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PaperclipPerfector  10hr ago (text post)   328 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for January 28, 2026

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

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He seems to regard the protesting as mostly a harmless social activity that he groups together with going to record stores and restaurants. I get the sense his wife is basically dragging him to this ("I am not as brave as my wife, who acts from a strain of moral clarity that can sometimes be daunting") and he is playing the role of an agreeable husband that regards this like his wife dragging him to a museum or board game night, so he is happy to go there and shout obscenities for a few hours in between other tourist activities. I know it sounds cliche, but there is just such beta energy radiating off the entire post.

This comment excerpt gave me a fun idea: The Chad harem/offspring-maxxxing doctors and lawyers explain to the autist incel programmers and engineers their personal understandings of how friendship and romance work!

Even before I realized that familiarity inevitably breeds contempt and stopped making attempts at pseudo-friendship, I absolutely hated the idea of obtaining an actual friend or a romantic partner only to be constantly forced by that person to do random things in which I had no interest. It seemed like a continuation of how my parents would torture me by making me join after-school clubs and dragging me to museums, concerts, and weddings.

I assumed that any friend or romantic partner would require me to do such things. But now @daguerrean says that only an inferior, weak-willed "beta" man allows his romantic partner to lead him around by the nose to random events. So, is it normal friendship/romance behavior to drag the other party to an event in which he is not interested, or not? Has my entire life been a lie?

"I am not as brave as my wife."

This was a red flag to me. I think this entire fundamental question comes down to the fact that your wife has to respect you. If your wife respects you, she will accept your saying no to things without pique; indeed she will take into account whether you'd be interested in going to something before she even asks you to. I'm not saying you need to "dominate" your relationship or anything like that - as the other commenters note, you should always be looking for opportunities to make your wife happy, even if it inconveniences you greatly; that's part of what you're signing up for.

If seeing your wife happy is a priority for you, you'll gladly do all kinds of silly stuff that's not for you; and you won't think about the cost to you. Many are the hours I've spent loitering in quilt shops for this reason, lol. But I also know that if I tell her no, I'm not going to thing X or Y, it'll just be accepted. I feel like if your partner does not respect you, then she'll have an expectation you'll go along with what she says no matter what, and if you don't she'll feel justified in being mad about it.

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