-38yo

-6'-2" tall, 225lbs. Down 25 over the last year and looking to drop another 5 by July with IF and fairly strict Keto.

-Lifting for about 3 months, 3x a week of 6-5-4 sets.

-Chest press bell 75lbs, Shoulder press bell 50lbs, DL 190LBS. These aren't single reps PRs just where I'm at this week. Gains have been steady and good. Gonna add another day or two per week and change up my formula, I just gotta figure out the best program for me as I wanna focus on posture more.

-Good job, decent income right at the 100k mark and working on some plans to increase another 30k in a year.

-Building a hot rod in my spare time and working on the house.

-Common law 10 years, married another 5 years. 14 years AFC for sure.

-Started this journey with NMMNG about 3+ months ago. Since then have read MMSLP, MAP, Pook, lots of side bar and currently working on Rational Male.

-Sex frequency is up from 1x a week of starfish to 2-3x a week with 1-2 caveman. I'm not settling for this, I want more oral, more kink etc.

-No porn for almost 3 months. Wish I had nuked that a long time ago.

-I definitely have started to establish my frame and am overall at the helm of the relationship, setting the goals, working on the planning and owning my shit. I definitely need to work on frame more.

-I started out Rambo, but have since started to STFU and just make and stick to plans for progress. Working on authentically pursuing what I want.

-No kids, no plans to have any.

-I'm giving myself till the end of June before I start dread lvl 3.

Hopefully that gives some basic context.

The RP moment for me was after reading NMMNG and doing 1 month of monk mode. I quickly realized that I was much more interested in the image I had constructed of my wife that the person she has been. Sex sucked (getting a bit better), her finances suck, she has been basically walking to her own tune while living off my financial support for a while. This is all my fault, I get it. Captain was drunk and first officer was running in circles. Doesn't change the fact that what I have now isn't what I consider a meaningful relationship.

I've started talking to other randoms which I haven't really done in 15 years. My game is shit, trying to figure that out as I go. I'm pretty leery of catch and release, mostly I'm afraid the release will be on some random's face. For me plates is a dark path and not worth the risk. Gaming the wife is difficult, I find it hard to flirt with someone I'm not super excited about at the moment. I'm trying though. I generally tell her clearly what I want, just not as fun as I know I could be.

Last Sunday I sat her down and we went through our finances and set up a budget. Learned that she has been maxing out her CC at $6k, no savings, no money allocated to taxes which haven't been done in years, I knew some of this was going on but not its pretty clear. As kindly and frankly as I could I told her that we can't keep lying to ourselves, she costs more than she makes and we need to make some changes. We made a monthly Budget that includes 20% savings, taxes etc so we have a plan going forward. She agreed to cancel her CC and I'll be adding her to my CC for all the bills etc, this way we can pay it off at the end of the month with no interest, its easy to see where money is going and I can essentially control the money going forward. I'll do this till the end of July and reassess. for the time being I'm leaving her responsible to figure out how to make more money and start aggressively paying down her CC debt and back taxes. I think the Budget was a solid first step, I'll start adding more pressure once we have this under control. I'm super nervous about giving her access to my CC, not that I catch her outright lying to me but she doesn't have a great track record when it comes to money.

Here are my questions:

  1. If the golden ratio is 1 month to every year of beta behavior how the fuck do you guys keep yourself from pulling a complete Rambo, wiping the slate clean and starting over?? That's another year. I've always been the type to just do something if I'm gonna do it, for me this has been the hardest part.
  2. Should I be working on catch and release or is there another way to practice my game that's lower risk?
  3. I really need some guidance more on the financial stuff. How do I communicate the need for her to take some more responsibility for her own input?
  4. What are some common comfort test I should be looking out for in the next month or so?