Relationship advice needed!

FascistOrigami · 2011-07-16T20:36:06+00:00

I do trust her.

much safer to me than a 6% chance of raising and paying for a child that is not mine

The thing is, if your gf is trustrworthy, then your chances of raising and paying for a child that is not yours is 0%. The real problem is whether your trust is well-founded or not. I don't think there is a good way to bring the issue up; however, this guy managed it.

GunOfSod · 2011-07-16T22:23:11+00:00

Decide what your ground rules are, and stick to them. If you don't want to get married, don't. If you feel the need to get a paternity test done, then be upfront about this from the start.

I know nothing of "Game Theory" and quite frankly it sounds like the latest in long line of "flavour of the month" social theories from the Dr Phil school of woo woo psychology. You don't need games, just be fair and consistent. The same way you should deal with anyone regardless of gender.

Greekfire · 2011-07-16T20:44:23+00:00

http://mens-rights.blogspot.com/2011/06/mgtow-in-post.html

Women have much more power in relationships than men do. Not just by social convention (which, believe me, is power enough), not just because others are more sympathetic to their side of any story (which, believe me, is also more than power enough), but via the full weight and majesty of the law.

Let us construct, in our heads, a hypothetical scenario. I shall use you and I as examples, just give some sense of the impact of these events on people's lives.

Let us suppose that we meet, by chance, in some gathering place in some city where, at some time in the future, we both reside. I am tall, handsome, muscular, well-dressed, and confident; you are pretty, intelligent, charming, and you get my jokes.

About a year later, you decide that I am a good catch, the best of your available options, and you would like to be married. You drop hints, but I demur. I like you well enough, but you want children and I do not. Not to mention that I am still considering my options and am unready to enter into any sort of lifelong pact.

(This is the branch point. This is where we tell the story of what you could legally do, were you so inclined.) You simply stop taking your birth control pills, without a word to me. This is not a crime, because legally, I have no right to know. They are your pills, and it is your body.

After a couple of attempts which I did not know were attempts, you become pregnant. You may have attempted with other men as well. Let's leave that matter unresolved for the moment.

You do not tell me until you start to show. This is also perfectly legal.

Once I figure things out, I offer to pay for half the termination procedure. You decline to undergo one. This, too, is legal. The law allows you the "right to choose". I, however, have no such right.

I do a little snooping, and discover unused quantities of birth control pills in the bathroom cabinet. Since they come in those neatly dated little wheel-things, I am easily able to deduce the exactly day you stopped. I terminate our sexual relationship post-haste.

You are angry and accuse me of putting you in this delicate situation and then abandoning you. I demur, arguing that you placed yourself in this situation. Negotiations deteriorate.

I demand a paternity test, not feeling very trusting at this point. You refuse. You can do that. You have the legal right, it's your body, I cannot force you to undergo amniocentesis.

You give birth to a daughter, and name her Zoe. I am named on the birth certificate as the father, simply because mine was the name you gave when they asked. I was not even there.

Now, I have refused to marry you. I still have that right, in most situations. (Look up "common-law" marriage, a law that allows a woman to force a man to marry her.)

So you legally demand that I provide you with the benefits of marriage anyway, to wit, a large portion of my income. You have the legal right to do this. It's called "child support".

In court, I demand a paternity test, but am denied one. You see, because I offered to pay for an abortion, I acknowledged the child as mine. And my name is on the certificate. And, most important of all, the very court that is ruling on the matter receives a cut of all child support payments. (Bet you didn't know that, did you?)

Legally, the money is for Zoe, but the checks come to you, in your name. You can spend them however you like, with no oversight whatsoever.

I'm not even sure Zoe is mine.

Now I'm in a bad situation. But the story does not end here.

The tanking economy causes budget cuts, and my cushy job as an engineer at a major defense contractor is lost. The only thing thing I can find to replace it is a job hawking cell-phones in one of those mall kiosks. This is not, however, grounds for reducing my child-support payments. The initial amount of them was determined by my income at the time, but legally, they are a right belonging to Zoe, and determined by Zoe's need, so my income is not a factor.

Now I cannot pay. I am a "deadbeat dad", according to society. And the newspaper my photo is published in. And the website my picture is posted on.

My failure to pay tanks my credit rating, too, with all its attendant woes.

The economy loosens up a bit, and I reapply to my old firm. They're keen to hire me, but they can't. With a record of delinquent child support payments, I cannot pass the background check. Now my career is blighted, too.

Many years have passed at this point, and I'm in deep trouble. Broke, no career prospects, poor credit, spotty criminal record (failure to pay child support is a misdemeanor in some jurisdictions), depressed, no means or confidence to attract another woman even if I could ever trust one again.

But the story doesn't end here.

Desperate, I manage to find some pretext to visit you, and I steal some of Zoe's hair from her hairbrush in the bathroom. I pay for a lab test out of my meager remaining resources.

Zoe isn't mine.

I take you to court, and lose. Yes, lose. Because I had already been paying child support, I am the publicly acknowledged father. (If you do not believe this could possibly happen, I sympathize. It's crazy. But google "joseph michael ocasio" and prepare to be shocked.)

Okay, end of scenario.

Look where we are. My life is indeed ruined. At no point did I have any power to stop it (except by remaining celibate my entire life). At every point, what you did, you had the legal right to do. You didn't have to "get away" with anything. You could write a book about it, and nothing would change, because it was all legal.

The only thing protecting most men from this fate is nothing but women's lack of inclination to do this. They are entirely in her power.

Would you accept being in an 1700's-style marriage, where your husband owned everything, and had the legal right to beat you, simply because he was a "nice guy and wouldn't do that"?

That is precisely what men are being asked, no, expected, to accept.

Is it any wonder we are distrustful and suspicious to the point of paranoia? It's our only defense. The law will not protect us. The law is against us, straight down the line.

Think about it. Try to imagine how that might feel.

tl;dr: When a man rapes a woman, it is against the law. When a woman rapes a man, the law is the instrument she uses.

Being a second-class citizen is unacceptable whether others choose to mistreat you or not.

Consider it this way. I am large and physically strong, a bodybuilder and a 1st dan (black belt) in karate. If we were in the same room, I could easily, were I psycho enough, rape you. There wouldn't be a thing you could do to stop me.

And I sympathize with the trepidation women feel at being vulnerable in this way.

But if I were to do this, you would have legal redress. The police might or might not be able to find me, you might or might not be able to identify me, I might or might not be convicted. The system isn't perfect.

However, society is at least doing what it can, making every reasonable effort, to prevent this.

In the scenario I wrote, society is actually helping you to ruin my life.

The problem is not that an aggrieved psycho can inflict damage. That's always been the case, and always will. The problem is that if one does so, we in particular have no redress, no right to defend ourselves.

This is why reddit (being a slice of the honest opinions of mostly young men) distrusts women and hates feminism. Because you distrust anyone who can hurt you with impunity, and you hate anything that wants to make you into a second class citizen or a slave.

And the worst of it is that there is no way out for you, personally. Because there is nothing you can say to a man to reassure him that he has not already heard from some manipulative sociopath. They're out there. Every truth you could possibly tell him, he has already heard as a lie. You have too much power over him, and even if you elect to set that power down, it means nothing, because society allows you to pick it up again any time you choose.

mikesteane · 2011-07-17T04:10:01+00:00

Perhaps we should start a club in which one of the conditions is that members agrees that they will not support a child without DNA proof of paternity. That way, a man can tell his partner, "yes, I trust you, but I have joined this society and I am obliged to do it."

2011-07-18T00:13:32+00:00

As for paternity tests, don't tell her. Swab the kid yourself and get the test done if necessary, or just say to one of the nurses that you want to make sure the kid is yours because you have some genetic quirks that you might not want passed down to the kid. No need to have a conversation about that with the wife.

As for Game, it's generally assumed (check out the Neil Strauss book) that Game is to be reserved for short-term sexual conquests, not long-term relationships. Lovegame? I dunno--check Lady Gaga for that one.

darkamir · 2011-07-18T15:43:22+00:00

Don't ask her. It is between you and the child.

Get a kit from: http://www.gtldna.com/ or other (WalGreen have paternity test as well) and do it.

This 100$ will protect you for investing your love, time in child who is not yours.

(This also shows the growing lack of trust between men and women these days. Which is sad, but is a reasonable view of reality, since adulatory and lies are now socially acceptable.)

kloo2yoo · 2011-07-16T20:53:57+00:00

We will eventually want children, and I'm still debating how to handle the legal issues involved.

research surreptitious ways to have the child dna tested.

thingsarebad · 2011-07-16T21:06:24+00:00

You should know her so well that you are basically 99.99% sure she will stay with you through thick and thin.

Also, only stay with her if she's a virgin. If you weren't her first, she'll have a hard time committing.

She should also look at you like God's gift to women. If she isn't madly, crazy in love with you and never wants to let you go, then she ain't safe.

Also http://thingsarebad.blogspot.com/2011/07/relationship-advice-for-men-or-how-to.html

I'd also say if you have doubts such that you'd need a paternity test, she isn't the one for you.

If you have to spend a lot of energy gaming her just to keep things stable, she may be too high maintenance.

Does she ever say things like "if you did THIS or THAT to me, this relationship would be OVER"? If so, dump her. If a woman expresses ultimatums and shows an inability to compromise and forgive even serious things, she will likely fuck you over one day.

Title	Relationship advice needed!
Author	Greekfire
Upvotes	0
Comments	34
Date	July 16, 2011 8:00 PM UTC (15 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/irhja/relationship_advice_needed/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/relationship-advice-needed.1037206 https://theredarchive.com/post/1037206

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