Wives, of course, don’t cry for candy, but they can dream up some near impossible tasks for husbands. Like asking for a $20,000 kitchen remodel when she hardly cooks anyway and they are already starting to struggle with credit card debt. When a husband says
“No”
to that, you can bet he’s going to get hit with some sort of emotional outburst as she seeks to break his will and grant her a better kitchen to not cook in.
If he sticks to his guns she will probably be emotionally upset, but after her initial angry mood passes, she will be happier and more attracted to him. As the husband shows his dominant frame, she responds with increased attraction for him.
(10.4) What is and is Not a Fitness Test
Most Fitness Tests your wife will toss at you come in a few standard variations that are seemingly easily spotted, but they also come very close to things that aren't Fitness Tests at all. The trouble is figuring out which is which. You can mess up just as fast by failing a Fitness Test as by bumping back on her on something that wasn't one in the first place. If she was trying to be genuinely nice and you tell her off, that’s legitimately going to upset her.
Importantly, most times the woman isn't even aware of the testing nature of what she is doing, so there's no easy way to just ask her what's up either. If you happen to get tangled up with a woman that is consciously testing you and gaining some kind of pleasure from watching you squirm, it's about the worst red flag there is. Personally I’d avoid relationships with these women with such an enormous need for stimulation. If a woman actively wants to chew a man up she will find a way: divorce, alimony, child support, false rape, cuckolding, restraining orders, bank accounts pillaged… it can get pretty bad.
Some basic Fitness Test variations, coupled with things that aren't tests...
The Small Request Test
–
This is where she asks you to do something that she is perfectly capable of, simply so that she doesn’t have to. These are often small tasks that barely require any effort, so you can unwittingly start performing them for her simply trying to be “polite”, or “nice”. But if you’re starting to find yourself being her butler, then you’ve established that she is the dominant one in the relationship and you are Displaying Low Value. A tip off is if she is seated on something and instead of getting up to get something, she asks you to go get it and bring it to her.
The Small Request Non-Test –
A request to perform a small task where you have natural advantages over her. For example Jennifer is very short and I am very tall, so when she asks me to put away something in the kitchen that goes away very high in the cabinets, it just makes sense that I do it. A couple times Jennifer has been injured by heavy items falling back down on her, so I actually get testy at her for not asking for help sometimes.
The I’m a Cute Girl Test
– A request to comply with something simply because she has asked for it in a coy seductive manner and, being a boy, you are powerless before potential pussy. There's usually some sort of inflection of voice that tips this off. The request is an
unreasonable
one, such as getting out of an unwanted task, or getting something from you like a drink or money. It's best not to comply and find a way to get her to do it if she is perfectly capable.
The I’m a Cute Girl Non-Test
– This is a reasonable request, but comes with a quite purposefully aware display of sexiness. She's purposely using the request as an excuse to be sexually playful with you and display her interest in you. The question/request is just a cover. Jennifer tends to have an almost comic approach with this and sometimes loads up a Small Request Non Test with a dose of sexual coyness just for fun. I’m cool with my wife rubbing her breasts on me asking me to put away kitchen items high up.
The I’m Getting Emotional About This Test
– As soon as a woman finds out her tears is your Kryptonite you're in deep doo-doo. Don't respond to her drama and hysteria over minor things. Sometimes this is tied into her menstrual cycle, but typically the women that reach for this tool use it an awful lot. After a while the entire relationship can be based on her mood swings. She is unhappy about X so you must do something about X right now. Now she's unhappy about Y, why can't you fix Y? Z also displeases her. The more you cater to her, the worse it gets, until eventually she becomes the unhappiest woman in the world and you are near death from exhaustion.
The I’m Getting Emotional About This Non-Test
– This is when something really does happen that isn't trivial or minor and she's upset. Everyone has a crappy day once in a while. As long as she's not making a lifestyle of it, you should be standing in, standing up, or standing with her during these moments. The key here is not to try and bail her out of a bad situation and solve her problem for her, but to be present and available to her to aid in solving it herself. Sometimes you just have to let them cry it out for a bit.
The Badly Inconveniencing You Request Test
– This is where she asks you to do something that would cost her little of her time, but costs you a lot of yours. So
"Can you pick up the girls from school today"
when school is five minutes round trip from home on a work from home day for her, while you have to leave work early to get to the school on time. That's a big test. Just say
“No.”
The Badly Inconveniencing You Non-Test
– This is when yes indeed this is going to screw your day, but if you don't help out she is going to be royally screwed. Today the kid is sick and someone has to stay home, but today she has that presentation thing and that meeting with her boss. So you save her with your best smile.
The Sexual Denial Test
– You can't have any sex from me because... [insert statement of accusation of what you did or did not do]. This is just cruel and really eats away at the relationship. Personally I'd just reflect that verbally back to her and say that it's dirty tactics. The other version is simply saying she doesn't feel in a sexual mood, it's not you... just that she doesn't feel sexy or sexual anymore. At this point you start talking about visiting doctors and naturally running The MAP on her.
The Sexual Denial Non-Test
– She is feeling acutely ill, or having her period, or cramping, or is just physically exhausted. Basically her body is not going to be terribly cooperative with the
“bouncy bouncy”
session today. As long as it resolves in a day or two, it's not testing behavior. If it starts going on and on and on… then it's doctor time.
The Not Responding To Your Calls Test
– You're calling and texting her and she's basically blowing you off. Can't find my phone. I'm kinda busy. I'm dancing to my favorite song. I can't text with a drink in my hand. I'm just dancing. The whole Lady Gaga
"Telephone"
BS. Slap this down as soon as possible. It’s very rude.
The Not Responding To Your Calls Non-Test
– She's in a meeting. She's driving and there's a cop behind her. She's on a plane. She’s at the school picking up the kids and there are 500 screaming brats in a gym and she didn’t hear the phone ring. Once Jennifer accidentally blocked my cell phone number on her phone in the middle of a very positive and happy week in our marriage... I was very close to tearing her head off before we figured it out.
The Remodel The House Test
– The house is actually fine and isn't broken. But she somehow needs something torn out and rebuilt with something more expensive. Doesn't add much value, if any.
The Fix The House Non-Test
– Something in the house is broken. It’s usually best to just fix it. Upgrade if it's a good idea and adds value to the house.
(10.5) The Second Date Rule
A quick and dirty way of deciding if something is a Fitness Test is The Second Date Rule.
“
If what she just did happened on the second date, would there have been a third date?”
If the answer is “No,” then it’s a Fitness Test.
Mostly it's all about knowing what is appropriate "playing as a team" and what is simply seeking to use you. It's your job to sort that out. It's okay to make a few mistakes along the way; you just can't get into a losing streak where she endlessly wins something over you.
(10.6) Nice Guys Actively Strategize to be Taken Advantage Of
Let’s play a game. Assume for a moment that a husband and a wife could choose one of two cards each day in a game that decides how their evening will go that day. One of the cards is marked “nice”; the other card is marked “mean”. They each choose a card in secret and turn them over at the same time. The cards determine who does the chores and who relaxes.
Husband Nice, Wife Nice
– Both husband and wife split the chores together. Home cooked meal together.
Husband Nice, Wife Mean
– Wife too tired to do anything and has a headache. Husband has to do all the chores and make a quick dinner.
Husband Mean, Wife Nice
– Husband watches TV all night and complains about Wife. Wife does all the chores and makes dinner.
Husband Mean, Wife Mean
– No one does much of anything. Takeout is ordered.
Now it seems fairly clear that having both husband and wife be nice to each other is the ideal setup. Obviously, both being mean to each other is unpleasant too. But the options where one half plays the nice card and gets screwed for it while the other plays the mean card and wins a servant for a day can be.... well tempting, if only for once in a while.
Now imagine in a real relationship how this game is played over and over. I know it is oversimplifying things to say that a couple coming home from work each day decide to be either nice or mean to each other, but in general it's true. As even well below-average intelligence humans are extremely bright compared to other mammals, both husband and wife will learn the other’s strategy very quickly.
The Nice Guy strategy is simple –
always
play the nice card. No matter what happens, whether the wife is nice or mean, he will just continue to play the nice card night after night. Very quickly the wife will learn that her husband is using the Nice Guy strategy and will always play the nice card. That allows her to very safely use a strategy called "Whatever I Feel Like" where she on her own whim can either choose to be nice and have a pleasant time with her husband, or simply choose to be mean and be waited on by him.
Over time the husband gets increasingly frustrated with this combination of strategies. He is being nice and she is not. He rationalizes that she
should
be nice back to him, but she isn't always or even terribly often, though she is sometimes. The obvious solution to an impartial observer is to tell the Nice Guy to stop being so nice. Unfortunately the Nice Guy nearly always refuses this advice until it is too late.
(10.7) Why Nice Guys are Addicted to the Wrong Strategy
The question is,
“Why are Nice Guys so fixated on the wrong strategy when everyone else can see that it is failing them?”
Even the Nice Guys can say they understand it’s the wrong strategy, but they persist in it anyway. An easy answer is that Nice Guys are simply psychically damaged from some sort of childhood trauma and can't break free of the early programming. Though that may indeed be true, that helps us little as an actual tool for change. The way I believe it is best understood as an adult is that the Nice Guy gets hooked into a behavioral response pattern to being given a
random
reward.
Imagine a lab rat in a cage that has a lever on one wall. If every time the lever is pushed a food pellet is given, the rat will only push the lever when it wants a food pellet. The rest of the time it will ignore the lever. If the lever does nothing, the rat will play with it, figure out it's useless and then ignore it. However if the lever
randomly
drops a food pellet into the cage, the rat will spend a lot of effort working the lever to ensure it has a supply of food pellets. It's the same basic principle that addicts people to gambling on the one armed bandit slot machines. You may pull the lever nine times and get nothing, but the tenth time might be a winner, or maybe not until the 100th pull. It's
random
and creates a large dopamine response when it finally works.
Sex already triggers a big dopamine response as a reward mechanism, so a
randomized
sexual reward is a double whammy and creates an utterly massive dopamine response. If a Nice Guy is in a low sex marriage, when he finally gets sex it creates the same sort of hormonal response as winning a good sized jackpot off a slot machine; it’s an intense and addictive high.