The Real "Happily Ever After" 
The Red Pill Room | October 16, 2012 | by Ian Ironwood
-------------------------
It’s rare that I run across anything Red Pill friendly over at
HuffPo
[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/martha-lyles/letter-to-a-young-bride_b_1933228.html],
but  the other day I came across a very telling post from a blogger,
Martha Lyles.  She is essentially writing a letter to herself, from
her modern perspective as a wife and mother and grandmother to the 20
year old woman she was, who was so excited about her Big Party.
 Ironically, this was in the “Religion” section, not the
“Women”, “Weddings” or “Divorce” sections (AND NOTE THERE
IS NO “MEN” SECTION...AND THE DEMOCRATS WONDER WHY MORE MEN DON'T
VOTE FOR THEM...) It’s entitled “Letter To A Young Bride After 43
Years Of Marriage”
[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/martha-lyles/letter-to-a-young-bride_b_1933228.html],
and it’s a wonderful retrospective on her marriage (as opposed to
her “wedding”).

 [http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Yxha1qkqxEM/UH2B9osqtQI/AAAAAAAADBA/Hotdm6ItQsA/s1600/tumblr_lxsnk0NCdU1qcz6gno1_400.jpg]


 I’ll let you read the whole thing – it’s quite poignant –
but there is one quote I want to hone in on:

> “...The same goes for being a wife. You'll marvel at Dick's
> unswerving commitment. You'll learn to put him first and -- believe
> it or not -- you'll delight in doing so. You'll see your role as his
> helpmate and cheerleader. You'll pack his bags for business trips,
> tucking love notes under ties. You'll view all the joys in your life
> as gifts from above, like the six wide-eyed, rosy-cheeked grandkids
> who clamor for your cookies and your kisses. And you'll sense, time
> and again, the grace conferred in your wedding Mass sustaining you
> as husband and wife.”

Religious sentiment aside for a moment, consider the perspective:
_“YOU’LL LEARN TO PUT HIM FIRST AND – BELIEVE IT OR NOT –
YOU’LL DELIGHT IN DOING SO.”_
_
_ This is not, as you might think, a _“see, I toldya so!”_ about
male dominance in a relationship.  This is a _“see, I toldya
so!”_ about how you DON’T GET DIVORCED. 

It's also a glimpse into the real, Red Pill reality of HAPPILY EVER
AFTER (HEA), the romantic nirvana that inspires romance novels, mommy
porn, and soap operas.

 [http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6ugeSjklAnQ/UH2Bz0lMVLI/AAAAAAAADA4/Raowo-15DZo/s1600/l_500_324_50726dba-2ed7-41af-8003-4b23e50cf4b7.jpeg]


 When you want to study how to _do_ something, the two areas you focus
on are “successes” (to establish a base-line metric) and
“failures” (to determine how deviations from protocol derail
successes).  Athol spent a considerable time in marriage forums
preparing for his book, and if you have to then you can see how
learning from other people's failures can be valuable for avoiding
hasty divorce.  However, iF YOU WANT TO KNOW HOW TO KEEP YOUR
MARRIAGE GOING, IT'S A GOOD IDEA TO NOT JUST FOCUS ON THE FAILURES BUT
SPEND SOME TIME LOOKING AT SUCCESSES TO INFORM YOUR MARITAL TOOLKIT. 

 [http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eRmPOjHHRgg/UH2CyuaMnsI/AAAAAAAADBY/mtIOAI-9B9w/s1600/5686003878_25e03c9e8a_m.jpg]After
all, what is a “successful marriage”?  Certainly, one in which
you aren’t getting divorced has to be held as a basic standard.
 That doesn’t mean that your marriage is a success if you aren’t
divorced, it just means that it’s “failing”, not “failed”.

When women in their youth begin to form their True Love inspired
HAPPILY EVER AFTER fantasy, it _rarely_ includes things like packing
suitcases for their husband’s business trips or struggling through
childbirth alone while your husband is on deployment.  Or the ugly
reality that is early childhood development.  For many modern young
women, the idea of “having kids” is so abstract and glamorized and
sanitized for them by our culture that they don't understand the level
of involvement necessary to keep them from becoming willfully ignorant
drains on society.

 [http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-dRNWiLROauY/UH2CyGDFKFI/AAAAAAAADBQ/58GC15XsMGo/s1600/3742753885_fda78168e5_o.jpg]To
young women today, it's as if children were a status symbol, not a new
life, merely an option like a new car with leather interior, and not a
life-long personal commitment.  They are allured by the feminist
ideal of “equality” and "equal opportunity", which means that they
see family and children (and eventual divorce and remarriage) as part
of the expected checklist -- and THEIR DEDICATION TO "EQUALITY" MEANS
THEY EXPECT THAT WHATEVER POOR BETA CHUMP THEY MARRY WILL HANDLE ALL
THE DETAILS.  (Or, conversely, that she will marry well enough to
have servants to care for them like her favorite celebs.)  "Happily
Ever After" is a gauzy  vague cloud of ill-defined bliss that
follows the Honeymoon to them, the natural and inevitable conclusion
to "True Love".
[http://theredpillroom.blogspot.com/2012/10/game-is-mating-strategy-so-is-twu-wuv.html]

But True Love, _RED PILL STYLE_ implies a host of boring, mundane,
petty little compromises that do little to empower you as a woman or
see you reach “your full potential” in the feminist sense.  I
recently read another screed at HuffPo (not important enough to hunt
down the quote) about how Michelle Obama shouldn’t have said
_“Being a Mother is my most important job”,_ because that put _too
much pressure_ on everyone to reproduce and emphasize their children
over their _career elements_.   She offered instead _“Being a WOMAN
is my most important job”_, with motherhood and relationships and
such secondary to her solipsistic “all about me” perspective.
 She didn’t even _mention_ a husband, except as an annoyance that
got in her way.  MOTHERHOOD, TO FEMINISM, IS A BOTHER, A NEEDLESS
DISTRACTION AWAY FROM THE SELF-INDULGENT ACHIEVEMENT-BASED MATRIX
CLIMB FOR FAME, CASH AND PRIZES. 
 [http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kDQu5oSdT4U/UH2CxqvZLCI/AAAAAAAADBI/QOtC_albHHA/s1600/30.jpg]
And the term “wife” is anathema to feminists.  When a feminist
reflexively uses the term, it’s almost apologetic.  “Husband”
is often used with a proud sense of ownership, like she just got a
great lease on a car, but A FEMINIST WOMAN RARELY DESCRIBES HERSELF AS
A “WIFE” UNLESS SHE’S IN TROUBLE.  And a feminist has very
little, if any, ideological instruction on being a wife save how to
end the practice.   Feminism celebrates divorce and punishes success
when it comes to marriage.

Now, if you’re a long-term carousel rider with a fat trust fund,
then sure, a string of wealthy ex-husbands while you assert your
feminist privilege doesn’t hurt anyone but those poor chumps.  Such
childless, often sexless unions in the UMC have been a social
bloodsport for decades.  But once you start getting kids involved,
_SHIT GETS REAL._  You aren’t just splitting up the CD collection
when you divorce, you’re splitting up _a family with people who
depend on you,_ and that’s got jack to do with your self-important
career goals.  The feminist approach to "family" in general is little
better than their approach to "marriage".  Gentlemen, you are warned.

But back to the successes.  As I was saying, it’s important, if you
want to avoid divorce, to study what goes _right_, as well as what
goes _wrong_.  This wonderful article is by a woman with a 43 year
track record willing to impart some cosmic wisdom on you, ladies.
 LISTEN UP.  THIS IS WHAT _HAPPILY EVER AFTER_ LOOKS LIKE, not three
ex-husbands and a lonely condo full of cats in Miami.

 [http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4PPgAUrbgRE/UH2C0mWwGcI/AAAAAAAADBw/eFYTtxsrMsQ/s1600/6891235044_420888ee80_m.jpg]
Feminists can often manage to get married . . . they can _rarely
_manage to _stay_ married.  And very, _very_ few can be said to be in
"happy" marriages (marriages in which both parties
can consistently say that they are happy with the way things are
going).  And part of the reason has nothing to do with ideology --
it's because THEY DON’T KNOW HOW TO _BE_ MARRIED.  In attempting to
re-write the social rules of marriage, feminism's built-in escape
hatch made the effort to _work on_ a marriage a lot harder than
_ending_ it.  Feminists can become brides pretty easily, thanks to
the power of pussy.  They can just as easily become ex-wives, with a
stroke of a pen.  They _rarely_ become "wives" (under the
Rectification of Names).  So for all of their vaunted empowerment, it
seems that feminism insists that an empowered feminist woman can do
ANYTHING . . . _EXCEPT BE A GOOD WIFE._

That, of course, fuels hypergamy and divorce and other crap, but the
plain fact is that feminism has rejected the Happily Ever After in
favor of the EPL divorce, and now we have a nation of women
bellyaching that they STILL aren't happy, despite getting everything
their heart desired for 40 years.  THEY WANT THEIR HAPPILY EVER
AFTER, BUT THEY AREN'T WILLING TO DO THE WORK REQUIRED.  AND HAPPILY
EVER AFTER REQUIRES A LOT OF WORK.  Just ask Martha Lyles.

 [http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-sHrRGjh5elw/UH2C1ZlrcpI/AAAAAAAADB0/xD5FYSWd5eA/s1600/tumblr_m78p4z2sTO1qdwo7go1_1280.jpg]This
woman was a _wife_.  She had a _husband_.  She didn’t have a
co-equal partner in her relationship, SHE HAD A CAPTAIN OF HER SHIP TO
WHOM SHE WAS _LOYAL AND RESPECTFUL._  She did things for him that a
feminist considers demeaning: packed his suitcase, quit school, ended
her career aspirations for his benefit, raised his children, cooked
his meals.  She deferred to him in important ways, and often in
unimportant ways, _not_ because the custom or religious rite demanded
it, but because _that’s how successful marriages work_.

She doesn't write about the sacrifices her husband may have made --
that's his story, not hers.  She doesn't write about how hard it was
and how regretful she is of her missed opportunities.  She writes of
the sacrifices of a woman in her marriage, but she also writes of the
rewards.  The Happily Ever After.  Grandchildren, a big happy
family, and a great husband she adores and looks up to.  And she
doesn’t just mention he’s a “great husband”, she describes an
important attribute of his greatness in his devotion and thoroughness
in helping her fight cancer.  No mere domineering chauvinist is
likely to do that.  He repaid her sacrifice and devotion with his
loyalty and steadfastness, not merely providing practical support
during her struggle, but being her UNWAVERING ROCK to which she clung
as she wrestled with her own mortality.

 [http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WEOBElClRBk/UH2CzjM1f3I/AAAAAAAADBg/xhlgaavSJJo/s1600/6313491831_3a71216287_m.jpg]
Any of your weak-willed Beta future ex- husbands going to do _that_,
feminists?  Good luck.

The important thing to take away from this success story is simple:
THE AUTHOR WAS NOT MERELY EXTOLLING THE VIRTUES OF MARRIAGE, BUT SHE
WAS DEMONSTRATING THE NECESSARY DEDICATION TO_ FULFILLING_ HAPPILY
EVER AFTER. 

You don’t ever plan to get cancer in Happily Ever After.  But you
_do_ get a strong and resilient Prince Charming willing to stand over
your wounded body with a sword, keeping the monsters at bay.  You
don’t imagine that you’ll get piles of diapers and bills and bad
report cards and problem children in Happily Ever After.  But you
_do_ get a strong, disciplined father to keep order and enforce policy
among your children until they can do it on their own.  You might
conceivably envision grandchildren in your Happily Ever After, sitting
around rosy-cheeked and respectful of you.  But you probably don’t
understand how to get to that point – and _truly_ appreciate it –
because you have to first raise your own brood to adulthood and steer
them toward their own productive relationship before you get
rosy-cheeked grandbabies.

 [http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7OisvE4FmFE/UH2E1wf-gPI/AAAAAAAADCA/7ZTbh5-eZ-k/s1600/tumblr_ltxvwfVaDK1r0j6vqo1_500.png]
 For those feminists who feel they _can_ have a “co-equal
partnership” with a man, while secretly exerting feminine privilege
as a means of manipulating and controlling your husband until you lose
all respect and desire for him, YOU ARE FOREVER DENIED THIS HAPPILY
EVER AFTER.  Because you refuse to do the work and be a wife to your
husband.  You get the EPL version, in which you marry a billionaire
after spending your ex-husband’s money on eating, praying, and
loving.  Oh, and good luck with that billionaire – I hear there are
simply _scads_ of them around. 

(Or was that cats?)

But it's not just a bust for single feminist career gals.  It works
both ways.

For those _men_ who have eschewed the possibility of marriage in the
pursuit of a permanent ticket to the Puerarchy, letting your bad
experiences and fear of rejection give you a rationalization why you
shouldn’t be required to invest in a 50-50 shot at success, please
believe me when I tell you sincerely that I appreciate your
willingness to Go Your Own Way.  BUT YOU, TOO, ARE EXEMPT FROM THIS
HAPPILY EVER AFTER.  In truth, you may change your mind at some
point, when you are older and your perspectives change.  Our sperm is
viable into our 70s, and a mid-life family has a lot of advantages.
 BUT IF YOU ARE COMMITTED TO BEING UNCOMMITTED TO A WOMAN, THEN
EXPECT A LONG, SLOW DECLINE WITH FEWER FRIENDS ALIVE EVERY YEAR, UNTIL
YOU ARE ALONE, BABBLING INCOHERENTLY TO ROBOTS IN SOME DISTANT FUTURE
RETIREMENT COMMUNITY.

 [http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pivuCa_zE2Q/UH2E3NVPPWI/AAAAAAAADCQ/-Y_dz7-d-j0/s1600/tumblr_lxi13xrML91qcz6gno1_1280.jpg]
Marriage is by no means for everyone.  But it is not, as some would
contend, not for _anyone_.  It’s a trade-off, an exchange of
commitments and obligations and sacrifices and dedications and
courtesies and fears and delights and secrets and trusts and
weaknesses and power and – yes – financial considerations and sex,
and IF YOU ARE NOT PREPARED TO INDULGE IN THAT KIND OF PERSONAL
COMMITMENT AND DEDICATION (AND FEW 20 YEAR OLDS OF THIS GENERATION
ARE) THEN I ENCOURAGE YOU TO AVOID THE ISSUE _ENTIRELY_.  Believe me,
it will take the pressure off to not have to worry about marriage and
family. 

So put “Happily Ever After” away in your mind not as "mythical"
but merely as_ forever out of reach._  Substitute some
government-subsidized retirement plan at a tropical resort where
you’ll expire on the golf course or in your sleep . . . _alone_.
 Imagine a world in which you are by yourself at age 50 and the
doctor mentions cancer and you realize that since your sister died YOU
HAVE NO ONE IN THE WORLD TO CALL AND TALK TO ABOUT IT.  That’s the
"swinging single" alternative to Happily Ever After.  When you’re
writing up your last will and testament, and you realize that
everything you own and collected and cared for will go to your niece
in nephew who live in another state and who might pass you in the
grocery store without recognizing you, THAT’S WHAT YOU GET WHEN
YOU’VE LOST HAPPILY EVER AFTER.  THE_ REAL_ HAPPILY EVER AFTER.

 [http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Z2WAl2e7FKc/UH2E2TbPofI/AAAAAAAADCI/k26kWgdr2ZQ/s1600/tumblr_lx504cUfNd1qcz6gno1_1280.jpg]Because
Happily Ever After doesn’t mean a blissful paradise of champagne and
strawberries and anniversary dinners in four-star restaurants.  It
doesn’t mean kinky hotel sex and romantic walks on the beach as a
matter of course.  There are few diamonds in for-real HEA.  You want
the truth?  Happily Ever After can be _brutal_, as anyone’s life
can be brutal.  BUT HAPPILY EVER AFTER SOFTENS THE BRUTALITY WITH A
THICK PROTECTIVE LAYER OF HUMANITY, WHEREIN THE LOVE YOU PLEDGED AT
THE ALTAR HAS GROWN BETWEEN THE TWO OF YOU AND EXPANDED AND
TRANSFORMED UNTIL IT SUPPORTS A WEB OF SUCH LOVE THAT ECHOES ACROSS
GENERATIONS. 

When you’re surrounded by your wife and your children and their
spouses, all deeply concerned about your well-being and quality of
life when your body betrays you, that’s Happily Ever After. 

When your sons, grown men all, and your grandsons drop everything in
their busy lives to rush to your bedside and then spring into action
to build a wheelchair ramp you didn’t think you’d need, that’s
Happily Ever After. 

When your daughter-in-law enlists the aid of experts and researches
the furthest reaches of medical science on your behalf, motivated by
love and pure, unadulterated respect for the only father she has left,
that’s Happily Ever After. 

When an entire community floods your house with calls assuring their
support, based on their deep respect for who you are and what you’ve
done to touch their lives, that’s Happily Ever After. 

When your wife holds your hand and cries so you won’t have to when
you tell the doctor to go ahead and take the leg, that’s Happily
Ever After.

 [http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VuChzRN6XPs/UH2HofbM6gI/AAAAAAAADEE/sVLSf3J_Q3g/s1600/Jac+Mars.jpg]

This month, Papa Ironwood got an up close and personal look at the
stark nature of Happily Ever After . . . and compared to the
alternative, he considers himself a _very _blessed man.  I think it
made the decades of sacrifice and effort and toil to keep his marriage
and his family a going concern worthwhile.  Whether or not you agree
with him, well, let's just say that he's got the benefit of experience
to support his position.

But then, he's always been wiser than the rest of us.  He _wanted_
Happily Ever After . . . so he built it for his wife and kids, one
hug, one kiss, one drop of sweat and one tear at a time. 
 
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Archived from https://theredarchive.com/blog/The-Red-Pill-Room/the-real-happily-ever-after.7821