I had an epiphany that recently inspired me to post here after a long time of lurking. I'm finally on board and I know this time because this time I can really feel a big change inside me.

Obligatory warning: lots of text.

TL;DR Became parent shortly out of high school with HB9, 5 year relationship and marriage lead to me becoming poster boy of BP example. Got divorced and failed miserably in the field. Managed to get into another terrible relationship after making progress and went right back to old ways. Now feel like I've truly swallowed TRP and I want to help others, like this community has helped me.

Background:

Lets start with High School, had different phases of RP/BP behavior but by the time I was an upperclassman in high school, I was a decent example of a man with confidence. I did well making new friends, I was extremely social and got a long with a lot of people, invited to many parties, etc. A month into my first semester of college, I got into a LTR with a HB9. Fast forward 7 months we find out she's pregnant, 9 months later I'm a dad. This is the beginning of the end of me, where I start my slide into the deepest darkest corners of BP example. To give a quick summary, here are a few highlights in bullet format:

  • From conception to first two years of my daughter's life, I insisted the mother didn't work. I worked shitty jobs to make ends meet and provide for her and my daughter.

  • After we had our kid our sex life plummeted, average of less than 1 sexy time a month.

  • Saved money, bought house, then got married after 2 years of being together.

  • During this period I would come home to a messy house, diapers filled with shit on the floor, trashcan overflowing and spilling onto kitchen floor, stack of dishes in the sink, and the destruction a half-supervised toddler can make in 8 hours.

  • Rather than get into arguments and make another failed attempt at getting her to contribute to anything and subject myself to verbal and psychological abuse, I took on all the household chores including picking up after the toddler and her.

  • After two years of that, she was self conscious about the appearance of her boobs, wanted boob job, had no credit, was gonna get a job using shiny, new, fake tits to make lots of money. I had credit, "Sure, $4,00 of debt, as long as you promise to pay for it back with the money you make!"

  • First year of serving cocktails, saves up over $3k cash, spending the rest on eating out and herself.

  • "Yeah okay honey, wait to pay me back. We do need a second car we should get you one." "Oh you want this one? It's kind of expensive... oh a lease? yeah I guess that is less per month, but still more monthly than I've ever paid for a car." "okay I'll cosign as long as you make sure you have a job this fall when the pool closes and can continue to make the payments, I will put the lease in my name and we can use that cash as the down payment." (guess what she didn't do)

Now up to this point, having taken on the role of a young dad, a young husband, setting aside dreams of law school to work, busting my ass all day at work, coming home to a shit filled house, and getting yelled at for mentioning the mess; needless to say I had slipped into a deep depression. Graduating senior year of HS I was 6'0 185 lbs. Four years of this shit and I was 250 lbs and fucking depressed.

I had two good things going for me in life. The first was my beautiful daughter, stressful at times sure, but one of the best things in it. The other was a roommate we had at the time who has been a friend of mine for 14 years and is a brother to me. He helped me get out of it. He got me going and snapping out of it. He was always healthy and fit. He knew I wanted to be better but every time I tried I couldn't lose the weight, got frustrated and gave up. Finally he got me eating healthy, I figured out what eating healthy actually meant, not the BS people try to sell you. Went from 250 lbs to hitting my goal weight of 185 lbs in a matter of months.

I felt amazing and felt some of that depression cloud to lift, I started realizing that I didn't have to stay in this shitty relationship. I was at a healthy weight again and could find another HB9 to get with, did it before right? Announce to her I want a divorce and proceed to move into the guest bedroom until she finds a place.

This was the first of the small steps I took to kill off the BP me.

During this time, shes the perfect wife. Starts picking up after herself and helping with the occasional chore. I get woken up to a mouth around my dick and getting fucked like I haven't since before our daughter was born. Each time with a plea to come back to our bed, to try one more time, give her another chance. NO BITCH IT'S TOO LATE I GAVE YOU WAY MORE TIME TO GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER THAN YOU DESERVEd.

She finally moves out. I start going out again. Trying to meet women right off the bat. Big surprise it's a whole different world of game at 23 than it was at 18. I embarrass myself a few times and that's enough to make me think I'm not attractive and don't stand a chance. Needless to say I continue to go out and drink too much to gain the confidence to get over approach anxiety and fear of rejection. I would often wind up drunk alone on the dance floor looking like a fool. Granted I had a couple successes, and then some others that were not so great, and then the nights I felt like a fool for being too afraid to approach a girl giving me obvious signs, and it's true that those are the worst of all failures.

A year of this I finally start getting comfortable with myself and giving up on trying to find comfort in a woman. Meet a girl (HB7) who is obviously into me and even told our mutual friend. I proceeded to be awkward that night and fuck it up. Regardless I thought what the hell, and sent her a message on Facebook. We hit it off and started seeing each other and talking to one another pretty regularly. She wasn't ready for a relationship, I wanted exclusivity and she promised me that. I decided to try something new, told her I don't want to have sex too quickly, other stuff sure but let's let the tension build for awhile. This was also partly self-defense since she's working with an ex she had been off and on with for a few years, but she assures me nothing to worry about. We finally have sex after a month and it's the best sex I can remember having. Goes on like this for a week and she gets weird.

Few days of weirdness I confront her and ask if it's her ex. "Yeah it is, I'm sorry" "It's fine that's what I figured, it was fun while it lasted." "Yeah it was." That was the end of that, or so I thought.

Few days later she comes back to me, she wants me, she made a mistake. BP me comes out, alright let's do this. Turns out much like the last relationship, even more extreme as she suffered from crippling social anxiety I discovered. You can guess how it went. Fighting, verbal abuse, and shouting matches ensued if she didn't get her way and I didn't do what she wanted (even over the smallest of things like go outside and smoke a cigarette with her). Finally she got physical with me one time and after 7 months of a relationship (mind you having also been told how she picked me and had tons of guys before and never wanted a relationship with any until me) I left her.

There's suddenly that weight off my shoulders again. I go out again, start failing again with ladies. BP me shows back up so I start to think, "well, you know our relationship wasn't all that bad, there was a lot of good and overall it was better than my ex and better than being alone. This is when a friend tells me about a book called "The Game" after I asked him for advice. I pick it up read it, then I read that and "Mystery Method". I understood how what they said made a lot of sense about general pickup, but I couldn't do the cheesy pickup shit they do, I jut try to start living by not giving a fuck. It was through those books I turned to Reddit as an additional resource and discovered TRP.

About a month after the break-up and not making much head way in developing my game, I try to get her back. I spend two months making the biggest fool of myself possible, while she tells me she's fucking the guy that lives the next street over, I'm responding with how I realize my faults in the relationship and we can try again. She fucks with me and pretends to consider it then proceeds to lay bomb after bomb on me to kick me while I'm down. Depression, lost my job, became borderline alcoholic, it messed me up way more emotionally than my divorce. Finally had enough and cut her off for good.

Fast forward a couple months and I've been back at it developing my game, reading everything and practicing a little. I get lucky a few times even including one girl I was kicking it with somewhat consistently, just having fun. At this point I really am at the top of my game, I have some of the best nights as far as picking up women goes. I'm doing great and the moves I make start to blow the minds of my friends. Then, after about 3 months of cutting off all communication, I get a text from the ex. Within a week we fuck, within a month or so we're back together. It's better like I imagined it could have been! At first that is. Then it got worse than it ever had been before.

It finally ends in me cheating on her and my getting caught in the act. She breaks up with me but keeps talking to me. TRP example has already started to sink in finally with all the posts I've been reading for months now, I haven't reverted to my completely pathetic BP self. I started to stop giving a shit about the relationship because it was shitty, I decided I wasn't going to make any more "compromises". Sex was good so I was willing to see if it could get better and enjoy great sex in the meantime without having all the constraints of being a boyfriend to a controlling SO.

Now that's all well and good. You might be assuming I went right back to where I always did after that but, no. The fact is, I'm in the best shape of my life, I'm attractive, I have tons of great friends. The information I had gained over the last year, especially from this community, made me realize there was no reason I shouldn't be able to pull a HB10+ and that under no circumstances should I ever have to make compromises to make a LTR work. I've known the basics for awhile now; work on yourself first, stop caring, stop over thinking it doesn't matter what you say just how you say it. I had success with women doing those things in the past, but aided by copious amounts of alcohol.

Early this year, with the new found freedom after the second breakup, I felt like I finally had made it, I had finally swallowed the red pill for good this time. But it was more of the same when I went out, approach anxiety. Though it wasn't as crippling as before, this was still my biggest weakness, my only weakness some may say. I have blown incredible opportunities due to it in the past (i.e. the time two HB9s on a dance floor dancing together pointing at me and telling me to join them, I shrug it off and turn to my friends because I don't know how to react is the biggest that comes to mind).

A couple months ago though something clicked and I stopped caring even less. I went to a music festival this spring and used the opportunity to, without the aid of copious amounts of alcohol, let go of my ego, be myself, and say whatever comes to mind to whoever i want the entire trip. I had incredible success the first night (HB7 and HB8 within a few hours of each other) and an incredible time the whole weekend. Made many new friends all who invited me to crash with them sometime if I ever want to visit their part of the country, and became much more self aware of how I'm perceived by others when I'm able to really allow myself to be myself with confidence. Be confident and don't let rejection get to you because the memories of missed opportunities definitely stick longer than the ones of rejection.

That is pretty much the end of the story I have to tell. It was tonight thinking to myself that I finally had an epiphany about the struggles men face in this age of dating and why things are the way they were and thought TRP would really like to hear it. But this isn't the place for that.

After lurking for a long time and never posting, I'm finally here to introduce myself and share my story. I was the sorriest BP example I've ever known or heard of and today as I sit here telling writing my story, I can say for a fact I know I am the best version of me I have ever been. I'm back to pursuing my dream, I'm in the best shape of my life, my primary focus in life is to improve myself not just for me but my daughter as well, I'm more confident than ever (or I give less of a shit than ever I'm not sure which is the case) and I'm having more success in life, not just with the ladies but every aspect!

Here are a few of the dramatic changes I've been noticing in myself that are some evidence that made me realize I've finally swallowed The Red Pill:

  • BEFORE: In the classroom setting, I never raised my hand in fear of being wrong. Even though when the correct answer was said, a lot of times I had the right answer, and thought to myself, "shit, I knew that" After 3 years of college level classes I still got anxiety thinking about raising my hand and being wrong, so I never did.

  • NOW: In the classroom, the first day of class I'm cracking jokes making the entire classroom laugh, engaging in discussions, and never miss raising my hand when I have the answer or insight to provide. If I do happen to answer a question incorrectly, I now know that no one remembers longer than 2 minutes. With these changes I've also noticed I've been consistently catching the eye of the cutest girls in class.

  • BEFORE: I used to go out every night with the goal of getting laid. I would be crippled by anxiety which would result in me missing opportunities, making a fool of myself, or just wasting an entire night not talking to a single person other than the people I was with, and spending a lot of time complaining how hard it is to meet decent women.

  • NOW: I go out with the goal of hanging out with my friends, hey maybe I'll meet a cool chick in the meantime. End up talking to random strangers around me, guys and ladies alike. Pull numbers without even thinking about it.

  • BEFORE: If I made eye contact with a girl, I'd think "Oh crap, she saw me looking at her she probably thinks I'm a creep." then proceed to quickly look away and pretend I was just looking around the room.

  • NOW: Girl and I made eye contact, I used the sexy half-smile while continuing to stare into her eyes and held it. In a matter of seconds she goes from expressionless, to a smirk, to a full open smile, to finally breaking the gaze and giggling while covering her mouth and looking down. Oh yeah, she was standing right behind her boyfriend too.

  • BEFORE: Just take a look at my post history on Reddit. I've had this Reddit account for 1400+ days and prior to a few weeks ago, next to no submitted content or even comments for fear of being downvoted into oblivion and what other Redditors might think of this account that lacks creativity in name. I WAS WORRIED ABOUT FUCKING INTERNET POINTS, I MEAN WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?!?!

  • AFTER: Now look at just the past week.

So yeah, here I am. A product of getting beat down too many times and forced to really put in the work to force myself out of my comfort zone and finally seeing real, consistent improvement with myself, and what I would call consistent success in the field. A former sad, pathetic, depressed shell of a man who couldn't understand why women weren't attracted to him. I mean he was nice, considerate, caring, attractive, working, had a job, a car, and house yet still was getting rejected because he lacked confidence. Now I'm just enjoying the time I get to spend working on myself without having a SO to answer to. Enjoying the way less amount of pressure I put on myself to meet some woman when I go out so I'm not alone when I go home. Enjoying the way meeting new people and having success with women just comes naturally, and the way the pain of rejection has reduced itself to be almost non-existant.

I still have bad nights when anxiety gets the best of me but they are few and far between and it's rare I go home disappointed I didn't try to make a move. I may not have pulled a HB10+ yet and I still have a long way to go but, I truly feel these changes have finally come to be something real and permanent, not just another facade like before. I'm happy alone for the first time in my life, I don't need a woman in my life consistently to be happy like I thought. In fact I don't plan on even considering a LTR until after I've achieved my goals. But hey, anything could happen.

Again, I'm just here to introduce myself and share my experience with TRP and my journey so far. Now that I'm finally truly in a place I am comfortable with myself, I feel I am ready to share my experience and help those who have suffered unnecessarily like I did. I am /u/NOTcreative- and you all can expect to start hearing a lot more from me friends. Thank you for everything TRP and I hope I am able to provide valuable contributions for you in the future!

EDIT: If there are any new comers here who may need help but are too intimidated to ask for it like I was, this is an open invitation to PM me and I'll do my best to point you in the right direction. There are not enough resources out there for men who need help, all we have is one another. There is NOTHING to be ashamed about.