My Wife Asked for Couseling

HeckleandChide · 2020-07-30T17:04:56+00:00

5 months ago she was 'halfway through the second pregnancy while also dealing with a 1 year old.' I'm not a mathematician but that leads me to think that she has a newborn and an almost-toddler and is going through hormonal hell. The following advice is useful all the time but is imperative right now.

First, STFU. This has many uses. Most guys here think of it primarily as a way to not show how butthurt you are and how to not get drawn into arguments which she will invariably win. It has another purpose - stop doing damage with your words. Just Shut. The. Fuck. Up. Be the Oak. Lead the family. Reduce/remove all criticism for a while and focus on getting your family back to some form of normalcy. Also, at the same time, crush your work/diet/weights/hair/clothes/social game. That positions you for success down the road whichever way you want to go. That's difficult to do at a time like this. Good. You could use some difficulty.

Second, treat her like the oldest child. When your oldest child is acting up because they are going through some incredibly hard shit, you have extra patience with them. Their actions/words/tantrums/mistakes don't affect you because, damn it, you are a grown-ass man and they are a child. Same here. Her energy levels, mental health, and emotional health are going to be in tatters for a while. That's just biological reality. It doesn't excuse shitty behavior but a grown man shouldn't be affected by crappy behavior from a presently unstable person either.

Focus on you. Stop being moved by her.

Cloudy_Pirate · 2020-07-30T17:22:14+00:00

Just out of curiosity, what have you done in the last 6 months?

I see one whiny OYS post on RPC about how you were too busy at work to do anything else.

Lifting 3-5 days per week? How much have your lifts increased in the last 6 months. How much muscle weight have you added?

What MRP sidebar books have you read? What have you learned and applied? Do you understand how to game and flirt with women (including your wife)?

How has your frame and leadership improved over the last 6 months? Are you owning your shit around the house, at work, and with your kids?

If (as I suspect) you haven't done shit for the last 6 months, then I have the following advice:
Go to the most expensive couples counseling you can find. After you've spent a few grand then maybe you will have felt enough pain to actually start owning your shit.

SBIII · 2020-07-30T18:08:23+00:00

Oh, man your post history.

Your autism is fucking spectacular.

In 6 months, you've managed to go from one side of the spectrum to the other. It's like watching Gilbert Grape mature into Rain Man.

just got a new haircut that looks great

Yeah - looks dope.

MRP5248 · 2020-07-30T18:00:50+00:00

A few basic things I've learned from MRP that apply here:

Texting is only for logistics. You should stop that conversation and tell her you'll talk in person.

Stop trying to fix her and focus on yourself. Stop calling her out or explain how you want her to change. Focus on what you can control, which is your own behavior, actions, emotions etc.

RStonePT · 2020-07-30T21:17:05+00:00

STOP ASKING THE INTERNET FOR YOUR VALUES.

RingoLaBrea · 2020-07-30T21:39:55+00:00

Tell her you want the both of you to do some independent work, as prep for counseling. Tell her you should both choose a book, and both read it. This gives you a chance to vet the message. That hopefully settles the comfort test. An author can better serve as your third party. If you get in a room with a counselor, you’re done.

I have no advice on a book. You’re gonna have to do that research settle on one that isn’t complete bs, and at least provides some good general interpersonal skills. Try to take this effort over, lead it. If she sees you care enough to own a strategy, you might be able avoid counseling all together.

But you better get back to your real work. This will only buy you some time.

redwall92 · 2020-07-30T17:13:43+00:00

If you don't want to go, then don't go.

I went to a therapist on my own for a while. My wife has her own therapist she sees. Each individually. If you guys work on any problems you each have .. with or without help from somebody else .. then the ethereal 'relationship' will most likely benefit.

If one of you makes progress, then the relationship will most likely make progress. If one of you makes progress and realizes the other person is just toxic, then the relationship may end if the person making progress decides 'enough with the toxic shit' and the toxic shit person won't change.

You do you wins the day.

If she cries, she cries. Hug, kiss. Listen a bit. Move on with your day. But a crying woman shouldn't keep you from making progress in your own life. If she is hindering your own progress in your own life, then maybe she needs to get out of the way.

BlueMyLoad69 · 2020-07-30T19:18:22+00:00

Okay, this is not going to be a popular opinion here. My wife and I started counseling right before COVID started and have continued once/week via Zoom. It has been helpful. My sex life is better than it has even been, and the wife is more laid back and chill than she’s ever been. The counselor is a woman, so there have been some borderline comical blue-pill bullshit moments. I basically ignore that stuff. A lot of the shit my wife and the counselor say are actually Red Pilled, or at least a version of it through their BP lense. My wife actually said in counseling that she couldn’t have sex with me for 2 days after I gave in to my 10 year old daughter on something she wanted because it made me “look weak”. Her fucking words. A lot of redpill ideas have been confirmed in these sessions for me. Other bullshit that they say I ignore, or filter through my redpill lense to find the actual truth at the heart of it. We did have a lot of work to do and counseling helped with that. Working out and holding frame can’t solve every problem, so don’t let these dudes talk you out of counseling if YOU think it will help. But definitely don’t do it just to make your wife happy.

business---travel · 2020-07-30T18:32:17+00:00

Here's the deal...

You haven't been doing the following:

Lifting heavy (regularly; 4 to 5 times a week)
Internalizing the books & material on the sidebar
Being social with everyone you meet & learning game (ALL women; not just your wife)
Developed frame, your MAP, and your mission (figure it out)
Leading your wife (that's why she wants to go to counseling)
Texting for logistics only
Developing your own style (yeah, your 'haircut'...)

It's time to start taking responsibility for your ship and actually doing the work. If you haven't figured this out already, you are doing this for you, not your wife or anyone else. As others have mentioned here from your post history, the last 5 to 6 months have had little to no progress whatsoever. It's time to start lifting heavy (no excuses) and get to work to make yourself better.

Vegasman20002 · 2020-08-07T15:10:50+00:00

J10 had a great post on this: when she starts in with this you show empathy, but do not reveal any of your own shit. For example, you might say "of course you are scared of having your needs go unfulfilled, we have a new baby etc ...but we will get through it. " You have given her empathy but also not fallen into the u/barracudaRP trap of making her feel disgust; you pass a comfort test to boot.

LabelOtherSide · 2020-07-30T16:54:16+00:00

Clarification: the reason she wants someone to “help her listen without breaking down” is because earlier in the text convo I had told her that it’s not fair when I bring up anything to her, she cries and breaks down. She has said before that she cries because she feels awful for not meeting my expectations. Like it hurts her feelings to know I am dissatisfied with her. She’s very submissive. But it’s a huge blocker to change/progress because if I call her out on something directly, she cries. If I gently try to explain something that I would like her to change, she cries. If I STFU and let my silence do the talking, she cries. If I push her away or let my actions speak for me, she cries. She perceives her SMV as radically lower than mine (she has pretty much alluded to this our whole marriage) and my SMV is already probably pretty low.

johnmic07 · 2020-07-30T18:12:06+00:00

my wife suggests counseling once in awhile. I just tell her that she can go talk to a counselor herself if she wants but I'm not going to because it's a waste of time and money.

Stop overthinking this. All women get emotional and suggest stupid ideas. It's your job to determine which ideas are stupid, and shut them down. What are you afraid of here? That she'll leave you if you don't go to counseling? That's an indication that you're afraid to lead and do what's right for your family which is an extremely beta behavior. She is shit testing you and you are failing.

weakandsensitive · 2020-07-30T18:59:17+00:00

there's a song by the tones and I that I think you'd like.

redpillruminations · 2020-07-30T19:12:00+00:00

You have so much fucking work to do, dude. Post less about your walk with the Lord and spend some time mastering yourself and shutting your stupid fucking mouth. You know nothing. You are not special. Your wife is not special. You think it's just her that's immune to your tight game right? Go to a bar tonight and get 1 number. Just 1. Can you? No, you can't. And you probably won't go to a bar even. Ask me how I know.

Forget nearly everything you think you know up until this point. Your parents were dealing off the bottom of the deck, homeschooling you and tainting everything with religion. You were literally raised to not trust or learn anything outside your tiny bubble. Have you even read NMMNG? You have to change how you validate everything, including yourself.

For God sake, stop fucking posting about your wife. No woman is touching your lame beta ass with a 10-foot pole. And probably won't for a long time even as you see your own progress.

Unfortunately for you, her making a covenant with the good Lord doesn't turn her on like you thought it would. The anger stage is going to be strong with this one.

Get your shit figured out so you can raise your kid right. Decide what that means for you and do it. Obviously you have no idea what you're doing right now. None of us do at the beginning but it pieces together over time as you reach goals and see your own progress.

SkimTheDross · 2020-07-30T21:41:57+00:00

Start by having conversations with your wife in person. I stopped reading once I saw the crucial conversation was happing via text.

dilberryhoundog · 2020-07-30T22:11:31+00:00

You live in a fantasy land.

She wants a third party to be present so that the conversation / criticism can be grounded in some kind of objective truth.

Is she the “crazy one” or is she living with a raging narcissist?

Morpheus_TNTB · 2020-07-31T06:55:26+00:00

You fucking serious about feedback? I don't even know where to start with this Tom-fuckery...

marks1995 · 2020-07-30T16:56:34+00:00

Your wife doesn't feel like she can talk to you. That's a huge issue with you.

2wo2wo3hree · 2020-07-30T20:19:37+00:00

I almost wasted 2 cents on you. Good thing I read the comments first. C U NxT Tuesday in OYS weekly. We’ll talk there. Jesus Christ. This guy is fucked up.

ChokingDownRP · 2020-07-31T01:03:28+00:00

Texting is for logistics, no way you should be texting anything that devolves into "we need therapy.". Let this be the last thing you text about anything other than the kids, dinner plan, what you're going to do to her later, etc.

It's her feeling like she's losing control over her beta. If you don't want to do it (you shouldn't), tell her so. It will likely turn into a comfort test - if so, hug her, kiss her head, tell her everything is ok, then either flirt and escalate or walk away to do something else.

_-resonance-_ · 2020-07-31T03:38:54+00:00

Lose patience? That will be all that happens as you better yourself. Be ready for a shit storm of shit tests.

[deleted] · 2020-08-01T01:14:35+00:00

If you go to counseling, there is an almost 100% chance it's going to be open season on you. One thing marriage counselors get right is that the relationship sucking IS your fault, but if you've been on here for sometime, you already know that.

My fear of counseling is that the counselor will convince my wife that her “needs” are for me to be sweet, mild, agreeable, when actually my wife really just needs me to become the best man I can be.

This is part of your problem.... needy behavior is fear based, and needy, fear based behaviors are not abundance mentality, they are scarcity mentality.

I would advise you that you need to listen to your wife and be her oak. When she emotes, use reflection and fogging. Do NOT DEER... this will just make her see you as worthless fuck and it'll send her hamster further down the "we need counseling" road. She is going here because she is lost and doesn't feel led by you. However, before you can lead her, you must learn to "lead yourself." Identify what you want and what kind of man you want to be and do that. Then, invite her into your frame. If she comes great, if not, then you know what you will need to do.

The two most important parts of this (IMO) are abundance mentality and OI... that is the core of frame. You can't have frame w/o OI and abundance mentality. Start there.

You're not there yet... you will know when you are because you won't be posting questions like this.

NowEntertheArena · 2020-08-02T02:02:26+00:00

Your wife sounds like an amazing woman and you sound like a complete self anointed, no entry exam needed, no bar to pass, no qualifications neccesary, the Bible told me so, head of the household douche. Though you are constantly tearing her down, I literally haven't read a single thing you have written about her that would make me think she has a problem. In fact she sounds very feminine and exactly what a woman should be. It's all you. Don't talk about her again.

If you like the philosophical side of things, which you seem to prefer over action, maybe read The Way of the Superior Man and realize your wife is exactly what she is supposed to be right now.

And don't tell me, "Thanks, that's a great suggestion". Don't comment at all. Just read the book, lift, and STFU. Then read the sidebar.

testy68 · 2020-08-03T04:38:16+00:00

So, to paraphrase: your wife's evaluation of your performance is "sub par". Your boss' evaluation of your performance is sub par. Your height weight numbers indicate your weightlifting is sub par. But you think your girlfriend and boss are both unreasonable? This speaks to the lack of self awareness that others have called out.

You need to pick 1-2 areas and start working on them asap. I would start with work and the gym. Those two areas will carry over to your personal life.

Your work eval probably called out 1-2 areas that need immediate attention. Look for areas in your plan/eval that it calls out. You should know what you need to improve already but if you don't, talk to your boss and ask for the 1-2 areas that need to be fixed.

Make a commitment to get to the gym 3 days a week minimum and lift heavy weight. Push ups and sit-ups don't do it. Your bench should be a minimum of your bodyweight for multiple sets of multiple reps.

Those are two actionable items you can start this week. Do it and make a commitment to post it on OYS this week.

Title	My Wife Asked for Couseling
Author	LabelOtherSide
Upvotes	15
Comments	100
Date	July 30, 2020 4:47 PM UTC (3 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/askMRP
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/askMRP/comments/i0pg88/my_wife_asked_for_couseling/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/askMRP/my-wife-asked-for-couseling.719732 https://theredarchive.com/post/719732