Say “Mr. Beta” five times fast

The_Dude

Just tell her if it's not cleaned up by Sunday your going to pack it up. Don't have a long discussion. It WILL backfire. Just say its no longer acceptable to you and a terrible model for your kids. Walk away. The point is not the clean room. It's that you are starting to take control and this is a small relatively easy step. 

DaveBowman

Bang on SrPR.

Never thought of that. By getting fat, she got rid of a woman's standard method of control -- access to sex.

She only has guilt and anger left.

Show her anger won't work, and she'll be a one trick pony.

MrBeta

Angeline said:

@MrBeta, it isn't that your physical attractiveness doesn't count, its that even though your wife's is zero (and I completely agree with that), it's that to her, yours is zero also, because of the factors mentioned. Yes, it is awesome what you've already achieved, and I didn't have knowledge of that when I posted. But saying your SR is higher than hers is dividing by zero. Neither of you would do well out in the sexual marketplace right now, today, except for ONS's. The good income is undermined by the firings, and further undermined by the continued pot smoking if that was a factor in the firings. It all interconnects. That's why I asked way back on page 1, what do you want to accomplish here? If you don't wish to remain married, then how she feels about you and the marriage is irrelevant. If you do, then you'll need to accept that those things are all significant hits to your SR in relation to hers, which is how you get traction and shake things up to force change. I wasn't saying it to beat up on you, but to get you to face the fact that to cause the instability needed to move forward, you'll have to change your standing in your wife's eyes. I gave you the lizard brain take on things, not what she'd ever dream of thinking with her conscious mind. If you described that scenario to her, she'd deny it like crazy, while laughing uncomfortably. The more a criticism stings, the more truth it carries. Seriously, what you've already accomplished is truly impressive, and would have helped in the initial assessment. Sorry to come down so hard on what appeared to be smug self satisfaction. This is empahtically not a community that encourages men to ignore obesity in their mate in favor of what's on the inside. Not at all. Attraction is attraction. But we aren't going to pretend that the main building blocks that make men attractive to women should be glossed over when missing, just because you fill out your jeans nicely. Attraction is attraction.

@Angeline -- No problem, and I think you and others have made an important distinction between our sex ranks if we were single as compared to our sex ranks within the relationship. 

For what it's worth, I probably haven't been all that clear on the chronology of events and that seems to be contributing to some confusion.  I lost the first job in 2005 and lost the next job in 2007.  During that period of time was when a lot of my mental health issues were at their worst -- I had serious anxiety and some depression.  But I wasn't smoking pot at all, so the job stuff can't be attributed to that.

I've held my current job for over five years now and have received good performance evaluations.  I do not seem to be in any danger of losing my current job.  A lot of it, admittedly, has to do with a changed environment and diminished expectations as compared to my other jobs.  It has been in the course of these five years that I resumed smoking pot and let the habit become problematic.

fredless

Not trying to sound harsh, but if you want evidence that you have inflated your sex rank--you are afraid of your wife's anger.  No woman finds it attractive when a man is afraid of her anger.

SignorePillolaRossa

RedPillWifey said:

Cleaning your kids rooms isn't going to solve anything. You need to pick a day, declare it "room cleanup day", and make the kids clean it up themselves. Otherwise, you look like a butler.

Cleaning your own room is different, and you wouldn't be throwing her things away, just packing them up and making it known that her clutter is no longer acceptable in your living space.

I kinda meant this - you just said it better ... I thhink he should guide the kids to teach them how to do it correctly and also to establish himself as an authority/leader in the home to be respected and followed ... Scarlet has it spot on

MrBeta

@RedPillWifey, @SignorePillolaRossa, @The_Dude  -- Man, you guys are relentless with this organizing the master bedroom thing.  I guess I'll bump it up the list.

@RedPillWifey, @Scarlet -- My intention with the kid's rooms is more than just a simple cleaning and more than they can handle on their own.  My older daughter's bedroom in particular is in pretty bad shape -- she used to have babyish stuff on the walls, which she took off at least a year ago.  Now she has mostly bare white walls that are damaged from removing the pictures.  Plus the shelving in her closet seems ready to fall apart, partly because she shoves so much junk in there.  I'm not planning to do everything for her, but I'm hoping we can work together as a cool father-daughter thing.  

SignorePillolaRossa

MrBeta said:

@RedPillWifey, @SignorePillolaRossa, @The_Dude  -- Man, you guys are relentless with this organizing the master bedroom thing.  I guess I'll bump it up the list.

 

well, do it or don't ... but DON'T make the reason for NOT doing it fear of your wife's pissyness ... if you don't do this, DO SOMETHING ELSE that establishes a constructive leadership role for yourself that yields tangible results

Act, with no fear!

PhoenixDown

We're pushing it because it's a great starting point to begin your captaincy.

The_Dude

We're pushing it because it's a great starting point to begin your captaincy.

Exactly. Relatively small, visible, reasonable.

SignorePillolaRossa

Mandrill said:

The_Dude said:

 Relatively small, visible, reasonable.

Are we playing "Things your wife says about your penis" now?

your wife talks about your penis? lucky!

CartB4Horse

Just my two cents -- Why are you afraid of your wife?  Like @DaveBowman said your wife's a two trick pony.  You don't want sex with her, so what are you REALLY afraid of?  She'll get pissed off?  Who cares?

Pot and masturbation are just ways you chose to escape.  Stop.  You know what the problem is and you know what you want to do.  < Do that.

I completly understand where you are coming from with the lack of attraction for your wife.  If she felt that about you and you worked your MAP we both know what would happen, right?  Why is it different if the one doing the MAP just isn't interested anymore?

Work on your weak areas and prepare for departure.

DaveBowman

Let me give you some context.

My wife's temper is a tactical thermonuclear weapon with a hair trigger.

Seriously. She comes by it naturally; there's some cultural things going on.

She's all stressed today for various real reasons, and just chose to go and try to boss me around.

I stood up for myself; she blew. She kept talking over me and raising her voice, so I did the same (which is very much unlike me). In no uncertain terms is she allowed to control me.

She said fine/I can't stand you/you're such an asshole/etc... and left to walk the dog. I just looked at her with an amused look on my face.

Came back, she was all demure, I laughed, she laughed, it's over.

A year ago we wouldn't have spoken for days and I would have been convinced our marriage was over.

Or I wouldn't have stood up for myself in the first place.

Her temper isn't your problem. Do whatcha gotta do.

Serenity

Your relative SR's are important because they determine which phase you are in. Your actions in Phase 3 will be completely different than your actions in Phase 1. These are critical distinctions that many new Mappers fail to understand and that's why some of the more experienced members have hammered you over the head with this.

At this point, you are squarely in Phase 1 of your Map--a very low-energy state. So, your actions right now are all about adding value and getting your reds under control. It doesn't even particularly matter which reds. The important thing is to add positive energy flow and start seeing a generally upward trend.

Work your weak areas first. You've had plenty of input as to which areas people think those are. Once you do your Triage, you can pick your Three Monkeys and start.

MrBeta said:

Serenity said:

MrBeta said:

My sex rank is relatively high. 

No.  It's not.  Here's why based on what you stated:

@Serenity -- I think @DostoevskyIdiot did a good job earlier in stating my case here.  When I said my sex rank is "relatively high," I meant in comparison to my wife.  I recognize that I have plenty of stuff to work on to improve myself, but I really didn't expect that the statement would be particularly controversial because my wife's sex rank would be so low.  I think your summary of why my sex rank is low is also somewhat misleading, partly because I've been soft-selling myself (I guess out of modesty or just because I didn't think it was important).  I'm also not sure why my sex rank should be lowered due to my lack of attraction for my wife.  I could see it if I lacked any sex drive, but that's not the case -- I'm attracted to lots of other women.

Anyway, I don't think it's particularly important to affix an actual number to my sex rank, and I'm definitely working to make it as high as it can get.  Thanks for all your suggestions in that regard.

Oh yeah, and I'll keep this username for now, but maybe I'll change to Captain Super Leady Leadership Man or something once I get that stuff under control.

Roses

@MrBeta My kids don't believe in Santa.  But it still works better than "You guys have such a mess in here, clean it up right now!"  Isn't there some sort of Hanukkah gifting tradition, though?

How sure are you that the clutter is 100% hers?  I really empathize with the other peoples' stuff problem, but stuff gets mixed together.  My mom swore all the clutter in the living room was my dad's.  He swore it was all hers.  Of what was theirs, it turned out about an even split.  Even my husband had clutter in there, albeit he had the least.
Paper boxes are the best.  Copier places sometimes have them for the asking, but if you work in an office, get them from whoever fills the printer paper trays.  Very sturdy and not big enough to put too much weight in.

If she's a hoarder that's an entirely different issue.  By working on the clutter you're attacking her security.  If that's the case, you should talk to a professional who helps people with that issue to learn how to handle the situation.

Adam_S

Something sprung to mind reading this thread that nobody else seems to have picked up on.

AIUI wifey is going to be getting a new job soonish and will start earning a lot more money. That's going to up her sex rank and potential for independence quite a bit in her own mind. She may have more time and energy to focus on losing weight at the same time. Could be quite destabilising.

MrBeta

Hi all, it's been about a month since the discussion in this thread so I thought I'd pop in to give an update.

The MAP is definitely moving in the right direction.   I've been able to incorporate a lot of the changes just into my normal routine so they aren't really even a challenge anymore.  Stuff like increased exercise and no caffeine and drastically reduced pot smoking.  Have practiced guitar 30 minutes a day every single day this month.  So that's been great.

I still have a ways to go with all three big areas that I needed to address:  leadership, house clutter and money.  But I've definitely moved forward in the past month on all three.  

The most progress has been made on the house.  Working together with my kids, I got all the crap out of their room, painted both rooms in new colors that they like, fixed simple stuff like broken closet shelves and missing dresser knobs, and bought some new cool stuff to decorate their new clutter-free rooms.  My older daughter in particular has really taken to trying to keep her room clean and neat (she was getting pissy with her little sister for junking it up).  She spontaneously decided to start making her own bed, which is amazing because even my wife and I don't make our bed.  I also did a major decluttering of the kitchen shelves and drawers and cabinets.  So now about half the rooms in the house are fixed up pretty nicely and I'm working my way through the rest of the house room by room.

The leadership stuff is more subtle but I can feel it taking shape.  Sometimes after a conversation with my wife I'll think about it and realize that I wouldn't have said what I did a couple months ago, just to avoid conflict.  There's still a long way to go in this area but feels like I'm moving forward.

Money changes have been pretty modest.  I've continued to keep track of how we're doing our spending, and I forced my wife to have a conversation about it where I showed her all the numbers that I had been working on.  We've managed to figure out a few places where we can spend less money but so far we haven't really made the substantial cuts that we need to make.  But I think we're both a lot more cognizant of the issue and are trying to focus on it a lot more rather than just trying to ignore it, so that's good.

I've noticed some change in my wife in response to my changes.  She has been quietly doing more stuff around the house.  She seems interested in getting the rest of the house to look more like the rooms that have already been decluttered.  She hasn't really done anything positive about her weight yet, but she's been talking about it a lot.  I guess we'll see if anything happens there.

Anyway, that's the update.  Gotta go make myself awesomer now.

Im_a_Man

"I've noticed some change in my wife in response to my changes.  She has been quietly doing more stuff around the house.  She seems interested in getting the rest of the house to look more like the rooms that have already been decluttered.  She hasn't really done anything positive about her weight yet, but she's been talking about it a lot."

Following and responding to Leadership, nice!

MrBeta

OK, I guess it's about time for another update.  I'm now roughly 5 months into the MAP.   I've made some progress in some areas, still not nearly satisfied with some others.  And even though my wife has made some modest changes in response to my efforts, her obesity problem doesn’t seem to be going anywhere (more about this later).  

Anyway, here's the more complete report, in two parts:

My MAP –

I'm doing great with the physical stuff.  I've been exercising almost every day, probably could stand to bulk up a little but I'm in the best shape I’ve ever been in.  Have been eating well too, plus have kept up with my no caffeine and infrequent pot use.  I’ve even made strides with some little stuff -- for example, I'm a lifelong nail-biter and I've managed to get myself to stop.  My nails and cuticles don't look gnarled and disgusting anymore.  I showed them to my wife and her response to this, in addition to all the other changes I've made, was "are you trying to win some sort of contest or something?"  I just shrugged. I’ve gotten the occasional IOI from random women, nothing too exciting to report.

 

Our finances have continued to be a struggle, but things might hopefully be turning a corner pretty soon (more on that in the next post).  I've been tracking our spending and income every month, which has led to sporadic conversations with my wife about how we need to be doing better.  My biggest failure, though, is that I haven't really made a real plan for us to follow.  Just saying "we need to spend less on blah blah blah" doesn't seem to be working at getting my wife fully on board.  

Two quick stories about spending, one where I think I did well and one where I did not do well:

1) I was out for a rare guys night out – I met one friend at a bar and then we were going from there to a concert.  Wife calls me at the bar and tells me that she needs to sign us both up for a gym, and it has to happen right then because she’s been talking to the guy there and there’s a special deal blah blah blah.  I started some pushback – for one thing, every time she’s joined a gym she ends up not going much and it costs us money and I wasn’t even sure that I wanted to join a gym at all and plus we’re in debt, etc.  And let’s just talk about this when I’m not out for the night with my friends, OK?  But eventually I just gave in so I could go hang out with my friends.  I guess it worked out all right – I’ve been going to the gym a lot, so there’s that.

2) A few weeks ago as I was going to bed, my wife said something like “I’m gonna buy this skincare thing, what credit card should I use?”  I guess that should have been some sort of signal that something was up but I didn’t really think about it.  The next morning I checked our credit card online and the thing was $400.  We had never discussed this purchase before, she had never mentioned it at all.  I was pissed off, so I fired off an email to her telling her how upset I was.  She sheepishly called me up after receiving the email, apologized, and cancelled the order for the thing.  She still plans to buy it some day, but now she says she’s going to “earn” it by meeting some sort of unspecified weight loss goal.  So I think that’s some progress – that would have never happened a few months ago.

Anyway, one of the future tasks on my MAP is to actually create a budget that we can stick to. I find this is hard to do when we have credit card debt.  “Can we afford it?” is sort of a theoretical question when you have outstanding debt that we’re trying to pay off.   Sure, we can afford it, but that means we’re not paying off our outstanding debts.

MrBeta

More on my MAP:

 Decluttering/fixing up the house has slowed way down after a promising start.  It just feels overwhelming and I really need my wife to take a more active role but it’s hard to get her onboard because she’s so busy and she just doesn’t usually seem interested in doing it.  I know I need to focus on this more, getting back on track.

 Lack of leadership was a huge problem when I first posted this thread and I didn’t even really realize it until a bunch of you started pressing me on it.  I’ve been a lot more cognizant of the issue and I think I’ve made some strides in taking some control over things, and having my wife follow my example.  She is doing more stuff around the house than she used to,  With that said, I have a hard time making any sort of high expectations for my wife and kids, they’re all so busy all the time that I feel some level of guilt about imposing on them.  I know that sounds really beta, I’m working on it.

 The only area where I’d say there’s been some amount of backsliding has been wasting time at work.  Before I started the MAP, I was blowing tons of time at work on the internet at forum and game sites.  As part of the MAP, I pulled way back, when I had free time at work I was trying to be constructive and thoughtful about getting things done in my personal life, etc.  Now I’m back to spending too much time online.  Again, I need to refocus.

 My wife’s weight

I’m not sure what to say here, it’s just so frustrating.  Yes, she joined the gym and has been going every once in a while, but if I had to guess I’d say that she’s probably gained weight, not lost it, over the past few months.  She just can’t seem to fix her eating.  Just a bad situation without any easy answer..

I’ve been interested to see a few others at MMSL who are dealing with similar circumstances.  In addition to the story from @ernestern, who I already knew about, I’ve seen stuff from @nevergiveup, @446, and @masteroftheuniverse, all of whom are dealing with an overweight wife.  Hopefully one of them will figure out the answer and let the rest of us know.  I’m watching them all with interest.

MrBeta

Looming life changes

So, some big changes are coming soon that may very well shake things up.  My wife will be starting a new job in a few weeks that will pay her substantially more money than she had been making.  It seems as though the new job will also be more “9 to 5” than her current job – so she won’t be bringing work home with her to do at nights.  And in a few months she’ll be done with grad school, so she won’t be working on that at nights or during weekends. 

Both of these are very positive developments. As mentioned earlier, I sometimes feel guilty about bringing up her deficiencies around the house, etc. because she’s so busy all the time.  When she spends four hours at night watching TV, it’s hard for me to point out how problematic that is, because she has her laptop in front of her and she’s supposedly working.  I’m hopeful that the new job and end of school will make the evenings into family time, spouse time, and/or exercise time.  If she keeps watching loads of TV, then I think I can legitimately call her out on it without reservation.

I do have concerns that her increase in earnings is just going to result in her spending more, rather than paying down our debts.  In addition to the two stories above about the gym and the skin thing, she’s been talking a lot about getting new cars.  Our cars are 13 and 10 years old, but they’re still in decent condition and they’re paid off.  I don’t want to start making car payments or lease payments or anything.  Hopefully we can work this out, but it feels like a DLV to me to tell her “you have to drive an old beater car because we have no money.”   I guess I’ll do what I can.

Anyway, I’m still trying to become awesome, something good will come of it someday.  Thanks to everyone who helped me in the beginning.