Are you a man-child?

I was. I couldn’t manage to register for college classes on time… in my master’s degree program. I had a dad bod before I was a dad. My friends knew me as the guys who would disappear when he got a girlfriend. I wallowed in existential confusion and social anxiety for years. My feelings were not to be messed with, even playfully, unless you wanted a butthurt, sulking, angry man-child passive-aggressively whining about how he’s not respected.

Thank god I’m past all that now. But I’ve seen a limit on the impact my improvement has on my wife. I’ve been working on myself for over two years, and it’s gotten good… but never great. So here’s my theory:

The precedent you set early in the relationship correlates to the level of alpha that she is comfortable with.

Don’t get me wrong; both my wife and I have come a long way. I got dangerously close to a visible six pack (damn my discipline plunging over the holiday). She regularly complimented my style, smell, and physique. She now reacts to my groping and ass-slapping with a playful coyness. On top of that, I’m leading in household operations, decision making, money management, man-projects and remodels, and I’m starting a business that will make us lots of money in short order. All the ducks are lined up, right?

Except the attraction is only emotion-deep; it does not lead to real, lasting, paradigm-shifting desire. She still sees the act of sex as an obligation. Once we start having sex, 50% of the time she is surprised by how much she enjoys it and says, “we should do that more often”. The precedent was not a sexual alpha man in the beginning, and so I will never be a sexual alpha man to her. I am just a more responsible, sexier, blue pill family man. Best of both worlds for her, bad deal for me.


You never get a second chance to make a first impression.

How fucking true is that? I suppose, over years of time, someone could change their perceived identity entirely and manage to not lose loved ones in the process, but it’s rare. Wherever you started, you’ve got a certain number of degrees of alpha you can rise before you hit a glass ceiling and shit either won’t be effective or, worse, might work against you. People are stubborn creatures who hate change. There’s a chance that your wife was so satisfied with blue-pill-you that her hamster wouldn’t let her understand that you are now able to satisfy the other side of her sexual strategy. It’s just not who you ever were to her, so she can’t imagine it.

Yes, I’m suggesting that those of you MRPers whose wives are really digging in their heels aren’t married to bitches, you just started as bitches yourselves. You’re encountering severe resistance as you try to become someone you’ve never been. Good luck with that. Seriously.

I’m not being negative. I’m being truthful. Just like my drug-addicted clients will never be heart surgeons, a fully blue man will never be a peak alpha, at least in his wife’s eyes. She knows too much.


So here’s solution talk.

Is this something we must accept and make the best of? Or should we bail and find someone we can set a new precedent with? Or somewhere in the middle (i.e., cheating or open marriage)?

It’s up to you 100%. Some of you are humble enough to realize you screwed up, or were screwed up by your upbringing, and in a desire to remain a man of their word you stay married and enjoy the improvements, such as they are. You’ve weighed the options and would rather salvage your family with good-enough results.

Others, like me, are selfish and want more, now that we’ve realized our wasted potential. If this is the one life we have, why wouldn’t we achieve the absolute best we can, even if it means burning it all down and starting over? Nip that sunk cost fallacy in its ugly little ass. It’s a matter of weighing the comfort of now against the possibility of better, which is a very cut and dry process when you get to it.

Whichever path you choose, if you're improving yourself, you'll be better for it, no matter the outcome.

Last minute add on, and the point of this post: I want to help the men this applies to reach this realization sooner so they don't waste time trying to make something happen that will never happen. I had to learn this through meditation and lots and lots and lots of thinking. Hoping to save some guys the trouble.


PS, if you're that alpha-turned-beta and you’re tempted to say that’s not how real RP works, or that I’m just making excuses, or that I’m not alpha enough or haven't led enough, kindly fuck off since you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.


Edit: My kind of post. Minimal upvotes, but over 150 comments. Good discussion. Granted, most of those are u/scurvemuch and I flirting, but still.