Marriage

The Drought

/ T Wayne Hicks / Leave a comment

It’s been quite an eventful 18 months of no eventfulness for me.

I said it to another man the other day, very nonchalantly. “I haven’t enjoyed to company of a woman for sometime.”

Pathetic right? I’ve been on one date since my last almost relationship died in September 2021. And it wasn’t even with a woman I was attracted to, just a date just to say I had a date.

And, get this, it’s been on purpose.

When I first started this blog, it was to learn game, pick up, and the art of being an attractive, socially adept man dating after divorce.

I had success, becoming better with women, having abundance, but as my blog has evolved, it showed me that abundance in women meant emptiness in myself. I would date anyone with a pulse because there is and always has been the drive by society to say if you aren’t dating, then you are a loser.

So why in the hell would I want this? There’s more to the story below.

These days, we seem to have quite a few “losers” out there, including myself. A study by my alma mater, Indiana University, shows that 33% of men ages 18-24 report having no sex in the past year. I don’t know if there are studies for 40 something men out there, but as a man who’s living it, I have quite a bit to say on the subject.

We are seeing men in general reporting no dating and no sex. Women’s numbers have gone up slightly, but women aren’t taking the brunt of these numbers like many men are. We’re seeing an epidemic of sexlessness, and there doesn’t seem to be a solution in sight.

I watched Rollo the other day talk about hook up culture. He stated, “Hook up culture is alive and well for most women, and the top 20% of men”, but that leaves 80% of men out in the cold and we are seeing a precipitous rise in men who aren’t having any sex. And hook up culture is about the survival of the hottest.

Now I could go on and on about the causes. It could be societal shift to female dominated sexual dynamics, it could be the entitlement many women have when it comes to dating, it could be hook up culture, it could be many things. Myself and the Man-O-Circle have gone around and around on who’s to blame. Hint: It’s everything.

I’m writing this blog today to talk about it from this man’s side and what I am seeing that is holding men back from the dating market, either real or imagined, and what is going through my head on why I am intentionally not dating at the moment, and haven’t been for the last 18 months.

Does this make me a Volcel (voluntary celibate)?

The Reality

“How is a tall, attractive, successful single father not dating any women for a prolonged period of time?”

I’m certain I could make excuses up the wazoo.

My industry / career, my parenthood, lack of time to go out and meet women, where I live, my family time requirements, not religious, etc. It could go on and on forever and the excuses could pile up. You certainly can call me a loser for not going out more, as I’m always coming up with a reason to not. The point is, I’m not alone. There’s a whole shitload of people who would rather do anything but date. Younger men aren’t because it’s not as important as Call of Duty, hanging with friends, work, career, and as years pass it continues to slide down the list.

Social circles are shrinking, the ease of apps are addictive, the hopelessness is palpable.

And the message is the same for many singles I’ve spoken with in many different age groups. “Dating Sucks.”

To the 22 year old woman who says, “All it is is a meat market, and hook ups.”

To the mid-fifties divorcee women: “I don’t want to waste my time on men who are ready for a commitment.”

To the mid-thirties man: “It’s like a shitty game of musical chairs and rather than wait for the music to stop, I just left the room.”

To the mid-thirties woman: “Why go to all the trouble when he won’t commit to you? It’s getting my hopes up for 6 months only to have him cheat or get bored and leave.”

To my fellow mid-40’s single father: “My time is important. And I waste it on the dating apps, waste it on women I don’t find attractive, waste it on getting ghosted after having a good time, waste it on flaking, lying, and trying hard for an ROI that, quite frankly, is lousy.”

To the early 40’s Christian woman: “Younger men don’t want me because they want kids, and they’re too immature. Older men want younger women, and I don’t want a 60 year old man. I’d love someone my age but it seems every single one of them have issues. Not to mention I want a man who shares my faith.”

The stories and comments are an interesting look into what everyone is seeing in a dating market that is most definitely for the “haves” versus the “have nots”. And people like myself and many of the folks above, those who would be willing to date as long as it’s someone who remotely fits what we want out of a partner, would rather hold tight and focus on other aspects of our lives.

Dating gets forgotten and put on the back burner first and foremost because, let’s be honest, it isn’t fun any more.

In my time blitz dating three years ago, many of the matches I had had more issues than Sports Illustrated.

So, in a vain effort to not be seen as a loser, I decided to “date just to date”, not excluding anyone due to attractiveness, figure, salary, mental issues, etc. And it was an absolute dumpster fire. Serial ghosting and flaking, entitlement, and drama met me when I decided to swipe right on everyone who was at least halfway decent. I had traveled the country to meet women from all over, figuring it “was” a numbers game, right? The more women I get in front of, surely one or two will separate themselves from the crowd?

And when a few did? I was lied to about their relationship status (I was the other man several times), catfished, and had long distance relationships that I couldn’t possibly keep alive due to my status as a single parent with two kids and my home being here in Indiana.

With all the work I put into dating….I was exhausted after 2021. The MGTOW battle cry of “the juice isn’t worth the squeeze” harangued in my head.

So, I did the only thing I knew to do. What many people in this modern dating world are doing.

I pulled back.

I needed to do certain things involving improving my physique, health, parenthood, and family life. When my father passed away last November, I felt I had done those things better. My dating life took a back seat, after4 years (and a pandemic) of being the highlight. I got my jollies, I got to date, but I felt more empty that I ever felt, more pessimistic about my chances of finding a woman to be in my life, and wasn’t looking forward to starting up dating again, if and when things were handled in other parts of my life.

The issue here…things will never be handled. There’s never a good time to start, and it was time for me to at least try again to get out, so since December, I’ve been doing small things to get myself out and at least start meeting women. Even if it was to give my number to a server, or to go out and be friendly at new places, it’s a task I am taking great care with who I share my time with, or even who I approach. The “YOLO” and “you should be getting your dick wet” crowds continue to harp on that a man in the prime of his life should be going out and pounding everything that moves. But I submit this:

I’ve already chased pussy. That game is old for me. And while many men would never tire of it, I got tired of the drama, the juggling of women, the slashed tires, the showing up at my house in the middle of the night with my kids home threatening harm, the 3AM booty calls, the annoying calls at work, all of it.

I’ve had it, I don’t want it any more. And I value my time, and the time for dating gets cut because I’ve got other shit going on. Once again, not an excuse, but it is what it is. I have no interest in wasting my time, nor does anyone else in the same dating game as I am.

The Other Reality

Dating too often takes a back seat because….many people aren’t good at it. My dating in 2018 -2021 was Twitter, Tinder, Bumble, and the countless networking events I went to that generated dates, but nothing long term. The problems were many because it doesn’t allow for much long term connections, good conversation, and most were just looking for the quick hit, the spark, and if it didn’t happen, then a – ghostin’ we’ll go.

Dating is a chore because we treat it that way. We expect it to just be “done” and when it isn’t, it’s a drag on our whole life because we don’t want to do something that isn’t comfortable.

I haven’t been with a woman for a year and a half because I didn’t want to get hurt again, I didn’t want to rush in again, I didn’t want the same ending that has befallen me for so long. So I avoided it. So I put other things ahead of it. And I just accepted, as a pissy martyr, that I was destined to be alone.

We make excuses because we either have work to do on ourselves to be attractive again, or we don’t want to do the work to get attractive again. Because it stresses us out if someone rejects us. Rejection sucks, and no one wants to go through it.

I’ll admit I fell back into all of these things because I didn’t want to go back to the grind that was 2018-2021.

I wanted a long term relationship, and it meant having to “get back out there” which is a heavy lift for anyone, but more so for me because I, as of this writing, have never had a successful relationship. A lot of self doubt builds up because I haven’t circled this square. And I’m sure many people are struggling with these issues in their own lives, another reason why many of them are so timid to get back out and try to meet someone.

But lifelong failure doesn’t mean you stop trying.

My self-manufactured scarcity has been on purpose, because the people who I’m attracting at the moment aren’t the people I want. I could have easily gotten into dozens of “situationships” over the past two years but I have standards, I learned from 2019 that I also value my time, and from my divorce I learned that I won’t settle.

I stop watering the plants because I didn’t like the ones that were growing. The drought is self made. And it’s not out of self pity or helplessness, but the plants around me aren’t worth watering. But I have to go and get new seeds and water them.

It’s so much easier to blame so many other things than the fact that you don’t have the balls to get back out and find that person for you.

And that’s where I was for so long, until I realized that it wasn’t going to build itself.

So, in the midst of this self made drought, I have decided to go and get some water and try to find some better seeds.

It’s been deliberate, however. Not getting onto Bumble / Tinder or the online game. But trying different options, like things I enjoy, the gym, classes, hobbies, and adventures. This isn’t going to be a pickup session at a bar or a club. This is going to be me, finding my joys, and finding other people who enjoy those things as well.

The excuse making has to stop for the millions of dateless, sexless men and women in our world right now. But these people also have to make themselves better so their dating is better. But always putting off the fact that you aren’t doing well in dating because of what YOU are doing is the mirror many people need.

Yep, even me, the retired single parent ex-PUA.

It’s time to unretire and take a sip of the water. The taste of bitterness of not having a successful relationship is gone. It’s the cool taste of being the best man I can be, and finding the best woman for me. Use that water to grow relationships.

I will have a successful long term relationship.

No more excuses.

Lessons From A Failed Marriage

/ T Wayne Hicks / 1 Comment
Photo credit: Huffington Post

“The lesson divorce teaches you isn’t to not get married, it’s to not get divorced.”

The lessons. So many, too many to count. But I’ve managed to boil it down to 20 lessons.

I’m still learning, every day.

But I’ve honed these lessons to make sure that when I get married again, it won’t end in divorce.

Because, as bad as divorce is, it’s worse the second time.

My experiences are lessons that I can share with those willing to understand their own fallacies as well as understanding that they control who they marry, who they sleep with, and who they allow in their lives.

You control it. You have the keys. The system is unfair. It won’t be changing anytime soon, but you still have control. Stop listening to those that tell you that you don’t. Because they didn’t and don’t have control either.

I’m not a relationship expert, I’m a “what not to do in a relationship” expert.

So, without further ado, here’s my list. Enjoy and learn from my mistakes:

Lesson 1 – If You Don’t Know Who You Are and Love Yourself as Such, You Cannot Marry Someone Else Without Encountering Major Issues

I didn’t know who I was. I was trying to be someone I wasn’t. And it showed in the marriage. The baseline, foundational things that you need to be in order to love someone else must be there. Your convictions, beliefs, purpose, and boundaries must be there in order for you to make good on your promise to love, honor, and cherish.

How can you marry someone when you don’t know who the hell you are? If it’s checking a box, it’s wrong. Marriage is for good and you better damn well know who you are, your likes and dislikes before you walk down the aisle. And if she can’t respect any of it, she doesn’t get to be your wife.

Lesson 2 – Stop Escalating and Start Connecting

In the heat of an argument, the best thing you can do is stop letting emotion dictate your response. Her emotion is boiling over and she needs to know you’re there to stop it from completely spilling. She wants to vent, not argue, many times over, because women are emotional creatures. She needs to feel you there for her, your strength, your control over yourself and the situation. Sometimes, she just needs to let emotion take over. Nothing may necessarily be wrong, and if it feels like she’s picking on you, sack up and understand that this is something she does to make sure you are there for her.

She values you as her husband and values that you take the time to connect with her, listen instead of dictate, as well as understanding her and what she’s going through.

Lesson 3 – She Won’t Love You Unconditionally, But She Will Love You

The biggest issue that men have to deal with is that they won’t get love the way they want from a woman. She will not love unconditionally, but neither will you for her. It doesn’t work that way, especially for a man and a woman, as conditions do dictate love. So provide conditions that you are happy with. Men have to provide, it’s what we have to do. The sooner you realize this, the sooner you can have it your way. But she will love you, but you have to give her something to love and adore. You are the key to all of it, be it your own self love and what you’ve built in pursuit of that love, for her to truly love you for who you are and what you stand for.

Lesson 4 – Vet and Vet Often. You Can’t Prepare for Every Eventuality, But You Can Have A Damn Good Idea of Who You’re Marrying

Take as much time as you need. The honeymoon phase in a relationship over, time to start vetting her. Put her in as many situations as you can to see how she handles herself. That will tell you all you need to know about her. You can’t prepare for everything, but you can have her in enough situations to see how she’ll do when the real deal is upon you. This is good, bad and neutral situations. Get experience with her, gain knowledge about her faults, bad habits, and general demeanor. If she greets you with an ultimatum, walk.

Lesson 5 – Neither Person Gets to Dictate Terms

Terms are agreed upon and negotiated.

Both parties understand what they bring and they bring it.

You want contractual obligation? The State wants marriage in those terms, but you aren’t the State, nor are you a monolithic organism. You’re a human being and so is she. If either side starts dictating, the other side needs to walk. There has to be compromise and agreement on principles in the relationship. Know your roles and be comfortable playing them because it’s who you are. Be prepared for quick negotiations or unforeseen disagreements that must be hashed out. But do it together, and in ways that both of you are comfortable with all that each of you are doing.

Lesson 6 – Communicate. You Can’t Read Minds and Your Partner Can’t Either

Talk early and often and your marriage will be solid as a rock. Get to know each other by talking to each other, early and often, over anything and everything. Know where each other stands on things that confront the marriage and overcome them. Communicate how your partner made you feel, good or bad, and face those issues head on, together. You don’t get to not engage, especially when it may be important to her. If it was important to you and she walked off, you’d be pissed.

Lesson 7 – Sex is Critical

No sex is a deathknell for any relationship. If you’re not having sex in your relationship, it’s dead and needs to be revitalized. No sex is a critical problem that many marriages cannot overcome. Because without sex, she’s just a roommate who helps you with the bills. Your intimacy is of the utmost importance in your marriage. Take it from a guy who didn’t have much sex in the dying days of his marriage, you need to be having sex, but also, having fun with your partner. Try new things in the bedroom, be adventurous, and be aggressive towards each other in the bedroom. You both love each other, so show it, dammit.

Lesson 8 – Better People Make Better Marriages

The bitter truth that most people don’t want to hear is that when you and your spouse are striving to be better, it improves your marriage significantly. Because you are a better, healthier person, you can have a good, strong, solid marriage when you and your partner have boundaries, share in triumphs, regroup after setbacks, and have each other’s backs. The proof is in the pudding, for take a sputtering marriage and add two people trying to get better either physically, mentally, spiritually or all three, and see the infusion of that energy revitalize that marriage. I’ve seen it happen so many times with men who weren’t motivated in marriage suddenly turn things around to the point where everyone associated with the marriage is re-energized. Kids, wife, everything starts to level up as the man rebuilds himself.

Lesson 9 – It’s Okay to Be Wrong. Own It, Fix It, and Move On

Yes. It’s okay to be wrong. But you have to do the one thing you don’t want to do. Swallow your pride and own the fuck up. You aren’t infallible, and neither is she. But you are capable of being an adult, and that means taking the heat when you screw up. The heat is the easy part, because you then have to fix your fuckup to ensure it doesn’t happen again. Because you’re a functioning part of this marriage, your humility will be mirrored by her, because when she sees you screwed up, when she does it, she’ll want to show that she’s human too. If she doesn’t, you still take the L and move on. Because you are the lead in this relationship, you will hold yourself to a higher standard. And with that higher standard comes her having to raise her standard as well. You set the tone, regardless of what you do, be it right or wrong. Learn from it and move the fuck on.

We get wrapped up in the State and why they get involved in the institute of marriage. If you don’t want the State involved, you can most certainly choose other options. But as of right now, this moment in time, and for the foreseeable future, your local government is involved. That means that in the eyes of the State, you are in a contractual agreement with your spouse. And depending on the state that the marriage occurs, you may or may not be able to draft a prenuptial agreement. All the more reason for the man to know who the heck he is marrying and the woman to take her time to make sure that this is the real deal. But never, ever does the State get to be involved in the spiritual aspect of your marriage. If you are religious, the church has that on lockdown, and so make sure you aren’t losing the real reasons for marriage in a myriad of tax implications. The state only matters when you get married or when you get divorced. Kick those fuckers out of the bond.

Lesson 11 – Do Things, but Do Them With Meaning and Purpose – Enjoy Each Other on Purpose

The issues I had with our marriage was that my wife was always goading me to do “something” instead of what I was doing, which most of the time was playing video games or watching TV. She wanted me to go experience life with her, and that isn’t an inconvenience. It’s a necessity. Enjoy your spouse by enjoying your life with her. Cherish the things you do (active or passive things) and share that with her, as well as her with you. Try new things with her, be adventurous, solve problems together. This will only strength the bond between both of you. Then, as you do these things, you become better together and start to enjoy more. The snowball gains momentum and gets bigger. Enjoy your marriage by doing things together that you love.

Lesson 12 – Be Her Biggest Cheerleader, and She’ll Be Your Biggest Fan

Support in marriage is one of the biggest deficiencies for men. They are looking for loyalty and a support system, but you have to do the same. She needs to know you’re there for her to support what she wants to do as well. Keep cheering her on what she wants to do, and you will see a woman ready to support her man with anything he’s doing as well. But you gotta show up in her corner, every time.

Lessons 13 – When Your Values Align, You Both Win

When vetting for a woman, pay close attention to her values. If they are radically different from yours, you will have an issue that will be a killer for the marriage. You have to have a partner that is paddling the same way you are, because if you don’t, the boat spins. And you want to move forward and beyond, not stay stagnant. So watch how she conducts herself. Does she hate kids? Then why try to make her a mom?

Does she have liberal values? Then why marry her if you’re a staunch conservative. Does she have issues with her family? Then why try to bring her into yours if she can’t have a healthy attachments to her own kin (save for extraordinary circumstances). You wouldn’t buy a dog person a bunch of cats so stop trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.

Lesson 14 – Your Kids are Neither Conspirators Nor Accessories to Either Parent

They’re kids, and they function best in peaceful settings. Your kids are the souls you are raising. Stop trying to weaponize them against your spouse in the hopes of them proving your right or wrong. It’s not fair to them for you to put them squarely in an adult situation when they are anything but adults. You are acting like a child if you are using kids to exert power over your spouse. These aren’t chess pieces, they’re your flesh and blood and they need parents who are adults.

Lesson 15 – She Doesn’t Owe You Anything, Nor Do You Owe Her

The concept of entitlement should not exist in marriage, especially not one way and not the other. No one owes anyone anything when it comes to marriage, but you both owe it to each other to be present and engaged in the marriage. She doesn’t owe you sex because she’s your wife, and you don’t owe her money to pay off her loans because you’re her husband. You both are giving because you are both getting reciprocated by being this way. Stop hanging expectations on someone with no intention of holding them up.

Lesson 16 – Alone Time is Important; Never Underestimate the Importance of Spending Time Away From Each Other

You need your alone time. You need time to decompress and get yours. Refilling your energy meter is important to every person in your life, because you can pour from an empty cup. If your significant other is trying to monopolize your time, it’s because they don’t value your alone time. You have to be able to get away to get right sometimes, and they have to respect that. As a matter of fact, alone time is essential in a marriage because if you were around your spouse 100% of the time, you’d cease to exist as a person. You both were separate people before you got married, and you remain that way even after. Your alone time is golden to do the things you like to do to relax. And if your partner loves you, they’ll respect that time and take some of their own.

Lesson 17 – The Work Doesn’t Stop When The Honeymoon Ends

Never stop working to be a better person, regardless of marital status. You set the standard and you keep improving each week, each month, and each year. Bring it, and she’ll bring it as well. But you have to keep dating your spouse, you have to keep working to be a better person, and you both will revel in the rewards as you continue to grow as a couple and individually. There should be no let up for either of you after the wedding cake is eaten. Too many folks suffer from “get married and let it all go” syndrome. Don’t be that person. Cherish yourself and your significant other by getting after it every day.

Lesson 18 – You’re A Team, But You’re the Leader

Men lead, women follow. The traditional roles may be the new bad words of the 21st century, but it still holds true. You are the leader, you set the tone, and you protect the clan. You’d better be ready to lead, because she’s counting on you. Just as I have said men are the frame while women are the painting, it falls to you to be the foundation on this marriage. The strength and protection you provide is what she needs in order to do her thing and assist you in yours.

Lesson 19 – How You Handle The Hard Times Will Make The Good Times Better

Hard times make better marriages. How you both overcome obstacles says a lot about the health of your marriage. Blame, guilt, and shame have no place in a marriage, when you can replace them just as easily with strength, fortitude, and perseverance. See the tough times for what they are and work through them, never blaming each other for anything out of the other’s control. You can’t be resentful of someone because something happens to them or someone they love that isn’t in the cards. Even when you or your loved ones make critical mistakes, stop, listen, and connect then fix it. Seeing through these times will strengthen any marriage more than anything.

Lesson 20 – It’s Marriage, It’s Messy, It’s Difficult, But It’s Worth It

Marriage is work, but it’s also a teammate for life that supercharges your life. It’s nitrous in your engine, and when you have a committed and dedicated person to your cause, your goals get that much more attainable. But also, you get to share a life with someone you care about, someone whom cares about you, and together, you dominate and build an empire. That’s a “Ride Or Die” to me, and the most successful people in history have had a significant other who watches their back.

I don’t have to tell you that these lessons will work for everyone all the time, but through my trials and tribulations with my marriage and divorce, I can tell you that doing them will only help you and your spouse grow a stronger, more loving bond.
Be the man that she wants to follow. Be the woman that he wants to protect and nurture.

But do it together, and do it for each other.

I hope that I get married again someday. And following these lessons, I know my second marriage will be my last.

And there won’t be a second divorce.

The Almighty Notch

/ T Wayne Hicks / 3 Comments

I was as bad as you can get with women.

Kissed the first girl at 18.

First date at 19.

Lost my virginity at 27.

My social awkwardness and ineptitude shown through every time.

At 22, I took a first date to dinner and then to my new home being built. That was my plan, and she silently seethed as I told her the layout and how I was so proud.

“Take me home, okay?”

Dated a bigger girl just to try and lose my virginity because my friends ragged on me. Got cold feet after taking her to a friends wedding and had another friend do the deed and take her home because I couldn’t bring myself to have sex with her.

Went out with a girl 4 times and we never even kissed, just did awkward things and chatted as friends over dinner until I invited myself to her house and ghosted her before I came over.

Embarrassing fails, then came my ten year marriage and the trials and tribulations with 4 of those years being nearly sexless (1-2 a year) and my continual struggle with women, as I saw it, was the cause.

During and after my separation and my divorce I stopped giving a damn. Broke, depressed and downtrodden, I let any girl with a passable face and a penchant for saying yes in my life, and these broken women made it even more miserable.

But hey, at least I was getting laid?

Then, I discovered the Red Pill, and Pick Up Artistry.

As I got better with, the women got hotter, but also more fucked up.

My definition of success was to “get good with women”. I had no other goals beyond that. I had no aspirations for a healthy relationship because I honestly thought that just be getting good with women, all the other things would take care of themselves. After all, it wasn’t me, it was the women I was meeting, right?

Tried to fake it at first. Faked my way right into the friend zone in LA. Then back to the dead zone for having the temerity of being a player with multiple leads.

But I was having a blast, and enjoying something that had eluded me for my whole life, the experience of dating multiple women.

So, consider it a checkmark on a box that I had set out with long ago.

But it’s not, and will not be for me, considered a success.

Because all it did was bring on more problems, bigger problems. The short term brought me more sex, more women, but in the end, it brought me no closer to a long term relationship. It merely told me that I could have as many short term flings as I wanted, but that I wasn’t going to be loved, nor would I love anyone, because love is weak. Love is for men who have feelings, who have emotions, and who are simps.

And for as much fun as I was having, this was the bottom line. You have to always be hard, emotionless, and use dread game to keep your woman in line, because “all women are like children”, and they need to be in the “presence of someone who can tell them what to do”. “They won’t ever love you the way you want”, nor will they give you the deep, meaningful love you seek.

As I’ve found, PUA and LTR are incompatible terms.

In PUA, you get what you wish for, but you also get dead ends that don’t lead to anywhere good, because it all boils down to playing the game in the shallow end, when really what you need to learn is to swim in the deep end, and then you get to jump off the diving board.

As part of my journey, I’m having to deprogram myself from PUA thinking and it’s been incredibly difficult. With every passing day, I still catch myself using pick up terms, lines of thinking, even trying to be mindful on how I’m communicating to women because many of the ones who I would be willing to have a LTR with are turned off by these statements.

“The NOTCH is the GOAL”

PUA thrives on escalation, quick and extensive, in order to get to the almighty notch.

And it doesn’t matter HOW or WHO you get it with, just that you get those numbers.

And this goes with everything, approaches, either cold or lukewarm, day game, everything, because the bottom line is hasn’t changed, it’s not about getting you comfortable with talking to women, it’s about getting you comfortable talking to women then sleeping with women.

Because it’s really all about the notch.

When you get the notch, you can brag to the community about it, because you’re doing hard things. And they pat you on the back and you go out and do it again and again. But notice when they get the notch, notice how it doesn’t fulfill anything but going out and getting another one.

The beautiful unicorn is the goal, but it isn’t having a relationship with her, it’s about landing her for even a brief moment (she’s not yours, it’s just your turn) and moving on to another one.

If you’ve read “The Game” by Neil Strauss, he got so good at picking up women that it became nothing fulfilling in his life. Only when he started to have feelings for women did he start to understand the consistent dead end of this lifestyle. And by that time, the damage was done. Many PUA’s have had horrible relationships, including Mystery, because they didn’t understand that simping doesn’t die simply because you said it does. They didn’t understand that self mastery and “fake it until you make it” don’t jive in real life. They became personas, never found the real “them” and tried to apply that to all parts of their lives, with horrible results. So now it’s “don’t catch feels” and everything is cool. And it’s led to an absolute mess of a dating scene.

Look, I get it, some guys want this lifestyle and die with a smile on their face after climax. But it isn’t realistic, nor is it sustainable. Which is why many of your gurus are happily married (or at least pretend to be) with one woman. If you can pull of haram game go for it, but a majority of guys just want a ride or die to support them, love them, and be there for them. We can argue all we want about monogamy being a broken concept, but the fact remains that a majority of this world still believes in it, and as a man who didn’t believe after his divorce, I am a believer too.

Quite simply, the long term love of one trumps the fleeting love of many. It’s shallow, empty, short lived and transparent. And it gets old. You’re the dude in the club at 55, with the pony tail, who fucked his way through the city in the early 00’s, and now you’re hoping for that magic to rub off. But all you’re getting are ladies from the retirement bus, because you never bothered to make a life for yourself, a real life, and lose all the other bullshit that worked for a while, but has since stopped. There’s only one Hugh Hefner, and you ain’t it, and even after that, man made it seem as if this was the life, the world that every man wanted, even as Hef bungled his way through different marriages and arrangements.

“But at least he was getting laid by beautiful women.”

Men consistently have trouble getting laid, and this was the deficiency that PUA was supposed to eradicate. But it took the feels from the game, and it took the reason for being and boiled it down to whether she spreads her legs for you on the first date, whether you’re getting that girl in accounting to go down on you after a meeting, or whether that girl you approached on the street is a “good girl” that you have no shot with. It’s a “Dear Penthouse” that men dearly want but can’t get. It tried to quantify EVERYTHING, so that you can just look at the numbers to see what women are doing, how they act, and how a majority of them believe in “monkey branching”. Hypergamy doesn’t care, until you realize that the majority of women who we blame for hypergamy were broken human beings in the first place, with either bad upbringings, domineering or no fathers, and have no interest in taking responsibility for any of it.

And if you dare to believe in monogamy, you’re labeled blue pill and you’re doomed.

However…..

I’ve seen, in person, many men who have good women in their lives, and I see what it can do for them.

With some PUA, dishonesty was a hallmark. “Don’t tell women anything you’re doing” was the go to. Then, it was “you spin multiple plates and tell them up front what you’re doing”, but brutal honesty only works in a progressive, dystopian dating market where everyone’s trying to fuck everyone else.

You may win in the meat market, but you lose in the life partner game.

And I want to win in that game. Because it’s what I want to do.

The Reality

Nothing punched me in the face more than when I was trying to get into a real relationship and the reality of my PUA programming came up.

Women looking for a relationship don’t want to hear that you’re fucking other women and they can just take that to the bank.

And why would they?

I consistently say to men that if they found out a woman they were dating was screwing other dudes, they would be a bit concerned. And yet, many modern women do just this, and get upset when men do it as well. But it’s not ideal whoever does it, and while it shows disastrous double standards in dating, it also shows how detached we all are over sex and healthy long term relationships, and how the lines have blurred for everyone.

But the reality….the reality is much better than what the gurus tell you or want you to believe.

The Notch you get from strange women is much worse that the sex you have in a relationship.

Why? Because in a deep, committed relationship, you and your significant other open up sexually, and sex can be anything you want.

But they don’t want you to know that. Why? Because hate and anger sell. It’s easier to blame others for your lot in life than to take responsibility for yourself.

But more, it’s easier to sell gimmicks to guys who don’t want to do the work.

If you read “The Game”, you saw that in Los Angeles, when hundreds of men tried to get some of that genie in the bottle that was released, women started catching on to the ruse. Men who had used old time favorite pickup stuff like “The Cube” were suddenly being outed by women they were trying to hit on.

IT GETS OLD.

It’s cliché, but it’s true. We see men dropping out of PUA and the old guard weeps not because guys are doing what’s best for them, but because they miss the old days when they were hitting up models and actresses in the streets of the cities they haunted. Guys understand there are useful things in both PUA and the red pill, but it’s not a place they need to stay at for long. Because time doesn’t stop in those worlds, and eventually it becomes old, boring, and less important that a man getting on with his life.

“Get good with women” is and was the only end game, and once you get there, you’re adrift again because you’ve hit the mark and now you have nowhere else to go. You see men who in their prime were the best PUA’s ever, now reduced to shells of men talking about the days of game like a 43 year old over the hill dude talks about his 4 TD passes in the high school state championship.

Men have to have forward motion, they can’t just rely on inertia or momentum, because it ensures they’ll be stuck forever. Some guys can pull it off. But most cannot.

And instead of giving them consistent tools for building and growing a good life, they give them tips and tricks to get to that next phase, and drop them off like a bus stop. And we wonder why many guys are bitter about what’s happened to them.

You have to think past the notch. The best notches come at the hands of a woman who loves, supports, and is there for you. Men, married men that I know, that have taken control of their lives and become patriarchs, are having the best sex in life. Because they have a trusted person whom they break bread with every day, and they have someone who believes in them and what they are doing.

They’re having hot sex after breakfast, instead of hoping the fat girl at the end of the bar at last call is drunk enough to go home with you.

They’re going on amazing trips and doing fun things with their families, instead of getting high at a friend’s house before going out to the club to see if you can pull some girl younger than 35 tonight.

They’re having children, instead of pulling out and hoping that next phone call isn’t the girl you had sex with saying she’s late.

They’re living their lives, moving on and growing in other directions instead of harkening back to the halcyon days of when they had a threesome while high on cocaine.

I choose the group who’s creating more in the present, instead of remembering the good times, and I won’t apologize for it. It’s my choice to move forward and be more than I could have ever imagined, and there are women, many women, out there that I don’t have to dazzle with a card trick or a palm reading to get them to look. I am the game, and many women are eager to play.

Get out of the past, get passed the notch, and get on with your life.

Or be doomed to stay in the same place, in the same world, in the same dull life, forever.

Relationship Lessons – Part 2: Vetting

/ T Wayne Hicks / 1 Comment

“She’s the one.”

How many men have said this with a girl they’ve just met?

How many men have told their friends and family about a woman who they saw, asked out, and said this?

How many men have said this simply by judging a 5 minute conversation they had with an attractive woman?

How many men have said this after a first date?

How many men have said this after several dates?

And how many men have been absolutely destroyed when they find out that the woman behind the beauty is a crazy person?

How many men have fallen asleep on the fact that the woman they fell for has more issues than Sports Illustrated?

How many men have realized the woman they thought they loved didn’t have a tenth of things in common with him that he thought?

We’ve all been there, gents.

My relationships always started off hot. But they fizzle fast. Why? Because, as men and women, especially in this day and age, when we find someone who is somewhat decent, we grab onto them like grim death, never looking at the potential consequences on not doing our homework on the person.

I’ve said many times that men will do research on cars, fitness, stuff they’re putting into their bodies, or buying a house, but when it comes to putting in the work on a woman they are dating, it’s fucking clown shoes.

Just because she’s got a pussy doesn’t mean she can skate by your scrutiny of her.

If any man truly wants a long term relationship with a woman, he has to know himself first. And to know himself, he has to have a checklist of major things that need to be in effect for her to even have a shot.

@ParabolicTrav has told me many times: “You determine who gets to be in your life.” Don’t sell yourself short on what you want in a relationship.

I consider vetting to be how a man, from the waist up, judges and checks a potential mate.

But how many men have truly vetted a woman? How many men have put her through her paces, asked the really tough questions, figured out the hang ups, or even had the uncomfortable conversations with her about certain things she believes, understands, or preaches about?

Vet and Vet Often

So how does one vet? If you’re like me, when I first got into a serious relationship, the first one with my future wife and ex-wife, I didn’t ask the questions, I merely let the relationship take over and take me with it. Why didn’t I ask the tough questions? Because, I was smitten, I figured she was okay, and for the most part she was, but there were several sticking points that came up after the relationship was established that should’ve derailed it, but it was too late.

So what is vetting?

Vetting is, in my words, a man’s big head telling the little head to slow the fuck down.

I’ve used an example of “shake her purse, and if it sounds like maracas, run.”

But seriously, you have to be able to look before you leap. Men fail to ask the tough, potentially interaction ending questions and allow the relationship and the woman to take the lead on this creature that is the potential relationship.

So what would a typical vetting session be about?

Have you asked a potential love interest:

  • If they are financially responsible?
  • if they have a history of mental issues?
  • if they are religious or not and if that jives with whether you are or not?
  • Does she have kids? Want them or not?
  • What’s her relationship with family, friends, her exes?
  • What habits does she have? Are they healthy or not? Does she drink too much? Smoke? Drugs?
  • Does she have feminist beliefs? What are her political preferences and is she open minded to other points of view?
  • Is she physically fit? Does she believe in being in good shape?
  • Does she share the same beliefs, goals, purpose, convictions?
  • Does she take responsibility for things she does or doesn’t do?
  • Does she take good care of herself mentally, spiritually, and physically?
  • Does she believe in traditional gender roles, or is she the boss and that’s it?
  • Does she keep a clean house?

These are just a sampling of the vetting questions men need to be asking women they are interested in. You are the captain of the ship. She can either get on board, or not. And the best way to ensure this is to keep vetting, even when the relationship progresses.

Good vetting only happens when you are solid in your frame and all of your life. You have a set of directives, goals, convictions and beliefs that you work off of. You hold to these unmovable traits. This is your FRAME.

She can choose to enter it or not, but when you have these sets of guidelines, she sees them, understands them, and then it becomes her choice to enter your world. But bear in mind, it is her choice, not yours. The minute you change to accommodate her, flex a piece of your frame, bend it and shape it to something other that what you apply in your own life, you’ve lost that part of the frame forever. You can’t get it back. Consistency is key in all of this. And keeping it consistent as well throughout the life of the relationship.

But the pull from the little guy is something that you must overcome. We’ve all seen hot girls, and when we see one our judgement is clouded by the prospect of blowing her back out.

Vetting helps to prevent this as well as puts you in control of the situation and how it is to go.

You have to ask the questions and not be upset if she walks.

You have to be able to hold your frame and be flexible on things not associated with your core values. She will bump up against that frame often to make sure you are holding true.

The Importance of It All

Why do I continue to push this?

Because, as with millions of men who have been affected, the modern man has not been properly introduced on the importance of vetting.

We see it every day. Men will do research on a car, house, stocks, crypto, etc., but when it comes to a woman, he’ll trust his dick over everything else.

And while she may make you feel good down there, the feeling of missed opportunities to feel her out while not wearing a condom come back to haunt men that take this road.

We see men who knew one thing about the woman they married but get a completely different person when the wedding ends. They get a woman who didn’t tell them she had declared bankruptcy, had Borderline Personality Disorder, had gone to jail, was a serial cheater, etc.

As a man, how much do you really know about her? Men ask me why they need to know things as long as she loves him. This is a disastrous mistake. A man must care about protecting himself, his frame, his assets, and other things that can be destroyed in divorce.

This is why, as a man, you have to park the urge to accept the woman just because she slept with you. When I lost my virginity at 27 to the woman I would eventually marry and then divorce, I didn’t have the intuition to ask the tough questions. I was fearful of losing steady pussy and a woman I thought I loved if I had decided to call the ball and take her to task on her questionable past.

With the state becoming a third party in marriage, it’s so important in this day and age for a man to properly vet a woman who wishes to become a part of his life. The stakes are incredibly high for men to protect everything they have and until more men start to see the consequences of marriage and divorce without vetting.

When you don’t do the work, you tend to get bit in the end.

There is also a misconception that you can vet EVERYTHING. You can’t. You, at least, must vet the BIG things, because you can’t anticipate all the little things you’ll miss.

And she’ll most certainly be vetting you, although most women don’t have to do the work that men need to do in order to vet their partner. The woman holds the keys to sex, the man holds the keys to commitment.

If you truly are a high value man and hold yourself in that regard, not just any woman can be with you. Your boundaries will determine what woman can be in your life. You will have a self contained assessment tool in your head about who can be in your life.

So vet and vet often. Work on securing and strengthening your boundaries, convictions, and beliefs, bending to no one when it comes to your core values.

And make sure a women who wants to be in your life is going to be good for your life.

Mistakes in accepting just anyone in relationships can cost a man dearly.

Uncharted

/ T Wayne Hicks / 2 Comments
The lighthouse at Sanibel Island, Florida

When I first started this blog in September of 2018, it was going to be a basic blog on game, approaches, and my progress with conquering one of the biggest challenges of my life, that of being able to be good with women.

It was just a blog.

I was coming off another unsuccessful relationship with a liberal woman, getting into another doomed-to-fail relationship with another liberal woman, and was getting myself red-pilled after enduring two years of post-divorce discovery of who the fuck I was.

I had, two years earlier, divorced my wife of 10 years after enduring a marriage rife with problems. I didn’t know my ass from a hole in the ground, so I grabbed on to whatever I could during that time, including many women who were toxic. I was working hard at my company, drinking with my friends, getting and staying fat, and had zero direction while I floated from relationship to relationship, date to date, day to day, just waiting for something to happen.

This was my life, and I didn’t see a way out except to play by the rules.

But, as we know, rules were meant to be broken. Part of the foundation of myself built on my divorce was the fact that my decision to divorce was made by ME, by only me, and my choice to not be miserable anymore. But it was a journey, as I was starting, that I didn’t have a solid destination. And that’s some scary shit for a man going on 40 who’s basically restarting his life. Add in running my own business, raising two children, and trying to become a patriarch of my family all while not knowing who the hell I was, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster. It’s no wonder many men who divorce have disastrous consequences follow them as they don’t know the hows, whats, or whys on what the hell they need to do to rebuild their lives, so they just grab on to whatever floats by, and it’s usually a water moccasin ready to bite them in the ass.

So as I was dating, I blogged as the Red Pill Dad, dishing my experiences with game, my approaches, my style, and my numbers. They weren’t great, but I figured anything I could do to keep my spirits high as I moved from girl to girl, trying to get better talking to them, would be quality content. So I blogged about it. I blogged about my red pill journey, my failures in relationships, my relationship with my ex-wife, and kept reading, studying, and writing as best I could to keep my mind off of this life I was trying to rebuild.

But then, in Early 2019, I was convinced that the rebuild WAS my life.

The Journey Began

It became more than game. It became a man who was on a journey to find himself, his purpose, his convictions. He spent his life being pulled in different directions by special interests and women who benefited from his work. As I placed myself back firmly in control of my life, I was seeing that the red pill was more than just a piece for getting laid. It was an integral part of taking my life back. Meeting women took a back seat to my voyage to find myself and take my life back, so it was getting more and more about the moral, financial, and personal dilemmas that men face after divorce that was taking up my writing time.

I was working out, on pace to lose 80+ pounds and regain my health. I was raising two children as a single dad. I was running my own business. I was struggling to take my life back from those who deemed it theirs. And it was pissing all of them off. For years I had thought I was wrong to alienate my friends and family from my inner circle because they would always shame me for daring to make my own decisions. So I cut those fuckers loose.

I was evolving.

Even friends online were telling me that my “Red Pill Dad” moniker was not really embracing my writing evolution. So, after a talk with a friend, I changed to “A Father’s Journey”. It was about telling men my story so they could see what I was doing. It was about showing men that life crises can be overcome with a strong back and the willingness to fight every day for who you are.

So I shifted my focus. And it was an amazing journey. I started writing about the aspects of my life that were affected when I started to take control of my life again. Parenthood as a single father, dating, and sex as a single father, life as a business owner, and other subjects began to dominate my feed. I was losing weight, taking back control of my life, all while tweeting and writing about it. My world was changing, and I had to chronicle it. My goal was to show men that regardless of obstacles in their way, their journey continued with them at the helm of it. It was a no-excuse time to take control of their lives. So I wrote and blogged about what they could do, what experiences I had, all while showing them that the fear they felt was certainly palpable, but also, faced and overcome.

As I would later find out in my re-brand, I was becoming a beacon to men out there struggling to take back their lives from the tide of an unfair family law system, a feminist society hell-bent on destroying masculinity, and the proof that there is an amazing life after divorce. Second chances are not given often, and men who fail to take these chances to improve their lot in life physically, mentally, and spiritually are doomed to be nothing more than a casket with onlookers lamenting the “could haves” he missed out on.

Not me. Not in this lifetime, and not on my watch.

So I opened my DM’s and I opened my life.

The off limits portions of the Red Pill Dad were now open for business.

My life was theirs to see. I knew it needed to happen. I knew they needed to see what I was going through, what I was learning, how I was growing and failing, for them to see what they could do to improve their lives.

They needed to not only learn to be alone, but THRIVE at it.

They needed to accept their circumstances, but also create better ones.

They needed to understand the fight for their lives doesn’t stop when the sun goes down and they go to sleep.

They needed to always be making moves to free themselves from a world that only wants them for their work.

For all of their lives up until that point, it wasn’t about them. It was time to make it about them.

My taking back control of my life is what my journey was up until that point. It was about writing to let men know that they actually have a choice on what they can do in their lives. They can learn and improve from their mistakes, but they have to make them first.

And maybe, just maybe, the young men reading my blog can avoid what I did. Maybe they can take the steps needed to take back control. My writings, videos, and shows would be a guide. That was my goal, and it still is to this day.

But the journey has changed. And I’m in very new territory. And I’m embracing the new challenges ahead.

Uncharted Father

As many of you know, I’m writing a book that will detail my life before my marriage ended into the divorce proceedings and eventually to the other side.

As I’ve been writing the book, I’ve been trying with increasing difficulty to come up with a name for my untitled book.

Then in January of 2020, I hit on something.

Every year, I go on a vacation by myself to Southwest Florida, specifically Fort Myers, and one of my favorite places on earth is Sanibel Island, home of a famous lighthouse. I go to that beach every year, and my family for over three decades has been living in the area as a second home. So on a particular day at the beach, I walked by the lighthouse and had an epiphany.

My purpose has been to help men who were in my situation, or any situation for that matter, to be better and overcome the slings and arrows of life’s folly. My purpose has been to be a guide to those men who would look out and see darkness, only to be greeted by a faint light of my help. They could choose to follow it or not, but the light is always there telling them of the impending rocks on the shore.

But it also represents the unknown.

What life there is still left to live is going to be unpredictable, and you as a man must plan accordingly. Being constantly prepared for all that life has to offer, both good, bad, and ugly, is a man’s first job. He has to be a beacon, a watch for anything that comes his way to do him harm or pleasure, and he must adjust to embrace this eventuality.

There will be things that happen that you can’t prepare for but must, there will be places you go that you’ll have no clue how to navigate, and there will be times you have to remember in order to move forward in the present and future. In any case, as a man, you must be prepared.

So, on that January day, I decided that my journey had indeed changed and I was navigating uncharted waters.

In every aspect of my life, I was an “Uncharted Father”.

Everything I had done I had done with very little knowledge, only the action to make things a reality in my life, the time to try to help as many men as I could, and the willingness to make as many mistakes as I could in that pursuit.

Men needed to see my struggles in this new life, and they had, but now, they needed to see my foray into new avenues, relationships, and opportunities. My actions and thoughts during this time as well as my past would be a beacon for men looking to make their lives better.

I’m not going to let these men down.

I’ve seen too many men take their own lives, get divorce raped, fall back into damning habits, and destroy their lives because they didn’t know where to turn, didn’t have a tribe that had their back, nor did they have a place they could look for support and accountability.

So I ran with it. And my symbol (I’m a big believer in symbolism) is the very lighthouse I’ve spent much of my life admiring. It’s a symbol of my goals as a man to continue to shine brightly to my kids, my girlfriend, my family, my friends, my business, and all the other things in life that need my light to survive and thrive. I want to be an inspiration to men everywhere of what they can do to navigate crises in their lives and how to come out on the other side better, stronger, and more determined.

My journey has changed. It’s a whole new ballgame. And it’s time for myself and other men like me to “Blaze Our Own Trail.”

I am The Uncharted Father.

Death Bed Conversions

/ T Wayne Hicks / 2 Comments
Photo Credit: stanleyjwhite.blogspot.com

“They always come back.”

That was the words of my father when talking about women. And business, and anything really.

As men are trying to re-make themselves and unplug from a world that absolutely abhors them, using them only for labor and enforcement, we see them blazing trails into new areas, thumbing their nose at all the haters, fighting everyday to claim their piece and peace of the world.

The phenomena of what I call “deathbed conversions”, that of women who love you only when you’ve changed for the better, is relatively new. It happened to me, and it continues to happen to men when they divorce or breakup with a woman.

Many women, as society has taught them, are sacrosanct. They are the true believers, the line of purity when it comes to virtue, goodness, and ideals. Toxic masculinity has no place in our femcentric society. And in relationships, women are taught that they are correct, the gold standard, and that the men are the ones who need to step up to the plate to right their wrongs.

When you are told by society that you aren’t wrong, that you are the goal, that you are the “Queen”, that you are empowered, and that you represent the feminine, that even your wrongs can be forgiven and celebrated, that anyone who criticizes you for whatever you’ve done is a misogynist, a hater, to be shunned and destroyed as you get yours.

So when marriages go south, many women’s first instinct is to put blame upon the man she married, as if her choice of that man has no consequence, as if her actions in the said marriage are infallible, as if she looks at herself constantly and says, “this problem is not me, it’s him, because I’m the woman.”

So she tells him to go to therapy, tells him to get the help to make the marriage that he’s destroyed right again, because, if she’s at fault, it flies in the face of everything that society tells us about women in relationships. They can’t be wrong, so it MUST be him!

But then he gets better. He starts to take back his life. And she does one of two things, she either criticizes him and makes him go to a DIFFERENT therapist that has her goals in mind, or she begins to fall in love with the man she really wanted, without doing any work on herself, because, why would she when she is right?

Shifting the Goalposts

Eight years into my marriage, my ex told me to go to therapy. I was having anger issues at work and I needed to get those sorted out. Through 2 years of therapy, I slowly found out that my problems weren’t my job, it was my marriage as well as the dominant women in my life, including my ex (wife at the time).

But the real benefit of the therapy was my red pilling and unplugging. I saw an instant increase in the quality of my life. My anger went down precipitously. My work was better. But my home life, the thing I was convinced was fine, was getting worse. And when my then-wife was told in 2015 that I wanted to leave the marriage, she recommended joint therapy in concert with the therapy I was doing. (Notice the absence of her needing therapy.)

I requested that she go to therapy by herself as well, even have her go to my therapist. She went once and was convinced she was “Fine”. And with each passing session, I was getting better and better.

But slowly, she started to become convinced that my therapist wasn’t helping me (even though he was). Her problem wasn’t that he wasn’t helping HER make me into someone she wanted.

Many women in divorce or separation situations request the men to have therapy, while they themselves tend to not seek therapy unless it’s joint. The man then goes to therapy and improves in his life. Then she sees him improving and isn’t happy he’s not improving the way SHE needs. She thinks she’s not the problem, so she should be part of finding the solution for him.

This is when women who go to joint counseling try to use the therapist to gang up on the man. And men are overmatched and many times bullied into agreeing to things they don’t want.

When I was in therapy with my ex, I let her choose the therapist (a mistake men should not make). You need to have input on who you are going to work on your marriage with. She distinctly wanted a therapist to bully me into accepting the fact that the entire failure of the marriage was MY fault. So, with all the will power I could muster, I went in completely expecting to be ganged up on in the therapy sessions. And for a couple, I was. The first therapy session, he asked us both, on a scale of 1-10, how dedicated to saving the marriage we were. She said 10. I said 0.

So her line of attack began with trying to turn the failure of marriage to me. As I stood my ground, dodging and parrying her attacks on everything from my sexual prowess to my career choice to my family dysfunction, the therapist started to see who the problem was.

So as we progressed through therapy, my ex continued (and still does to this day) to say and believe that her role in the marriage was sound. And as our therapist turned to her more and more to question her roles, she became defensive and even tried to suggest we get another therapist, one who could see her side much better. She was trying to rig a game that was already rigged but she wasn’t worth a shit at playing.

So she tried to move the goalposts. I had done everything she had requested and she still wasn’t satisfied with the outcomes. And after I saw her blatantly trying to rig the therapy, I cut off everything. You can’t negotiate with someone who isn’t prepared to work in good faith to hold up their end of the bargain.

And for every man like me that stood his ground, there are hundreds that don’t. They get bullied back into marriage by guilt and shame, condemning them to always thinking they aren’t to have a say, nor are their concerns about their wives not getting help even warranted.

And many women (especially BPD) fly off the deep end when their delusions suffer from continuing letdowns when they can’t find accessories for their control issues over their husbands. And then, we start to see anger and bile coming from their mouths, until they see the man their husband is becoming as he works on himself.

As they writhe on the bed of divorce, hatred, and disdain for her husband and all who won’t work to bring him back to his senses, she suddenly notices a man whom she sees as high value, a man who has been going to therapy, the gym, and is working on himself for his post divorce world.

And as the light shines over her, she suddenly starts to want him again.

And Then She Wanted Him….

My ex wanted to save the marriage. Not me. She didn’t think she did anything wrong. But when she saw the man I was becoming, she realized that she had made a mistake. But she still wasn’t willing to fix herself, nor was she going to let me ever forget that the divorce was my fault.

But as I became more of the man I wanted to be, after all the bile and venom she had thrown my way, she started to want the man I was becoming. The problem here, as many men have found out, is that she refuses to change herself. She doesn’t believe she’s the problem, so when he becomes a masculine man with purpose, leadership, and goals, he understands that she can’t just come waltzing back into his life.

And damn, will she ever try. When my ex started seeing the man I was becoming, she instantly turned over into “nice woman” and tried to sneak back into our relationship, saying we should reconcile. This after weeks of cursing me out, calling me names, insulting my sexual prowess, family, etc., she suddenly became attracted to me again, trying to meet with me, asking to spend more time with me, and even bringing dinner over to my house when I had the kids.

As a man, you’re going “WTF?” But this conversion, as I call it, happens with exes in marriage or just dating. They either break up or get broken, then as you improve your lot in life, becoming a better man, she swoops back in thinking you’re now deserving of her.

The fact that she can be so brazen as to try to enter your life isn’t the problem. It’s the fact that men actually LET HER BACK IN. And if you let her back in, the same shit ensues from before. Why? Because she still refuses to fix what was hers.

With her reinforced belief from societal norms that she can’t be the problem, men are left with little choice but to leave her and move on with his life. And she’s left to writhe in agony, cursing a man for making his life choices without her, and forever stuck in the morass of why she can’t be wrong, with this same toxic attitude affecting her in her future relationships.

This is the basis of feminism’s toxic hold on women. After they clamor for the man they now want and don’t get, they drop out and are completely convinced that they aren’t the problem in anything. And this is why you see many feminists and liberal women single into their middle age years.

The very potent and poisonous pill that women take is that they would rather be right and alone then admit fault and work on themselves. The absolute hatred of doing anything for the pleasure or compliment of a man overwhelms the chance to be happy.

So they sit and die on their beds…but it’s a slow, tortuous death.

Women and men should want to improve themselves. Working on yourself and humility to see that you need improvement are keystones of a healthy life. But many women are convinced by women that raised them, feminists that preach to them, and a society that speaks to them, that they ultimately aren’t the problem, it’s the patriarchy keeping you down. It’s the ingrained misogyny that men have cultivated to keep the slay kweens down.

This is why these “deathbed conversions” happen. Women who want to control a man until he decides to not be controlled anymore. And an uncontrolled man is what makes her panties soaked. She really is all over the place, simply because she has never been told that she needs to work on herself, nor was she humbled enough to take responsibility for her actions and beliefs.

Cake and eat it too, rinse and repeat.

So be aware of these games women play. And understand that you can choose to walk away, choosing to opt out of the attention Olympics and the emotional games that women inevitably play during divorce proceedings.

Keep your head about you and allow the deathbed conversion to expire and pass. She’s not going to be a part of your life anymore, so treat her portrayal as just that, an act meant to distract you from the life you want.

Yes, there can be reconciliation, but only if both parties agree and understand that a marriage takes TWO and they both should be humbled to make real life changes to save the marriage. The problem is pride gets in the way for many people, dooming any chance for a recovery.

And as men we can identify and avoid unhealthy women in the first place, not marrying them in the hopes they’ll change, and vice versa with women.

She can’t be saved if she refuses to save herself.

Make Believe

/ T Wayne Hicks / 1 Comment

It was past 6:30. He was late.

“Jesus I hope he’s okay”, I thought. “Fuck this is so bad he may try to off himself”, I mumbled. I couldn’t stop worrying. I’d already downed two tall beers waiting on him, and a third was on deck.

He showed up disheveled, but in one piece.

“Sorry, man, I just got off work. It’s been a rough couple of days”, he stammered.

“I’d imagine”, I talked back.

“So what the fuck is going on? She cheated on you?”

“Yea, with one of my friends. At least I think so. She’s already left the house with the kids when she knew I knew, so….”, he looked exhausted.

This once proud man, who now was a shell of his former self, had the “perfect life”. He had a wife, 3 children, and, according to his social media, a white picket fence life of pure happiness. He worked as a dispatch operations manager for a large trucking company, successful, his wife was a stay at home mom who had recently gotten a new job after she had studied to be an accountant.

For years, this couple was the toast of my trucking friends circle. Beautiful house, a loving family, the whole dream that we are told that we should all aspire to, and the friend get-togethers were the best. Always smiling, rarely stressed, the picture of happiness. Family pictures every year, vacations, their social media was abuzz with the facade of perfection, joy, and general envy of all those around them.

He didn’t know where to start. I could see he was reeling. As he started to tell me what happened, I began to see the cracks in his facade.

“Dude, dude, you have to be kidding. You’ve always been the perfect couple. The marriage everyone wanted. What happened?” I asked in disbelief.

As he sat across from me on that humid August night, sipping a beer, nearly in tears, he then realized that his marriage had been an elaborate game of pretending. And now, shit got real.

The house, the cars, the wife, the kids, the life, all of it, was an elaborate ruse to show people how life was “supposed” to be, but not how it was. He was putting on a show, an expensive, debt crushing, false act whose consequences were now inevitably showing themselves in his mind.

And the more he spoke about it, the more terrified he became. It was hitting, it was real now, all the shit was falling down around him, and all he could do was watch.

She had cheated. She had gone outside the marriage. This perfect picture he had built, on a rusty foundation of lies, bitterness, jealousy, and mistrust, was gone. When the cameras were snapping, it was the picturesque family life. But when they turned off, the dark side of the marriage came up.

He explained that the arguments were off the charts. He would go so far as to punish the kids for not lying about how happy they were when they talked to their friends. He was in debt hundreds of thousands of dollars. He had a boat, two cars, a camper, and a gigantic house.

All for the show, it seems. All for show.

Paint the Picture

As he stuttered through his sentences, trying to grasp the gravity of his situation, I thought about my own marriage. I was struggling with my own life. I was still married, but not two years earlier, my wife and I had gotten ourselves a gigantic, 4300 sq ft house with 4 car garage, pool, two wings, and plenty of space for guests. We dreamed of entertaining our guests, making them envious of our new space, all while painting the picture of two people very much in love with each other and their lives being a natural growth of that.

But, under the picture perfect house and world….

  • My wife and I weren’t having sex, nor were we engaged in a marriage, it was now a business partnership.
  • I was killing myself at work at the time to pay for this monstrosity.
  • My kids were having issues at school and were seeing the dead marriage manifest itself into other areas

But what we were doing as a couple was trying to cover up the fact that we were both miserable. And the only thing that this house and this life did was stress the cracks that were already there, and they were getting bigger.

All of this happening as my friend poured over his drink talking about his wife’s betrayal to him. But was this a betrayal to him? After all, the dude he was wasn’t the dude he was portraying himself to be. She was cheating on that other guy, not the man who sat before me.

For 2 decades, he had carefully crafted a narrative and told his family to live by it, damn the consequences.

So they did, convincing themselves everyday that this was their life, even if it was the furthest thing from the truth.

And all of their friends, including myself, were playing the game as well. We all wanted to be pictured as successful, happy, and driven because, well, envy and adulation gives you that dopamine kick and makes you think you’re doing well, even when you aren’t even close.

So I made decisions that would come to haunt me in my future, all because I wanted to be liked and admired.

When people would ask, I’d lie. I had to. They saw my posts, they saw my life, I know they wanted to be just like me, successful, happy, and confident. But I was none of those things. Friends who I’d known for longer started to understand my moods. They knew I was lying about my life. And it took me talking to my therapist about it to realize that my life was a fiction.

But here’s the really scary thing. It seemed as if every person was inventing a life to be seen on social media.

Husbands cheating on their wives and the family showing a perfect face every time the camera was on.

Financial ruin or layoff that was played off as the rubble burned.

“Keep your face in front of your friends. Don’t let them know you struggle.”

And more and more of my friends were trying like hell to bury the body of their failed lives by buying new things, all while smiling as the snake bit their calf and the venom circulated in their body.

“You can’t show people weakness, they’ll not respect you….”

I was told this on many occasions.

You Can’t Invent A Life

Showing you have the perfect life most often means it’s not perfect.

Being married doesn’t guarantee good advice.

Being successful in view very rarely means you are behind the scenes.

We invent these lives because it’s not about what we want, it’s about what we want to prove.

Be careful, young kings and queens, putting your faith in those who’s world looks perfect from the outside, but on the inside, it’s crumbling.

Your advice should come from the goods, the bads, and the uglies of the marriage world.

The iceberg tends to be bigger under the water.

As I found out from my friend that night, you can’t invent a life, and you sure as hell can’t put band-aids on it to fix it if it’s irretrievably broken.

But people will try to keep the mirage going, many times to a terrible detriment to their own mental and physical health, to show everyone else that they are the best, they are successful, they are better than you.

And it’s more relationships than you think. And the ones who outwardly give advice are the ones who so desperately need to take it. And their friends will defend them to the hilt until the billboard sign falls and charred remains of the fake life are there for all to see.

It all looks so good on paper, in photos, in the eyes of those you wish to impress, but if it’s all a sham, why even do it? People who see you for the person you pretend to be were never going to be your true friends anyway. They glom on to whoever is most successful in their eyes, amateur bullshit artists looking for someone who plays the game better than they do so they can emulate the pretend life.

Social media has given us the opportunity to pretend to be someone we’re not with much more ease and less push back. So many people gun the throttle into this new life and make mistake after mistake eventually leading to disastrous consequences, but like when a Miss America contestant falls and tries to get back up with a smile, it’s going to ring hollow for those that you are trying to impress.

It’s a pissing contest that way too many people are playing way too often. And it’s time for all of us to stop and accept the reality that we sometimes aren’t successful, sometimes we fail spectacularly, and sometimes, yes, we can’t be the best we can be because of limitations.

We worry far too often about the opinions of people we don’t like, but are desperate to impress.

Wanna impress? Try being real. I’ve had times in my life I’ve been called out for lying. Blatantly, and the only thing I felt was shame for trying to bullshit the bullshitters. I felt bad I got caught, not the fact that I actually fucking lied.

My life is boring as fuck, but that’s the way I like it. I travel to meet people on Twitter, I type a blog, I own a small family owned company, I am divorced with two great kids. I don’t scream excitement.

But…..

Let’s stop pretending. It’s a sham and you know it, so take down the walls and have folks see you for who you really are. You’ll make more life long friends that way, and you’ll also have less stress of trying to hold up the curtain in Oz.

And if you are pretending, hold tight on giving advice to others. You’re putting on a show for the audience but when you speak the bullshit that people are really listening to, you are forcing them to put on a show as well that they aren’t ready to perform.

It’s time to stop the make believe. That’s the real red pill.

Redemption

/ T Wayne Hicks / 1 Comment
“Light Redemption” – Richard George Davis

“Arms wide open
I stand alone
I’m no hero and I’m not made of stone
Right or wrong
I can hardly tell
I’m on the wrong side of heaven and the righteous side of hell”.

– Five Finger Death Punch “Wrong Side of Heaven”

I’m not a religious man, never was.

My family was officially Protestant, but my father, as my grandfather before him, was agnostic. My mother took his lead, and my exposure to church was periodic trips on special holidays, or the rare every year Sunday “guilt trip” my mother put our family in that we were going to all burn in hell if we didn’t go and start making a habit of it. But in general, my father helped the family avoid the church because of his uncomfortable relationship with the afterlife. My father was fearful of death, still is to this day at 74, and wasn’t about to have his life, nor his potential afterlife, explained to him in a fiery diatribe from the pulpit. So he did what we all do when we have uneasy thoughts about anything, he avoided it.

I couldn’t totally avoid it, as I was an impressionable young man who needed to be trained in the correct way to worship, led by family friends and eventually by my own friends, whose family would gladly drag the “devil kid” to any service they could on days I spent the night at my friends’ houses. A chance to show him the right way to worship, at the right church, with the right congregation, with the right sermon, from the right priest, reverend, or bishop.

My experiences in church were quite unremarkable. I would go with friends who were Catholic, spend my 90 minutes on Sundays not kneeling when the congregation knelt, feeling like the priest would call me out any time I didn’t know what to say during the hymnal, or yell at me if I dared to come up and take bread and wine. As I got older and went to these functions with friends, I always joked that as soon as I entered the church I’d catch fire because I was “THAT” bad, but I wasn’t even close. God’s light nor Hell’s lighter could touch a kid that didn’t know any better.

My family, at first, when I was younger, would go every Easter, myself and my three older siblings, being force marched by our parents to church to try and atone for the sins of the past year. When my younger sister was born, we started going again sporadically, but we eventually stopped again. It was like each child born was a new attempt to salvage the faith my family didn’t have, until it got to the point where we stopped going altogether.

My mother would occasionally bring up that we should go to church again, meet people in our community, become a family of faith, but my father would grumble and tell her to forget about it. He wasn’t going. He wasn’t having it. No place of worship was going to take the fear of dying away from him, so he continued to stay away, as did his family.

As my adolescence bloomed into adulthood, I was pretty much in the same boat as my father, save the fear of dying. I was uncomfortable in churches, I didn’t understand the sermons dooming me to eternal hellfire if I didn’t worship the way that was required, the music was nauseating, and my high school and college years were spent being socially backward while experimenting with recreational drugs, so the cross wasn’t even in the ballpark of my mind.

I do remember the college religious crowds were annoying. The women, sworn to virginity during the meetings, would hook up with frat guys on the weekends after getting wasted, do the walk of shame home (I saw three girls who were the most religious of the group walking from Fraternity row on three separate occasions, disheveled and hung over) just in time to get back to their halos and the Monday – Friday sanctimoniousness that permeated every aspect of their pretend lives.

Like the parents that sent them there to be good girls (one floor in one of the dorms was called the “Virgin Vault” for super overprotective parents (quick hint – it wasn’t a vault nor were they virgins)), the parents lived their lives differently when the Jonenes were watching and the complete opposite when the curtains and the garage door closed.

I remember hearing my religious floor mates chuckling about who was real and who was fake and I just wondered if church, like high school and college, was just another popularity contest.

As I got married, my now ex-wife, who was about as religious as I was, tried to get me to change my set in ways, but I wasn’t having it. We’d go to church services on Easter, or Christmas Eve, but every church was the same. When my ex and I were on our Dave Ramsey kick, we even went to the church for over 3 months taking Financial Peace University, taking the kids to Sunday school while we did it (the church’s trap for free child care, hell it worked) and learned to manage our finances. But I kept seeing the church trying to aggressively sell us on their services, their message, and their congregation and spirit in the community, and I just saw through all of it. To me, I saw a facade of helpful people hiding a glorified social club, made up of people trying to jockey for prime positions in the church and in the community in case they wanted to run for public office someday.

The local churches even had soccer leagues we enrolled our girls in, hoping to meet new people, gain some perspective, but everywhere I went, I saw the same bullshit people crowing the same bullshit lines that I had heard for years. “If you don’t worship, you’re going to hell. And by the way, our church is the best.”

The church and I have never gotten along….

Sinner, Not a Saint

Sins, I have them. A lot of them.

In my writings, I’ve spoken at length about all of them. My past is full of it.

Cheating (sleeping with married women knowingly and not so), hitting on wives and girlfriends of friends, stealing, anger (I’ve put many a hole in walls), lying, drugs, you name it, I’ve done it all, and the mile long rap sheet would make any priest in confession have to stop and ask for a breather and a glass of water.

That’s why I know there’s no forgiveness for me. I don’t deserve it.

Even if I decided to go to church and absolve my sins, they are too burned into my personal psyche to think that a few thousand hail Mary’s and a dip in holy water (which would boil if I stepped in it, I’m convinced) would absolve what I truly know can’t be absolved. A blessing from a holy man doesn’t help me overcome the fact that I did these things. It doesn’t cleanse my mind of the acts, nor does it help me to sort them out any further. People are under the impression that you can wave a magic wand and be cured of sin when in fact it just gives them an excuse to go out and sin again.

Confessing that I cheated on my soon to be ex-wife with another woman doesn’t take the sting out of my mind. Should ‘t I have worked on the marriage, even if we were separated? Shouldn’t I have tried? Why did I walk away? Why didn’t I do more? No amount of getting it out will make the pain of what I did go away. Emotional affairs with friends wives, sex with women who were married, cheating on a girlfriend, lying to women about seeing other women, hell, even lying to the cops to cover for a troublesome friend gets to me everyday.

There aren’t magic words to make it all go away. The point of it all is I still did it.

What matters is I have to live with myself and my past. I don’t get to forget, nor do I get to move on until I know, myself, that I have done all I can to redeem myself. And, honestly, that probably won’t be enough.

I don’t want pity. I’m telling you there’s a lot of men out there who’ve done worse that I have, that are haunted everyday by the parts of themselves that they can’t change.

But what I am realizing, slowly but surely, is that I can take my troublesome past and create something with it. I can create a future that I can be proud of. And I want to show that any man, with any past, can overcome and push through to redemption.

Reclamation

“I’m sorry for the demon I’ve become.”

  • Five Finger Death Punch – “Walk Away”

After a life of tough lessons, lost friends and family, and absolute disregard for any kind of nuance or respectfulness, I had to change this life. My red pill unplugging was the first part of this, but seemingly I was getting into the same issues even after that, except now, there wasn’t much of a conscience to this new scorched earth policy of alienating myself from friends, lovers, and family with my actions. I didn’t care as long as I got mine and while many call this the “black pill” I can tell you it was putting my life on self-destruct for the sole purpose of getting my dick wet or at least the potential of it. I was better with women with the explicit distinction that all attractive women were fair game to me. It landed me flirting with married women who’s husbands had had affairs on them. I tried to become the equalizer with some success, but I was trafficking in a dangerous trade.

It’s become one of the worst moments in my life, but also one of the biggest realizations and awakenings that I’ve experienced. This low point of this supposedly new me was breached.

This is not me finding the church, or God, or anything else. This was an experience of finally finding MYSELF and knowing what was important.

My first 31 Days to Masculinity was at about the same time last year and during this time, I started to use my past to build for my future. I made amends with those I’d hurt and broke off relations with those that weren’t salvageable. I knew that my life, at that point being dedicated to helping men, wasn’t looking so good for men who were wanting to improve their lives. A dude who’s sex life thrived on jilted lovers, broken marriages, outright lies and deceit, or unhappy house wives wasn’t what I was trying to sell. Men didn’t need to walk the fucking razor line to truly find a better life. 31 DTM made me face this fact head on. And, even as a man without a country, I was an island at this point, but it was time to start swimming back to shore.

So I started to make it right and started to apply the red pill the right way. No more of this bullshit. It was time for me to grow up, sack up and make my life better by focusing on it primarily, and practice what I was preaching. At that time, I was really covering game and attraction in my tweets and blog. I was applying it to women I shouldn’t have been applying it to, but did it anyway because “enjoy the decline” right?

Dammit, there had to be more to this fucking life…

There is. I’ve found it. Renewed vigor towards my own goals of fitness, finances, foresight, and yes, even a little bit of faith. Once again, the church and I don’t see eye to eye, and probably never will.

The game is never as fun when you have the cheat codes, so I reset and started it over, this time making sure I covered all my bases. I made it a point to go out and meet new people, men and women whom I admire on Twitter and elsewhere, and to go out and meet the men of FoE. It was time for the world to meet the man that sits in between the forgiveness of God and the eternal damnation that I know may be waiting for me.

So, I wake up tomorrow working on a new future for myself. Living the true red pill life. Taking the game that I’ve learned and adding confidence, honesty, authenticity, and a shit ton of attitude. It’s about me now, not anything else. I’ll still approach women, I’ll just be more mindful about their intentions, especially if there’s a ring on that finger. Never rub another man’s rhubarb, even if you think he deserves it. You’ll cash that check with your life if you aren’t careful.

Bros before hoes really does cover it.

The worst I can think of is that I continue to improve my life with the prospect of no forgiveness and no LTR, or a MGTOW wet dream, but I would appreciate a women in my life who supports me in all my endeavors and truly enhances my life.

But if I am running the rest of this life marathon alone, then I am absolutely prepared to do that.

The best I can hope for is being on the wrong side of heaven and the righteous side of hell, as Five Finger Death Punch put it so eloquently.

Forgiveness is lost, but give me redemption so that I may live as a symbol to those who walk in my footsteps.

Promises

/ T Wayne Hicks / Leave a comment
Photo Credit: wordsIseek.com

Back when my marriage was spiraling out of control towards the inevitable conclusion of divorce, I was having to justify my decision to end this union with all of my family, friends, and co-workers.

The unavoidable question would always start the conversations.

“Why did you do it?”

There were many reasons I tried to justify my actions, with these being the primary:

  • Sex was non-existent
  • We were two people running a business, not a marriage
  • No communication
  • Lack of understanding
  • Change averse
  • Staying married for the kids was toxic for said kids

But the biggest one, after 4 years of reflection of my decade long marriage, was one thing.

I didn’t keep my promise.

I had made a promise to my then girlfriend, future wife, and future ex on a cold day in Noblesville, IN at a Wal-Mart. And no, I didn’t propose to her there, or the marriage wouldn’t have lasted longer than Black Friday.

It was a serious conversation we were having about her father, who disappeared from her life for 5 years. She straight up told me about this rough time in her childhood, where she literally didn’t have a childhood because of a crazy ass mom and a dad who left her. She was essentially abandoned by her dad and in absolute disgust, her mom took her anger for her dad out on her, her sister, and her cousin. There they were, living together while their mothers did everything but raise them, and their father, at least for two of them, had essentially abandoned them.

She didn’t trust men, and why would she? Having that stuff happen made me realize that despite all of my parent’s issues, they stayed together, worked on stuff together, and truly loved each other. What compels a man to leave his family, even if he didn’t like his wife?

So there we were, on that day, talking about my commitment to her.

How I wouldn’t leave her….

How I wouldn’t run when the going got tough….

How I would be different than her father…

All because I wanted to make her happy.

I was keeping a promise because I thought that was what she wanted me to do. We had been dating for almost a year when this happened, and I wanted her to think I was different. I wasn’t. I failed.

A Choice

So, flash forward to the end of our marriage, my justifications for leaving, and my reaching for anything that would make this choice feel better.

There wasn’t a way to feel better, it just sucked. I had to go through two years of therapy to try and avoid the major issues confronting me and my marriage, and trying to find a way to keep my promise. I kept coming up short. I had written a check that was going to bounce. And it was past me’s fault.

I knew I’d be breaking my promise. It was all my fault for doing so.

I had told her that I wasn’t going anywhere, no matter what. I had made vows to the same commitment. I had reneged on my promise.

I hadn’t just broken it, I had shattered it, ran a lawn mower over it, and taken a sledge to the rest.

I’d made a promise to not leave her, no matter what, because I’d be proving her right, because men leave.

At every therapy session, at every discussion with my then wife, at every family function when asked “How are you guys doing?”, I had to think about my answer very carefully and lie to cover up the promise I made.

So here I was, breaking promises to family and friends to keep the promise I made to my wife. I had to miss events, I had to tell my friends I couldn’t hang out. I had to tell my co-workers they couldn’t count on me because my wife needed me to be there. And be there ALL THE TIME.

What promises are worth keeping? What promises are worth breaking?

NONE.

But what do you do when a promise you made is affecting your life so adversely that keeping it is destroying your soul?

What do you do when a promise you keep is keeping you from making other promises or worse, breaking promises to other people you love?

What the hell did I do? I was torn between a choice of the promise I made to my wife and promises I was breaking to everyone else, especially myself….

That was the reason I had to have two years of therapy to convince myself of the correct answer. No one was going to understand it except me, and even then, I would get backlash from all of the family and friends I was trying to protect by making this decision.

In other words, it was a shit sandwich with no choice but to take a bite.

When you make too many promises to too many people, you’re eventually going to be forced to break all of them….no matter the situation.

So I had some soul searching to do as I pondered my decision. I knew I needed to take my life back, because I had made a promise to myself to change, put myself back in charge of my life, stop doing things to make people happy and start doing things that made a difference in my own life.

And I knew, when I made this choice to leave my wife, EVERYONE was going to hate me for it. When you choose your own self interest after years of choosing everyone else’s, you’re bound to be on part of the journey alone because of all the hurt feelings. Once again, a shit sandwich….

So, I made my decision. And 4 months later, I was alone in a gigantic house, no furniture, going to my mother’s place for dinners, 40 year old grown man trying to get his life together. But I knew that my decision would have short term consequences, the long term of being able to look at myself in the mirror again was severely outweighing the short term stuff.

But I still couldn’t escape the fact that I broke my promise. I screwed up royally, and this break would affect me for the next 4 years, in all facets of my life.

Getting Passed It

My life was a mess, but it was at my own choosing. I’d much rather rebuild from the rubble into something I wanted versus trying to balance all the promises I made that I couldn’t keep. It was me trying to make myself happy versus trying to make the world happy.

I still had lit the fuse….and the shit had blown.

So, I continued therapy to make sense of the rubble and piece it back together into some semblance of order in my life.

I remember a night in particular, drunk off my ass, three days before my closing with a shit ton to do to the house, deeply in debt, depressed, suicidal, and having empty sex. I was stressed beyond belief, contemplating bankruptcy. It was then I was at rock bottom, and I saw me for who I really was. This was my decision, but this was what I needed in order to be who I wanted to be.

You always second guess decisions that are going to adversely affect your life as if they are even needed. You look back and wonder what you could’ve done differently, but as I stared at my drunken reflection in the mirror, I realized that the promise I broke freed me from a life that wasn’t real, that wasn’t me. And I needed to break the promise in order to get on with my life.

But I knew it was going to suck, and it sure did. But slowly, the rubble of the broken promise started taking shape into a life that I could actually have to make the promises I really wanted to make. The promises that I knew I could keep.

You can’t pick the promises you want to keep. You have to have the confidence to make a promise you’ll be sure to keep. Breaking promises is a serious issue and I, of all people, know the consequences of it.

You have to be able to understand that you make mistakes, that we all make promises sometimes that we shouldn’t, and we all do horrible things to ourselves in order to keep them, JUST TO MAKE ANOTHER PERSON HAPPY IN THE SHORTEST OF SHORT TERMS.

Promises are what you do for people, not how you feel for people. If you truly love someone, you won’t have to make a promise because your presence, your true self is enough for that person to know you are there for them. A promise is a task, not a goal.

But you still have to keep them. You still have to have your integrity. A promise is an extension of yourself to someone else. And if you can’t keep your word, you really don’t have much left to keep.

Which is why, 4 years later, after countless hours of guilt, shame, and perceived failure, I can finally make promises again, but I’m careful what I promise and who I promise to. You have to take what you can do very seriously because when people count on you, you have to come through for them for yourself, not for what they can give you. A promise is trust in yourself, what you can accomplish, and who can trust you.

Because if you can’t trust yourself, who the hell can you trust.

Realizations

/ T Wayne Hicks / Leave a comment

As I’ve documented on many occasions in my blog, countless Twitter feeds, and in my videos, I used to be absolutely terrible with women.

I lost my virginity at 27, I had three girlfriends in high school and college who I never kissed, and the only sexual experience I had before 27 was a bad blowjob in college.

I was so petrified of women (and people in general), I locked myself in my dorm room freshman year of college, only smoking pot with my closest friends and not even going to eat in the cafeteria.

I would clam up, become stiff, make dumb statements (oh look a pooper scooper!!), or just said some general statement that wouldn’t do anything except cause her to look at me in disbelief (or disgust at times).

As I’ve documented, I was the quintessential beta with many of the hangups men today still have. Socially I was retarded. I was awkward with all types of people, and I would not talk to women if I could avoid it.

I developed oneitis for several girls as I grew up and I tried to get them to like me by being the “nice guy”. I failed. Miserably.

Lack of approach, no confidence, social anxiety, as well as fears of about every aspect of personal communication kept me single and a virgin for a time when I should have been laying everything with a pulse.

But, alone I sat, for years, until 2003, when finally, mercifully, I started to get out more, get some hobbies, work out, and then I met my future wife on eHarmony. That was the wall I crashed into.

She loved that I was a virgin. She wanted to “teach” me how to please her. I was a weak, ball-less fuck. I did what I was supposed to do. Name, rank, serial number for 10 years. And it resulted in sex three times in three years at the end of the marriage.

After divorce, I got better with women, only because during my depression, brokeness, and utter discontent with my life, women seemed to come out of the woodwork, as they always do. So by natural progression, I got better with women because they were around more. But I still had a ways to go and had to learn more.

Over the next two years, I got into several relationships where I let the woman lead, all of them ending in a breakup. Liberal women who were desperate to control their relationships are who I fell in with. As you can guess, it didn’t go well. Sex was robotic, I didn’t take control, I kept asking permission, asking “does this feel good?”

It was an unmitigated disaster 4 times over.

Then, I found the red pill. I decided to go to the “monk” mode or MGTOW (men going their own way) phase. I studied, read, and worked on myself at the gym. I lost 70 lbs. I fought to discover who the hell I was.

This intensive period that I needed, in turn, gave me success in my life in other ways.

It really isn’t a secret, either. There’s no magic bullet, no expensive course or book, so I’ll share it with you today, free of charge.

The Breakthrough

So, how the hell did I get over my fears of dealing with women?

Here it is, the definitive guide to everything female from a man who has lived it.

These are the things I’ve learned after what I was told was complete and utter bullshit.

These are the myths that were concocted to throw men off of what women really want, how they really think, and why it’s important.

I know the secrets now. Hint: They aren’t really secrets, they’re well known, common knowledge that don’t need financing to know.

Sure, you’ll get the women who are NAWALTS (Not all women are like that) professing their mistrust in the information I present here today, but the bottom line is this:

A vast majority of women (meaning all) have the same reproductive organs, mindset, and emotional software installed by whoever you want, God, evolution, the boogeyman, or Santa Claus, it’s all still the same because in the end, NOTHING trumps biology.

Yes, it’s the same for men. We scream that it’s not about sex, but guess what, it IS about sex. It’s always about sex. ALWAYS.

Here’s some quick and dirty tips from yours truly. Many will say they aren’t true, especially women, but I know one thing with my experience. I know women. And what you’ve been told is not correct.

Here’s the list of all the cliche manosphere stuff that I learned. Why post it? Because every last part of it is true.

Here you go:

  • Get thee to the gym

The first thing I recommend guys do is get into shape. It cures so many ills in regards to life in general, and women specifically, that it is the first thing I recommend. Get to work, get your diet right, and start looking the part. It’s the crucial first step in a man retaking control of his life.

  • Boundaries

You have to establish a line that no one can cross when it comes to your personal convictions and beliefs. If you are conservative, don’t date liberals, if you are religious, don’t date an atheist. If you don’t like sushi, don’t take your date to a sushi restaurant. Hold fast on the stuff that’s important to you, and don’t compromise for any reason.

  • You have to have confidence

Building confidence in yourself is the KEY to all of this. You have to be successful in your life in some way to gain confidence. So, I’d recommend getting to the gym, getting involved in some sport, activity, or hobby and get good at it. When you develop your skills and gain confidence when you are successful, you have a blueprint from which to build more.

  • You have to do MGTOW or monk mode for a while

And with that, you have to take the time to develop these skills. You need to make time for yourself. You need to put you first, pull no punches with your time, and get better everyday. 6 months is a good period, but depending on how much you have to do, you will need all the time in the world.

And yes, you still have to show up and do the work.

  • You’ll never be done

The work will be a lifelong commitment. You have to put real work into yourself every day. You have to be mindful to making yourself better. You aren’t just done and then you talk to women. You progress doing both. And you learn from it.

  • Rejection is required

Everyone hates rejection, but men especially do because, especially with a woman, it’s a personal dismissal for something you are presenting. Of course it’s going to burn, because it IS personal. My first rejection was a woman saying she wouldn’t date a fat guy. That hurt, but I took that rejection and put it towards bettering myself. You are going to get rejected. Tear the bandage off and get it over with, then do it again.

  • She doesn’t care

Regardless of what your hangups, complaints, life issues, or insecurities are, she doesn’t care. She has no motivation to bring you into her life if you are a rebuild or a project. She’s looking for a man who’s sure of himself, put together well, and won’t apologize for living his life his way.

  • Your self interest is most important

You have to put yourself first. You can’t pour from an empty cup, and if you have yourself put together, you only add value to those around you. A solid foundation is what you are, and the bigger and more sturdy the foundation, the better and bigger the building.

  • You HAVE TO APPROACH her

You can’t get around rejection and you certainly can’t get around having to pursue and approach a woman. If you find her attractive, you must tell her that and make your intentions known. And you must be prepared for any answer she gives. “Yes?” Play ball. “No?” Walk and go to another girl.

  • Boldness goes a long way.

Yes, it’s the #MeToo era, but being bold, especially with women who are in a social setting is a lost art. You must state your intentions clearly and boldly, damn the consequences. You don’t get anywhere without taking a risk, and the higher the risk, the greater the reward. But you have to put your ass on the line for her, she’ll respect you a ton more if you are honest and open in your interactions with her. YOU SET THE TONE.

  • Understand women

Women will say I don’t understand them, but I do, better than they understand themselves. Remember, women are chaos. Women are emotional creatures who don’t respond to logic as much as they respond to feelings, settings, and imagination. You have to use her imagination in conjunction with your skill. Understand what gets her going. What gets her going is a man who knows what he wants and isn’t afraid to be bold to take it. She LOVES a man who takes control.

Remember, men lead with action. Women follow with support, love, and spirit.

  • Body language is key

Not only do you have to make sure your body language is on point (chest out, speak clearly and forcefully, smile, eye contact), but you must also watch hers. She will show you if she’s into you by coming close to you, smiling back, mirroring your actions, and really reactive to your moves. More experience with women will yield this understanding on when she likes something and when she doesn’t.

  • Avoid Online Dating

Many men will instantly go for the online route because it’s easy and doesn’t require a lot of heavy lifting. But, remember this fact, online dating, for the majority of people, is a raging dumpster fire. Damaged, hurt people on there looking to get their kicks without even working on themselves. It’s the trash bin of dating and shouldn’t be used.

  • You are the prize

We’ve seen hundreds of guys in the sphere talk about it, but it really is true. When it all boils down to it, you can’t move forward in your life until you realize that your presence sets the tone. You are the focal point of your life with special emphasis on choosing the correct person to share it with. You have an obligation to choose what you feel is best for your life. Selfish? Sure. Required? Absolutely.

  • You have to have some semblance of style

You have to put forth effort in your wardrobe. Like every other part of your life, you have to dress for success and wearing old, crappy clothes as a part of your wardrobe doesn’t help you get anywhere but where you are.

  • Looks matter

They do. You have to look your best. You have to brush your damn teeth, shower, manscape, and take care of yourself. Women will appreciate it and you’ll appreciate yourself more. The most important aspect of confidence is putting up the goods when it comes time to.

  • Social skills (game) trump all other things

You have to learn solid, lifelong social skills with men to make friends and with women to have sex/relationships. This not only ups your networking, and career success, but you become more comfortable with people and can do more things in your life. Your height, money, or disposition don’t mean anything if you can’t get out there and operate among others.

  • Thirst is not your friend

Men allow their sexual appetites to get the best of them. The little man drives the big man and it can result in disastrous, life altering issues that will affect the man for the rest of his life. When a man learns to not only control his urges, dropping porn, upping his game, using condoms regularly, he protects himself from these possibilities. He also has an amazing amount of self respect to protect himself from these issues. The world’s not going to change, so the man must operate as if he’s in complete control of everything he can control, including his thirst.

Look, men want to have sex with women. It’s in our blood. But you can protect yourself and choose where you stick your dingus. Be smart about who you sleep with, we don’t need anymore single moms.

The Secret of Women

So what are the secrets of women?

What have I learned that I didn’t know before?

Well:

  • Learn to operate on a sexual level

Men and women are sexual beings, bottom line. If you don’t ask for the business and show your intentions to her, it doesn’t matter. I always thought it was wrong to tell a woman you wanted to have sex with her.

When you ACT like a man in front of a woman, she absolutely wants that. She wants you to take her, she wants you to be forward and confident.

Women don’t like begging, sniveling, men who have to ask permission for everything. They want you to lead.

  • Women are emotional

Emotions are a woman’s realm. When you appeal to her with a vivid imagination and unreal confidence, she absolutely loves it. She needs to feel, whereas men need to use logic and solve problems. When you treat her like a man (i.e. try to solve her problems), she’ll resent you. She doesn’t want you to solve her problems, she wants you to reflect her and feel her emotions with her. Being present, more than anything else, helps her to work through any emotions that she has. And when she sees you’re a rock to her, she can trust that you will listen to her while working to understand her.

  • Women are pragmatic, men are romantic

Women, when it comes down to it, are pragmatic. If they see that things aren’t going to end well, they will jump ship to make their way to another option. If you die, they’ll move on. If you sink, they’ll swim elsewhere. They see the writing on the wall in their commitment, they will make sure to find the door. ‘Til death do us part only applies if the man is showing promise, and yes, even if he’s at rock bottom, she can tell if he’s a high quality dude.

  • Women want security and to know they’ll be protected

Men do just these things. If you fall asleep at the wheel, do be surprised if she finds another man’s car or jumps out of yours. You HAVE to provide the rock she ties herself to. You run the show, she knows that you do. If you falter in any aspect of your masculine duties, she’ll know, and her respect for you will dwindle. She’s hooked her anchor to you so you’d better be ready to perform for her and make sure she and your tribe stay safe.

  • She wants your pleasure

Men think they have to pull out all the stops to pleasure her in bed. You don’t. She gets off on your pleasure. She wants to see you orgasm and wants to please you. That’s the biggest thing standing between guys and their happiness in sex. You need to get yours and she’ll get hers too. You can’t neglect yourself in the quest to make her happy because she start to resent you.

  • Be proactive instead of reactive

Women want a man with a plan, regardless of what happens. When the shit hits, she wants to know that the issues are handled. If they aren’t and she has to be involved, it takes away from your lead. You can’t be desperate, consistently show emotions that are detrimental to her respect for you, and argue with her. She doesn’t want to argue with you to win the fight, she wants to argue with you to show her you care.

I’ve learned a ton about these subjects, but I still have more to digest. But today, nearly 21 years after my entrance into the world of dating and women, I finally have some direction and some competency with women.

The one thing that has permeated all of this new found confidence is the fact that not only do I take responsibility for my life, but I push my life in new directions because of how I interact with women. My give a damn is broken when it comes to women and if they are truly going to be in my life, they have to make the effort. Before, I thought I had to do everything to make sure that they’d like me. Being a people pleaser brings you dry panties every day.

I hope to continue to help men realize what I have in my life. They need to take control and drive their lives. It’s helpful to have these quick tips to get a man in the direction he needs to head.

One thing I’ve always said is that if I hadn’t taken action in my life, I’d imagine I’d still be in a loveless marriage, celebrating 15 years of little sex, motionless and lifeless stability, and lack of a direction. I didn’t want a life like that, I wanted a life on my terms, and many men are starting to awaken to the fact that they want that same thing too.

But in search of that, you have to be willing to be uncompromising on certain principles in your life. You have to be willing to walk.

But you must also be willing to stand a post. You are never done. You sleep when you’re dead, and many men don’t want to accept that harsh truth.

It’s time to understand these realizations and spread the word to other men lost in the world. They need to know these things, and my job is to make sure they do until my last breath.

I owe it to them and myself.