Be Both Alpha And Beta: The Journey Is The Reward

Salut said...

"Another great article. Some outstanding advice I can't wait to implement.

Interested in your take on the reaction of a wife when the husband begins implement alpha behaviors. I'm seeing a lot of resistance/confusion in the wife lately as I try to minimize the beta behaviors.

Keep up the great work. Love the blog."

Great question.

I think we might be disagreeing on the use of language here a little, so I’ll restate my philosophy on Alpha and Beta quickly. I generally disagree with the entire Alpha = good, Beta = bad mindset. You really need to have both Alpha Traits and Beta Traits in a marriage to really hit the sweet spot of happiness and sex. The blog is still new, but believe me I’m going to sound like a broken record on this point as the years play out.

If you’re a decent Beta, the solution is to add Alpha traits, not reduce Beta Traits and add Alpha. It’s not a zero-sum game where you can be either Alpha or Beta, but not both. You can and must be both. You still hold a job down, play with the kids, listen to how your wife spent her day, do housework etc. That’s all vital comfort building goodness. She likes and needs that to feel comfortable, like you’re invested in the relationship and family. These things are not “turn ons”, but lacking them makes them “turn offs”.

That being said, I think you’re basically saying that you’re becoming a little more forceful and bold with your wife. Which is good and all going to plan. That’s the stuff that’s going to “turn her on”.

Here’s the thing though – you’re probably imperfect at Alpha displays, so you’re probably sending somewhat mixed signals to her, so she both likes it and gets confused by it, and if you don’t quite pull it off she can resist it. The solution is quite simple though – just keep working on it until you master it enough that you can switch on an Alpha display without putting in much effort to do so. Then you’ll send a strong enough signal that she will respond better to it.

It’s actually quite a long journey to really change yourself in this way. There’s a lot of two steps forward one step back that happens. Much of Alpha stems from physicality, and that can take 1-2 years to really pay off fully. So it’s a process. Just be comfortable with your discomfort and keep plowing ahead.

Also you changing is changing the status quo, and that means she will have to change a little too. There’s a natural resistance to anyone changing – even if it’s a positive change and one they ultimately quite enjoy.

As an example - in terms of physical exercise for my wife and I, usually I go on a health kick first, and start feeling better and sexier. Usually about three weeks later, she starts exercising more too. Up until then she "resists" exercise. However I don’t even ask my wife to work out. I just start exercising and wait three weeks lol. And if I stop, she stops.

Also if we come back to the idea of sex rank, if say you both married as 7s, and along the way you dropped to a 6 and then you’ve learned some Alpha stuff and have progressed, maybe you’re moving past 7 and heading towards 8. And if you’re heading towards 8 and she is still a 7, that’s actually a little scary for her. It’s one thing to be the more desirable member of a couple, another to feel like you need to step it up a bit. There’s a natural temptation to want to drag the spouse back down to your level, though that can just as easily turn into trying harder on her part and getting her to an 8 as well. (Which is exactly why my wife starts exercising after I start.)

As I’ve said often, the Beta stuff comes easy to me. The Alpha stuff has come later in the game. What I’m writing about now has taken the better part of the last five years of my fifteen year marriage to develop. I’ve only really started verbalizing it in the last year. It’s a process, just work through it.

What can be of benefit to the process is drawing her attention to her response when you pull off a good Alpha move that she liked. She may become more forgiving of your near misses if she understands your intent better.

In the end it turns into a balancing act as you have a strong hand of Alpha and Beta cards to play, and just play your hand through depending on the situation. I can cook dinner, throw a slumber party for tweens, change a diaper, feed and burp a baby, match an outfit for a elementary school girl and work the L-Spot like a dream. But I can also shut the slumber party off at midnight with a deep rumble, cut allowances out for months until compliance with chores was appropriate, order my wife to stop doing stuff and rest or whatever and have on a few occasions initiated sex simply by pointing in the direction of the bedroom…

It’s all about having options.