If you’re not tracking your wife’s menstrual cycle, you need to be. We say it all the time around here and for good reason. We also say AWALT, too, but that doesn’t mean all women act the same in the various stages of their menstrual cycle. Your woman is unique in that regard. You can’t just read a book about mensuration and expect to gain valuable insight to how her behavior and emotions change throughout her cycle. You have to witness it yourself. It behooves you to be aware of how and when she acts and reacts to the chaotic hormonal cycle so you can adjust your own behavior to suit. That’s right, I just said “behooves” motherfuckers.

This is not as difficult or time consuming as you may think it is.

First, you need to use a mobile app to track it. I use and recommend Clue, but other tracking applications exist.

Whether you tell your wife you’re tracking her cycle is up to you. If you’re not sure, I recommend that you don’t. Actually, don’t fucking tell her. At least not to begin with. Early on in my MRP life I tracked privately as I didn’t have the frame to handle it being out in the open. I’m glad I made that decision. But eventually I started implementing not only the insights I gained, but the fact that she knows I’m tracking, into how I game my wife and extinguish her shit tests. Slow roll your shit.

My wife is going to start her period in a few days. I, of course, know this and have been expecting it. I also know that a day or two before it starts, she gets extremely emotional. I know this because I have been tracking her cycle for over a year, and watching for behaviors and patterns associated with the different phases of her cycle. These are her I’m-about-to-start-my-period-signs: crying at stupid things like insurance commercials, showing a general sense of being overwhelmed and unable to handle even a minor crisis, being a big ball of anxiety thinking for sure someone is breaking into our house. Sometimes she even slays her own bizarre shit tests because they're so outrageously emotional that she catches her self, embarrassed. If I had zero awareness of where she was in her cycle, I may just think she’s being dumpy because Instagram is down or whatever, but because I have that awareness, I can expect it and see it for what it is: a natural, feminine reaction. Nothing to fear. Nothing to get worked up about. I use this opportunity to provide deeper levels of comfort, being her “rock” or “oak” as it were, because this is genuinely what she needs during these times. It also selfishly helps me stay in my own frame, and reminds myself that it’s a choice to affected by someone else’s emotions or not. I choose not to be.

Now… once you have the app installed, you need to figure out how best to keep it updated, and where to get your data.

What kind of time commitment are we talking about here? I don’t have all day to keep logs and sniff panties!

I find that it requires about 1 or 2 minutes per month to keep it accurate enough for my purposes. I collect my data by keeping an eye on our trashcan next to the toilet. Don’t worry, you don’t need to don gloves and go rooting through the garbage every day. When Clue tells you her period is looming, take note of what she’s throwing away. When I’m taking a piss, and notice tampon wrappers starting to pile up in the trashcan, I open Clue to let it know her period has started. Once you’ve been tracking for a few months, you don’t have to even tell Clue that it’s started, but I always do as I’ve found over time that she doesn’t always start at the same time every month. Giving Clue this data gives you a more accurate assessment of her overall cycle, along with when to expect the period to end and ovulation to begin.

As my wife transitions from pre-period to full on bloodbath, her mood changes as well. She’s generally still emotional, but less so than she was leading up to her period. She's less anxious. More loving. Her second day of menstruation also delivers to her a splitting headache, which is another marker to keep an eye out for. I’m sure your wife will be different, but taking note of repeating factors will help you in the long run by making it easier to spot the trends and provide the type of support that is beneficial to you both.

When her period is a day or so from being over, my wife enters a horny stage, which lasts for a week or so. This is in contrast to the stereotypical scenario where ovulation is when a woman is typically at her horniest. I’m not saying my wife isn’t horny during ovulation, but ovulation—for us—is different. (More on that soon.) Further, her period-stage horniness is not just your run-of-the-mill horniness—it’s a more sensual, rub-me-all-over horniness. She wants to be held closer and tighter. She wants it slower, more methodical and rhythmic. She wants to feel my breath against the back of her neck. She wants to feel my cum inside of her. I am happy to oblige.

Now, what’s more difficult than knowing when she has started her period is figuring out when exactly she’s fully off the rag without asking, but it’s not impossible. Again, you don’t need to tell Clue she stopped bleeding, but doing so will provide even more accuracy for future phases. Since my wife is hornier during this period, we’re generally having more sex, and I take note of when she has to pause a session to slip off to the bathroom before we fuck. (Hey retards: this generally means she has to remove a tampon and therefore is still bleeding.) Sometimes it’s more obvious; she may be worried about getting blood on the sheets, so she makes sure to grab a towel. Maybe you’ll need to be more diligent about emptying the trashcan to be able to tell? I'm not sure. There are a ton of ways to figure it out, and you’re smart, so put on your detective hat and grab your magnifying glass and figure it the fuck out.

A few days after her period has ended, my wife enters the first of her second monthly “normal” periods. By “normal” I mean her libido has returned to a base level, and her shit tests are less thorny and easier to combat. But this doesn’t last too long, because soon we enter…

Ovulation.

This is when my wife tests me the hardest, and when I am more susceptible to losing frame. Even though I know it’s coming, I still have a harder time squashing her shit tests because they’re different. They’re pricklier. This is when my wife is at her most feminine, when she needs to be reminded the most that she married a high value man before spreading her legs. Subconsciously she knows the seed she's about to receive counts for something, so the barriers are stronger. And even though I’ve been at this for a long time, this is where I need the most improvement.

But this is important: the reason we don't have the most sex during ovulation has nothing to do with her or her libido — it’s because I have a tougher time with her tests, and therefore we are less likely to have sex during this time than others. Ultimately I am robbing both of us of some of the best sex we can have because of my inability to match her sexual tenacity. Before MRP I saw this tenacity as pure bitchiness with no purpose; before tracking her cycle I saw this as random bitchiness with a purpose, but no connection to sex. Now that I track her cycle, I know that she’s horny but showing it in a completely different way than when she’s horny while on her period. But when I do man the fuck up and slash her expert ovulation shit tests, watch out. It’s combative! A lot of times our sex during ovulation feels more like make-up sex. It’s more raw. It’s carnal. She wants it from behind. She likes her hair pulled, her ass smacked. I am, again, happy to oblige.

After ovulation, my wife enters her second stage of normalcy, which lasts for a few weeks until she starts her period again and the whole cycle starts over again.

Before I tracked her cycle, I had no awareness of why she may be acting a certain way. It was all random. I saw no patterns. I was flying blind. I didn’t know how or when to apply the right types of comfort to the right situations. I didn’t know that she reacted to different types of sex depending on different stages of her cycle.

Tracking her cycle is like stealing signs. You still have to play the game to win, but you’re doing it with a level of insight that can be so effective that it feels like you’re cheating the game.