So i had a hard time with my first coach.
He gave me explicit exercises, reps, training days, etc.
“You have to do this like that on this day.
You didn’t do it exactly right.
You’re not following the plan.”
No shit, because i don’t like the way we’re training and i don’t like the lack of freedom I’m being restricted to. I was rejecting it and viewing my coach as my enemy. I ghosted him on 11 of 12 weeks of paid coaching.
But my last coach, and my next one, i made sure i could do my training MY way, and they could advise more volume/intensity/frequency, but the rest was up to me.
I enjoyed training like this.
Where this overlaps is that you’re not telling your kids “you have to do this sport”, you’re telling them “you have to do a sport”.
Just like my coaches, where i have to train, but i have the freedom to train my way.
My compliance was much better because while i had to train, i could do it in a way i enjoyed.
Just like your kids. They have to exercise, but they can do it in a way they enjoy.
I’m going to jump shark from the OP a little, it feels a bit reactive and guarded with a focus on problems.
I’m in a happy marriage following a long term, happy dating relationship. We have a 6.5 year old who is happy, acing early academic assessments, displays empathy while guarding herself and is more introspective than many adults I know, she’s just learning how to connect dots as she goes.
We collectively have arguments and misses but nothing that makes me worry I’m going to need court protections to hold myself together down the road.
We get teacher notes home that not only is our daughter a great student, she volunteers herself unsolicited to help her friends when they’re having a hard time with a topic and apparently does a great job.
By 5 she had a very rudimentary level taekwondo black belt achievement. She obviously wasn’t doing spinning back kicks but importantly learned some very strong life lessons about persevering, goal setting, mental fortitude etc cetera and has notably internalized them.
she can play guitar at a 3rd to 4th grade level according to her instructor, had a piece of art go to a state level competition (and lost, but won local and regionals on the way) and does both tap and ballet, Id say well.
She was born a smarty no doubt but what has been working for us is keeping it simple and practicing/demonstrating discernment. Deciphering what we want, deciding what matters and doesn’t matter along the way of achieving it. And discarding things that don’t matter, especially others’ noise however manifested. Minding our own business while building our own business. Leading by example (and she is becoming a leader given classroom qualities shown).
All the woo woo stuff.
Drop out and do you. And if you can’t define you without looking to another’s noise figure that out first. The rest is automatic.
Oh, she can deadlift with excellent form and loves farmers walks with pink dumbbells.
How common prenuptial agreements are in US? That’s something people do often here if other side has more money or some assets she/he wants to protect (family farm etc.).
@BrickHead no problem. I see value in hearing from others, but to then look within and form opinion.
Too often imo people buy in to a scene and it becomes their identity whether they realize it or not. And they stay unhappy, if not grow even unhappier, but this is the hook to keep coming back for validation.
I’m not big on meditation but I do a lot of fishing and deer hunting. Hours of quiet, in nature. It’s amazing how much clarity you can find when you unplug and it’s just you, wind through leaves, some sun and trying to decipher clumsy squirrels from deer. Surprisingly similar sounding considering size.
You’re very focused on divorce and I hope everything is ok.
Something I often see as a tangent to this line of thinking is being Even Steven in general.
While I can appreciate concern for manipulation, I’m well aware there are fundamental differences between men and women, and if I expected my wife’s thought and behavior patterns to be in line with mine, she would probably be a husband instead.
There is a rhythm, even in our modern time. Fill the masculine role, and let women be women.
I’m not sure if you’re referring to the manosphere regarding identity. I think much of it is destructive garbage, and those whose works I’ve cited or referred to regarding feminism, divorce, family, and sexuality are mostly academicians. I’ve preferred to discuss these regarding how these affect society versus “how to get women,” or “what do women want?,” or bitching and moaning about women for entire podcasts, all of which I don’t have interest in.
My biggest gripe with the current crop of Red Pill is their incongruence. They bitch and moan about women into infinity and then exhort men to get “good with women”. This makes no sense.
Right. Sometimes I envy people who did not grow up in big cities because of the great activities they grew up with, like what you mention here: hunting and fishing. We could have done stuff like that if we traveled far east by car in Long Island for fishing and upstate, NY, for hunting, but those were not activities most garden-apartment-living, lower-middle-class people ever even thought of doing. I mean this in a good way. We did have fun in other ways and memorable times but it did not involve constructive activities or cultivating life skills. People hardly even spoke of shooting guns, hunting, fishing, and martial arts skills (though there was a chunk of people who liked fighting). I was big into swimming in my childhood though, having taken lessons into my mid teens.
I am admitting I probably come across as negative, fueled by belated resentment to the uncaring parents I grew up around, and my own dad, with their laisez faire attitudes that had their own kids in precarious positions (and as I said, some dead). Hence the interest in threads such as this and others with social commentary. The divorce regime (it is a regime), mass divorce in itself, welfare, and licentiousness have done a serious number on society.
Is this healthy? Hmm, maybe not in large doses.
I do not say this to virtue signal, but this is one of the reasons I make sure my children are involved in activities, get proper guidance, and get enough healthy socialization. What I do not want to do, but admittedly will maybe have to hold back from doing, is put undue pressure on them to seek high status, power, and a lot of money considering they might just not want to have positions that provide those. For little kids, they are gregarious (certainly more than I was), intelligent, and good looking. But who knows?
I am actually going to do some fishing this weekend. In a few hours I am going to head out to Cutchogue, on the North Fork of Long Island. My kids have been there all week with my wife and in-laws at the beach house of one of their relatives and I am going stay there for the weekend. My kids love it there. We take walks around the town, grill food, fish, canoe, and swim.
I agree with all of this completely. I see women do the identity/stay unhappy thing, too. I don’t think of them as feminists, more just disappointed and externalizing blame, with an echo chamber that reinforces their victimization. I tried any number of self-help solutions to strengthen my first marriage and husband, e.g. The Surrendered Wife, but ultimately I was just topping from the bottom and the dynamic was utterly false, as he was a weak, bullying guy with impulse and fidelity problems, and I’m a strong feminine woman with expectations of integrity and self-management in the people close to me.
I would say that both partners need to be someone the other can “break against” to some extent, unless I’m misunderstanding what you’re saying. There are times when I’m going to need my husband to be the one to break, because I’m unable to bend for whatever reason. An example would be the new rescue dog. He’s not huge - 60 lbs - but he is a tank, and he’s got a lot of crazy energy along with being deaf. We’re currently negotiating my insistence that he be trained not to do zoomies onto the couch, even though my husband, who is also a tank, thinks it’s fun and funny. That children and old people would not be safe on my couch because we don’t have verbal control is a huge problem for me, and I can’t train the dog without cooperation from the other adult in the house. So I’m standing my ground.
But I also know that when I need to apologize or don’t want to be mad anymore, he’s there and will hug. And yes yes yes to “a genuine presence they fold into.” A strong, loving man turns feminine women into happy, purring kittens. And most women are feminine in terms of wants/needs.
Just in general. I’m sure there’s a name for the psychological phenomenon but looking for identity in a movement. Could be the manosphere, could be the trannies, could be Scientology. It’s like people need external validation to decide if they’re right.
I’ve noticed your posts are academic in nature. And they’re interesting, fun to think about and they do give interesting perspective. I still just prefer not getting lost in the balance of things when I can just avoid the instead… by not focusing on what I don’t want. Live “above” it, outside of it, whatever. But generally agree there should be more equitable divorce consideration in an increasingly equitable world.
Exactly. Be the man the manosphere pretends to encapsulate and women will fall in line. I firmly believe it’s a natural order.
For the record I grew up in Houston and but has always been a part of my life. It’s certainly a different perspective.
Agreed. Our approach is to encourage a sense of self, but guide to early success because you have to experience success to know and want it, allow feelings of loss and let her figure it out her way as we go. I also try to stay aware that her view of success and happiness may be wildly different than mine.
Yeah I see this a lot. Men don’t know what being a man means anymore, and just become aggressive victims instead. Which is weak. And women sense it.
I agree with your general expanded sentiment discussing what I view as 1:1 compromise.
More broadly I think one aspect of femininity dipping in to the negative space (adjacent to male aggression) is emotional instability. I would suggest men should be patient through bouts of it and wait for her hormones to calm down. Expect emotionally driven irrationality and be the strong and stable partner here and let her come around. And she will, with appreciation, however indirect. The manosphere would prefer to take her to task citing equality from a place of victimhood and should probably just go ahead and be gay. They clearly don’t like women.
Yeah it’s kind of a funny scenario they set up where it’s usually a bunch of guys telling other guys how to fuck as many women as possible, thus rendering them unmarriable later.
Women are all simultaneously all whores who you just have to unlock with the right attitude or sequence of events, but if it works on them then they aren’t worth keeping.
It’s also kind of funny most of the guys are fairly young, meaning by definition they don’t have long term relationship or fatherhood experience.
I’m sure there are wise, experienced men in the space but as you said lots of it devolves into “bitches be crazy” for hours on end and as others have said the language they use hints at a certain level of disdain for them as people
Agree, and this is driving a lot of what we see in kids. Awkward kids get online and find communities of other weird kids, and gain social capital in those groups by being outside-the-norm and so victims of family and culture. These kids were foundational to the non-binary movement, and have now made labels like “AuDHD” mainstream. What does it mean? Awkward person who sometimes has energy and also gets distracted? Which probably represents 30% or so of the people dealing with adulthood. I found myself in a training for “neurodiversity in the workplace” last year. It was just a two hour session during a conference - it came with an “ethics” CE credit, which we need biannually for licensure. Both my supervisor and I were gobsmacked by the degree of crazy bullshit we encountered during that session. Both of the presenters identified themselves as neurodivergent, with adult diagnoses of autism spectrum disorder along with the ADHD piece. Both held at least a master’s degree, both were able to present to a group, both were well employed. I mean, WTF, how very very very mild must this supposed autism be? But, hey, they’re part of the club - Club Not Like The People We Have To Train How To Treat US.
I appreciate your consideration of the matter, lol.
I find these DEI type trainings insufferable and useless but to be fair
I know a lot of professors who are very obviously on the spectrum and have adhd and they all make good seminar presentations and conference talks + successfully mentor grad students