"It takes brass balls to-"

[KarmaSutra]

I can tell anybody it's always better to have peace than a piece.

This is pure gold. It wraps up perfectly the thought process I used in order to stay strong in my decision to drop it all and walk away.

Brother, it sounds to me as if you've taken a stroll in my Nike's and I appreciate your sharing so other men will realize they aren't alone.

 

[KarmaSutra]

I know a lot of people say stay together for kids. But for how long? And what message does the kid grow up with? When your kid sees you taking control (without being a chump or violent or loss of control) it will sink in. When your kid sees you placing them, yourself, your career and goals ahead of a relationship that has went cold - they will understand and learn from it and respect it.

I struggled with this more than anything else. What I concluded was that I owed it to my kid to give her everything. She can't get a job and buy stuff to replace the sh!t I would have taken if I were a selfish pr1ck. What would that have gotten me anyway? A bunch of stuff I couldn't use and a young woman preoccupied being hateful at me instead of concentrating on her school career.

Yeah, that's what insecure douchebags believe "real" men should do . They fvck everybody in their peripheral in order to make themselves feel momentarily superior while disregarding the child's overall mental health and well being.

I appreciate your time posting Brother. It was eye-opening and a revelation and I hope other guy's realize what a lesson it is.

 

[Unbridled_Phoenix]

A sh!t ton of loser talk in this thread!

While I can see the novelty of doing the kenny chesney beachbum/denouncing of material things thing, I suspect it would be fleeting, and in little time I would be wondering if I had simply rationalized giving up...

Oh, and it's also easy for a chode to rationalize military men as stupid neanderthals, but on the flipside of the coin, such chodes don't last more than a couple days in mine and acw's beloved Marine Corps! The things I saw there, humanity at its finest and its worst, I am to this day in awe of and inept to explain...

 

[KarmaSutra]

A sh!t ton of loser talk in this thread!

While I can see the novelty of doing the kenny chesney beachbum/denouncing of material things thing, I suspect it would be fleeting, and in little time I would be wondering if I had simply rationalized giving up...

Oh, and it's also easy for a chode to rationalize military men as stupid neanderthals, but on the flipside of the coin, such chodes don't last more than a couple days in mine and acw's beloved Marine Corps! The things I saw there, humanity at its finest and its worst, I am to this day in awe of and inept to explain...

You're proof that the sh!t you own, owns you. Call us chodes or whatever makes your turkey perky. I could give a fvck less. My aim is to help other men realize leaving all of their baggage behind them is not a worthless endeavor.

Beat your chest or beat your d!ck, it doesn't change the pep in my step one bit.

 

[grinder]

You will need resources to be a factor in your child’s life. I divorced and only because I preserved my resources did I win full physical custody of my children. Children come first before all else. Since my life includes my children I did not feel I could be in charge of my life until I was satisfied my children had the best life. And that is with me.

 

[radiodude]

It takes brass balls to stay with a woman and child, figure out why the relationship went cold, fix it and continue on with your life.

Thats the problem around here, too many guys bail and 'runaway' when it gets tough.

The solution? Move out, stay up late, buy toys...become a kid again.

Yes I know it would be awesome. I miss it. To be able to come and go as you please, to have a place to yourself to buy this or that whenever you want.

But, I've got bigger and better challenges to face. Living through tough things and perservering makes you stronger, gives you more character.

Karma-

Maybe she cheated on you, if so I understand. Was she abusive, again I understand. Thats something to walk away from.

But please tell me it's not just because it was getting tough to live with her?!

It would be so easy for me to walk away and live as a single dude again with no cares or worries.

 

[radiodude]

I say strive for being successful at what you want to do at life, but above all strive for inner peace. In the Bible, it says those who try to save their life lose their life, but those who lay down their life earns eternal life. I know a lot of you have something against religion, so I'll break it down and tell you what it's saying in secular terms. When you put anything on a pedestal in life whether women, family, material things, or even yourself, you'll lose the peace you have because whatever you revere is going to fail when you need them since none of these have either the power or the will to turn a bad situation around for you. But when you get rid of putting any of this stuff first in your life, you gain everything you will ever need to be happy in life.

No, it means the exact opposite. When you try to save your life, meaning do everything you automatically want to do, in spite of others, you lose your soul. When you lay down your life, often meaning doing what you DON'T always want to do, you gain eternal life.

What this is saying from a biblical perspective is that rejecting Christ in favor of your own way condems you. Accepting Christ while foregoing your own way, grants you eternal life. This also means not putting things other than him on a pedestal either, but thats for a different thread.

Even from a secular standpoint, this means that doing the self satisfying thing (leaving) is looking out for your own life, not laying it down.

Please don't try to convince yourselves your following some sort of biblical mandate.

 

[radiodude]

You live your life for you, not for others. One should always do what is in their best-interest....the largest problem is that most people don't know what that is, or they often confuse their best interest with their immediate needs.

There should be no talk of "sacrificing".


"Where sacrifices are being made, sacrificial offerings are being collected. Those who speak of sacrifices are speaking in terms of slaves and masters, and they intend to be the master." ~ Ayn Rand

Depends what you're sacrificing. Are you sacrificing your NEEDS, dignity, self-respect, values, etc.?

Or, are you sacrificing immediate DESIRES and pleasures for a longer term satisfaction with much bigger pleasures down the road as a result?

 

[STR8UP]

It takes brass balls to stay with a woman and child, figure out why the relationship went cold, fix it and continue on with your life.

Thats the problem around here, too many guys bail and 'runaway' when it gets tough.

The solution? Move out, stay up late, buy toys...become a kid again.

Yes I know it would be awesome. I miss it. To be able to come and go as you please, to have a place to yourself to buy this or that whenever you want.

But, I've got bigger and better challenges to face. Living through tough things and perservering makes you stronger, gives you more character.

Yea, "manning up" and staying chained to a post for the rest of your life builds character. PUhleeeeez......

I would expect a woman to say what you said. It's a sad testament to lack of enlightenment of men that a DUDE would say something like this.

Another victim of the "REAL MEN sacrifice themselves for the greater good" propaganda machine.

 

[Da Realist]

Even from a secular standpoint, this means that doing the self satisfying thing (leaving) is looking out for your own life, not laying it down.

I agree with the spiritual meaning, but I disagree with your secular application. There is a difference between self-gratitification and self-preservation. Gratitification makes you do things and try to justify it as being right somehow. You cheat on your wife because she is neglecting you: gratitification. You leave her just on a whim because you don't have the same feelings for hr eventhough she's doing everything she's supposed to: gratitification. The kids are getting on your nerves and you push them away becasue they're in the way of you living your life: gratitification.

But leaving when your wife is a completely selfish woman only interested in living off you and giving you crap eventhough you provide when she chooses to sit around all day doing nothing: that's survival. When she constanly costs you money and brings absolutely nothing to the table financially let alone at dinner time when she's had all day to do something constructive and you get her out of your life: preservation. When she constantly puts kids first and treats dad like he's the scum of the earth, that when it's time to get some things straight in your life.

Keep in mind, I'm not saying you just pack your bags at the hint of trouble without trying to do what you can before hand. I'm one of those guys who believe in sticking to commitments, but when someone is using that sense of honor to hurt you and they refuse to change, it's time to walk. A man has to realize when he has done everything humanly possible it's time to let it go. To keep trying to fix something you can't control is in effect putting yourself on that pedestal before God and everyone else because you think your deeds and actions are things that will make everything work just right.

Before I go, I'll leave with a scenerio. Say you build a tower and it was on a bad foundation. Maybe at the time you couldn't see waht was wrong with it, thought you could build the tower good enough so that it didn't matter how bad the foundation was, or just didn't care at the time because that tower just had to go up. So anyway, you build it, fix some of the cracks in it, and even start putting up struts and trusses to keep it up, but it starts falling anyway with you standing under it. Do you stand under it while it's falling hoping to somehow catch it yourself, or do you move out of the way?

 

[KarmaSutra]

It takes brass balls to stay with a woman and child, figure out why the relationship went cold, fix it and continue on with your life.

How many different ways can one repair a leaking roof before finding a new house to live in? No matter how many times one repairs the leak another leak starts somewhere else forcing the integrity of that house to become completely unstable? Does that guy live and die in that house on a weak foundation of hope?

Thats the problem around here, we too many guys bail and 'runaway' when it gets tough.

That's the problem in the real world, too many guys flush their lives down the sh!tter instead of making a decision which benefits his overall well being and allows him to choose the direction of his future. Though it may be difficult for someone who's never thought for himself, the blunt responsibility of his future, ultimately, lies in his own hands.

The solution? Move out, stay up late, buy toys...become a kid again.

Yes I know it would be awesome. I miss it. To be able to come and go as you please, to have a place to yourself to buy this or that whenever you want.

But, I've got bigger and better challenges to face. Living through tough things and perservering makes you stronger, gives you more character.

I disagree. Living a miserable existence with an infantile mentality means putting up with whatever your significant other shovels down your pie hole. Not making a life change for the betterment of your life is mediocrity at it's worst. It's a very hard decision to take the reigns of your own life. This is what builds character. Even if you're using a spoon, eventually the hole you dig will be deep enough to bury you.

Karma-

Maybe she cheated on you, if so I understand. Was she abusive, again I understand. Thats something to walk away from.

But please tell me it's not just because it was getting tough to live with her?!

It would be so easy for me to walk away and live as a single dude again with no cares or worries.

No cheating. Not even any harsh language. As much as you need someone to carry the weight of blame, she did absolutely nothing wrong. We drifted apart. It's as difficult or as simple to accept as your experience will allow. Looking back on it perhaps it was a penance of sorts for me to leave all of my material stuff there at the house but what, in complete honesty, would me hoarding every cup and paring knife get me except less room for me to breathe?

 

[radiodude]

Yea, "manning up" and staying chained to a post for the rest of your life builds character. PUhleeeeez......

I would expect a woman to say what you said. It's a sad testament to lack of enlightenment of men that a DUDE would say something like this.

Another victim of the "REAL MEN sacrifice themselves for the greater good" propaganda machine.

You mean I've made it onto Str8up's Mangina list...??!!!!!!!

Str8up that line gets old. It never fails, you're always knocking someones gender identity the minute they disagree with you on one thing.

PUhleeeeez......

Sounds like something a woman would say. (I pictured a blonde gum-smacking bombshell saying that just now) Doesn't sound very manly to me.

 

[KarmaSutra]

You mean I've made it onto Str8up's Mangina list...??!!!!!!!

Str8up that line gets old. It never fails, you're always knocking someones gender identity the minute they disagree with you on one thing.

Sounds like something a woman would say. (I pictured a blonde gum-smacking bombshell saying that just now) Doesn't sound very manly to me.

Instead of maintaining your composure while staying within the context of his post, it's easier to shift down into name calling than giving Brother STR8UP's question a proper retort?

Let's each try to appreciate the different schools of thought this discussion can manifest.

 

[Rollo Tomassi]

What's interesting is that I just posted this in another thread:

You know, whenever we go into these debates about infidelity (albeit usually from the male perspective), and it becomes an immoral / amoral / moralist ménage à trois, I always see the code in the Matrix and wonder, what is the greater moral imperative; to remain faithful to your morally obligated commitment with your spouse in spite of a loveless, passionless, sexless partner, or to break that commitment in order to pursue the obligation and commitment you owe yourself as "superior" Man deserving of a better "quality" partner?

What has moral priority, a commitment to yourself versus a commitment to marriage? You see it's easy to wave the flag of self-righteousness when the issue is a right vs. wrong issue. It's much more difficult when the question is right vs. right. I have no doubt that all the answers to this will be entirely circumstantial, rationalized twistings in the wind, and maybe that's what decides for you, but think about it for a moment in the terms of what one must sacrifice for the other.

And of course in a perfect world no one would change and everyone would be so blatantly honest that we could all avoid making bad commitments, but that's not reality. Then we get the "well if she breaks her 'end-of-the-bargain' its a breach of contract and then your commitment priority ought to be to yourself" response, which is really only a relationship based on negotiations, but the same people wanting to be so adamant about commitment to self are the first to denigrate KARMA once he does exactly this.

So what is it RADIODUDE? What commitment has moral priority? Commitment to self or commitment for it's own sake? There's more than a few AFCs who got trapped into a commitment and stuck with it for the kids who'll put a gun in their mouth when they become empty-nesters and their wives leave them at 50 wishing they did what KARMA has.

 

[CGE333]

Karma,

Being on the outside and not knowing all of what went on, I can hardly say whether what you did is right or wrong, etc. Or whether something that looks wrong or right today won't look the opposite in 1 yr, 3 yrs, or 5 yrs.

The main point is that you have made a decision to try and better yourself and live your life (while not being forced to live a lie) and at the same time live up to your responsibilities (your child); and to that I commend you. Far too many people walk around and live their one and only life on this planet like a brain dead zombie- living a life they are "forced" to live instead of choosing the life they want to live.

I agree with you that stuff is just stuff, big deal if you left the big screen behind- you can always get another, and at the end of your life I doubt you'll wish that you had spent more time being a slave to the TV.

Good luck. I have noticed in my own life that while on the road to self improvement/ empowerment it can seem that you are going slow and not making a lot of progress and then one day you wake up and can't believe how far you have come.

 

[TheHumanist]

I'll take a middle stance to this good man.


When I first read it, I found it very inspirational. It does take brass balls to give up everything and start over. In another thread, Hooligan Harry posted about how he knew this one man who left his lawyering practice on a whim and traveled the world and then settled in Europe writing, teaching English, and chasing the local women. He could have just stayed and continue to practice law and paying off some 5-bed room mortgaged house. Most people thought he threw his life away, I agree with Harry that he would have threw it away if he stayed.


However, as I think about it and read the dissenters. I do feel they have a point. There's some missing information, or at least something satisfactory. The lawyer was giving up his life spending 70 hours a week pushing paper and stressing out and on a path living mediocrely and definitely not following his dreams. There's no point for him to stay.

On the other hand. What's was wrong that you have to give it all up? Was the difference in the vision of the long term future so great that you have to walk away? What is the discontent you have that requires you to give up everything to defeat it? There's other stories of men having problems but was able to fix it from the inside (ie, there's a thread somewhere from roissy in dc of a man in a marriage that he manage to fix through game, alternatively, he could have walked away too, though both is better than "sacrifice me for the greater good").

 

[iqqi]

I think radiodude had a good point in terms of commitment and loyalty, but also what karma did, took brass balls and I applaud him for making such a hard decision. Noone should stay in any situation if it is severely impacting one's happiness.

 

[radiodude]

What's interesting is that I just posted this in another thread:




And of course in a perfect world no one would change and everyone would be so blatantly honest that we could all avoid making bad commitments, but that's not reality. Then we get the "well if she breaks her 'end-of-the-bargain' its a breach of contract and then your commitment priority ought to be to yourself" response, which is really only a relationship based on negotiations, but the same people wanting to be so adamant about commitment to self are the first to denigrate KARMA once he does exactly this.

So what is it RADIODUDE? What commitment has moral priority? Commitment to self or commitment for it's own sake? There's more than a few AFCs who got trapped into a commitment and stuck with it for the kids who'll put a gun in their mouth when they become empty-nesters and their wives leave them at 50 wishing they did what KARMA has.

Why is it an Either/Or situation?

What about interpreting one's circumstance and assessing when it's commitment for the right things versus when it's time to lookout for ones self-interest?

As I said, there are times it's right to leave, then there are times a man just needs to look at his situation and determine what could be done better or how to properly see things through.

I'm not saying I know what it's like to walk in another man's shoes based off of hearsay alone. I've been through plenty and learned the difference between hanging in there and cutting losses.

All i'm advocating for is for men to develop a mindset that also promotes endurance and not advocating running at the first sign of trouble.

Let's teach and impress upon our women the way we want them to behave and live. What we expect and how we want to live our lives. Look them in the eye and tell them when they're wrong. Sure they'll fight back. Doesn't mean they won't eventually come around.

Karma is going to do what he wants and feels is necessary. He's a big boy. No argument here. We can have differing opinions on values and life perspective and still agree on many things on this site.