The 6 Stages of Breaking up: A Guide To Not Having Your Nuts Smashed in a Door by a LTR

The 6 Stages of Breaking Up: A Guide To Not Having Your Nuts Smashed in a Door by a LTR

Primer

If you've spent any amount of time on asktrp it's easy to notice similar questions emerge:

I’ve taken the pill but I still want a family... I think I have a unicorn… How do I get my ex back... My ex really fucked me over is this AWALT...

The first advice always given is that LTR’s are redpill on hard mode, so don’t start one if you don’t have a lot of RP knowledge. Secondly, the poster is always asked to read the sidebar. In addition to these quality answers I'd like to add a third suggestion: understand the breakup stages women go through.

 

The Break Up Stages*

Did your unicorn break up/divorce you? Do you want her back? Tough shit. She’s gone. But you can learn from your mistakes. First lesson: you fucked up; not her.

Next time around don't lose her in the first place. How do you do that? You stay a step ahead by understanding the stages, counteracting, and hedging your bets.

Stage Zero: "Love"

What it looks like: this is the fun zone where girls are fucking you passionately and giving you what they have to offer. For most women this is just sex, affection and a bubbly feminine persona. Gone are the days where women offer tangible assets like cooking, household management acumen, useful skills, etc. Most women at this stage will want to spend all their time with you and will temporarily drop their party friends and male orbiters.

How to counteract it: Don't! This is a good place to be. If you are unhappy at this stage she’s probably not the right person for you and you’re just settling.

Chances of keeping the relationship in tact: 85%+

Hedge your bets: This is where you enjoy the sex but look carefully at the other things she's offering. You do not fall in "love." Real men see through this trope and plan ahead. Over the long term you can love from a distance, you can give affection, but you can never expect her to unconditionally love you back. She is not and never will be your mother no matter how much she imitates the role. If she's going above and beyond to coddle you, try new hobbies with you, do household duties that she's obviously never done before, then she is doing a ‘Pre-Wall Prance.’ She's worried she is losing her ability to attract high value men and she is trying to catch you; she’s decided you’re her last hope. These offerings are a ploy and most likely will go away. You hedge your bets by looking past the sex, affection and comfort food at who she really is. Observe closely, get to know her friends, family, and even talk with exs, gauge carefully her character and how deeply she's really connecting to you. Is this a women that has the ability to deeply bond? Only move the relationship towards LTR status with an honest, realistic picture of her.

Stage One: Subtle Shit testing

What it looks like: Nearly invisible. This is where you must act decisively. This is the easiest stage to reverse. You might be asking: "well how do I detect the shit test if it's nearly invisible JackGetsIt?" Answer: If you aren't picking up on subtle shitting testing you need to get more social experience with women in general. Men who grew up with lots of sisters slay in the SMP because they have this component down. Remember that women communicate covertly. If this is a weak area of yours study up on shit testing and get some more field time before going LTR. Besides financial burdens this is the biggest reason young relationships fail.

How to counteract it: Find the real reason it started. Fix it without her knowing. If you can't fix it soft next or plate her. subtle dread game can be helpful, with an emphasis on subtle. Do not try to use reason or negotiation, do not tell her you see her shit testing. Read, practice and develop good relationship skills. These include: not putting her on a pedestal but not negging her like a PUA, reward positive behavior act indifferent to negative behavior, amused mastery, sex god method, consistent sex etc etc. The core of most RP relationship advice is leading and holding frame. To paraphrase Redpill user abdada, Women have two brains: The Hypergamous hindmind: gyny tingles and gooey retard mode and the Irrational forebrain: the shit talking trickle truth mode. When you lead you keep her in the hindmind, when you placate she goes into the forebrain. This is true over 2 months or 50 years. You don’t buy unconditional love from women with dates and experiences; they are constantly evaluating your leadership, so you must at all costs keep her in the gooey tingly mindset.

Chances of keeping the the relationship intact: 70%+

Hedge your bets: Lift. Lifting is also great subtle dread. Women get a weird validation high when a guy they are dating gets fat and lazy but it wears off and turns into resent and low attraction. Have consistent 'fun' in your relationship, trickle out your beta love and affection on a slow drip, and never stop 'dating her' and keeping her emotionally charged. If you don't want to do these things then you might be happier with MGTOW or plating or dating someone way down the SMV scale from your position.

Stage Two: Overt Shit Testing

What it looks like: At this stage she's made a decision to break up with you but she's not confident it's the right choice and she might not have any higher value prospects. She seeks an answer to that uncertainly through her most trusted tools: shit testing and sexuality. She will NOT come out and say she's thinking this. Stage two looks like "You're not a man" "Act more like a man" "You don't make enough money" "You need to change jobs/move up the career ladder" "You should get out more" “You spend too much time around the house/we hang out too much” “You spend too much time [insert hobby you love]” You will see inconsistent attention to health and beauty. You will see inconsistent sex drive. You will see gas lighting, fighting, and passive aggressiveness. She might want to travel with or without you. This may actually be a time period where she becomes open to kinks or totally shuts off sex; regardless it's very inconsistent.

How to counteract it: This is the make or break stage. If you don't do something drastic like heavy dread it’s over. Be prepared to leave if the heavy dread doesn’t work. Be clear to her you know what she's doing. Don't threaten to leave, don't make any threats at all at this stage; just actions. Systematically and succinctly explaining her own emotions to her as a father would lecture a child can be a successful strategy. You can also inadvertently remind her of your strengths. Put yourself in situations that you can demonstrate your strengths without showing off. Subtly and indirectly remind her why you started seeing each other in the first place.

Chances of keeping the relationship intact: 20-60%

Hedge your bets: Lift like your life depends on it, openly cultivate friendships, do masculine things, enjoy being a man. Strengthen current work, friend, and family relationships (you might need them soon). It will be difficult to apply this hedge because women are excellent at making their chosen mate comfortable and many men use this time to relax and ease off the daily fight for strength, money, and power.

Stage Three: Consensus Building

What it looks like: Friends get secretly stolen behind your back. This is where an enormous amount of lying and spinning comes in. Most posts about break ups are filled with the details of the aftermath of this stage. Women highly value social capital and she will do whatever it takes to walk away with as much of it as possible. She will do this very covertly so that when the break up comes she has plausible deniability, sympathy, and support, and you get blame and loneliness. She will be on social media, going out a lot, she will be reconnecting with people, she will be shopping. She will be spending an enormous amount of time with girlfriends and most likely party girl type girlfriends. She will be closely monitoring all your faults.

How to counteract it: Ghost. Do you live together? Move out and don't communicate with her until she sees you carrying the TV out to your truck. After you moved share only logistical details and only in writing and don't express a hint of anger or bitterness in those communications; keep them slightly upbeat. Do not initiate interaction with her outside of logistics. Show high value and abundance every time you interact with her. Be aloof and treat her like every other girl. Consistently be showering other women around her with attention. Demonstrate high value and parade female prospects to her friendship groups. Court a close friend of hers. If you're reading this guide and you're thinking to yourself, "I don't want to break up with her because (I love her, we’re still dating, she still fucks me) then you're not seeing the big picture the way she is. Always be a step ahead of her and that means ghosting if she hits the consensus building stage. You shouldn't have let it get this far in the first place.

Chances of keeping the relationship intact: 5-25%.

Hedge your bets: fight hard to keep all the friends even if it means swallowing your pride in certain situations or being uncomfortable because you have to be near her (this will be difficult for some). You will be asked by friends about the break up, be honest and vague. It will be tempting to fabricate a narrative the puts you in the positive, this is a feminine tactic and you are above it; lies will get back to your ex and she will use them against you. If she loses the majority of friendships she will often flip and apologize for shit testing and more. she will then try to renegotiate and you will be back in the drivers seat. Be weary about taking a LTR back at this stage. Only listen to the language of her actions.

Stage Four: Monkey Branching

What it looks like: Her actively looking for another guy and/or reuniting old relationships. Most men don't see women doing this. This can go on for weeks, months, or even years while you think the relationship is still active. Often times you're still having occasional sex and most men only think the relationship has had a 'rough spot'.

How to counteract: There's nothing you can do. You're already broken in her eyes. You will be tempted to ask her to 'explain' her actions. Don't. This opens the door for her to manipulate and spin. Say something to the effect of, "You're not in my league any more" and put all your focus on decoupling your life with her. Even a huge boost of your SMV rarely helps because she will have already painted a weak, castrated, inadequate picture of you in her mind.

Chances of keeping the relationship intact: 2-7%

Hedge your bets: Set lots of concrete plans to stay busy with both work and socializing. Set up vacations, events, and hangouts with friends and family (especially male friends) that you can attend so that when the break up hits the hardest you will have support and a place to blow off steam constructively. This also serves as a way to meet new women. Reconnect with old plates. Basically you’re mirroring her branch swinging behavior but you do it more directly and amplified.

Stage Five: Cheating and Verbal Break Up

What it looks like: cheating and breaking up.

How to counteract: Absolutely nothing you can do. This is where many men wake up, they negotiate, they use anger, they shut down, they submit. It's all a waste of time. She has long since made her decision and any supplication from you fits into her new narrative that you are not a strong enough man for her and she made the right choice.

Chances of keeping the relationship intact: 1-4%

Hedge your bets: Cash in your previous hedges. Did you make them?

Stage Six: Extraction

What it looks like: At this point any interaction she has with you is purely a play for extraction of resources: temporary hot emotional sex, validation, friends, money, your time, your skills, career advancement, pleasure from seeing you hurt. You are now a pure beta provider in her eyes and any alpha traits you might develop in this time period are seen with extreme suspicion and dismissed. Most guys get really screwed at this stage because they are still emotionally invested. She has long ago emotionally divested and it comes as big kick in the nuts. Anything in your past that you did for her is completely forgotten or re-imagined to suit her new narrative. If you were living in the 9th century and a band of Vikings had raided your village, disemboweled you and raped her she would need to emotionally cope with that. She is now stage zero with her new viking man; he’s the alpha now. This hamstering mechanism still works today; she now sees you and treats you like every other low value guy out there. If she has sex with you at this stage it's purely for extraction. No you can't plate an ex. If she is post wall and aware of it she may even agree to marry you or have a relationship with you during the extraction stage! However, you will never be her captain and she will always be on the hunt to jump ship.

Chances of keeping a genuine relationship intact: 0-1%

Hedge your bets: Go into monk mode if applicable and learn from your mistakes as a hedge for the next relationship.

Take-aways

You’ll notice that the chances of salvaging a LTR are very low if not caught early. You'll also notice that women break up and mentally decouple from their partners long before they verbally acknowledge it to their partners. This generates an enormous amount of anger from men because it doesn't follow male rules of conduct. That anger is misplaced; don't blame women for being women; embrace that they have different sexual strategies based on evolutionary biology and move forward. LTR’s are about managing a women’s expectations and emotional state. This is easier said than done. Notice that as men we set ourselves up for success by maintaining independence, high physical health, and broad work and social networks outside of our sexual partners. You never allow her to dictate the relationship. You lead she follows and you never allow a deviation of this dynamic.

These stages will be more accurate if:

1) You're not dating an alpha widow, BPD, Dark Triad, or Single Mother. Yes, this eliminates an enormous amount of women but it's a big country. Use this video to help ID BPD types. These women don’t really follow predictable patterns as they normally start and end relationships at the extraction stage.

2) You have established a foundational male archetype for her to attach too while you courted her. You maintain it.

3) You have a modicum level of financial knowledge, and career stability in relation to hers.

4) You have a basic understanding of frame.

5) You have some social capital and you spend time away from her on your own missions and hobbies.

6) You actually want a LTR not a plate. Don't make the mistake of moving in or marrying a plate because she's 'comfortable'. Be honest with yourself.

7) Her notch count isn't astronomical and she still has the ability to bond strongly. (this is difficult to gauge and should be a high priority for you to find before a LTR starts).

8) You have long term goals and your highest priority is confidently working towards them. This is the elephant in the room and women will quickly move to overt shit testing and end the relationship if you are not advancing your career in some form or another.

9) You don't attempt to use RP language in discussions with women. You reduce your impulse to explain and fix women’s problems. Not everything she complains about is your fault or your problem to fix no matter how she frames it. Sometimes you just listen.

10) You can subtly keep her away from very high value males and party girls; she will want to keep herself away from those influences if you follow the guide and preceding points.

TLDR: Women go through 6 stages of breaking up: subtle shit testing, overt shit testing, consensus building, monkey branching, cheating, and extraction. If you want a LTR you need to hedge your bets and hold frame daily. The process is long because women are hypergamous; they are always looking for high value males with more resources, and protection. This long process allows them to garner those, build social capital, and reverse if need be; it's a flexible survival strategy that has evolved for eternity but it can be comprehended, predicted, and contained.