A Time For Tears

A while back I talked about the importance of not crying in front of your wife. I still hold this to be very true. But in that post, I also outlined a few exceptions to the rule. Number four on my list of exceptions:

• When your dog dies, but not for any other kind of pet. Sorry cat lovers. Nothing against them, but they’re not manly.

One of our dogs developed a sudden immune system disorder this week. The short version is that her body started attacking its own blood, destroying the red blood cells and platelets. We had a couple of trips to the emergency vet’s office this week, coupled with a day long stay at the regular vet. They gave her a large blood transfusion and then hit her with some powerful meds to inhibit her immune system. The blood transfusion worked – she was doing tremendously better the next day, almost like normal. The meds didn’t. She deteriorated again fairly rapidly. Early this morning she suffered a seizure. I took her in to the emergency vet again while my wife waited at our apartment for her mother to show up to watch our infant son. At the vet’s office, the dog had a second seizure before my wife arrived. When she got there, we agreed with the vet’s assessment that the dog was essentially already gone – and that it was probably already too late after the first seizure. Rather than forcing her to wait out another half hour or an hour in pain, we had her put to sleep. She was only seven years old.

Hermione and the dog shared a very special bond. She got the dog in the early days of our relationship, well before we were married. At that time her parents were going through a truly nasty divorce. The dog was there for her even when I couldn’t be – and was there for her in that special way that only a dog really can be.

But also, this was a truly special dog. I can’t post pictures or tell of her antics because then my wife and I would be instantly identifiable if friends or family stumbled across this blog. She’s that unique. What I can say is that she was, without a doubt, the absolute smartest dog I’ve ever known. She also had a very special temperament. She put up with our young son as he tried to learn to pet her gently, that it wasn’t ok to pull on her ears or tail, or to poke her in the eye. When our other dog wouldn’t put up with him anymore and started to snap, she’d jump in to keep him safe. She was playful and joyous to be around. This was truly a once in a lifetime dog, and the bond she shared with my wife reflected that.

Dogs are pack animals. If you’ve ever owned one (or especially more than one) in a family setting rather than as a single person – or if you’ve ever watched Ol’ Yeller – then you probably already know that a dog will also develop a very special relationship of a different kind with the alpha of the “pack.” In the movie, the dog bonds strongly (although in a different way) with the older brother, despite initially being the younger brother’s dog. Real life often mimics this. My childhood dog bonded with my father in a very special way despite being “my” dog. And in the same way, I bonded with this dog in a very special way even though she was definitely, clearly, and without question Hermione’s dog first and foremost.

So yeah, I’ve shed a few tears today. This dog earned them, which is more than I can say for many humans that I know.

Manly Fathers Day Gifts – Savage Mark IIF .22LR Rifle

 

My Phony Greeting Card Holiday Fathers Day gift this year is a Mark IIF rifle from Savage Arms in .22LR caliber. This weapon is, in fact, the first firearm I’ve ever owned. I’m pretty excited, and it joins a tradition of pretty darn cool Fathers Day gifts from my wife and her mother.

Why this rifle as my first firearm?

• It’s cheap to own. MSRP is $214.00. Purchase price at our local gun store was $195.71. That’s a pretty darn inexpensive rifle.
• It’s cheap to shoot. .22LR ammunition is everywhere and it’s dirt cheap. You can buy a box of 50 rounds for less than $5, and if you buy it in bulk you can get it for less than half that.
• This rifle is one of the most inexpensive bolt action rifles around. Although modern semi-automatics are much more accurate than they used to be, they’re still typically not quite as accurate as an equivalent bolt action.
• The new Savage “Accutrigger” is highly regarded (at least as far a stock triggers go).
• The Mark II family of rifles has a reputation as some of the most accurate “out of the box” cheap rifles you can get.
• A good .22 rifle is an excellent “small game” rifle. Rabbits and squirrel are extremely plentiful in this part of the country, and bag limits are very high during hunting season.
• I’m still somewhere between “novice” and “intermediate” as a shooter, and the .22 rifle is a good platform for inexpensively practicing the fundamentals.
• The lack of recoil and noise makes this a great weapon for my wife to practice on as well. In the future, it will also be a good platform for introducing kids to shooting.

Quite a lot going for it, given the price.

Unfortunately, I don’t have it in my hands just yet. Our local dealer is out of stock (they had a run of folks buying it for Fathers Day), but we should have it soon.

 

 

Small Children and Friends

Our unmarried and childless friends are more relaxed and accepting of our small child than our friends who are married with children. This isn’t universally true, but it is a generalization that holds up pretty well. Not sure what it says about society, but there you have it.

My Poor, Poor Sister

Feminism doesn’t just hurt men. It also hurts women. It hurts top tier women because it creates a culture in which they can no longer hold onto their top catch man. It hurts bottom tier women because they’re sold a bill of goods and convinced that they can have much better men than they actually ever can.

It also hurts the women whom it convinces to forgo family altogether in pursuit of a high paying, high status, or deep and meaningful career. Like my sister.

I was initially going to write this in the comment sections of Vox’s fantastic post but then I realized that I had more to say than that. You could write volumes on my sister and how she demonstrates so much that is broken in society.

Where do I even begin? My sister (whom I have dubbed Hillary) is the archetypal radical feminist and has been her whole life. So radical that she’ll sit there with a straight face and tell you she’s not radical at all. How she can hold this when her views fall so far to the left of even mainstream feminism was completely beyond me, until I learned the hamster metaphor. Oh, there’s a GIANT hamster at work there. In a previous post Vox describes his experience with women and their desires to have children.

Every woman I knew in high school and college swore up and down that she didn’t want to have children. Every single one. All of them that are married, as well as some who are not, have children now. The rest wish they did. Most of the married, but childless, working women I knew said that they wanted to continue working after they had children. Only about half of them returned to their jobs and most of those who still work wish they didn’t need to do so.

This has been pretty much my experience as well. The only real difference in my case is that it was more like 70-80% of the women I knew saying they didn’t want children. I don’t know where Vox is from, but I attribute the difference to growing up in the south where feminism doesn’t have quite as much control over the general consciousness as it does in other places.

More to the point, it perfectly describes Hillary. I can’t tell you how often, loudly, emphatically and consistently throughout my life I’ve heard her say she absolutely, positively was not interested in getting married and having children. Now she’s almost 37 and completely distraught about not having any kids. Watching all three of her brothers have children within a year and a half of each other just ramped up the distress even higher. And it’s just about too late. She’s hit the wall bad over the last two years. She was always kind of pretty, and could’ve been fairly hot (probably a solid 8 or pushing at a 9) if she’d lost about 10-15 pounds and allowed herself to dress like a woman. Don’t get me wrong, she always dressed nicely. In power suits and pants and all that empowered woman crap. Even the skirts and dresses she wears trend to that look.

But damn, I don’t know what happened to her. She went and got an advanced degree at an Ivy League, graduated about two years ago, and bam. She’s gained about 30-40 pounds (maybe more) and aged about 10 years all at once. Add in the attitude she’s always had and marriage is pretty much out the door. Given that she’s a protestant minister, having children out of wedlock is pretty much a career killer, and at 37 her fertility is pretty low anyway. At best she’s got about 8 years of fertility left, all of it with considerably lower odds of success and higher odds of problems than she would’ve had in her younger years. And the weight doesn’t help any either.

Then let’s factor in the attitude. My sister is a 7 who could’ve been an 8 but in her head she’s a 13. The bitch shields are off the chart. Worst of all, she’s totally stuck on only the best of the best alpha males for her, and completely can’t understand that not a one of them would put up with her shit for the 15 minutes that a pump and dump would take.

She actually did almost marry one once. The story shouldn’t be much of a surprise to the Game community, although it took me years to learn some of the important details from my father. Hillary won’t talk about it to this day. She met the guy in college. When I was 14 I flew up to visit her over spring break and spent most of a week there. And I find out from her and her friends that she has a big time crush on this guy. Huge. The kind that turns women into beta males. Of course, he already had a girlfriend at the time, and evidently had had several during their time at school. They were freshmen. So in less than a year, this guy had had more than one semi-serious relationship. Alpha. And Hillary was dying, because he never noticed her.

Fast forward a couple of years and he’s driving down with her to visit the family because they’re engaged. I actually meet the guy for the first time I’m not impressed. He’s not that bright. He doesn’t particularly treat my sister well (which I now know is part of why she liked him). He’s not even that cool (the kind of trait you’d associate with an alpha male). And there was something about him that was just a bit… slimy. But something must’ve been working for him to get all the girls he did. A while later his parents came down to meet my parents. Them I actually liked OK, although they didn’t strike me as a family that had much in common with ours (I believed then and still believe that coming from similar family backgrounds is helpful for long term marriage stability).

About two months before the wedding the whole thing was called off. I had absolutely no idea why. Hillary wouldn’t talk about it. My parents pretended otherwise but they didn’t really seem to know either. The closest thing to an explanation I got at the time was that he was asking for more than my sister was willing to give up. I didn’t have any trouble accepting that explanation. It was always all about her. Over the years I tip toed around the subject and tried to pry more out of her, and about all I could get was that he was an asshole jerk and I should let it drop.

A couple of years ago my dad finally filled me in. I’m not sure he had known until shortly before that, either. Evidently the guy had wanted to set up some kind of open marriage where she’d follow him off to grad school, support him while he finished, and they could keep seeing other people. I admire his balls for trying to arrange such a thing. I admire my sister for telling him to go fuck himself. It’s one of the few smart decisions regarding men she’s ever made.

The pathetic part is how utterly easy my sister would be to Game if anybody put in the effort. She thinks she’s this amazingly strong, super brilliant, educated, modern, feminist, empowered woman who won’t put up with any shit from any man. And she wouldn’t – from any beta man. But a couple of nuclear negs to offset the 13 ego that comes from the ultimate life of gold stars and pats on the head, a healthy dose of “ignore her” game, and just not putting up with any of her shit and she’d be putty. If she read this blog she’d be the first one to leave the feminist rage comments about how I’m putting women down, women aren’t really like that, it’s all society, we’re misogynistic pigs, and none of it really works anyway. But it’d work hard core with her.

She’s also ignored all the beta boys her whole life. Like the nice gentleman down the street who was very bright, hard working, clean cut, and very nice. He took her to senior prom as “friends.” She should’ve married him. He’d have been a good catch. But of course not. Typical LJBF territory. She’d go on and on and on and on and ON (and still will) about how there are no good men out there who meet all the criteria she’d lay out. Always the same laundry list of characteristics that in reality will get you branded an LJBF. Nevermind that there were always dozens of those guys around that I could’ve pointed to.

Moving on… from a comment by The Duece in the first post I linked above:

The funny thing is, when they’re not being offended at a man pointing it out, women will gladly point out that they don’t know what they want themselves, though not in those exact words, and will attempt to spin their fickle nature as a strength. You ever heard Shania Twain’s “Any Man Of Mine?”

Again, absolutely true about my sister. The whole time I was in college she kept telling me how amazed she was that I knew what I wanted to do and didn’t struggle with it. The whole time since then she’s kept telling me how amazing it is that I always knew what I wanted to do. Nevermind that it’s total crap and that the only consistent plan I ever had was, “I don’t want to spend my whole life working for the man like my father did.” She herself was happy to talk about how she didn’t know what she wanted to do (neither did most of her friends). But if anybody had dared to mention it being a general female problem, she’d have gone apeshit.

Part of me is still angry at her for “teaching” me so much about what women want that turned out to be so horribly wrong. Angry that I can, justifiably, lay 80% of the blame for my youthful frustration with women squarely at her feet. But mostly I’m just sad for her. Sure, she’s got her fancy pants Ivy League graduate degree. She’s not rich, and never going to be. She’s not famous, and never going to be. She’s not going to leave a massive mark on society the way she’s always wanted to. She will have people who remember her when she’s gone… but only for a while. And then there will be no children to give her the only true immortality we only have. No grandchildren to keep her company in her old age. No husband to grow old with. Just a lot of tears and bitterness to enjoy alone with her dog (at least she won’t be the cat lady) while she grows old on government retirement subsidies (if she’s lucky enough for it to still be there).

This is the liberation and empowerment that feminism has brought. And odds are that she’ll swear until her last miserable breath that it was all worth it.

My Sister In Law is a Bitch

And I’m not just saying that because it showed up in my search refers. It’s true.

OK, I talk about my family enough on here and it’s probably starting to get confusing. So to help everybody keep score, it’s time to make up some names. I’m the second of four children. I have an older sister and two younger brothers. For the sake of argument, let’s call them, in order, Hillary, Leonidas (me), Chewbacca (how the hell is that not in the spell checker?) and Wilson. Chewie’s got his own issues, but his marriage isn’t [Editor: This was a typo.] a lot better off than Wilson’s, so we’ll leave him alone for the moment. And Hillary… good lord, where would we even start. So today it’s Wilson.

For those who have seen it, Wilson gets his pseudonym from the movie Sky High, in particular the character of “Ron Wilson: Bus Driver” played by Kevin Heffernan. My brother looks and acts just like him, only he’s a teacher instead of a bus driver because in the real world we have teachers unions.

OK, I’m picking on my brother a bit. I actually feel kind of bad for it. Let’s set the tone for the whole discussion right here. My wife, some of our old friends and I were sitting around one night two or three years ago discussing some of the douchetastic things Wilson and his wife had done when one of my friends just said, “The sad part is that we’re all sitting around here talking about Wilson as if he’d died.”

See, Wilson used to be kind of cool in his own weird and twisted little way. He was always a little dork who tried way too hard, but he really did have his own unique sense of style. Unique enough that if I described it here it would be a dead giveaway to anybody who knows me, so I can’t really give too much detail. It was weird, but it was silly. The important people thought it unique and interesting, the losers thought it contemptible and those people you have to just get along with because they run everything found it tolerable because, well, it was just too silly to really come down on him for.

His whole life he’s had a problem knowing when to shut his damn mouth, and it’s gotten him into a lot of trouble. But for most of those years he was a really good natured kid, just energetic and mischievous. Then he met Emo Bear, his future wife (the name is a riff on the Care Bears, and it fits).

First of all, Emo Bear was a rebound relationship. A high school rebound relationship. We’re already off to a bad start. Worse, I later found out from a mutual friend who went to school with him that she basically was laying in wait to ensnare him when the other chick dumped him – probably for the crime of being way too beta, which is what killed all of my high school relationships, too. On the other hand, she’s probably spent a good bit of time on the cock carousel since then, so it’s not a total loss (although she was much cuter than Emo Bear).

Emo Bear is the living definition of a Spoiled American Princess. First of all, her mother rules the home she grew up in. Her father is an extremely beta engineer who lets himself get walked all over. And Emo is their first child and only daughter. On her best days when she was still in her prime years (the late teens), she was a solid 6. Her ego thinks she’s a 15.

She didn’t really bother me at first because she puts on a decent outward appearance of just being shy rather than aloof. I’m shy, so I got that – or thought I did. The first thing that bothered me was that Hermione and I would try to set up double dates from time to time and they’d always flake on us. Then the one time they did show up, instead of seeing a slightly edgy comedy that we had originally discussed, we ended up going to see a kids movie. For her. OK, slightly annoying, but not too bad yet.

Then came the first family Thanksgiving she showed up for. For reasons that are too complicated to go into here, Hermione couldn’t make it and instead ended up stuck with her parents right smack in the middle of their excruciating divorce. Their Thanksgiving consisted of ham sandwiches. Our Thanksgiving consisted of watch Wilson and Emo Bear ignore the family all day because they were too busy making out in another room. Oh, and this was the first family event she’d bothered showing to as well. Despite being significantly younger and scared to death of meeting my family, Hermione had driven across four states with me to go to Chewie’s wedding. Emo was a no show, and without very good reason (a trend that has since grown).

She continued to ignore family events, but every event with her family was super amazingly special and they just had to go. This struck me as a bad sign. So not too long later, I pulled Wilson aside and basically said, “Hey dude. She’s totally not making any effort to involve herself with your family, but dragging you to everything for hers… I just don’t think this is a good sign. Just be really sure you know what you’re doing.”

Oh, she didn’t like that when word got back to her. I was trying to break them up, oh I’m so awful blah blah. Which isn’t really true. At the time, all I really meant was what I said: just be really sure.

But a lot more unfolded after that. I met with some people from their church to go see a movie at one point, and quickly vowed, “Never again.” Can we say C-U-L-T? There’s some behavior there straight out of the brainwashing handbooks. Separate the subject from any family and friends who aren’t a part of the church? Check. Denigrate any other source of information they might get? Check. Make sure that all of his new friends are from the church and properly indoctrinating him? Check. Ensure that all members know that they and only they are the truly saved and everyone else is damned? Check. Emo Bear and her family unconsciously (it had to be unconscious because none of them is bright enough to do it consciously) picked up on the same techniques and used them to isolate Wilson even more.

And they’re really not that bright. This is the girl who, after spending more than two years working toward an education degree (she later dropped it down to something else because that was too hard) of all things had to have Wilson quietly explain what a labor union was one afternoon while we had a political discussion at my parents’ house. And she probably really is the smart one out of her family. It’s pathetic.

The drama escalated over the years. They still barely showed up at family events, using the flimsiest of excuses to get out of them. But then my brother lost his job (before he was a teacher) because he took off of work to go to her great-grandmother’s (whom he had never met) funeral in another state despite being out of sick days. Um… no shit they fired your ass, bro. And damn my luck for just happening to be there the day you told Dad about it.

When Hermione and I got married, Emo Bear through a shit fit at our rehearsal dinner and stormed off. It wasn’t a very good storm off, though, because hardly anybody even noticed. I’m pretty sure she was pissed off that we were getting married before her. They’d had to postpone their wedding three times because Wilson couldn’t get a job. The two of them tried to leave our reception early to go to a “going away” party for their minister. A man who was being forced out of the church because his wife committed suicide after she found out he was having an affair. Oh, and then he showed up at the church within weeks with his mistress.

She set her own final wedding date on Wilson’s birthday. He just went along with it with that dopey grin he’s always had, not realizing (or just tolerating, I’ve never really been sure) that she’d taken away the only day he had that was really his and made it all about her. She was a total bridezilla at her wedding. Most of my extended family didn’t show, mostly because the two of them had made so little effort for family events. Oh, and because none of them like her, either. But it’s better that they weren’t there. She and her family were jaw droppingly rude to my own family the whole weekend.

My parents have noticed all of this as well. They have the admirable habit of going to ridiculous lengths not to say anything negative about anybody (and I mean ridiculous; they take it too far). Even so, it slips out with her on occasion. But they never had the balls to tell either Wilson or Emo to their faces that their behavior is unacceptable. Instead, they just get pissy and take it all out on their other children. As far as I know, I’m the only family member who’s ever had the balls to say anything directly.

Which has led to the other problem. In her eyes, I’m the alpha. There’s never been anything direct, but I’m damned sure that it’s causing issues. My brother’s got his head so far up her ass that he won’t listen to or think anything she doesn’t approve of. He caves on everything. Beta to the core. So beta that I’d call him an Omega if he hadn’t somehow managed to father a child by her. And here I come, the only one in the family who won’t put up with her shit. You can guess the effect that has.

But dammit, I don’t want it. For one, it’s my brother. I would never go there. For another… ew, just ew. Remember when I said that at her best she was a solid 6? That was a few years ago. Now she’s a little rolly polly with a body that looks like a Chinese dumpling. I wouldn’t fuck her with your dick, even with 10 condoms on. But it’s launched some sort of female competitive instinct that’s caused her to be all kinds of annoying to my wife. Great, just great. But I’m still sure as hell not going to back down and start acting like a chump.

You might think that because she’s so fundamentalist in her religion that their marriage would still have a decent chance of working out. I doubt it, though. Her family doesn’t like him and never has. She has no respect for him. And why should she? He caves to everything that she wants. He’s a school teacher in a time when schools are laying off teachers. We know that the school district he works for is about to announce layoffs. It’s been in all the papers. Yet rather than waiting until the announcements, they’re about to buy a house. Rather, I should say that he’s about to buy her a house, because I’ve got money that their marriage doesn’t last a decade. If he does get the pink slip there’s a decent chance it won’t last the summer. Sure, she’d have a pretty hard time trading up. But her family’s there ready to step in and convince her that just about anything would be a step up.

The worst part of all is the way they talk baby talk to each other even when other people are around. I heard it for the first time a few years ago when he was talking to her on the phone. Among my friends it has now been dubbed as his “gay man voice” because that’s exactly what it sounds like. Which is one reason why I roared with laughter when I read the following on the Château this morning:

Any man using baby talk with his woman should lop — or rather, daintily snip — his balls off and mail them to a scientific lab to be studied under an electron microscope for possible application in nanotechnology.

Amusingly and sadly all at once, that is my brother.

I want to help my little brother, but he won’t listen to anything I say on this topic. Indeed, he ignores almost any direct advice I give him now. I’m certain it’s because he wants to spare himself the fight with his wife over it. But it’s a little sad, because he still kind of hero worships me (his big brother) and picks up indirectly on the things I say and do. So for now I just wait on the sidelines, ready to hand him a copy of Athol’s new book when it comes out and point him over to Roissy.

I’m waiting for the explosion to come now that I’ve stopped putting up with her shit. I’m waiting for my father to tell me that it’s not my place to be treating them that way. I’m not looking forward to explaining that no, it’s his place to do it and he’s falling down on the job. But it needs to be done. What I’ve listed here is only a brief summary of the major items that I remember. She’s been at this for years now, and the tally is huge.

The really sad part is that after learning about Game it’s become so obvious that she’s desperate for a little bit of alpha treatment. She wants to be put in her place really, really badly. If my brother would just grow a pair, she wouldn’t be anywhere near as intolerable (she still wouldn’t have been worth marrying). But I just don’t see it happening until the cold hard reality of divorce court bites him on the ass. You can’t save everybody.

Don’t Bawl Like A Little Bitch

I recently saw my youngest brother. After the recent move we now live in the same town again, but we don’t see him very much. Intentionally.

I feel bad for my brother. He’s going to get royally screwed, and not in the good way. His wife is a quintessential Spoiled American Princess and he’s one of the most completely beta boys I know. I’d call him an Omega except he somehow managed to get married and knock her up. I’m pretty sure that the kid is his because if you take a picture of this baby and put it next to baby pictures of my grandfather, my father, myself, my two brothers and my son you’d swear up and down that we’re all siblings. My father’s family has strong genes. So, not Omega… but boy is his relationship headed for trouble.

I could write a whole blog about my brother, but today we’re going to focus on one small event. I saw him this time without the wife (whom I despise) or the kid (whom I feel bad for and kinda like) at a fairly sizable gathering and my wife and I overheard this snippet of conversation (paraphrased):

Brother: Yeah, ever since the baby was born I find myself a lot more sensitive to tear jerkers.
Friend: What now?
Brother: You know, tear jerkers. I bawl like a little baby at sad movies now.

On the way home, my wife brought it up again. My wife’s comment?

At least I’ve got a vagina. What’s his excuse?

This is but one of the many, many reasons his wife (and her entire family) don’t have any respect for him. I’ve said it before: don’t cry in front of her. It’s a bad idea.

Her other memorable comment of the night?

Now that I know about game, it’s even more annoying when guys act like that.

Game in Social Situations: The Mental Reframe

If you’re reading this blog at all, you’re probably aware of my feelings that feminism has caused major problems for American families, most especially when it comes to broken homes. You’re probably aware that women initiate about two thirds of all divorces (perhaps more if you count men who file because they believe their marriage is already dead). You’re probably aware of how modern divorce laws drastically favor women and penalize men, that “deadbeat dads” who can’t pay their child support now spend time in, essentially, the only form of debtors prisons still left in the western world, and that all of the “domestic” violence laws are in fact stacking the deck further against men.

On occasion, though, the man is completely and totally to blame.

The story of my wife’s parents’ divorce is a long and dramatic one, so for today I’m only going to tell the short version. Essentially, my father in law went batshit insane, became convinced that my mother in law was an alcoholic (she’s got issues, no doubt, but she’s not an alcoholic), dragged the family through nearly three years of divorce court hell, specifically and intentionally attempted to sabotage the lives of his two daughters just to score points in the divorce proceedings, went crazy paranoid (including making use of hidden cameras, hidden microphones, computer monitoring devices, and more – on his own family), and basically did everything he could to destroy the family. On top of all that, he is generally just a giant douchebag. He cleans up well and puts on a good appearance in public, but underneath it he is one of the weakest, most cowardly, most petty, most selfish, and most mean-spirited men I’ve ever known.

Let’s put it this way: my wife’s councilor, a 20 year veteran of the field, called it one of the worst divorces she’d ever seen – specifically, she told me that only two other cases she’d ever dealt with really were in the same league.

The truly pathetic part is how little he gained out of all of it. In our state, divorces are generally pretty simple, all things considered. No matter how much time or money you spend in court, about 95% of cases end up with a 50/50 split of the property, the mother gets the children and the father gets visitation rights (usually two nights a week plus every other weekend).

After nearly three years of hell, my in-laws’ divorce ended up with – wait for it – a 50/50 split of the assets, the mother got the one still-minor child (my sister-in-law), the father got visitation rights. So essentially nothing was accomplished except that this guy (I hesitate to use the word man) put his daughters through a few years of sheer hell for nothing. Despite the fact that all of his friends (except one, but that’s a story of its own) kept telling him over and over again that, you guessed it, he’d end up with a 50/50 split, mom gets the kids, he gets visitation rights.

The story of just how crazy this guy got is so messed up that if I tried publishing it as fiction, I don’t think most people would buy it. They wouldn’t be able to suspend their disbelief that anybody would actually do that. I have trouble believing it, and I was there. As a side note, in this case he also was the one who filed, and my mother in law would’ve been happy to call the whole divorce off up until about the end of the second year.

So… there are at least some cases where fathers are the ones destroying families, and that deserves to be pointed out. Even so, this story doesn’t let feminism off the hook. Indeed, there are many lessons of this story that still feed directly into some of the arguments of the MRA community.

1. Our culture of easy divorce, made possible by feminists, is what allowed this story to happen. In a culture where divorce was actually hard (ie, required proof of infidelity or the like), he’d never have been able to leave her as there was never even any hint of infidelity on her side (I’m unsure on his side; we have suspicions but no direct evidence). Indeed, his asshole behavior during the entire event had an observable Game effect on my mother-in-law – she never would’ve even dreamed of cheating on him.
2. As many in the MRA community point out, in many ways he’s adjusted to the divorced life far better than she has. Our state requires a 90 day waiting period after a divorce before you can get remarried. He married his new wife almost to the day on the 90 day mark after the divorce was finalized. He was engaged to this new, 10 year younger woman before the divorce was even finalized. This shows a good example of both the preselection effect and the fact that men, on average, have a much easier time in the dating market after a divorce.

Unsurprisingly given the attempts he made to essentially destroy her life, my wife and I have very little to do with the man anymore. He walked my wife down the aisle on our wedding day and then we didn’t see him again until my wife was pregnant with our son nearly 2 years later. Since our son was born, we’ve seen him a bit more often – about 3 times a year or so on average so far. We are very careful to be sure he doesn’t totally fuck up our son… but we don’t want to keep him away from his grandfather. At least, not until he’s old enough to see how messed up grandpa is and decide on his own that he doesn’t want to spend time around him, either.

As I mentioned in a previous post, my wife’s birthday was recently. Her father e-mailed her asking to take us out to dinner around then so that he could see. We put on the mental armor and went out to eat with him and his new family. He was on good behavior (he generally is in public, which is why we make anything we do with him as public as we can) and we got a free meal out of him (he owes us a lot more if you ask me, but at least we got that).

And I had one major advantage in dealing with him that my wife, unfortunately, doesn’t have. Those who know me know that this is not exactly the kind of thing I would generally think or even condone thinking about most people. But really, he deserved it and you really do have to be in the proper mental frame to deal with him. Anyway, I had a major boost just because I was able to honestly look him in the eye, smile, and think to myself, “You may be a douche, and you’ve caused us a lot of trouble… but I fucked your daughter this morning.”

It’s all in the reframe, even if it’s only mental.

Learning Game From Small Children

We recently had a party for my son’s first birthday. Let me tell you, the kid has some tight Game. Amazing. I learn stuff from him all the time.

He spent the evening ignoring his two year old cousin. By the end of it, she was following him around like a puppy and giving him raspberries (the food, not the stuck out tongue).

My sister-in-law has been (over the phone) jealous and annoyed because our son is significantly more advanced than her daughter was at that age (he’s walking several months before she was). At the party, she was wrapped around his finger.

My other sister-in-law (the twat waffle) spent the whole evening trying to make her son the center of attention. Our boy ignored her, the entire time. By the end of the evening she was drooling over him and gushing about how cute and adorable he is (despite still refusing to truly join the party).

Raised By Women

My wife just linked me over this comment from the Spearhead by CorkyAgain, along with her own comment: “Sounds like your extended family.” It does, in a lot of ways, and that’s relevant because it played a big role in how things got to where they did. I’ll shade over some of the details (mostly to remove identifying information), but the gist of the story is this:

My mother’s family is one of the most… non-radically? feminist groups you could possibly find. I say “non-radically” because mostly they aren’t man-hating lesbians or anything, and they’re pretty reasonable people. But I think this tale is also one of how less radicalized feminism can have detrimental effects.

The family is, for want of a better term, “academic aristocracy.” My maternal great-grandfather (mother’s mother’s father) got his PhD from Harvard and was the dean of a university science department. My maternal grandmother, his daughter, got a bachelor’s degree in the 1940s, back when it was still pretty uncommon for women to do that. She met my grandfather while pursuing it, and he went on to make some major discoveries in the same field and later to head a government research laboratory. His grandfather (I believe; I’m a little fuzzy) was also a professor. The two of them had four daughters.

The four daughters were, of course, baby boomers, raised in the era of feminism. Given that their mother had earned a degree at a time when it wasn’t common, it shouldn’t be any surprise at all that three out of the four sisters have college degrees. I’m actually not sure about the 4th; I think she never got one, but she easily could have. Instead she married a man who got accepted to med school without an undergraduate degree (but decided not to go) and they lived a happy hippie life together. Out of the 4, I think she’s the only one who’s achieved any measure of true happiness. One of my aunt’s has a PhD now (and is married to a professor), another is a teacher with a master’s degree. My mother also has an undergraduate degree that has never once been used in relation to the job market.

My grandfather, of course, doted on his four little girls. The family wasn’t super rich, but they were fairly well to do (and he did well enough that he left my grandmother pretty well off when he passed away). And, of course, he was a relatively liberal guy raising four daughters in the era of feminism – four women who now think they’re the hottest things out there.

As for my father, he was always around as I was growing up, and he and my mother are still married (practically unheard of for boomers, I know). Unfortunately, however, his father died when my father was a small boy. He was essentially raised by a single mother. My father’s a good guy in his own way and taught me some great life lessons, as a father should. But being raised without a father impacted him greatly, and later impacted myself and my brothers (and yes, my sister, too).

The point of all of this is that I grew up in a very feminized family. My maternal grandfather kept that side of the family mostly in check while he was alive (he was definitely the patriarch of the family, and a pretty alpha guy). But after he passed things started slipping. My grandmother, god bless her, is a wonderfully nice and proper woman. But she doesn’t have what it takes to rein in four women with super-inflated modern American egos.

Don’t get me wrong. They’re all smart women with decent life histories and they’re not bad people. They’re also nowhere near as awesome as they think they are. Family gatherings have degenerated over the years from true, solid family gatherings to group wank-fests about how awesome the four sisters are. Of course, it’s four women involved, not four men, so it can’t even stay that. In the background there’s always the catty infighting over who’s the best. My kids did such and such. Did you see how her kid was dressed?

Don’t bother trying to call them on any of it, though. Didn’t you know? Our family is far too enlightened for that. We look past all the external appearances and judge people for who they really are on the inside, of course. Except not really.

I’ve noticed that, in general, the women who proclaim the loudest that they don’t play the female status games are the ones who are most ruled by it. Normal women who accept it are at least honest about it, and can sometimes even overrule it. The women who refuse to acknowledge it can’t even try to fight it.

As a result of all of this, my siblings and I were all raised in a detrimentally feminized way. My sister really is a radical man-hating lesbian (perhaps without the lesbian part, but I’m honestly not sure). She’s 36, childless, and miserable. My brothers are ridiculously beta and well into their careers as Average Married Chumps. I was well on my way to that fate until my wife helped me understand that it wasn’t what she wanted.

I spent too much of my life listening to all of these women list exactly what they wanted out of men and life, and then tried to give it all to my wife. The thing is, none of them really want any of it. Two of my aunts are definitely the pants-wearers in their relationships, and they’re miserable (even though their husbands are FANTASTIC catches on paper). My father is reasonably alpha in comparison to my mother, but only by the accident of having Asperger’s Syndrome. My final uncle is definitely the alpha in the relationship (even if he is a dirty hippie), and my aunt who married him is by far the happiest of the lot.

My cousin’s aren’t immune from the carnage. One cousin has chosen to live her life almost exactly as they told her she should. She has a useless degree and lives her life following an environmental cause. I think the cause itself is ludicrous – but unlike most in that camp, she’s actually living the life she preaches, and I respect her for that. Nobody else in the family does. They smile and grin over it, because she’s doing exactly what they’ve said she should, but they all think she’s dirty and beneath them. Another cousin lives his life under a domineering woman who desperately wants him to just turn her over his knee, spank her, and set her straight. If he did it, I think they’d have a pretty happy marriage despite some real difficulties. I think he manages about 30-40% of the time, or they’d probably have divorced already. He’s doing better at it than my brothers, at least.

Nobody really enjoys the family gatherings much anymore except for my grandmother, and she’s the only reason I still even go to any of them. At her age, it’s about all she’s really got. Oh, they go on and on about how great and wonderful our family is, and how family is the most important thing. But when family’s around, they mostly just act annoyed. When family actually needs help, they mostly just ignore it, act irritated, or very grudgingly help out.

This, my friends, is a portrait of your “educated elite.” My son is not yet a year old, but I agree with CorkyAgain – when he’s old enough, I hope he spends his time with family he enjoys, but most of all I hope he doesn’t spend it with family he feels forced to see. I hope his family is there to help him when he needs it, to point him in the direction of a truly happy and healthy life, and to enjoy his successes with him – not to tear him down behind his back and play silly status games.

Still, I can’t complain too badly. Unlike many of my generation, I grew up in an intact family and reaped a lot of the benefits thereof. And I had the good luck (or good sense) to marry a girl who could show me a better way when the right time came.