Forming A Proper Response To Hearing "Man Up!" From Your Wife

Once again, Athol at MMSL has made an intriguing post that inspired a response that grew to post-length itself.  So once again I'm using it for my own blog, because it's so damn pertinent.

The focus of the post was the insidious admonition to "Man Up" that we've been hearing steadily for two decades, and how it's often used as a shaming technique to get men to do stuff that is not necessarily in their best interests.

This is a bigger deal than most men realize.

One of the hardest things about taking the Red Pill is accepting responsibility for your own actions as a man and the head of your household (even if you are the only member of that household). It’s easy to be a Blue Pill dude and defer responsibility to other people — your wife, the government, someone else — but when you take the Red Pill and make that commitment to yourself that you will deal with the universe the way it is, and not the way it’s idealized to be, then things get complicated. And hard.

Athol’s absolutely right: when someone is telling you to “Man Up”, they’re invoking shame and using your own masculinity against you. 

Now, if that comes from a man then it can be seen 
as an invitation to remember your masculine power, qwitchyerbitchen, and do the job at hand. When men tell other men to “Man Up” (usually) they are trying to improve the condition of the other man. In the Male Social Matrix men are generally encouraged to help each other like that as part of the process of turning a Guy in to a Man . . . or simply providing moral support for a difficult issue. While the emphasis in the MSM is overtly on competition between men, a long list of masculine codes, from basic sportsmanship to battlefield chivalry, are designed to mitigate that competitive nature by tacitly providing assistance to less-able men.

While men are highly competitive, they also (as a class) tend to be dedicated to using their success and position to elevate other men even if it means that they are sacrificing a little competitive edge to do it.  Because while winning is vitally important to men, winning unfairly cheapens the effort.  And if your competitors are not at their best, then your best doesn't mean much.  An Olympic sprinter at a Middle School track meet isn't going to find much meaningful competition.  Any "wins" he makes there are going to be suspect -- not because he cheated, but because of the mediocre nature of competition.

Since men thrive on competition as the cornerstone of the Male Social Matrix, then the only way that the most successful competitors are going to experience real satisfaction with their success is to ensure that the competition is as challenging as possible.  When an Olympian goes to the games, the focus is not on "I'm going to win a Gold!" it's "I'm going to face the best athletes on the planet and I'm going to be shown -- in front of the entire world -- how I stack up."  So the impetus in the MSM is to improve your competition as much as you can without making them better than you.  It's the old "I taught him everything he knows . . . but I didn't teach him everything I know!" saw from the older, more experienced man referring to a competitive protege.

When a man tells another man to “Man Up” he’s offering both support and criticism, acknowledging the difficulties of the issue but also declaring his belief that the other man has within him the capability and testicular fortitude to get the job done despite his own fears and insecurities about the issue. Since all men have fears and insecurities, a quiet, private discussion about them with another dude who acknowledges those fears and insecurities but also expresses his belief in your ability to deal with them is a gift from another man.

And that's how most men take that kind of admonishment . . . from other men.  As constructive criticism and just enough shame implicit to be motivating.  The few times when another man has told me to "Man Up", "Sack Up", or "Cowboy Up", it has been a straight-up reminder that I'm a dude, I've got big hairy balls, and the way to properly approach a problem or challenge is not from a place of fear and insecurity, but from a place of confident determination, and I've been (in retrospect) grateful to the men who said it to me.

But when it comes from a woman, it’s the nastiest sort of insult. On par with the “C-word”.

When a woman says “Man Up”, she’s not offering constructive criticism wrapped in a masculine-flavored coating of support. She’s calling into question his masculinity and his ability to get the job done, and expressing her doubts about her dude in the most insidious of ways. 

Don't believe that ladies?  Think that telling your man to "Man Up" is no big deal?  Let me explain it to you like this: it’s the moral equivalent of presenting yourself to your husband before an important formal occasion after three hours prep on hair, make-up and wardrobe only to have him wrinkle up his forehead and say “You mean you’re going to wear that? In public?” Devastating.

In that situation, the asshole-in-question is undermining not just your confidence, but your ability to properly interpret and react to a complex social situation, which is the cornerstone of the Female Social Matrix.  In a very real way he's attacking your femininity, not through an overt assault on your sexuality or appearance or the other stuff that feminists get torqued up about, but by questioning your ability to navigate the FSM.

So when you ladies tell your man to "Man Up" in just about any situation, you are taking a well-aimed kick at his unprotected testicles.  And since it's coming from you, who knows him better than just about anyone, it's orders of magnitude worse than had it come from a stranger.

The Red Pill doesn’t banish fears and insecurities — if anything, once you know all of the things that can go wrong with your life, your wife, and your relationships, it can make you a little paranoid. But what the Red Pill can do for you is give you the space to acknowledge your own fears and insecurities and handle them. The Red Pill doesn’t say you have to be an indestructible, invulnerable, and emotionally-distant man in order to thrive. But it does give you just enough security and belief in yourself to push back when you get the shit-testing “Man UP!” from a woman.

So how does a Red Pill man, especially one working the MAP hardcore, respond to such a shrewish and inconsiderate request?

First, consider the context of the situation.  Carefully evaluate the objective challenges you face.  If it's a work issue, for example, and you understand how precarious your company is positioned in these uncertain economic times, then responding to your wife's request that you "Man Up" and demand a raise from your boss when the company is contemplating lay-offs demonstrates her lack of knowledge of the situation and suggests an appropriate, quietly-delivered response:

"Have you noticed it's not your name on my paycheck?  This job is my responsibility to navigate, and if I don't think this is an opportune time to push back, then you're just going to have to fucking trust me that I know what the hell it is I'm doing.  Because as delicate as things are, having someone who doesn't know what the hell she's talking about offering me bad advice about how to run my career isn't going to be doing me any favors."

And yes, use profanity.  Don't use insulting language or name-calling . . . but there is a time and place to display your command of invective to your woman, and this qualifies.

Or, if it's a tangled social situation -- for instance, stumbling across evidence that a male friend of yours is cheating on his spouse -- then an admonishment to "Man Up" from your woman is actually a nasty way for her to try to shame and manipulate you into feminine-behavior under the auspices that it's the "right" thing to do.  That is, when your wife wants you to "Man Up" and rat on your friend to his wife, what she's really trying to do is drag you into the uncleansed bowels of the Female Social Matrix and use you as her surrogate bitch.

Women often feel that they are the keepers of moral and ethical behavior in our society, which is Hamstereese for selectively using morality to increase their position in the FSM (or, conversely, to tear down another woman's).  Part of this can be blamed on the relative powerlessness women enjoyed in the pre-industrial era, when their only legitimate way of using power was through their men.  But now they can't use that excuse -- trying to drag a man into the FSM for your own purposes by shaming his sense of masculinity is nothing more than blatant manipulation.

So how do you respond to her "Man Up!" in this case?

"You know, it's been said that learning to mind your own business is 80% of all human wisdom.  This is a volatile situation that has the possibility of messing up a lot of people's lives,  and since it concerns something that's clearly none of our fucking business, then I'm going to 'Man Up' and exercise my masculine prerogative for wisdom by keeping my mouth shut and strongly encouraging my gossipy wife to do the same.  The fact is, we don't know all the facts.  We don't know what kind of private intimate relationship those two have, no matter how close we might be to them.  And stirring a turd of this size is just going to cover everyone in shit so . . . if you think me unmanly because I'm unwilling to destroy someone else marriage willy-nilly, then buy me a tutu and call me Fifi, Babe, because clearly I'm not man enough to do it."

Presented in a growling, obviously-judgmental tone of voice, this should shut down all future discussion on the topic, unless she's Batshit Crazy or, conversely, so tied into the FSM that your wishes on the matter do not matter to her.  Which implies you have much, much bigger problems on your hand that idle gossip.


Of course, the hardest time to hear "Man Up" from your woman is when it involves your own family.  Especially your relationship with your mother.  A wife/girlfriend and her mother-in-law is always a rough relationship, no matter how cordial it might seem.  In a very real way your woman and your mom are fighting for control over you, and both of them can use the "Man Up" as a shaming technique in their FSM power struggle.  This is particularly hard to take, and it can put you in a particularly bad spot.


When your wife tells you to "Man Up" when it comes to your mother or father, then once again objectively evaluate the context of the situation.  Usually that kind of fight comes when your parents are trying to get you to do something that your woman sees as a threat to your relationship or her power.  And while the last thing you want is your mother dominating your relationship, it's just as bad to have your wife dominate your relationship with your mother.  Hearing your mother tell you to "Man Up" in regards to your wife is just as bad, and calls for the same level of response.


In a Blue Pill marriage what usually happens is that the Beta in question gets in the middle and tries to act as an obsequious intermediary, inserting himself into the feminine power struggle in a particularly masochistic and unhelpful way.  The result is often increasing frustration on the part of both your mother and your woman, purposeful misunderstandings and overly diplomatic language, with no real resolution in sight.  The Beta just wants everyone to get along, and he will bust his ass in a fevered sweat trying to appease both wife and mother.

This rarely, if ever, works to his advantage and ultimately sets him up for innumerable future problems stemming from his lack of backbone.  By the time "Man Up!" is heard from either party, Mr. Blue Pill has usually already traded the last shreds of his testicles for magic beans or somesuch, and the impact of the command is lessened simply because Mr. Blue Pill has long given up on his own masculinity in an attempt at negotiating domestic harmony.  Ten years later he's often divorced and bitter because both his wife and his mother lost respect for his lack of Alpha.  (Yes, your Mom is a woman, too, and responds to your Alpha just like any other woman.  Don't get all Oedipus-creepy about this, though.  Your mother's perspective on your masculinity is only sexual in the most obtuse sort of way.  She's looking for validation that she produced a strong male worthy of providing her descendants).

So how does the Red Pill man respond to his wife and/or mother telling him to "Man Up!" in regards to the other party?  Simple.  He drags both of them into the same room and he makes them be silent for ten minutes while he chews both of them out for their juvenile and disrespectful behavior.

And that's the general key to all such "Man Up!" commands.  If you have a hard time evaluating a complex situation enough to give a cogent and eloquent response, then a prompt and direct expression of your own sense of masculinity, delivered forcefully and meaningfully, should be sufficient to a) get her off your back and b) do so in such a way that's pure Alpha, and not Beta (which is what she's accusing you of) in the slightest.

Here's a few practice lines:

WOMAN: ". . . and I don't know why you let this happen all the time.  God, sometimes I just wish you would Man Up and just handle it!"

MAN: 

Gentle response:  "Honey, I can appreciate what your saying, and I understand your position.  However, if you call my masculinity into question even once more during this conversation, it will be over, we'll be having another, altogether different discussion, and there will be unpleasant consequences and repercussions.  Is that understood?"

Moderate response (Set Sarcasm controls to "disintegrate"):  "Gosh, thank you ever so much for your opinion of my masculinity.  I'm terribly sorry you see it as so deficient, but since you don't happen to own a pair of fucking testicles and I do, I think I'm going to have to be the judge of that.  Just because I'm not doing what you want me to doesn't mean I'm unmanly, it means I'm a man with my own fucking brain, which also means I don't take poorly-contrived, selfishly-motivated juvenile crap like 'man up' lightly, even from a woman who is supposed to me on MY fucking team.  Now maybe you should disappear for a little while, because if you were trying to piss me off and get me angry, you succeeded . . . and right now it would be in the best interests of our relationship if I wasn't being reminded of that."

 Severe Response (USE WITH CAUTION): Unzip pants, drop them to your knees.  Grasp and brandish your genitalia in a crude and threatening way.  Approach your wife, never taking your eyes off of her.  Get well within her comfort zone of "personal space" until you can feel her exhaled breath on your face.  Your intensity and determination in this case is key.  She should be shocked, nervous, and maybe even a little frightened.

 Say, very quietly with just a hint of menace in your voice, "If you need a reminder of my masculinity, that can be arranged.  But until your balls are bigger than mine, then I'd count it as a personal favor if you would shut the fuck up about my masculinity, lest I take it as an invitation to prove it to you.  Because that's perhaps the most insulting and disrespectful thing you've ever said to me.  Really, that's the kind of shit I'd expect to hear out of a brainless teenager's mouth, not a grown and allegedly mature woman.  So don't even speak, don't say a fucking word to me right now, because I'm teetering on the edge of a serious and very masculine blow-up and I'm really exerting a lot of effort to avoid that.  If you were a man who said that to me like that, we'd already be fighting.  Since you're not, I'd strongly recommend you retreat from my presence and reconsider your advice.  Then after I've calmed down, if you still think my actions aren't 'manly' enough for your tastes, then we can arrange for that demonstration.  Now I'm going to put my large, hairy nutsack away, and I'm going to walk away, and I don't want to hear another fucking word from you until you're ready to sincerely apologize to me for your profound rudeness."  

Turn, walk away, and carefully replace genitalia in pants without accidentally zipping up your scrotum. (Writhing on the ground clutching your crotch in pain after that particular speech is going to seriously kill your credibility.)

All three of the above responses should be sufficient, but the over-all rule-of-thumb about this is that when a woman challenges your masculinity with "Man Up", you respond with unabashed, balls-in-your-face unmitigated and unwatered ALPHA.  That's the essential nature of this shit-test, and the only appropriate and beneficial response is a strong Alpha Move.

It's like when your kid criticizes you about something in a particularly rude way.  Regardless of whether he's right or wrong, the disrespect and the rudeness become the issue, and that has to be handled first, and quickly, before the merits of the criticism are addressed.  When your woman tells you to "Man Up", it doesn't matter what the issue is -- the first order of business for a Red Pill man is to correct the bad behavior and let her know, in no uncertain terms, that her "suggestion" has now taken center stage, regardless of how serious the other issue might be.  


When you allowed her into your boat and under your command, then it was with the tacit understanding that she would be supportive of you and respectful of your masculinity -- as respectful as you are to her femininity.  Telling you to "Man Up" isn't good First Officer advice, it's tantamount to mutiny, and it should be treated as such.  An attack on your masculinity like "Man Up" is a direct violation of the Rules of Engagement as a kidney punch, and should be treated accordingly.

Whatever you do, don't let the remark pass un-noted.  Indeed, the proper response is good ol' fashioned masculine righteous anger -- you might be making the wrong decision or taking the wrong attitude for the situation, but the simple fact of the matter is that it's YOUR FUCKING JOB to make decisions, and you and you alone are the proper judge of your own sense of masculinity.  Your woman gave you the endorsement and validation of her perspective on your masculinity when she got onto your boat.  There should be no questioning that in your marriage until she gets off your boat -- voluntarily or not.  Basically, if you're the kind of man who will put up with that kind of shit from her, then you deserve the consequences of that.

I'm lucky: Mrs. Ironwood has used that particular tactic less than a handful of times, and all within the first few years of our relationship.  Once she realized that I'm open to plenty of constructive criticism, but my sense of masculinity was off the table and not up for her review, she backed off the tactic as unproductive.  And since one of the last times she pulled it landed her in marital counseling for a couple of uncomfortable weeks, she grew to understand that this is a generally unproductive tactic to take.

Convince your woman that it's unproductive in the most forceful of terms, and she'll back off the "Man Up" shaming language, too.    But it's your responsibility as a Red Pill husband to enforce that rule.  It sucks, it might get you into an even bigger fight, but if you don't win this one then winning all the others isn't going to make a damn bit of difference.

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It's Equilibrium, Not Equality, That Makes A Marriage Work

Q: It is well know that Mrs. Ironwood is smart, well educated, and well paid. So obviously she is not playing dumb or incompetent in an attempt to make her man feel important. It would be interesting to know what she does to "be the woman" and allow you to "be the man" (generalities, not details - lol). 

A: What an excellent question!

When I read this at Stately Ironwood Manor this morning over my usual coffee-and-cigarettes breakfast (most important meal of the day), I went ahead and read it aloud to Mrs. Ironwood, who has better sense about how to begin her day and was eating a ridiculously high-fiber cereal.

She considered.

“Mostly, I stay out of your way and let you do what you do.”

She elaborated – one of the things I love about her is her keen insight into masculine psychology.  Basically she told me that she recognizes that there are things that are inherently important to a man, and that when it comes to those issues (insofar as they do not negatively impact the over-all Mission), regardless of whether or not she thinks she knows a better way to do it, or a better approach, or whatever . . . she stays out of my way and lets me do those particular things my way.

It’s a struggle, sometimes, she continues.  But just as she feels sensitive to the fact that I’ve assumed many of the “traditional wifely responsibilities” like laundry, getting the kids ready for school, shopping and cooking, things that she feels judged about by her mother and the other women in her personal Matrix, she understands that I feel sensitive to the need to assert my masculinity in other ways.  Like working in porn and hanging pictures and spending my off-hours relentlessly trying to get into her pants.  

If expressing my masculinity involves her getting laid with the frequency of a truck stop hooker, then she's willing to take the hit for the team.  One of her girlfriends hasn't gotten laid in over a year.  Another has hit a rough patch in her relationship and has slowed to once a month.  Mrs. Ironwood implicitly understands just how dysfunctional that is for a relationship, so if accepting eager and willing cunnilingus a couple of times a week will help keep our marriage running smoothly, she'll gladly make the sacrifice.

She's such a trooper.

It was a fascinating discussion – we've covered some of this territory before, but it was interesting to see it like this.  We’re very aware of our mutual interdependence and how important it is to a well-functioning ship, but we rarely discuss it in those terms.  She makes more money.  I do more housecleaning.  Yet the social expectations of both issues put a lot of undue pressure on us from outside.  That alone is often enough to put strain on a couple.

However, one advantage that we have over many couples is the fact that we long-ago accepted the fact that while our relationship and our family was perfectly normal, it was also destined to be utterly unconventional.  Striving to fulfill outside expectations – in any direction – has the potential to detract from the efficiency of how well the ship runs, and could compromise the over-all Mission.  If outsiders see it as a challenge to my masculinity that I take my daughter to Girl Scouts and the only professional sport I follow avidly is Ice Dancing (long story), then I know thatit is their issue, not mine.  The Mission states that the important thing is the happiness and welfare of the children is the highest priority, and if that means I have to skip down Main Street in a blue satin evening dress in order to make it happen, then I can take the hit.  My masculinity is dependent upon successfully fulfilling the Mission requirements, not on living up to someone else’s expectations of how I do so.  And Mrs. Ironwood is the only person on the planet empowered to offer me unsolicited criticism about how I fulfill the Mission.  Understanding that difference has given me tremendous emotional freedom in how I run the household.

So we’re both willing to compromise about stuff . . . but we try like the dickens to make sure that we don’t have to.  Luckily, we both are on the same page so much of the time that our compromises usually seem minor and unimportant when they actually happen.  Chalk it up to good wife selection criteria and a long vetting period.

But one fundamental that we practice is always being willing to communicate, within the dictates of the Rules of Engagement.  And we have both accumulated enough of a store of trust in each other that when one of us does something the other sees as dicey, then we’re willing to extend the benefit of the doubt to each other, even if we’re pretty sure the other person is wrong.  I may know for a fact that what she’s doing is a mistake, but if I do not give her the freedom and autonomy to make and learn from mistakes (provided they don’t imperil the Mission) then I’m not leading properly.  

The same goes for me: if I’m indulging in a masculine fit of do-it-myself, say, fixing the porch or painting a fence, then Mrs. Ironwood has the brains to recognize that the important issue is not whether or not the fence gets painted, it’s that I am painting the fence as an expression of my masculine power to Order the household.  And because painting a fence is well within my capabilities.   She trusts me to do the job to the best of my ability, and then knows that the proper feminine response – regardless of the outcome – is to praise the effort, not the result.

Admittedly the praise is higher when I don’t fuck things up, but she never – NEVER – tells me “I told you so!” when things go wrong.  Indeed, even if I do fuck things up (it happens) she thanks me for my efforts and encourages me to think positively about it.  She doesn’t use my failed attempt as a crowbar to leverage in a subsequent relationship discussion.  

That’s a rare and special gift.  Some folks think that marriage means that both husband and wife can relax into a perpetual casual relationship in which the little things don’t matter because of the strength of your love, but any OMG will tell you the opposite is true.  Extending basic courtesy and politeness to your spouse is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL to keeping the ship running properly.

Remember, Captain and First Officer are positions with a lot more ritual and protocol implicit in them than “wifey and hubby 2.0”.  Ignoring basic courtesy because you’ve happened to see your spouse busting a grumpy in the bathroom is foolish.  And ignoring her accomplishments and her efforts is twice as foolish.   Remember, the performance of the First Officer is in part contingent on (and is a reflection of) your abilities as a leader.  If that means calling out your spouse for praise more often than you probably would a casual acquaintance then remember that a) you likely did not exchange profound vows with a casual acquaintance and b) in most cases a casual acquaintance is unlikely to provide you with fellatio.

Mrs. Ironwood earns compliments from me every day – and note I said “earned” not “deserves”.  It doesn’t matter whether or not she deserves the compliment – the fact is, she is a superlative wife who earns the praise I give her, and I would be a stingy husband to withhold it.  And she reciprocates, often surprising me with “One of the reasons I love you is how you ….” at moments when I least suspect it.  This has the dual effect of increasing my attraction to her (we’re always more attracted to those who offer praise and respect toward us) and rewarding good behavior on my part.  The reward system works both ways, after all, and Mrs. Ironwood has learned how to work it to our mutual advantage.

Mrs. Ironwood also made this valuable point that I hadn’t considered:

“When you really are set on something and I think it’s a bad idea, and I’ve told you I think it’s a bad idea—”

“You let me do it anyway,” I finished, smugly.

“Well, not exactly,” she hedged, much to my surprise.  “Just as you have the masculine power of Ordering, I have the feminine power of Persuasion.  And in cases where I really think something is a bad idea, and you aren’t listening to my cogent and well-reasoned arguments, then I use my feminine wiles to distract you from the issue until you decide to do it my way.”

“Hey!  That’s not fair!” I protested.

“It’s perfectly fair,” she disagreed.  “Look, I respect your ability and willingness to be the leader of the household – I have too much leadership crap at work, the last thing I want is to be on the hook for the decisions that run the house.  And in most cases, yeah, I can let you do it your way, anyway, and I stay out of your way.

“But if you are dead-set on doing something utterly bone-headed, yet doesn’t imperil the Mission, then I feel well within my rights to distract you away from it and give you some perspective.”

“Distract me how?” I asked, a little alarmed.

“With sex,” she shrugged.  “And attention.  I get you focused on one of your other little tangents, or I ask you about work – back to sex again – or I take you to dinner, or I unload my work issues on you for advice, and you get so wrapped up in helping me out that you often forget about the thing you were going to fuck up in the first place.”

“And if I don’t?” I asked, warily.

“If sex doesn’t work to distract you,” she reasoned, “then that tells me that whatever it is Really Matters to you, and I can either let you go or get in your face about it.  But usually you’re open to being distracted.”

I frowned.  “Am I really that easy?”

She snorted.  “Why do you think I married you?”

There were plenty of potential responses to that, but I found myself going in an unexpected direction.  “So, does it bother you that our marriage isn’t based on the principal of equality?” I asked.

“Equality?” she asked, just as surprised.  “Look, it’s a marriage, not a suspension bridge.  We’re not two equally strong pillars both holding it up equally.  That’s a stupid metaphor.  Marriage is a fluid, plastic, constantly-changing thing, especially with kids involved.  Forget equality.  What we have is a teeter-totter.  A see-saw.  You’re at one end, I’m at the other.  The goal is equilibrium, not equality.  It’s not about what is fair to you, or fair to me.  It’s how we both can dance along the length of the lever in order to maintain equilibrium.”

“Explain,” I directed, intrigued.

“Look, if I’m having a shit-week – like this week, for instance,” she added.  “I’m so stressed out about work that I can’t even think about you and the kids, and that makes me feel like a bad wife and mother.

"But then I come home after bitching about it to you on the phone, and you have dinner cooked and laundry folded, it's like a Dido song.  That still makes me feel like a bad wife and mother, but I also feel so loved and supported that you adjusted your side of the see-saw to compensate for my shitty week, it makes me forget about what a shitty wife and mother I am and just drop to my knees in gratitude . . . like I have time for that.  And then next week, after I get my grades posted, I’ll re-adjust my position, spend a few evenings doing you like it’s prom night to show my appreciation and assuage my guilt, and we’ll be headed back into equilibrium.  You can’t do that trying to keep both people ‘equal’.  Someone’s always going to be up and someone’s always going to be down, but if both of us are trying for equilibrium in good faith, then we can appreciate the relationship better over time because we understand the process.”

“So to extend this metaphor,” I said, enthusiastically, “what happens if someone fails to adjust to compensate?”

“Then one of your asses is going to hit the ground with a decisive thud,” she replied, smoothly.  “That happens.  It’s happened to both of us, many times, in the last twenty years.  As long as the other person doesn’t get off the other side, you’re both cool.  But when you get off . . . well, it’s decisive thud time, only permanent.”

“So how have we avoided that, all these years?”

“You’re willing to dance on your end, I’m willing to dance on mind, and we’re both committed to the pursuit of equilibrium to affect the success of the Mission without being selfishly obsessed with equality.  It might not be as stable as ‘two pillars of equality’, but we sure have a hell of a lot more fun around the fulcrum than those couples stiffly holding up their relationship.  And then there’s the alternative . . .” she said, trailing off meaningfully.

“What alternative?”

“The thing that's really keeping me dancing on my end,” she confessed.  “Besides, y'know, true love and shit.  If one of us did step off, have you seen what’s available as replacement parts these days?  Jesus, I think I’d enter a convent before I’d start dating again.  No matter how bad you get – and you really don’t get bad,” she assured me, hurriedly, “don’t get me wrong, but no matter what a pain in my ass you are, you’re MY pain in the ass.  There’s a security in that that allows me a lot more emotional freedom than my friends.”  I was no good judge of that – that’s Matrix stuff – but I was willing to take her word for it.

“Seriously,” she continued, “half of my friends are obsessing about their lack of a boyfriend or husband, and the other half are bitching about their existing boyfriend or husband, and none of them are complaining that they aren’t being treated as an equal partner or they're getting laid too much.  I get asked all the time why I don’t bitch about you the way other women bitch about their husbands, and it really is because you don’t give me a reason to bitch.  In fact, I spent almost the entire conference talking about how great you are with the house, the kids, and me that I pissed off some people.”

I guess that’s a good thing.  “So you aren’t worried that I’m treating you like a slave, dominating the relationship, relegating you to second-class status, all that bullshit?”

She patted my knee warmly.  “Babe, my priorities are raising the kids well and keeping my family happy.  That includes you.  That’s where I find fulfillment.  Yes, I have a career -- everyone needs a J-O-B -- and I'm lucky enough to have married a man who was willing to put up with all of that school and abject povety so that you could let me make a career out of making the world a better place in a really crappy industry.  But you don’t let me make that my life.  You keep me grounded about what is truly important to me because you know me.  You get me.  And I so appreciate that about you.”  Awww!  More praise!  “So to answer your reader’s question, I’d say that I stay out of your way, let you be a man, and focus on my job as the woman in the relationship.  And I don’t let other people define for me what that is.  Not my mom.  Not my sister.  Not even you.”

Okay, I could accept that.  “And you persuade me with sex,” I added.  “When cogent and well-reasoned argument fails.”


“Right.  Do you feel threatened about that?  About me ‘using sex as a weapon’?” she asked, curious.

It was a fair question.  I mean, a lot of guys accuse women of that, and I’ve seen it employed thus over and over in other relationships.

“No,” I decided.  “Because you don’t use it as a weapon.  You use it as a tool of engagement.  When we have sex, it’s a non-verbal extension of our continuing intimate conversation.  Sometimes you use it to say ‘Honey, you’re wrong, you should see my point’.  I can handle that.  And sometimes you use it to say ‘Babe, you did a really good job – more of that, please!’ and I can handle that, too.”

“And sometimes I just want you to throw me down, rip off my clothes, and do me hard,” she reminded me.  “Just what do I have to do to persuade you to do that?”

The rest of the conversation would only be of interest to the voyeuristic and the aficionado, so I’ll leave it to your imagination.

But that’s her answer.  To misquote Star Trek, “The needs of the Family/Relationship outweigh the needs of the Spouse . . . but the Spouse’s needs are part of the needs of the family/relationship”.   We both have to dance along our side of the see-saw to keep the thing up in the air.  Every now and then we arrive at a point that’s not ‘equal’ . . . but it is equitable. We're striving for equilibrium with the understanding that we'll never quite reach it, and that's okay.

To this I will only add that Mrs. Ironwood does take care of her appearance, for work as much as for me, but she also doesn’t hesitate to doll up for date night and indulge in shameless PDAs in public. She is quite comfortable with her femininity – she knows she’s not winning any beauty contests, but that isn’t the point.  She dresses up to show respect for me, because a wife dresses up for her husband on date night.  She goes out of her way to ensure I get masculine down-time with my guy friends (I had to get her to stop calling them ‘play dates’ for the sake of my masculine dignity).

She treats me like her captain: with respect and honor and genuine loyalty.  She takes care of me, and acknowleges that that's part of her job description as much as fixing cars or cooking dinner is in mine.  She looks after my grooming and appearance, my skincare and whether or not my shoes are decent, and she tells me when I look hot enough to fuck.  And she doesn’t hesitate to show me off, use me as arm candy, and brag to her pals about just how lucky she is – whether I’m there or not.  

I understand part of that is just ‘marking her territory’, but, honestly, I find I don’t mind so much.

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The Rules Of Engagement For Fighting In A Marriage

All couples fight.  You can't avoid it.  But you can choose how you fight.

I was at the esteemed Athol Kay's blog, Married Man Sex Life, this morning reading about yelling in a marriage (spoiler alert: don't do it) and I ended up trotting out my marriage's Rules Of Engagement in the discussion.  I thought they might be of benefit to some folks here,. as they have served me well for nearly 20 years. Indeed, as I recently said over at Alpha Game, I feel that us Old Married Guys (OMG) have a duty to pass on successful marital strategies to the younger folk, before they invest in a lot of rented tuxes and divorce lawyers.

Mrs. Ironwood and I  came up with these before we ever got married (we lived together for 6 years first.  I was pretty sure I wanted to marry her 4 years into the relationship, but when you're planning on only marrying one girl . . . better to wait two more years and be sure.) .  We had the help of a highly skilled marriage counselor, one of the very, very few I've known worth the money.   These Rules were mutually understood and agreed-upon before we got married.

They are:

1) No yelling. Reasonable tones only.

2) No name calling. That's disrespectful.

3) Stick to one topic at a time. Don't fight about that thing you did last week.

4) No ultimatums. That's contrary to the spirit of the discussion.

5) No chase-and-follow. We handle our business face to face in our own home without involving other people.

6) No involving other people. This is between us.

7) No ad hominem attacks. That's rude and intellectually dishonest.

8) No kidney punches, i.e. hitting the other person's acknowledged weak spots. After nearly 20 years, we know where those are. If your husband/wife had an alcoholic parent, for example, comparing them to that parent would be considered a kidney punch.

9) No involving the children. This is a debate between adults.

10) No profane language. If you can help it.

That's the general guideline. Our friends think we never fight, but we do -- we just agreed to the rules ahead of time. And NO YELLING is the very first one. Yelling is a clear attempt to establish dominance without having won an argument. That's disrespectful not just to your partner, but to the marriage as a whole. Worse, when a man yells in an argument it demonstrates he has lost his cool.  (Yelling at your children to get their attention, or increasing your tone to denote emotional emphasis of a particular point, is different than Yelling in a fight with your wife).

We've managed to stick to this set of rules for almost two decades, and it has helped us get through some dark times, even when the Rules worked against us, personally.  And that's not to say that both of us haven't occasionally violated one of the less-important of the above rules at various points, including Yelling. When that happens, it's time to call a "time out" and walk away for some silent contemplation, marshal your resources, etc.. It stretches out the fight, but it's better than a trip to the emergency room.

Oh, and the unofficial #11?


Make-up sex. Righteous.

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