I wrote a post on this the other week and deleted the whole thing because it ended up going on a tangent I didn't find particularly worthwhile. Anyway, you're getting it for better or worse this time.

The rewrite of this was inspired by the AskMRP post on "Leaving as retribution".

Okay, so where were we. If you look at an intimate relationship, say... a marriage, most of the day to day conflicts are based around one of the parties feeling one of the above emotions. I am equating Mad and Annoyed here, along with Sad and Butthurt... but really, in the context of a romantic relationship, they all usually stem from the same interactions. Example: Your wife is a harpy bitch who doesn't value you and asks you to get groceries on the way home. You forget. She is MAD/ANNOYED. How you could be so stupid to forget something so simple? You're a strong independent man who mostly has his shit together and the same thing happens. She is SAD/BUTTHURT because she feels that she isn't important enough to you for you to remember her request.

The same interactions produce very similar emotions, but the way they are expressed (decision between MAD/Annoyed or SAD/Butthurt) is highly based on the power dynamic of the relationship.

So where am I going with this? Well, basically, you might see conflicting advice on this forum and AskMRP for what to do during conflicts... One moment approved members are saying be OI, STFU, DGAF and the next they are saying walk right out the door when your wife rejects you, or tell her to shut her mouth when she says something disrespectful, etc. The difference between which one is good advice lays in you.

If you have the emotions of a teenage girl and want to cry every time your wife rejects or shit tests you, then yes, walking out the door when you're butthurt is bad, because you undoubtedly ARE butthurt. Your actions are coming from a place of weakness. If you have your shit together and you REALLY DGAF then you have no fear walking out the door because your wife isn't fulfilling her end of the bargain. You aren't sad or butthurt, you are rightly annoyed, unhappy with her actions, whatever you want to call it. Not to propose imitating others, but for some perspective: You know what Chad does when his booty call doesn't put out? He leaves. He doesn't make up some bullshit excuse to protect her feelings. If he puts out some form of plausible deniability it's only to spare himself the drama of her blowing his shit up about leaving because she didn't put out, but he knows, she knows, we all know why he left and he isn't ashamed of it.

So, in summary: Just because OI is preached that doesn't mean you have to pretend all is well when it isn't. It doesn't mean you have to hang out with your wife when her behavior is shit. Yeah, don't let her shit affect you, but if it does then own it. This also isn't me giving you a pass to be a crybaby. If you do any of this from a place of weakness it will blow up in your face, you actually have to not give a fuck, this isn't some fake it til you make it shit because if you don't have solid frame she will absolutely turn it around on you and you'll end up worse off than you were before.

As a side note I want to quickly gloss over HER emotions: I would say they are the above two, with a third, secret, woman only emotion which is "MAD disguised as SAD." Where she feigns sadness to get you to show a bit of weakness ("I'm going to knock this comfort test out of the park.") and then instantly goes in for the kill. Then guys come here and ask how they fucked up this comfort test when it wasn't a comfort test at all.... it was a shitty comfort test... or really, just a shit test. You can directly relate the mad/sad power dynamic to the types of tests thrown your way. She has all of the power? Shit tests galore, no comfort tests, and a lot of MAD/ANNOYED from her end. Then it goes in a gradient to the opposite end of a plethora of comfort tests and she is only SAD during your conflicts. This could be it's own post but I want to keep the focus off of her so I tried to keep it short.

Oh, and a quick way to judge how far you have come? Just compare your previous and current MAD/SAD ratios.