Sandi talks a lot about how women 'test' men in relationships, and how men have to pass those tests and not let women control them or manipulate them, because if they do the women will lose respect for the man and eventually it leads to resentment, dissatisfaction, disinterest, and potentially betrayal. During the dreaded 'man cave' thread many guys talked about how expressing disinterest and being a 'bad boy' in the sense of not caring about what the woman thought or wanted was a good way to get lots of women and stay in the drivers seat of a relationship.
If that's how relationships work then I'm not interested.
I get that it's not healthy to be co-dependent, to get so caught up in someone else's feelings that you put them above everything, that you feel your only sense of worth comes from how they value you. That's not necessarily good either. And I get that if you enable someone it can bring out entitlement and other negative feelings.
But to me if I have to act a certain way, or be emotionally unavailable, or swagger around, or keep my woman in 'her place', well, it's not worth it.
I am not a social butterfly. I am not confident with women in the sense that I can't project this belief that I believe every woman wants me and should fight for me. I am not 6'2". But by god, I have confidence in myself. I know that I am a deeply passionate, sensitive, intelligent, loyal, brilliant, loving person, doing amazing things with my life, and that has the determination and commitment to bring a lot to any relationship I am in...which life-to-date has been two because I am a one woman man and don't feel entitled to play the field and find a perfect match, but rather to build a perfect near match with the one special someone that shares my character. That is me. And if that doesn't work for women and they'd rather fight over the alcoholic that gets her excited and keeps her challenged, hey, I can respect their rights to choose, but I am not interested in competing for someone that's not interested in who I am and what I do bring.
That all said, I understand being a spouse is a job to a degree. I mean, if a man desires his wife to dress nicely, it would be nice for her to choose to do that for him, because she knows it matters to him, and she loves him enough to do it even if she wouldn't normally dress sexy or girly. Likewise I may at times have to do things, act in ways, prioritize things, etc, that my spouse would want from me. If I learn that it makes her feel safe for me to act tough and macho when she's feeling vulnerable or if she struggles with entitlement and I learn that she needs me to call her out when she's acting like a brat, I will do that. But it will be out of understanding, love, and the mutual needs of our team. Not because I am selfishly trying to manipulate and control the dynamics.
Maybe I'm not articulating myself well, but yeah, this just goes with my theme of why I'm put off of relationships. And the idea that if we don't somehow do all of these things right betrayal and divorce is the natural outcome doesn't tell me I need to play the game better, it tells me I don't need to play the game at all.
Me:38 XW:38 T:11 years M:8 years Kids: S14, D11, D7 BD/Move out day: 6/17/14, D final Dec 15
