In part one of this series, I talked about women and emotionalism. Part of the focus of that piece was the minority of women who thankfully process emotions in a more masculine way. But what of the majority of women, the ones whose lack of emotional acumen can have you stepping on a mine before you even know you are in a minefield? What do you do if you are already involved with this kind of woman?
The answers to that are fairly simple, but we need to get something straight from the outset. Previously, I used some quick examples from YouTube of what passes for advice on relationships. I also pointed out that it was all bullshit. I didn’t just do that to have some fun at the expense of others.
The fact is, and by fact I mean my opinion, the entire relationship coaching and advice culture is one big, gynocentric load of crap. Pick any popular book or video series on salvaging relationships and what you will find under the misleading cover is advice on how men can keep women happy. That is it.
From start to finish, those books are written to profit from the message of pleasing women. That is why almost only women buy them. Their advice has nothing to do with healthy relationships and everything to do with assuring women that men are supposed to be comfortable in a role as a chivalric vassal.
The biggest problem with that, aside from the lopsided agenda to infantilize women and make servants of men, is that it is a woman’s job to attend to her happiness. Most relationship advice undermines her ability to do that; a fact conveniently ignored because personal accountability makes the average woman close her purse faster than a man without a job.
So we are left with a glut of advice on how to give women what they want, the subtext being how to make sure they keep an interest in you; how to make sure they will still have you.
The fact that I am going to be a lot more honest than that means two things. One, a much smaller audience for me, and two, you get to hear something other than a string of lies.
The first bit of truth is probably the most brutal. There is no how-to formula for any of this. There is no set of behaviors, no Game, no techniques that will make an emotional reasoner somehow find rationality and maturity.
When dealing with a destructive, emotional reasoner, there is no chance at all of improving things that do not come with a significant chance of ending the relationship. If you can’t handle that, you might as well stop reading now.
In fact, if your goal is to fix her and in fixing her, keep her, then you are definitely on the wrong path.
The only objective I can recommend is to learn how to build a psychological and emotional wall between yourself and her craziness. And you do that through two key absolutes. The first is your willingness to detach and immediately invest in something other than her when she refuses to reason. The second is your uncompromising willingness to let her go if she can’t handle that. And yes, for those of you who brought it up, this can be any female family member, not just your wife or girlfriend.
For a refresher on that, please review my video “What Men Fear the Most.”
If you are like most men, you are ultimately looking for little more than a relationship that does not destroy your peace of mind. You are not looking for a happily ever after fairytale, or life in La La Land with your princess. You’d simply like to have a decent, peaceful and God forbid harmonious coexistence with your wife or girlfriend.
You don’t want drama over infantile bullshit, and you don’t want to spend time on the perpetual hamster wheel of seeking her approval.
If she happens to be an emotional reasoner, a destroyer of the peace, then your only viable recourse is to deliberately face your fear of loss, then quietly and resolutely draw a line in the sand.
If you balk when she threatens to leave, all you have done is increase her sense of power over you.
Make no mistake about it. Even though you are not saying the words directly, you are issuing an ultimatum. If she wants any kind of relationship, communication or support from you, the crazy shit has to pack its bags and head for the airport.
Not to belabor the point, because this is a point you can’t belabor, you cannot motivate change in a woman’s behavior unless you are willing to kick her to the curb. If you want to hear something more comfortable than that, then Dr. Phil, John Gray, and a thousand other gynocentric clones will be happy to have you buy their books.
I know this is pretty rough stuff, but pretty rough stuff is the only thing I know that will have the slightest possibility of helping you find peace with or without a woman. So, if you need sugar coated, get a donut.
I promised a commenter who queried me in Part 1 that I would get into specifics on what you should do when dealing with this type of woman, and I am going to follow through with that for the remainder of this article.
I just want to start with a reminder that this is not about changing her. The point is to change you, which is the only thing you can change.
She may well change if you follow these suggestions, or she may hit the highway. In fact, I am betting if you follow my suggestions closely, one of those two things will happen. But the fact is that it takes two to salvage a relationship. The only thing you can salvage on your own is you. Remembering that every day will make this a lot easier.
You can start this, and by starting I mean starting to change you, with what I call the Terminator Move. When there is conflict, the moment you realize you are not dealing with a person who is willing to reason, quietly inform her you will be ready to listen when she can be reasonable and mature, then go put Arnold in the DVD player and watch it.
If you had any plans with her, cancel them, unless it is something you have to do, like a medical appointment or a funeral. Whatever you do, whatever she says or does, you must ignore her and find something else to do.
If you are like many men, this is easier said than done. Some men will be angry and find it difficult to resist the fight. Others will be yearning for a sense of balance that can only come from resolving the conflict. For most, concentrating on the movie will be difficult.
Of course, the movie is just a metaphor. The point is that you must withdraw from the conflict with the clear message that you don’t do irrational bickering. Spend some time invested in anything but her.
That time is best spent examining and questioning your state of mind and your feelings. Challenge yourself on your desire to fix things with the very person who is making that impossible. Ask yourself why you continue to seek solutions with someone who shoots down every rational option you offer.
Allow yourself time for your intellect to override your emotions, which prevents you from trying to make her see reason. She won’t. And time for you to quit obsessing on the possibility that she may leave, which might actually happen.
Remain detached until and only until she demonstrates the willingness to be reasonable.
By reasonable, I don’t mean until she agrees with you. All of these suggestions presuppose that you are rational and fair with her. If you are not, you have a whole other set of problems that I cannot address in the scope of this article.
Now, some men will say that they can’t get away from her. They don’t have a man cave or a place in the home where she won’t follow them, continuing the conflict. If that is the case, get out of the house for a while. Go to a movie. Go to dinner. Visit a friend if she hasn’t run all of them off. Take a long walk.
Freaking FIND a way to escape. Don’t make excuses. Take the responsibility to make a pathway to get her out of your hair, and to send yourself the message that you don’t do crazy so many times that it starts to sink in that you don’t do crazy.
Once again, that is the point. The repeated, proven message that you won’t participate in irrational, stupid, emotionalized arguments with a child posing as an adult will certainly put her at a crossroads, but the onus to learn is still on you. If she is smart enough, she will begin to realize that the only path to possible satisfaction about her complaints is through acting like an adult about them.
You get what you tolerate is not just some catchy cliché that looks good on an internet meme. It’s a fact of life you are much better off facing.
The Terminator Move is not for her benefit, but for yours. The ability to detach and take care of yourself, and to practice the good value of not arguing with a capricious child can save your sanity. It is your willingness to be alone, and to pay whatever price you need to pay for hanging on to your values that allow you to set limits and maintain your dignity for the rest of your life.
And that is it on this front, amigos. There is nothing else to it. The tough part for most men is that they are so conditioned to ultimately yield to a woman’s desires, no matter how capricious or childish, that they end up miserable. Sometimes, all too often actually, they end up suicidal.
It also contributes to problems with drinking, drug abuse, affairs and even violence out of the frustration. All of that can be eased, even cured, once you expect nothing more of yourself that to be a fair and willing partner, vs. being tethered to her whims like an unpaid butler.
To beat the dead horse one last time, all of this is up to you. The responsibility for all of it is yours. You can make her change her own emotional diapers or find someone else who will if you are not the one standing there with a handful of baby wipes every time she makes a mess.
