One Year In - Just Getting Started 47 upvotes | October 23, 2018 | by becoming_alpha ------------------------- ONE YEAR FIELD REPORT BACKGROUND 37, married 15 years, 3 kids (all under 10), career beta, wife is 35 SAHM, swallowed the pill almost exactly a year ago. Found MRP looking at random subreddits looking for entertainment and it hit me like a ton of bricks. It took me a couple months from finding the red pill to actually swallow it knowing that it was entirely possible that rocking the boat could end my marriage. I decided I was willing to take that risk to unfuck myself and my life. PHYSICAL 6'2", 190, 10.6% BF, bench 265, squat 335, dead 395. Lifting at home 3x a week, bball once a week. Two months into a bulk at 500 calories over TDEE. Trying to put more mass on arms and upper body with 5 sets of 8-12 reps at 75% of 1RM, starting to see some progress. Watching ab definition disappear during a bulk is a bummer, but I know they’re just a cut away and I’ll look even better with more muscle mass. Looking at where I started a year ago, it’s hard to believe how far I’ve come. My big 3 lifts were a combined 600 pounds a year ago. Today I’m at 995 and on track to hit my year-end goal of the 1000 pound club in the next couple weeks. I’ve lost 15 pounds of fat and added 10 pounds of muscle. I feel confident with my shirt off, and more confident generally in life. For anyone just getting started, lifting is key. I’m still far from my long term goals, but I know how to get there. Another plus of eating better and lifting is I’m demonstrably healthier. I had my health screening at work and my blood test came back perfect. The nurse said to just keep doing whatever I’m doing. In the past, I did tons of distance running and thought I was in shape, but I couldn’t get my HDL or triglycerides where they should be. Turns out being able to run 10 miles doesn’t mean you’re in shape, but now I am. I also noticed I haven’t been sick once in the last year even with my germ factory kids bringing home all kinds of bugs and my wife being sick a few times. READING Finally finished Bang this week and restarted MMSLP. Still finishing Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. On my second re-read of NMMNG putting together an outline. Rational Male 2x, WISNIFG 2x, SGM, MMSLP, Way of the Superior Man, How to Win Friends and Influence People, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck. CAREER/FINANCES I'm debt free, working on long-term financial goals. Need to increase my income (looking at some passive sources) to hit some loftier targets. My promotion was made permanent last month and I was supposed to have an evaluation of my performance in this new position for a raise in 6 months. Boss gave me the raise last week instead. I think my boss sees I have options and wants to keep me where I’m at. Applying for a higher position today. Nice to have a little career dread. CAPTAINING I used to defer to my wife on planning activities. I used to feel bad about scheduling my own activities that I enjoy because it would require her to do more child care. In the last year, I’ve changed tremendously and I live my life for me. I’ve planned lots of family activities and trips that went great. I do the things I want to do and I’m so much happier. I used to go on business trips and the whole time worry about how hard it was for my wife while I was gone and wish she was with me to enjoy the new places I’d visit. I was never fully enjoying where I was if she wasn’t there. And when I did bring her along, I wasn’t fully enjoying it because I was following her moods in the moment. The last few business trips since swallowing the pill have been drastically different. I’ve enjoyed myself so much more and I don’t worry about how mad she is that I’m in a hot tub at a hotel while she’s wrangling 3 kids to bed. I’m also more direct leading my wife in the direction I want with stronger language “let’s do x” instead of “do you want to do x?” It doesn’t always work, but she knows what I want and often falls in line. This direct language works well in the bedroom too. RELATIONSHIP The last year has been a roller coaster. I saw early gains and a big increase in her interest early on. Then she confronted me on my changes and I overshared giving her my journal where I tracked my progress. Things went downhill for months culminating in false rape accusations, increasing distrust on both sides, her attempting to kick me out of the house, going months without sex or even touching each other, and consulting with divorce attorneys. I made the decision that I would not and could not go back to being beta (you can’t plug back into the matrix). I was ready to end it and figured out the logistics and made peace with living life as a single dad. But at the lowest point, things started to slowly shift and have improved significantly since then. The last month I’ve been batting about .250 but that’s a significant improvement from the dead months we had during the summer. Quality has increased significantly and she follows my lead in the bedroom willingly now that I’m doing a better job leading. Starfish was a weekly occurrence in the past, but it hasn't happened in the last year. The one time she offered starfish, I turned it into much more. I’ve also noticed a correlation between the intensity of her shit tests and shark week. I’ve learned from the way of the superior man to treat those shifts like changes in the weather and maintain my positive outlook. When I handle the blustery weather well, it seems I always get to enjoy sunny weather a day or two later. We’ve been going to marriage counseling for several months and the tenor has shifted from her listing and complaining about all the things wrong with me to discovering the source of her trauma (likely from her childhood) that’s driving her sexual hangups. We’re making slow progress, and I’m providing more comfort than MRP recommends through the process, but it’s worth it to me. I think the best example of my progress is comparing at 2 massages. The first one [https://www.reddit.com/r/marriedredpill/comments/7og8mr/2_months_in_but_appearing_butthurt/] was when I was 2 months in. I started giving her a massage to warm her up for sex and when I initiated at the end and she shot me down, I stopped immediately and started reading a book. It came across as very butthurt and ended in an argument where I DEERed like a champ. I hadn’t learned to STFU or about removing presence in a more controlled way instead of an abrupt 100 to 0 [https://www.reddit.com/r/marriedredpill/comments/3qm961/verbal_intercourse_is_optional/cwgn5sb/]. Contrast that with last week, I decided to give my wife a massage because she’d done a ton of good work that day and was sore. She had turned me down the night before, but I laughed it off and reset in the morning. I had no intention of initiating that night. I gave her a good massage and didn’t try to initiate, but then she initiated and it was fantastic. The mindset was totally different. I was giving because I wanted to give, not so I could get something in return. She picked up on that and apparently that did it for her. ONE YEAR IN THOUGHTS I’m nowhere near where I want to be in my own progression, or in my relationship. I’ve made some mistakes and made it so much harder on myself. But the bottom line is MRP works. Sometimes it’s slower than I’d like, but it works. I’m making progress and my relationship is on the right trajectory. I’m out of my wife’s frame, but I need to do a better job establishing and communicating a compelling vision for the future. I need to show her my frame would be a good and safe place for her to be. It's also been fascinating to watch my sister in law's hypergamy in full force as she branch swings. My wife is baffled, but it's like she's following a script Rollo wrote for her and I'm not at all surprised. I’m keeping my foot on the gas and I’m betting my 2 year report will reflect much more progress. ------------------------- Archived from https://theredarchive.com/post/197638