I admit it. I read
Return Of Kings. It leaves me feeling foolish - for women it would be like admitting them reading those trashy, idiotic tabloids about movie stars they sell in the super market at the checkout - the ones that push diets where you can eat cake and pastries and lose 30 lbs. in 30 days. I like the
comedy of RoK. More intelligent older men like Unca Bob would snort in disgust at the mere mention of this cornerstone of the so-called Manosphere and I can see e of his side of things.
Occasionally the comedy over there gets dark...
and sometimes tragic. This is exactly the stuff that old farts like Uncle Bob needs to read. This is the world our sons live in. This is why they don't own homes, and this is why they don't get married or have families. This is why they live in their parents' basements. I don't blame 'em. I am caught exactly half way between their world and that of the Boomers. I like how this kid assumes that his elders live the high life, and that things only got difficult for the men of his generation. Well kid... I grew up in the midst of all that, and I can tell ya - it wasn't easy at times. In fact, it was damned difficult for us too.
Depending on who defines the terms, I am either a leading edge Gen X kid, or a tail end Baby Boomer, born in 1964. I became a father in 1985. There were still traces of the Old World around - my grandparents were still alive, most of the couples in our social circles were still married although the spectre of rampant frivolous divorce was well underway. Corporal Klinger was still a joke rather than a role model, and women were still pretty much women and men were still pretty much men. Queers were degenerate perverts just as they are today but we could be honest about such things back then and say so. But the world was changing - and fast. At the time we had no idea how much things would change or what the consequences would look like. My elders did - but who listens to old geezers? They don't know anything, right?
My brother got divorced in the early 1990's. He was devastated. His young, attractive wife was not happy with the idea of motherhood and wanted it all - a career, kids and a rich husband. Big Bro took that hit solidly amidships and though he's still afloat I can still see the scars it left on him 30 years later. He remarried with an older Christian lady and is doing alright today though. His ex married a wealthy man and lives in the fast lane. Their two boys are men now, living a life of minimalism and contract and temp jobs. They seem happy enough I suppose. Big Bro is ashamed of them and it makes me want to punch his lights out. He figures they are lazy and unmotivated. Big Bro has had the same job all his life and has never had to do a job search or cope with unemployment. He's a Boomer all the way, except for his divorce.
In the 80's and 90's my wife's family got hit hard. My wife's parents lost their youngest son to a medical tragedy and that stressed their whole family. Then her father lost his job of 31 years when Corporate America started to 'streamline' the company he worked for here in Canada. It was a double whammy - the man lost his son, his job and his bearings and his wife kinda just started to assume headship of the family, because he had checked out. She had to, I suppose... because the old man was just done. I saw all this because we lived with them for a year or two while I went back to school. My mother in law and I started butting heads on who was in charge of my family. I was raised to respect elders and matriarchs - but lord that woman and her idiot husband had some ideas that I wouldn't wipe my ass with.
At school my daughter was getting in trouble. She wouldn't behave for her teachers and I was being told she needed medical treatment. Her teacher was a fuggin ditz that thought spankings were child abuse and that every kid should get a trophy for showing up to a foot race. I marvelled at the stupidity of my mother in law and that cunned stunt of a school teacher - and cured my daughter's behavioural problems with a spanking. Everyone was horrified and outraged. I looked around in bewilderment as I became a borderline criminal in the minds of that family. I didn't realize it yet, but my daughter was being molded to become a leading edge member of Generation Snowflake. But after that spanking her behaviour improved, her marks went up and I called it good. When we moved out a year later I was thankful to be rid of that idiot family. I tried to keep those sentiments to myself out of love for my wife. In the 90's I watched more and more couples getting divorced, I watched my outlaws go from being traditional 'small-c' conservatives to all out liberals. Their second son was in university learning about all about Edyacashun - and because he was in university he obviously knew
everything and the outlaws smiled with admiration as their scholarly son adopted a far left world view - so they started to as well and fully expected our family to.
In the middle of the first decade of the new century things were now pretty bad in my family. Christ, we had my inlaws over all the time and they got in the middle of
everything. They were not shy about making our decisions for us, and correcting my thoughts and opinions, and meddling in our affairs. They moved in with us as they had a new home built a couple blocks away and I was going fuggin nuts. I still thought I could make the old man respect me a little bit and still tried to be nice to him but... nothing worked. And the mother in law? JFC - her word was LAW. In my house? It was hell for my wife too. She loved me but she loved them and was caught in the middle when we locked horns. I would come home and find that they had done home improvements - on my house - without asking me, or they would buy furniture or the usual household trappings and such and if I objected I got shouted down and dismissed. My wife's parents would encourage my daughter to do things they would have shot their own for doing. I couldn't live like this. It shames me to this day - I began to chat up women on the internet and started plotting an exit strategy. It was hell for me too - I loved my wife dearly... but her family was changing in horrible ways and I was learning that these people would never respect me or my place in my family - never mind theirs, and that I would be left holding the bag for the decisions of these idiots if I stuck around. When my wife found out about what I was doing she was broken hearted and enraged and told me to make some decisions. We patched things up, somehow, but to this day my conduct during that time is a shit stain on my soul. I throw myself on the mercy of the court because I didn't know how to handle a family that didn't work any more or have a place for me in it. Our marriage was held together with bale twine and duct tape as her family rattled and bashed in mine. I couldn't take it.
The manosphere would call a man like that today a "cuck" or a "beta". I didn't know about any of that, I was just a man in a prog family trying to keep his poop in a group and the family together. It was driving me mad until one day I ran across one of the 'proto-manosphere' writers - Kid du Toit. He noted the pussification of the American male back in '05 and I still remember the shock with which it resonated with me. I was being pussified myself! My mother in law was in charge of the family and she and her idiot husband were telling my daughter that she didn't have to worry about a father because they were the real authority in the family - and what they said went. And my daughter saw them treating me like a punching bag and she figured she could too.
By 2010 I had lost all influence or control of my family. My daughter was an adult and came out of the closet as a militant gay hipster, my in laws applauded and roared with derisive laughter at my despair. In 2014 I finally -
finally ... I got smart. This will gall the Kings Of The Manosphere, but it is my contention that this is how it works: accept that women DO have power and authority. When you ask a lady to dance,
she is the decision maker on whether or not to accept. Uncle Bob posits that men are the real romantics in any relationship and in this he is undoubtedly correct. My heart was hopelessly lost to my wife and the decision to continue our marriage was
hers - not mine. But, just as women are free to reject the authority of would-be patriarchs - welp, it goes the other way too. So I told my wife to make to make her decision about our marriage... and I fully expected to be another MGTOW or Man Going His Own Way or whatever they call those celibate bachelors when their marriages dissolve. That was two years ago. She sided with me and our marriage and lives improved almost immediately. Our marriage fully recovered when she adopted her faith. I love her more now than ever before and I thank God she's still with me. She found a new family and community in the church, she loves them and they love her right back. There's even room for me there if I want it. In their community gender is NOT a malleable social construct. Sometimes I do want a place there but I still have some thinking to do on that. Today we do our separate things as old couples do, but at the end of the day we come together and yak and chat like we used to do when we were kids and talk about important things.
This is exactly what marriage should be. 30 years ago, though - I never would have seen any of this. I expected to be bouncing grandchildren on my knee, hunting and fishing with a son in law and living the good family life. How in HELL did we end up here? Phew!
This is my advice to younger men: Don't 'harden up' as the scholar at Return Of Kings says. SMARTEN UP. Your problems are not your father's and rest assured, you little shits - his life was no bed of roses either! Women are challenging, often infuriating creatures the same way men are, I guess. You
want a steady, loving, warm girlfriend and wife. You
want a home and family. You deserve it too. The way to that is the same as it was for your father: long courtships, keep the sex off the table until you're damned sure she's worth it. If I may be vulgar, if you **** it, you own it.
If you are confronted by nutty, progressive liberal morons in any capacity within the family or without - walk away. Tell your gal up front she either goes with you or goes with them. The biggest mistake we make with feminists, homosexuals, socialists and other is taking them seriously. Don't try to play them, they will play you. They lie, they cheat, and they are malicious as the day is long. Let them go do what they are going to do to themselves and that's it. I heard through the grape vine that my wonderful academic liberal brother in law and his empowered feminist wife are now divorced. Not only that, but their children are both having 'learning and behavioural issues'. He is a school principal, she a public educator. I'm tempted to savour the schadenfreude - but in my world now it is just the haze over the distant horizon in the rear view mirror. I have my own trials and tribulations ahead. Your only concern with stupid people like that is to evaluate whether or not they are a problem in your life. If they are - ditch them and don't think twice about it. It's hard, it hurts and it never stops hurting - but they
will drag you down with them if you stay.
Life and happiness are actually quite simple: stupidity is contagious. Don't be stupid, don't hang around with stupid people - and things will work out for themselves.
