Keep the faith, it works

Our_Heroine

Awesome to read after a rough day.  Thanks for sharing!

 

CartB4Horse

You gave me HOPE today, thank you. When it gets tough it is nice to read a story like yours.  Keep coming back and helping out us "newbs".

Britguy68

Wonderful to hear from you @iam44‌ .

An inspirational story of what can be achieved with the principles that Athol teaches. 

al2682

iam44 said:

Another few thoughts for newbies who have just started their journey.

I have taken breaks from MMSL and for good reason. I already have a predilection towards addiction and the little dopamine hits you get from coming here and drinking from the fountain of knowledge are incredible, but also addictive. It's easy to get caught up in the drama of the 911 section and imagine parallels to some of those train wrecks in your own relationship. Sometime those parallels are real, some times they are illusory. My point is that it's easy to get very caught up in this joint because what you learn is so earth shaking and powerful and so out of step with everything you were ever told before.

Don't be afraid to step away for a while. give yourself a chance to get your own bearings and clear your head. Ultimately it's you relationship, your life and no at some point you have to own it and the forum and the help it offers cannot do it. So take some breaks if you think you need to from time to time, gain some perspective in stages, and then re-engage when you think you are ready.

^^^^^^^ This

There are so many things in this thread, but this hit home as I am holding back applying myself to my map by taking the time to read two or three categories.  

I have time over the next two weeks without my kids and the next two nights without my wife that I am determined to seriously start down this path.  It is obvious that it works IF YOU WORK IT.

Thank you very much for your post.  It is truly a success story.

BlueWolf

Thx, really, really needed to read this! Great that you took your time and described the lows to... kinda helps.

fordsvt

Great thread. Happy for you that it worked out. Nice work on the Map. 

LoisLaneLovesBatman

Wow. This should be filed in one of the most awesome MMSL threads of all time. There should be a MMSL "hall of fame" thread. Mr 44 -- what a thoughtful, succinct analysis that we can all learn from. If you need to change your MMSL handle again, consider "Professor". Well said. Well done, sir. And Bravo. 

LoisLaneLovesBatman

And big applause for Mrs. 44 who put up with your ass while you were learning. It would have been so easy to bail on you when she found out about the affair. You could have bailed too, and believed your wife's medical issues were legit reasons to quit and try again with another marriage. You manned up. It took a lot of maturity and wisdom to take see wisdom of MMSL. Bravo to both of you for putting in the work. Sincerely. Your post was incredibly inspirational.

UnBetaMe

iam44 said:

Another few thoughts for newbies who have just started their journey.

I have taken breaks from MMSL and for good reason. I already have a predilection towards addiction and the little dopamine hits you get from coming here and drinking from the fountain of knowledge are incredible, but also addictive. It's easy to get caught up in the drama of the 911 section and imagine parallels to some of those train wrecks in your own relationship. Sometime those parallels are real, some times they are illusory. My point is that it's easy to get very caught up in this joint because what you learn is so earth shaking and powerful and so out of step with everything you were ever told before.

Don't be afraid to step away for a while. give yourself a chance to get your own bearings and clear your head. Ultimately it's you relationship, your life and no at some point you have to own it and the forum and the help it offers cannot do it. So take some breaks if you think you need to from time to time, gain some perspective in stages, and then re-engage when you think you are ready.

What else. The red pill is fucking harsh at first. I see everyone, absolutely everyone who takes it go through what I call the arc of experience. It starts with a feeling like you just took acid, it totally blows your mind. Then there is the self recrimination and self loathing. "How could I have been so stupid?". There is the "Oh my god she's banging the gardener phase" of paranoia which is really a masked indication of guilt that you know you let yourself turn into a beta schlub and she would not be horrible for actually banging the guy. Only you can answer the questions about your fears.

There is the really hard stage of self assessment where you have to be honest about your shortcomings. This stage hurts and some people may never make it past this stage.

There is the killing the oneitis. It's especially hard for those who do not have a long track record of intimate relationships. They are super ego invested in their marriage and relationship and rely upon bedrock blue pill truths to delude themselves. Deconstructing the notion of "true love" is very challenging for some people and downright scary. It is the biggest act of unplugging from the matrix.

There is the bitterness I just described. "I am doing all this self improvement, what the hell are they doing to improve our relationship?" It feels lonely at times.

There is the other eager anticipation mixed with bitterness and disbelief about people who are 18 months ahead of you in their MAP. "I'll never get there!", "When will I be getting laid like tile?" WTF, I tried last night and she blew me off like snow on the windshield!

There are the sublime moments when some things start to work, like facing down your first shit test by just nodding and smiling without saying a word and letting the hamster blow itself out. Sooooooo satisfying when you get empirical proof of all this red pill business in your own life and your ability to do something about it.

There are the set backs where you do so well for three months then you cave on an argument and you go full blue pill beta pussy and end up kicking yourself for going backwards so far so fast. Yes you must resist the temptation to argue, to rationalize, to speak even, you must be the reed that bends in the wind and let it all blow past you some times.

There is the frustration of realizing how far you have to go.

Probably the worst part for many is a sense of slightly cynical bitterness about it all. Once you really understand and take to heart evo-bio, you cannot really ever believe in "true love" again. It strips something away from you, it makes you harder, but in some ways it frees you. In other ways it traps you. Once you see it, you can never un-see it.

Then eventually without realizing it, once you've started to gain some traction after countless false starts, numerous soft initiations that you try to rationalize were actually hard initiations, all of a sudden a kind of calm starts to ease over you. This is a great time because you've finally internalized the red pill. Then you are not acting alpha, you simply are Alpha.

This moment creeps up on you but sure enough one day there it is, you may not even notice it at first, but from it you will find some strength you had either lost in the blue pill haze, or perhaps never had before. It's a calm repose where you don't feel any need to jump up and defend yourself, you don't need to rationalize, you don't need to even speak. Things will simply start to be as you wish them or expect them to be.

Finally, one day there is just fun. There is a feeling of confidence, you can walk right up to women you don't know ten years your junior and hot as hell and just strike up a conversation knowing just how to press her buttons. not because you want to bang her, but just because its fun to finally understand how people work and to have the power to play with that.

So again, I say be patient. give it time, give it lots of work, listen to the moderators and the long haul red pillers. There is no special variant for you, biology doesn't work that way, we are all slaves to our DNA. Accept it and you will eventually find happiness.

I will echo every word of this.  This needs to be a Sticky and/or Required reading.

I can see myself in these stages and know that I have gone through most of them.  If the later stage descriptions are as accurate as the initial stages, I am really on the verge of some awesomeness!  Which, coincidentally, would put me right on track with one month for every year of the relationship.

Thanks for this @iam44‌ ... cheers to more success!

SunDance

Awesome stuff. I saved it for reference.

WhereWasI

You two are an inspiration. I am 9 months into my MAP with a 15yr marriage and can feel I am at the midway point. The arc of experience is real:

-I devoured MMSLP and the MAP book.
-Gained muscle and could flex my pecs for the first time ever. Wife and kids are impressed.
-Went through asshole stage where I thought I could manhandle wife because I was so awesome all of a sudden.
-Backtracked and really evaluated my structural issues.
-Read No More Mr Nice Guy and go through anger stage at my parents and have many more enlightening moments.
-Lose oneitis  and start doing stuff I enjoy again.
-Made STFU and OI real. Initiations  still weak, but Mr Pouty is gone.
-Wife works her butt off, loses 30lbs, and starts dressing better than ever. I can buy her sports bras now and she wears them around all the time without complaining.  Frump is very rare.
-Sex is perfect for 2 weeks out of the month during ovulation. Drought rest of the time. Requires very strong initiation rest of month which I do not have yet. She's on antidepressants so this is an area to work on still. 

Howard

This is the best thing I've read in a long time.