Sunday, June 27, 2010

I Love You But I'm Not In Love With You = Another Guy On The Radar

The Dr Helen Fisher summary. All peer reviewed, shoving people in MRIs to look at their brains, lab tests for hormone levels yada yada yada.

In love = Dopamine based excitement / OCD like mental obession on person of desire. (This is why SSRIs can kill off romance and interest in sex btw)    The addition of Game understanding is that Alpha Traits compliment this process.

Pair Bond = Oxytocin / Vasopressin based emotional bonding and closeness.  The addition of Game understanding is the Beta Traits compliment this process.

Sexual Drive = Testosterone based all purpose generic horniness towards the opposite sex. Physical fitness compliments this process.

The thing is women don’t just leave a man they have a pair bond with because he’s not alpha enough. The leave him because another man enters the picture and they have “in love” feelings for him and they get the Dopamine OCD thing happening about the new guy.

When a woman tells a man ILYBINILWY (I Love You But I'm Not In Love With You) that means 9 times out of 10 there is a guy she is in love with that has entered the picture. ILYBINILWY is female code for some combination of "I'm leaving you for him", "I'm thinking about having sex with him", "I'm having sex with him but I want to live with you still is that ok?", "I think I might be pregnant and don't know whose baby it is".

A woman can have minimal “in love” feelings the husband she is pair bonded to and just coast along for YEARS with no apparent cause for concern. I know of marriages where the wife clearly routinely craps all over her Beta husband and has done so for years and years but the marriage continues on unabated anyway. It is of course quite easy to be faithful if no one else wants to have sex with you.

But once a new man enters the picture that flips her Dopamine on, things can unravel between a wife and her overly beta husband very quickly. The OCD like effects of the Dopamine response can overwhelm the strength of the pair bond. The woman gets torn between the two men she is chemically drawn too. It's not an easy emotional state to survive in for long. ILYBINILWY is also female code for some combination of "I have no clue how to make this decision", "are you going to fight for me?"

As a final thought and adjustment to some of the bulk of this post. There is a growing sense of entitlement in women that their marriage relationship will be magically "in love" forever. Older women tend to not expect this so much and generally just stick with a boring beta husband unless someone actively starts trying to game them and hooks them. Younger women feel far more entitled to this though, and they may simply begin to actively search for someone that excites them without a specific event.


Plus for my female readers, the core of this post "in love" vs pair bond works exactly the same way for men too. Be advised to show cleavage and leave no question in his mind that you're good in the sack. At the heart of things, this is what men want from marriage and how they experience love and pair bond to you. The rest is just details.

Posted by at 5:05 PM
Labels: ,

13 comments:

  1. Younger women feel far more entitled to this though, and they may simply begin to actively search for someone that excites them without a specific event.

    Definitely a word of caution that men shouldn't rest on their laurels after marriage. (If she didn't like you before you started trying to win her over, why would she continue to like you if you stopped?)

    Your posts lately have been great, Athol. Keep up the good work.
    ReplyDelete
  2. Plus for my female readers, the core of this post "in love" vs pair bond works exactly the same way for men too. Be advised to show cleavage and leave no question in his mind that you're good in the sack. At the heart of things, this is what men want from marriage and how they experience love and pair bond to you. The rest is just details.

    Oh, I would love to hear you expand on this. What men really want - and how women can offer enough value to get men to commit, even if they don't have to.
    ReplyDelete
  3. That's a whole other topic Susan. I don't know if I can really go into it without distracting from my core mission.

    I'll think about it though.

    Thanks Haley.
    ReplyDelete
  4. Athol Kay - "That's a whole other topic Susan. I don't know if I can really go into it without distracting from my core mission."

    Athol,

    I've been reading your blog for some time without commenting. But, let me start out by saying that I, and my marriage, are living proof of much of what you have been saying. About 20 years ago, I found my marriage under attack by a would be interloper who was targeting my wife. I had fallen into the typical beta patterns after 5 years of marriage and 2 kids, setting the stage for the prototypical cad to try to step in. (bear with me, because I am getting around to Susan's question - sort of)

    Having fortunately found the place where I'm been storing my testicles in time to ward off an impending martial disaster, I can now look back over 20 subsequent years of rather happy marriage and sustained 400+ sex/yr, and I can ponder what it is that she has since given me that has made all the difference.

    Well, in addition to lots of great passionate sex, the thing that pops out to me is the loyalty and the way she has learned to "telegraph" her continued loyalty to me. I don't think men always realize how much they actually value loyalty until it's lost; but, given that women's infidelity can lead to her bearing another man's child, I believe that female loyalty has been highly prized by men since well before recorded history began.

    I don't know how women might best indicate to men that they are interested in that they will be loyal in the long-term, but, I sure no how woman show that they may well not be.

    The way they most show there lack of (potential) loyalty is the way many women will "disengage" from their own man when another (of higher alpha-ness, typically) man approaches (been there).

    I see it occurring all the time in social settings. a woman is obviously with one man (holding hands, his arm around her, or hers around his waist, etc.). But then the other man comes near, and not only does the woman move away from her man, she will often step between her man and the approaching man, facing that incoming man, with her back to her man. (observe some social settings and see if I'm not right about the frequency with which this occurs). Could it be any more obvious a signal that she's willing to consider "other offers"?

    Having had open and frank communication with my wife, in such situations, she will routinely seek to reassure me of her loyalty to me by slipping her arm around me and giving me a little squeeze. Even though I've developed a good deal of what is often termed "LTR Game", and feel I can "keep" my wife by being the confident man, I can tell you (and women like Susan) that it's still a welcome reassurance that she is thinking of me when other men are around.
    ReplyDelete
  5. Slwerner - possibly the best comment I've ever gotten. Mind if I publish it as an actual post? Can I give credit anywhere?
    ReplyDelete
  6. "Mind if I publish it as an actual post?"

    I really don't have any problem with you using my comments. However, no attribution beyond my user name please.
    ReplyDelete
  8. I got the ILYBINILWY last summer. It was after a huge fight where I heard the words "I want a divorce" Wow. We stayed together, but emotionally distantly - 20 years is a lot to give up on. It's the same sad story - the more I pressed to fix the mess the worse it got. I searched everywhere to find an explanation for what had happened. I am a great provider making nearly $200K, but obviously this was not enough. To my surprise I started to realize my situation was similar to other couples my age and social circle. What was happening to the 40something women? They've got the big house, nice cars, etc, but they bitch bitch about their husbands. Only when I discovered "game" did the light come on; I was the problem. Now after a year of re-programing my brain the marriage is back stronger than ever. I too use a version of "Marriage game" that balances Alpha and Beta traits, but I must say when they are ready to walk Alpha game is required; flirt with every girl in town - especially when the wife is watching, tell her to get the hell out if she's not happy (and mean it), get in the best shape of your life, seduce her best friends (no affairs though), etc.
    Of course when you do these things your social status shoots up to the sky and all the girl friends take notice. Needless to say "The test" is an ongoing test. Then I find your blog and find you've mirrored my experiences exactly. Who would have thought?
    ReplyDelete
  9. Great comment anon, glad to hear you pulled through. Spread the alpha + beta word!
    ReplyDelete
  10. I love the base level sexuality advice in this blog and its self-assured 'alpha' tone. Its great for low-level sexual game-play. However phrases like this I find pretty limiting:

    "Be advised to show cleavage and leave no question in his mind that you're good in the sack. At the heart of things, this is what men want from marriage and how they experience love and pair bond to you."

    Of course - this is utterly crass and simplistic. Humans - men and women - have much higher levels of existence and ways of relating to eachother. This sort of frat-party Bro lingo intermixed with widely dis-credited pop psychology terms such as 'alpha' and 'beta' and over-simplified laymans science is a bit depressing to read sometimes. Its great that it is helpful on one level - but I think just occasionally maybe we can shoot for something higher and paint a picture that is more inspiring to the human potential. In the era of 'game' and NLP it has become popular for males to attempt to analytically explain issues such as love with a glib self-agrandised tone as if to wield a cynical power over these organic processes but the reality is that the understanding is very unconsciously evolved. If you consider models such as Klinghardts 5 levels of healing or Ken Wilburs theories one might consider that life and connection exists in many other fields. This banter here kind of reminds me of a teenager who thinks they understand everything about life-but has not had their eyes opened to the wider picture.
    By the way - Im not some sort of tedious spiritual guru - Im a 29 yr male who studies psychology and a biology graduate.
    ReplyDelete
  11. Steve - This is not about thinking though, it's about practical action. I've thought all my life, now I'm doing something.

    Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm right, but I've decided to make my lifes work giving the average joe a basic tool set to have a happy marriage and keep families intact.

    The beauty of the information age is that one voice can reach a multitude. Somewhere right now someone is reading this post and learning about the ILUBINILWY line, and when they hear it coming from the lips of their beloved, they will know much better what to do. Maybe a marriage is saved because of it. Maybe little children grow up with an intact family. Maybe there's less hurt and pain and despair in the world. More love.

    It's much harder writing than it looks.
    ReplyDelete
  12. Yes I take the point of practical action and I do support the driving force behind your blog and appreciate what you are trying to do. On the level its being aimed at it is useful advice. My point is just that it can paint a depressingly simplistic picture of sexuality if it is referenced in such unrefined ways as
    "Be advised to show cleavage and leave no question in his mind that you're good in the sack. At the heart of things, this is what men want from marriage and how they experience love and pair bond to you."
    This is just not true - its an element yes - but one of many.

    'Pair-bond' - sounds like you have taken on board too much from the PUA community (I believe it was Mystery who came up with that term)...dont let them make you so cynical...there is more to love than oxytocin/dopamine and cleavage!
    "Maybe there's less hurt and pain and despair in the world. More love." no need to be all 'alpha protector' on me with this irrelevant schmaltz...I wasnt trying to make an attack on your entire body of work I apologise if that wasnt clear.

    I understand it is not easy to write - and I think this blog is great for what you are trying to do and has some great tips - Im not saying everything you say is rubbish - Im just challenging you to articulate and expand on points so as to imply more depth than simple 'tits-and-arse' for marriage...
    Maybe Im not the average joe but I still learn things from what you say and I thank you for that. I dont mean to abrasively heckle...I dont like to settle for mediocrity - in anything in life...
    ReplyDelete
  13. So what did you think of the cross referencing of Dr Helen Fisher's primary points with the co-responding elements in my methodology?

    Pair bond is an old sociobiology term that's been used by evolutionary psychology nowdays. Basically only animals with a vasopressin hormone have a biological pair-bonding between mated pairs. In human males it's primarily also vasopressin and in the female oxytocin, which does a bunch of other effects for women as well.(Labor and delivery, milk production among them)

    Mystery was really only useful for understanding the counter point of comfort building against attraction building. This helped greatly in my development of Alpha and Beta Traits.

    The point is... there really isn't much more to love than neurochemicals and this is in fact coming from some very hard - and peer reviewed - science.

    That being said, understanding the chemistry that goes into the making of a chocolate cake, doesn't mean you still can't enjoy chocolate cake. Though that's Dr Helen Fishers line I'm stealing.
    ReplyDelete

Thank you for commenting, much appreciated.

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails

Athol and Jennifer Recommended