Success With Monogamy is Not Like Success in Business
In this post, I list all the common objections I get when I say long-term monogamy doesn’t work.
Lately, with the recent posts about marriage, I’ve been getting a lot on Objection 31 in my email and on this blog. If you aren’t familiar with Objection 31, here it is from the above post and its response:
31. Most marriages fail. Okay, fine. But most small businesses also fail, yet you encourage guys to start their own businesses. You’re not being consistent.
Response: Even if you’re the perfect spouse and do everything right, you’re still only 50% of the equation. Starting a small business, you’re damn near 100% of the equation. (Even if other people are involved, you can almost instantly replace them if they don’t play ball.) There is no valid comparison between those two things.
Today I’m going to explain the above in more detail. A lot of guys either aren’t reading this or aren’t understanding it.
Here are a few statements from comments and emails I’ve received lately:
From Hel Lo:
To say that you should not get involved in one based on the stats showing a high rate of failure is like saying you should not start a business because of the high rates of failure. Stats are just that… stats. You and I have both started businesses, have an international following and are successful. We took the risk against the stats pointing toward failure. You’re smart and can figure out where this is leading. Hope and hard work are rare commodities and the lack thereof is a big reason people fail… in whatever they do, regardless of the odds.
From Aaron:
Monogamy is a real challenge and only the strongest, the most real dudes are able to make it happen and succeed at it. Sometimes the bullshit can get too much but quitters never win and winners never quit… Disney is on the cards for me because I make it a priority and work towards it, just like anything in life. It may not work out but that’s no reason to give up on the idea.
From David:
BD you’ve achieved all kinds of difficult things that most guys will never achieve, like your six figure income, your success with women, Alpha 2.0 life, etc. Lifetime marriage is the same thing. Yeah it’s hard, but it’s doable despite being statistically unlikely, just like you did everything else. Stats don’t apply to the individual.
I could give you more quotes but I think you get the idea. I’m going to explain why some of you guys really aren’t getting this.
First, as always, we have to get our definitions straight. I’ve said this before, but to re-iterate so there is no confusion:
1. When I say long-term monogamy, that means any monogamy expected to last much longer than three years, such as marriage. I do and have stipulated that short-term monogamy and serial monogamy can “work” for certain personality types. We’re only talking about the long-term marriage type of monogamy today.
2. Cheating isn’t monogamy. If you are married but you have cheated or your wife has cheated, you are not monogamous, and your monogamy has failed. Your marriage might have survived, but you’re not a monogamous couple any more. You’re simply a dysfunctional OLTR at that point.
Now that we have that out of the way, let’s start where the above argument is correct. I have indeed achieved several things over the course of my life that are statistically unusual, for example:
1. Starting a small business and making it succeed. (Several times.)
2. Getting my income to six figures by age 27.
3. Having sex with a number of women equal to many times the statistical average.
4. Losing 40 pounds and (so far!) not gaining it back.
I could list a few other things but the point of this article is not to brag about my achievements. Everything above has very low odds for success for the typical, statistical American man. True. Doesn’t this mean that long-term monogamy is now a worthwhile goal, even if your odds of success are less than 13%?
No. There is one very important difference between the above items and long-term monogamy with one woman. That is, I did not have to rely on a single, external individual to accomplish those things.
When you’re married (or unmarried but long-term monogamous; I will use the word “married” to describe both for the remainder of the article), you require one single, external individual (your wife) to consistently behave a certain way for at least 45 years or so. During that time, to be successful at long-term monogamy, she
1. Cannot ever cheat.
2. Cannot ever divorce you.
If she does either one of those things, your monogamy has failed. Again, you could argue that your marriage or relationship somehow survived, but you’re not monogamous any more, and you have joined the ranks of the 87% (at least!) of the Western population who do not have the ability to be sexually monogamous to one person for more than a few years.
As soon as you get divorced or she cheats (or you cheat), cue the Blackdragon smirk of “I told you so” and “Thank you for proving my point.” Also cue the “I should have listened to you three years ago” emails I frequently get.
Moreover, you require this woman behave this way for you to be successful. Her necessary behavior is not optional or helpful to your success, it’s required for your success.
This means that you can, literally, be the greatest husband on planet Earth, have the greatest monogamous relationships skills in history, be greatest dad who ever lived, be the smoothest, strongest and most even-handed Alpha Male (1.0) in the manosphere, and you’re still only 50% of the equation.
Over the next 40+ years, even if you’re Mr. Amazing and do everything 100% perfect in your relationship (yeah right), she’s still likely to eventually get bored, or cheat, or get really pissed at you, or decide she doesn’t like you any more, or cuts back on the sex, all of which are things she is biologically hard-wired to do. Then odds are she’ll divorce you or cheat if she hasn’t already.
Now before your head explodes, I have stipulated many times before that if you are a very skilled Alpha Male, you can extend the time it takes before she starts doing these things. You can also reduce the severity of these things. A clueless beta might start getting these things within two years after his wedding, but you as the awesome Alpha Male might not experience them until seven or nine years.
But prevent them from ever happening? Ever? In a time frame of over 40+ years? Sorry dude. Your odds are ridiculously low, regardless of how hard you work at it or how amazing you are.
Lastly, if it doesn’t work out, and you need to replace her with a new (better) wife, you’ll need to get a divorce, and again, you’ve failed and become a statistic (87%+). Marriage is not like a video game or starting a small business where you can keep trying and failing, trying and failing, trying and failing, and eventually nailing it and being successful. I don’t think anyone reading these words wants to get married and divorced seven times before finding the perfect wife.
Examine the above four statistically unlikely things I’ve accomplished. Did any of them require a single, individual woman to behave a certain way for 40 years? How about 10 years? Hell, how about just 2 or 3 years?
Nope. Instead, it was all (or mostly) about me and my own individual efforts. Here’s what I mean:
1. Starting a small business and making it succeed. This does not require any single, individual woman to do anything. It’s all about you. Yes, you need to work with other people, but if they don’t play ball, you fire their asses and replace them literally whenever you want (this includes customers too!) while still not failing in your business.
Yes, there are external factors related to your success, like the industry you work in or the product you sell. But just about any industry is flexible enough to make money in (assuming you work hard enough), and if you’re not selling your product correctly you can modify the product (or service) and/or change how you market it until something works. Successful entrepreneurs do this all the time, myself included.
If I have to modify my product, change a marketing technique, or fire an employee or subcontractor in order to be successful, I’m still in business and I still haven’t failed. But if you get married and she doesn’t work out (i.e. she cheats or you get a divorce) your Disney marriage/monogamy has failed.
See the difference?
(The only exception to this are men who get married with the secret intention of getting divorced down the road, whom I’ve discussed before. If you want to get married and really don’t mind getting divorced later, then I think you’re a weirdo but at least you’re not delusional, so I’m not talking to you guys today. I’m talking about men who think if they are “Alpha enough” or “work hard enough” they can have a forever, or close to it, mono-marriage, i.e. Disney.)
2. Getting to a six figure income at a young age (or any age!). Again, this is all based on your individual efforts, not the efforts of you and a woman you can never replace and who needs to behave a certain way for 40 years. Or even five years. Or even one year.
3. Having sex with a number of women equal to many times the statistical average. This one is interesting. It’s reliant on women certainly, but not one particular woman. That’s a huge difference, and one many men don’t understand. I’ve talked before about the thought many Alphas have that “I’ve fucked a lot of girls so I’ll be good at a serious relationship.”
Pickup, dating, seduction, and sex are about a large pool of women that you’re working with, not just one girl. If any individual girl doesn’t work out, no prob. You next them (or they next you) and you move on to the next woman on the list. A relationship is about you and one other woman, one-on-one. It’s an entirely different thing, both logistically and statistically.
But even relationships I have put in my favor! How? Simple. Since I know long-term monogamy doesn’t work, I date multiple women. Under an FB/MLTR model, my odds for success go from long-term monogamy’s pitiful 13% to 90% or higher, because I’m dealing with a group instead of one particular individual.
Well what about OLTRs then BD?
I’ve got that one covered too. I’ve said numerous times that OLTRs are temporary even if you do everything right. I never expect to have an OLTR that lasts longer than 10 years, ever. I’ll be damn lucky if I ever get one that lasts longer than seven. If I do have one that lasts 10+ years, that’s wonderful, but I’m not planning on it. Actually planning on such a thing would be dumb.
Why? Because just like with Disney monogamy and unlike FBs or MLTRs, an OLTR requires one specific, individual woman to behave a certain way for a prolonged period of time. It would be insane of me to think this would be a doable thing “forever.” For three years or five years? Sure. I’ve done it. But for longer than ten years? Possible but very unlikely, even if I do everything right.
This is the same reason you can’t compare starting a business with long-term monogamy. Dealing with a large group is a very workable model for statistical success. Dealing with just one person is a crap shot. A bad one.
4. Losing 40 pounds and (so far!) not gaining it back. Clearly this did not require any one woman do to anything. It was all about my individual efforts, regardless of what any woman external to me did or did not do.
Interesting side point. If anything, being married and monogamous actually makes losing weight more difficult. When I was married it was extremely difficult to lose weight, since the wife was horrified every time I ate healthy. She’d make a wonderful lasagna dinner with cake for dessert, and as she and the kids were eating that, I’d be eating my tiny salad and nothing else. Oh man, she hated that. Other chubby married men who try to lose weight often report the same problem with their wives. Not to mention the standard problem monogamous men have where their wives or live-in girlfriends sort of want their men to look dumpy to avoid competition from other women.
Bottom line, you as an Alpha should set strong goals that involve things that are statistically unlikely provided those things don’t require a single, particular, external individual to behave a certain consistent way for 40+ years.
If you want to start a business, become a millionaire, lose 70 pounds, win a gold medal, become elected to high office, become famous, or anything like that, that’s great! Set a goal, make a plan, and get it done! If you want it bad enough and work hard at it, your odds are decent. Maybe not great, but decent, depending on the goal.
But if you want to get stay sexually monogamous with one particular woman for the rest of your life, it doesn’t matter how hard you work at it. It doesn’t matter how good you are, how Alpha you are, how sweet and submissive and feminine she is, or how many relationship books or blogs you’ve read, your odds of that working out over a 40+ year period are fucking terrible.
You cannot equate something like the low odds being successful in business to the low odds of having long-term monogamy work. Hopefully now you understand the logistical and mathematical reasons why.
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Long term marriage is more about the odds of finding a more exciting mate than you have than anything else. A lot of married women try at affairs after some life milestone ( they hit 30, 40, 45, the kids leave the nest etc..)that go no where, their flirtations not reciprocated by the Alphas they desire and they stay. When all this is going on the super husband is often none the wiser, or may look back on it later as “A bit of a rough patch”. If the wife finds no other serious takers eventually she becomes resigned to her “Successful marriage” and we all toast her for putting up with that awful man she married at their 50th wedding anniversary.
“Starting a small business, you’re damn near 100% of the equation.”
ummmm… errrr…. So what you’re saying is that you and your employees are part of the equation (the employees being a very small part) but the customer has nothing, or an even smaller part, to do with it?
(wonder where that leaves us, your readers)
The other thing is that you speak of this as if you live in a vacuum where you control everything when in reality you cannot escape the fact that all things are interconnected and that amount of control is an illusion. There is only so much you can control in life, love and business and… it is not the close to 100% control that you suggest.
Now, if you were to draw comparisons of having one lover to having just one business for the rest of your life, that would make more sense. But to say that you cannot succeed at monogamy because you are not in complete control whereas you are almost in complete control in your business is, IMH, but accurate, Opinion… in error and sooooo supremely arrogant, even for you BD.
@Art
That just goes back to having control via abundance, like in the example BD gave about dating. If you as a customer suddenly quit reading BD’s blog and giving him your business, you’ll simply be replaced.
If you want to start your own business and you fail, you likely have an abundance of opportunities to try again.
You know, sometimes when arguing with somebody over something you get to the point where they simply don’t seem to get it no matter how many times you explain it to them. After reading Artbeast’s comment, I think this topic has gotten to that point. Either he and these other guys aren’t smart enough to understand the difference between one irreplaceable person and many easily replaceable people, or (more likely) they don’t want to understand it because it conflicts with their deeply held beliefs.
Well, this one is pretty clear. A single person is unpredictable and uncontrollable. A group of people is entirely different.
You can start a business making boots and you can be confident people will buy boots for years to come, even though some people already have boots, some live in hot climates, some have lost their legs, some can’t afford footwear. Some will still buy your boots.
But relying on a single person for anything is as risky as starting a business catering to a single client. You can manufacture turbine blades that no-one but Boeing wants, your reward can be high (or not that high, who knows), but the risk they’ll stop buying will always be present. Or you can sign a 10-year contract and alleviate that risk, can you do the same with your wife?
@Tony
didn’t get that. Must be because of my deeply held beliefs vis-a-vis your deeply held beliefs 🙂 Btw, I am in agreement about the OLTR but the argument re. business is in error. So, what are those deeply held beliefs you mentioned that are clouding my judgment?
@SM
While it is true that opportunities exist all around, do you believe that everyone and everything just gets replaced to fill a void? Sometimes hardship is a path to the fulfillment of our ultimate mission and to think that what we have is the exclusive product of our efforts alone is again, supremely arrogant. And, to think that what we have cannot change in a very short period of time is also arrogant.
BD will walk away from drama in a human relationship but deal with it in his businesses. So, it is his choice to put more effort into his businesses than it is into human relationships. Maybe that’s a factor in why things don’t work for him in longer term relationships. Maybe when he is later 50’s/60’s and all he can manage to get is something old and less physically desirable things will change for him. I dunno.
The whole point BD is trying to make is to never SOLELY rely on any ONE individual. Instead, rely on a group of people.
If you’ve been reading his blog, which I doubt, he never said that you can control EVERYTHING. His point was that you have MORE CONTROL over your life than you think.
For example, if you get laid off due to economic conditions. That’s something out of your control. However, what you CAN DO is go out and find another job instead of sitting at home thinking “Woe is me…”.
No, that’s a horrible comparison. That’s like comparing oranges to Red Delicious apples. Having one lover (assuming you mean TMM) is just ONE relationship MODEL, which is specific, whereas in business, you can many types.
Also, another point about starting a business. Because it’s not something that 95%-98% of people actually do, I think a more accurate comparison to TMM would be to become employed with ONE company with the expectation that you’ll stay there forever while pulling in a 6 figure income.
I think this is a more accurate comparison because:
– The expectations are not realistic
– This is something that most people in the world do.
– You are only 50% of the equation.
Of course I know there are some things that can’t be compared between the two, this is a loose comparison bear in mind. But if you wanted to compare monogamy to something business/income related, this is the closest comparison.
@Artbeast: When you have a business, or MLTR and FB relationships, you do depend on other people, but you are depending on multiple people who are easily replaceable, so if you fail the failure is due to you not doing it right. Caleb does rely on his customers to pay his bills, but if one or two customers find their “one true love” and decide his ideas are bullshit he’s not going to lose his house. His business might even grow, because those people could be replaced with 10 others. This gives the business owner almost complete control.
However, when trying a permanent monogamous marriage, you don’t have this luxury. If your wife decides to stop having sex with you or cheats on you, you can’t just go out and find another wife and declare the marriage a success. At that point your marriage has failed as planned, and there was nothing you could do about it.
The difference is in the numbers. In his business, he needs dozens or hundreds of people to change their minds to fail, which would never happen. In a monogamous relationship, you only need one person to change their minds, which is very likely to happen.
@Art
Believing that the world is in your hands and everything is your fault is what psychologists call having an “internal locus of control.” Many psych studies suggest that having an internal locus of control, where you believe everything in your life (good or bad) is your fault, goes hand-in-hand with happiness and success (Google it). Having an “external locus of control,” where nothing is your fault and everyone else is the problem leads to unhappiness and frustration.
But is having an internal locus of control arrogant? Yeah that’s one thing you could call it. But who cares about being perceived as arrogant as long as you’re happy? Happiness is the bottom line. There’s also two sides to that coin: if I’m successful at something and I believe it’s mostly because of my own choices, then you’ll think I’m arrogant. But what about before I became successful and I believed that my failures were also due to my own choices? I think that ought to be considered before jumping to the conclusion that they’re an arrogant person.
My home could be destroyed by a tornado tomorrow and I could become homeless. But since the odds of that happening are so astronomically low, it’s not worth worrying about, and it’s really not worth planning against. If something like that happened to me, I’d definitely be upset but I’d just be forced to accept it and move on, and then decide if I still want to live here– if it’s worth the risk of another spontaneous tornado attack lol. On the other hand, an MLTR or FB could choose to leave me tomorrow and that’s a much more likely event… and that’s why before getting into these relationships in the first place, I planned ahead to ensure that I have the ability to replace them if necessary, so that way I never experience a major dip in happiness.
First let me say that I totally agree that marriage is a failed construct and that anyone that believes marriage and/or life-time monogamy is going to work well will be in for a rude awakening.
I have been considering the possibility of selective temporary monogamy (STM from now on —Â let’s say 6 months to 5 years for example) as a superior happiness maximizing strategy to OLTRs + MLTRs + FBs.
BDs points and comparisons are interesting to me and tie into my thoughts on STM in an interesting way. Let me clarify.
There are two kinds of “small businesses” in my opinion. Sole proprietorships where you are the only required employee. Independent consultants would fall into this type of small business. You might have a low-level employee/contractor or three but they are easy to replace if someone isn’t pulling their weight.
The other “small business” is an entrepreneurial venture. This could be a restaurant chain, technology company, chain of franchises, chain of dry cleaners, etc. In this type of venture you have to rely on other people. You can certainly create some wealth by having a sole proprietorship but you can create extreme wealth in an entrepreneurial venture. The reason is LEVERAGE. When you build a team (a good one of course) you can build an enterprise worth many, many, many times what a sole proprietorship can be worth. But BD is right…you have less control. More upside, less control.
One of my closest friends who is exceedingly intelligent (Stanford MBA) and super hard working has been an independent consultant since he graduated from business school over 20 years ago. He makes between $200,000 and $400,000 a year depending on the year. Not too bad. But he has communicated to me on a number of occasions that it is a lonely way to make a living and he laments his inability to hit the “home run” of a big financial pay day.
In my experience one of the most fun things about running a company is building a great team. Finding the right people with the right skills and helping them work well together and get the best from each other. Do I depend on those people? Hell yes. If one of my key people quit does it impact my business? Sure. But the trade off is significantly increased leverage in terms of the wealth I can create for myself  and I also have way more fun then when I did independent consulting and made $400,000 a year.
Another good analogy is sports. When I was in high school I played soccer and was also was a wrestler. As a wrestler it was primarily up to me how well I did. Yes, having a good coach matters and having good training partners matters but even though I wasn’t on a very good team I was able to do very well. Even the end-of-year tournaments were all about the individual. My team could do awful but I could still win the tournament. Soccer was a different story. I was one of eleven starters and no matter how well I played if we didn’t play well as a team, we wouldn’t win. My team did well but not that well but some of my fondest memories are some of our big wins together as a team.
Friendships are the same way. In fact all interpersonal relationships. Mentors. Family. In each of these we only control half of the equation and yet most of my happiest experiences are from these relationships where I only control half of the equation.
All of this is a longwinded way of saying that perhaps STM could be a superior short-term and medium-term strategy to OLTRs with MLTRs and FBs when you can find an exceptional person worthy of STM. Again, I maintain that the level of intimacy you can get from a very high quality woman is reduced without monogamy making the tradeoff between variety and depth of intimacy.
In the same way that there is a slight increase in drama with an OLTR the same will likely be the case with STM, but so long as you keep exit costs near zero the same rules apply. You stay in a STM relationship as long as it makes you happy and not a moment longer. I guess the main issue I see is I don’t want a romantic relationship that is easily replaceable. Yes of course it will be replaceable but not EASILY REPLACEABLE. When you meet that women that is smart, sexy, young, lower drama, kind, self sufficient, amazing in bed, high sex drive, etc. she is by definition not easily replaceable. Most women that are in the top 5% across the board won’t accept non-monogamy…or at least not for very long.
Now in the absence of someone exceptional, I am completely on board with some mix of MLTRs and FBs. But I see the trade off being between having variety and spending some amount of time (months to a few years) with the truly exceptional (but not one-of-a-kind) women of the world.
I get it. We need a new legal and social definition for a “primary” relationship, particularly one that includes children. The “traditional” or what you have coined the “Disney” marriage is an outdated institution that is in desperate need of, in particular, legal reform. Family law judges and attorneys have been vocal about the need for reform of family law as well. Â It’s law with its tenets still firmly planted in the mindset of the 19th Century.
However, these blogs tend to conflate the definition of “marriage” as both a legal status and a relationship. These are two entirely different entities. “Marriage” ultimately is a legal status-nothing more, nothing less. Monogamy is not exclusive to marriage either. There are plenty of married couples who live apart and choose not to divorce predominately for financial reasons. Likewise, there are countless primary relationships where the couple choose to never enter the legal status of marriage for a myriad of reasons. I would place myself in the latter category. I cannot legally marry again (I am divorced) as I need to ensure that my assets are inherited, without encumbrance, to my child who has special needs. (I am not an advocate for the legal status of marriage. The price to pay to exit the legal relationship is too high and I won’t pay it again).
Following the author’s points, if you want to attempt to avoid the financial and psychological pitfalls of the typical divorce, don’t get legally married to begin with. Prenups are great, and when drafted by competent attorneys are “enforceable.” However, who knows if it will be enforceable when a divorce action is filed? There are instances in several states of prenups now being thrown out. Even with the prenup, state law can trump the prenup (rhyming is unintentional). For example, in my home state, real estate titles must be in the names of both the legal husband and wife. It doesn’t matter who holds the mortgage, who brought the asset into the legal marriage, who financially supports the asset, etc. This is true even if the asset is held in trust.
Or, does common law still exist in your state? That means that even if you are not legally married but reside together for a specified period of time, the state will regard you as “married” in the legal sense. Does “at fault” divorce still exist in your state? If yes, oh boy, if you have substantial assets. You could really lose out financially if caught in an affair, and your spouse has decided to divorce you “at fault” and her/his attorney is licking their chops in anticipation of cleaning you out.
There is no equating your professional life with your personal life. It is a rare individual who is brilliant at both. Hopefully, you will be successful at one. This will make life bearable in the long run.
As for the woman who cooks the pan of lasagna and insists that her male partner consume his fair share. Um, you’re with the wrong woman, who obviously does not share your values and sounds like she may be either too young, or too much of a traditionalist for the forward-thinking “alpha male.” I would guess that such an alpha male would be most satisfied with a more sophisticated, less traditionalist, alpha female who shares his values, is successful in her own right (i.e., doesn’t need his financial support), and doesn’t need the legal status of marriage to feel “complete.”
For the “OLTR” – this only works in very rare circumstances. Just ask any couples therapist. It’s usually a last ditch effort to salvage a legal marriage with children, and it will usually fail. If what I read is accurate, it’s because the male cannot find acceptable the concept of his female partner having sex with other men. Been there, done this, doesn’t work from my experience.
I am a Gen-X’er, however, my hope is that more of the Gen Y and Millennials will outright reject the traditionalist form of “marriage.” I agree that it doesn’t work, sets up men and women for much heartache and “failure” which is psychologically damaging, and ultimately hurts the children caught in a divorce.
The biggest problem of all is that every time you bring an emotional topic full of SP people loose their cool and become irrational and defensive.
It’s like when you say: “Long-term monogamy does not work”, people think “Why the hell he’s against monogamy??? Are you nuts???”. Then they start screaming out loud and bashing you about something enterely different (which has nothing to do with what you said).
Wish these dudes were like that everytime our goverments tax rape us for a nice chunk of our incomes.
LOL, monogamy is a challenge?  That’s so cute.
Hey white knights, here’s a CHALLENGE for you:  Put your ego and insecurities aside.  Give the women in your life the freedom to find their sexual identity without the burden of having to maintain exclusivity with you.  Stop trying to control the people around you.  Stop making everything in life about you.
@Fortuna
Your comment “I am a Gen-X’er, however, my hope is that more of the Gen Y and Millennials will outright reject the traditionalist form of “marriage.” ” I fear is already out the window. I’m hearing and seeing that the millennials are going back to marrying young in the old traditional sense and full of the Disney monogamy fairy tales. They seem to be embracing more than ever for unknown reasons. Maybe it’s their wait of “rebelling” as so many younger generations will do just to be at odds with the older folks. I’d say go become a divorce attorney and enjoy the tsunami coming in the next 10-15 years.  What’s more amusing is that I’ve noticed the millenials are some of the flightiest and flakiest people I’ve seen. They’ve never known a world without social media and smartphones. Should be fun to watch how it shakes out.
Artbeast’s debate system:
– Read an article you don’t like and immediately go ad homiem and insult the writer.
– Leave a comment that makes a “point” that completely ignores entire paragraphs of said article that clearly addresses and refutes his “point.”
– When other commenters point this out to him, immediately backtrack and make broad, meaningless statements about how hardship leads to fulfillment or something, with zero facts, stats, or mathematics (and lots of Societal Programming).
– Subtly imply that anyone who disagrees with him has something wrong with him.
– Desperate to recover and not knowing what else to do, falsely attach actions to the writer of the article that don’t apply to the writer at all. (BD tolerates drama in his businesses but not his relationship life? Wrong. BD doesn’t tolerate drama anywhere.)
The question is, if Artbeast actually had a valid point, would have have to do all the above?
Interesting, because anecdotally I have noticed the same thing. My Facebook and social circle lately is jam-packed full of young people under age 25 getting legally married. That’s full-bore TMM; legal marriage, no prenup, lifetime expectations of absolute sexual monogamy for both partners.
It’s absolutely incredible. The Gen Y generation has learned NOTHING despite all the information available to them regarding the failure of modern day marriage.
Yep, though these couples rarely last 10 years. Often they don’t last two.
But as I’ve explained before, I don’t think they care. When they get divorced, the women already knew in advance they’re getting divorced someday and the men bloviate about “well at least I tried” or “at least I’m not selfish” or “it was all her fault” or “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” etc.
The blog post states
I don’t think this is in any way suggesting you should not start a business that is dependent on other people or employees or you should not have friends or what not. Businesses or friendships or whatever don’t require a single, particular, external individual to behave a certain consistent way for 40+ years. Anyone that has employees knows what employee turnover is and also knows you can’t expect a single individual to stay in the same role in your business doing exactly the same thing consistently forever.
Try living in the same house with your friends for 40+ years and see how that works out.
@Dawson
What you are suggesting sounds like serial monogamy. Is it not the same thing? If not please explain how it is different. I know you are saying to to be selective about who you get into it with, but it still sounds like serial monogamy.
@Straight Rider
Not exactly but you might consider it hair splitting.
I am saying that one might consider monogamy BUT ONLY with an exceptional woman with the full understanding that it will not last forever and at best probably only a few years.
In between STMs one would pursue the normal MLTRs and FBs.
Serial monogamy implies that all relationships you pursue should be monogamous. I am NOT saying that. I am saying that only EXCEPTIONAL relationships should be monogamous (as a means to deepen intimacy) and that all others should not be monogamous.
And to your other point, my relationships with my family and friends are 50/50 for 40 years +. I don’t live with them but that really wasn’t the point. In fact, all relationships (including romantic ones) change over time. To assume any relationship will remain static is silly. But they DO depend on the other person wanting to continue the relationship on an equal basis.
This is the red pill in its purest form. You can’t stop men from believing in their fantasy. Men will continue to get married and they will continue to get divorced. No amount of statistics you show them will change this. The truth of the matter is, most men either actually want to be enslaved by submitting to a woman via marriage, or they feel that they have to.
I don’t know if the way things are have plateaued or if they will get worse. I think they will stay pretty much the same. Women want to be provided for, and men don’t mind doing it for however long they can, no matter the consequences. It remains to be seen if MGTOW will have any significant impact. Who knows maybe it will in a few decades.
The urge to be socially accepted as an upstanding member of the community seems to be a big factor. Very few men or women want to be seen as the stereotypical “immature” single guy or spinster cat lady, unlike their peers who are in stable marriages. You take away this fairy tale and social acceptance, and you’re essentially taking away their purpose and meaning in life.
Lol at Aaron in the women get bored thread. He is in a non-monogamous relationship, but has tricked his brain in to thinking he is in a monogamous one. “We cheated twice but we are trying to make it work” Whatever makes you feel better about yourself. The male rationalization hamster was in full effect on that one.
I used to think women kept feeding me so I’d get fat and be undesirable, but based upon a few women in my life, I think they just want you to get “bigger”. Not necessarily fat. I stay pretty lean (5’11, 180 lbs with sub double digit body fat), but when I slack off my diet and get towards 190, if a girl hasn’t seen me in awhile they’ll remark how much sexier I am “bigger” and they’re usually talking about muscle/size wise. I personally think a woman wants to feed you unconsciously so you stay/get “bigger”, not necessarily fat. A well fed man is a “big, strong” man. Of course, who knows what their ultimate motives are. It’s hard to say no to all the delicious food they make…so much easier to stay ripped when they aren’t around.
Correct.
This is one of the many reasons my objective has never been to “help men.” Most men want to jump off that cliff. My objective is to help the upper 5-10% of men who see the light. The rest can go get married and divorced all they like.
My guess is MGTOW will have near-zero impact. What will have an impact on men moving away from women will not be MGTOW, but technology, much as what’s already happened in Japan. In our case, it will be more enhanced computer programs, female robots, nanotech, etc. These things will make a noticeable difference in society far before MGTOW does.
I know. For some reason I’m getting more and more of these deluded guys lately. As noted above, the trend is not good.
In marriage, there’s you, the government, and your wife. In small business, there’s you, the government, and your customers. You still need to deal with other people, and your success is dependent on them.
The real difference between marriage and business is that if your business fails, you can declare bankruptcy, dust yourself off, and start again having lost no more than what you invested into the business.
If your frame is solid, a guy can make a make a marriage work. Though not necessarily a monogamous one. I think my marriage would have lasted till the day I died but I  ended it because there was too much drama involved.
My question is, in a modern gender “equal” society, why would a high value guy want to make a monogamous marriage work before they are 45-55?
@Robert Plant
Unless he is having kids, no reason whatsoever at any age.
The point you’re not getting is you can fire or replace these people without failing in your business, and you can still succeed. You cannot fire or replace your wife and still succeed with your marriage.
Therefore it didn’t work.
I too could still be married to this day. I could have put up with it and she would not have divorced me (at least all until the kids were grown and gone which hasn’t happened yet). However, I’d be miserable, and so would she, and so would my kids.
Would that be a successful marriage? Nope. As I discussed a few weeks ago, just because you aren’t divorced (yet) doesn’t make your marriage successful.
Why would a high value guy want to make mono-marriage work at all, at any age? Literally everything a high-value Alpha can get from mono-marriage he can receive in other ways that are far less risky and far less conducive to long-term unhappiness (such as co-habitation without being legally married, or OTLR, etc).
About millenials and marriage. I think there’s an NRE addiction going on with these kids. If you think about it they are all in for instant pleasure and no responsability (which goes against the very concept of TMM).
But they seem to not care as every relationship that lasts more than 2 weeks is considered “deep commitment” and “love in it’s purest form”. Facebook is plastered with this BS.
My guess is that they become so desperate to get rid of their shallow teenage lives that they dive into marriage as a harsh attempt to jumpstart their “adult cycle” (hence their strong beliefs in Disney).
As others pointed out, they don’t mind if it’s gonna work. It’s all about being a grown-up and carrying the “brand” to show everyone.
You´re 100% right, of course, but you´ve set your definitions in a way which automatically proves your point. Of course successful absolute monogamy doesn´t exist and OR does temporarily work. Yes, a frog can swim longer than a pig can fly. That much should be clear to everyone by now and proving it to those who haven´t understood (don´t want to understand) doesn´t seem to lead anywhere.
Now to discuss whether a successful “monogamy” is not more probable, easier and more pleasant than a successful OLTR (and for what type of people and under which circumstances and for how long) would let in some fresher air and some real funny bitchin´, if you ask me (which you didn´t, of course).
9 out of 10 start-ups fail and ask any VC and they will tell you 2/3s fail because they had the wrong people. Sure, you can fire someone but in a start-up business you often don’t have enough runway to fire a couple of key people and recover before you run out of money. If you pick the wrong people in a start-up you are pretty much doomed to fail. In a small sole proprietorship BDÂ is right. You have a trade off between how big your upside is and the increased risk of failure.
You can’t fire your parents. You can’t fire your kids. You can’t fire your siblings. There are simply things in life where the trade off of not having 100% control is worth the expanded experiences.
Teaser makes an excellent point. Given BDs opinions on drinking (one key driver of never wanting to lose control) might BDs position on being in control be a bit of an outlier? I do agree that keeping exit costs near zero is HUGE but I do think that there are situations where having a higher level of happiness partially dependent on another person is totally fine and even desirable so  long as one can keep their frame, remain as outcome independent as possible and exit costs low.
Actually, you can fire your siblings. I disowned my sister after a particularly bad freakout (that involved a physical assault on my mom, and threats that my parents would never see their grandkids again). She is no longer family, and won’t be until she makes up for the damage she caused (which she won’t).
@BlindIo
You might be splitting hairs. Regardless what role she plays in your life she will always be your sister. Same with parents. A few examples.
If your sister was killed in a car accident and there was no one to take her kids would you allow them to go into foster care instead of stepping up? If you were estranged from your father and he died indigent would you not pay for his funeral? You might? You might not? Be you would at a minimum at least consider it. That is because they are family and for no other reason.
But the POINT I was trying to make was that in life there is a greater level of happiness that I believe one can achieve by NOT being in as control as one can possibly be. That their is a trade off between control and deep interactions with others. Yes it can be an amazing feeling to have individual personal success. But there is a different (not necessarily better) feeling one gets from accomplishing something with others. Be it a sports team. A business venture. A charity for a cause you care about. That if one’s goal is to minimize as much as humanly possible the interdependency with others to maintain as much control as possible then one loses out on some potentially wonderful experiences.
There is a big difference, and it is not hair-thin. Relatives you are stuck with. But family is chosen.
My sister is a stranger. As such, her kids are a strangers kids and I treat them as such. You don’t halfass these things.
I think the main problem here is that most men confuse pair bonding with monogamy
As BD told us, as we age, the desire to pair-bond with a woman is increasing. So, deep inside we really want to pair-bond and have a deep connection with other human being. But the problem here is that most guys misunderstand the fact that in order to pair-bond they have to have a monogamous marriage, as if monogamous marriage is their only option
Please correct me if I am wrong, BD
Thanks
Exactly right.
Thanks to Societal Programming, millions of men (including many popular manosphere bloggers) have been brainwashed into thinking that pair bonding with one woman MUST equal long-term, absolute sexual monogamy at all times, and that the only other option is to “be a player for the rest of your life.”
Neither of these conditions are sustainable (particularly for women or Alphas).
These men have no idea (or don’t want to acknowledge) that you have many other options.
First off, I agree with starting your own business and have done so myself, and have so far been profitable within 1st year on shoestring budget.
But I wouldn’t agree with BD that you are relying only on yourself.  There are so many factors involved though that are completely out of your control that to at least some degree, chance plays a role.
Even if you do think that you are 100% in control, you still can’t escape the fact that STATISTICALLY close to 50% of businesses fail within the initial 4-5 years… my source:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2014/01/27/do-9-out-of-10-new-businesses-fail-as-rand-paul-claims/
And this is a rosy estimate. Â Some sources put failure rate of business much higher.
So how can you really know if you will succeed? Â Clearly the people in the 50% of business that fail thought that they were somehow different. Â One might imagine them saying things like:
“My Business is not like the rest. TM”
“I’m different from most other entrepreneurs. TM”
“You don’t understand, I’m well connected. Â My uncle is on the distribution chain of so-and-so. TM”
You get my point, it’s just as easy to attribute disney-esque, happily ever after delusions to a lot of people who start their own businesses.  There’s also good empirical evidence that for a certain class of white collar workers who stay within  their jobs, they end up out-earning the people who start their own businesses over a long period of time.  (my source is Founder’s Dilemmas – Noah Wasserman).
Overall, the reason why I started my own business is because I personally VALUE certain freedoms higher than wages and was willing to risk a bad outcome. Â I think likewise, there are rational reasons to pursue monogamy that are similar to starting your own business based on what you personally value.
Some of you guys still aren’t getting this. Or perhaps don’t want to get it.
I’m a business consultant with 20 years of experience. I have worked with over 300 businesses and thousands of business people. This is my area of expertise. The reason most small businesses fail is because the owners of those businesses don’t know what the hell they’re doing.
The vast majority of people who start a business (I’d say over 80%) have a very narrow, technical area of expertise they’re excited about, but know next to nothing about marketing, sales, cost control, financial management, product innovation, market research, customer service, employee management, or time management.
Thus, the failure rate of new businesses is high; anywhere from 50% to 80% depending on which study you read. I’m frankly surprised it’s not higher. However (and I don’t have a link handy), the failure rate of a new business started by either a proven franchise or someone who has already started a successful business is shockingly low, like around 15%.
This is because if you do things right in business, which the vast majority of business owners do not, your odds of success aren’t bad at all; they’re actually quite good. The first business I ever started was the hardest one, by far. But, I’ve started several more businesses since then, and they’ve all been successful and without me working very hard. Because I know what I’m doing.
But none of this applies to a successful 40+ year monogamous marriage. As I said in the article above, you could be, literally, the world’s greatest expert on long-term monogamy and do literally everything right, and you’re still only 50% of the equation. Your odds of failure are still at least 50% (likely more, since we’re dealing with a time frame of 40+ years where your only, individual wife can’t ever cheat or divorce you).
In other words, in a marriage your skill doesn’t help push your odds of success any higher than about 50% (at best!). But in business it does; your business skill can push those odds of success up to 90% or even higher.
You simply cannot compare the two no matter how hard you try.
Good points BD. Â I wanted to make an additional one, which I’m surprised you didn’t choose to make front and center. Â Perhaps you chose not to because you’re discussing monogamy, and not marriage specifically.
Many people choose to start businesses because the risks are worth the reward, and much of its success is within their control. Â Even if it fails, and even if the failure was their fault, that person can continue to hone their craft and eventually succeed.
I think you see where this is going.  Imagine there was a special legal structure for businesses called a Perpetual Liability Company or PLC instead of a typical LLC.  Now imagine someone named Joe who has a successful LLC generating a comfortable income, and they have a good relationship with their business partner Bob.  Now imagine Bob is pressuring Joe to convert the business into a PLC.
The terms of the PLC state that if the business were to fail, even through no fault of Joe, he is liable to pay Bob lifetime royalties.  Further, if the business failed as a result of negligence, sabotage, or any reason whatsoever due to Bob, Joe is still liable.  Further still, Joe is liable to pay lifetime maintenance fees for any assets currently shared between them, and if they fail to pay, he is liable to be imprisoned.  If Bob was proven to have defrauded Joe into believing that they co-owned the assets, when another partner held the actual legal ownership, Joe would still be liable.  Bob would be legally immune to any auditing requirements to prove that the maintenance fees actually went towards maintaining the assets.
Joe states that the terms seem grossly unfair and draconian, and asks why on earth they would want to form a PLC when the LLC is doing just fine.  Bob states that Joe is just being paranoid, and that clearly Joe has trust issues.  Bob threatens to dissolve the business if Joe won’t agree to the arrangement.  Bob further states that all their competitors are doing it, and that you can’t find true happiness unless you form a PLC.
If every company had unlimited liability for someone else screwing it up, and through no fault of their own, nobody in their right mind would be starting their own companies.
Let me share my take on this matter:
You say that monogamy doesn’t work and I absolutely agree. You will either cheat or the woman will break up with you. But polyamory isn’t any different, as it doen’t last forever, either. It is not random that, according to your accounts, you have never maintained a FB/MLTR/OLTR for more than five years.
One of these is going to happen: a) she will go get monogamous with a beta male and even if she comes back, she won’t do it for more than once, b) her attitude will make you hard next her some time, or c) you will lose sexual attraction for one another. So we come to the conclusion that relationships don’t work in general, whether they are monogamous or not. Human beings are incapable of pair bonding for long term. Even if they push it for longer, so as to raise their kids, more often than not, they will be sexually indifferent for one another. Therefore, polyamory isn’t actually what works, as opposed to monogamy, but just a superior alternative with less drama and more happiness.
I’ve addressed that many times. Please read Objection 41 right here.
Don’t see how any logical person could argue with the main point of this post, but are you sure about the 15% failure rate for experienced startups? Could you post the link if you remember where you saw this?
The data here is pretty clear. The success rate for first time entrepreneurs is 18%.
The success rate is slightly better for the same person with their 2nd start-up at 20%.
Even a person that IPOs their first company (a HUGE success by anyone’s measure) only has a 30% chance of having their next venture succeed.
Source: Here
BDs position that one can be successful in business without having to rely on others in a significant way is *usually* not the case. For more of the sole proprietor type of business one can control most everything. But when people are talking about start-ups that is only one category of businesses.
To be successful in most start-ups one must have expertise in all of the following:
– Operations – delivering the product or service
– Finance and accounting
– Marketing and PR
– Sales
– Human resources (hiring, firing and everything in between)
etc, etc.
Some people really do have all of those skills (at least to some degree) but that is the outlier of outliers. It would seem BD would fall into this category. For most other people, they are going to have to rely on other people (often many other people) that have functional expertise in the areas that the entrepreneur does not in order to be successful.
In fact, I would argue that many of the skills necessary in any relationship (romantic or otherwise) are the same ones that would help you be successful in business:
– Self awareness
– Outstanding communication skills
– Charm/charisma
– Ability to see issues coming and address them directly
and others…
Yes I am but I may be misquoting it. It may apply to past-successful small-business entrepreneurs and /or franchises, I don’t recall which. (It does not apply to big Silicon Valley-type startups!) Going back and looking, I think I read it in a business book and not a site, but when I get some time I may hunt for it again.
This is not my position. Not even close. Re-read what I said in the article and comments above. Slowly.
Do you like arguing for no reason?
I will check back with you in another 16 years. Been with my wife for 16 years and have not been with anyone else and haven’t felt bad about it. And I am a Alpha. She has not either. I feel confident in this as I believe without a doubt she would tell me. She knows I am a calm thoughtful person and would not jump to the whole… You are a whore! Thing. So what’s wrong with me or us? Shit I kid not sex is even better now. More kinky we experiment. She has stayed so sexy and fit as I have as well. Am I weird that I don’t really want to mess around? Is there a small percentage of people like that? I had sex with LOTS of women before being married. What if another 16 years go by and I am still happy and we both have not cheated? What’s the box for that one? Actually asking.
I don’t know if that’s true, because many of your statements seem to indicate otherwise. You’re perfectly happy not being allowed to fuck ANY other woman for 16 years? If so, that’s not an Alpha trait.
It means you’re in the 13% who make long-term monogamy work. But you’re not there yet. You have many more years to go first.
“Most men want to jump off that cliff. My objective is to help the upper 5-10% of men who see the light.”
I considered jumping off that cliff. I now just go to weddings and enjoy the food while watching friends jump off that cliff. Your help is greatly appreciated.