How to handle a wife that is always "sick" and/or "tired"

jacktenofhearts · 2016-04-19T06:20:28+00:00

At the same time, she has started complaining incessantly over how tired she is, and how tired her life and our kids make her.

In the past, I've whined to her about never prioritizing me, and spending all of her energy on other people. This is blue pill as fuck, and wont happen again.

She is not spending all of her energy on other people.

She is receiving energy from other people. Surely you're familiar with this experience. You have plans to meet a friend for happy hour after work. But you didn't sleep well the night before. Your work day was especially stressful and aggravating. You still haven't filed your taxes or done several other errands. So you text your friend, "Hey man, not feeling too hot. Raincheck on happy hour?"

If he is a good friend, he will tell you to stop being a pussy and come out. Haven't seen you in forever, just have a goddamn beer with me, your taxes aren't going anywhere. So you drag yourself and go. There is traffic on the way. Parking is annoying. The bar is loud and crowded. You so desperately just want to take a goddamn nap and yet you're here, pretty much doing the exact opposite of taking a nap.

You sidle up to the bar. Hey man! You made it!

The sheer enthusiasm he has for your mere presence -- your fatigued, disheveled, mentally withdrawn presence -- perks you up a bit. You feel a little less fatigued, a little less disheveled, a little less withdrawn.

Then you see your friend has two Red Bulls and two shots waiting for you. And your friend says, Now that I know you're not actually a pussy, we need to drink this, then chug that.

You roll your eyes. What the fuck is this, college? It's happy hour at a dive bar on a Thursday. You start to protest, but your friend isn't having it. Drink the shot, you bitch! And he downs his. You inwardly groan, and outwardly sigh, and do the same.

After chasing away your hard alcohol cringe with some carbonated sugary caffeine, you blink a couple times. You somehow already feel amped and buzzed even though it's impossible for the alcohol and caffeine to have hit your system yet. But you expect to feel amped and buzzed, so you already do feel amped and buzzed... and isn't that the only thing that matters?

Your friend polishes off his Red Bull with his long swig. All right. I know you had a lot of shit to do. You want to take off now, we'll meet up another time.

Yet even though this option would have seemed, so, so, SO appealing to you thirty seconds ago, you can't imagine why you'd do that now. "Fuck you. I can't walk out of here owing you a round."

OK, so, that feeling?

Your wife gets that from everyone else in her life but you.

This is why she eagerly participates in activities and spends time with people that aren't you. They are energizing, you are enervating.

I don't know whether you're enervating just to her or in general. Unfortunately your Victim Puke was so focused on your wife, it contained close to zero introspection on your own shortcomings.

The reason why we preach do you even lift, bro? is not merely cosmetic. Among other things, it's the easiest possible way to internalize how something that seemingly CONSUMES energy can in fact PROVIDE energy. Just like my happy hour scenario, no doubt you dragged your tired and fatigued ass to the gym and somehow came out of there 60 minutes later feeling great, probably due to some combination of endorphins and dopamine. Investing hard work into productive achievements, actually yields a greater capacity for work in the future to achieve even more.

But in your household, you simply CONSUME your wife's energy, which is why she literally fucking falls asleep within 30 seconds of spending any time with you. I suspect it's related to this.

She gets them up in the morning, and ferries them around to afterschool activities, but I contribute my fair share when I get home from work. She does more housework than me, but I do enough.

Well, here's my completely unprofessional and unqualified psychological opinion. I think your wife is suffering from some sort of burnout when it comes to managing your household. The best way I can describe it is if you ever have a professional cleaning service come to your house while your away, how do you feel when you come back? That refreshing, energizing feeling you get when you open the door and see everything sparkling clean and neatly organized? Oh man, they even sorted out and stacked up that mess of kids' toys we had in the living room? Nice! This feels like an actual LIVING ROOM again, and not just a permanent disaster zone for our children! And they buffed out those scuff marks on the walls by the stairway? Jesus, it looks so much better now. I didn't even realize how much of a fucking eyesore that must have been.

So... take the exact opposite of that feeling. You've probably heard of "broken window theory," so what I'm suggesting is something like that. Your children, and your household, and YOU, were constant reminders to your wife of all sorts of disorganization and chaos. Look, this idea of "choreplay," of our wives nagging us to do the dishes and maybe we'd fuck them, there are theories that suggest it's all part of some conscious grand feminist scheme to turn us into compliant beta bucks. Or maybe it's just a bunch of harried women trying to say, I'd be less stressed if I wasn't constantly reminded by you and your children and your house about how fucked up and disheveled our lives are!

But this is not an easy concept to communicate, so instead, you just get some whining about the dishes. Don't do the dishes. She still won't fuck you, probably because she knows those dishes won't get that clean anyway, because your town has hard water and all your glassware just ends up with gross lime streaks. And even though you've done the dishes, she'll pull out that glassware to pour water for you and your kids, and notice those lime streaks, and she'll have to manually buff them out anyway. And she actually wishes she didn't have to give a shit about this sort of thing, it's not like water hardness is a devastating problem.

But she can't seem to NOT give a shit, so instead she nags you about something tangentially related that doesn't solve the root cause.

Or develops psychosomatic symptoms for a nonexistent gastrointestinal problems.

sexyshoulderdevil · 2016-04-18T22:00:44+00:00

Yup, keep plugging away.

Also, we talk about "not giving a fuck". But if your not giving a fuck is in direct correlation to her reactions, you're still kinda giving a fuck. You gotta Inception this shit. Go another level down on not giving a fuck.

As /u/Jacktenofhearts once said in another comment, you have to remove the entire scoreboard from the equation. So long as you're still keeping score, she'll know it and you'll keep hitting this wall. Perhaps he'll expand on this much better than I can.

omarcoming16 · 2016-04-18T22:08:03+00:00

[permanently deleted]

morbidhawk · 2016-04-18T22:57:28+00:00

I'm new to red pill so this advice might not be red pill, but it seems to be working for me lately and my wife has similar behaviors. It was just last week that she was messaging me articles about chronic fatigue syndrome or something. I didn't respond so later she asked me about what I thought about it in person and I validated her and just told her "yeah you should get that looked at" and then changed the subject. She does the same thing your wife does where she'll hear about a medical condition and then think she has it. I'm no longer bothered by it and play along just enough while at the same time showing interest in something else.

In the past few weeks I've been getting a ton of stuff done which is usually hard because in the past it seemed that my wife was trying to counteract me getting stuff done. Since having an ah-ha moment where I realized that I am in control of my own life and I needed to stop blaming my wife for everything, things are really good right now and we've hardly had a fight. I'm a lot happier and smile more now and I was totally shocked that I've had sex 4 days in a row always initiated by me without rejection. As hard as it is I think you should look inward and decide that you are going to live your life without being dependent on her bringing you down

BooksofMagic · 2016-04-19T02:07:36+00:00

At the moment, I'm approaching this by withdrawing attention and affection when she pulls this. For example, this morning, I go to leave the house without giving her a goodbye kiss. As I get to the door, she says to our 2 year old "I guess Daddy's not talking to me". I respond with "No, I am. Good bye." She follows with "Well don't I get a goodbye kiss?" I respond with "If you want one, come over here." She storms off, and I leave for work. Not a great response, but I've done worse.

I had some sympathy for you until I read this. Have you read the TRP sidebar recommended reading yet? This smacks of hurt feelings and covert contracts. Go read No More My Nice Guy ASAP. If you have, then read it again. You need to stop trying to punish her and get your IDGAF game in gear.

Your world is still revolving around her and what she's not giving you, when it should be focused on yourself, and how you can make yourself a better, happier man. Go get some new hobbies. Start spending more time out of the house. And when you're out, don't think about her AT ALL. That's what they mean by withholding affection and attention - you need to focus it elsewhere instead of paying attention to how it affects her.

2016-04-18T22:25:50+00:00

Omar, Omar, Omar, .... you know what's going on, 'cmon dude. If there's one thing I fucking hate it's people who involve their children in the hostilities, she should not be doing that. I know you'll get some really good advice here. Follow it! I wish you luck, I really do.

assured_destruction · 2016-04-18T23:13:47+00:00

Dread more dread. Shes bored and complacent. You need to do something exciting. Take up ballroom dancing, im serious. Its awesome on its own, and provides a ton of dread. Not to mention you get to dance with hsppy pretty girls

2016-04-18T23:30:22+00:00

You're boring...I know this because I dealt with the same lines you're hearing from her and I was fucking boring too. It's a long road but you've got to make yourself more interesting.

Also, You've got to set the standard as a "high energy" man and she'll eventually be too embarrassed to tell you she's sick or tired.

I go hard from 6AM till late at night handling all my shit, kid shit, and some of her shit too. I'm often doing my second workout at 11pm and I walk in smiling and happy(and I am...working like a maniac on your empire will give you deep satisfaction).

She'll say things like "you must be exhausted". I just say "Nope...Feel good", kiss her forehead and go to sleep if I'm not trying to get sex that night. It takes a few months of you being irreproachable in your work ethic and ability to get shit done but eventually she'll just stop saying those things and pick up the pace herself.

cholomite · 2016-04-19T03:07:48+00:00

My girlfriend had "ibs" for like 6 years. It was the same years I was beta as fuck. I treat it like a shit test now. Make it part of your frame. Joke about it, tease her and mostly don't give a fuck. I feel like most of the time my gf's "sickness" is 80-90% mental. If you can change her mood you can make her feel good again better than any medicine. Just remember to be outcome independent. It's easier if you're hot so keep doing all that stuff too.

BluepillProfessor · 2016-04-19T15:30:37+00:00

The wife is tired? What could possibly be the problem....Oh:

three kids under 8.

Well that was easy to understand.

is there anything that I can actively do to address this on a day to day basis, or should I just need to keep plugging away at improving myself?

The only thing that keeps coming to my mind is more choreplay! Now don't mistake that Choreplay will somehow make your woman drip gobbersnot to the floor...but...there are lots of things you can do to lessen her burden and let her get more sleep. Arrange for a housekeeper to come in for a couple hours a week. Pay some neighborhood kids to do something in the yard which frees you up to do something else. Rearrange the schedule so she gets to bed earlier. I don't know your situation but you need to analyze it and maximize the efficiencies.

Your wife is exhausted and she is not prioritizing you because she has a million things on her plate. She is probably feeling overwhelmed and not at all sexy.

What are you going to do about it?

I'm approaching this by withdrawing attention and affection when she pulls this.

This works ridiculously well for a woman who is withdrawing. I am not sure how well it works if a woman is withdrawing because she genuinely has to much to handle on her plate. You don't "Dread" a sick woman who literally can't have sex!

TLDR: Is there a leader in this house who can decrease the burden for an exhausted First Officer? Anywhere?

2016-04-19T13:17:45+00:00

Tingles are the cure for most diseases, sicknesses, and chronic injuries. If you were sick, but had a strong desire to [insert behavior] then the sickness is an obstacle, that you'd try to remove as quickly as possible. Foot dragging is as harsh as someone telling you to fuck off, with better wrapping paper. I guarantee you're dropping the ball for game, SMV, or value producing behaviour (in her opinion).

What will work? A combination of the following:

Be someone worth fucking. If others don't want to fuck you, she probably doesn't either.
Her seeing that she will lose the cock if she doesn't run a pussy blitz on it. Dread is your friend here. She isn't your only pussy, she just gets first crack at it
Lead her to getting 'better'. If she is truly sick like you say, and is doing something about it to get better quickly, then you just need to facilitate. If she's just complaining, it's an excuse, and you are getting the message clear as day, see 1 and 2.

_ask_alice_ · 2022-04-19T14:54:53+00:00

Curious about this, can I get an update?

Title	How to handle a wife that is always "sick" and/or "tired"
Author	omarcoming16
Upvotes	13
Comments	25
Date	April 18, 2016 9:38 PM UTC (7 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/askMRP
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/askMRP/comments/4fe7pk/how_to_handle_a_wife_that_is_always_sick_andor/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/askMRP/how-to-handle-a-wife-that-is-always-sick-andor.207491 https://theredarchive.com/post/207491