Answering Marriage Seller Assertions, Talking Points, and Questions - Part 6

Read Part 1 here and Part 2 here and Part 3 here and Part 4 here and Part 5 here.


It sounds better to say "This is my wife" instead of "This is my girlfriend."

This is another assertion of made by marriage sellers that requires you to simply accept and agree in order for it to work. It's based entirely on personal preferences. In contrast, Dr. Laura, herself a marriage seller, has encouraged her married listeners to think of, and call, themselves their husband's girlfriend or their wife's boyfriend.

For people who say this, like Dennis Prager, it is based on his emotional fixation on marriage. My own convictions have me reacting almost entirely in the opposite way, meaning I feel better when a man introduces me to his girlfriend than his wife. When he introduces me to his wife, I usually feel sorry for him, and when he introduces me to his fiancee, I want to pull him aside and warn him.

So, again, there are several ways to respond to this.

A) That's your personal preference. My preference is different.

B) It sounds even better to say "I get to do what I want to do."

C) Men who run game don't introduce their dates at all.

It is amazing that people like Dennis Prager want to you sign a terrible state contract because he thinks it sounds better to say "wife" instead of "girlfriend."

A word of caution. Yes, you can call a woman your "wife" even though you're not legally married to her. Depending on where you live and the other things you do, though, that might put you into the same legal/financial jeopardy as getting legally married. So, "girlfriend" is definitely better.

Part 7

Cancelling the Wedding

If you're scheduled to be the groom in a wedding within a few months, a week, even later today, you can still cancel it, and you probably should.


EMERGENCY - If the wedding is today, tomorrow, or days away, you can still cancel it.

If this is the day of the wedding or the day/evening before, inform her privately (take a reliable witness, just in case, like the officiating pastor) or send someone to do it. Inform the officiant.

If this is the day of the wedding, have someone apologize to the guests.

[This is assuming you don't have children with her. If you do, you really don't want to start a war with her.]

For more about what you need to do, see further below.

Will cancelling the wedding be a mess?

Yes, it will be a mess, and the closer to the wedding the more of a mess it will be, but it's far better than being married, especially being married and then divorced. For most men, there is nothing wrong with cancelling the wedding; it's usually the best thing to do in the situation you're in. You can do it. And most likely, you should.

The pain, the mess, the effort, the costs, the losses of cancelling a wedding pale in comparison to the downsides of marrying, even more so marrying and divorcing.

Do not fall into the trap of thinking "Well, we live together already and/or we have all of these plans and shared things." If you marry, it will be the last significant decision over your own life you'll be able to make in peace until she divorces you or you decide to divorce. If you marry her, all power you have (other than to divorce, which will be very expensive and destructive) shifts to her.

You are better off free, and if we believe all women, she is, too.

So here is what you need to do:

1. Accept that your relationship with your fiancee is over. Accept that there are people who know both of you who will drop you (this may include having to leave your religious congregation or other shared activities or groups). Accept that this might feel embarrassing. Reject any notion that this is a failure. Letting it go further would be a failure. Divorce is common. You're avoiding years of misery in marriage and then a divorce.

2. Be strategic about what you do when. For example, if the wedding is still six months away and you're living together and sharing some accounts, you've got a little time to do this, and you need to do as much as you can to dis-entangle yourself from her and protect yourself and your assets before she realizes you're cancelling the wedding. Once she knows, you might need to have a reliable witness with you whenever you interact with her. Document/record/get copies of everything that matters: paperwork, conversations, whatever might become an issue.

3. If you two have obtained a marriage license from the county/state, at some point you should destroy that so there's no chance it gets signed and filed.

4. If things have been paid for and finalized, you should cancel with anyone or any venue or business with which you have the power to do so. If you or your parent were the one paying, you should have that power. That might involve the wedding coordinator, rehearsal dinner restaurant, tuxes (and bridesmaid dresses, depending), florists, photographers, DJ/sound, musicians, cake bakers/decorators, officiant, church/wedding venue, reception venue, caterers, honeymoon travel and accommodations, even bachelorette party stuff. You may lose money, especially on deposits, but it is a small price to pay to save money over the coming years and retain your freedom. Don't fall for the "sunk costs" mentality of saying you don't want the money to go to waste. Getting married would result in exponentially more wasted money. If you still want to do what would have been your bachelor party, rehearsal dinner, reception, etc. that's up to you, if you're the one who put in the money. Those can be turned into a celebration of your freedom. (Having the contact information of everyone involved, including invited/RSVP'd guests, is helpful.)

5. It'll be best if you have some trustworthy people who have your back and can be your witnesses, and it will be helpful if those include both men and women. Have them help you move what you need out of your shared residence (if you're sharing one). Consult a lawyer if you need to about any entanglements you have with your fiancee, especially if it is YOUR residence you are sharing (the lawyer might tell you NOT to move out, in such a case). If you need to temporarily go somewhere else for your safety (and to avoid confrontations with her/her family that could end up with police getting involved and/or false allegations) consider a friend's place or a hotel, but it has to be kept secret.

Although few may say it, most people will understand, and most of them will think you made the right decision. Of course SHE and her family and friends are likely to be upset with you, especially at first. Unless they already control your life, it shouldn't matter, because you're going to be avoiding them.
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Rather than repeat myself about everything else, see this link and follow the the links at that post, too.

Guys, even if the wedding date is set, even if the plans have been finalized and payments made, the guests attending verified, even if the wedding is tomorrow or later today, you can still back out, and you probably should. Be sure to consider your safety, whether physical, financial, reputational, or emotional.

You need to be thinking about what is best for you. Nobody else is.

How to Keep Your Friends Free - Intervention

As I wrote in the first entry of this series, Prevention is ideal when keeping the men you know free.

Sometimes, Intervention will be required, because some of these men won't stay free. They will tie themselves down to a woman.

When a man is in, or heading towards, an "exclusive" relationship or the marriage trap, your assistance will mostly have to be more subtle to prevent him from getting locked in. He's getting sex from her (or, in rare cases he's not but he thinks he'll be getting some later), and he thinks it's the best or only sex he's going to have. He won't want to give it up. He might also be feeling pressure from his family or a religious congregation.

So, subtle will usually be the way to go. Being repetitively direct and blunt probably won't work. He's in LOOOOOOOOOOOOVE. You're probably not going to get through to him with a frontal assault. 

Don't Oppress Or Burden Women

Before the wave of feminism that grew in the 1960s and 1970s, women who were housewives were oppressed and depressed from having to tend to a husband, the children, and home, while being treated as less than human since she couldn't have assets and accounts without her husband's participation or approval. Many of these women wanted careers, but were prevented from having them. Some of these women wanted to freed from servitude to a man or children, but they didn't have real options.

And those are just the white women with high earning husbands. Women of color had to have jobs on top of all of the rest of the stuff.

Now, although they can have careers and bank accounts, so many women are with men who don't contribute enough at home, don't do enough of the emotional labor, sexually harass and rape their wife, fiancee or girlfriend, and are terrible lovers.

Men are a burden on women. Women don't need men. Women don't like husbands.

These are things you'd know if you were enlightened by social media or certain college classes, movies, or books.

Guys, STOP IMPOSING UPON WOMEN. Respect their independence, autonomy, and capability. Do not move in with them. Protect a woman from her own temporary miscalculation by refusing to her let move in with you, don't impregnate them, don't propose marriage to them, and don't marry them. It's OK to be available to them, temporarily, when they want you around, but don't burden any woman by staying with her or being demanding of her time. Never be so cruel as to make a woman a housewife or stay-at-home mom. If that's what a woman says she wants, she clearly must be suffering from the inadequacy of our mental health system or misleading patriarchal indoctrination; don't take advantage of her!

Avoid mansplaining at work and in your personal life.

Stop bothering women. Leave them alone. Date when they come to you, but keep those dates short.

Respect women, guys!

Don't Do Things You Can't Afford

Matt Walsh writes a lot of good stuff. I follow him on Twitter. I haven't listened to his podcasts or read his book. Every once in a while, I disagree with what he writes, and this is one of those times. [This is bumped up from May 2017.]

This time, Walsh wrote to encourage people to go ahead and have children young. Walsh is greatly disturbed that so many people his age are still living with a parent, but even if they're not, he's still bothered that they're not marrying, and not having children. And it probably bothers him a lot (though he doesn't say it in this column) that most of them are fornicating and/or masturbating.

I generally do think people should move out of their parents' home when they finish with college or before, but it doesn't bother me in the slightest that people are not marrying and not having children.

I was 27 and broke when we had kids.

And that was irresponsible of Walsh.

They were twins, so we became a family of four right out of the gate. We didn’t really know anybody where we lived, and we were about 600 miles from the nearest family member.

Bad planning.

I wasn’t making much money at my job, we had nothing in savings, and we were pretty far in the red because of medical bills and my wife’s student loan debt.

This is what you SHOULD NOT DO, kids.

...it’s clear that we were not in what our society would consider the “ideal” position to get married or have kids. We weren’t ready. We couldn’t afford it. And yet we did get married and we did have kids.

Which was irresponsible.

And here we are. All of us (five of us now). Still breathing, somehow.

Yes, it is called debt, handouts from family, and, for a lot of people, public assistance in one form or another. If Walsh avoided all three of these things, I'd be very surprised.

My generation has been stuck in neutral for years, not wanting to get married, not wanting to have kids, refusing to move out of mom’s house and be adults, always insisting that we aren’t “ready.”

People can be living on their own and still not want to get married and even if they do want to marry, still not want to have kids.

What Is the Marriage Strike?

 
The Marriage Strike is refusing to legally marry (or, refusing to legally marry again), and usually it also involves refusing to socially marry. More and more men are refusing to marry. That is a fact.

Why join the marriage strike?

There are many reasons, not all of which need to apply to you:

• You don't want to marry.
  
• Marriage is a bad deal for most men.
• Marriage is a bad state contract.
• Marriage brings the government further into your life. 
• Most marriages fail.
  
• Current marriage culture is misandrist. 
• Most marriage counseling, therapy, and popular advice is misandrist or otherwise terrible.  
• Men are punished for being husbands.
  
• A lack of wife material women.
• A lack of accountability for wives.
• Marriage doesn't help you reach your goals.
• Marriage brings guaranteed limitations, obligations, and risks with no guaranteed benefits you can't get without marrying.
  
• You prefer to retain power over your life. 
• You prefer to live alone.
  
• You prefer to stay free.
• You can't be sure the woman you'd marry isn't being trafficked into marriage. 
• If you're a Bible-following Christian, you can't be sure you wouldn't be unequally yoked if you married.
  
• And many more!
  

Weddings Are Highly Visible But Marriage Isn't A Wedding

Weddings are highly visible. They are often prominent in both fictional media and "reality" media, including news and gossip outlets. They are announced all over, there are save the date notices, formal invites, and thank-yous. There are wedding registries. There are special dresses. There are entire websites/shops dedicated to weddings. There are wedding rings. There are bridal showers, wedding showers, bachelor parties, bachelorette parties, rehearsal dinners, receptions, anniversary celebrations, elaborate proposals, engagement announcements, engagement rings, wedding photographers, wedding planners, cakes and cake tasting, flowers, on and on it goes.

If the people getting married are happy through those things, that's fortunate.

But marriage isn't a wedding.

Here are some of the things about marriage and its aftermath that are hidden or far less visible:

• One spouse having to pick up after another
• The spouse who has/earns more money having to pay for bills generated by the other, especially for things the paying spouse didn't want or couldn't enjoy
• One spouse feeling stifled by the other
• Abandoned dreams
• Alienation from family of origin
• Alienation from friends
  
• Arguments, disputes, conflicts
  
• Cruel words
• Mood swings
  
• Loneliness
• Disappointment 
• One spouse not being able to sleep or relax because of the other
  
• Walking on eggshells
  
• Nagging
• Frustration
• Disrespect
  
• Irritation and annoyance
• Emotional rejection
  
• Sexual rejection
• Boredom and monotony
  
• Affairs
  
• Marriage counseling
• Indifference
  
• Contempt
  
• Visits by law enforcement due to reports of possible domestic violence
• Actual domestic violence
  
• One spouse murdering the other
• One spouse subjecting the other to their substance abuse
• Abandonment
• Physical separation
• Legal separation
• Consulting divorce lawyers
• Paying divorce lawyers
• Court battles over divorce
• Dividing assets
• Ongoing payments, such as alimony
  

What if those things were as visible as weddings? What if people were to tell you and put on their social media "We're going through a really crappy time in our marriage right now" whenever that was the case? Do you think there might be fewer weddings?

There are many people who have an interest, especially a financial interest, in other people getting married. People have been selling marriage. They emphasize the good and keep the bad quiet. Talking about the bad is "tacky" or a "sin" or a "betrayal" or a "negative confession."

But what if reality wasn't hushed up so much?

What Makes You Think You'll Succeed At What Better Men Failed?

If you are heading for, or even just "open to" marriage, consider that many admirable, smart men have been divorced. Some multiple times. Men you personally know. Men you know about.

Why have they been divorced?

Here are the options:

1) They picked wrong.
2) They didn't treat their wife right.
3) During the marriage, their wife suffered from a trauma or illness that caused her to become the wrong wife.
4) The present system itself is deeply problematic.
5) More than one of the above.

If these good men picked wrong, what makes you think you will pick better or are picking better?

If these good men didn't treat their wife right, what makes you think you will be better at how you do marriage?

There are traumas/illnesses that are unavoidable. So, even if you pick right and treat right, you can still end up being miserably married or divorced.

If the present system is deeply problematic, that's the system into which you'd be marrying. What is that system? 1) Family law and courts transfer money and power away from you, to a woman, and reward bad behavior and women for divorce. 2) Socialization doesn't prepare women to be good wives and discourages them from being good wives. 3) Misandrist culture emasculates men and punishes them for being husbands and fathers.

Again, what makes you think you're going to beat the system? What makes you think you're going to succeed at what so many better men failed?

There's a lot about Dennis Prager I admire, and he seems to have a great grasp on human behavior and human nature and most of the dynamics between men and women, and his first marriage was, statistically, started when it had a good chance of lasting (he was in his late twenties or into his thirties, not some immature 19 year-old). And yet, that marriage didn't last and his second marriage didn't last either. He'd tell you to do what he did, and get married a third time, because it is inconceivable to him that men should learn to thrive on their own, because he formed, very early in his life, an emotional fixation on men being husbands.

Today, in the twenty-first century, men can thrive being free. There is no good reason for most men to sign a terrible state marriage contract. The contract is of no benefit to most men, and you can live a great, happy, fulfilled life without it. So why take on the risks and obligations of something at which so many better men have failed?

This isn't like technological development, in which knowledge accumulates. Human nature, if it is evolving, doesn't evolve fast enough to mean that what men want has changed in the last few thousand years. So, this isn't like "I can build a better rocket." The social aspects of marriage involve dealing with a woman. Female nature, like male nature, hasn't changed much, but the socialization of women has, and not in a way that supports lasting, happy marriages. When that is paired with the fact that our current legal system and current culture will empower a wife to ruin your life, it is arrogance or delusion to see that some great men haven't had lasting, happy marriages - in fact most men who have married have failed marriages - but think you are going to succeed at it.

Why take that risk, when you can get everything you need and want in life without doing so?

Stay free, guys.

As always, you are welcome to comment below. It would be especially interesting to hear about good men you know who have had a failed marriage, or how you thought you could do better and you found out otherwise.

Yet Another Thing to Check Out If You're Thinking of Marrying

Guys, most of you shouldn't marry. There are many reasons why I say that. Here's just one of many: Dead Bedrooms.

Read up! That could easily be YOU!

Imagine signing away over half your earnings, handing over control of your life and home, and you get a dead bedroom.

JUST SAY NO!

Stay free!

Most Men Shouldn’t Marry Nor Have Children

Most men shouldn’t marry nor have children, so most boys should not be raised with the assumption that they will or should marry, and they definitely shouldn’t be raised with the assumption that they will have a lasting, happy marriage.

I realize there are religions out there that pretty much mandate people marry and try to have children. I can’t argue with every different religious organization that claims to have authority over your life. What I do know is that the Bible, taken as a whole and rightly divided, does not mandate you marry and have children. Don’t tell me contraception, tubal ligations, hysterectomies, and vasectomies are wrong because they are are unnatural, as you accept artificial medical treatments, live in a home that has been constructed, and drink water and eat food that has been processed in some way.

Most men shouldn’t marry or have children because 1) they aren’t suited to it, 2) aren’t positioned to do it, 3) aren’t living in a culture that supports it, and 4) won’t find a suitable woman with whom they could.

An Unmarried Individual May Not Be Happier Married

 

There are marriage-selling sociologists and their marks who post graphs that depict married parents as happier than “unmarried,” childfree people.

I’m a married parent. I’d love to tell you that if YOU marry and have children, you’ll be happier.

But there’s no solid evidence of that. It might make you miserable.

The graphs rely on statistical trickery and for marks to not understand that apparent correlation isn’t proof of directional causation.

Who is counted as “unmarried” in those graphs?

• Divorced people, whose unhappiness could be primarily due to their marriage
• People who are too sickly, ugly, poor, or unpleasant to attract a spouse - how happy do you think they are?
• Generally unhappy people, whose unhappiness makes it more difficult to attract or keep a spouse 
• Desperate people who think they’re losers, sinners, failures, or doomed (perhaps taught so by their clergy or cult leaders) for not marrying/multiplying 
• People who are partnered and living like they are married, but haven’t legally married; a state license isn’t going to make them any happier 
• Intentionally never-married, childfree people

The people in that last group could be, as a group, much happier than married people. Marriage sellers NEVER separate them out in the statistics, though.

Another trick common to graphs is to shorten an axis to make disparities look larger than they are. For example, if the data goes from 0 to 100, only showing 40 to 60 on a graph can make differences seem larger than they are.

In the case of the specific graphs we’re talking about, time frame can also matter. If the ages included only go from, say, 25 to 35, that’s definitely not the whole picture.

There are never-married, childfree people who are very happy.

There are also married parents who are miserable. Some even murder their spouse and/or children or are murdered by their spouse or child. That’s extreme, but there are many other things, like abuse, that can be involved without it getting to the point of murder. If you are living free, you can easily leave abusive people.

Don’t be fooled by graphs that rendered and presented in misleading ways.

Consider embracing freedom and making the most of it.

When Marriage Sellers Say Married Men Live Longer

"Married men live longer."

Wow, that sure looks like strong reason to marry, right?

But... as usual, the realities behind the statistics being used to sell marriage to men can tell a different story.

1) Women are more likely to marry and stay married to healthier and wealthier men. Guess what? Healthier and wealthier men tend to live longer. If a couple is living together but she won't marry him because he's ill, then again, he's counted as "unmarried."

2) Divorced men are usually counted as "unmarried." If a man gets ill and his wife divorces him and he dies, he is counted as "unmarried." The suicide rate for divorced men is high, too. What if, instead, those men had learned to be happy without ever marrying?

3) Men who die young are far less likely to have married. What ages are the statistics counting? If they are counting "men 16 years of age and older," that means any unmarried guy who died at 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30 can skew the statistics in comparison to the fact that most men who live 40 or more years will have married. To put it simply, if you look at 10 guys who died before age 40 and 10 guys who died in their 70s or 80s, chances are, the older guys were married. It doesn't necessarily mean that marrying kept them alive longer or that the men who died younger died younger because they didn't marry.

Do you see how the statistics might not be making a clear indication that marrying causes a man to live longer?

It is possible that having a woman in his life who nags him to go to the doctor can keep a man alive longer. That's a reasonable consideration. But a woman can do that for a man without a terrible state contract. In fact, I urge men I'm not married to and I will never marry to go their doctors. More people should do that, instead of telling a man to sign a terrible state contract because it might appear to be correlated to longevity.

Finally, even if it could be definitively proven that marrying does, in fact, extend a man's life, let's consider what that would mean. It would mean that he trades decades of freedom, peace, quiet, control over his own finances and life, and everything else about life that Free Men enjoy that the average husband doesn't, for mere months or a couple of more years of convalescence, when he might not even remember who he is or be able to feed or wipe himself. Consider that carefully, guys.

Indeed, the stats are likely turning out as they do because an elderly man’s wife was there to call for help when he collapsed. So he lives a few months longer. If you really want to live longer in that condition, guys, technology can now monitor you and summon help, for much less cost than a wife.

Hey, what about women? Oh, what do you know - married women don't live as long as unmarried women. Shouldn't men avoid being selfish by avoiding marriage, since it appears to rob women of life?

Reminder: Stay or Get Free

 

With June almost here, I’m issuing this urgent reminder to stay free.

If you aren’t free, but haven’t filed the terrible state contract often called marriage, don’t file or sign it. Get free. Then stay free.

You don’t need to be married.

"Why Can't Men Be Upfront and Honest?" - Part 4

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Let's flip this around. Are most women upfront and honest when it comes to dating? Ladies, if you're going to be honest with yourself, can you really say you are upfront and honest all of the time? What about your friends? Sure, you don't date them, but from what they've told you?

Are any of these things upfront and honest?

• Fake breasts
• Padded/pushup bras
• Fake eyelashes
• Fake nails
• Fake hair color
• Weaves, extensions, wigs, anything that makes it look like you have more/nicer hair than you do
• Makeup
• Pretending to like something about us or what we like that you really don't
• "Oh him? He's just a friend." [...who has had his penis inside you.]
  
• "I'm on The Pill."
• "I'm unable to get pregnant." or "It will be really difficult to get me pregnant."
• "I've never done that/this before."
• "I'm not like that." [Something he wants that you do with other men.]
• "I'm not like that." [Something he doesn't want but you will bring.]
  
• "We're pregnant."or "This baby is yours." [He didn't get you pregnant.]
• I need a man who is X, Y, Z." [When she has sex with men who are none of those.]
• "Friends first." [She has had sex with plenty of men who never became a friend.]
• "I need to be romanced, pursued, won over." [Except when it comes to the booty calls and hookups.]
  

Have you ever said to a man, being honest, "I will let you take me out, but I'm not going to have sex with you, even though I have sex with other men"? Hardly any, if any, woman who behaves in such a way will actually say that to a man. Why? Because it doesn't get her what she wants. Well, that's why men say or don't say certain things, too.

Why should men be upfront and honest when dealing with women who walk all over men who are?

There's still more to come in this series.

Part 1 in This Series

Part 2 in This Series

Part 3 in This Series

Part 5 in This Series