I got all excited to go red pill, but I made the mistake of telling my husband about it (I only read in surrendered wife NOT to do this after I'd already done it...) This backfired because I made mistakes, and we got into it, I acted like a bitch, and when I did he told me my whole effort to be nice was just me being "fake" and that I'm a bitch, and things like that, that seriously hurt my feelings and then ended up just demotivating and embarrassing me for even trying... I went for a few weeks every day getting myself fixed up, working out, reading, and acting right. I felt really good. Then I hit a low about a week ago after these comments and fights and cannot find meaning in anything since then. Also it's worth noting that I stopped breastfeeding my 10 month old daughter about 2 months ago and only just had my first cycle last month, and am expecting my second period to start any day now. So the very intense hormones that I'm not used to for the last year and a half are probably also not helping. But in any case does anyone have any advice on how to pull myself out of this? I've basically returned to not caring to put on make up or get dressed nice, or even eat more than a couple snacke a day, and I'm not really being controlling or demanding but I've been noticeably very "blah" and depressive, forcing smiles that are obviously not sincere. This happens to me often and I'd really like to find a way to keep myself motivated and consistent. Any advice would be appreciated. Please be kind.
Edited to make it more clear that I was in fact being a bitch when he said i was being a bitch
Zegiknie 5y ago
Aside from all the analysis, how to pull yourself out. First things first, he apologized. Did you? The fact that you manage to be not controlling or demanding despite feeling so down is a great start! As a SAHM, you absolutely have reasons to get out of the house. Take your kid to the petting zoo and the market and the pool and the park or beach or forest. Their view from the stroller is great! Just strolling around the street, maybe have a chat with a neighbor, that might do you a world of good. Kids are a great excuse to get out and to meet people. And be ready for unexpected guests (looks-wise and homemaking-wise). Invite other SAHMs and visit with them. Visit family (old lonely ones especially, baby smiles make them shine). Nature walks will boost your mood (and there is no bad weather, just bad clothing). Also, proper nutrition will help you stabilize blood sugar which helps your mood. How are your vitamin D levels? Do you eat enough fish? Baby steps with the wonderful-wifery. A drink brought here, a mini footrub there, and a shared smile in exhaustion when baby vomits all over the place can help you bond again. Don't try to be either Stepford wife or nothing at all. They say you can't pour from an empty cup, so just give what you do have and be patient with yourself. Exhaustion makes everything harder. Finally, he knows now. It blew up in your face, but the good news is: while you're not arguing, he is quite likely to be totally on board with your plans for self-improvement. Don't ask for feedback while you're feeling too sensitive to handle it. But do get his input and support. He can guide you in this, if you dare to be vulnerable and humble.
[deleted] 5y ago
Thank you. This is exactly the kind of advice I needed and was looking for. Particularly your statements about pouring from an empty cup. And being ready for unexpected guests. We have a lot of them and I'm rarely ready. Having a clean house and good appearance makes me feel better in every way. I read this comment several hours ago and decided to get up and clean my house right away and respond later! And getting out is hard because I've got a 2 year old, a 10 month old and also take care of my 11 month old niece during the week but I just got a great tripple stroller so that's been much easier lately and made a big difference to my mental health.
Zegiknie 5y ago
Yay! So happy for you! With toddlers, I really like forests with open fields. There they can run away without getting into too much trouble. And beaches (far from the water). Sand = fun. Some libraries do baby reading, but 2yr old might throw books so that's slightly more stressful.
thatbadlarry 5y ago
.What was your relationship like before your attitude change? What was he like? I think it’s extremely shitty of your husband to call you a fake bitch for trying to improve but it does make me wonder how things were between you before. If you genuinely were a bitch you’re going to have some repairing to do. If you weren’t - his comments are extra out of line. Weaning-baby hormones are definitely a thing and can really colour your perspective. It’s amazing how something can seem like such a huge deal and days later I realize it’s honestly nothing. Good thing to keep in mind when your feelings feel too big. Hugs
[deleted] 5y ago
No no. I was being a bitch. We got into it and I lost my shit so then he said that all my efforts were fake and this this is actually how I was was the way i was when i was angry. He apologized after. And our relationship before this has been up and down. Weve been together for 6 years and been though good and bad times.
[deleted] 5y ago
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[deleted] 5y ago
I just edited it to make that more clear. Sorry, I thought when I said "I made mistakes" that everyone would know I meant I was being a bitch.
_flippantshecreature 5y ago
Irritability is a sign of depression. at least it is if you're not malicious about it. Describing covering postpartum "blah" with forced smiles as "fake" is callous at best and emotionally abusive at worst. It would seem that your DH lacks empathy in this situation. I would suggest seeing a psychiatrist to see if you're experiencing post partum depression, which could explain the lack of care you have for yourself. If that feels extreme, see your OBGYN who are also able to diagnose PPD and prescribe medication to see you through this period.
[deleted] 5y ago
No no no. Sorry. My post wasnt clear enough. I edited it to make it more clear. He called me previous efforts at niceness fake out of anger because I lost my shit on him about something trivial. My current efforts at niceness since then are indeed fake, mostly because I'm upset at myself for dropping the ball out of stubbornness and my old habits of justifying my bitchyness are dying hard. I thought it would he easier to change myself! I dont have postpartum depression. I'm just a stay at home mom and can completely let myself go and not leave the house for a week because I dont have to. I dont need a doctor to prescribe a pill to fix that because I know that I'm capable of controlling myself. That's what im trying to do here.
norahlady 5y ago
I can't comment on who's "in the wrong" here since there's only so much context you can get across in a reddit post, but blaming probably isn't productive anyway (unless your husband is legitimately abusive).
Try to improve yourself for YOU, not your husband or anyone else. Take care of yourself because it makes you feel good and happy and productive and worthwhile. Don't expect cookies from anyone for improving yourself -- in fact, expect a lot of resistance as you push against the inertia of mediocrity. Try to emotionally separate yourself from getting your husband's validation and just be your best self. Be the kind of person, wife, mother, you would admire and look up to. And do it purely because you take pride in who you are.
Give 100%. Don't withhold, don't expect anything in return (not even approval or appreciation), don't "wait and see if you'll get your share first". This isn't a limited-resource starvation environment -- it's a relationship with plenty of love to go around. Give, give, give, even when you're not getting your "fair share".
If you make a mistake, don't break down and cry and say things like "I'm sorry I'm the worst wife/mom ever." Don't feel sorry for yourself. All that does is put it on others to make you feel better. Just apologize calmly, reflect on what happened, take care of yourself, and do better next time.
I would give it about six months of just buckling down and truly trying to shift your mindset. If you get to the end of that six months and you can honestly say you tried your hardest, and you still don't see any changes in the way your husband is treating you, then maybe there are deeper issues that individual self-improvement can't address.
I know it's much easier said than done. And it's impossible to be 100% perfect -- especially with all the changes you're going through (I am not a mother yet so I may not fully understand). Relationships, life, parenting -- these things are all HARD. But don't excuse yourself, and don't feel sorry for yourself. No one else is going to pick up the slack here except you.
Personally, on bad days, I can sometimes feel my inner bitch bubbling up when, for example, I'm doing the dishes for the fourteenth day in a row while my fiance watches TV. My inner narrative can turn cranky -- "I do all this sh*t day in and day out, is he even appreciating it?! Maybe I should just stop doing it and teach him a little lesson", etc. It's terrible! I would never want my fiance to start thinking like that to himself while he's out working hard to advance his career, or giving up "fun" purchases to save for our future. In those times I try really hard to think about everything he does for me and for our future family and try to remind myself to always give 100%. Ultimately, this mindset always ends up making my relationship better and making me happier as an individual.
CalvinRichland 5y ago
Do you think maybe he felt like this was finally his chance to let his frustration out at you?
If so just keep working on being the best you and his guard will come down once he believes it is a permanent change.
[deleted] 5y ago
I think you're right.
Likesunshinedust 5y ago
I’m new to RPW, so I don’t have much as far as advice goes. I can tell you though, that trying to better yourself and be a better partner doesn’t make you a fake bitch. Hugs.
LateralThinker13 5y ago
Honestly, it all depends upon why you are faking it. If you're faking it for personal gains, it totally IS being a fake bitch.
If you "Fake it to make it", as in, to adjust your personal deportment into one that you would prefer, then no, it's not fake, it's an effort to grow and change.
Likesunshinedust 5y ago
That’s a good point. I hadn’t thought of it that way. I meant if it’s genuine.
LawyerInTheMaking 5y ago
Looking from both sides I can understand why your feelings were hurt and why he called what your'e doing to be fake. I can see that you are trying to make a conscious effort to change for the better. From his perspective, it comes off as fake because in a small amount of time you are making a hard deviation from what he is conditioned to expect from you (which he has had to deal with for a longer period of time). It does feel like fake sincerity because usually when people make a sudden change towards you in a positive manner, it is a manipulation attempt to get something. If all he has experienced is the blue pull you the entire time you've known him, why should he believe in the Redpill you? see what I mean.
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My first advice can be summarized in two words: Show consistency.
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Let me explain:
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see these two statements of yours
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> I went for a few weeks every day getting myself fixed up, working out, reading, and acting right.
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and
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> I've basically returned to not caring to put on make up or get dressed nice, or even eat more than a couple snacke a day, and I'm not really being controlling or demanding but I've been noticeably very "blah" and depressive, forcing smiles that are obviously not sincere.
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You started on the right path but being confronted by your husband, you backtracked to your old path. To me that's analogous to you telling naysayer that you're going to lose weight every day working out and eating right, only to give up after a few weeks later. This validates the naysayers position because you couldn't hold yourself to the standard YOU set.
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For naysayers, or in this case your husband, if you want to change their opinion then show them and not tell them.
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Once your husband sees that you are pushing through, despite his reservations, despite your feelings of discouragement from him, and are keeping true to your commitment, he cant deny that you are being genuine now can he? Men respect hard work, and he will respect yours.
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My second advice and its on motivation:
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Ask yourself,
Is short term hardship worth long term prosperity?
Do I want to be at my best so I can serve my husband and children?
Do I want to earn the respect/admiration/affection of the man who I love, and in return inspire him to be the best husband and father he can be?
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If the answer is yes, you have everything to gain. If the answer is no, you gain nothing.
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You have shown through the first few weeks implementing Redpill that you could change. So go do it.
[deleted] 5y ago
Thank you. This is helpful. And your absolutely right. I did prove him right. I just felt like well if that's what you think of me, I guess that's what I am and that's what I'll be... But I let him down because I'd made a commitment to a drastic change, and really I just took on more than I could reasonably handle so suddenly. I should have kept it quiet and let my actions speak for themselves instead of saying it was going to be so different and then getting upset when he was upset that I failed to do so and acted more like the me he knows to be consistent... now I'm in a weird spot where being miserable and " the real me " somehow seems better than being sweet and seen as fake... I just need to do it until it is the real me...
LawyerInTheMaking 5y ago
if you think about it its similar to a dead bedroom type situation where the wife after denying her husband sex for extended period of time, decides to change and be more receptive, but he rejects those changes and she is hurt by it. in your situation, instead of sex that he is not receptive to, it is your new found femininity. does that makes sense?
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instead if not keeping quiet, i think where you went wrong a bit is oversharing what your goals/intentions. if you left it at something like "ive just been working on improving myself lately. i hope you like it.", then i think youd have been fine. sooner or later you would have had to same something anyways because from what ive seen when one person in a relationship is noticing that the other person is making major changes, they think something negative is.
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Where you have the advantage: you are at the very early stages of your journey. over the long run if you stay consistent, this will all seem like a little hickup. this does not mean thuough that he will change to how you are hoping. he may or may not, and you shouldnt expect either. at the very least youll be able to say that i kept up to what to you said you were going to do.
durtyknees 5y ago
Relationships have far less ups and downs if you put in serious effort to clarify things with your husband. A man who is kept in the loop about matters that directly involve him, is a man who feels respected. Encouraging his input while you keep him informed will also make it obvious his opinions are important to you.
You don't have to make it a confrontation, or some dire "we need to talk" moment either :p
Spend some time thinking over how to best communicate your needs and intentions (as clear as possible) in a way that inspires him to encourage you to change for the better, instead of expecting you to fail.
teaandtalk 5y ago
Great comment!
LawyerInTheMaking 5y ago
one of these i need to star charging money for my golden content lol. too good at it.
durtyknees 5y ago
While I don't disagree with you, there's also a lot of covert contracts here.
While "show them and not tell them" is good advice, it's also making a lot of assumptions that they'd magically understand what you're "showing" (in her case, he's assuming she's putting on a performance instead of genuine effort to improve herself).
Some empathy and support is also not too much to ask (or even to beg) from your spouse.
I'm confused why her husband is unwilling to extend some empathy, and I'm also confused why she hasn't tried to express her intentions and her distress to him (the way she's expressed them in this post --- if you were her spouse, and a decent person, wouldn't you at least empathize, if not encourage her improvement?)
While "show consistency" is solid advice, when a person has failed in being consistent, communication to clarify intentions and discussion of the problem need to happen with your spouse --- someone who is supposed to be on the same "team" as you.
LawyerInTheMaking 5y ago
I can see where you are coming from but i didnt see it as making a covert contract. For me it would be a covert if she had the expectation that he would make the changes he is hoping for as she is changing herself. I should have put in my original post is to not expect that is will change alongside her.
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I would disagree that "show them and not tell them" is making a lot of assumptions though because as she has mentioned that she has talked to her husband about what she is doing. since she has already told him, it would be better to not say much anymore and just go and do it.
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As for the husband not being able to extend some empathy, i think a lot of his response has to do with how he has been conditioned to deal with her over an extended period of time. He may have a lot of resentment built up from those experiences and build up some emotional boundaries. I relate it to a dead bedroom thing when a wife who has denied her husband sex for a long time, starts to initiate sex with him, but now he is not longer receptive to her advances and/or is uninterested having sex with her. She is hurt that he is rejecting her and is no longer interested. He is suspicious of how genuine she is being and would rather keep his walls up than have to go through the hurt experiences. In u/Taliahood's case, its not sex that he isnt responsive to (i think/hope) but her newfound desire of femininity/redpilling.
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While i understand where you are going with communicating and discussing with your spouse, with her situation it would be like trying to make a overt contract with someone who you dont trust. Her failure to be consistent reinforce his trust issues. They are a team in name but in actuality are 2 different units. She has to show the consistency first because is the one who desires the change to begin with. Married Redpill has some good examples of this where once the guy starts to change on his own and she sees it over time, she is responding positively to it and adjusts her behavior in response.
durtyknees 5y ago
My issue with your advice is that it comes with the limitations of a male perspective, especially how it doesn't take into account that emotional support from her husband (a man who would feel respected and appreciated by being kept in the loop) may be the most important factor to her eventual success to make a permanent improvement --- because her intentions behind this effort to improve herself directly involves and affects him.
In the context/time of your original advice, this "talk" happened before the conflict.
After a conflict, things that need to happen are apologies and clarification of intentions, so you could reach mutual acceptance to inspire mutual love and support, instead of letting hurts and disappointments fester while you "show and not tell".
This works for men in male-led relationships because you're leading a woman who is willing to follow.
Are you advising u/Taliahood to lead? :p
What a follower should be doing is bring the problem to her leader.
A masculine man is naturally primed to respond favorably to a woman who communicates in a feminine manner that appeals to his masculine instincts.
The important thing is to keep it focused on the core of the issue, and keep it brief, then shut up so he could hear himself think about what was said.
[deleted] 5y ago
I really like what you're saying here. I didnt know that any of that was ok. I sometimes feel rather un-emotionally connected and bored just simply complying and pushing through hoping to inspire change in him through my actions even when I'm upset. And as you said, even though that's a widely used method of introducing red pill into your marriage, it does feel like I'm trying to "lead" in the sense that I'm trying lead by example. And just like another form of manipulation. Which is kind of what I'm trying to step away from...
All of this resonates with me. He is my leader, my master, my lover, my captain and I need him to guide me and love me and help me. A calm thorough punishment and makeup sex is so much more motivational than hearing that I'm just not capable of being good at all.
At first I was feeling I should have never said anything at all but after your advice, I'm realizing that the communication is good, I just need to come at him the way you described and ask for his support and compassion.
[deleted] 5y ago
Well I actually did do that right after I posted this. Expressed my intentions and distress I mean. I think that was helpful. And your thinking was exactly my thinking. That he deserved to be in the know because this directly involved and affected him. The more advice I'm getting on this the more clear it's becoming to me that I just got too wrapped up in my emotions and reverted to my normal ways of holding a grudge against him for something he said to me after an argument I started. It just doesnt feel productive to me for him to punish me by wounding my self confidence and putting down my efforts. And he acknowledged that that wasnt helpful when I talked to him about it yesterday. Hopefully moving forward as I do show more consistency, it wont be the way he handles the inevitable moments when I make mistakes.
durtyknees 5y ago
haha I can relate. Remember that what upsets you (general "you") the most is always something you dislike about yourself (whether or not it's true, or whether you only do it subconsciously because you have doubts, hangups/denials, etc). When someone else accuses you of being that "something", or you see someone else being that "something" (you can tell I'm not very good with words :p), it just pisses you off.
Nobody can hurt you emotionally, unless you do it to yourself when they push the "buttons" that set you off.
If you're upset, it's because you're upset with yourself. If you're being kind to yourself (determined to improve and be the best version of yourself), you have no reason to be upset about anything that anyone says to you, and no reason to accuse anyone of wounding you emotionally.
And I'm not saying to dismiss your emotions, either. I'm saying your emotions are valid and you should pay attention to how you feel, in order to figure out how to be good to yourself.
Respect, compassion, appreciation, all these values that people crave to receive from others --- these values are only "true" to/from you, when they are "true" within you first. Forget about "self-esteem" (what others think of you, or your pride/what you think of yourself), focus on self-respect.
You're a smart woman, so you'll get where you want to go if you really want to <3
[deleted]
pearlsandstilettos 5y ago
You do not need to state your gender. If your advice is good, then your maleness is irrelevant.
Ron-Don-Volante 5y ago
I will keep that in mind. I never meant to gain any leverage. I just found out about this subreddit, and want to respect the focused audience of said subreddit.
pearlsandstilettos 5y ago
It's in our rules. If you'd like to edit out the first line, I will reapprove the comment.
[deleted] 5y ago
Your beliefs have to affect you on a subconscious level when it comes to socializing. Just because something makes sense, doesn't mean you should do it in a relationship. You need to feel it, and feel it very deeply considering this is someone you intend to spend the rest of your life with. Otherwise, you'll come off as fake, bitchy, etc. I see this all the time with people in general, though, so you're certainly not alone.
[deleted] 5y ago
Yeah but I think most people are missing the point here. And I think just responding to the comments is helping me to actually rationalize it and figure it out. I dont think my husband actually felt like I was being fake when I was being nice. I took a lot of special care to stay very genuine and be submissive but still opinionated and interesting enough. Mostly I was just behaving like I was happy. And I was. And he was enjoying it. After awhile of this he asked me what in the world was going on with me and I told him about RPW and reading surrendered wife and how I was committed to making a change to myself. Then not long after that we had a couple small fights and I turned into a bitch and he said the things about all the other stuff just being fake and that anger being who I really was. He said it to hurt me because he was upset that I wasnt maintaining consistency with it. He probably thought it would make me want to prove him wrong and instead it made me want to say fuck it.
[deleted]