3 years of happiness, a lifetime to re-build

“Trust is too easily given to the one we should never trust.  This trust should be earned and not passed over for free.  Strangely, our evaluation to the consequences is taken as an oversight.”

I’ve recently got back in touch with a good friend of mine who is going through a hard time in life.  We lost touch over the last couple of years, but as little as half a dozen years ago I classed him as one of my best mates.  We were pretty similar in many metrics, and whilst he happily conceded that I was a better looking guy, I looked up to his natural confidence and uncompromising attitude with women back then.  He never seemed to be in a position where he chased them, and I’ve seen pleasurable sights of some ex-girlfriends on his mobile phone that proved how smitten they were to his charm.  He wasn’t blessed with god given looks, but he was perfectly placed at the high end of above average male physical attractiveness (7.75/10).  With no great job or wealth to show off, his whole appeal to women lay at the foundation of his care-free demeanour.  I recollect the nights out fondly.

At the back end of 2007 there was an attractive looking blonde haired woman who joined the gym we both went to.  We found out she was in her early 20s and from Lithuania.  It didn’t take long for her to instigate conversation with him (yes, the occasional woman does pro-act when there is a desirable man she lusts for), and he started seeing her concurrent to being with his long term girlfriend.  Within a couple of months he called it off with his girlfriend in order to be with this woman, and due to rental lease expirations at their respective residencies, they decided to move in together.  I always thought it was too much too soon, but I think he probably thought 6 months living together would be a mutual benefit to bide some time.

After little more than a few weeks from living together, I remember getting a call from him on my drive home.  I pulled up, and he seemed a little indecisive in his speech which was unlike his usual self.  He told me she was pregnant and that her mother would not allow the child to be born in an unmarried couple.  They married before a bulge could be seen on her tummy.

As a self-confessed cynic of female manipulation and cunning plans, I couldn’t help but feel sympathy for my buddy’s poor choices.  She had a limited social life with very few friends, and she would have known about his womanizing antics.  Although this would have acted as an appealing trait at first (women love men who other women find attractive), she would have been wary of him doing the same to her.  A leopard finds it hard to change its spots, but a married man with a family has more barriers put in front of inevitable temptations. 

At the time of them meeting each other – prior to the pregnancy and wedding – I remember feeling a little envious to the way he could just always seem to fall on his feet with women.  I’d not long come out of a long term relationship with a top class girlfriend, and I knew, with my standards of combined required female hotness and personality, that the next relationship material woman wouldn’t just fall at the drop of a hat.  I’m not saying his now wife was tailor made for my tastes, but I could have seen myself with her all the same.  With all this in mind, part of me wished I could be in his shoes.  We’d both had our gallivanting days with numerous women in the local town and beyond, and a future with one woman seemed like the natural progression for both of us.  I guess, in a retrospective, honest and minor way, I was a touch jealous that he got there first.  

As time passed by, I rarely saw him or the family.  On the odd occasions we did collide, I have to say that the 3 of them (baby now growing into a little girl) all looked genuinely happy.  They, on the face of it, quite easily overcame a 12 month drink driving ban that my mate incurred during the latter part of 2008, and by 2011 they were expecting a second child.  The last time I saw her was around the period of being diagnosed with cancer, and with him it was some 7 months later when he hardly recognized me as I drew a close to the chemotherapy treatment.  I know she always had a plan to move to London to promote her career, but until the other day I wasn’t aware they had actually made this venture in 2012. 

There are always two sides to a story in terms of break-ups.  The statistics cannot be concealed, and over half of modern day UK marriages end in divorce or separation.  Women make up the majority of the initiation figures, but many will claim they were forced into this because they no longer want to be with a man due to his adultery habits.  This claim doesn’t stack up, because a higher percentage of men file for divorce on infidelity grounds than women do likewise.  There has to be other fundamental reasons for why women make up the high jettison numbers.

In this case, my friend is actually the one who, whilst not initiating a divorce, withdrew from the relationship.  He tells me she became too obsessed with her own life and her work, thus leaving him to do all the school/nursery drop offs/pick-ups.  When he asked her to be more involved, she simply claimed she couldn’t change.  When he decided to leave he thought it would be amicable, but her reaction was in the form of threats to take the kids to Lithuania so he would never see them again.  As these things go, solicitor and court fees are leaving an honest man in financial and emotional despair.

Q-Tip:

Let this be a lesson to all men.  Compromise, empathy and rationalization, with most women, is only a one-way street.  A woman is incapable of thinking of anyone but herself or anything outside of her own welfare, so discussion to how the two of them reach a predicament is pretty much a waste of time.  It won’t be her fault in any such manner, she so says and believes.  The more evidence and reality you throw at a woman, the more delusional she will become.  In simple terms, women do not like reality, because reality acts as the front row accusation towards their firmer friend that is fallacy.  With fallacy dripped into a person’s vain, they can deny any wrong doing as they such please.

My friend is no saint, and you could argue that all this has come back to bite him in the butt.  The relationship started off as a lie (due to him still being with his ex-girlfriend), and it appears there will be inevitable further lies set out before the case is settled.

I attain no satisfaction out of not belonging to the extreme happiness and despair cycle of life, but I do look at situations of this kind and see it as a lucky escape.  On another given day, as a former blue pill man, it could have been me.  I’d take a safe bet that out of the last 6 years, only half this amount would leave my friend with thoughts of not looking back to his days of freedom.  I don’t doubt for a second that he, similar to most other men in these scenarios, is so proud of his little girls and what he has brought into the world, but I also don’t doubt being right that, if these men had their time again, they would have placed more consideration into their decisions.

When all is said and done, a modern day man almost has to go into a relationship with one eye on conceding it won’t last forever.  You need a subconscious back-up plan.  As good as intentions are in the early days, the reality is love cannot conquer all.  Love diminishes, and once this inevitability hits a start button, minor issues transform into major consequences.  Once love no longer acts as the defense mechanism, the force of nature that is selfishness, independence and resentment only becomes ever stronger.  Once the white flag is raised in surrender, men, and women, need to start the re-building phase.

In cases of this kind, there are no true winners.  By the whole system of law, women are protected in the courts to ensure they are financially provided for that goes way beyond a simple 50/50 split.  The child custody to a man will also be in a woman’s favour, almost to the point where she can name the day to when the father has access to the kids.   A man must start over in financial terms, even if he caught his ex-wife practically having it off with another lover.  The reasons for divorce have become irrelevant to the ultimate outcomes.

Nevertheless, if women are generally the big winners in economic terms post divorce stage, they are the absolute losers in respect to the locating of future partners from the opposite sex.  Given the choice of two similar looking women, what kind of man is going to choose someone with children from previous times over her female counterpart with no objective past baggage?  Consequently, men who do take this route are men who believe they can do no better, and that spells out signals of a low calibre man lacking in confidence. 

On the other hand, by sheer innate and developed mentality, women actually take a liking to men with proof of previous love.  Don’t think it’s only fellow female parents either, as this includes the majority of single women too.  Children formed from a past relationship to a man are simply not the sticking point to his dating success in comparison to how motherhood will restrict a woman’s options for forthcoming male takers.  Whether women choose to accept this reality, or men opt to take advantage of it, is entirely up to them.

As a final conclusion to this subject, I reference another close friend who has found himself in a not dissimilar situation when it comes to female plan of life, and the strategy that simultaneously joins on to it.  Not long after his 22^nd birthday, he met a 25 year old woman.  It didn’t take many months for her to get pregnant, mutually unplanned of course, and by doing the “right” thing he made sure they purchased a house together.  It was all they could afford at the time, and it couldn’t be concealed in the way of the residence being in a deprived area with just the two bedrooms.

Six years has passed by, and his career progression has elevated in terms of status and earnings.  When I spoke to him a few months ago about upgrading in area and size, he was transparent in the way of not desiring a bigger mortgage, adding that his disposable income could be spent on more enjoyable aspects of life.  He also mentioned how his girlfriend (the mother of his child) was giving him a nudge and hints towards them moving to a larger dwelling in a more affluent area.

Only last weekend, I received a text message from him.  Voila, et poof!  His girlfriend is expecting their second child and she is 12 weeks into the pregnancy.  There’s no doubting the next stage will be that larger house she was leading to with resistance on his part.  Is this a pure coincidence?  Or is just another all so common case of male resistance losing out to female manipulating tactics and non-empathetic mindset?