Running Game on your wife can be, in many ways, much more difficult than running Game as a PUA. Today, we’ll focus on just one example: the shit test.
The basic theories of Game tell us that the more shit tests you pass, the fewer and farther between they come. In general, I’ve found this to be true in my limited time Gaming my wife. However, I have run up against an interesting twist that PUAs would never stumble upon. With a girl you’ve just met at a bar, you have complete freedom to deal with the shit test ruthlessly – which, all else being equal, is usually the way to go. Unfortunately, when you’re married things can sometimes get a bit more complicated. Sometimes the Shit Test is asking you to do something that’s well within your actual responsibilities within the marriage.
For instance… Hermione’s been running a minor shit test on me for some time now. Our son still isn’t sleeping through the night, so we trade off feedings most nights so that both of us can get a little bit of sleep. She’s started taking to breast feeding him in bed while she sleeps (or at least rests) during her turns. In and of itself, I think this is actually great. It means she’s getting more sleep overall, and that’s generally a good thing. However, over the last few weeks she’s been using this time more and more to shit test me. It started out so innocuous that I didn’t recognize it – I was just helping out and doing something nice. Simply put, she’s been asking me to get our son for her so she doesn’t even have to get out of bed. It started out as an occasional thing about two weeks ago (hmm… about the time I started Gaming her – I smell her playing a subtle, if unconscious, bit of Girl Game back at me), but since then it’s steadily grown until it finally became more or less every time.
Last night I put a stop to it with the first feeding of the night.
[Kid wakes up]
Me: Do you want this feeding or should I get it?
Hermione: I’ll feed him if you’ll get him for me.
Me: No. If I’m getting up, I’m feeding him.
[Silence... then Hermione, obviously annoyed, gets up and gets him]
I have to admit that our child rearing duties have not been distributed entirely equally lately. I do feel somewhat bad about that, but it’s kind of unavoidable right now. I’m working 3 jobs (although 1 is admittedly very part time – another is starting my own business, and that makes up for it) and going to grad school part time. Hermione’s got a lot on her plate as well, so she’s (fairly) getting a little stressed out by everything (as if I’m not…). But this particular request is patently unfair. The entire point of our arrangement is so that both of us can get a little bit of sleep. However, it has devolved into a situation where I’m awake when I feed him and I’m awake when she feeds him. Hence the shit test, which I felt compelled to shut down.
She hit me again later in the night, though, and I was a little unprepared. A few hours later, the little dude was hungry again (he’s been going through a growth spurt, so he’s eating all the damn time) and Hermione was out of breast milk (it’s not an infinite supply). This is usually my cue to jump in and take my turn. However, she turned this particular instance into another shit test, because he was still lying in the bed with her. So rather than a simple, “OK, it’s your turn,” it became, “Can you pick him up out of the bed for me and feed him?” (phrased a bit more nastily, and with a bit of bite in her voice). Taking him back to the crib has been another part of the shit test over the last few weeks.
So now I’m in a double bind. On the one hand, I’m facing a shit test that I really need to shut down. On the other hand… what she’s asking for this time is a legitimate responsibility on my part. Basically, I’m fucked no matter how I handle this. I generally subscribe to Athol’s philosophy that both alpha and beta traits are necessary for Marriage Game, so this time I just sucked it up and went and fed the kid – and resolved to keep my eyes open for the next shit test, as it’s likely right around the corner.
