Gravitational Pull – Heliocentric Universe pt. II
In the comments of Wednesday’s post, Mormon Man wrote:
I’m learning this more and more as I go. When I first started learning Game, I was already married. So my complete shift from Beta to faux-Alpha was really off putting and didn’t work at all. The balance between the two is the hardest to find. But I think you’re very correct in saying whatever you do has to be done because you want it to be done. Otherwise, men just end up as slaves to their wives’ emotions.
I, in a moment of cosmic prescience, replied:
One thing that gets lost in the manosphere is that it’s okay to draw happiness from your wife’s happiness if, and only if, such things truly make you happy. If your days revolve around her mental state, neither of you will be happy. If you spend a few moments in the day doing something that she’ll honestly appreciate, b/c you enjoy seeing that appreciation, then by all means spend those moments. That’s still about you, the benefits just aren’t specific to you. Selfishness need not be zero sum.
Dalrock elaborated:
If you are doing marriage right, bringing pleasure to your spouse is one of the greatest joys you can experience.
The reason I’m beating this drum again, and praising myself for my prescience, is tonight I was talking to a few guys who are both on second marriages. I heard one say something about sleeping on the couch. I said that if anyone is sleeping on the couch, it should be the little missus. It was then that I heard this statement, one that I’m sure I’ve heard before and tossed aside, but that I really zeroed in on when I heard it today, “If mama ain’t happy, then nobody’s happy.”
On its face, that sounds like a folksy way of saying what Mormon Man, Dalrock, and I are saying. You really shouldn’t strive to reduce your wife to buckets of rain. But, as Alkibiades stated, seeking to control your woman’s mood is a fool’s errand. She will be happy or she will be miserable. Just as the choice to be a leader of your household is yours, the choice to be happy is hers.
You can influence her happiness, you cannot control it. Maybe nobody is happy if mama ain’t happy, but mama ain’t happy if daddy aint happy. She follows your clues. That’s why you’ve got to be the center of gravity. That’s why you’ve got to be the leader. It bears repeating, you’ve got to make the concept of a geocentric universe your bitch.
As to the man who spoke those words about mama, I happened to meet his wife and speak to her for a bit. The man was scurrying about, getting snacks for her. She’s essentially on a paleo diet as she’s seeking to tone up and hubby was fetching items suitable for that goal. She wasn’t ordering him around, he was just doing it. Honestly he seemed happy, but I’m guessing he overdoes it and she wishes he’d take a more commanding role. You can see it in the way she looks at him. She’s a nice gal. Chatty. She asked if I’d heard about her. I mentioned the one fact I’d been told, a story involving a canoeing accident. She replied that she wasn’t asking if I’d heard that, she was just curious if I’d heard good things about her. Anyway, her boss is awesome. Such a knowledgeable man. One of those people who can just teach you so much. She smiled a lot when she mentioned him. When hubby called out to ask her if she wanted some blueberries, she said yes, but she didn’t really smile.
Mama’s happy, but I’m still not convinced that happiness spreads out in gentle waves.
Buckets of rain
Buckets of tears
Got all them buckets comin’ out of my ears
Buckets of moonbeams in my hand
I got all the love, honey baby
You can standI been meek
And hard like an oak
I seen pretty people disappear like smoke
Friends will arrive, friends will disappear
If you want me, honey baby
I’ll be hereLike your smile
And your fingertips
Like the way that you move your lips
I like the cool way you look at me
Everything about you is bringing me
MiseryLittle red wagon
Little red bike
I ain’t no monkey but I know what I like
I like the way you love me strong and slow
I’m takin’ you with me, honey baby
When I goLife is sad
Life is a bust
All ya can do is do what you must
You do what you must do and ya do it well
I’ll do it for you, honey baby
Can’t you tell?-Bob Dylan “Buckets of Rain“
I’ve always hated that “If mama ain’t happy” saying. I remember the first time I heard it. It was from my really great boss at the time who had married a divorced woman with kids. He had just adopted at least one of her two girls, after relaying all sorts of stories to us about how her ex husband was such a horrible guy.
Last I heard she divorced him and he had to pay child support for the other man’s child (or children).
Evidently mama wasn’t happy.
Never listen to what women *say* they want.
It’s the cognitive dissonance Big Bell – its ringing tones are audible when you listen, like a kind of drumming thunder that many men tune out, to their great distress.
But if you give them what they want (but say they don’t), they love it. It’s tragic but true.