.

Yet, when it comes to years and decades of berating men over hamburger meat, and for not doing things in the ways women think they should be done, and for putting something away in the wrong place, or leaving something out, or neglecting to do something altogether.

Well, that’s just an emotional tendency of women that, for their undying love and reverence for the female condition, men are supposed to understand, supposed to find endearing, and are supposed to tolerate until women finally see themselves as abusive.

Well, screw that, I say.  It clearly takes too long for women to recognize—if they ever do!—their abusiveness, which clearly isn’t just emotional abuse.  It is also provably physical.  And considering women conceal their spending habits from men, and get monetary favor in the divorce, they are financially abusing men, too.

It’s all domestic violence of the ignored variety.

Men aren’t going to complain about abuse in whatever form, at least not publicly, because they look weak and unmanly.  So what do they do instead?

They put-up with the abuse, and deal with it.

Women aren’t worried about looking weak.  In fact, they can complain about abuse and become strong, courageous heroes.  Thus, they can dish-out all the abuse they want and be justified.

Women are perpetual victims, heroic survivors insulated from the villainous implications in the phrase Domestic Violence.

So, what is the end-game in this gender war, and with this domestic violence and abuse business?

It’s to permanently dethrone and subordinate men.

And what do men think will ultimately happen?  A state of gender equality will finally be reached that will make women content?

That’s not going to happen.  In fact, it’s never what happens.

Whatever the disputed issue, one party continues conceding and giving up ground, until the other party takes over.  That’s exactly what happens—exactly what will happen.  So the war is not going to end.

Totally domination of men—that’s the endgame in this gender war.  And if one thinks it isn’t the endgame, look at racism.  Racism will never be put to rest until blacks or Hispanics or whichever minority has complete power and is dictating everything.  No matter how much ground is gained, it will never be enough.  There will always be a little more racism to eradicate.  Hence, the fight must continue.

The gender war is no different.  It will never be put to rest until women have complete power and are dictating everything.  And in that war, the claim of domestic violence and abuse is a tool.  Both fairly and unjustly, women level the various abuse charges at will—and the charges stick.  Or, they work.

And the charges aren’t inconsequential anymore.  They have teeth—life-altering teeth.

Thus, women are playing with a stacked deck, relationally speaking.  Being clearly immune to charges of abuse themselves, women can behave however they wish, can be as abusive as they want, and for as long as they want.

Men, on the other hand—if they get out of line in the slightest degree—which should be interpreted:  if men don’t behave like women command they behave—then women can really do a legal number on them.

And for this modern reality, I’m asked, “What are men supposed to do?”

Here’s my answer:  Leave!

Forget the misery and aggravation of female domestic violence.  Forget anger management courses and mediation.  Those things are small potatoes.  We’re talking genuine danger for men.  We’re talking career-ending accusations and real, personal legal jeopardy.

It’s a new ballgame, gentlemen.  One in which virtually everyone believes in men’s abusive guilt, and one in which nobody bothers with the truth behind allegations or due process either one.

And then, men get hammered legally.  Severely hammered.

Former NFL running back, Ray Rice, by all accounts, was a wonderful human being.  That is, until his fiancée provoked him in an Atlantic City hotel.  They had been drinking, and were arguing.  After entering the hotel elevator, Rice decked her.

Did anyone care about her contribution to the incident?

No.

And where is Ray Rice?

Well, he’s here.  Er, nowhere.

He’s a pariah with no profession.

Should Rice have struck his fiancée?

No.

Rice should have grabbed his bags, and left; Rice would still be playing football in the NFL.  And his fiancée would have been an ex-fiancée, a woman dreaming about the luxurious future she once had within grasp.

The point is, this domestic violence and abuse business is nothing to play around with any longer.   It’s a genuine danger for men—with real teeth.  It’s a tool with which to control and to punish men, and both an accusation and a stigmata with which women don’t have to concern themselves whatsoever.

So, forget the houses and finances.  Forget love.  Forget the kids.  Forget all the things that keep men in relationships and enduring the abuse everyone ignores.  When the abuse starts, grab the bags.

Otherwise, it’s a whole lotta’ one-sided trouble.

Trouble of the singularly and extraordinarily punitive variety.

©JMW 2018

*Clarion News Opinion, Laura Berry and Greg Zoeller, Oct.28, 2015 ed.

JMWs latest book:  New Rules: Relationship Logic for the Darkside

 

Neither the need nor the desire for masculinity is dead.  Given the attack on men and the feminization of the culture, however, men might not get that impression from women.  Yet, both the need and desire for masculinity are very much alive, and provably so.

Proving it—that’s exactly what we are going to do.

Exhibit A: 

My friend Marlon is a young, beautiful, modern woman.  I add modern because she is of an era that appears not so fond of masculinity.  Meaning, Marlon isn’t so fond masculinity, presumably.

Only, such presumptions would be wrong.  Marlon knows exactly what she wants in a man.

Next to a flattering, full-body selfie, in which she was the essence of female perfection, Marlon said, “Of course I am not worried about intimidating men. The type of man who will be intimidated by me is exactly the type of man I have no interest in.”

Bravo!

So what kind of man does Marlon want?

She wants the kind every woman wants:  Don Draper.

Women could do without the Draper philandering, of course.  Still, they like the Draper confidence and control.  They like the daring.  They like the toughness.  They like men who won’t be kept on a leash.  They like men who won’t tolerate excessive drama, and who won’t be trifled with, and who’ll get dead in their ass when necessary and required.

Basically, women want men that won’t be pushed around, and who are willing the cut them loose.  Such men are attractive, titillating, and challenging.  They engender desire.  And more importantly, respect.

In other words, women want men to be masculine.  The same as men want women to be feminine.

It’s simple, really.  Men don’t want women acting like butchy lesbians pretending to be men.  Men want women to be feminine and genteel and vulnerable.  Men want the coquettish glances, and shy grins of excitement and approval.  Men like lace and soft scents and smooth skin.  They want demure women, women of self-respect and class.

Likewise, women don’t want men to act like emasculate wusses.  Women like confidence and decisiveness.  They want men to be somewhat unpredictable, dangerous, and exciting.  They want men to be tough, determined, self-assured, and unflappable.  They want men to be direct, honest, principled, and fair.  It all represents security to women.

These are human principles—fundamental, longstanding, unchanging.  And when women roll their eyes at all this.  When they laugh condescendingly, and say, “Ha!  You don’t know women at all!”  They’re all lying through the teeth.

So, ignore them.  Dismiss them.

Because it’s all true.  And they know it’s true.

In fact, leave those cackling broads and go find a woman who knows what’s up, and whose unafraid admit what she wants and to be herself—her real self.  That’s the one you want, gentlemen.

Cackling posers only bring men misery.

In the feminist era, women deny what they truly want from men because it makes women appear weak and vulnerable and incapable, and because it makes them unequal.  Mainly, women deny what they truly want from men because it casts them in a subordinate role, which is a role they actually prefer, incidentally, but is yet an appearance they must avoid as a matter of image.

Politics.  They make a nightmare of a wet dream.

So women deny what they truly desire, and thus deny themselves.  By doing that, they then lie to themselves, and lie to men.  And all to cater to their need for security and to a feminist image, which leaves men not only confused, but trying in vain to figure out what women want.

Thus, the point:  men need to stop trying to figure out what women want.

Do they want masculine men, sensitive men?  Should I become this, or that?

 The indecisiveness is precisely what makes men feminine, and thus unattractive to women.

Women need to be worried about what men want, not the other way around.

Besides, I just told you what women want.  So did Marlon—and she’s hot.

Women want masculine men—bad-boys if you will.  Be that.  Be yourself, and whatever form of masculinity that takes.

Despite their wet dream ruining politics, masculinity is the counterbalance to femininity that women both desire and need—still.

Exhibit B: 

Famously-moustached host, John Stossel, of the ABC television network’s news magazine, 20/20, explored the issue of masculinity in a roundabout way.  He wanted to know if a man’s height mattered to women, if it made men less masculine and attractive.

In an experiment, Stossel arranged several men – both short and tall – in a line-up behind a two-way mirror.  He then asked groups of women to choose a date.

The result?

Women always chose the taller men, and despite the curb-appeal of the shorter men being artificially enhanced.

For example, Stossel made one man, five-foot-three, a doctor.  One was made a best-selling author.  One a champion skier who had just built his own ski house.  And one a wealthy millionaire.

Yet, despite the added curb-appeal, the feminine window-shoppers still deemed the smaller men “too short.”

Asked what it would take for the women to date one of the smaller men, one woman responded brutally, “Maybe the only thing you could say is the others are murderers.”

Murderers—a no-go.  Interesting.  Keep that in mind.

Now.  This is key, is central to the point of masculinity:  during an interview, the women were asked about their preference for taller men.  One woman said flatly, “I just want to look up in those dark-eyes, and feel those strong arms around me.”

And as she delivered the remark, the other women were smiling dreamily and nodding their agreement.

And what does the comment and the collective agreement demonstrate?

It demonstrates that, one, women prefer “looking up” into the eyes of their champion in an implied position of vulnerability and submission.  And two, it demonstrates strength and masculinity have incalculable value in making women feel safe and secure.

 In other words, for all their feminist bluster.  For all their demands for equality.  Women still want to be taken, sheltered, and secured by strong, masculine men.

And there is this uncomfortable and thus unspoken truth:  as matters of vanity and image, women don’t like being seen socially with shorter men—even if those men are prestigious doctors, best-selling authors, champion skiers, or wealthy millionaires.

Why?  Because they must look down upon the dark eyes of their champion, whom they must also stoop down to issue a hug.

It’s a vain miscalculation, certainly.  But it’s nonetheless true.

The point is the women in the experiment were being honest about their vulnerability, and about their desire for strong masculinity to offset that sense of vulnerability.

So, there it is:  more proof.

Women mock other women as being “trophy girlfriends and wives,” and they mock men for both wanting and having “trophy girlfriends and wives.”  Well, women want—tall, dark eyes, strong arms to hold them secure—trophy boyfriends and husbands, too, obviously.

And they want them to be masculine.

Exhibit C:

Writer Benjamin Percy, the epitome of the modern, feminized male, decided to wear a pregnancy, or “empathy,” suit for nine weeks.  The suit, made of thick nylon, sported a fake belly and breasts to simulate pregnancy, which Percy wore over his regular clothes for the nine week duration.

He explained his motive to comedian Steve Harvey, a substitute host on NBCs The Today Show:

Percy:  “The idea behind [the experiment] is that, our grandfathers never even held babies.  Our fathers never changed diapers.  And these days that’s grounds for divorce.  So there’s sort of shifting gender relations going on now in this country.  I’ve got a lot of pals who are stay at home dads.  I’ve got a lot of pals who are really involved with their kid’s lives—coaching and volunteering at schools, and I feel a little inadequate in that regard sometimes.”

 Harvey:  “So you wanted to accomplish what by doin’ this…?”

 Percy:  “To make up for my mouth-breathing, hairy-chested, caveman deficiencies…”

Yes.  It’s beyond embarrassing.

Nevertheless, modern women should appreciate Percy’s sensitive male attempt to relate, shouldn’t they?  They profess that men don’t care about their feelings or what it’s like to be a woman.  So this nine week effort at prenatal empathy should go a long way in improving gender relations, right?

Wrong.

During the interview with Harvey, Percy said he “expected to get a nice pat on the back” from women, but found that “women were fixated on the suit’s inadequacies.”  He was shocked to learn that women wanted him to have heartburn roiling up his throat; and varicose veins rising like garden hoses up his legs; and the every-five-minute urge to pee; and constipation for a week; and that they wanted him to endure being jabbed full of hormone-oozing needles.

In other words, this little feminine exercise of Percy’s was as useless as teats on a boar hog.  Not only were women irritated at the attempt at empathy.  To Percy’s totally unmanly olive branch, they said, “Nice try, wuss.”

Women are clearly unaffected by these kinds of unmanly overreaches, and are incensed and repulsed by men who attempt them.  Why are women incensed and repulsed?

Because it isn’t masculine.

Exhibit D:

Exhibit D is a not-so-flattering contrast with Exhibit C.  It is to begin this way:

In his book Prison Groupies, crime-writer Clifford Linedecker wrote about notorious men finding female favor.  Men like Scott Peterson, for example.

After being convicted of murdering his wife and child, and upon spending little more than an hour on San Quentin’s death-row, the infamous Peterson received his first marriage proposal from a smitten young woman.

Satanist, Richard Ramirez, is another example.  Ramirez went on a home-invasion crime spree that terrorized greater Los Angeles residents.  The diabolical bender included a shockingly brutal string of rapes, murders, and mutilations that, like Peterson, earned Ramirez a seat on San Quentin’s death row, too.

Yet, despite Ramirez’s merciless brutality—toward women, no less.  According to Linedecker, Ramirez “had women falling all over him” and “fighting one another for his attention.”

John Wayne Gacy is yet another example.  He buried 26 of his victims in the crawl space of his home.  Three more were buried elsewhere on his property, while the bodies of his last four known victims were discarded in the Des Plaines River.  Yet, both an unattractive guy and a homosexual, Gacy “had all kinds of women after him.”

Now.  No doubt “normal” and “self-respecting” women would take a dim view of the women pursuing these notorious ne’re-do-wells.  Refined women would call these bad-boy chasers skanks, groupies, sluts, and women of low quality and self-esteem.

Be that as it may, which it surely is, men should consider this:

These raving, convicted and incarcerated lunatics couldn’t have treated women worse.  Yet, they have more female attention than they can manage.  In prison, no less.

Clearly Moody, The Barstool Prophet, has a point:  “No man should underestimate his ability to attract women.”  In attracting women, there is obviously hope for every man—even the worst of men.  As in, say, diabolical murderers and whatnot.

So, contrasting Exhibits D and C, let’s get this straight:  while these lunatic prison outlaws are with women kicking ass and taking names.  The good guys are wearing fake bellies and breasts for nine weeks to empathize with women, and are being viewed as wussies and treated with contempt.

I say again:  it’s beyond embarrassing.

Considering the female success of the notorious, perhaps the good guys should consider adopting a more sinister edge.  Or at least something less, empathetic.

Why?

Because women will find them more masculine, and will more likely fawn over them and fight for their attention.  That’s why.

—

Like I said, neither the desire nor the need for masculinity are dead.  They’re very much alive. However, in the era of gender competition and equality, it is need and desire modern women feel compelled to conceal.

The problem with masculinity is, one:  it is dominant by nature.  And two, it is refuge.

In other words, in a feminist culture bent on achieving and maintaining equality among the sexes, masculine dominance is a standard which cannot stand.  And given women naturally look to men for refuge and safety, the female desire for masculinity is a reality which cannot be recognized—at least not openly.

Therefore, for women to acknowledge a desire for masculinity is to acknowledge a desire for security, which is to acknowledge masculine dominance, which is to acknowledge at least a level of dependency.  All of which an equality-driven culture frowns upon.

And there you have it:  the problem.

On the hunt for men, women do exactly as men do.  Men notice the overall attractiveness of women, and their gender specific traits—breasts and buns and figures.  Likewise, women notice men’s overall attractiveness, and their gender specific traits—muscular physiques, hairy chests, scruffy beards, and firm buns.  It’s a primal, innate examination.

So, it’s clear:  women desire physical masculinity.  It is only within relationships that women develop sudden reservations with masculinity.

Basically, men use masculinity to attract women, because that’s what women like and want.  Once in a relationship, however, women attempt to temper and redefine masculinity so as to enhance both their feelings of security and their emotional comfort.

In other words, women begin emasculating men for their insecurities, and for their own selfish purposes.

Only, the practice stands in direct opposition to the masculinity women genuinely and actually want and need.  Meanwhile, it supplies men with confounding directives.

And how do men respond?

Instead of being the masculine men they were initially, and that women want and need.  Men allow themselves to be emasculated, and to become caricatures who take to wearing fake bellies and breasts, to then become emasculated imposters women both loathe and disrespect.

It’s an unfortunate sequence of events—for which men are responsible.

Now.  There is one other facet of masculinity that needs to be addressed.  Masculinity is a subjective term.  Meaning ultimately, masculinity can be demonstrated in various ways.

Frankly, I don’t want my social sphere to be dominated by a bunch of alpha males.  I rather appreciate masculine diversity in this respect.  I have male friends and acquaintances who are robustly masculine, and I have others who are less so, and even effeminate.

Naturally, the robustly masculine A-types project strength and traditional manliness, and thus have no problem attracting women.  The others are gentler, less competitive, and aren’t the sorts one would necessarily term:  ladies men.

Yet, they are all decent, strong, masculine men at their core.  For some, their competitive strength and drive and determination make them masculine.  For others it’s their calm demeanor.  For others, their patience and understanding and compassion.  I value not only masculine diversity, but what it brings to my life via my social sphere.

In fact, I tell women all the time that the gentler, less competitive, and even effeminate men are a largely untapped relationship market.  In terms of relationship partners, the gentler sorts are strong in their own way, and moreover, very steady and reliable.

Masculinity isn’t just confined to height, dark-eyes and strong arms.  It comes in various forms, and is just as sexy.  Women just need to look past the standard for strength and masculinity, to a standard behind the scenes and less visible.

The masculinity women want and need doesn’t always look like the standard, and everything below isn’t substandard, either.

Far from it.

©JMW All Rights Reserved.

Psychological Projection:  a theory in psychology in which humans defend themselves against unpleasant impulses by denying the existence of those impulses in themselves, while attributing them to others.

Only, psychological projection isn’t a theory.  It’s a genuine phenomenon.  In terms of relationships and relationship conflict, it’s both a tactic and an art women have perfected.

Masters of the projection art, I give women credit.  I’m actually fascinated by their projection skill, and grin in admiration watching them perform.

Of course, I try not to grin when women are projecting on me, because they are usually very emotional and angry and serious.  Feeling they aren’t being taken seriously, grinning only makes them angrier.

Nevertheless, I realize the performance is part of the accusation game women play.  Emotional and irrational, women criticize and accuse and provoke, saying whatever comes to mind without thought or hesitation.  Cruel, cutting, inaccurate—it doesn’t make any difference to them.  Accusing, and in the throes of emotional projection, women deal straight off the top of the deck.

Most men, poor souls, get lost in the melee.  Confused and incredulous, men are like, Why, this is totally outrageous!  They become angry at the unfairness, and set to setting the record straight and to clearing their name.

The difference with me is, I don’t accept the accusations.

In other words, I don’t get caught up in the projection game.  Which is to say, the accusations against me are likely attributable to the issuer, and are a projection of the issuer’s own guilt in whatever regard.

It’s a pretty reliable assumption and approach, actually.

For example, I’m not a rude person.  Direct?  Sometimes, yes.  Rude?   No.  Regardless of how many times I am accused of being rude.  Regardless of the vigorous and relentless effort to convince me I am rude.  I don’t accept the premise, the accusation, the guilt, or the projection.  I defy it all.

Why?

Because I am not a rude person.

As it usually happens, a woman has said rude things to and about me, to provoke me.  It also happens that a woman is rudely yelling at me that I am rude when, normally, yelling is considered rude by that same woman.  It also happens that, in process of yelling at me that I am rude, a woman is actually herself saying rude things to and about me.

In other words, while this particular woman is demonstrating actual, manifest rudeness in every possible way herself.  She, in classic psychological projection, is projecting her penchant for rudeness onto me:  I am rude.  While she is not rude, and hasn’t the capacity for rudeness, both of which she is clearly demonstrating to be false.

That’s psychological projection.

My approach to this tactic is simple.  Accused of being rude, I know I am not a rude person by nature.  As a general rule, I know I am not comfortable being rude to people.  In fact, I prefer people to be comfortable and at ease around me.  I am an encourager by nature, and understanding.  I prefer to work things out amiably, and to get along rather than bicker.

Therefore, characterizing me as a rude person is not only inaccurate, but ludicrous.  Thus, nobody is going to convince me of being something I definitely know I am not.  I reject the accusation out-of-hand and exit the conversation.

The accusation does not apply to me.  So why argue a false premise?

Doing so is a waste of time—my time.  Thereto, arguing only gives my accuser legitimacy.

Anger is another issue of which women commonly accuse men—men are always angry, and are thus verbally, physically, and emotionally abusive.

Say my wife is angry at me for one reason or another.  I’m not angry; she’s angry.  The proper and constructive course would be to, one, assume my innocence. Two, to calmly explain the problem.  So as to, three, try to peacefully resolve the matter.

Only, that idealistic approach is never what takes place.

My wife is angry.  She’s hurling accusations, yelling, projecting her anger onto me.  Although I’m the accused being unfairly condemned, I’m not angry initially.  The verbal assault continuing, however, and my justifying rebuttals continuously dismissed, I become angry.  I start hurling accusations, yelling, and condemning, too.

At which point my wife says, “See?  You’re angry.  Talk to me when you can be rational and calm.”

“Rational and calm?!” I say fuming.  “You were the one with the problem—not me!  You were the one angry and accusatory and yelling—not me!  I was calm!”

“I can’t talk to you when you’re angry,” she says, with sudden and remarkable composure.  “And you’re always angry,” she adds, walking away and in control.

And this is successful psychological projection:  become angry, project your anger, start the fight, make the other party angry, deny your angry impulses, deny responsibility for the fight, accuse the other party of having the impulses, and make them responsible for the fight.

Projection is an art.  And like I said, women are masters.

And here’s the kicker:  in the end, after this altercation has raged for hours or days, men are not only expected to apologize for being rude and angry—for being made rude and angry, no less.  They are expected to share culpability for the altercation, too.

Men hear, “I think we both should apologize for being rude and angry, and for the awful things we both said.” 

To which men dumbly say:  “Okay dear.  I’m sorry.  Let’s not fight anymore.”

Men say this instead of what they should say, which is, “If you hadn’t been emotional and angry.  If you hadn’t been attacking and accusing me falsely.  Then none of this would have happened in the first place.  This conflict is the result of your actions, which makes it your fault, not mine.  So stick sorry up your projecting ass!”

Of course, most men are wiser than me in this regard.  They hold their tongues so as to get on with a more peaceful life, which is a mistake.

Why is it a mistake?

Because the projecting BS continues.  That’s why.

I operate in emotional reverse.  Trying to solve a problem, I am usually calm, reserved, and emotionless in the initial stages of an altercation.  There’s a problem; it needs to be understood.  I’m calmly weeding the argument, trying to understand the crisis, while attempting to diffuse the immediate anger.

I know my mission in life isn’t to wrong people or to treat them poorly.  So I don’t approach accusations and altercations with a guilty conscious.  I see them as misunderstandings that need to be cleared up, which is what I attempt to do.

If you keep pressing me, however.  If you are irrational and thereby unwilling to acknowledge base inaccuracies in your argument against me.  Then I get pissed-off.  Once pissed off, it doesn’t make a whole lot of difference to me what happens or whose feelings get hurt.

And not only will I rudely get in your ass.  I’m indifferent to charges of verbal and emotional abuse.  And reeling me back in from my pissed-off state is virtually impossible, too.

And as for this 50/50 apology rule?  As for getting me to apologize for a conflict I did not incite?

Why, there’s a phrase for such an attempt:  an effort in futility.

If any apologies are going to be made, they’ll be made to me.  That’s how that deal is going to work, or there won’t be any deal.

Why is it important that appropriate apologies be made?

Because the projecting BS continues.  That’s why.

We hear all of this therapist-speak about managing relational conflict effectively and progressively and curatively.  As couples we are supposed to assume innocence; we’re supposed to calmly make our concerns known; and we’re supposed to approach disputes in in a spirit of gentle inquiry and ready, impending absolution.

Well, when these fundamental ideas were communicated by therapists in session, women must have been in the ladies room:

 Woman, upon her return:  “Okay.  I’m back.  What did I miss?”

Counselor:  “Oh, nothing that will concern you—just some rules specifically for him.  Let’s move on…”

What is really taking place in these altercations is the denial of responsibility.  In fact, relationship conflict is most often one big denial of responsibility, which is nothing new.  Denying responsibility is as old as Adam and Eve.

That’s right—it’s that longstanding.

God told the first couple to enjoy the entire garden, but to leave one tree alone.  Forewarned and thusly aware, Eve was seduced to eat of the one, lone, forbidden tree.  After which, she seduced Adam.  Then, God came-a-calling.

In modern parlance, the conversation went something like this:

God:  “Adam, where are you?”

“I’m hiding, because I’m naked and afraid.”

“Naked?  Who told you that you were naked?”

“Uh, that woman you gave me, she tricked me into eating the apple.”

“Woman, is this true?  Did you trick Adam?”

“Well, um, like—it was the serpent; it seduced me.”

Genesis 3:8-13.  Go ahead, read it.

As I said, denying responsibility is as old as Adam and Eve.

And incidentally, this is the first recorded incident of psychological projection—guilt projection, to be precise.

Women also project their insecurities.  It is to say, while women are themselves fiercely insecure, they attribute their thoughts and feelings of insecurity to their men.

For example, concerning men’s love and their commitment to a relationship, women are insecure.  The problem isn’t women’s own thoughts and feelings enabling those insecurities.  The problem is men causing those thoughts, feelings, and insecurities.

Hence, women accuse men of not loving enough, of not being committed enough, and thus continually demand romance and affection as reassurance of both.

Women having just returned from a passionate two weeks in Cancun?  Having just enjoyed a cozy dinner the previous evening?  Why, that’s yesterday’s proof of love, affection, and securing commitment.

Today is a new day!  Women need fresh assurances!

And women project guilt for their insecurities, too.  They accuse men of noticing attractive women, for example.  Yet, taking notice of attractive men, women do the same thing.

It is to say, women have the natural impulse to notice attractive men—an impulse they indeed follow.  Yet, they deny the existence of that impulse in themselves, while making men feel guilty for not only having the impulse, but following it.

See how it works?

Psychological projection.

It suffices to say that, whatever the accusation from women, men can be sure of, one, a double standard.  And two, that women are making men responsible, when men aren’t responsible.

Again, it’s a pretty reliable assumption and approach.

Psychological projection isn’t a complicated practice by any means.  It’s actually quite fundamental.  It’s essentially accusation and blame by the guilty, and by those responsible for the upcoming mess.

And relationally speaking, who does most of the accusing and blaming and projecting?

Women.

 

Men aren’t nearly as rehearsed as women in the skill of psychological projection.  For being accused, blamed, and projected upon all the time, men don’t get the chance to rehearse.  Thereto, they simply don’t have the inclination.  Unrehearsed and uninclined, men don’t realize they’re being victimized.

So, here’s one last example to illustrate the victimization, one to which men will surely relate.

A particular woman hasn’t had sex with her man for a week, two, or perhaps a month.  In her mind she is fat and hideous—a totally absurd assessment.  Or she’s comfortable and secure, and thus lazy and unmotivated.

Whatever the case, there has been no sex.

She has been the one secretly avoiding sex.  Yet, she knows sex is important to men, that it is particularly important to her man, and that it is also important to the relationship.  Primarily, she knows it’s important to controlling his wandering eye and to keeping him on the porch.  So for avoiding sex she’s feeling parts guilt and obligation.

“Have you been avoiding me,” she asks coquettishly, moving in with that unmistakable grin.  “It’s been too long, and mama needs some, lovinnn’.”

Suddenly engaged and enthusiastic, he man says, “Of course I haven’t been avoiding you.  We can do this deal right now, baby!”

As he moves in, however, she resists.  To soften his impending disappointment, she lewdly caresses his thickening package and says gently, “Not right now, baby.” Then, with significant eye-contact, she purrs, “Laterrr…”

It all sounds great, of course.  Only, “Laterrr” never comes.

Why does “Laterrr” never come?

Because there is no intent for it to come.

Unbeknownst to him, loverboy has been the target of psychological projection.

Subtly, he was the one accused of evading sex—“Have you been avoiding me?”—when it was actually her.  And feeling guilty for her secret neglect, she projected her guilt onto him.  Excited by the unusual attention and initiation, loverboy didn’t realize he’d been made responsible for the absence of sex, or that he’d been the victim of psychological projection, either one.

In other words, the lack of sex is loverboy’s fault!

Women know they are avoiding sex, and that they are denying their men sex.  Women feel guilty ultimately and, at a point, become concerned about their particular men’s interest in them, love for them, and commitment to them.

Guilty and concerned, women then test the sexual waters to make sure they are still warm—and not because they are interested in sex, necessarily, but because rejection and infidelity are a rather painful alternatives.

With an assurance of “Laterrr,” men are hopeful.  As for them, good times are on the agenda, are on the near horizon.  Most importantly, men are pacified for a few more days.  So by merely initiating, women learn the sexual waters are yet warm, while they alleviate their concern and guilt at the same time.  And making men responsible for the dearth of sex, psychological projection is a success.

Data claims that women are the emotional center of relationships.  It claims couples are more attuned to the women’s emotional regulation, and that that agreement feeds both spouses’ perceptions of relational quality.

This being incontrovertibly true, one might ask how women manage to encourage relationship men into such subservience and ease of management.

It’s called psychological projection.  And like I said, women are masters of the art.

Now.  As for women realizing they are projecting, and as for them doing it purposefully—I don’t think that’s the case.  I don’t believe most women want to mistreat their men, or to do them ill or wrong, no more than men want to do those things to their women.  I think women care about their men, and that they’re genuinely concerned for their men’s well-being.  Again, the same as men.

The reason for the phenomenon is simple.  Women are emotional—more to the point, sensitive.  It means they’re worrisome and defensive, and not to exclude envious and jealous and vindictive—parts of the emotional base, too.  Thus, women often think and respond emotionally, which lends itself to irrationality and to reflexive reactions, which lends itself to unfair accusations, criticisms, and to psychological projection.

It’s really no more complicated than that.

And then, having invested themselves in a position, women are stuck for reasons of ego, pride, and for the embarrassment of being emotional and foolish, and for those things, wrong and unfair.

Hence, the unending relational wars, which are nothing more than fight to avoid accepting responsibility.

Psychological projection and the ability to project aren’t exclusive to one gender.  Men and women both can engage in the practice.  For their emotional tendencies, however, projection is natural to women, who then practice it more readily, if unknowingly.

The problems is, projection becomes a habit that takes a toll on relationships.

It’s a subtle practice, certainly, one that occurs naturally and without premeditation.  Yet, knowing what’s happening, and why it’s happening, it’s a practice and habit that seems pretty easy to stop.

©JMW 2018  All Rights Reserved

 

New Rules:  Relationship Logic for the Darkside