I invested 8 years of my life trying to compromise with a woman who fundamentally doesn't see me as an equal worth compromising with.
That was by far the worst investment of my life -- though we have a child together. And in that sense, it's going to pay off when I can have a relationship with that child.
In and of itself, the actual time and effort and emotional energy invested in trying to 'make something work' when the evidence was obvious that it wasn't going to work, was the worst investment I've ever made hands down.
Within the context of that relationship,
- I've traveled across the US to move to accomodate my daughter's mom
- bought expensive health food mixers in support of this persons desires for good health.
- Relocated locally many times
- Lost friends and social standing due to slanderous claims.
- Lost friends due to the outstanding pain of loss -- which they could not empathize with.
- Lost health, and started getting hospitalizing panic attacks.
- Lost hair, and had heart problems due to stress.
- Worked full time as an unpaid volunteer in a homeless shelter as security personnel.
- And ultimately lost out on my daughter's childhood.
This is because the US Government financially incentivizes women to become single parents, and this woman in particular decided that my contributions were dismissible, and instead opted to re-construct every component of our existence to be negative toward her, and insufficient as a father to my daughter.
During that time, I also tried becoming a bike mechanic, and I bought like 1200 worth of tools, and fixed up 3 bikes.
I gave those bikes away to homeless people, because I wasn't courageous enough to sell them.
I also let the tools act as an anchor for me staying in the relationship. Like -- I could have left many times, 'but what would I do with the tools'.
.:.
All of those mistakes, are ones that I hope never to make again.
I'm significantly more MGTOW and MRA now, if not outright skeptical of the biological / psychological / evolutionary compatibility between men and women.
I also have very little empathy for modern feminism now.
I'm not speaking of rape, or violence - and I'm not speaking of equality of the sexes. -- I'm talking about Modern Cancel Culture, and what I perceive to be a general lack of ability for the women that I've interacted with recently to accept responsibility for their own behavior, and allow both of us to exist in the same sphere without attempting to dominate me as a person.
I think biologically, and psychologically, there is very little common ground between men and women. If only due to cultural forces, or self-preservation / survival strategies.
.:.
If I had to take some positive things out from this:
I'd say:
- Don't invest in relationships that are not equitable.
- Don't invest money in people who are chronically dissatisfied with their lives -- It won't fix them, or make you happier.
- Don't always believe that your financial investments need to be profitable. -- In the case of the Bike Tools, I can break a bike down and build it back up without a problem, and am familiar with all of the tools needed to do so. That education cost me probably around 1500, and I gave away a handful of bikes.
- "You don't have to make it back how you lost it" -- If there is something that you are holding onto because you invested in it, but it's clearly not working, or holding you back, just let it go.
- Investments don't work out how you think they will, because you don't always have the power in a situation to engage as you desire to engage. -- I see my investment in my daughter as still early in its development, but the strategies of my providing for / investing in my daughter are going to have to be strategies that are largely independent of my daughter's mom.
Child support.
Postcards.
Videos.
Open Invitations to visit her family.
And investing in myself -- so I can build up my own life, so I can have a future and a place to call my own, and a nice place to welcome her and allow her to feel safe and grow sometime in the future.
The most critical component of this whole thing has been twofold:
- What is within my sphere of control?
My Sphere of Control, is about my power as an individual. It doesn't include what other people think about me, or how other people judge me, or what other people do to me, or what other people see me as, or how other people choose to engage with me, or the attitudes they hold toward me.
None of that matters.
The only thing that matters is my actions, my behavior, and my operations.
I can perhaps benefit from seeing other people's viewpoints, and having empathy, and trying to have equitable engagements with others, so I am not a tyrant -- but as far as what I am able to govern -- what my dominion is -- it is only myself. There is a lot of freedom in that.
- Sun Tzu's Art of War. -- The conditions of victory and defeat, and the rules of avoiding long term entrenched engagements.
Sun Tzu avoids long term battles -- siege warfare, because it causes losses and damage to both sides, and requires a great amount of resources.
Sun Tzu also advises that in order to win extended campaigns, the only way to be sustainable is to be vampyric against the enemy -- meaning to forage on their resources while you campaign against them.
Translated into child custody court, this is about lawsuits, and court fees, and all kinds of petty governmentally imposed tax collection -- including child support -- so that my money goes into the hands of my daughter's mom, so that my daughter's mom decides where to put that money.
If I were to act in aggression toward my daughter's mom, within the Sun Tzu concept, the idea would require me to vamp off of her resources, which would create a net loss for my daughter, in terms of systemic resources that are available to her.
Finally, the supreme art of warfare, is to win while capturing the enemy's state in whole. -- Meaning, a non-violent coup is basically the best transition of ruling powers.
If you can't do this, then an assassination strike against the leader of the opposing nation is the ideal path forward, but this damages the psychological wholeness of the child's development -- which is essentially how I am being treated within this context. It's also called "Parental Alienation" and "Maternal Gatekeeping".
In Translation, an assassination strike here would be some sort of court order to take stellah away from her mom - which is not good -- and the only way for me to execute a non-violent coup would be to financially dominate her by buying a home for them to live in, so I become the lead financial power in her life. Which I don't want to do -- though I have offered to collab with her in that regard.
In this situation there is no victory in conflict, as long as my daughter is safe in her mother's custody -- which she is -- though I feel at a psychological loss due to my absence.
So I will focus on my own life, and my own responsibilities to my daughter, and my own outreaches of love for her emotional support -- and will simply discontinue contact with her mom.
Dropping her mom, like I should have dropped those bike tools, -- So I can salvage the remainder of my life, instead of spending another 8 years in conflict. This has been by far the greatest interpersonal challenge of my life.
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Thanks for accepting this challenge.
Being a woman, I'm naturally going to have to disagree with some of your conclusions about men and women being incompatible, mainly because for me, I've been operating in close contact with men and women, and i can see no discernable difference. I stopped getting romantically involved with men though, because for me, it's something that also destroyed a large chunk of my life........I fell into the trap of a sociopath, and experienced brainwashing, emotional abuse, etc.. It was a decade ago, and I have had to study my own psychological connections and makeup to understand how this happened......it was the result of me being an empath (I did everything for this person, including doing web design, graphics, paid for everything, etc.) and was treated poorly in return.
This was a problem of me not being formed and lacking self-esteem, so I take full responsibility for getting myself into that shithole relationship...
I'm not saying what you experienced isn't valid, but pigeon-holing women into your own categories based on your own personal experience doesn't mean that all women are like what you experienced.
It took me ten years to unravel who i am, and to change from being a doormat that others walked all over, to a person who sticks up for myself, and sets boundaries. Before my ex, I had no boundaries and would let people abuse me in all sorts of ways.
Being alone is perhaps the greatest gift to be given because before that, I did not know who I was and I"m not bitter anymore either.
Anyway, that's my two cents.
Thanks for doing this challenge.
Every time a friend has had his life totally wrecked, it's been because he knocked up an absolute basket-case.
I'm raising my boys to 'Never put it in crazy'. Ever.
They're only young, but by the time they start dating, they'll know how to spot the red flags.
That's an interesting take on things - relationships certainly are an investment and do take work!
I think it's no surprise that the global trend is towards more solo living!
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Yea, I spent a lot of time doing drugs and painting in my 20s, so I didn't even really think about actual investments until later.
The Bike Tools were my first sort of invest in a thing with money that is a business.
I have an initial Cryptocurrency investment story -- It's basically that I invested in an ERC 20 for a project called Golem, Thinking that it was at the bottom, but it really wasn't, and then it dropped further.
But through some happenstances, my friend who I gave the assets to as a debt repayment, wasn't able to cash them out right away -- and then time passed, and then ETH went on a bull run at the start of the year, and the GNT became worth a solid bit more than they were initially --
So I'd guess from that experience that I could learn --
Past events are not promises for future happenings.
and
Timelines with Patience are critical for investment strategies.
That investment was kind of trivial compared to the emotional investment of that relationship in particular.
I've actually been pretty fortunate with my investments -- and pretty obsessive with their research.
Enjoy the day.
Well I'm glad to see you've got a fair bit of Hive!
TBH I've hardly done any research on my investments - just diversify, I left the shares investments to professionals by investing in a couple of funds, small business P2P is the same, a bit of a hedge on gold and silver and then crypto - I couldn't even tell you the technical differences between BTC LTC and ETH - and Hive I invest in because I like writing, and I can do things with it, and now I'm sort of in the middle-class 'in crowd' it'd be hard to get out TBH.
As to relationships I know I'm not well suited to them, thankfully I avoided the drain of getting in a very long term one when I was younger before I learned that, but that was more luck than anything!
To the day!
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To the day.
I like that there is a community here on HIVE, and I believe in the long term potential of the project. I don't think I'm interested in "Getting Out" -- I'm more interested in Taking Profit while the wider crypto market is flush -- and then continuing to build on the platform.
Most of the investing I have done has been time, into my own business ideas, to try and see how they work, or how they don't work.
I haven't ever had a stock, or gold or silver, or invested in any other businesses other than my own.
I've started an experimental art asset project over in the Alian Art Community on HIVE, so we have a gallery on ETH -- http://alienhoney.art
Turns out they require censorship for NSFW art, so that money I invested won't really benefit me, but it could be leveraged by the art communities on HIVE, which means it's not a waste.
Have a good day.
The bike tools part was interesting to me - I started out as a bike mechanic and set up my own shop at 25 with up to $150k later invested - but that was back in the 90's when it was a cool scene - mountainbiking, road racing - none of the modern eco hippy sit up and beg bike gimps.
But even then being a mechanic was a low paid job. I still have a pretty cool home workshop but seldom use it these days.
http://www.frot.co.nz/cs/cycle_services.htm
Yea, Bike Maintanance is a solid skill set. I've been startled at the direction things have gone.
I've seen so many electric bikes, and such these days. Scooters, skateboards, etc.
A friend of mine ended up creating and failing in a bike shop business.
I think it's a low margin business.