Marriage is worth more than the paper

Alright now!

Married by mistake or divorced due to lack of effort?

Let’s draw simple comparisons. A One dollar bill is no different from the paper of the $100 bill. We just value the $100 bill more, because we can trade it for more things that we want. If we  lose or spend one dollar we don’t really feel no great loss or major regret (unless it was your last $1.) However, if we gamble and lose $100 bill, we instantly have major regrets and sense of loss. The same thing happens with a marriage or a relationship. A valuable marriage that winds up in a divorce, hits both parties hard. No one walks away without scares and hurt of the losses which can really linger for a long time. Time invested, an effort put forth, assets purchased together that you no longer share after you split up, and even love and passion. You take 48% and your now ex get’s maybe 48% of your assets. When you look in the rearview mirror as you start your new journey on a single lane road. The rear view is a reminder of what you once invested in the marriage. Your friends and even family members might encourage you to leave your partner but they have not paid the price you have…. and they will not feel the losses that you will feel. So listen to them if you want, but ask the simple question How much do they have invested?

The hurt and pain of remembering what “was $100” will push your buttons for a long period even bringing tears to your eyes, every time your memory of what was is triggered by something. Just watch how some women talk about betrayals and monogamy …. Men may not have the same issues as women but men also “lose their minds” if they find out that they have been betrayed by the woman they love.

An Alphalicious person can’t handle being betrayed.

Men can’t handle another man touching his woman.

• No man fully accepts a woman after she has cheated on him (that $100 bill marriage is now of way less value)

• When a man’s past comes up, about his “cheating ways” he generally heads for his cave. We men become overly sensitive at those times and need a lot of acceptance, but turning to his wife who has been “cheated on” will not work too well for him because he rejected her when he cheated she is at the bottom of her “well” because of his infidelity already, and is not feeling him at that point. Acceptance denied!

• When a woman’s past comes up that’s when her self-esteem crashes. She descends into the bottom of “her well,” her feelings need tender loving care to bring out of it. If she does not get it from the man she is with her self-esteem stays low.  Then, maybe, the office husband might give her the attention she needs, temporally. Women seldom get caught having an affair. Because it takes a whole lot for her to cross that line. Men are more spontaneous maybe because men know the headcount out in a players world favors the guys, So a “side-chick” is almost always available, to satisfy his temporary needs. But a wife who is not getting the attention she needs will ponder for a long while before she steps into that….meet the office husband at “the motel 6” for or a drink that might end up between the sheets.   If they get caught then the mess will hit the fan so she will delay going there for a long period of time.
• 
  

• No woman fully forgives a man  after he has “cheated” on her (that $100 bill is now of way less in value)

As the roles of men and women have now changed a little bit:

- Where women still feel like they deserve the treatment their mothers received, back in the day, when men brought home all the bacon. Women have also embraced their independence of self-empowerment, which they have fought for (the $50 bill is what she has earned by herself)  but it’s only all hers if she is single.

- And men still feel that women are their possessions like their father’s felt. (the $50 bill is what he has earned and spent it on his family) he can only claim that he is the breadwinner if his woman does not work outside of the home( but she is also contributing)

Final thoughts

Here in lies the conflict the $100 bill cannot be split into equal shares you need (2) $50 bills to spit it… so you can’t just rip the $100 bill in equal halves and have it keep its value. Once you rip it (the divorce puts both partners at a disadvantage) what was “whole” will never be the same for either partner. She will have regrets, he will have regrets. Both invested in the relationship but now neither have much from that relationship left to enjoy. A $100 bill cannot be split, it can only be traded and you will both lose in the exchange.

So ask yourselves in the exchange scenario how much of a % do you want to give away to the lawyers to handle your splitting up?

If you wait until “death does you part” then the remaining spouse can claim the $100 bill but still has lost the spouse.

I can hear single folks thinking. What the hell?

“I think I love you”

Wait! What? Tell me what do you mean by that…. You think you love someone you barely know? REALLY? How do you get to that very overwhelming emotion, just like that? Without some form of physical contact, do you just see someone and start feeling “ I know, I don’t know this person but the attraction is too hard to ignore. S/he is so my type…

When and how does this fairytale magic happen in real life, in this cynical World that we live in… “Are you being delusional” or is the magic of first eye contact (love at first sight) so overwhelming that it becomes forever consuming? My guess is that this is what many folks have stopped feeling because it’s no longer what happens when two people just feel and go with their gut feelings and stop overthinking the “What if(s)”

Well, many writers especially female writers, put thoughts and emotions in print that often have that fairytale magical connections between two people, no matter the twists and plots they eventually wind up getting married and living forever ever after. No wonder that women, who read these books,  get all googly-eyed sometimes when they think they have just spotted that guy they so feel will fit perfectly on their arm.

Alright I know we just met, but I think I'm falling in with love you!

 

I had a long debate with a longtime friend of mine, who claimed she loved me from the start! just the other day when we argued about feelings of the heart VS feeling in the mind. We never agreed and almost always disagreed with each other just to keep debating on an issue, going. So i.e. we could not make it as lovers.... even though we tried for a little while. She would always want to agree to disagree, giving her the last word. Simply because, as she put it very clearly, men are too logical, and often think with the other head and do not allow their heart’s desires to show. Whereas women feel their emotions with their hearts. I knew she had a point but…. I felt that my Phys 101-102 classes had made me think differently.   When I was attending the university (100 years ago) I knew I had to figure out things that could be complicated as a Systems Analyst I had to change my way of thinking and so I developed the habit of using the “What if(s)” logic as a way of getting, excuse the pun, “ to the heart” of what was often the reasons people could not agree on things…. It had nothing to do with their hearts, it was their brains that were in this constant “spin cycle” and that kept them rotating around an emotion that made them think it must be because of their hearts that they remained stuck. If it was just their brain they could hit “reset.” And go to the rinse cycle and flush away those emotions. And then move on.

But we can't just move on because we become invested… and the larger the investment in time spent the harder it becomes to just “drop it like it’s too hot” …. Maybe that's the problem... it’s too hot to just drop it. It became hot because we were holding on with a too-tight-a-grip.

Women and men alike have used a vice grip that forces them to hold on to their beliefs and refuse to let go of these vise holds. They go from being interested, in someone, to obsessions,  to addictions and then too overwhelming needs to never let go. i.e. “I think I love you!” is more than just thinking.

Do you really know what love is?

Like the song says: I want to know what love is, I want you to show me!

OK, let me Fess-up I thought I did until I did some research.  
Then the knowledge of sudden shifts in emotions confuses me.
I heard they are common. But if we don’t understand why they happen we may think we are
going crazy, or we may mistakenly conclude that our love for someone has died.
Fortunately, there is an explanation.

Love brings up our unresolved feelings. One day we are feeling like we are on top of the world,
and the next day we are suddenly afraid to trust love.
The painful memories of being rejected, for example,
begins to surface when we are faced with trusting and accepting our partner’s professing
“undying love” for us.

Whenever we are loving ourselves more or being loved by others,
repressed feelings tend to come up and temporarily overshadow our loving awareness.
They come up to be healed and released.
We may suddenly become irritable, defensive, critical, resentful, demanding, even nub, or angry.

Feelings that we could not express in our past suddenly flood our consciousness
when we are safe to feel.
Love thaws out our repressed feelings, like frozen fish that we forgot about in the freezer,
and gradually these unresolved feelings begin to surface into our current relationship. “It’s not you,
it’s me!”  

It is as though your unresolved feelings waited until you are feeling the love you have for someone.
And you start questioning if they really love you.
And are they feeling the same type of unresolved feeling also?
These feeling suddenly come up to be healed. We are all walking around with a bundle of unresolved feelings, the wounds from our past, that lie dormant within us until the time comes when we feel loved.
Then, when we feel safe to be our selves, our hurt feelings come up.  
If we can successfully deal with those emotions, then we feel much better and enliven more of our creative, loving potential. Unless however, we get into a fight and
blame our lover instead of healing our past, we just get upset and then suppress the emotions again.
A cycle that may never really end unless we get some help understanding how suppressed emotions
do not just go away, they come back and raise their ugly heads and say: “Hey, Boo, Remember Me?”

This is me!

  

Our initial image introduction speak volumes.

We, men, are visual creatures we see.... we evaluate..... and we decide. Should we “ chase or not to chase her” that is the question. Very often the decision is made in an instant. The image (woman)  is looking very appetizing. Let’s take a moment to think for a second: “is she looking at me because she is thinkings I’m handsome” or is she thinking something else….. no doubt women have many thoughts instantly. But men don’t review their feelings like women do, we men have just a few thoughts when we see a woman who appeals to our senses.

Why should we start thinking too much?  Seldom do we go through these thoughts:

• she looks smart and probably has a good heart…

• maybe she is already taken!

• Maybe that fact that she is looking my way is a good sign, invitation to engage in dialogue.

• What if I approach her, will her response be friendly?

.  

In a man's thoughts: "Why is she looking at me as if
she is also lusting after me ....like I’m lusting after her?"

OK, that way of going through too much thinking, (overthinking) is not what happens, in a man’s brain.

Let’s look at how we learn to communicate. Successful communication would be second nature if we grew up in families that were already capable of honest communication. But in previous generations, so-called affectionate communication generally meant avoiding negative emotions. It was often as if communication that revealed too much of our feelings would be shameful, something to be locked away and hidden in a closet. In less communicative families men/boys develope not very strong communication skills. Unless their sisters or mother talked to them and required a response, that was positive, that also needed honesty in their responses. Considered that many have received communication that might include acting out of rationalizing negative emotions through physical punishment, yelling, spankings, whippings, and all kinds of verbal abuse- all in the name of trying to help the boy learn right from wrong. Had our parents learned to communicate lovingly, we as boys would have been safe to discover and explore our own negative reactions and feelings through trial and error. Through positive role models, we would have learned successfully how to communicate--- especially our difficult feelings, we would have gradually learned to express our feelings respectfully and appropriately. If this had been the case, then we would not need to think about how to speak to a woman in a loving tone, instead of being predatorial coming after her with lust in our eyes.

Maybe this outfit will get me noticed and
the women will see instantly that I mean business!

If only our past were different.

Had our past been different, we would have watched our father successfully and lovingly listen to our mother to expand and express love and even her frustrations and disappointments. Daily we would have experienced our father giving our mother the loving caring and understanding that she needed from her loving, understanding husband

.  

We would have watched our mother trusting our father and sharing her feelings openly, without disapproving or blaming him. We would have experienced how a person could be upset without pushing someone away with mistrust, emotional manipulation, avoidance, disapproval, condescension, or coldness.

Throughout our teen years of growing up, we would gradually be able to master our own emotions just as we have mastered walking or even math. It would be a learned skill, like walking, jumping, singing, reading and balancing a checkbook.

But it didn’t happen that way for many of us. Instead, we spent eighteen years learning unsuccessful communication skills. Because we lack the education in how to communicate positive/negative feelings, it is a difficult and seemingly insurmountable task to communicate with affection when we are having negative thoughts.

So why do I have to climb these stairs just to find out,
she has already locked the door?  

Final thoughts:

show your  appreciation and he will do things 
you don't normally see much these days

Men do not have instant thoughts of opening up and sharing their feelings honestly if we are afraid of being rejected.

How do we talk to a lady with loving language if our feeling tells us“ she may hate me:? She has already decided she does not like me… (how I look, how I came over to her without an invitation etc)

The unspoken message we receive is what we react to and try to counter.  Communication or come across as a smooth-talking dude sounding totally fake to women who have heard all those fake lines before. Men have to jump over speed bumps and hurdles and even learn to climb over Trump's fake wall, to get to the point where his interest in a woman is not being misinterpreted. Or his sincerity is doubted instantly!
Where his intentions are honestly spelled out, expressing interest in her…. And even then he might still have to walk on eggshells to avoid any slip-ups.

You don't know how to be a wife!

Wow, that has to be a really powerful statement to make and hear. I think most women will scarf at hearing that statement. But many guys these days are thinking it.... even if they are not saying it directly to the women they may be married to or having an affair with.

So how did we get here? Has the role of women changed that much? Had the freedom train just been derailed as men are now thinking, and internally complaining about what, society has become so caught up in materialism and superficial things that really don’t mean anything, in the long run. After watching this video a couple of times.

I started analyzing what I heard and what I think the problems have become with women. Words like “blueprint” and “definition” popped to the front of the line.

When did men who have put women in so many defined categories, suddenly decide that women they helped define do not have "a clue" as to what they want in woman/wife?

Words like “bored” and statements “ you don’t know how to holding me down, as a wife”

I.e. “You are clueless as to what I want from you!”

Could it be that life is no longer simple? Women in our mother’s times had defined roles, to look good and become a wife/mother keep a clean home and raise their children. Where are women supposed to get the “blueprint”  if they didn’t have mothers showing them exactly what men are looking for in a wife? Or better yet Daddies who can show them and tell them how a man wants a woman to act.

OK so now it’s woman ’s mother’s fault…. Well maybe it is or is it  that men these days have no idea what is it “Men want, in a wife”

We all see it on the big screen, women twerking and acting and looking provocatively/sexy. But like everything else this get’s old. When men start thinking that stuff is “BORING”. Men want more! They want women they can have a stimulating conversation with, they want a “superwoman”, men want women to be women. OK so the book “ Becoming Michelle Obama” comes to mind, it’s a record breaking best seller. No surprise in view.

That tells me something  “Our first lady” has set Bar so very high that men who normally would not think of her type of woman as being their type of ideal women Are now thinking why can’t the woman I’m with be like her.  First of all, Michelle had a role model mom. Who set the BAR pretty high for her. She became an overachiever as a result of her examples she followed, and excel on principles. She was not TWERKING on Youtube, telling  Barrack “my face is pretty cute, my stomach is flat, my butt is big.” She was studying to pass the bar. Which made her a professional legal mind in an era when many women were not yet that ambitious. She also became a wife and mother… A wife to the next president of USA. the first black President… let that sink in for a minute.  in an era when “Superwoman“ was being defined to look like “Michelle Obama”. Her mother deserves a whole lot of credit, for molding her. Which in term became the “Blueprint” as what a “First Lady” should act like, should be able to present herself to the World and should sound like.

Now fellahs ask yourselves when was it that your version of a “First Lady” got defined in your minds????? We all had an awakening when the “The Obama power couple” became the perfect definition of “Grace and common respect and all the terms we associate with Superwoman/wife/mother professional Lawyer and the list goes on and on.  Walking tall and looking Oooh so dignified”  Barrack knows (his wife, his choice) she makes him look even more Presidential, his face and his swagger speak volumes.       

To “the Tyrese type brothers of the World” you never saw this at the beginning of your relationships until Mrs. Obama showed you what you were missing out on. Then suddenly you woke up and thought the women I had, up to that point were/are not good enough. Maybe Your choices in life are not good enough and your behavior did not attract the woman you now seem to want. I have to say it this way I don’t think “You are  the type of man that a Michelle Obama would have picked either!”

Go back to singing  “Be my lady” and pay attention to your own lyrics.

You are never upset for the reason you think.

She is really testing my patience!
but I can get over my negative feelings quickly if I try.

As I practice writing and exploring my feelings I often discover that generally, I can get upset for different reasons than I first think. By experiencing and feeling the deeper reasons, negativity tends to disappear. Just as I suddenly can be gripped by negative emotions I can also suddenly release them. These are a few examples:

• Years ago … one morning I woke up feeling annoyed with my partner. Whatever she did disturb me. As I wrote her a text msg I discovered that I was really upset with my mother for being so controlling. These feelings were just coming up because I had dreamed about my mom the night before and she was scolding me for something I neglected to do. As I texted my lady I imagined I was back when I was feeling controlled. After I texted the msgs suddenly I was no longer upset with my lady.

• When my profession was too demanding. I was always busy meeting deadlines at work. When I came home my now ex-wife felt extremely resentful and angry. One part of her understood the stress I was under, but emotionally she was still angry. She wrote me a letter, I found it the other day as I was going through some of my old papers. In her letter, she wrote she discovered that she was angry with her father for leaving her to grow up with a mother that resented having given birth to her as a teenage mother. As a child, she had felt powerless and abandoned, and these feelings were again coming up to be healed. She wrote a letter to me telling me about my not being home on time and she didn’t like it. Which made her angry at me (because of her father’s neglect).  

• Women can think about the words she wants to hear as a good thing. Until a man says “I love you” <smiling> and if he then tells her he wants to make a commitment. The next thing that happens is her mood suddenly changes. She begins to have a lot of doubts and her passion disappears, As she discovers that she was now angry with her father for being so passive and hurting her mother. For example! She has to release her negative feeling before she can feel attracted to her guy again.

Final thoughts

 

Just as love or anger may bring up our past unresolved feeling, so does getting what you want. I remember when I first learned about this. Many years ago I began to see a pattern in many situations. I could not explain what was happening to me, so these unresolved emotions cost me big time.

Your ridiculous expectations will cause disappointments

If you are dealing with a child you should be careful not to create false expectations. A Child will not handle it very well maybe even throw a temper tantrum. Because a child doesn’t handle disappointments very well, that's to be expected. But adults should not lose their cool when they are disappointed because their expectations were off the charts, and therefore were not met.

Men have put themselves in awkward positions as they lead women on with false and fake hopes of buying them things they have no means to grant them which can lead to women becoming unreasonable. And the result is women will show their true colors.
Maybe you need to test your thoughts on a special occasion just to see what will happen.

If she is expecting you to do what she has always dreamed of having someone do for her then it’s not totally the man’s fault if he comes up a bit short. Her expectations may not match up well with what he can deliver.

I recall the story told to me by a pilot, he knew that. The  Minister of Transportation was showing off to his new woman, side-chick, that he would take her on a flight in a private plane. She had been waiting for months. But he never delivered. So she met a guy who was a pilot (the guy who told me the story). And he told her he would send a private jet to get her and bring her to a carnival celebration on another Island. He contacted the other pilot friend, who was flying one leg charter to the Island and asked him to bring the woman back with him on his return. She told all her friends and family that a private jet was coming to get her on said date. And the Jet would be waiting for her on the runway. When the minister of Transportation heard about this... he lost his mind... and went to the air traffic controllers tower and ordered him to “Stop that plane from taking off.” He went down to the aircraft and ordered her to get off the jet. She refused because she was not letting him manhandle her as everyone was looking at them from the lookout area. He was a married man and a sitting minister. He could not afford to make too much of a spectacle of himself so he had no choice but to grant the plane it’s take off. he must have felt like such a fool.

SMDH, never boast about doing what you have no intention of delivering, to a woman... promises are not really meant to be broken. Someone else might just deliver and you will be left looking totally annoyed!

Just a bowl of M &M nuts? Seriously? the flight is more than an hour!