I'm a bit past the five year mark from my first reading of TRM. It's been four years since I finished my OYS journey. Besides a dabble here and there, I've taken a little over a year or so away from here but I decided to share my FR/notes in the most important portions of my life...

Lifting: OYS forced it and I've never stopped. I'm small overall, 5'7, 163 on a good day. I am a surfer, so I was never really fat, but I was not strong and my back was beginning to seriously fail me. When I started lifting my bench was 95 and same with squats. I'm at least now at 190 (3,3,2) and squat at 255 (1x3). I have few physical issues anymore and I am an older one around here for sure. Im not really passionate about lifting but the benefits are far too many to stop. No one in my family lifted (3 boys, 1 girl) when I started. Two years in and everyone now lifts, including wife and daughter.

Personal: When I finally grasped that OYS was about me and not a covert contract on 'her, them and what', some significant progress was made in personal weak areas of my life. I had some issues to overcome and this process helped me identify some specific weaknesses and put those largely behind me. I do laugh a bit when I see men say 'It's not working.' What worked? Being much closer to the man I want to be, being honest with myself and much less fearful of going for what I want. Not being as reactive to life around me or worried how people view me. "The world happens to a blue pilled man, a red pilled man happens to the world" is a much more fun way to operate. That's what worked.

Social/hobbies As a typical beta, I was nearly always available and had given up much of my life outside of the house/family. I re-engaged my social life early on and this has only gotten better. My social relationships have become very rich as I gained a much stronger sense of self and I learned to appreciate people for who they are and not as much about what I can get (validation) from them. I have built and maintained a fairly strong social life outside of my family. I have also continued to commit my own time to things/hobbies I enjoy.

Spiritual/faith: Almost too much to go into. I am Christian but when I read TRM and found Dalrock, I knew I was in for deep changes. My anger phase burned with a high intensity due to following typical Christian personal and relationship advice nearly my whole life, and feeling completely duped. That bled over to other teachings that have now been undone in my life as well. This has been a painful but ultimately freeing process of change, probably the most significant. A change from religious legalism to actual freedom - and us men value freedom. The no moralizing rule was hard for me to get used to, and got me banned once but removing all barriers during my OYS process allowed me to look at my faith and beliefs objectively in what actually worked and what didn't. What made sense and what just didn't. This was something that my RP journey opened up but I did my own work elsewhere. Well after my OYS, I received a dm from the late, complicated but insightful blarg_risen, asking me what makes me tick in life. What's it all about for me? This started a several month chain of back and forth and was very helpful in me putting my thoughts/journey in written form as I'm not much of a journaler. I'm no longer the ego invested, judgemental man-child I used to be and am OK with being a work in progress without thinking I have all the answers.

Relationship: I was a typical supplicating beta and had all the problems that went with it. When I hit iron rule #6 in TRM: "A woman is utterly incapable of loving a man the way he expects to be loved," I threw my phone across the room and knew it was time to get busy. I ran the program (lifted, stfu'd, read, oys'd and figured out what I wanted). At first it was loaded with cc's but over time the work became real for me. As I ridded the 'beta' and upped the 'alpha', no doubt the responses were strong and results we are not supposed to pay attention to showed up. I kept it going strong, too, no fucks given on my part. I ran this straight to a classic main event. "What is going on with you, where do I fit in your life, what do you want from me?" In the spirit of trading notes, it seems most post main event FR's report some smoother sailing than what I experienced. My wife tested this framework hard seemingly to make absolute certain I was for real. She would lean in and pull back, lean in, pull back. Trust, test, trust, test... After a while it seemed that the foot on the gas began to lose some mileage around the one year or so mark. As in - a depression of sorts set in for her and the effort waned some. The sex would get inconsistent and sometimes unengaged. HOA has used the line, 'not keeping up' and it seemed that is what I was experiencing. A piece of u/InChargeMan 's story had always stuck with me concerning his wife/women... "Above all things, she needs security, guidance and that she is of value." I did care, I had done the work and was not so inclined to nuke so around that one year or so mark I began, acta non verba, I guess verba too, instilling value as best as I could. Some might call it a bit blue, but I don't think so. Not from the position of where I was. Self sufficient, self validating - in my frame. I hadn't given up my masculine edge. The depression, or 'not keeping up' slowly disappeared, and the effort to please and submission came back. She later told me specifically that the threat she felt of me replacing her if she didn't measure up shut her down and she wanted to feel that she is the only one I want. Her actions were congruent to these words. I guess my woman just needed a lot of reassurance, and I gave it. I still struggle at times to immerse, attach emotion to my words and convey well to her that she is mine but I am getting better. The attraction and dread were there, but that reassurance kicked her responses into higher gear. I know the need to give comfort is up for debate often here. In my case, not so sure how necessary, although it is another set of feeelz to give. But value? I've learned to make her feel valued or - safe (her word) without nice guy pleasing/ass kissing pedestalization. She has gone so far as to tell me that she used to feel that sex was her only value to me and how much she used to resent that. That is one of the issues I now see that sexual validation caused. That resentment is gone and sex now is as I wish. I hear and experience few objections to frequency or activity any more at all.

All in all, 85% of the relationship dysfunctions were fixed by fixing me. For newbies reading along, don't even think about comfort, value, safety or reassurance until you have actually done the necessary work. It's a beta, short cut attempt if you haven't.