When there is no alternative.

In any marriage, at times you feel trapped. And at times, one wants to leave. But divorce is painful. It damages children. It leaves you scarred. I have lived through periods of deep unhappiness and invol celibacy while married — hanging in for the kids. I’ve counseled relatives to stay. Unless the marriage is shattered or the kids are being damaged (including when children’s aid coerces a divorce).

I do not see abuse as a reason for divorce: abandonment and adultery hunt so frequently with abuse that a separation is often all that is needed. But at present there is a moral hazard, as Dr Helen notes. If you stay in a marriage, you are being set up to be destroyed by the very court system that states it is for justice and the children.

There is a reduced incentive for a woman of immature or low character to monitor her behavior if she stands to profit from divorce. It’s like having a job in which she will win the lottery if she gets fired. The courts have established a moral hazard for which men pay the price.

The behavior I’ve seen from these handful of women would be considered plainly abusive if roles were reversed: mental torment, double-binds, denial of affection, drunken rages, cruel and abusive language, physical abuse, and isolating the man from his friends and family. That last one seems to be particularly common in these relationships. When a man isolates a women, it is rightly considered to be one of the telltale signs of an abusive relationship. It should be considered no less abusive when a woman does it to a man.

If the burden of divorce were more equitably shared, these men would have standing to push for changes in behavior, and the women in their lives would have an incentive to raise their maturity level, improve their communication, and beef up their coping skills. Not so ironically, the possibility of a painful divorce can lead to better behavior, which leads to healthier relationships. But as it stands, men who choose their wives poorly might pay the price for decades (along with any children who are involved) because the courts not only allow for bad behavior from abusive women, they indirectly encourage it.

If you are in this situation, you have to stop waiting for them to change.

Because they will not change. You cannot force change.

But you can change yourself. And this will require that you look at your programming. I think Athol Key’s Married Man Sex Life has a lot of good advice, but if she’s a total troll, it is not time to say that she is attractive. Because she is not. So instead, make yourself attractive.

Since she does not approve of anything you do, you might as well model good behaviour. For you can control yourself

• Get to the gym. If you are not good at weights (I’m not) then find a gym that is full of older guys who know what they are about and has trainers supervising them.  You may need one or two years remedial strength work to be able to do your favourite sport injury free.
• Cut out the drinking and cut down the carbs.  If she cannot cook or chooses not to, take over the cooking. It’s now 1815: I have chicken pieces and spuds roasting for an 1830 dinner. Prep time will be around 15 minutes.
• Consider doing a 16 hour fast most days.
• Take up some hobbies. Pick up a musical instrument. Join a band. Get a craft, hobby or sport. Better still, have a series of hobbies you can pick up and put down.
• Join a church, but not the men’s group. You do not want to be around white knights.
• Be productive at work. Lead from below. Make your job efficient. It is far better to beg forgiveness than ask permission. And if your boss is an incompetent troll, learn what not to do, set up a business on the side, and then move to being your own boss, in direct competition if needs be, for your clients, if you are competent, should follow you.

Now, if you change, she should change. If, like many married men fed junk food, you have got fat and  you then lose 20-40 kilos (or the equivalent i pounds) then you will improve your attractiveness. That will cause her anxiety.

If you are doing things that make you happy — and even (horrors) introducing your kids to them, that will amp up her anxiety.

She then has two choices: go snarky or build a home. She has to either change what she does — at which point she can go and read some of the good people out there like Grerp and TC (both in the link system) and start doing exercise herself.

Now I can hear the girlz say that it does not matter, that they deserve to be loved regardless of how they act and how they look because it is either (a) unfair and the patriarchy or (b) they are a child of God and Jesus said come as you are and you must love me  like Jesus or (c) both.  But men are not built like that.

We are fairly easy to please, Sister Sunshine has a man who is quite capable of attracting who he likes and remains married to her. She makes these comments, and in my mind they are the complement of the male list.

Women’s attitudes and behavior have become uglier.  Once girls were taught to be sweet, kind, demure, quiet, gentle, and pleasant.  These are now seen not as virtues but as manifestations of oppression.  Feminists have mistakenly concluded that men must possess the opposite of the feminine virtues, therefore men must be harsh, rude, loud, aggressive, nasty, and foul-mouthed, and therefore women who want power over men must become these things.  It’s a lie of course, but that hasn’t stopped women in general from becoming progressively crasser and more ill-mannered.

None of us can help the genetic hand we draw; some of us will be prettier and some of us will be homelier.  However, within the limits of our genetics, there is a lot a woman can do to make herself look lovely and to behave in a way that men find charming rather than repugnant.

Ladies, if you want to cultivate loveliness rather than ugliness, here are my top five recommendations:

1. Exercise and lose weight.  Yes, it’s hard.  No, you probably won’t be a size 2; I’m not.  But don’t just give up and accept your fat, ladies; fight the good fight.  Even if the results are imperfect, your man will appreciate the effort you make.

2. Sweatpants and pajama bottoms in public?  Come on.  And quit with the army pants and punked-out, black slut-wear.  Put on a dress.  Dresses and skirts look better than pants on most women; if you are a few pounds (or more) overweight, pants are the worst thing you can wear, as they draw attention to your thighs, hips, and tummy, areas which are gracefully covered by a dress or skirt.  Wear hosiery unless it’s the middle of summer.

3. Wear a little make up.  Every day.  You don’t need to cake on black eyeliner and red lipstick, but a light application of make up in neutral colors will make you look fresh, pretty, and put-together.  And, unless you are Katy Perry, eschew all that weird stuff, like yellow eye shadow and blue lipstick.  Most normal men hate that look on the average woman.

4,  Please stop with the excessive tattooing and all facial piercing.  This is ugly. You are not Kat Von D.  And even she doesn’t look good like that, it’s just that she is naturally beautiful.  Take the metal out of your face and replace it with a smile.

5. Try being sweet and pleasant instead of loud and foul-mouthed.  When exactly did women begin using f-bombs every other sentence?  By far the worst potty mouths I hear nowadays are on women.  Swearing like a sailor doesn’t make you attractive.  It doesn’t even make you powerful.  This is a prime example of feminist women developing a caricature of men in their minds and then seeking to emulate it.  Also, don’t complain about every little thing and don’t be so incredibly sensitive and quick to take offense. And never, ever drink to the point of being drunk, especially in public; the only thing uglier than a drunk man is a drunk woman.

In short, Captain is correct.  Ladies, resist the feministic uglification of your looks, your attitude, and your behavior.

The simplest way for a woman to gain more male attention is lose weight. Look at Asian women: most of them (unless corrupted by fast food) are skinny. They have lost out on the genetic risk table: A BMI for an Asian women of 22 has the same risk as one of 25 for a European woman. But they are strongly encouraged to remain at ideal weight. If you change how you look and become pleasant and feminine you will get attention.

Finally, this is all akin to dropping a stone in a pond. There will be ripples. You will be tested: all and every part of your plan will be subverted. For any bully, even the most unhappy, hates change. And for many of them  the following words, from Dr Jenni, apply.

It would be foolish to presume to tell you in particular, what you should do to get your husband back in the bedroom and your heart, where he belongs. There are ten thousand different ways to do this right.

Unfortunately, there are probably fifty thousand ways to do it wrong. If your husband is sleeping in the basement, literally or metaphorically, you’re doing it wrong.

I would just ask my women readers to do this. Forget your own feelings for a moment. Think about how unhappy your husband must be if he is sleeping in the basement. Take this column to him, and say something like this:

“I’m sorry for the pain you must feel over sleeping in the basement. I’m sorry for my part in causing it. I don’t know what to do to improve this situation. But I want you to know that I’m committed to trying. It is not OK with me for you to be this unhappy.”

And ladies, if you can’t do this, if it really is OK with you for your husband to be this unhappy, you need a heart transplant. The one you have isn’t working.

You do not want your children around the living dead. If you cannot get a change, then protect your children, and pray that the heart of your spouse is broken. For while that man or woman sees themselves as perfect, impenetrable, and without flaw, they cannot name their faults, nor change, nor heal.