Elizbaeth

oh man... I understand how hard it is to be lonely. It is one of the most miserable feelings in the world. But it really doesn't sound like you want to be with her other than the fact that she is an entertaining companion and she lets you have sex with her. You're pretty young. 25 is a very good age for a man, and you have a good decade before you need to settle down. I can say this with 98% certainty - a woman's inability to orgasm has more to do with her thoughts and feelings, and not the physical, mechanical techniques. Honestly I think she probably can sense that you don't love her. You haven't proposed. You're in a little mini-marriage with her until things fall apart, and that's really not a very flattering thing for a woman, nor does it make her feel safe or cherished. If you aren't 100% sold on her, just do the kind things and break it off with her, as quickly as possible. It will save her heart and it will give you an opportunity to find someone better matched to you. Yeah, birth control is very damaging to libido. It's not always a personal attack or reflection on men if the woman isn't in the mood for sex. Try not to think it's always about you. It may be due to her own insecurities, or do due the fake hormones that birth control introduces to the body. I personally think birth control is quite harmful in multiple ways. You should really either break up with her or lock here down 100%, although it seems like it would be smarted for you to end things. She doesn't sound like a bad girl. She sounds like she has some good qualities, but it sounds like both of you are already having a hard time empathizing with one another, and it doesn't seem like you really want to do the work necessary to really understand one another's point of view or feelings. People can learn to empathize with someone who sees things very differently, but it does take commitment to the relationship and to being the absolute best person you can be, at all times. If you're not committed to doing that with her, it seems like you two are just going to hurt each other and waster each other's time. Good luck!

@barn I only have my personal anecdote, but I did not want to let my son cry it out because, well, hearing him cry caused me extreme anxiety. My blood pressure would immediately spike when I head him cry, and I would feel unable to focus on almost anything else until I got to him and figured out what was making him cry and how to fix it. When I let him cry it out, it was tough to lay there, fighting my own anxiety. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that I suffered much worse than my son did. And yes - I think my son was much happier once he was sleeping through the night without interruption. Not all children have the same personality, and some may do better with physical closeness nearby, but letting my son cry it out seemed like a relief and blessing to our whole family. Now he loves to get into bed at night, and only wakes up if he is sick or there is something wrong in some way.

This is what I especially struggled with with my first son. I was terrified that if I allowed him to just cry in his room, all alone and in the dark, that it would totally scar him and flood his brain with all sorts of stress hormones and set off a domino cascade of negative reactions. I was a baby-wearing, constant contact, exceedingly tactile mom to my infant, and he was probably smothered with my insecurity and anxiety to nurture the crap out of him. The constant nagging anxiety of searching the internet for more information about what is good or what is harmful for your kid, and always helicoptering around them in the hopes that you will prevent them from feeling pain for from feeling scared of abandoned, it a dead-end street. I think a strict aversion to letting them cry it out at night is part of that hovering. If you can find a more gentle, easy way to do it, then yes! Do that! But maybe - for many different reasons - that doesn't work. I believe that this is where intuition and a good parent-baby bond is very helpful. Only the caregiver can really know if the baby is crying because it is scared, hungry, uncomfortable, or because it is angry and upset that the routine has changed. Sternness, coupled with an intact intuition and empathy, will allow the caregiver to make mature, well-formed decisions about whether or not letting their child cry it out at night is harmful or beneficial. I think I had created a cycle where he quite literally could not fall asleep unless I was actively bouncing, nursing, or rocking him. This made it so that he would wake up every 2 hours (the average length of a baby's sleep cycle), and he was unable to get rest unless I was doing all the work for him. This made me and my son extremely exhausted. Try living or almost a year with only 2 hours of sleep at a time, and in between those 2 hour "naps," you spend usually a minimum of 30 minutes awake, working to help get everyone asleep again. I was almost unable to function, and my son was quite tire,d too, because he did not get good, consistent, solid sleep. I think the lack of sleep made me struggle with some depression, because I remember, one afternoon, my son cried about something insignificant, and I felt absolutely nothing for him. At best, I felt indifferent in that moment. I was too tired to play, and I just sort of stumbled through my day hoping to catch a small amount of sleep before the torture would start all over again. One night I snapped and just didn't get him. He cried - really hard at first - and then he cried really hard the next night. And then he cried less and less each night and in about a week he sleep from 7 pm -7 am, and he would wake up happy, smiling, and feeling good, and I was happy to see him and felt able to play, talk with, cuddle, and spend my energy and time with him because I actually had energy. My affection for him skyrocketed through the roof and I felt incredibly in love with him, and he was bubbly, engaged, and so enjoyable and fun to be around. It was really good for both of us. Families are ecosystems. My job as the mother is to take care of the children. It does not do the children any favors if I am so spent and exhausted that I am literally fighting depression and antipathy. I can't sacrifice my own well-being 100% to others. I absolutely have to take care of myself. I'm not talking about taking care of myself as an excuse to be lavish or frivolous or lazy. I'm saying that I must give myself the same courtesy of care that I would give to others. It is only right and fair to me, and I cannot be a good person if I am constantly, systematically neglecting my most basic needs.

Aw, I'm sorry. That's disappointing. I guess they're just used to hunting for a certain profile and can't adjust to you. Sorry. I was so sure that a matchmaking service would take all your romantic woes and worries away.

Exactly what I'm trying to figure out,

It’s very stressful to hear your child cry. If you do it you need to decide it’s what you’re going to do and then you need to stick to it. The only thing worse than letting your child cry himself to sleep is interfering and making it all for nothing. My first son son was always in his own crib, so there was never any transition from my bed to crib. I simply quit getting up in the night. With my second son, he co-slept with us and it was wonderful for a while. We all got sleep and I felt very connected. But then around 9 months he kept punching and kicking and punching all night, and I decided I couldn’t take any more. At first I just put him in a pack-n-play beside our bed, and got up a few times when he’d fuss, and then after about a week of that I moved him to his room and went full-on cry it out. There’s something called a “gentle cry it out” method, but when I used it it only made things worse. My son seemed to adjust a lot faster when I didn’t keep going in the room, reminding him of the fact that I was not going to pick him up. My my oldest is now 2.5 years and my youngest is 11 months. They both sleep very well now unless they are sick or scared.

I did cry it out with both boys. I wish I had done it sooner with my oldest. I was insanely, utterly exhausted after 11 months of waking up every 2 hours. It was hard to even feel connected to him at times, because I was so just tired that I would feel nauseous waking up in the mornings. I finally just snapped and quit responding to him during the night. After about a week, he slept perfectly through the night and was in much better moods during the day and I was able to have my own sleep and enjoy my time with him. My second son slept in my bed with me until he was about 9 months, and I first transitioned him to his own crib and then let him cry it out, too. I actually felt so bonded to him from the natural birth and cosleeping that I was 100% confident that he was crying just because he was angry. I never worried that he felt like I had abandoned him, which was a big concern of mine for my first son (whose birth was very difficult and I never coslept with him). Other moms will treat crying it out as child abuse, but unless you’re willing to be totally at your child’s mercy for years and years, without any care for yourself (and sanity goes out the window after months of sleep deprivation), I don’t see how crying it out is avoidable. The mom on-call during the night could easily lose her mind, and it’s very hard to be loving and responsive without sleep.

Ah. Sorry then. I was trying to be hopeful, but if she really hasn't learned anything and only regrets that her options have narrowed, then she would just be the thief who was sad she got caught. I agree. I would, however, also say that in this case, the devil is also in the details. It's hard to moralize something so general. But yeah, I've seen it too. Yeah. The Royal Wedding was a jaw-dropper for me. I can't believe that the royal family would allow him to marry her. She's super cute and charismatic, but aren't there a billion other cute and charismatic girls available for Prince Harry? Have you ever considered using a Matchmaker service? I would have used one if I could have afforded it when I was single. I used the internet, and really loved how I could screen via my answers and other input, but I remember wishing back in my college days that there was a matchmaker around who could find me someone. Because there's no "The One." There are people who have qualities that you can love and live with and who are compatible with you in other ways, and I would have given a lot when I was younger to know that there was someone I could trust to select a proper mate for me. It would have saved me so much time and emotional energy, and I could have used my remaining time to do many more things. I think I read somewhere on another post that you made some money in real estate, or something like that. What if you hired a matchmaker? You could specify what qualities you wanted, the matchmaker service could screen women who had only those qualities, and then you could choose from that pool of women. You could also look at the women's histories, their families, their education, etc, and you could know that they had everything on paper that you would need for a marriage to logistically work before you ever wasted any emotional investment on them. Also, if you selected the perfect girl, and things were tense, you would know that the flaw was in you and you should probably need to improve yourself. I think it's perfect. Companies use hiring firms to screen potential employees, right? Then those that make it through are personally interviewed by the employer. Why shouldn't relationships be treated the same way? It would provide a perfectly stable environment for a loving, passionate relationship to grow and thrive.

It seems like you just restated what I had said about self-identifying lesbians becoming physically aroused by both genders. I’m sorry, man. It really just seems to me like you’re being the master of non-committal statements. Dude... which is it? So if a husband-stealing whore is serious about her future and the relationship with the man, she’s not going to be into sharing him with his wife, right? Is that what you’re saying? And if she’s not interested in stealing him, then she’s not fully invested? So, in both cases, if the woman is invested she will want him all to herself? and, a) why do I have to see anything a certain way? And b) which woman is ultimately invested in the other woman’s children? The husband-stealing whore? Or do you mean the second or third wife in a polygamist marriage? Have you ever heard of an evil stepmother? Just because a woman tolerates another woman’s offspring does not mean she is looking out for their best interests or feels anything remotely similar to a maternal instinct for the other woman’s child. They’re both utterly unable to attract men and both are weighed down with “baggage,” ie children. They’re a perfect match. That might not be so bad if only one of the women was having children, and the others were more or less like worker bees. We’ve definitely done our best to strip them of this role, but I think it’s bred into men, on a genetic level. Just because we’re trying to force people to be unable - and to hate, even - to act in a way which aligns with their own gender does not mean it does not exist. I’ve often wondered about that, and I wish he would give more details about how he manages this. I can’t answer for him. I know that he had a career before he did FDR, and it seems to have been lucrative. I don’t know how much profit he makes off of FDR and donations, but he has been able to keep the show up for, what, 10 years? I speculate that he came into fatherhood already set up to be the main provider and pulls his fair share a f the financial weight. Of course, he is the only one who could say. But it’s like you’re completely forgetting about the innate, terribly strong preference women have for their own children. Women don’t love a baby automatically just because it’s a baby. On the contrary. A friend of mine offered to keep her newborn nephew so he wouldn’t have to be put in daycare, and she found that she had such little empathy for his demands (and even felt anger towards him for pulling her away from her own toddler) that she told her brother that she would no longer watch him. She was shocked at her own reaction and felt extreme guilt over it, but every time he needed her, she felt angry and resentful. Babies are SO needy and demanding. No one enjoys that if they’re of bonded physically and chemically to the child. Women very much prefer their own genetic offspring. I don’t see why this is an argument for polygamy. It really just seems like a result of debt, inflation, poor choices and bad finances and swallowing propaganda. Again, you’re assuming that a woman will love and cherish another woman’s child as if it were her own and that the second or third wife wouldn’t take out her rage at her own offspring being displaced on the offspring of animals ther wife. For this to work, women would have to have no preference for her own children over another woman’s children, and if that’s the case, why wouldn’t a female-run daycare be just as good of an option? You’re avoiding the major reality of women strongly preferring their own children over other people’s children. Right. I didn’t say that my statements were law for every man and every woman. I said they were generalizations of typical men or women. I don’t think that just because there are exceptions to stereotypes nullifies the truth and usefulness of a stereotype. For one, no. Women are not less violent towards children. Women have just as many violent tendencies as men and violent women enjoy taking it out on powerless children just like any other abuser. A bully is a bully, no matter what gender. For another, this is an issue that I’m still undecided on. If children aren’t involved, then no, I don’t see as many reasons why one shouldn’t indulge in sensual pleasures and other kinky tendencies. Loneliness is very bitter and hard, and I can understand why it would be attractive to turn lesbian or gay for some company. I’m still undecided on that, but I think there’s a lot less pressure on those types of relationships since here are no children. (Fro what you say, though, these instances of people choosing lesbian/gay relationships over loneliness isn’t because they are honoring their true intentions and selves. It seems more like they are scared and afraid of the opposite gender and are use same-sex relationships as a way to meet their needs for intimacy without risking themselves, at cost to their real identities. It really seems like they’re selling themselves for safety ) Which is another thing - I thought you said polygamy was about caring for the children? Do you think we’ve been brainwashed? And yeah. I’m very pro-monogamy. I think it’s the only sane way forward. I believe it is the foundation of civilization and the great things that have come out of it, and that without monogamy we’re all basically reducing ourselves to rutting monkeys. I believe that women have an obvious benefit in monogamy, but men do, too. Only in monogamy are you forced to face the worst aspects of yourself and become the very best possibly version of yourself. In a successful monogamous relationship, men are forced to be ever changing and overcoming their own flaws and breaking new ground in the world around them. And women, to keep the love of their man in their older years, must learn to be a wellspring of beautiful truths and love. Monogamy is the perfect place for two people to grow their best souls, and if those two people have children and pass this wisdom onto that generation, then each generation is enriched with a map of how to be a better person, with a better soul. If a man can go from woman to woman to get his different needs met, then he never really confronts the tension between him and his relationships and he just takes the easy way out. Women do this with orbiters, too, but those tend to disappear when her looks go. If a woman hasn’t learned to take herself and become lovely regardless of physical appearance, than she usually turns into a shrew, or a bitter and mean nag. Nags are women who are terribly disappointed in life. I believe marriage is an all or nothing game, and either you’re in or you’re not. No middle ground. No back up plans, no back doors, no escapism or fantasizing. Marriage can be terribly romantic, but only if people grapple with the bare reality and uncomfortable truths, and I don’t think people will do that if they can always turn to another should when times get rough.

That's a great suggestion. I used to be pretty hard against video games and screen time - esp for boys, and I thought it was too much visual stimulation and caused a lot of disinterest in reality and created addiction - but I have really changed my mind and have been opened up to a lot of positive benefits of gaming. I have been really interested in unschooling lately, but the more I think about it, the more it seems like a sort of blend of structure and free-reign might be better, since I do think they'll need to know world/ancient history and literature. I can't imagine that, if they're interested, they would be curious about these things, but it would take them a long time, and there would be big holes in their discoveries if they were to go about it on their own. I appreciate your input. I have thought about #1 and #2, but I think of them more as things to bring them up with rather than as a separating, liminal experience where they say goodbye to boyhood, are transformed, and come back as something different (men, I would hope). I want an event. I have ideas, and I think I know what the "plot line" of it should have, but I am finding it difficult to fill in the details and come up with a rite of passage that is relevant for the modern times. That's really what I need input with. You're a writer, right? Here's the plot line: (copy and pasted from the Good Man Project) Pre-liminal Confusion: The initiate doesn’t feel comfortable, he wants to change. He brings a question. First gateway: He resolves to change and steps forward into the unknown future, seeking an answer. Liminal Dismemberment: He is taken apart, he is shattered, he is not in control. Second gateway: He sees a vision of the future, he sees the answer. The answer is not what he thought it might have been, but he accepts it, he knows it is his. Post-liminal Recognition: He changes. He is different. He recognizes the changes within him. The wider community recognizes the changes. Re-integration: He is re-integrated into the community, and is of benefit to others. The problems are; lack of real community to return to, what to aim him towards that will be relevant in his coming future, and what type of event will help him shuck off his boyhood and encounter his emerging manhood. If we lived in the brush, I would say he could take some drugs, kill a bear, and come back as a man. I really am not sure what to do that is appropriate for our culture and how it will be changing in his lifetime. This reminds me of your other post about your first time going to church. I am an atheist, and I am fortunate enough to have been able to separate from a culture and environment which was very harmful for me. However, as I am approaching 30 and have these two kids, I have found a huge hole in my life which can only be filled with community and traditions, but this does not really exist for an atheist or someone who does not want to blindly follow tradition for its own sake. I am very sad about this. I feel like I'm having to reinvent the wheel in almost all areas of my life, and I wish there were people around me who could kindly, lovingly help me navigate my marriage, growing older and the way my own identity has changed ( I think this is also why modern women are balking at having children - in terms of our current culture, life for a women ends when her SMV plummets, and SMV drops drastically with having children. We have no use for the guidance, wisdom, or femininity of mature women. We only want sex objects.), raising my children, creating meaning and unifying a family, dealing with our mortality and declining physical capacities, or how to share what we have spent a lifetime learning. I feel these things very deeply and mourn it, to be honest. It seems like a crisis to me. I am trying to find a way to replace what was lost with traditional Christianity.

Hahah yes it can be! I think it's because it's such a masculine place. Everybody's ripping into each other with their analyses, and the tone can get very biting and sharp. It does not feel all the inviting.

You seriously make me laugh all the time. My husband used to say the same thing. I have not been able to go to church because of this. I want to go. I deeply want the community and the beauty and the reflection and encouraged, collective seeking of something better, but when the service is over and people began chatting, it inevitably comes up that I don't really believe in God and then I am either ostracized or I find myself tempted to lie and try to just blend in. I grew up in a Protestant church, and went to a few Catholic services when my first son was born, but have not been back since. Yes!!! I grew up in a church called the Church of Christ, and all our singing was a capella. Because of that, most of the people in the congregation could read the sight notes and could harmonize half way decent. I sang in the symphony orchestra before my kids, and now that I don't go to church, I have really lost a beautiful thing. People don't just sit around in groups and sing their hearts out without a compulsory reason, and it really is a heartbreak to lose that. I sing to my kids, but frankly, my lone voice is not the same as singing with your whole body and being in the midst of a giant chorus.

Haha. Touché. My personal theory on it is that women are the penetrable sex, which means that they are automatically set up for a more vulnerable position, and because of that, it actually is a self-protective response for the body to "prep" for sex is a woman perceives that sex is even a slight possibility. Without a physical arousal, a woman could get very badly hurt from sex, and I theorize that it was a protective evolutionary process which protected women during rape and violence. I honestly don't even believe that there are "real" lesbians. Or, at least, it doesn't really matter if a woman only consciously becomes aroused by other women and she finds men repulsive. She is still able to receive sex with men, and is still liable to the laws of female reproduction. Men, on the other hand, really aren't as always ready for sex. If man doesn't get aroused, you really ain't got nothing to work with. If a man is gay through and through, he just won't be able to get aroused for a woman. End of the line. Buck stops there. I would think that the appeal for a homosexual union would be in being with someone who relates and values the same sort of general sexual communication. Men and women seek different things from sex, and I think often times women get frustrated with men because a man (typically, not always) wants sex just for the physical release, while a woman is looking for a bonding process (again, not always, but typically). I think gay men like to just bang gay men who are generally more in agreement that "sex is just sex", and lesbians like to get the emotional bonding from other lesbians. There's less work to do when the other person automatically understands what you want out of something because it's their default mode of operation. I think it's just another form of hedonism and overdosing on animalistic sensuality. I think it's just women who have realized that they can get their boxes ticked in yet another way, so, why not? I don't think the issues with polygamy are really all that tied to patriarchy. Maybe people blame it on the patriarchy, but I think that's a red herring and just another misleading idea about why it's not a good idea in the long run. I would think that it may be possibly that women could be biologically more open to sexual fluidity, but again, my thoughts on it are that it is a protective response built into women to protect them from the physical damage that could occur through rape. If there was a tribal war, and all the men were killed and the women were all taken, then if woman x saw another woman, a childhood friend or her neighbor, stripped naked and raped, she would probably know that she was next and her body would respond by becoming aroused - which would mean a higher chance of her surviving. I guess you could make a case that this instinct could be husbanded for the better bonding of women in polygamist marriages, but I still think that, in the end, a woman would either be divided or untied based on what she saw as a threat to her children. If a polygamist man had three wives, and all of them had some sort of happy hippy tantric sex love, and then bam! one of the wives had a baby, what would happen then? Would she still be ok with her husband - her provider, her protector, her child's sole protector from all evils and worldly harm - spending time and investing himself in something other than her and her child? I do not believe that any sane women would really be ok with that. She may pretend to be ok with it, or justify/rationalize it to herself, or even wish that things could go back to the way they were before and she could still enjoy the weird egalitarian orgy love that she enjoyed, but the reality is that people severely underestimate what kids take from you and what all they need, and children are what makes it impossible for polygamy, single motherhood, or whatever else you wanna throw in there, children are what makes it a bad idea. Children, what they demand by their very nature to be raised effectively into maturity, and the fact that when women make the sacrifice for humanity and have children, it puts them out of the "game of life" in a lot of ways, especially in the first few years. If a child-carrying woman honestly believes her male protector should give his physical intimacy, his resources, and his energy to other women, she then genuinely believes that the survival of her and her offspring are not that important.

I wouldn't write her off automatically. The devil is in the details: there may be more information that could shed more light on how committed she was to him or if she used the engagement as an excuse or whatnot. Just dig a little deeper. You're an obviously intelligent guy, and I don't doubt that you could figure out if her character is off or is golden. You could ask why she regrets sleeping with him, and why she did it, how she felt (emotionally, just to clarify) about the former fiance at the time and how she feels about him now. I think I understand how you feel, and it's not unreasonable to feel that way. It would feel like a personal slight if a girl did not do with you what she had done with someone else. However, if someone does something in the past that they regret and learn from, then, if that person values their own character and soul, they probably won't want to do the same thing again. It's not really about you. It's about that person maintaining their own sense of integrity. Maybe this will help - and it's not a perfect analogy, but oh well - if you stole something in the past, got caught, and actually regretted stealing (not just the getting caught), you wouldn't want to steal again. Maybe you met someone who you liked spending time with, and it turns out that this person thinks it would be fun to do some minor shoplifting, but you don't want to repeat your past mistake and be the person you were in the past, and your new acquaintance not only didn't accept your decision, but saw you as personally slighting them. I think it says something more about the integrity of the person encouraging the shoplifting than it does about the one who does not want to participate. Maybe the girls aren't being disrespectful when they don't automatically sleep with you. Maybe they sense they own shame from acting poorly in the past, and if they actually like you, they could possibly have a gut instinct that the only way there could be a positive outcome for a relationship between the two of you is if she acts with some integrity and self-value. Maybe the girls really are just not into you or they really are disrespectful, but I don't think you're looking at it through they eyes of a guy who is seeking a woman he could potentially cherish and protect.

So if polygamy is bad for women, and monogamy is bad for men, how do we proceed? If you could wave a magic wand and your could have the ideal situation, how would you arrange male and female reproductive relations? What's your goal in talking about this? To a skeptical female, it really just seems like you're wanting to find a reason to talk about women doing sexually evocative things. Are you wanting to make a case that women would be sexually fulfilled in a polygamist marriage because they are bisexual and would enjoy the lesbian side of things? I try to listen to people's idea about sexual mating strategies because it influences so much in how we live our lives, but I don't really see a compelling reason to talk about this. I'm not as uptight and curt as my typing comes off as, but I really am lost as to why this is an important thing to talk about.

So as I keep thinking about how to plan for the next stages in my kids' lives, I have found myself thinking about how to initial them into a proper, modern manhood. I strongly suspect that a lot of male promiscuity (I know ppl here argue that men just like sleeping around, but I don't think that love for the feminine form automatically equals man whoredom and the necessary lack of empathy that goes along with it.), lack of direction, addiction of video games, drug use, and other modern malaises that men experience might possibly be largely in due to not having a clear benchmark for when they are men. I wonder if they're not replacing a higher standard of masculinity with types of thrill-seeking that make them feel differentiated from boys. I've been wondering what type of Rite of Passage might be best for the modern day. Obviously we have ancient cultures to draw from, but modern manhood has very little to do with surviving in the bush. I wonder if it would make a difference to have a tailored, modern rite of passage, or would that make a difference at all? Should I just plan on a more traditional initiation, and hope that the lessons and change encountered there will carry over to modern life? What age would be best? I'm thinking as early as 11 or 12, but I don't know how that would work logistically with me being the stay at home parent. If I allow my sons to go off and "be men," then how can I mother them or live in the house as the responsible parent for the next few years? I don't know how doing so wouldn't undo the things gained from doing a rite of passage, since, as I understand it, one of the goals of a rite of passage is to sever the umbilical cords between mother and son, and set a new tone for the relationship. Would I need to look into finding a male figure to be the more constant role model? (The only reason I don't mention my husband automatically taking on this role is because he is the sole provider for our family. I would love to see him be able to have a much greater role in the family in the coming years, and he is looking for ways to give him more freedom and flexibility, but as of yet we have no solution. Not saying it's not a possibility, but we have no solid strategy for that yet. ) I think it's important for my boys to learn some lessons on mortality, they own capacities, limits, and strengths, and that they can be ferocious and wise. I have been doing research, but I would like to hear from other men about what they think is beneficial, and any other parents, too, about what worked for them or what they wish they had done. Also, if anyone has anything to add about female initiation rites, please mention that too. I read a few sources saying that just having a period is enough of a rite for girls, but I strongly disagree with this, although, sadly, there is not a lot I've read about what would positively initiate girls into womanhood. I don't currently have any daughters, but I think we still have some baby making in us and a daughter might be a possibility in the future.

I can’t imagine any woman thriving in a polygamist marriage. I can totally see how it would have occurred in our evolutionary history: getting a slice of one good man and sharing him is way preferable to watching her children and herself die, but if desperation is removed and a woman’s not afraid of her or her children dying, polygamy is a recipe for a woman to just bury her heart and live a life of ignoring all emotions and needs. Think about it. If a man has two or three wives, he will have to tend to each of their needs and care for them, and instead of investing heavily in one woman and creating more value, he divides his energy and resources between three people. No one woman is receiving his full heart of trust, and if he says he loves them all, then they all know they doesn’t actually love them because one woman is the same as another. The children compete in different ways when they have different mothers. From everything I’ve ever read, children from polygamist marriages do worse than children from monogamous marriages. Plus, it’s almost a wild fantasy to imagine that one wife would smilingly watch her husband give his time, energy, and resources to another woman’s children. Either she doesn’t believe her children are worth all his energies, or she is desperate and believes she has no other options. I would say that, historically, polygamy was better for women in as much that is was better to have living children rather than starving children, but polygamy can not be a place where any woman of any authenticity of emotion of love can flourish. No woman could ever open her heart up in that sort of situation. Polygamy works if people are willing to reduce themselves to just being a material means to an end. Side note: in a way, Donald Trump (and other men who have married, had children, divorced, pay alimony, remarried and had more children) is a polygamist. He has had three wives, and (I’m assuming) is still supporting them financially. He moved on to other women, but still is bound to provide for his first wife and her family. Well, Donald Trump is married to a woman who he seems to highly esteem and love. I would think that she is his proper match. A masculine guy like him has no need for another copy of himself. He needs a complimentary personality of equal caliber. I would think that he and Margaret Thatcher would not do well in a domestic partnership, but he and Melanie seem to have a very good harmony and empathy for each other.

@Strat lover. I would like to try to help you, but your writing is so confusing and twisted that it barely makes sense. Please please try to use some basic English sentence composition rules. It will really help people on here figure out what you’re saying and how to best offer help. It really sounds like you fixated on a pretty picture and wanted a pretty woman to give you attention even though you seem to be a self-proclaimed loser. This will generally only scare women. It basically advertises that you wish to add value to yourself by taking from her alleged high status that comes from owning a pretty face, since you have so little value that you don’t even consider yourself more than a loser. That’s basically a lose-lose scenario for any woman (or person, for that matter). It’s pretty common for all people to fall into this in times of low self-esteem, so don’t be too hard on yourself about it, but do recognize that you have to be able to bring something to the table of a relationship in order to have love. @Siegfried von Walheim can be very blunt and he is typically ruthlessness analytical, but he generally has some good comments. Try to take what he says without feeling personally attacked. Lol you sound like an Islamic fundamentalist. The average woman is more average than most men, who tend to be extraordinarily gifted or extraordinarily dull. Anyways, there is no reason to put up a man vs. woman comparison. Men and women are both excellent at being either men or women. Saying women are limited in their capacities when compared to men is like saying humming birds are limited when compared to blue jays. If your definition of “great” and “unbelievable” is based on public works of achievement, there are women who have made incredible contributions. Obviously there are more men who contribute in this way, but it’s silly to act like the women who have also contributed in large-scale, public, scientific or philosophical manners don’t exist. You basically just made masculinity itself the measure of greatness. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t, but it sounds like an awfully slippery slope of an argument. Women could just as easily flip this type of statement and say that no great men exist as compared to women. This is just as valid as saying no great women exist because they’re all limited in comparison to men. The only difference is which group gets preference of being the benchmark for “great.”

Anyone else get chills listening to this podcast? I wanted to let Stefan know how much it means to me, and I appreciate people out there trying to live their best lives. That’s it. Thanks.

He had just started eating some baby foods. I think I was just dying for a solid night’s sleep and getting desperate to have a teeny bit of independence again, even if it is only while I’m sleeping.

Thanks for your response! I do really have to watch myself. I think one of my worst vices is a tendency to wallow in guilt. Not sure why I do. It makes me miserable, but I sometimes feel compulsively guilty. Like if someone I barely know is upset, I feel responsible and guilty. It is something I’ve been trying to figure out and then fix. Thank you! This is wonderful advice. I have been doing this for a while now and things are much easier. My oldest seems to have accepted my youngest as a part of the package and only seems jealous at rate times, and mostly over favorite toys. Good of luck to you, too! I do have sympathy for you being a single dad, and hope you have people around you trying to help you and build you up.

I completely accept that there are special cases where there is no other way to give birth. But what I was talking about was cases where there is in fact choice. From what I've read, if it is possible, natural birth is preferable, since there are postpartum risks and other stuff in c-section. @S1988 do you know any other details of the birth? How scary for your mother! I actually knew some people from college whoydsughter was delivered stillborn, due to the umbilical cord cutting off oxygen supply during delivery. I am very suspicious of OBGYNs, and wonder if they actually just make things worse, but it’s hard to imagine how they could create umbilical cord problems. @Rafael Ritter My second son was born in the parking garage of the hospital - we waited at home for too long - and it was by far a million times easier than being under the doctor’s care. I basically stood like a field hand at the elevators and my son just came out and my husband caught him. That was it. I had no problem recovering, and it was so much easier. 10/10 would do again. Never will I go back to the hospital. I felt so molested and interrupted and bothered during my first labor, that I think it made my body stall. I ended up with an epidural, which caused lots of things I hated, because they threatened me with a c-section if I didn’t get one. Ever noticed how mammals like cows go off alone to give birth, and stop when they are moved, bothered, or watched? Human women really aren’t any different. Birth is not a “polite” process. It’s as ancient, animalistic, and primal as it gets. I find it offensive that women - who are quite literally tailor-made to grow and birth babies - are abdicating their in-born abilities for immediate comfort. But it’s also crazy how doctors and hospitals treat you! It’s like you have to run a marathon, and you know your built for running, but there’s some team on the sidelines forcing you to move in an unnatural way, like they tie a bobble around your feet so they can monitor your running, and they won’t let you drink water or have any refreshments “in case intervention is needed,” but you will almost inevitably need intervention due to muscle cramping from lack of water, food, and the wasted energy spent trying to assuage the doctors. It’s infuriating. I really think most women are brainwashed into believing that labor pains are something to be avoided. The pain won’t kill you. You can actually go into a deep state of relaxation during childbirth, and even if you don’t, it’s just pain. It’s not like you’ve broken your leg or something. This pain isn’t there to tell you something’s wrong. It’s not an unhealthy pain. It’s nothing to avoid and nothing to be afraid of. But most women here are primed to believe that excruciating pain is all that labor holds in store for them, and a doctor should save them from it. I’m not saying there isn’t danger inherent to childbirth, but this is what women were built for, and unless absolutely necessary, interventions should not be used.

That’s a terrible motivation to avoid C-section. I get it, I get it - guys are visual and all that, but you have to face the music that it is a rare woman who goes through pregnancy and who looks the same afterwards. Nubile hottie fantasy is not realistic post-baby. Obviously I’m not saying that a woman can’t be physically attractive after having children, or that she shouldn’t try, so please don’t take that to be my point. There are many scars a woman can get from having a baby, be it stretch marks, a C-section scar, or an episiotomy (which can cause a lifetime of pelvic floor issues). Childbirth also has a very high chance of physically loosening the birth canal, making sex less physically enjoyable for both husband and wife. There are many ways to minimize and avoid this as much as possible - spontaneous, natural delivery is a billion times easier for a woman to recover, but there are many reasons why this doesn’t happen. A lot of it is cultural. There are zero guarantees that any woman will look good makes after childbirth. A woman can eat as healthy as she is able to, be reasonably active, guard her emotions and heart and make appropriate preparations for the future, and the rest is out of her hands. A C-section scar is a very minor thing. Bottom line: be prepared to sacrifice your wife’s physical beauty to gain a child. That’s often what it takes to bring a baby into the world.

My girlfriend has talked to me about this social isolation aspect, but maybe I didn't see how big of a deal it actually is. I think we've sort of created it in modern times. I imagine that we had lived in clusters of agrarian societies, and the men would go out and do their stuff and the women were busy with all of the closer-to-home work, including childcare. In that scenario, the women had each other to share the burden or work and also conversation and companionship. Whenever I ask another mom to come over for an afternoon, I find it immensely easier to happily and productively do things around the house. I don't think my issue would be solved by him giving up his work and free time to become a better support. I would still be unfulfilled, because I would be looking to him to fill up every deficiency in my emotional arsenal. He cares how I feel, and makes efforts to attend to my emotional needs and listens and acts on my requests, but the truth is that he is a guy, and has his own needs and modes of being, and I need a network of mothers and older women who understand what it's like to be me, in my position, and who are aware of the acutely spiritual and very real physical changes that motherhood demands of a woman. He is not a woman and can't give me the woman-to-woman connection that I really want, and I suspect that all mothers want. Plus, he has a low threshold capacity for interaction and conversation before it starts to exhaust him and wear him thin. He is a big introvert (I thought I was an introvert until I had to stay home) and spends the last of his outgoing energy playing with me and the kids before they go to sleep. If I'm having a very hard day he makes extra efforts to pay attention to me, and I will accept it, but I also need to extend him to same courtesy of considering his emotions and needs if I want him to consider mine. I really believe that the solution is to make more female friends of all different ages. I think this is something that used to be built into our lives, but now it's something we have to proactively work for. I don't go to church and have been fairly against church for years, but I've been strongly considering it just to be shoed in to a community of family-oriented people of all ages. Just one person, no matter how loving he is, could satisfy the desire for a community. I don't. What I said was purely anecdotal and based off of my own feelings and what other women have told me about how they feel. But to be clear, it's not solely staying at home that makes women feel this way. It's staying at home with no pre-existing social support. My brother and sister-in-law live in another state, and they have her parents only 5 minutes away, her close childhood friends, her brother and sister-in-law, my father and step-mother, my aunts, uncles, and lots of older friends who weekly, if not daily, see each other and help with the kids. In contrast, my husband and I live several hours from any of our parents, moved to a city where we knew no one, and the close female friends I made here all moved away across the country right when I started having children. Those are two very different situations, and she and I have had very different feelings about entering motherhood. It just seems that, with the prevalence of how mobile most people are and how many people tend to leave their places of origin, it is not hard to imagine how this is a common thing to experience. But no, I have no data on this, just personal experiences of myself and those I know.

@Tuddtfudders Thank you for the article. It was very helpful (and I was very surprised at how similar the descriptions of the feeling are ) and helped me figure out what may have been causing it and how to handle it. I think it may be a result of more hormonal shifts and badly wanting to get a solid night's sleep at long last.