David Petraeus Affair
In my primary post about oneitis, I said that oneitis is the greatest killer of men there is, and the greatest bane of a man’s existence. A killer of the soul. No story is a better example of this than the recent news about Afghanistan General and CIA Director David Patraeus.
If you have no idea who David Patraeus is (and shame on if you if you don’t, because if you’re an American you should) he was the general in command USCENTCOM, as well as all US and ISAF forces during the latter part of the war in Afghanistan, and if that wasn’t enough, he then became Director of the CIA.
This man was an absolute Alpha badass. This guy was doing 50 pushups within a few days of getting shot in the chest with an M-16.  A while after that he broke his pelvis while jumping out of an airplane. No problem.
Guns can’t stop him. Jumping out of a plane and landing on his hip can’t stop him. Entire armies can’t stop him.
But oneitis? It easily kicked his candy ass, just as if he was the typical pussy beta.
Despite the fact he “spoke with contempt” when talking about officers who cheated on their wives, Patraeus cheated on his wife by fucking his biographer, Paula Broadwell, who herself was married. When Broadwell got word that another chick (Jill Kelley) might have been fucking Patraeus (and apparently she wasn’t), Broadwell went into irrational-bitch mode and started harassing Kelley. Kelley reported her to to the FBI, and that was that. Word got out about the affair, and last week Patraeus resigned in disgrace.
That’s not the whole story. It never is.
Patraeus didn’t just fuck this woman. He got oneitis. At one point she tried to separate from him, but in pure Needy Alpha fashion he had hardcore oneitis, the killer of men. He continued to send her literally thousands of emails anyway, so that she would hopefully Take Him Back™.
Oneitis.
The quintessential definition of the Needy Alpha is a tough, strong, confident, masculine Alpha who is outcome dependent and gets oneitis despite all of this. That’s exactly what we have here with Patraeus. It’s beyond tragic.
I don’t care of how tough you are. I don’t care how masculine you are. I don’t care how Alpha you are. I don’t care what you’ve accomplished in your life. If you can’t handle your oneitis, you will never achieve long term happiness, you will never maintain happiness, and you will never be the man you could be.
Get your oneitis desires handled. Or lose.
Update: Here’s another one. A secret service agent, married man and father, just killed himself after it was discovered he carried on a “years long” affair with a woman from Mexico. Are you getting the point yet?
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The story at the link says that Petraeus broke up with Broadwell, which would explain why she went into “irrational bitch mode” and started sending harassing anonymous emails to Kelley. But if that’s all true, why did Petraeus send so many emails afterwards, trying to get her back? Is oneitis that crazy?
The timing of Petraeus’ confession was very auspicious: just after the election, but before Petraeus was scheduled to testify before Congress about Benghazi and the death of Ambassador Stevens. All indications are that the embassy at Benghazi in Libya is being used by the CIA to channel Al Qaeda weapons and military personnel (aka terrorists) into Syria. See:
I think I can bring a unique perspective on this as a prospective Naval Officer (less than a year away from that goal now). The military has (for worse, IMO) a strong culture of conformity and traditional values, namely getting married, and getting married young. Excessive promiscuity is looked down upon (officially) and can be a roadblock to promotion. Having a wife helped Petraeus promote, helped lubricate social environments, helped paint the “perfect picture” of a responsible man of leadership quality.
And the military places a premium on integrity. Petraeus undoubtedly had to separate other officers from the service for cheating on their spouses–it would be a break from the code if he didn’t resign for the same offense.
Do the math. Petraeus is 60, married 37 years, got married at 23. Holy fuck. High powered men do not-and should not-be expected to be monogamous for that length of time. He could have avoided this entire problem by not promising monogamy in the first place.
It may be considered a failing of the officer corps in that we expect our peers to be married for promotion, but then administratively separate them for failing to meet an almost impossible standard. Expecting Alpha Badasses to have sex with one woman for 37 years is a failure in policy.
When two people are married and having an affair they need to play by the rules. When an influential person is having an affair, another layer of rules apply, when someone is having an affair with an influential person, a different layer of rules apply.
The first rule of “affair club” is “don’t bring your heart”. The second you sniff someone pull a heart out of a pocket, end the affair. Its brutal, but if you are married (and by default have entered into a moral contract of monogamy, drawn up by societal and cultural expectations) and you don’t want to get caught its very simple.
Bringing your heart on the affair journey makes smart people do dumb things and “crazy bitch/jerk mode” is never far away (note: “crazy bitch/jerk mode” behaviour applies to both sexes).
Dennis Hof weighs in on the Petreaus affair: “Relax America it’s just sex.” 🙂
It was hilarious watching the interviewer getting worked up and trying to hold it in. I got the impression that she really wanted to get in an argument with this guy.