Grass does not grow on a road where many feet have trod. – African Proverb
In other words, don’t expect to grow a family with someone who has had a myriad of sexual experiences. Expecting such a person to “narrow the field” and commit to just one person is not only socially but biochemically unreasonable. I say this with some qualifications which you see below.
Hello Freedom Troopers. This is essentially another installment of “what your father should have taught you.” My parents tried and I didn’t listen, but maybe you will. I usually put these on Sunday but all is in flux as I start new employment.
Also, what I thought was a simple explanation of an African proverb turned out ot be a complex investigation of biological, sociological, and economic factors that took a great deal of time to research. Please bear with me. It is long but it is worth staying to the end. It has also taken all my effort his week so it is 3-blogs-in-one.
In today’s society radical materialism has denied the spiritual teachings that a man and woman come together and become one flesh. However, science has found that there is more truth than superstition in that statement. Sexual intercourse builds a connection between two people on a biochemical and neurological level. The complex interaction of physical contact, scent, neurology, and biochemistry all conspire to create a link between the two who are coupling and it grows stronger with repetition and weaker with neglect – but it does not vanish altogether.
Evolutionary Biologists believe that this developed because humans have such a long gestation period and the female needs the protection and support of the male during pregnancy and in the labor and attention intensive years of development after birth. Those who believe in the Bible would say that Bible already told us that two become one and you shouldn’t waste your seed foolishly. They would tell you, as my father told me, that God designed it that way. Perhaps so. But there is science behind this as well and we will look at the science – I have another site to address theology.
I have heard both men and women with sexual “experience” complain that virgins become irrationally attached to “their first love” or sex partner. They seem to think it is just annoying without stopping to think that we were designed (or evolved that way – or both.) We may well be that way so that we could build stable families. It makes sense that this would be the case and it is foolish to assume it just happened randomly. Evolution is not random it is adaptation for survival.
Biochemistry and scent is engaged on many levels. Women have admitted to sniffing their husbands laundry because the scent of their husband activates oxytocin and produces a pleasing effect…in a similar manner to which chocolate also stimulates oxytocin. Neurologically and emotionally there are other factors that science has identified. Tests have shown that if a person is touched from behind by a stranger there is no reaction. However, if they are touched from behind by a loved one a flood of pleasing chemicals are released neurologically and at the point of contact. This is regardless of whether they consciously know the identity of the person touching them. So we are biochemically and emotionally conditioned to bond when we have sex and that bond is strengthened any time we touch.
I told my son that he needed to be careful who he had sex with the first time because that bond would be created and once it was created it would be harder for him to think objectively about the relationship. Unfortunately, I didn’t know all this when his older brothers had their first experiences. My Dad had told me, from a religious standpoint about this and cited the “bond” that the Bible talks about between man and woman. However, I had foolishly dismissed it as “religion” and “outdated.” It is no longer. It is science.
I guess that means it was always science and that ancient civilizations figured it out but modern science just confirmed it.
In my old age I have come to realize, through studying evolutionary biology, that traditions and social conventions are not just “old fashioned” and “outdated” they seem to have been developed over tens of thousands of years because of who we are as a species. The mores and customs were created due to this biological and evolutionary reality because they were the surest and most proven ways to produce a stable society that cooperated with tendencies that they had observed in humans over centuries. Like individual organisms most societies want to survive and they make laws and rule that help them do that.
Something seems to happen to societies when they reach a point that large populations become disconnected from nature and the land (as indicated by the development of large cities,) and when they reach this point of detachment they develop collective amnesia of their roots – or decide they were an old fashioned “country” way that doesn’t fit ‘modern’ life. I find it interesting that we see this today, just as cultureal historians have seen it in the British Empire, Rome, Mesopotamia and other civilizations. Each “successful” empire forgot its roots and mores that had allowed it to develop in the first place.
Some people, and societies (like our own,) develop a hatred for their roots and a self-loathing that manifests in attempting self-harm or suicide.
We may not appreciate all of those customs today but we should be careful about discarding them until we know why they were developed and explore what might occur if we do discard them before we do so.
Today in the West we just discard all conventions and then twenty to sixty years later society voices a collective “oops.”
So it has been with the 1960s “Sexual Revolution,” Birth Control, and Planned Parenthood. As Jordan Peterson once said our experimentation was: “Kinda hard on the family.” The breakdown of the family has criminal, social, and violent, repercussions far beyond anything envisioned and science is only now starting to catalogue the causes and effects. And despite all forecasts of a “Brave New World” too many of the “innovations” foreseen in the 60s are not working out well and have consequences far beyond what we have expected. Unfortunately, as the data grows, it is data accumulated from the ruined and painful experiences of millions of lives that have been twisted and harmed by societal experimentation. Lives those people will never get back.
Do not expect to grow a happy home with someone who has been promiscuous. And I am not saying a person must be a virgin. Personally, I have never been with one. But the more partners the greater the risk to developing a lasting bond. Just as there is a biochemical, neurological, and emotional bond that develops when we first have sex with someone if we bounce from relationship to relationship to relationship the evidence shows that the more “experience” (or body count,) that we have the less the chance that we will be able to develop a lasting pair bond with a single mate. It is like we build up a resistance to the very biological safeguards that nature built to help us maintain the relationships humanity needs and has developed to survive.
Despite the propaganda that “everyone cheats” (a rationalization developed by cheaters to assuage their own psycho-social guilt,) the truth is that less than a third of the population seem to lack the “monogamous gene.” This gene was first identified in small little burrowing mammals called voles.
Voles are little creatures and there are two genetic tendencies among them that regulate their sexual behavior. There are monogamous voles, who mate for life; and polygamous voles who bounce from partner to partner. With humans, it seems, that bouncing from partner to partner can suppress any monogamous gene that we may have and make if harder to pair bond. We don’t have accurate data on humans. However, we do know that humans have a mind and can override their tendencies. So a person doesn’t have to be promiscuous and, even if they are naturally monogamous and want a single soul mate, they can train themselves to ruin that tendency.
We don’t know how much of monogamous human behavior is due to genetic or how much is socially driven behavior. Recently, society is changing rapidly. We know that isn’t genetic. Only social changes can happen this rapidly. The latest data indicates that about 25% of women are cheaters and about 28% of men are cheaters. This would hold true in that almost half of marital relationships have been touched by extramarital affairs since, unfortunately, cheaters aren’t attracted to cheaters. Or so it seems. It is as if even cheaters know that cheaters are a poor relationship gamble.
There is a great deal of material out there claiming that you should dump any spouse that cheats – just do a YouTube search, this is the “once a cheater always a cheater” mentality. I don’t believe this is an absolute. It is the safer course but far from being the “Alpha” reaction it is the “cautious” and “safe” reaction. Repairing a relationship damaged by cheating takes years and courage, it is not the safe and easy course. It will never “be the same” but who would want it to be “the same.” That relationship broke.
My current wife and I have both been married for over 30 years – I won’t mention our respective body counts – but we were both married before and had other relationships – our experience doesn’t invalidate the data. It just means that a “tendency” is not absolute. We can change our behavior. In our case it required years of marital and individual counseling to heal damaged aspects of our lives that made other damaged people attractive to us. My wife once accused me of seducing her to begin our relationship. I denied it and grabbed a dictionary and read the definition to her and thus defend myself. I read the definition and said, “Oh, I guess I did.” At least I am honest, if imperfect.
So, we can get better, but it took years, destroyed entire cities, and millions of lives were lost. OK, that is an exaggeration but it sometimes feels like that is so. It took years and the example of friends and family to finally come to believe that unconditional love was not a myth but a requirement.
But not everything can get better. I was asked to conduct the “All Soul’s Service” at Seminary and decided that we would have a service where we could come and remember the loved ones that we had lost. Only a handful of people came to the evening service. I gave a service and scripture reading, and then spend the next hour comforting two young ladies in similar circumstances with similar losses. One cried on my shoulder, until it was literally wet, about all her dead babies that she had aborted and could never hold and now her doctor told her the abortions had caused reproductive damage and she could never give birth again. “Why didn’t someone tell me this would happen?” She cried. No one had warned her about the grief of her loss, or the potential damage to her own body that she was causing that left her sterile.
But we are modern people and don’t need ancient proverbs to tell us how to live.
If you ARE married or attached, and your spouse cheats on you then there is a question as to why.
Don’t fall for the “It’s your fault I cheated!” (Unless you pushed an open marriage.) Even then, however, you cannot control another and (except in a case of violent rape,) you have a choice. If you were drunk you still chose to get drunk knowing the risks of stupid behavior that can go with it.
If your spouse doesn’t have a monogamous bone in their body then by all means dump them because you cannot have a strong and stable relationship with a liar or an untrustworthy person. A cheater is both.
I remember a man who told me of his wife’s affair saying “She is such an honest person.” An honest person doesn’t lie about where they are going or who they are seeing. Nor do they blame someone else for their actions. The truth is, liars are successful when they make people THINK they are honest.
The whole idea of a stable relationship is built upon honesty and dependability and a habitual cheater is neither. Whether they are a habitual cheater because they have trained themselves to be that way or because they are genetically predisposed to cheat really doesn’t matter. Nor does a genetic disposition toward something MAKE you do it. You have a choice.
I remember a study of prisoners who were diagnosed as violent psychopaths. Apparently they have a distinctive brain scan and a psychopathic tendency actually shows up in a brain scan. The presiding doctor knew every subject and could actually recognize the brain scans of each individual. He looked at a psychopathic brain and asked his tech, “Who is this. I don’t recognize this subject.” The answer: “It’s yours sir.” Once he recognized his own brain he understood why he had trouble emotionally connecting with his family and friends. But he still had a choice. He had the brain deficiency but he was not a violent psychopaths. He had chosen a different destiny and helped people.
Any person who chooses the life of a cheater is a bane to marriage and healthy relationships. In such a case you need to separate yourself from them to have a healthy life free of potentially deadly or debilitating STD’s and build a mentally stable life and family free from their hurt and chaos.
“Grass does not grow on a path trod by many feet.” Not only Africans but Asians, Romans, Vikings, and the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures have all echoed this wisdom. That is why its called “Wisdom Literature.” It is like the science of generations of observation recorded by sages for future generations and we ignore it at our peril. Every traditional society in the world cannot all be entirely wrong and maybe we should listen for a change…or at least determine the whys and wherefores before we reject them and experiment with our future.
Someone who has had such a lack of self respect for their own body as to bounce from bed to bed to bed and risk the entanglements of emotions, bio-chemistry, and STD’s are not a good match for marriage unless they truly repent of their behavior, seek counseling, and can overcome it. All of these are a bunch of big “ifs” that add up to relationships risks. The YouTubers are correct. The safe thing is to run. But I like my marriage and it was worth fighting for. We have many complementary interests and personality traits, and some that don’t work very well. But that is reality. Overall it is a “win” and we haven’t killed each other…yet.
However, there are other people that cheat who do so because they are seduced or who are severely damaged by an abusive upbringing and who never learned the proper place of boundaries. It seems foolish to abandon a relationship you have invested years of your life in because of a moment of weakness when faced with the wiles of a seducer or a seductress.
BE WARNED: the serial cheater will claim that this or some other reason is why they should not be held responsible and when they are finally caught will always claim it was “just once.” Even if your heart, or the private investigator, can prove otherwise. If you give someone a second chance and they blow it a second time you are a fool if you give them a third. But love can be foolish.
Even here there MAY be an exception. I have seen in my own life relationships damaged by cheating where marital and individual counseling brought healing to the family trauma of the cheaters. And once healed of the pain that caused them to engage in the self destructive behavior they could move beyond it. But it can only work if they sincerely want to change and, unfortunately, the track record for success is not high. There is evidence that deep seated behaviors are very difficult, if not impossible, to change. I have seen it happen once or twice but that is not necessarily encouraging. So, there may be some discernment that is required before you dump your spouse.
I would say that your interior voice is probably a better guide than the advice of your friends. It is easy for someone else to advise you to give up everything you have worked at building over the years. It is harder to do it. I guess you have to ask yourself is you are dealing with a serial cheater or did they get seduced into a relationship because our society is stupid about relationships and careless about safeguarding marital relationships in particular. There are predators out there who prey on the naïve and innocent (who in fact prefer to prey on the naïve and innocent,) but don’t let yourself be one of them.
It is worth repeating, don’t throw away a good thing because of a moment of weakness. Had I done so, I would be single now but I have a happy marriage that has lasted for decades beyond the transgression. In truth, I was ready to leave and had contacted a lawyer. I had been divorced before. the deciding factor was that I wanted daily access to my son, instead of just a couple times a month as occurred after the fall of my first marriage. Through much work and counseling we were able to eventually heal the breach. But there is scar tissue.
It boggles my mind how modern women can complain how male promiscuity is horrible and then copy the worst aspects of male behavior in their own relationships and claim “body count doesn’t matter.” Especially, when nearly every scientific and sociological study we have shows that to be an out and out lie. I guess these women are “science deniers.”
There seem to be good reasons that in nearly every traditional society on Earth men and women work separately and they advise chastity and limiting not only your sexual “experiences” but even your chances for “extracurricular” activities after marriage. Society after society condemns this behavior. Stories are written about it as are plays and movies. For tens of thousands of years such behavior has destroyed the stability of families, societies, political regimes, and even caused murders.
There are many aspects of modern propaganda that make Western Women lousy prospects for marriage and rather than saddling yourself with someone who is not inclined and never will be able to be a good marriage partner you may want to seriously consider looking for someone from more traditional societies in Eastern Europe, Africa, the Middle East, or Asia. That is if you want a stable and traditional marriage. There are traditional women in the US still. I am married to an anti-feminist who is so traditional she is Victorian. It used to be something we argued about. But, because I am all about observation and life-long learning I have decided that she was right and I was wrong. Whatever you need to do to find one traditional values are a better choice to build stable relationships than getting married to someone who is not only inclined to get divorced but whose many friends will encourage them to cheat, be disloyal, and demand more while giving less. That is what our narcissistic “modern” society produces and it is killing us.
Recently women have posted videos pining for men with “liberal” values who behave as a traditional mate who is a breadwinner, courteous, gentlemanly, and protective. It is hard to believe they could be so clueless. You cannot pull out all the pins and stays of society and expect it to function as it always has.
There are good women out there but I don’t think “modern emancipated women” are a good choice for a lasting, stable marriage. Strong, determined women, (like pioneer women and other traditional women,) with traditional values are a good choice but many modern women (judging by Tik Tok, YouTube, the news, and modern statistics,) have no skills to bring to a marriage to build a family relationship. If they don’t have a good relationship with their father (or any men in their lives,) they will have no clue how to build a good relationship with a man in a family unit. Where would they learn it? If they don’t know how by the age of twenty five their brain is fully developed and its not likely to change.
The Bible says that “The sins of the fathers (and mothers,) will be visited onto the children even unto the third and fourth generation.” Religion often presents this as a divine curse but I think it is just a statement of fact. Parent’s teach their behaviors and attitudes to their children whether they want to or not and they are bloody difficult to change.
The longer they live alone the less suitable to marriage a potential spouse will be. I know people in their thirties and forties who are so set in their ways they will never marry unless someone has such a low self esteem and lack of personality they will conform entirely to that persons life and have none of their own. Also, if you want children and a family you need to marry a young women. By the age of thirty a woman has lost most of her eggs and the risk in childbirth rises sharply. But modern women have been lied to and think they not only can have it all but they deserve it all.
Likewise, if you are a woman a weak man is also a bad bet because they are ill prepared to provide the security that most women want from a man in a relationship.
Both Men and women who have been coddled all their life by “helicopter parents” have never had to learn to stand against adversity. They are extraordinarily weak. Their parents failed to prepare them for the struggles of life. and marriage isn’t easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy. It is hard but you get the advantage of standing together against adversity instead of alone.
However, let’s not be hasty in condemning modern lads as being a “soy boy.” In many ways having low testosterone is a function of our “modern” society because the plastics our food is packed in and that we drink from nearly all suppress testosterone. Additionally many food additives and preservatives (besides causing our body to store them as fat,) likewise cause suppression of testosterone production so that over 80% of males 16 or over have drastically low testosterone. This is not a matter of being “sensitive” it is a matter of being poisoned. It can be fixed but once someone takes testosterone injections they need to continue them forever. Avoiding all the testosterone suppressants used in the food industry in this country would essentially require you to buy all your food from a farmers market and local purchasers to avoid the chemicals that keep even fruits and vegetables “fresh.”
Our government will do nothing because the FDA is dominated by the retired heads of our major food and drug producers and they are enforcing the interests of big pharma and huge food processing companies. NO. This is not a conspiracy theory. Just look it up and Google the execs. I have. It is not an opinion it is a fact.
When I hear something I don’t like I investigate it.
(Also in an upcoming blog, will look at the Department of Agriculture raiding an Amish farm with guns drawn, seizing their unprocessed meat and foods and destroying them. Apparently, the Amish are dangerous terrorists in the eyes of our corrupt government…who knew? Yes, I am building up dozens of blogs in progress because fighting this chaos is a full time job and I can only spare what time I have when I am not working to feed my own family – because, as I have said, ad nauseum, Google Adsense won’t monetize me unless I spout the “approved” tripe and I will not lie for money.)
Apparently, producing food as it has been produced for thousands of years is now “unhealthy and dangerous.” Well, it IS dangerous to corporate profits as more and more are saying “NO” to unhealthy processed foods that are increasingly proven to be dangerous. Still, low testosterone can be dealt with. Corporate greed and misandry in society is not as easy to fix (as if avoiding testosterone suppressants are?)
My son and I use a company called “Restorative Health” to deal with this issue. I like them because they are using a “women’s” fertility medication for my son that has the happy side effect of jump starting a young man’s testosterone production and doesn’t require a life of shots – if it works. We also are putting extra effort in to buy from farmers markets, local farmers, and organic food, despite the added price that entails that entails. The stakes are that high.
As a billboard in Lincoln NE once said, “If you wear out your body where are you going to live?”
We won’t even discuss the legal problems with marriage under US law but they are many for a man. The problems with “modern” American society are many and varied and spawned the very existence of SabersEdge.Online to address them. Believe me, I could be spending my time and money elsewhere. I have many interests. However, if we cannot fix these problems we are looking at the collapse of the greatest society the world has ever seen. Not the most perfect society but we are working on it…three steps forward…two back.
Marriage is a “give-give” relationship characterized by a division of labor, mutual care, and support and you should never enter into it with someone whose primary attitude is “gimme -gimme.” Serial cheaters are all about themselves and don’t have the attitude for a mutually supportive relationship. Likewise, someone who is fully “on board” with our modern culture is a narcissistic materialist and they are not able to weather the ups and downs and give and take of marriage because they are “all about” their own rights and desires and not you or the family. You really cannot grow something valuable where many feet are trampling it down.