It’s been a bit of a crazy week around here. Maritus has been working a lot as there have been some changes in his company. It turns out that he is going to have to be working more and harder. We pretty much expected this in this economy and it is what it is. I’ve said before that a marriage is not 50/50% in contributions, but 100/100%. What that means is, it’s time for me to step it up as well.
He’s not going to be working more and harder because he wants to, but because it is required of him. He would rather be home here, with us. I think most fathers would. If he is going to be working harder, then I want him to be able to come from work to a more comfortable home. Not only that, but I will try to get quite a bit of the stuff that he would typically do around here done for him. Mowing the lawn, taking out the garbage, hedges, the normal stuff. I figure that the less he has to worry about, the more he can relax while he is here and enjoy his family and his time with us.
I’m not telling you this in anyway to brag, our to tout my homemaking skills (I am, sadly, not a very good housekeeper for legitimate and illegitimate reasons). I am telling you this because we too often hear stories these days of women (and some men) who are either oblivious or unwilling to put in the work needed to raise a family and/or nurture a marriage. Marriage takes work, though, what I’ve noticed lately is that it doesn’t have to feel that way. You got married because you love the man, so doing this to make him happy should make you happy. Sure, a lot of the day to day stuff is not so fun. However, seeing the man you love come home and the look of relief at being home, the look of contentedness at a hot home-cooked dinner on the table, the look of joy at the kids sitting around the table and beaming back at Daddy, this makes it all completely worth it. He is going out there and busting his hump for you. For the family that you brought together. He deserves the same from you and a place to come home to that makes him happy.
I am reminded of this, while writing this post. Also, keep in mind that what makes your husband happy may be slightly different than what I or your friend does. You may work as well and not be able to provide all of these things, but there is always something that you can do to welcome him home. Something that will brighten his day that you can provide better than anything else. Find out what this is. If you don’t know, ask him. The fact that you want to do this for him will bring joy in and of itself.
Matt King has recommended the book Home Comforts: The Science of Keeping House by Cheryl Mendleson (Thank You!). It came in the mail today. As I said, I am not a very good housekeeper. I know the basics of how. We all do. But I am looking forward to this because I think it will give me a lot of ideas on how to make my home a more comfortable place. In reading a good part of the essay at the beginning, she views keeping house like I do cooking. One can cook and follow the recipe and it will be a good dish. However, when one puts ones heart into it and thinks of those she loves while preparing the exact same recipe, the dish will be wonderful. It truly will taste different. She says the same about making up a home, so it really resonates with me and it makes perfect sense. As I learn more about this, if anything of note comes up, I will keep you informed!
On the Rock 
Im liking your marriage.
Thanks, Yohami. Having read your blog and comments for a while now, that means a lot.
Your blog is very interesting and amusing, as I assume you are in real life. One thing I would like to point out about us men (which I think you covered extensively in your blog, but I am not aware) is that knowing that your wife cares more about you than the kids. I know this sounds abrasive, but when you have a kid so much time is devoted to the kid the man forgets how much you love him, even though you do dearly. Which is why when you wrote the article about the little things I was actually quite beaming as you are one of the first bloggers to mention that. I know that woman when they have kids they can’t always show their love for their man, but when they do these tiny things like fold his clothes or put socks in his shoe (in the start of this he probably wont notice this, but as he progresses he should start to comprehend this) We won’t always show our gratitude that you put socks in our shoes or that you folded our clothes for us, but we will know that you are taking time to love us even when you don’t have it.
P.S. I’m 16 and even though I am to young to get married (as in my early 20’s I will be enjoying life) I know what I am looking for, and I am quite handsome in real life and believe me I’d rather be ugly because being handsome makes it even harder to find a woman that actually will live up to these standards even in your 40’s when your looks are fading, but people like you are making it easier to see the qualities I need in woman.
Love you dearly, and i hope your husband knows how much you are busting your back for him, and does the same for you.
“being handsome makes it even harder to find a woman that actually will live up to these standards”
Nope, it makes it easier. Anything that pumps up your value will make it easier.
Drop the feminist propaganda 😉
That actually did sound incredibly vague sorry about that……….. I’m probably basing it off were i live and my experiences. I’ve dated many girls and all of them in the start were saying they could be who I wanted them to be, but in the end it didn’t end up like that.
P.S. I’l have to kick myself for actually sounding a bit feminist 😦
Stingray, if I ever find a woman slightly resembling marriage material, I’m shipping her off to you to see if she can deal with the realities of what it means.
Hussein Abshir,
Thank you very much. 🙂
I have to second Yohami. Your looks are not a hinderance. They are an asset. At 16, your looks are only going to mature and be more of an asset. Now is the time to cultivate your others as well. I am glad you are figuring out now what it is you want in a woman. You are going to have a huge leg up knowing this and not compromising when it comes to what you expect.
As regards my husband, yes. He does know and he is very grateful and appreciative. I am an incredibly lucky woman.
Thank you again for your comment.
Leap,
Stingray’s Marriage Boot Camp!
Left..left…left, wash, fold.
Left…left…left, cook, clean. 🙂
We seem to think alot alike. My copy of Home Comforts should be delivered today, then I’ll return the one I have to the library.
This is a great post and thank you for it and others like it. I need them to not feel so alone in how I want to conduct my life. Just knowing that there are some others out there somewhere who are of like mind helps me a bit. Please keep them up.
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Just so you’re aware, there is evidence “The Good Wife’s Guide” is a contrivance/hoax.
If anything, its hoax status commends it even more. First, a leftist’s attempt at humor exposes the assumptions he takes for granted today — a wife’s “retrograde” behavior seems so extreme and so absurd on its face that he presents it as obvious humor without need for explanation or fear of misinterpreting his words as earnest. And second, the objects of fun in a topsy-turvy culture are more likely to touch on the truth than would the official line. Feminism is 180-degrees from honesty: what it considers a lie is an arrow toward the truth.
“The Good Wife’s Guide” reminds me of Aaron Sorkin’s A Few Good Men, written by a weepy bleeding heart (and literal crackhead) in an attempt to expose how preposterous a character Col. Nathan Jessep was. Sorkin has the Jessep character lose his mind and get locked away, complete with Tom Cruise’s “Harvard mouth in [a] faggoty white uniform” getting the triumphant last laugh. But not before giving us the clearest dramatic defense of military manliness in the face of effete political pieties:
Oh, that smug look of satisfaction on Cruise’s face. And even the woman prosecutor’s moment to shine. Unintended perfection.
The truth behind Jessep’s character survived the screenwriter’s biases so thoroughly that his words have now become emblems of manliness in common currency. “You can’t handle the truth.” “You want me on that wall, you need me on that wall.” Look at Rob Reiner and Aaron Sorkin’s other works (An American President, The West Wing) if you doubt where their sympathies lie. The Academy even rewarded Nicholson’s villainous performance with an Oscar nomination.
The “Good Wife’s Guide” has a similar status, as far as I’m concerned. The truth of it is stronger than any attempt at parody, and in fact so strong that it transforms satire into an earnest defense of virtue.
They “can’t handle the truth,” indeed.
Matt
Hussein Abshir wrote:
Wrong, and malignantly wrong. We will give you some leeway due to your age (and the influence of your presumed religion’s cartoonish understanding of manliness, insha’Allah).
A wife does not love her children more or less than her husband, or her parents, or her siblings (or themselves) for that matter. A wife loves her children through her husband, and vice-versa, just as Christians love the Lord through their love of one another. It is not a competition; it is an exponential multiplier.
The Christian sacrament of matrimony combines the flesh as one person unified in the love of God. The husband and wife operate this love according to the strengths and weaknesses of their different sexes:
No Arabian harems beholden to Alphas-in-Name-Only. No “I divorce thee”-thrice traditions. No consideration of women as chattel. Christianity innovated the idea of an individual’s soul created in the Imago Dei, with infinite value, equal before God, whether that soul be a slave’s or a king’s, a woman’s or a man’s. While this concept has been secularized and distorted at the extremes by leftism — or Christianity without the Christ — it retains its original merit only in light of the Son of God made flesh. Without that divine anchor, every distortion becomes possible, including the complete denial of reality that animates the feminist impulse to turn women into men; and its opposite extreme, the domineering impulse of betas and omegas to allow natural male superiority to corrupt itself into a program of female annihilation — which is manifest in Islamic law merged with the honor codes of dusty savage tribes.
Your understanding of love and attention is not “abrasive,” it is childish. Love is not a zero-sum game, to be bestowed and hoarded selectively. It is multiplied in the giving. A wife’s attention to a man’s offspring is an act of love for him. A spoiled princess believes love must fundamentally be about her, stamping her feet and pouting until attention is paid. To such a self-absorbed maniac, the proof of love is quantitatively measured in how “much time is devoted” directly to her wishes. The sacrament of matrimony is based on principles contradictory to your zero-sum love.
I respond harshly because the concept you stumbled upon is the linchpin of all successful intersexual relationships. Either the relationship is made solid with a core of unconditional and unbending love, or it is hollowed out by solipsism and selfishness, in which case things fall apart, the centre cannot hold, and the culture consequently disintegrates. Without understanding this dynamic, you will fail to see why your life and the lives of those around you cannot escape the shambles, and why our country is tottering on the edge of abject dysfunction.
Matt
Superb comment Matt.
I am aware that this was a possibility, however, I simply don’t care. (I care so little in fact, that I forgot that this might not be real. I would have stated that in the post had I remembered. Thank you for bringing it up). I don’t care for the reasons you stated. Even if it is a hoax, it makes it no less true. People take issue with the last point most of all, A good wife knows her place. I have been considering a post on it, as a matter of fact. Everyone has their place and their place is different depending on the situation. People not wanting to accept that as fact makes it no less true.
Jacquie,
I’m very happy that you like the posts. Knowing that there are other women who think like we do is incredibly comforting.
@ Stingray and Kate
Totally what I had in mind. We still have boarding schools for boys, the military for men. We’ve lost the institutions/practices to raise girls in femininity. As such, I’ll eventually be sending a future wife to you for wife boot camp. Send her back when she’s ready for leadership 😉
@ Matt
I love your posts here and that you’ve found good examples of instances where the truth shines through the biases of the people working on these films. I’ve seen the same thing happen in plays written by feminists, or horrible adaptations of classics like Shakespeare done by feminists. Powerful truths seem to have a flame to them that burns through whatever framing you put on those truths to try and lie about them.
A revival of charm/finishing school? An interesting proposition. I give my daughter what I call “lady lessons.” Chief among them: a lady doesn’t yell. I try not to raise my voice when I say that 😉
Good points, Matt. It used to irritate me that “This. Is. Sparta.” is actually a feminist statement of sorts in the movie. But that seems to have been forgotten.
I also never get the impression that a lot of conservative people get that Hollywood is that feminist or progressive. Not only have I seen quite conservative, if not reactionary, views presented (I saw an amazing example on NCIS once about women and careers); but it is possible that the views of the writers and actors are not necessarily translated to their output, because they want to be somewhat realistic and entertaining. Also, one should give them credit for having some nuance. It is possible that we are meant to feel sympathy for Col. Jessep’s viewpoint. You could call it the Paradise Lost Effect, for the way in which the supposed Devil may get the best lines.
Good one.
I agree for the most part, but this is a relatively recent development. The idea that they want “to be somewhat realistic and entertaining” is a return to conservatism under market pressures and the demands of storytelling. They can get away with only so many nihilistic celebrations of unpopular, putrefying, leftist license (a.k.a. “passion projects”) before they have to return to the tastes of the moral majority. They can only fiscally endure so many anti-American ultraviolent gay-sex romp bombs at the box office before they have to return to general-audience pleasers and celebrations of family/traditional courage like Pixar cartoons and superhero movies. Of course, these moral lessons must be sufficiently concealed by their surreality and cartoonishness to get a green-light from producers who could never authorize a straightforward depiction of something so contrary to the Official Ideology.
But make no mistake, they will continue to peddle this stuff despite the constraints of the moral majority as long as they can get away with it. Lately we aren’t letting them get away with it as much. This is a very hopeful sign of the times. Ratings and B.O. demand a “realistic and entertaining” story. In other words, they demand a return to an ultraconservative ethos — I’m talking Aristotelian Poetics with heroes, hubris, fall, redemption, and catharsis in the service of timeless human principles.
Every time Hollywood wants to teach us a lesson, it either blows up in their faces or they are paid no notice. Think of the string of Iraq War anti-American bombs in the last decade preaching the evils of the military (Rendition, Redacted, Stop Loss, Lions for Lambs, In the Valley of Elah, Letters from Iwo Jima, etc. Such stinkers that you probably haven’t heard of them). Or the original TV subversion of All in the Family where the conservative bigot wins audience sympathy away from Norman Lear’s leftist stand-in, “Meat Head.”
The left’s preaching and the demands of good storytelling are at loggerheads. They will hand out Emmys and Oscars and slap each other on the back for “important” stories that nobody sees and are soon forgotten. I love Mad Men and Breaking Bad for their craft, but straightforward morality plays like CSI and Law and Order get more than ten-times the audience, spin off into five different shows, and last for twenty years.
I am sure that is what the script writers tell themselves. But this too makes them puppets in the service of something larger than their cramped ideology, and that is, story. They delight in portraying villainy and evil in entertaining and omnipotent ways (cf. the horror cliché of an unkillable, omniscient, unconscionable mass-murderer), but, as Hannah Arendt put it, true evil is banal. That is the point of Paradise Lost and The Divine Comedy. The devil may get the best lines and biggest visuals, but that is because evil is seductive, despite the niggling fact that seduction requires the annihilation of the seduced. Doing good, on the other hand, seems ordinary and boring in the abstract, but in real life the result is an unparalleled exhilaration. C.S. Lewis said, “How monotonously alike all the great tyrants and conquerors have been: how gloriously different the saints.” The one is much harder to depict on screen than the other.
The appearance of evil is always more promising than the appearance of the good; but the results are always opposite. We know this in life. Our storytellers used to know this, too, which is why there was a Hayes Code requiring every evildoer to get his comeuppance. With the Code’s demise in the 1970s, “auteurs” were able to give full voice to evil’s seductiveness. This time not only would wickedness sound better on paper, but on film they could present the indulgence of evil as consequence free. And this inversion of the Hayes formula was considered ground-breaking and clever, and therefore the basis for “the best lines.”
The Hayes Code seemed moralizing and stodgy and untrue to life, but that’s far from the case. Hayes was the guarantor of moral realism despite visual storytelling’s tendency to fantasize evil as consequence-free. The bad guys never get away with it in real life! Even if they escape the hands of human justice, the ugly toll it takes on a person cannot be avoided. Now here we are 40+ years into the Hayes-free nihilistic celebration of evil, so deep in it that it has become undetectable and cliché. Today’s writers know no alternative ethos. Therefore when they try to be “sophisticated,” they glamorize evil and thereby think themselves shocking.
(Look at Roissy’s sanctification of “The Dark Triad” and “Chicks Dig Jerks” as an example closer to home: sinister laughter and the “shocking” celebration of evil are short-cuts to drama/attention. The hard truth of his life? Much more banal than his caricatures and florid prose.)
Meantime, the entire culture has been marinating in fantastical cliché since today’s storytellers were born, and when audiences reject that clichéd output, they are thought of as simpletons who don’t get it. So producers save the simple stories for cartoons and sci-fi, where they can preserve plausible deniability. “No I don’t think The Incredibles is a realistic portrayal of family life! It’s a cartoon! They’re superheroes! If you want to see our serious take on families, watch The Kids Are All Right. That drama of happy lesbian adoption was photographed, you see, not drawn with CGI. That makes them more true to life.”
Yes, Hollywood accidentally produces good stories and realistic characterizations. Isolating their intent is important. We are in the midst of a long, slow turning back to stories that work, which necessarily means, a return to timeless principles no ideology can distract us from for very long. Do not mistake them for Milton or Dante. They are being guided by an instinct more powerful than their mythologies, forced by that conservative instinct to comply with ideas against their will to leftism.
Matt
King A
Do you watch Anime ?
Yes, a thousand times yes. Books on heads, baby. White gloves. Elocution. Downton Abbey on a continuous loop. Posture! Oh how I miss female posture. A full HB point bonus for any young lady who knows how to sit up straight. We spend fortunes on orthodontics to straighten girls’ teeth, but then we train them to slouch! Show me any young woman and I will make her a seven by reforming her choppers, spine, and weight alone. Cosmetics and fashion could thrust her into the 8 range.
The heck with Roissian hypotheses about natural beauty. Most of female game is appearing effortlessly beautiful, and most of that effort is the opposite of natural.
Matt
Not at all. I am allergic to every type of escapism.
King A
You will.
Anime is great, I dont know this Blood+ show?
Yohami.
Excellent show. Better than Twilight. I’m sure there’s a torrent for it somewhere.
Yohami.
And this song is from another excellent Anime : Black Lagoon.
A sad song yes, but nonetheless a good one.
Matt,
I’ve been thinking a lot about your comment to Hussein Abshir. It is an excellent comment. Though I think what he may have been driving at in his comment about a wife continuing to show love to her husband is not baseless. Too many wives these days have children and push their husbands to the wayside for their children. There is no love through the husband as it is based on solipsism and selfishness as you said here.
Maritus was talking about something similar to this with me a while back and he relayed this: When a husband and wife marry, they join hands and form a circle. When the children are born all too many families allow the children to join in that circle. Only, when the children leave the home, they leave the circle broken as the husband and wife were no longer holding each others hands. When the children are born, instead of the children joining the circle, they should be placed in the center of it. Only then does the circle remain intact.
Stingray, there are any number of apt metaphors, and the circle of hands is a good one. We agree.
My main point — as is yours — was to refute the myth of zero-sum love. It is true that many women neglect their husbands for their children just as they may neglect parents and siblings and friends. But insofar as that circle of hands is true, a neglecting of one’s spouse is a neglecting of one’s kids — she is weakening the protection surrounding the household in which her kids live, like tearing down the walls to feed the furnace. There is no either/or, especially since a man’s needs are so different from a child’s. There is only the excuse-making for laziness, a behavior the zero-sum myth facilitates.
Further, as Abshir seemed to be indicating, a father’s selfishness throws off the balance just as much (and incidentally, I noted that such selfishness is a codified feature of Islam). A father will not be a diva and demand resources he doesn’t need: that would constitute fatherly neglect of the family.
A well-adjusted man understands that attention to his offspring is attention to him, so long as his wife is truly on the same page and not using, say, the supposed needs of her kids to excuse the sloppiness of the kitchen, when really they aren’t needs at all but rather her excuse to escape. In honest circumstances, a man won’t mind making himself leftovers after a long day at work if his wife is giving the kids a bath, but only because he trusts that she didn’t delay bath time all afternoon while reading Fifty Shades of Grey.
Matt
Sorry, brother. Anime doesn’t trip my trigger.
I admire the Japanese imaginative capacities, but I find the execution crude, both in storytelling and in style.
What’s more, I take popular art for what it’s worth, which usually is a small fraction of the truly literary forms. Whatever anime has to say about men and women, I am sure Jane Austen said it better. Whatever it has to say about morality, I’d prefer the ponderous Dostoevsky. Whatever it has to say about human greatness, I have Shakespeare to say it better.
In the end, all passive forms of entertainment are inferior — radio listening, TV & film watching, comic books, video games. You must involve yourself by, say, learning the language of opera, or recognizing the counterpoint in music, or co-creating an image with the author of a book, or even something so simple as looking up a footnote to understand the multidimensionality of a reference.
Video games are an interesting hybrid, but the “participation” factor is mostly false in the way they are presently being designed: they put you on a rollercoaster ride with an illusion of agency rather than inviting you to co-create. Art has no payoff if the observer/participant doesn’t have to work for it.
We are no longer a nation of artists and artisans. We are mere consumers, so we lack a sturdy frame of reference for the frisson of artistic creation. Put down the Pokemon and read this book.
Home Comforts : women :: Shop Class as Soulcraft : men
Matt
Thanks, Matt. Forgive my unsystematic style. Just a few jottings. Some anime is surprisingly good. I watched Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex, not long ago, and found it intriguing.
On The Incredibles, yes, it was a lovely portrayal of a family. Not just the sweet banter, but I suspected a little allegory too. The mother having to “stretch” to fulfill her household roles? The writers have obviously lived in, or live in, a functional family.
On charm school, my wife went to something local along those lines shortly after I met her. Just a few lessons. And quite ordinary girls used to do secretarial courses and the like with lessons in charm and deportment. I cherish a memory of one girl asking “what time is Charm and Deportment?” in a broad Australian accent.
The Roissy site is fascinating, but I am never sure how much of it is sheer invention. As for the original writer, I believe he had an OK but not brilliant bureaucratic position. Which probably gave him the time to barhop. He was moderately handsome. His writing was very effective at times. I think he made, or at least named and codified, real observations about the feminine psyche. I don’t use them to bang barchicks. The idea is absurd to me. But the basic principles I have found useful in making a longstanding fairly happy marriage a better one.
I expect to see some of the Roissyesque folk wisdom find its way into popular culture soon. In older form, it used to appear in movies, books and magazines until a few decades ago. And I am old enough to remember it on TV at least as late as the 1970s.
I used to be a big anime fan. That lessened after college, more in grad school, and haven’t watched much at all since taking the red pill. I do remember enough of it that I was always drawn to the male characters in it that actually were masculine in nature – moral codes the stood by, and ability to actually take action while still staying true to their nature. The Effeminate heroes that many of the animes have never appealed to me, and rarely did female heroes. All too often they were women trying to be men and simply being whiny and put upon.
I think my favorite of the Anime’s was the newest Full Metal Alchemist, not the original series. Two brothers that stick by each other, take action, stay to their morals, and take full responsibility for all the consequences of bad decisions they’ve made by trying to right them. All their strength comes from hard work and dedication. And they try to teach others through their actions. No sappy, rom-com love story to get in the way. No ‘magical sword or powers’ handed to them.
That being said, while I simply don’t have the mental patience/strength to really dig into the Dostoevsky, and have never felt the draw to read Jane Austin, I’m much more into the literary side of things. Shakespeare, Joseph Heller, Ernest Hemmingway…. I go to novels for my insights into human nature. I go to epic fantasy and sci-fi novels for when I feel like thinking about what man might do in situations we don’t face in present day.
The form is simply easier to express and explore the human psyche when you don’t have to rely on visual entertainment and can show thought processes ontop of actions instead of just actions.
From the few available photos online, Roissy appears to be very handsome.
He has photos online?
I saw one photo. It was a bit unclear, but I got the impression that he was better looking than the average man. Despite what breathless Roissy types say, being good-looking helps. I am very shy, and being good-looking as a young man probably helped me get female attention, and get married. If I had been less attractive, I might still be a bachelor.
@ Leap.
Amen. It’s strange that the best sources for male role models, are not American in origin.
@King A.
Matt, one of these days, you and I are gonna have a few drinks, and when the time is right, I’m gonna read some extracts of Mad Magazine to you … and I will not desist in this endeavor … until that glorious moment … when you have no choice … but to acknowledge … the sheer excellence … of MY point of view …
@ Marellus
In my opinion Japan has been searching for its soul since it lost World War 2. Possibly longer if you search in depth of how the country evolved since the West got involved and spurred their society forward with foreign technology. They have really masculine heroes, but they also have really feminine men that are heroes as well. Often the only difference is in the portrayal of the character, not in what they stand for or anything else.
Most of Japan wouldn’t know what a man is if a phallic object hit them upside the head.
I got sidetracked from my point, which is this.
Japan has been searching for so long that it’s gotten, really, REALLY good at searching. It remains very poor at actually finding anything and keeping it.
@Leap.
Novel idea that. Kudos