Jason Meyer (John Piper’s successor) resigns

https://julieroys.com/john-pipers-successor-resigns-amid-allegations-of-abusive-leadership-at-bethlehem-baptist/

The successor to John Piper at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis this week resigned in what appears to be a major shake-up at the church amid allegations of toxic and abusive leadership.

Piper’s successor, Jason Meyer, is the fourth pastor to resign from Bethlehem in the past four months.

“At Bethlehem . . . there’s harm being done,” Pickering said. “There’s unethical behavior. There’s domineering. There’s bullying. . . . cultural, damaging behavior that’s being done, and has been done, for a long time.”

In a statement from Pickering that elders read to the congregation last Sunday, Pickering further explained:

“I have seen several congregants (current and former), elders (current and former), and a former administrative assistant profoundly mistreated by elders in various ways. I have also seen leadership act in ways I would describe as domineering. I have also seen patterns of deception among our elders that are deeply concerning. I have tried on several occasions since early 2020 to speak up to others about these patterns of behavior. Increasingly in 2021, especially and intensely since March, I, too, have experienced what I would call bullying behavior. It is now clear to me that it is best for everyone for me to resign.”

Doesn’t look too good.

According to Kyle J. Howard, a preacher and racial and spiritual trauma counselor, the pastors’ exodus follows a push for reform at Bethlehem regarding the way the church treats minorities and women.

Howard said that in January 2019, Bethlehem brought him in to teach a full-day, staff intensive on racial trauma in the church.

Howard also attended an all-minority dinner with congregants that Pickering had arranged, according to Janice Perez Evans, a former member of Bethlehem who’s half Latina.

Uh oh, maybe too hasty of a conclusion there.

He added that prior to coming to Bethlehem, he had spoken with several Black pastors in Minneapolis, who all referred to Bethlehem as a “white church within a Black space that doesn’t actually engage . . . or relate to the Black community.” Howard said he also had spoken with several people who had been negatively impacted by John Piper’s theology of “marital permanence,” a theology maintaining that divorce is never justified, even in cases of abuse.

Ah yes, telling people that divorce is a sin is “negatively impacting” others.

Shortly after Howard’s intensive, Evans said she and several others proposed to the elders that the church establish a task force to examine whether the system at Bethlehem was racially biased. One of the main concerns, Evans said, was that few minorities sat on Bethlehem’s Elder Council. At the time, four of the 40-member Elder Council were minorities, she said.

Evans described the meeting as “excruciating,” saying the elders grilled both her and others about the proposal. Yet after the meeting, the elders commissioned a “Racial Harmony Task Force,” which Evans said she co-led with Pastor Meyer.

“It will probably go down in my life as one of the sweetest times I’ve seen the Holy Spirit come and work,” Evans said of her experience working with other task force members. “There was such a unity—and it wasn’t in a sense like we all agreed on everything. But it was safe in the sense that we were able to have disagreements as team members and talk through it.”

However, Evans said during this time, she began hearing from congregants and students at Bethlehem College and Seminary that elders were speaking against her and other task force members.

Pickering said he heard other elders express that they felt the task force had “Marxist” and “woke” tendencies, and possibly was driven by Critical Race Theory—a controversial academic movement seeking to explain issues of race and justice.

“That’s fear-mongering,” Evans said. “That wasn’t what drove us. We’re reading Scripture. We’re reading the Word. And we’ve been trained by all of you (the elders).”

Evans said she and the members of the task force put in over 800 hours researching the dynamics at Bethlehem, as well as other churches that had successfully become multi-ethnic. She said in the summer of 2019, the task force presented its 85-page report to the elders. (Evans said the task force had wanted to present the report directly to the congregation, but the elders insisted that the report go directly to them.)

Yup, now I’m beginning to side with the elders on this. Churches don’t have to be multi-ethnic to effectively serve God. There’s tons of one type of group Churches (e.g. Orthodox Churches for certain ethnic or nation groups, black or asian Churches, Spanish or certain language speaking Churches, etc.) Sure, some or many people prefer that they do, but when they’re trying to do it under the guise of CRT or any other feminist and woke philosophies that’s a no go.

Of course, the other people said they weren’t doing it under the guise of CRT and such, but in general focusing on these things even in good faith generally produces the exact same result. It is a distraction from the gospel. It’s imputing the “virtue” of multi-culturalism from feminism and adding it to the Bible.

I’m not saying there are no issues at the Church when we don’t know the whole story, but it looks like their Church was infiltrated and influenced from within by worldly philosophies. Aaron Renn also had an article on Jason Meyer’s teaching on leadership abuse which appears to demonstrate that Meyer pulled his teaching straight from the Duluth model and passed it off as Biblical. Ironically, Kathy Keller is a severe abuser under that model when she threw the expensive china and tried to pass it off as a “godly tantrum.”

“It should be alarming when you have a multitude of pastors or leaders leave all within a very short period of time,” Howard said. “But what I would want to caution us from is to not only look at the power figures but to recognize that these leaders are the overflow of a congregation loss. There have been numerous people who have left that church, especially minorities, and . . . a lot of women, a lot of battered wives . . . (who) are still healing from that space.”

The sin of “not being multi-cultural.” While I agree with Piper that marriage is permanent, Piper seems to not cue in on 1 Corinthians 7:10-11a — To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband. But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. — that separation may be an option especially if there is a continued pattern of physical violence without evidence of change.

On the other hand, when you start to compromise with the world some it’s almost to be expected that you’re going to get more people who agree with the world coming to your Church. Eventually you’re going to have to fight with them once they want to keep on doing things related with the world and you won’t go there. Then they’ll pass off your fight against not doing things of the world as “fear mongering” and “abuse” and “domineering” and “bullying.” Stating the Biblical view of marriage is permanent and divorce as a sin is suddenly “negatively impacting” people and considered abuse. If that’s the case, then any of God’s commands can be warped into a sin if someone feels like they’re being “negatively impacted.”

All in all, it appears the main lesson to be learned from this is don’t let any of that garbage into the Church in the first place and stop taking “virtue” lessons from the feminism and culture.

Doom and gloom and the amount of marriages: Do you need to be in the top 20% or not

The 20% heuristic of being in the top amount of men who get the most attention, sex, marriage, and so on has been going around for a while. For attention, this is genuinely verified by the OKCupid blog and other studies where women find only about 20% of profiles above average and the rest below average.

However, does that apply to everything including marriage or is that an incorrect extrapolation?

I’ve discussed before why I think this is a wrong extrapolation which causes an extensive of doom and gloom, so let me cover the statistics for this.

---

Never married data and predictions

First, Dalrock’s analysis of the Census data from 2017 show approximations of trendlines in the 40-44 and 45-49 year old women’s age groups.

https://dalrock.wordpress.com/2018/09/04/2017-never-married-data/

We should note that pretty much all the 30-34, 35-39, and 40-44 are ticking up over time. By 2021 we should expect the never married 40-44 to be in the 13-14% range or so, which an estimate of never married by 45 is probably solidly in the 15% range or so. Note the top chart is all women whereas the bottom chart is white non-hispanic women.

This means about 85% of all women by 45 will be married at least once (“ever married”) while 15% are “never married.” Since some men who were married and divorce remarried marry never married women more than divorced women married never married men, the true percentage of men who are never married are about 2-5% less than never married women. Thus, we would expect about 80-83% ever married men and 85% ever married men (or 17-20% never married men and 15% never married women)

Pew’s research into trendlines corroborate this data, estimating by 2030 there will be about 25% never marrieds in the 45-59 age range. The above data estimate around upticks of about 1% per year which goes with this.

This also agrees with my analysis 3 years ago when I looked at some different articles which estimate 25-30%.

---

Divorce data contrasted with never married data

https://psychcentral.com/lib/the-myth-of-the-high-rate-of-divorce

It is now clear that the divorce rate in first marriages probably peaked at about 40 percent for first marriages around 1980 and has been declining since to about 30 percent in the early 2000s. This is a dramatic difference. Rather than viewing marriage as a 50-50 shot in the dark it can be viewed as having a 70 percent likelihood of succeeding. But even to use that kind of generalization, i.e., one simple statistic for all marriages, grossly distorts what is actually going on.

The key is that the research shows that starting in the 1980s education, specifically a college degree for women, began to create a substantial divergence in marital outcomes, with the divorce rate for college-educated women dropping to about 20 percent, half the rate for non-college educated women. Even this is more complex, since the non-college educated women marry younger and are poorer than their college grad peers. These two factors, age at marriage and income level, have strong relationships to divorce rates; the older the partners and the higher the income, the more likely the couple stays married. Obviously, getting a college degree is reflected in both these factors.

Of course, this has its flip side, that the women who marry younger and divorce more frequently are predominately black and Hispanic women from poorer environments. The highest divorce rate, exceeding 50 percent, is for black women in high-poverty areas. These women clearly face extraordinary challenges and society would do well to find ways to reduce not just teen pregnancies but early marriages among the poor and develop programs that train and educate the poor. Those will not only delay marriage but provide the educational and financial foundation required to increase the probability of a marriage being successful. Early marriage, early pregnancy, early divorce is a cycle of broken families that contributes significantly to maintaining poverty. The cost to our society is enormous.

Here is some additional data about divorce in first marriages before moving on to the limited data available about second marriages. Divorce rates are cumulative statistics, i.e., they don’t occur at a single moment in time but add up over the years of marriage and do so at different rates. After reviewing numerous sources, it appears that about 10 percent of all marriages end in divorce during the first five years and another 10 percent by the tenth year. Thus, half of all divorces are within the first ten years. (Keep in mind this is mixing the disparate college vs. non-college group rates.)

The 30 percent divorce rate is not reached until the 18th year of marriage and the 40 percent rate is not reached until the 50th year of marriage!

Generally speaking, the true first marriage divorce rate is probably somewhere in between 30-40%. It’s hard to tell the current percentage because although divorce rates have continued to drop over time, the marriage rate has also continued to drop. I haven’t found any sources that analyze both together and the data is fairly newer anyway so it wouldn’t provide us with a ton of more significance given that the older marriages that are divorcing or not divorcing are more important to the data to see the longevity.

If we use the current 85% ever married statistic, this means that range of people divorcing is approximately:

• 85% * 30% = 25.5% at the low
• 85% * 40% = 34% at the high

Thus,

• 85% – 25% = 60%
• 85% – 34% = 51%

51-60% of Americans will never divorce. This is much higher than most people who know that 20% of the men are above average think.

Edit: If you regularly attend Church and call yourself a Christian it’s 30% and if you don’t regularly attend Church and call yourself a Christian it’s 40%.

---

Incorporating sexlessness marriage data into the ever married and divorce data

I’ve actually covered this topic before too, so let’s look at some of the data.

Sexless marriage and other relationship statistics

A few years back, some of us as SSM’s were speculating how many marriages were actually sexless and/or unhappy even though they stayed together. I found some stats after stumbling onto a wiki about it.

A sexless marriage is a marriage in which little or no sexual activity occurs between the two spouses. The US National Health and Social Life Survey in 1994 (Laumann et al. 1994) found that 2% of the married respondents reported no sexual intimacy in the past year. The definition of a non-sexual marriage is often broadened to include those where sexual intimacy occurs fewer than ten times per year, in which case 20 percent of the couples in the National Health and Social Life Survey would be in the category. Newsweek magazine estimates that 15 to 20 percent of couples are in a sexless relationship.[1] Studies show that 10% or less of the married population below age 50 have not had sex in the past year. In addition less than 20% report having sex a few times per year, or even monthly, under the age 40.[2]

It appears that ~20% of marriages are what we would call sexless (<10 times per year) or about once a month.

We don’t know how many of these marriages are going to end up in divorce. Some of these are headed for divorce for whatever reason. We don’t really know how much adultery or other factors are going on either.

Other data show similar qualities:

More than 7 times a week: 3%
7 times a week: 1%
6 times a week: 3%
5 times a week: 9%
4 times a week: 11%
3 times a week: 13%
2 times a week: 21%
once a week: 25%
once a month: 8%
less than once a month: 9%

Approximately 17% (once a month to less than once a month) are sexless. I would assume that most “once a weekers” are probably unhappy with that. The sex drive of men is typically higher than that of women, but women can become dissatisfied with lack of frequency as well.

We know that at the lowest 40% of marriages end in divorce. So if we assume that most of the sexless ~20% of marriages end in divorce, a large portion of those in the 25% once a week range are going to divorce as well. This doesn’t take into account the potential dissolution of marriages with more frequency sex that have other problems.

I would suspect many of the cases with the approximate “once a week” don’t actually do it “once a week” but are rather clustered together around a woman’s ovulation cycle. So maybe the week when said wife was ovulating. Otherwise, it’d just be another sexless marriage.

If you take the “once a weekers” with the sexless marriager, you get approximately 43% low sex marriages and 57% higher sex marriages. Not too far off from the regularly quoted divorce statistics.

Now, it’s true that some marriages don’t end in divorce because of the lack of sex in lieu of other issues (finances, children, disagreeable, and other factors) and some don’t end at all because of lack of sex, but I would suspect that in a lot of cases that sexlessness is a huge symptom of other things going on like a lack of respect of a wife for her husband. Remember that women initiate 70% of divorces and that number rises to 90% in college educated women.

Let’s take the low estimate that 50% of American marriages will not end in divorce while 35% end in divorce (which is 40% of the 85%). This generally correlates with the above that most of the sexless marriages eventually end up in divorce. We would generally expet that the majority of the marriages that never end in divorce (those 50%) will have a regular sex life as well. We might not necessarily say they’re happy given everything that can occur, but things are working well enough that the husband and wife are having regular intimacy at least 2+ times per week.

---

Conclusions

• Overall, most Americans are still going to get married despite the obesity epidemic and the fallout of the consequences of feminism and demonization of masculinty. About 80-85% still get married by 45, and likely 75% will still get married by 2030.
• Approximately 30-40% of first marriages end in divorce. This means that about 51-60% of Americans will never get divorced. If you’re a Christian and attend Church regularly, you raise up to 70%. This can be boosted more by various vetting and teaching and training likely upwards of 90-95%+.
• Looking at sexlessness and it’s strong correlations with problems in marriage and divorce, we would expect that these 51-60% of marriages that are never divorced the majority of them are having sex 2x a week or more.

What does this data mean for men?

To be married and never divorced and likely have a solid sex life you only need to be in the top 50% or so. Obviously, it’s helpful to be in the top 20% to potentially have a better selection of women so you can vet for character better. However, the top 20% is not required, and the top 20% is often too narrowly defined.

For instance, one can be below average looks and below average height but have qualities that are top 20% that make up for it and have a happy and holy marriage. I’ve mentioned myself as one of those where I’m maybe average looks and below average physical stature but I am happily married to a godly woman who doesn’t deny me sex and follows my lead.

Most of the estimates I find beyond the top 20% of men too black pill in nature. It’s not the 10-20% of the men below the top 20% who need a lot of work to be successful (e.g. 30-40% of men). It’s a whole extra 30-40% of men that are doing “well enough” through no extra effort of their own who will never divorce and likely not be sexless. The top 50-60% of men.

The men within the bottom 40-50% have the opportunity depending how far they are down in the hole in terms of PSALM traits and masculinity to bring themselves up above the average man who is already way overweight and close to obese.

It appears that the major issue where most people are seeing disparities is most likely where they live and who they know. Lower income and lower education areas are more likely to have higher singleness (including single motherhood) while more middle class and wealthy areas are likely to have higher married rates. Several articles above mention the fact that such areas have higher divorce rates as well since stress about money is typically a #1 or #2 reason people divorce.

Overall, work on the things you can change, and minimize or don’t worry about the things you can’t.

Analyzing why the dark triad traits are attractive in context with God’s intended creation of attraction and marriage

Per wikipedia:

Machiavellianism

Named after the political philosophy espoused by Niccolò Machiavelli, people who score high on this trait are cynical (in an amoral self-interest sense, not in a doubtful or skeptical sense), unprincipled, and cold, believe in interpersonal manipulation as the key for life success, and behave accordingly.[22] Scores on measures of Machiavellianism correlate negatively with agreeableness (r = −.47) and conscientiousness (r = −.34).[1] Machiavellianism is also significantly correlated with psychopathy.[23]

Narcissism

Individuals who score high on narcissism display grandiosity, entitlement, dominance, and superiority.[24] Narcissism has been found to correlate positively with extraversion (r = .42) and openness (r = .38) and negatively with agreeableness (r = −.36).[1] Narcissism has also been found to have a significant correlation with psychopathy.[23]

Psychopathy

Considered the most malevolent of the dark triad,[25] individuals who score high on psychopathy show low levels of empathy combined with high levels of impulsivity and thrill-seeking.[26] Psychopathy has been found to correlate with all of the Big Five personality factors: extraversion (r = .34), agreeableness (r = −.25), conscientiousness (r = −.24), neuroticism (r = −.34) and openness (r = .24).[23]

The secular manosphere has pushed the dark triad traits as sort of a paragon of masculinity that should be strived to if you want to sleep with women. Obviously I think that’s wrong. But sinners want to sin, so that should be no surprise.

However, one of the points of contention among various Christians is why dark triad traits tend to be attractive to women. This doesn’t really make any intuitive sense without some careful thought. As a Christian, I think the attractive traits were created by God for the purpose: A Christian understanding of attraction, and the role it plays in marriage Part 3

If the attractive traits were created for a good purpose and the dark triad tends to be attractive to women as well, then it must be true that either — or possibly both — that (1) the expression of attractive traits are attractive whether it is for good or evil and/or (2) that the patterning of attractive traits also has to do with the reciprocal rule to some degree.

Narcissism in particular ticks the check box of stimulating hypergamy to a strong degree. Women’s hypergamous impulses want to marry up, and someone who displays an attitude of dominance and superiority seems like they are going be someone with power and status. This may or not be the case, which is why women are attracted to narcissistic men who actually have high power and status and narcissistic men who are deadbeats. These tick off the power and status parts of PSALM. Couple that with the extraversion where many narcissists come off as charming social butterflys, and you have a recipe where women can easily be attractedto men who exhibit narcissistic behavior.

Machiavellianism and psychopathy are an interesting pair as they are similar and relate to each other. The machiavellian tends to manipulate people to do things for them. Machiavellianism plays off the Benjamin Franklin effect where doing something for someone makes you like them more than you doing something for that person. Psychopathy ticks the thrill seeking emotional side of women bringing them to emotional highs and lows. This is also similar to the fact that I believe most types of BPD are significantly correlated with psychopathy.

Both Machiavellianism and psychopathy have negative agreeableness, which I think tends to be a stronger factor for displaying masculinity. Girlfriends tend to be very supportive and agreeable with girlfriends, but demonstrating manhood or masulinity has always been about being able to disagree and “grow a backbone” with women. I’ve mentioned before that in college that it was vegetarian women who seemed to be the most attracted to me mainly because I put down eating like rabbits at any chance I got. Negative agreeableness with vegetarianism translated to having a backbone and not being afraid to show it with women. 

It appears that the dark triad traits tend to tick a bunch of the PSALM and masculinity traits, except instead of in a godly manner it is in a sinful manner. Just like authority was created to be good and used for good, it appears that the various attractive traits that were meant for good toward marriage can be expressed in evil ways as well.

---

In regard to #2 on attraction of reciprocal behavior, the general pattern is that most ‘social game techniques’ were created to induce attraction and make women want to have sex. Thus, if effective they tend to be the most effective on women who are promiscuous. Most players are probably not sticking around for a dozen dates or a committed relationship or marriage to have sex; they are likely going for women that want to sleep around by a couple dates. Hence, promiscuous men are going to select for promiscuous women. Like attracts like. Likewise, most women or men with physically abusive partners were typically abusive themselves in some way before as they go back to the same pattern of behavior, but someone growing up with a more healthy childhood generally will just leave at the first sign of abuse.

When I’ve seen some of these things in action in real life, it tends to be predominately #1 that is the major factor but there seems to be a bunch of #2 interspersed as well. It’s hard to tell how much of each is involved, but the vast majority of cases the women find those with dark triad traits very attractive compared to most other men. However, it is also the case that women who have average to strong character can spot these traits in some cases and will be turned off in which case I think the reciprocal rule starts to play a stronger role.

Another scenario may also be the common one that I have stated before. The vast majority of Churches are “beta factories” in that they turn men into nice guys instead of masculine men. When women only see attractive non-Christian men they assume that only “bad boys” are attractive because there are no good masculine representations of attractive “good boys.” Of course, women that are still attracted to “bad boys” even with attractive good men around typically fall into the category of #2 where they’re probably along the lines of more culturally Christian than true Christians. They easily fall into sexual immorality and temptation rather than fighting against it and their life goes from Church to total depravity. Perhaps I am giving this scenario a bit too much credit, but that’s what I’ve seen in my circles at least.

---

Overall, no Christian man should strive to do anything related to the dark triad, but I think knowing about why women are attracted to dark triad traits and being able to explain it to them can typically be helpful with counseling female friends, wives, and daughters to avoid seemingly attractive men of dubious and deceptive moral character. This is a huge problem in the Church as well.

Also, the institute for family studies has an article on how “family instability” increases propensity for dark triad traits. “Family instability appears to be a stronger predictor than family socioeconomic status for a child’s life trajectory.”

 

Chris Hemsworth’s marriage is textbook hypergamy

https://people.com/movies/chris-hemsworth-celebrates-wife-elsa-pataky-45-birthday/

The Thor: Love and Thunder actor, 37, shared a simple yet sweet message for his wife of ten years on Saturday in honor of the actress’ milestone 45th birthday.

“Happy Birthday gorgeous @elsapatakyconfidential !! ❤️ 🎉,” Hemsworth captioned a trio of photos featuring a smiling Pataky.

Despite the optics, Pataky told body+soul in August 2020 that while her relationship with Hemsworth is not “perfect,” she believes a “relationship is constant work” and is never “easy.”

“It’s funny that people think of us as a perfect couple,” the actress and mom told the outlet. “No way. It’s been ups and downs, and we still keep working at the relationship.”

Hemsworth’s career launched to new heights in 2011 when he first starred in Thor. Pataky told Vogue Australia in August 2018 that she wasn’t sure how their marriage survived in its early stages.

Ultimately, she said the couple just found a way to “make it work.”

“In the beginning it was beautiful – when I met him he wasn’t known at all and I grew with him and experienced all his successes and changes, and then he became just so huge and I’ve been sharing that too,” Pataky explained. “Going through every moment and being there with him with every success was actually a good thing – we grew together. It’s difficult when you go from being an unknown person to a very known person and all the changes that come with that.”

A lot to unpack here.

• They married 10 years ago so he was 27 and she was 35. If she was like most women she was feeling the pressure of singleness and no children at 35.
• She met him when “he wasn’t known at all,” so he was a relatively obscure actor at the time.
• Based on her history, she was a pretty successful model and decently successful spanish actor at the time.
• A year before they were married, he had just gotten his first movie and big break in Star Trek as captain Kirk. Maybe on some people’s radar as an up and comer, but definitely not a big name.

In her mind, she likely thought she was settling for him which means by extension they were entering into the marriage with inverted roles. Men who are 27 and are popular with women generally don’t marry women who are older than them (maybe within 1-2 years but definitely not 5+). Other parts that indicate she was settling and in an inverted roles relationship are:

• “her relationship with Hemsworth is not “perfect,””
• “she believes a “relationship is constant work” and is never “easy.””
• “It’s funny that people think of us as a perfect couple,” the actress and mom told the outlet. “No way. It’s been ups and downs, and we still keep working at the relationship.”
• Ultimately, she said the couple just found a way to “make it work.”

Women only say these things when they are unhappy and/or settling with a man. If a woman thinks she got a catch they’ll say things are amazing and build him up despite even some or many perceived flaws.

Hemsworth got his big break with Thor, and has since become one of the more popular actors in the world. She then shows how her hypergamy was beginning to be satisfied so that their relationship improved.

“In the beginning it was beautiful – when I met him he wasn’t known at all and I grew with him and experienced all his successes and changes, and then he became just so huge and I’ve been sharing that too,” Pataky explained. “Going through every moment and being there with him with every success was actually a good thing – we grew together. It’s difficult when you go from being an unknown person to a very known person and all the changes that come with that.“

The last line in particular is strong unconscious projection. She was already an model and actor with attention, so having her husband get attention wouldn’t be something out of the ordinary. What she means is that it was difficult for her in the beginning because he was an unknown person which didn’t satisfy her hypergamy, but the preceding sentences show that once he was an extremely popular actor things got way better.

Surprise surprise. Once she became more attracted to him because his celebrity status started to outstrip her own, their relationship “grew together” because she was “sharing [in] that too.” I’m sure she’s been loving that.

I’m unsure if Hemsworth has taken the reins of the leadership in his own marriage and whether that caused any of the difficulties they were “working on,” which made things “not perfect” and “never easy.” As we know from experience, men who are starting to act as a leader in their relationship start to encounter resistance especially if they’re relatively unattractive at first and/or the woman has sky-high hypergamous expectations. However, they’ve seemingly gotten to a point where most of her hypergamy is satisfied at least.

Just goes to show you that even celebrities have issues if they marry under inverted roles and even if they get more popular afterward it can still be a difficult road. Men need to take a long hard look to determine if they think a woman is settling for him as that can make marriage very difficult.

Post Script

Why was her hypergamy so high? Maybe some career highlight per her wiki:

Pataky became the female face for the first collection of Time Force’s jewelry line Ultimate Jewel, opposite football star Cristiano Ronaldo.[8] She played Officer Elena Neves in the movie Fast Five, with Dwayne Johnson as her partner, Luke Hobbs. MTV Networks’ NextMovie.com named her one of the Breakout Stars to Watch for in 2011.[9] Pataky was a stand in for Natalie Portman in the post end credit scene in Thor: The Dark World.[10]

If a woman is modeling or acting across from other extremely high profile celebrities, I’m sure this trigger’s a woman’s hypergamy just as if she was going on a date or having sex with some of the most attractive men she’s ever met. Seems like a recipe for alpha widowhood by association. If Hemsworth didn’t get as popular as he did maybe we would have seen another high profile divorce.

Fake it ’til you make it… or not? Part 2

Interestingly, fake it til you make it was one of the first posts I made on this blog when I started blogging in 2012. I still stand by that post in terms of faith, but I wanted to take things deeper into scenarios where I think people are using it incorrectly.

When men/husbands start trying to exhibit leadership in marriage they feel like they’re trying to “fake it ’til they make it.” I think this is the wrong thing to consider it.

If we think about learning a new sport or martial art, everything is going to feel awkward and uncomfortable at first. It’s only through repetition of the movements and learning the various techniques of the sports or disciplines that things start to feel more natural.

For those that have rescinded leadership (e.g. drunk captain) or never had leadership in the first place (e.g. egalitaratians, feminists, “she’s the boss” and “she’s my better half” complementarians) and have fallen into an inverted roles relationship or marriage starting to change the dynamic by acting as the leader is going to feel foreign. One guy I was talking to the other day said it felt like he was LARPing his way with his wife even though she was responding beautifully to his new leadership — respectful, submissive, and wanted lots more sex.

In general, let us not equate feeling uncomfortable or awkward with faking it or LARPing. One can be doing a good or bad job when starting to lead, but each will still probably feel uncomfortable or awkward anyway. One must embrace these feelings because it is normal. You’re doing something that you’re not used to doing. However, you’re not faking it. You’re literally obeying God, and that’s a good thing. It’s just a new skill you’re developing and that’s going to feel uncomfortable as you’re learning it.

The biggest thing to continually lead and learn from the mistakes that you make if any and continue to fulfill the position that God has placed for the husband in marriage. Yes, over time it will become less awkward and less uncomfortable. You will start to build good habits in conjunction with this. But it is a process that you have to go through like with learning any new skill. There’s going to be speed bumps and you’re probably going to feel like an imposter at times.

However, let’s not confuse learning new skills like leadership with faking it. Embrace the discomfort of new situations. Don’t let feelings dictate the way you approach doing what God has called you to do.

From around the web: “‘A late blooming into misery’: why Millennials are unhappy” and “Is Flirting the Next Victim of Millennials’ Metaphorical Murder Spree?”

https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/life-and-relationships/growing-pains-time-is-finite-and-we-might-already-have-wasted-a-lot-20210514-p57s36.html

I was recently at dinner with a group of loose acquaintances of a similar age to celebrate the birthday of a woman I had met 10 years earlier at university. She was turning 31. Also at the table were a divorcée, a single woman, a mother, a woman who had been dating her boyfriend for a few months, and a newlywed. The mood was flat.

The divorcée had been dating a new man for two years and didn’t know where it was going. “He doesn’t understand the fertility issues I have. He says he wants a baby, but I try to talk to him about when and he says we don’t have to talk about that yet.”

The single woman had gone to a cafe that morning to have breakfast with a guy she met on a dating app. “He just didn’t show up. I wasn’t even that excited to meet him, but he couldn’t even be bothered showing up. Breakfast was his idea, too. It’s always something. I don’t even really want a boyfriend, but what else should I be doing with my time?”

The mother’s lament was a classic. She had already drunk three glasses of wine to most of the table’s one. “I didn’t appreciate what I had when I had it: the freedom, the lack of direction. I actually just want my lack of structure back. I don’t think I thought enough about what having a child was going to be like.”

The woman with the new boyfriend began talking about work. “I started this job because I thought it was a good opportunity, but now this is my actual job, not just a stepping stone to something else.”

The newlywed described her wedding as an anticlimax. “I had been looking forward to it for so long! And now it’s done, I don’t know what I should look forward to next. My job has become so uninteresting; it feels like everything has become so uninteresting.”

Different miseries, to be sure – so different it was barely a coherent conversation, more a series of monologues. But I had met this group of women a few times over the past year, and they were not like this 12 months ago. Turning 30 had been such a novelty. It was like we were doing it for a laugh: look at us pretending to have a “milestone birthday”, look at us with our gold “30” balloons and our grown-up parties in proper venues, rather than in our backyards. We were parroting what we thought people should say at age 30, with a nod and a wink. In our hearts, however, we weren’t 30. We certainly didn’t feel 30. To us, 30 was a lark.

Really just goes to show you people can be unhappy despite any circumstances that they are in, and the general lie of feminist empowerment: ‘gotta have it all.’

It all goes back to the paradoxical decline of female happiness. Freedom, a job, marriage, or anything else like that cannot make you happy.

At 31, I had been in a great new job for more than a year. I had published my novel 18 months earlier and given birth to my first baby just before that. Yet I had been experiencing a certain kind of tedium for a while.

I had thought my dissatisfaction was perhaps a symptom of my brattiness. There had been no parties in my honour lately, no announcements to make with a satisfied air of self-deprecation (“some personal news”). Intellectually, I knew I was not special, but in my heart I still loved the applause. I wondered if maybe I was experiencing depression for the first time in my life.

Then I thought it was more likely my feet were getting a bit itchy. Entering my 30s, I was a mother, had a great job, had even published a book. What more could I want? But this gnawing feeling continued to grow. Couldn’t I be doing more? Should I have done something different instead? Like become an astronaut? I felt petulant, ungrateful.

But when I finally lifted up my head and looked around, I realised I wasn’t the only one. Surveying people of a similar age revealed I wasn’t just being a brat. Everyone seemed to be struck down with this same malaise. Whether they were my close friends or acquaintances, lived in another hemisphere or had never left the state, every 31-year-old I spoke to seemed to be in a state of ennui.

Even the author who is “very accomplished” feels this way. Betty Frieden’s “the problem that has no name” never goes away no matter what happens. I suppose that’s what happens when you base your identity in external things and accomplishments. It’s all never enough for the voracious appetite of hypergamy.

https://www.newsweek.com/millennials-gen-z-are-trying-kill-flirting-will-they-succeed-opinion-1605294

A new survey of 1,000 American workers by a telecommunications firm found that 93 percent of women consider workplace flirting inappropriate, compared to 27 percent of men who consider it at least sometimes acceptable.

The more interesting story is not told by mere statistics (though one hopes that 27 percent of male flirters will be smart enough to limit their winking and nudging to the 7 percent of women who apparently don’t mind it). It’s what the survey reflects about the changing landscape of interpersonal relationships, and the rapid evolution of sexual mores, which have culminated in a new set of norms that redefines entire categories of human interaction as hopelessly outré.

It’s all a bit whiplash-inducing. After all, it was not very long ago that people not only flirted in the workplace but often dated and married partners with whom they first connected there. The number of folks who met their spouses through work hovered around 20 percent from the 1990s through the early aughts. Back then, online dating was a blip on the radar. It carried the same shameful stigma associated with the newspaper personal ads of old, a last resort for desperate weirdos who couldn’t meet partners the normal way—you know, like at work.

The author’s analysis is actually pretty good. The rise of anonymity through people meeting on the Internet has dispersed many personal potential romantic interactions to the place of the unwanted and uncomfortable for many.

Kate Julian captured this dynamic in a 2018 Atlantic article about millennial sexlessness, when her story of meeting her husband in an elevator was met with deeply ambivalent reactions from the article’s subjects. Even as the young women she spoke to swooned over the idea of such a meet-cute, “quite a few of them suggested that if a random guy started talking to them in an elevator, they would be weirded out. “Creeper! Get away from me,” one woman imagined thinking.

That gut-level revulsion in response to a friendly overture—”Creeper! Ew!”—is partly traceable to the idea that male desire is in and of itself fundamentally predatory, which is in turn traceable to the trend of viewing sex and love through a power-and-privilege lens. The way the thinking goes, if every interaction between men and women must be contextualized against men’s abuse of women historically, as a group, then any man approaching a woman should be rightfully viewed with suspicion; even the most anodyne coffee date comes with an unwanted, non-optional side order of three thousand years of patriarchal oppression. Drink up, ladies!

But today’s horror at last generation’s idea of a meet cute also reflects a bone-deep discomfort among young people with the sort of spontaneous, unscripted interaction that can spark an unexpected connection, like chatting up an attractive stranger in an elevator.

For a generation that prides itself on openness to experience, millennials have remarkably little confidence in their ability to navigate the complicated, confusing, or otherwise ambiguous territory of adult intimate relationships.

The far-reaching impact of the #MeToo movement may be visible here. What started as a well-intentioned attempt to protect women from pervasive harassment and abuse evolved into something more nefarious; young people have been taught to equate emotional discomfort with trauma and violation, and have thus come to believe that the only “good” relationship offers complete safety from ever feeling bad.

Only the 2nd time I’ve ever heard of meet-cute after Scott’s reference to it. I think part of this is due to the changing work cultures because from what I’ve seen and experienced at least this tends to be much less the case when doing hobbies or other functions where it’s a more low key atmosphere. Maybe a business vs pleasure scenario. If you’re expecting to be working or doing business then flirting is out of bounds whereas if you’re chilling at a restaurant or going dancing or something things then people are more open.

This notion of intimacy without the risk of heartbreak goes hand in hand with our present obsession with “consent,” which used to focus on sexual encounters but has since bled over into any and all activities—including flirting or dating—that might eventually lead to sex. If it’s not consensual, the argument goes, it’s abuse.

But it’s also not unusual to see abuse and harassment broadly defined as any behavior that makes the (usually female) subject uncomfortable, even as the list of things that make us uncomfortable keeps expanding to include more and different types of social interaction.

Flirting? Uncomfortable. Jokes? Uncomfortable. Ordering a pizza by phone? No thanks, we’d rather starve.

This is beyond the original notion of harassment as pervasive unwanted attention, the violation of clearly established boundaries; in this new framework, merely inquiring as to the location of the boundaries may render one already out-of-bounds. If saying “no” makes a woman feel awkward, then asking her out, even once, is a violation (and lord help the man who approaches under the mistaken assumption that she’s interested!).

The notion of the “unwanted overture” used to be a question-begger, a running joke at corporate sexual harassment trainings: Until you make the overture, how do you know whether or not it’s “unwanted”? Some might argue that the social web has since solved this problem for us, that a person should simply always assume that the overture is unwanted, unless it’s taking place on a dating app where the subject’s presence implies consent to being approached with romantic intent. The imagined result is a sort of neutered utopia, one where nobody is ever advanced-upon at all, thanks to the assumption that every human in sight is pre-enrolled on the sexual equivalent of the do-not-call list.

The great irony of this is that the people who wanted these things instituted (e.g. feminists and liberals) are typically the very ones crying the most about how men aren’t men anymore and there are no good ones left. Well, the cultural changes pushed the feminization of men and many other consequences that have been discussed on this blog and others… so when you make your bed you have to lie in it. You can’t ‘change the rules’ and expect that the other side continues to play by the same ones.

But while some of our sexual mores are changing as fast as the technology that fuels them, it’s a good bet that the rumors of the death of flirting have been greatly exaggerated, as evinced by the millennial women who swoon at the idea of meeting someone in an elevator—even though, according to the standards of their own generation, this is simply not done. They’re tapped into something deeper than the trendy, fleeting culture that says it’s traumatic to be desired: the human yearning to connect, to bond, to love and be loved.

My prediction: in the culture wars, love wins.

Unfortunately, this is where the author goes sour because she doesn’t know the statistics on increasing lack of marriage and sexlessness. Maybe she’ll start to understand as things continue to worsen. 

A Christian understanding of attraction, and the role it plays in marriage Part 3

So I just had some new insight on this topic since the previous post on A Christian understanding of attraction and the role it plays in marriage Part 2, so I’m going to be going through that post again and adding onto it.

Topics:

• The lens of heaven — marriage is an earthly institution
• The lens of earth —  the context surrounding the creation of marriage
• The purpose of marriage as an earthly institution
• What is attractive to both sexes?
• Understanding how attraction plays into the roles and responsibilities of marriage
• New Testament Scriptures reinforce God’s Old Testament design of creation
  
• Exploring the Scriptures on attraction and sex
• Other Biblical pitfalls of downplaying attraction
• Conclusion

---

The lens of heaven — marriage is an earthly institution

Marriage is an earthly institution.

Matthew 22:23 On that day some Sadducees (who say there is no resurrection) came to Jesus and questioned Him, 24 asking, “Teacher, Moses said, ‘If a man dies having no children, his brother as next of kin shall marry his wife, and raise up children for his brother.’ 25 Now there were seven brothers with us; and the first married and died, and having no children left his wife to his brother; 26 so also the second, and the third, down to the seventh. 27 Last of all, the woman died. 28 In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife of the seven will she be? For they all had married her.”

29 But Jesus answered and said to them, “You are mistaken, not [m]understanding the Scriptures nor the power of God. 30 For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.

Jesus gives us some interesting insight into heaven. There’s no marriage there.

This means that marriage is a covenant institution between a husband, wife, and God, but it is also mainly an earthly institution. There are no marriages in heaven. The earthly institution of marriage does not transcend to heaven nor do any of the beings in heaven marry.

If you look closely at the sequencing of events in Revelation the marriage of the Lamb occurs before the new heaven and new earth is created when Jesus comes back again.

Revelation 19:7 Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready.” … 9 Then he *said to me, “Write, ‘Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.’” And he *said to me, “These are true words of God.” …

Revelation 21:1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will [a]dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, 4 and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.”

Theologically, the marriage of Christ and His bride is literally uniting us and making us one with Him. The ordering of events is Jesus’ second coming back to earth to marry His bride, the judgment occurs in Revelation 20, and after that is the new heaven and earth in Revelation 21.

The marriage of Jesus and His bride occurs before the new heaven and new earth is created and the temporal things associated with the old earth and old heaven pass away. This is important to understand because one of those temporal things that passes away is the earthly institution of marriage as is written about in Matthew.

In other words, Jesus must marry His bride before the institution of marriage is abolished when the new heaven and new earth are created. Since marriage is an earthly institution and not heavenly, Jesus marries His bride on the earth.

---

The lens of earth —  the context surrounding the creation of marriage

Now that we understand marriage is primarily an earthly institution, we should understand that its function is to address earthly needs. We have a intelligent Creator and our Creator does not create without a purpose.

To understand the function of marriage addressing earthly needs, we need to go back to the creation. Let’s examine the status of man in the garden in both creation accounts. Genesis 1 is considered the first creation account, which gives an overview of all of the creation. Genesis 2 is considered the second creation account, which gives an overview into the creation of man specifically.

Genesis 1:26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the [ak]sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28 God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 29 Then God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; 30 and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food”; and it was so. 31 God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

God’s commands to man were two fold in the first creation account in Genesis 1:

• Rule and subdue the earth — 26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” […] 28b and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
• Be fruitful and multiply — 28a God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth,

We will come back to these two commands after the next point.

Genesis 2:15 Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. 16 The Lord God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; 17 but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”

God has two more commands:

• Cultivate and keep the garden (directed to Adam and not Eve)
• Don’t eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil

18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.” 19 Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him.

21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. 22 The Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. 23 The man said,“This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man.” 24 For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

Genesis 2 gives us more details about the ordering of creation. Man was created first, but there was no helper suitable for him. Hence, God created a helper suitable for him.

• The first command — rule and subdue the earth — could be fulfilled by Adam himself such as taking dominion over the beasts as they came to him and gave them names. However, Eve could help with that.
• The second command — be fruitful and multiply — was unable to be fulfilled without Eve.
• The third command — cultivate and keep the garden — was being tended to by Adam but Eve could help with.
• The fourth command — Obey God: do not eat of the tree — Eve could obey as well.

God knew before the animals were created and brought before Adam that he had no helper suitable for him. I believe God had this in mind before he did all of this simply because of the examples of sexual dimorphism — two sexes — within the animals he created as well. Indeed, to Adam’s male God wanted to create a female helper for him not only for the loneliness but to fulfill the rest of the command to be fruitful and multiply.

All of these lead into God putting Adam to sleep, taking out a rib, forming Eve (who was still unnamed), and giving her to Adam as an example of the first marriage.

As a side note, Adam was given work in the garden as a steward already, but it was multiplied in punishment. This relates to Genesis 3 and the punishments that God gave for sinning. However, it is important to realize that Adam is already the head of Eve in the way marriage was created.

---

The purpose of marriage as an earthly institution

To understand the purpose of marriage, we need to examine what tends to drive relationship and marriage formation. Attraction appears to be one of the primary drivers. Thus, since God created man, woman, and marriage we should assume that there is some intent of the Creator behind the phenomena of attraction.

What is attractive to both sexes?

Generally speaking, attraction is different between both sexes.

• Men are primarily attracted to physical beauty and femininity. Examples of physical beauty are a woman’s face and her figure like waist to hip ratio. Examples of femininity are long hair and female-only attire like dresses and skirts. These things are [sexually] attractive to men.
• Women are primarily attracted to PSALM traits and masculinity. PSALM is an acronym for power/personality, status, athleticism, looks, and money. Generally speaking, these are embodied in a man such as a confident, handsome, ambitious, successful leader. Masculinity also embodies many traits that correlate with this such as strong, confident, independent, driven, tough skinned, competitive, and so on.

Yes, there are exceptions. Yes, these are generalizations. We’re not discussing them now.

These are the things that are primarily [sexually] attractive to both sexes. There is a reason for this.

---

Understanding how attraction plays into the roles and responsibilities of marriage

We, as humans, implicitly understand that attraction — by very definition of the word — is a driving force for marriage. Indeed, typically no one really gets married to someone that they don’t find attractive. If you were a Creator, it would make sense that the commands given to man for marriage would directly apply to the things that attract men and women to marriage. After all, these things are to be a preparation for the roles and responsibilities of marriage. 

Even in cultures with arranged marriages such as Judaism, the two getting married were required to see each other and they had some influence in terms of veto power over the person they would get married. The families of the two parties ‘set them up’ on ‘arranged dates’ that they had to go on to get to know each other. There had to be agreement from all sides, including the two getting married. Very few cultures, if any, have forced marriages.

Now, relating this back to the Scriptures in Genesis 1 and 2 we can logically see how attraction plays into the various roles and responsibilities given to men and women in marriage. The commands of God are directly related to what we find attractive in the opposite sex.

• Rule and subdue the earth
• Be fruitful and multiply
• Cultivate and keep the garden
• Obey God

and

• Men are primarily attracted to physical beauty and femininity. Examples of physical beauty are a woman’s face and her figure like waist to hip ratio. Examples of femininity are long hair and female-only attire like dresses and skirts. These things are [sexually] attractive to men.
• Women are primarily attracted to PSALM traits and masculinity. PSALM is an acronym for power/personality, status, athleticism, looks, and money. Generally speaking, these are embodied in a man such as a confident, handsome, ambitious, successful leader. Masculinity also embodies many traits that correlate with this such as strong, confident, independent, driven, tough skinned, competitive, and so on.

Thus,

• Men were commanded to rule and subdue the earth: hence, confident, ambitious, successful leaders are likely to do that. It’s no surprise that Scripture tells men that they are to be Protectors and Providers for their wives and families. A confident leader won’t back down from Protecting his wife when necessary or sacrificing himself as Jesus did for us such as in Numbers 30 and Ephesians 5. An ambitious, successful husband can easily provide for his family such as in Exodus 21 and 1 Timothy 5:8.
• Woman was created as man’s helper and so that  he wouldn’t be alone. Eve was created to be a primary help for multiplying and filling the earth, and secondary help for ruling and subduing the earth and cultivating and keeping the garden. Beauty is a general proxy for healthiness and fertility because it signals less genetic errors and ability to bear children. Waist to hip ratios or curves garners a lot of attention by men because they are attractive, but they are also related to a woman’s health and her ability to bear healthy children.

As you can see, these are a good fit for the purpose of Creation and what we observe in real life.

---

New Testament Scriptures reinforce God’s Old Testament design of creation

It should be clear that Adam had headship prior to the fall. God creates Adam first and then Eve as Adam’s helper. There’s other textual information in the link to corroborate that statement. However, this is also backed up by the stated commands in the New Testament. The NT Scriptures delineate the roles and responsibilities of the husbands and wives as thus (e.g. Ephesians 5, 1 Corinthians 7 and 11, Colossians 3, Titus 2, 1 Peter 3, 1 Tim 2 and 5, etc.)

• Husband — Headship, love your wife for the purpose of sanctification, live with your wife in an understanding way, don’t become embittered at your wife, provide for your family, etc.
• Wife — Submit to your husband, respect your husband, have affection for your husband, main focus should be on the home and childbirthing, etc

These directly align with not only the Creation commands and intent but also with what we observe. The husband’s headship directly aligns with ruling, obeying God, provision and protection of his wife and family. The wife’s submission directly aligns with being her husband’s helper and being a mother aligns with being fruitful and multiplying. 

This does not seem to be a mistake unlike the failed egalitarian argument. Since God created woman’s attraction to operate on the principle of hypergamy, we can see how she would be attracted to and respect her the husband as he was appointed to lead, protect, and provide for his family.  If you try to depose of headship or any of the other parts of the design, you are deposing of God’s design intent which more likely leads to a failed marriage. A wife that doesn’t follow her husband and disrespects him and is rebellious is only one signature away from divorce.

All in all, there appears to be a consistent affirmation of the the roles and responsibilities of men and women at creation, in the OT, and in the NT that also demonstrate what the sexes tend to find attractive in each other.

This should not be a surprise. God’s design was planned from the beginning of creation and continues to persist through time. 

---

Exploring the Scriptures on attraction and sex

Much of the modern Church has fallen ignorantly into the lie that godliness is attractive. This is the Christian ought fallacy which follows that ‘because godliness is a good thing it should be what is attractive.’ However, when we examine NT Scriptures, we find this to be false.

Paul tells the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 6 to marry believers and not unbelievers. ‘What fellowship does light have with darkness and darkness with light?’ However, if godliness and good character were attractive, everyone would be attracted to Christians. That’s clearly false. Rather, it’s the case that any man exhibiting PSALM traits and masculinity will be attractive to women and they will not necessarily be believers or not. This is why Paul warns not to marry unbelievers because some were attractive but bad choices for marriage.

Similarly, Paul states in 1 Corinthians 7 the only reason given in the NT to marry: “it is better to marry than to burn.” In fact, it is even ideal or at least preferable [to him] that all men remain single as he so full attention can be focused toward the Lord. What are the things that cause us to burn for marriage? It is what sexually attracts us. This is the sex drive and beauty for men. This is the sex drive and strong, confident, handsome, ambitious, successful leaders for women. These are the things we look for in a mate, aside from important qualifiers such as godlines and character.

Why should women not usurp authority over man [in the Church and family] and why is she saved through childbearing in 1 Timothy 2? Because she is fulfilling the initial commands of God to be fruitful and multiply, and her offspring like Jesus will take dominion over the earth. Jesus added from the initial command of God to take dominion over the earth to also win the people of the earth through the gospel. Make disciples of all nations.

Another  problem, from what I’ve seen, is not solely that the modern Church parrots false narratives about what is attractive to both men and women. That is definitely harmful. However, there is the issue that makes it seem like godliness is mutually exclusive with the traits that attract the opposite sex. For example, beauty is somehow mutually exclusive with godliness, which 1 Pet 3 does not say at all. Another example is that a successful, ambitious man may be looked on as ‘too worldly’ because money is evil when it is the love of money that is evil in 1 Tim 6. This is a problem because these things are false. You can be beautiful and godly. You can be a confident, ambitious, and successful Christian leader.

---

Other Biblical pitfalls of downplaying attraction

Generally speaking, the modern Church loves to downplay the role of attraction in marriage. I believe that this is because it is based on a faulty understanding of why attraction is important.

For example, it’s clear from the Scriptures that beauty is what is attractive to men. However, beauty without godliness and character has disastrous consequences result for men. They’re carried away to worship idols (e.g. Solomon and harem). They get caught in adultery (e.g. David and Bathsheba). They get scared into lying (e.g. Abraham, Sarah, Abimelech, and Pharaoh). They get dragged down into the pit (e.g. the vast majority of Proverbs on beautiful but deceitful women). The beauty of women is never downplayed. In fact, in Song of Songs Solomon lauds the beauty of the Shulamite woman the entire book without mentioning her character once.

Those who claim beauty is shallow fall into the trap of false humility. God created beauty, and beauty is objective. Some examples are nature, facial symmetry, a woman’s waist to hip ratio, and strong, muscular men. Without a God as an anchor, there can be no objective Truth such as beauty. Those who downplay beauty don’t understand the role it plays within marriage.

Obviously cultivating beauty or cultivating strong, confident, handsome, ambitious, successful leaders should not be placed over godliness and character. However, they are not mutually exclusive. Beauty is only vanity when focused in the wrong direction. Beauty for attention, beauty for power, beauty for other men are not good. However, beauty for a husband in marriage is good. Similarly, the same is true of the sex drive.

---

Conclusion

Creation

In summary, the Scriptures describe that God directs commands to man and woman when He made them and married them. These are:

• Rule and subdue the earth
• Be fruitful and multiply
• Cultivate and keep the garden
• Obey God

If we look at them from an observational perspective, we see that these commands also fairly accurately describe what each sex finds attractive in the opposite sex.

and

• Men are primarily attracted to physical beauty and femininity. Examples of physical beauty are a woman’s face and her figure like waist to hip ratio. Examples of femininity are long hair and female-only attire like dresses and skirts. These things are [sexually] attractive to men.
• Women are primarily attracted to PSALM traits and masculinity. PSALM is an acronym for power/personality, status, athleticism, looks, and money. Generally speaking, these are embodied in a man such as a confident, handsome, ambitious, successful leader. Masculinity also embodies many traits that correlate with this such as strong, confident, independent, driven, tough skinned, competitive, and so on.

Thus,

• Men were commanded to rule and subdue the earth: hence, confident, ambitious, successful leaders are likely to do that. It’s no surprise that Scripture tells men that they are to be Protectors and Providers for their wives and families. A confident leader won’t back down from Protecting his wife when necessary or sacrificing himself as Jesus did for us such as in Numbers 30 and Ephesians 5. An ambitious, successful husband can easily provide for his family such as in Exodus 21 and 1 Timothy 5:8.
• Woman was created as man’s helper and so that  he wouldn’t be alone. Eve was created to be a primary help for multiplying and filling the earth, and secondary help for ruling and subduing the earth and cultivating and keeping the garden. Beauty is a general proxy for healthiness and fertility because it signals less genetic errors and ability to bear children. Waist to hip ratios or curves garners a lot of attention by men because they are attractive, but they are also related to a woman’s health and her ability to bear healthy children.

There are multiple passages of Scripture both from the Old Testament and New Testament that affirm continually affirm these characteristics.

• Husband — Headship, love your wife for the purpose of sanctification, live with your wife in an understanding way, don’t become embittered at your wife, provide for your family, etc.
• Wife — Submit to your husband, respect your husband, have affection for your husband, main focus should be on the home and childbirthing, etc

In other words for men: rule your family well, obey God, cultivate and keep your family, and so on. For women: help your husband rule well, obey God, and help him be fruitful and multiply. 

These directly align with not only the Creation commands and intent but also with what we observe. The husband’s headship directly aligns with ruling, obeying God, provision and protection of his wife and family. The wife’s submission directly aligns with being her husband’s helper and being a mother aligns with being fruitful and multiplying. 

We do both singles and married a disservice by downplaying the role attraction plays in marriage. If we don’t show them why, from the Scriptures, God created these traits to be important and attractive to the opposite sex we risk alienating them and/or giving them cognitive dissonance. Exceptions are exceptions. Hanging onto exceptions when you want to be married give you a low probability of success. Sure, some men marry obese women. Most men don’t. Sure, some women marry men the stereotype of a man in his parent’s basement playing video games all the time. Most women don’t.

“Oh? You want a beautiful wife? That’s shallow and superficial.” However, we implicitly understand that beauty is objective, at least in part. That creates strong cognitive dissonance in Christian men: “Oh, I shouldn’t want beauty? Then why do I desire a beautiful wife? Is beauty a bad thing? Why do I want a beautiful wife if beauty is superficial?” Sadly, this is too often the case.

That which God creates is beautiful. He created us, and we were very good. He created attraction and our sex drives. He created marriage. He command us to take dominion and be fruitful and multiply. The loving gaze of a husband on his beautiful bride. The respect of a wife toward her strong, confident husband. Our righteousness is our beautiful clothing to Jesus. The beauty of a large family.

All of these things come together to form a coherent whole that exemplifies the nature of the beauty of marriage and the plan that God created for us to accomplish.

Plans of action on attractive traits for men looking for a wife for a godly marriage

The general consensus seems to be that many Christian men will have difficulty finding a true Christian wife in today’s cultural milieu. In this post, I’m going to try to detail all of the different things I did to prepare for a wife (many of which are in the book) but also some of the ones that aren’t. I’m also going to include some others that people have observed over time as well.

All of these are going to be in the Spirit of complete obedience to God such as no premarital sex, no questionable moral behaviors, and so on.

This post is also not the place to comment on the difficulty of such scenarios, how many men or women can actually carrying these things out, or why they are needed. That can be the topic for another post.

No one is claiming you must do these things to be a Christian. Many of these things that you would normally do as a Christian and some optional ones that are wise are typically helpful in being attractive to the opposite sex which can help you get into a relationship and eventually get married.

Commenters are welcome to contribute things they did that they believed helped them find and marry a good wife. I will add them to the OP.

---

To summarize attractiveness, things that women generally consciously or subconsciously look to evaluate whether they want to date and/or marry a man are:

• PSALM (power, status, athleticism, looks, money)
• Biblically, PSALM is typically expressed in terms of headship/leadership, Protector, and Provider (Gen 1-3, Eph 5, 1 Pet 3, Tit 2, etc.).
• Masculine traits — typically expressed through headship/leadership

As for the reasons why God created attraction to exist for marriage, I detail that in my thesis of A Christian understanding of attraction, and the role it plays in marriage Part 3.

One analogy that I often use of a house, attraction tends to get your foot in the door but character and virtue tend to sustain and maintain the relationships. Thus, I am going to split the advice into various categories that focus on attraction and relationship although some overlap with both (e.g. leadership).

In this context, attraction tends to be what the outside of the house looks like and attracts while the interior is what makes the home a stable and quality relationship. There’s only so much you can do with a shabby exterior as no one will come to find out the quality of the home, but often a shabby exterior hides some rotting infrastructure underneath (e.g. nice guy syndrome). The inside should ideally reflect the outside too, so we’ll keep that in mind going through the various points.

I’m going to break these down into the various categories of the OYS that RP Christians uses as it’s fairly useful in terms of being wholeheartedly devoted to God in every area of life (e.g. love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength): Spiritual, physical, mental/emotional.

Secondly, as we discussed in What makes a Christian marriage successful?, there seems to be a several things that seem to make a Christian marriage successful from the Scriptures:

In effect, God’s commands of marriage as an earthly institution first with Adam and then as a helper with Eve (from Genesis 1-3) are to:

1. Take dominion over all the earth

2. Multiply and fill the earth

3. Cultivate and tend to the garden

4. Obey God

5. Eve as a helper

So what are men attracted to? Men are generally attracted to physical beauty (e.g. .6-.8 waist to hip ratio), healthy bodies, beauty, etc which tend to indicate that she is fertile and has a good capacity to bear children — thus fulfilling God’s command to multiply and fill the earth. Femininity is generally nurturing and kind, much like a good helper would be.

So what are women attracted to? Women are generally attracted to PSALM – power, status, athleticism, looks (muscle, etc.), and money and similar things. Power and status? Those tend to correlate with taking dominion. Athleticism and looks/muscle? Those tend to be correlated with protecting and caring for things like the garden and her and her children. Money? Provisioning for her and her children. Masculine traits are helpful for improving all of these to varying degrees.

To circle back around…

These obviously look familiar to Cameron’s and Jack’s assessment of godly successful marriages.

1. Marriage is open and/or enthusiastic about having children. Check. Be fruitful and multiply.

2. The woman wants to be a wife and mother instead of a careerist. Check. Helper to her man (wife) and be fruitful and multiply (mother).

3. Evident sexual attraction. Check. Obviously, a man fulfilling God’s mandate to take dominion, protect and provide for himself (and by extension a wife and children) and obey God (e.g. not put his wife on a pedestal — or in Heartiste’s rule ‘you shall make your mission, not women, your priority’) is going to be attractive to women. Likewise, a woman that is generally beautiful and feminine will tend to best fulfill the be fruitful and multiply and helper commands and duties respectively.

It’s there all along. We just didn’t want to dig through Genesis 1-3 to understand fulfilling God’s purpose for marriage

Overall, a specific situation must take into account both being a man that God intended from creation and also selecting a wife with the right priorities and character traits. Sigma has a more extensive breakdown here.

One must also remember that Vetting is for identifying red flags from past behavior; future behavior needs Biblical solutions. Vetting by itself does nothing. You want to look at the specific character traits and how she acts under pressure or in tough situations to assess her virtue and ability to cling to God or to see if she runs from God (and eventually you likely in divorce).

Why do these?

1. I think it is a fairly established fact that men tend to want to marry a wife they find attractive, and that women want to marry a man they find attractive.
2. Secondly, attraction gives influence. In general, people are more willing to give the benefit of the doubt if you’re attractive. This can be leveraged many different ways including setting a good example. For instance, one personal trainer could be fat and another trainer could be muscular and ripped. People would be more willing to listen and believe the advice of the muscular and ripped one. One practices what he preaches and one doesn’t.
3. Third, the combination of attraction and influence is very useful for leadership of a wife, family, and in the Church where most people care less about attraction than even the world. It gives you more opportunities to influence others for the gospel and discipleship.

One does not have to do these to have a wife or get married, but the statistical probabilities mean that it is much less likely if you aren’t. I believe that most men would like to give themselves the best chance as possible not just to find an attractive (to them) wife but also one that is godly. The more women that you are attractive to, the easier it will be to find one that is not only attractive but serious about following God as well. The latter should be the priority, but of course sometimes Christians ignore that in favor of attractive unbelievers which is why Paul had to tell the Corinthians not to marry unbelievers.

---

Spiritual

• Be all in or all out on God — Once you make this commitment, it changes a lot. I used to make fun and tease vegetarians all the time during college when I found out, and I was clueless then to why some of them started to like me but it makes sense now. Women like men with a backbone and who are not afraid to put out an opinion and stick on it. Likewise, I’ve found once I was all in for God and put a lot of effort into studying and applying my faith my backbone in difficult situations has become a lot stronger which has been helpful not only with women but spurring my brothers in Christ on.
• Walk out God’s plan for your life and study God’s marital roles and responsibilities and start to apply them to your life when single — God says the husband is to be head of the wife, so he’s supposed to be the leader with authority. Jesus didn’t need permission from the authorities (Pharisees) to do His mission for God. How can you act as a leader of one first? That goes for all parts of your life: spiritual, physical, emotional, mental. Being a leader starts with you and your mission for God. Lead by example.
• Have an evangelism and discipleship focus — being comfortable talking about your faith with non-Christians and Christians is extremely helpful for leadership. It also helps to push away fear of things like asking women out. Asking out a woman is a temporary thing compared to evangelizing which involves something that affects the rest of their life and eternity. Likewise, being discipled and discipling gives you the correct framework to understand the roles of husband and a wife (Christ:Church/disciples::Husband:wives – Eph 5). Jesus Himself was adept in both roles (God -> Christ -> Man -> Woman – 1 Cor 11).
• Study the Scriptures in depth, develop your prayer life, practice other spiritual disciplines — Get a commentary. Understand exegesis and hermeneutics and how to apply them. A husband is be the head of the wife for the purpose of sanctification (Eph 5). Even if you never lead a Bible study, you need to be the spiritual head of a marriage. You can’t be a spiritual head if you don’t know what God says. This is one of the things where you need to lead by example.
• Get involved in a Church — try to pick one that mostly aligns with what you believe whether Protestant, Catholic, or Orthodox and that fights actively against feminism and the culture milieu. Yeah, easier said than done, but they are out there. Involve yourself in the community to love and serve others. The highest quality prospects that you will have will come from a Church community, and it’s also true that men who tend to have the highest prospects will be involved in and/or leading ministries of various sorts (e.g. power, status in the Church). The goal is to serve God, but there are those side benefits of this that will likely help you find a wife.
• Consider taking on leadership positions in the Church — Obviously, do them because you want to serve God. However, whether it’s something smaller like leading a small group or Bible study or other things like playing in the Church worship team if you have the talent these things can obviously stand out women.

Overall, most serious Christian women I’ve met are looking for a spiritual leader (e.g. Eph 5) so it makes within the context of women’s hypergamy sense to lead by example through cultivate a strong spiritual life. Thus, you can lead your wife in spiritual matters like evangelism, discipleship, study of the Bible, prayer, etc.

Physical

• Lift weights to gain muscle — We’ve covered this before on how much muscle and bodyfat: Women’s attraction to men’s musculature and Time frames for body recomposition. Generally speaking, the more muscular and fit you are, the easier it is to come off as attractive to women and go on dates and sustain relationships with women who you also deem as attractive. To quote Mark Rippetoe — “Strong people are harder to kill than weak people and more useful in general.” This is low hanging fruit and if you’re not doing it then you’re not serious about finding a wife to me.
• Physical hobbies — Martial arts is typically a good one to learn to trigger the protector hypergamy vibe with women, but typically any physical type of sport works as well. If you have the time and effort you can generally excel which can also be attractive. Choose one that you intrinsically enjoy hopefully.
• Groom effectively — This tends to mostly be about eliminating unattractive traits (e.g. messy hair, facial hair, body odor, etc.), but if it’s done well enough it can be a net plus as well.
• Fashion sense — This is pretty obvious. As you start to get more muscular wear fitted clothes. Anyone can tell the difference between a fitted suit and a non-fitted one and how sharp and impressive someone looks in each. The same is true with any of the rest of your clothes.
• Learn to hold yourself well — make and hold eye contact, choose open body postures over closed body postures, don’t rush your movements, move confidently and with a purpose, work on your voice cadence and tone, etc. Practicing public speaking (e.g. toastmasters) can help out a lot with things like these. These things also go well with evangelism and discipleship.

Overall, increasing your musculature and overall appearance helps make good first impressions and first impressions matter a lot.

Mental/emotional

• Get a job or volunteer somewhere that puts you out there interacting with everyone — if you’re any way like me who scores 99% introvert on Big 5 or Myer’s Briggs and was scared of talking to strangers and taking phone calls then a service job where you actually have to talk to anyone and everyone can help with this. I took one in high school and college and had one for a brief stint after college which helped develop my social skills. This seems to be a growing problem with Millenials and any generation after them. Crappy social skills. These can be developed.
• Read Great Books for Men (GBFM) — Sort of being facetious with the title of the point, but self-education on all different topics is a good idea in general. It allows you to talk about many different things with many different people.
• Be an expert on life — What I mean by this is learn and know how to do everything in life if at all possible. Be handy around the house. Know how to do finances, invest, and set a budget. Know how to fix a car and take care of various issues. The more things you know how to do and are an expert in, the easier it is to trigger a woman’s hypergamy to look up to you and respect you. That’s the basis of attraction.
• Develop Anti-fragility — this is a concept where one does not avoid stress or risk taking behaviors but embrace them. Popularized by the book, but fairly common throughout various endeavors without a name. Cold showers, exercise, and other things like this are anti-fragile behaviors that increase mental resilience and ability to hand stressful situations. Reframing the mind and emotions so that negative ones aren’t things to shy away from but embracing failure to help you learn and grow. This not only helps with speaking with women but everything else in life.
• Be slow to anger and other negative emotions and be self controlled in all circumstances — these things are especially important for developing good leadership acumen in your relationships including ones with a potential girlfriend. If you easily lose control of your emotions then it’s easy to get blown to and fro by them and sabotage any good that you have previously done. People tend to dwell on negative impressions.
• Learn to tease women — this should be pretty obvious, but if you practice and learn to get good at it then it can be helpful not only for generating attraction but also diffusing socially awkward situations or challenges or tests from women.
• Develop a sense of humor — fairly self evident. People like to laugh and have fun. If you’re more “fun” to be around especially through humor then it’s easier to navigate social spaces.

Education and income

• Mate selection for modernity goes over dozens of studies that look at how hypergamy in women means they tend to prefer men who have more education and more income than them. STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) is always a good prospect, especially since men tend to intrinsically enjoy STEM more than women. Professional jobs or trade jobs are solid on the money front as well. Obviously don’t pick one just because you want to earn a lot or have a wife and family, but being able to have money to steward for God and give for charity are good things as well.

Relationship mentality

• “Follow me” leadership — as has been stated over and over on here and in the book, Jesus says follow me to the disciples and His Church (e.g. gospels, Eph 5, Rev 2-3). This is the model that Jesus uses. Jesus does this with His disciples by leading by example: He was doing ministry when He invited the disciples, then he taught them as He did ministry. Then He had them try it out (e.g. Jesus sends out the 70). Then He had them do it full time in the Great Commission. As Jesus delegated and had expectations of His disciples and Church, so too a man must have an idea of where his potential wife and helper (e.g. Genesis 1-3) fits in within his marriage. He must communicate expectations and hold her to them.
• Make sure you are training your girlfriend or wife — A husband’s role is to be a leader and one of the responsibilities to is love your wife for the purpose of sanctification (Eph 5). How can you teach, correct, admonish, and train her in righteousness as necessary? Look for opportunities. Similarly, how can you dwell with her in the knowledge as co-heirs in Christ if you don’t know her? Find out what makes her tick. Her strengths and weaknesses, her likes and dislikes, her spiritual gifts. Is she a good fit for you and your leadership style? Does she have room to grow? Is she teachable? Does she respond well to you?
• Make sure she has her own walk with God and is growing in that without you — This doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t do things like studying the BIble, praying, or other things like this with her. What it does mean is that she should be committed to learning and growing more Christ-like before you are there and while you are there. Make sure she isn’t a cultural or social Christian who is going through the motions either. See how she treats her family, friends, and even those she doesn’t know. Look at her character and virtue.

---

I’m sure I’m forgetting some, and I will be updating this list as more come to mind.

“That all changed after we married…”

This is something that has been brought up multiple times through the years, but I think we’ve never gone into depth on this topic.

I want to cover this namely for the singles and people in relationships to look for potential issues where their potential relationship or marriage may devolve into such a state. If you can catch them while you’re still single or in a relationship you can push the eject button.

First off on my end, this has not been my experience at all as my wife is the same person before and after marriage. I’ve done all the posts on vetting and looking at future behavior, and that’s the process I used to evaluate whether my wife would have solid character and virtue and pursue Christ on her own before, during, and after marriage. I’ve also noted instances of where I have had to love her for the purpose of sanctification before and after marriage in teaching, training, and correcting. I’ve also noted that my wife is very attracted to me as well which probably has something to do with it, but that was easily discerned before marriage as well.

So I guess to get into things, why do people think it is that we have the “that all changed after we married…” scenario? I’m just spitballing some common scenarios I can think of, but I’d like a quality discussion on this topic as I’m sure there’s more I haven’t thought of.

• Now, the first one is obviously something akin to infatuation. It’s easy to overlook character flaws if you’re infatuated. I can see this is the case in some scenarios
• Normalization of non-submissive and disrespectful behavior, but you didn’t catch it. This is sort of like the “she’s my better half” scenario which is easily seen, but there are a lot of non-verbal interactions that show a woman is disrespectful and contentious even though she may not verbalize it. Also, some men are a bit blind to disrespectful behavior and just gloss over it from what I’ve seen. I’ve pointed this out to various husbands before about manipulation tactics, and they never saw it until I pointed it out. The blinders were on.
• Attraction likely has something to do with things as well. As we noted previously, the rules are different when a woman is more attracted to a man versus not. This is pretty obvious in popular culture as well as women will still date “jerks” and “assholes” even though they’re treating them like dirt. As it’s typically men asking women out, men are typically attracted to women they ask out, however, at least some men don’t know if the woman they are asking out finds them attractive. Usually women won’t go out on dates with men they find not attractive, but they generally will with men they find some attractive in some instances. Same with marriage.
• Not correcting disrespecful and sinful behavior from the get go. This is also a common one that I see that not many Christian husbands believe they should be doing. Relationship starts out good because they all the good feelings and whatnot, but as those start to go away the man or husband is not leading to correct any disrespecful behavior. This leads to women getting more emboldened to keep doing it until the roles are fully inverted and they’re both unhappy. This is the same as what Adam failed to do.
• She was good at hiding her true character. She seemed to walk the walk and talk the talk of being a Christian (e.g. serving in Church, reading her Bible, etc) but she was more or less just faking it. Generally, however, if you’re looking closely you can assess this because she will not be fully congruent with how a Christian is supposed to act (e.g. fruit of the Spirit, especially humility when she sins. She may not also change her behavior after so-called repentance).

I’m sure there’s more but I’m drawing a blank at the moment.

The most common ones I’ve seen at least in real life are infatuation glossing over character flaws, usually at least some lack of attraction, and not heading off,correcting or rebuking disrespect.

While it’s true that women could be hiding true character, if you’ve been dating for more than 6-8 months you can usually catch that if you’re looking closely. Don’t look at the good. Look at how people respond when things don’t go their way or they sin.

The corrections are usually pretty obvious, but they take time if the relationship or marriage has garnered a lot of negative momentum.

The fallacy of teaching men to be emotionally honest part 2

Jack’s post on men’s fantasy of emotional intimacy seems to have resonated with a bunch of men.

I wrote on this a while ago in The fallacy of teaching men to be emotionally honest, but let’s go back into some of the details.

Men and women tend to express emotions differently. Surprise surprise. We are different.

1. Men tend to process emotions internally and solitary.
2. Women tend to process emotions outwardly in a social manner, especially with friends and family.
3. When women tell men to be more outwardly emotionally expressive, what they really mean is to be more positively emotionally expressive.
4. A necessary feature of leadership is the ability to process emotions internally and solitary. That is a leader must be able to filter out their negative emotional displays in order to lead by example and build confidence and trust in the relationship. Negative emotional displays often lead to threats, fear, and distrust.
5. Women generally want to share in the joys of your successes, be shielded from the sorrows of your failures, and be her anchor in the storms of life.

As I’ve learned more about this in marriage, I think there are some more caveats from this.

A. First, I still agree with my prior assessment that most successful outward emotions should be positive. Since women tend to be more empathetic, that means they tend to be influenced and actually feel the emotions that you are expressing. Hence, if you get into a negative mood it tends to influence her into a negative mood as well. That’s not what you want.

B. Negative displays of emotions or weakness should generally only be typically expressed through story or “after the fact” type of scenarios where you overcame that difficulty. For example, the oft used bodybuilder wins competition after coming back from injury (?) example below. He’s crying and emotionally vulnerable, but it’s attractive because he just won a competition and he’s hot.

Just as a skinny frail body triggers feelings of revulsion in women, so does weakness expressed in any other way. I haven’t had any of the harrowing scenarios in the other comments, but my wife has commented that even me expressing “owww” when something unexpected hits me and causes me pain can bring out feelings of “ickiness” or “mild revulsion” within her. That’s just hypergamy. Since men are supposed to be protectors of women by God’s design, anything that shows weakness in a man will start to trigger her hypergamy in a negative way. Obviously, this can go haywire just like gold diggers are a twisted expression of providership, but understanding that things like this can be a normal reaction will help you be more aware of it and build habits that eliminate behavior like that.

C. Within that particular context, attractive men (e.g. PSALMs, masculinity, etc.) have more leeway than unattractive men. As some have stated, the rules are different. This also applies to perception because you may be objectively attractive as some celebrities are, but their wives may still divorce them. We don’t know what goes on behind the scenes if they are just feminist and/or rebellious, but I’ve counseled some situations where a husband is objectively attractive physically but he doesn’t have other components of PSALM such a strong masculine leadership and is a pushover in his decision making. That turn off overcomes his objectively attractive appearance.

For those in situations with inverted roles or rebellious wives, it is imperative to minimize displays of weakness because that only breeds contempt and disrespect. Standard “RP” advice is to not emote around women at all, and the reason for this is because the general RP population to which this advice is given is unattractive men looking to be more successful with women. Thus, the playbook is to eliminate any potential things that may be turning off women which emoting includes.

E. Turning back to my assertion that negative emotional sharing should be generally be done through story or “after the fact” scenarios means you can show or tell how you overcame a specific scenario in the past with negative emotions. For the woman or wife it brings them through the negative experience but it ends with a positive or happy ending which uplifts rather than drags them down. If you’re just worrying all the time like with your job or money or stuff like that then it’s first of all disobeying Christ (e.g. Matthew 6), but it’s also dragging down the atmosphere on the relationship or marriage.

F. I would also compare this scenario to something I’ve seen in Christian Churches before which is always being transparent and always being truthful. This can especially be emphasized in marriage by counselors and pastors. This is something that is easily taken the wrong way because you start to lack wisdom and discernment. For instance, if I’m walking through the store or the Church, it’s true that many people are overweight or obese but am I going to just share anything and everything that’s on my mind about those particular things? No, it’s obviously not going to be helpful for building up at all.

Therefore, we have established the fact that being completely honest and transparent with everything we think or feel does not always have to be said. I think this is one of the ways that the perhaps both the culture as well as Christian culture has seeped into our minds as a false reality that we need have our spouse know everything about it us and that it will bring us closer. No, it won’t. Sharing every particular thing is simply just dumb from any perspective, except one where you have some type of fantasy that it’s a good thing.

I’m not sure where this is rooted from but it might be a type of expression from chivalry or perhaps an influence of a relationship with a mother and son. A mother generally accepts her children unconditionally no matter what they say or do, but this is different than a headship-submission relationship. One should not act in a way with your wife as you did with your mother as that would lead to an inverted role relationship.

I personally have never felt the need to share all things and everything with my wife especially in regard to negative emotions like fears or worries, so I was a bit confused as to why many men on the other post felt like they needed to. Maybe that is one of the more insidious features of churchianity where the church has unknowingly fallen to culture and we can’t discern that it’s a bad idea to talk about everything with our wives.