You are the captain of your ship. When you finally took control of yourself and set a course for a kick-ass life, you had a vision in your head of what that life would be like. You realized that the woman who could fill the position of first mate was not as constrained as you once believed, but you gave her first crack to live up to the position if she wanted to come along. So you set off on that course to be a stronger man and fill your life with things strong men do, like lift, compete, and strive. You set a course to be a better looking man, and fill your life with things better looking men do like attract women, dress well, and flirt. You set a course to be a social master, and fill your life with things a social master would do, like go out to events, be the leader of the group, and meet all kinds of new people. Your wife may see these changes, and when the rope pulls taught she may even put down the fork, pick up a weight, and follow you. Here's the thing though:

 

Your wife doesn't give a FUCK about where you're going or what your goal is.

 

We are men. As David Daeda says we have a mind that works in space and time. We see ourselves here and now and want to get to a place there and then. We want to build ourselves to move mountains just because it's hard, but not impossible. And once we accomplish that feat we set a new goal.

Your wife is a woman. She doesn't care about the goal. She doesn't see herself standing there next to you in that great new place, beaming with pride because it's you and her that made it there. What she cares about, paraphrasing Daeda again, is the flow of emotions she can experience from here to there. She wants to feel.

 

Have you ever seen a group of women get together and try to decide something to do? Maybe yours is like mine who constantly complains that multiple friends she knows keep saying they should get together...but no one ever really sets up a plan? It's all feel feel feel and no action. Action only happens when the feel from the action is better than the feel from no action.

 

My wife went running with me the other day, training to join me in a timed run some time in the future. It was her idea to do the future run, but she takes no action on her part to prepare for it unless I say "Hey, let's go train." She fell about 25 feet behind in our run, and I once looped around in a circle to let her catch up. But no matter how much I slowed, she would slow more to stay about 25 feet behind me. About a half mile at a steady pace I told her "Hey, you're going the same pace. Come on up here next to me." She replies with "No, I'm fine." and to be honest this made me irritated. If she's running the same pace, why not come up here with me? Is it a snub? Is it to make me coddle her into picking up her pace to catch up? I'm not one to coddle progress, and it's apparent that she can run at my pace next to me, but chooses not to. So I increased to my own pace and left her behind...and she shortly slowed to a walk.

About a half mile later she gets home. And I share a vision of what us running together means. I say "You know, when I envision us running together, I picture us next to each other, running together, and chatting with each other for company." She replies "Well you kept running faster (lie) You're supposed to be motivating me (blame)." Some great bait, but I STFU, and went out to continue my run alone for another hour.

 

What's the deal? Why doesn't she want this as much as me? Doesn't she want to get to a place where we're the shit together? Wouldn't she be happy to run next to me and we can chat and flirt as we go along? Doesn't she envision us crossing the finish line of that race and feeling so great because we made it? No! She doesn't give a shit about that place! She gives a shit about the FEELINGS she can feel on the way. "You're supposed to be motivating me." In other words "You're supposed to be making me feel."

Does your goal not mean anything at all to her then? Do you? You do. What you mean to her is that you are a source of her feels. She not only derives her feels for herself from you, she derives pride for you, from you. She literally looks up to you as the man who can make her feel. And when you go to move mountains, she gets feels from your strife and success. Those feels aren't for you. They aren't "Yay husband for moving mountains!". You don't get to enjoy them. They're for her. They're "Wow, I feel things when my husband moves mountains". But those feels come from you.

She wants to admire you from afar. It's literally what she's doing when she runs 15 feet behind. She doesn't want to match you. Ever meet your heroes? Ever see one that is nothing special, that isn't someone to look up to? The admiration vanishes. How can she admire you if she matches you? You are literally the replacement father figure for the man in her life that she grew up thinking had the potential and strength to do anything. And who gave her those feels. And just like you will get attraction and value from her, or from someone else; she will get those feels, good or bad, from you, or from someone else.

Why you then? Why will she pick up a weight and follow you? Dread. Remember when I said action is only taken if the result of action gives more feels than the result of inaction? Dread is the sense of perceived competition, either real or imagined, for access to the feels you give. Her inaction will cut her off from those feels, and she knows this. When you start to improve, when you advance up the levels of dread, you not only provide more feels, you construct a plausible threat to her for those feels. And though moving up the ladder of dread is for you, not her; it works because it has the effect of moving her as well...or else.

 

The Red Queen says males are usually the ones who will battle it out to decide who is the alpha male, and then women pick from that. But women also need to figure out how to put themselves in the best position to observe the alpha male when he comes to power. So when she starts coming with you to lift or hike or whatever, she doesn't necessarily care about the goal you've set. She's there to get those feels, and to observe a man in power. If she goes out without you, also be aware that she's going to observe men in power as well.

And when it comes to sex, be aware that, especially in this case, she doesn't place value in the goal. Does she like sex? Sure. Is her goal sex? No. Her goal is the feels up to and in sex. Want to have more sex? Increase her feels up to sex by gaming and kino. Increase her feels during sex with DEVI. And at the same time instill a sense of dread that there may be competition for those feels from other women. Owen from RSD tells it true when he says that women don't care about the goal of sex because they can get to that goal whenever they want. It's easy for them. Walk into any bar, spread legs, sex. He relates it to a guy and a girl watching a movie, and the guy saying "let's just watch the end. Let's just watch the final conclusion and then go do something else." She can watch the end whenever she wants, but it doesn't mean anything. The meaning comes from the feels on her journey there. A journey you take her on...as Captain of the ship.

Shout out to /u/JDRoedell who gave some great insights into the event that spawned this realization after a back and forth the other day. Men swapping notes. This is why it works.