Two months ago, after 15 years of a shitty sex marriage (weekly frequency but vanilla and boring with her clearly never being that into it), my wife confessed to strong feelings of attraction for someone else and asked to open up the relationship to “explore this side of herself”. I actually considered it for a few days (facepalm) before saying no. She cut contact with him, but then she said she was no longer happy with our relationship and didn’t know if we had a future. She didn’t use the words “love you but not in love with you”, but she might as well have.

In the space of a week, I went from being fairly happy in most areas of my life to total tailspin. I was so angry and hurt by this. We have a 4 year old daughter! We’ve built a great life together! We’ve been together since we were teenagers! We fucking promised to be together forever! How could she even consider throwing all that away because she wasn’t getting the tingles or whatever?

In the middle of my anger, I picked up a book that changed my life: “Passionate Marriage” by David Schnarch. I know how MRP views therapists, but if you haven’t read this book, you really should. It’s basically the same principles as RP, although less gendered. Instead of “frame”, he calls it “differentiation”. And reading this book, I realized how fucking far into her frame I truly am, how much of my happiness I’ve predicated on her moods and behaviors. How needy and whiny and pathetic I am, and how truly unattractive that is.

This all forced me to step back and take a hard look at myself and my marriage. I knew about MRP because I had read MMSLP and NMMNG years ago but never really choked down the pill. I fucked around for a few months with lifting and dressing better and "trying to be dominant” (lol), and I actually did see a little bit of improvement, but I ultimately just spit up the pill and basically gave up on our sex life ever changing. I was happy to accept the scraps of a weekly vanilla sex life with a wife not that into it. I just wrote her off as “not really a sexual person”, though I think I knew deep down that I was just trying to spare myself the hard reality.

But now, looking at myself, I had two crystal clear realizations:

  1. It’s not that she’s not sexual. She’s just not attracted to me, and hasn’t been for our entire marriage (though she was before we got married, so maybe a tiny ray of hope). Fact. Her attraction dried up within a few weeks of us getting married.
  2. Looking at my behavior, body, and non-existent frame, I can’t blame her. It’s not her fault she’s not attracted to this skinny-fat unattractive bluepill beta bux bitch she married. She probably doesn’t even understand why she’s not attracted to me. It’s just her body doing its thing.

Realistically, my wife’s SMV is probably 2 points higher than mine and always has been. It’s a miracle we have any kind of sex life after 15 years.

Fuck religion

She has some deep religious sexual shame that has really fucked her up. We grew up super conservative and were both virgins when we married at 21. We were part of the purity culture that said to even think sexual thoughts before marriage was a sin. We fooled around before marriage, but felt guilty about it. And then we got married and she was supposed to just flip the switch and be super sexual. We had no guidance or help understanding how to be good at sex or what to expect.

I think the shame plus her moving in with me and realizing I was a needy, codependent, undisciplined little boy instead of a strong confident man is what killed her desire in the space of a few weeks. She just shut down that part of herself and it’s never really come back for me. Maybe never will, but ironically, seeing it come back for someone else has let us both know it’s still there inside her somewhere. She is a sexual person, just not for me. Fucking mixed blessing, I know.

Did she cheat?

Yeah, I know, she may have already cheated, but I haven’t seen any signs of it. This guy that she’s attracted to lives on the other coast and they just saw each other a few days at a conference and I guess there were sparks. Sure, she could have fucked him, but I just haven’t seen any signs in the two months since. No trickle truth, no guarding her phone, etc. I fucked up and snooped in her email and journal on her computer and found a journal entry where she talked about asking me for the open marriage so she could “get physical” with him, but nothing else. Whatever, maybe she did cheat, or maybe she will, but I’m not going down that road of paranoia for now.

Be attractive / don’t be unattractive

As I said, this was two months ago. I actually started lifting immediately after we had the open marriage talk. I realized that if I’m going to start dating, I should probably make an effort to be more attractive. Which of course raises the question of why I haven’t been doing that anyway for the last 15 years?? I guess I just thought that once we said “I do”, I was off the hook. She promised, why should I need to "be something I’m not” (read: an actual attractive man) in order for her to love me? Facepalm.

A month ago I switched to Crossfit. I know, I know, but fuck you guys. The best workout program is the one you’ll stick with, and this is a good fit for me for right now in those terms. I’ve lost 15 pounds on the scale and gained some muscle. Should hit my target weight in the next month. And in a few weeks I’ll be able to start the strength barbell classes at my gym, which should help with the muscle building as well.

I’ve also been doing yoga a couple times a week, which has been helpful both mentally and in terms of flexibility and avoiding injury. Plus, holy fucking eye candy.

I’ve also started dressing a little better, got a new haircut, got those braces I’ve been meaning to get for years, and got my acne scars fixed. I already feel better about myself. Seriously, why the fuck didn’t I do this shit years ago?

I've been doing some other shit too, but I'll post about that on my OYS posts.

OI/DNGAF/Validation Seeking/Frame

In terms of frame, for the first 2-3 weeks, I just dug the hole deeper. I got angry, I victim puked, I begged her to consider her daughter and all we have together (gross), I told her I would do anything for her (double gross), etc. I flapped my mouth so much trying to get reassurance and validation from her, and she just withdrew further and further.

But then once I started reading Schnarch’s stuff, MMSLP, and NMMNG and many, many MRP posts, I started to get my shit together a little tiny bit. I started to try and just focus on “Lift, read, STFU” at first, and I’ve been making tiny, tiny amounts of progress there.

I’m the worst kind of needy, codependent, validation-seeking little bitch. Just being around her now is so stressful because I’m subconsciously “monitoring” her, trying to get in her head, see what she’s thinking, etc.

I’m constantly biting my tongue now. I don’t ask her how she’s doing, or what she’s thinking about, or how she’s feeling.

One of the best things I’ve done is start to really consider my life after divorce. I did the whole alimony and child support calculation, and it’s not that bad. Yeah, it’ll suck for a bit, but if I keep choking down the pill and doing the work month after month, year after year, I’ll be a single, attractive, secure, masculine, rich, powerful man in my late 30s in a world-class urban environment. Come on, how bad could that be? :)

The part that still makes my stomach clench is the idea of her hooking up with other men after divorce and thinking “oh fuck yes, this is what I was missing all along…thank God my marriage is over!”

But that’s just the validation-seeking in reverse, the fear that she’s right about us being “incompatible” and that there’s something too beta or otherwise wrong with me to ever satisfy her. That’s where the fear is rooted.

Now, the rational part of me thinks that we’re both good people who deserve happiness. If we split, I hope she finds someone who fucks her three times a day because she can’t get enough. I don’t feel that, but that’s where I want to get to.

Therapy

I’m in individual therapy, mainly to have a safe space to talk through this shit and try and figure out why my self esteem is such shit. It’s been OK, although I’m not convinced my therapist is all that great. But it’s OK for now.

She and I are also doing sex therapy with a Schnarch-trained therapist who seems to be good and holding us both accountable. I’m hopeful it’ll be helpful for helping her work through some of her religious sexual shame, which I think was what first put this fire out all those years ago. Of course, then my shitty behavior and lack of frame or anything remotely resembling alpha dumped about a billion gallons of water on the ashes and has been continuing to do so for 15 years.

We’re also doing a 4-day intensive session with Schnarch himself next month. That should be interesting. It’s expensive as fuck, but it’ll be worth it to me whether this marriage survives or not if it helps me build frame (he calls it differentiation).

The ultimate covert contract

I’m flummoxed as to how to kill the ultimate covert contract: if I become an attractive man, she’ll feel differently and we can stay married! I keep telling myself this is all for me, not for her, but then every week or two, she’ll say something about how she’s skeptical this will change, or how she doesn’t think our marriage will survive, etc. and my emotions will flip out of control. I try to hide it, but it’s really hard. And this reaction by me just betrays my covert contract: “But, but, but…I’ve been lifting! I’ve been dressing better! I’ve been doing kino and initiating and not victim puking. For weeks now! How could you still not feel differently!” (note, I didn't actually say this, thank God)

Guys, I’ve been improving myself for weeks now! Weeks! Lol.

In many ways, I think her not feeling differently yet is probably a blessing. It lets me continually gauge whether I’m doing this for myself or for her / the relationship. Hell, maybe her mentioning that stuff is a shit test to see how I react.

My marriage is dead

I would say that I didn’t really take the red pill until about a month ago, about a month after she told me she wanted an open marriage. We had just spent a few days with our families celebrating our daughter’s 4th birthday, and she and I had gone away for a few days. We actually had good sex twice on the trip and even went to a strip club together (something she wanted to do as part of her journey to get over her sexual shame).

But paradoxically, all of this just made me even more angry. She needs more than this? We have a beautiful family, we’re having at least decent sex, our extended families are great and get along, and her leaving is going to be like a nuclear bomb going off. How selfish is she that she’s going to throw this away for the possibility of “tingles"??

But again, stepping back, that’s not fair. You can't fucking negotiate desire. Why should she stay in a marriage where she’s not getting what she wants or needs? Even more importantly, why the fuck was I willing to stay for 15 years when I wasn’t getting what I want or need?

So right then and there, I declared this marriage dead. I know about the 1000 foot rope, the “one month for every year of blue pill”, etc. I’m giving this until my 38th birthday, which will be almost 18 months from when she dropped the open marriage bomb. If things haven’t changed by then, I’m going to ramp into the upper levels of dread and eventually kill the puppy. She might leave or cheat before then, but if she doesn’t and things don’t change, I’m out. I’m not going to put up with a shitty sexual life in my 40s and 50s and 60s.

So this marriage is over. Maybe she’ll be in my next marriage too, but it won’t be the same. That marriage will have an actual man in it. I can’t change her, control her, make her feel a different way, etc. If she wants to cheat or leave, she will. That’s her call. But I’m fucking done with the old way, with my old life, with who I used to be, and with the marriage I used to have. If she wants to step her fucking game up and join me, she’s welcome, but either way, this train is leaving the station.