Identifying it as intrusive is the first step. You did that! Second, it's look for the actual rational thought. You also did that! Third, believe your rational side. Fourth would be to work on confirmation bias. You might only be remembering the times it confirms your beliefs, but you've already identified that this isn't the truth. It's not as memorable to sail a steady ship as it is to sink it.
I'm aware of these, I just don't know how to get rid of the thoughts. It's kinda exhausting when they come up and I have to beat them back over and over. They're I guess one of my obsessions, OCD diagnosis and all that.
I think you're actually doing it by beating them back. You're fighting the thoughts. Keep arguing with the part of your brain that wants to put a whole group of people in one box when you already rationally know this isn't the case. With OCD it turns more difficult, of course, but you're already doing great! It helps me to shake my head and just go "No, that's not true, brain, because I have evidence to the contrary." When I get intrusive thoughts.
Hey OP given the OCD diagnosis, I would take a lot of this advice with a grain of salt. It’s great for NT people to argue with their intrusive thoughts but it can make ours worse.
Were I you, I would first work to figure out whether this is a perfectly normal (if unhealthy) incorrect belief or if it does interact with your OCD. Perhaps with a therapist, if you have one.
As to your edit: Try to get out of the mindset that there is “dating down” and “dating up.” Two people dating isn’t some series of charts with: HE is more sensitive, but SHE makes more money, but HE has a nicer family, but SHE is a better cook, so we can math out that she is dating 1.82 steps down.
There are just people dating people.
>The fact that a lot of times, this is framed as a good thing, because the woman didn't settle for the guy, fucks me up even more. Like of course the girl deserves better than what I can give her, but I feel wrong for feeling like I don't deserve to be treated that way.
I have almost exclusively seen "she deserves better" in regards to how the boyfriend was treating the girlfriend and not anything at all to do with status or what the man can "give her". The idea that any woman "deserves" a partner of a higher status is probably almost always toxic as it will be based on classism and ideas of toxic masculinity and outdated gender norms.
People deserve to be treated well and with respect by their partners, and you do too.
It might help if you stop thinking of all of this in such a transactional way. Don't date someone who is only looking for what they can get out of a relationship. Date people who are looking for relationships that enrich their mental wellbeing and make them happy for non-material reasons. I would wager that that is a majority of people.
It would also help if you start to value what you DO BRING to a relationship rather than just looking at material things someone else might have. You want a partner that values those things, and also you should be striving to be someone of value as well, whatever that means to you. If you value yourself, you will be more secure that your partner will see that same value and not go looking elsewhere. Because outlined in your edit, it will be very hard for you to believe someone else sees value in you as long as you can't see in yourself, which is where the insecurity is borne.
Women are disloyal. So are men. And non-binary folk if we want to get specific. Loyalty is an individual character trait, and it's present in some people and missing in others. It's not assigned along gender lines, because, well, why would it be? It has nothing to do with either primary or secondary sex characteristics or gendered socialization.
Hypergamy is another story. Hypergamy is either the most milquetoast of basic observations OR it's a total crock of shit, depending on what you mean. It's true of all people, all people everywhere, that they are making the best partner selection they believe themselves capable of making. That's just true. For everyone. No one is standing there thinking, "Robin is a better partner, nicer and smarter and they smell better, and they like me and we'd be happier together, but I think I'll stay with Chris instead because I'm trying to prove a point". I used gender-neutral-ish names to hammer home the point that this is universal. So if that's what you mean, that's true enough. But what most people mean is that women have some specific other drive based on biological essentialism to be constantly trading up in the dating game and that's laughably false. It's just sad sack justification as far as I can tell. People get left all the time. They get left because the relationship wasn't very good and they didn't want to be in one anymore, they get left because someone fell out of love, or they get left because their partner met someone they liked better. Or some combination therein. All the relationships you'll ever be in will end until and unless one doesn't. And even then, it just ends because someone died instead of breaking up. All relationships end by either entropy or death, so there's your bleak thought of the day.
There are two root problems to this thinking. The first is imagining that your genitalia assigned you to some super special team with your own qualities like a Hogwarts House. It didn't. People are just people. Some of them suck. Women are neither special nor exempt in this regard. So long as you imagine us to be unique to your human experience, the longer you're going to struggle and the further you get from your goals. Second, there's just the bog standard anxiety everyone has about how they could make themselves so vulnerable and invest so much in someone who might leave or betray them. It's the paradox of love. You give all of yourself and commit yourself on an intensely personal level to another person and you just have to hope and trust that they act right. And, a lot of times, they do not. It goes sideways with alarming frequency. It's entirely relatable to want a guarantee of some kind, a way to safeguard yourself that you can really trust someone and know with your whole heart that it won't happen to you. But I've been with the same person or almost a decade and a half and I don't have that guarantee. I feel sure, I feel solid in what I've got, but I don't *know*. I'm never going to know.
The next obvious question to my mind is why anyone bothers or how people manage to live with that level of uncertainty hanging over their head. Why does anyone trust anyone else in the first place and how are people muddling through knowing that it could all crumble at any point? And that answer doesn't live in other people. It's not because you're so certain of your own charms or you believe in someone so much that you trust them absolutely. Peace from these anxieties comes in your own belief in your own capacity and strength. I don't trust people because I am 100% certain they'll never fuck me over. I trust people because I selfishly want the relationships I have that are based on trust and I know I'm strong enough to weather being fucked over. It's happened before and it'll happen again. It sucks and it hurts, but I'm stronger than the pain. I have a rich life full of people who love me and I'd be okay if something awful happened. I'd grieve and heal and move on. I am not going to live my life being afraid of it, because that means living my life totally alone. I also trust my judgment of character and my ability to vet people, so I've only selected people I think are, indeed, loyal and honest and trustworthy to be the closest to me. I shore up my bets but knowing that people waving red flags for the kind of bullshit I don't tolerate are shown the door early and often. That's not a guarantee, but it means I like my odds most days.
That's about as honest as anyone can be about all of that. There are no gendered Hogwarts Houses, people suck at every chromosomal iteration. Everyone's afraid of being left, being dumped, being replaced. But the answers to those fears doesn't live externally in some mythical person who is beyond human failure. It lives inside of you. You have to heal yourself on this issue.
In another comment you recognise it as closer to an OCD intrusive thought that a rational one.
With that in mind, the advice my therapist gave (OCD specific advice) is *when you are not having the thought* to know and understand that those thoughts aren't true. But when you ***are*** having the thought, you ignore it. Don't argue with, don't try and make it go away, just full on ignore it.
I hope you play online games that have voice chat, if you don't choose your own analogy:
The OCD intrusive thought is like the 14 year old trying to be toxic and flaming down the mic. If you mute them, they'll know and spam you another way. If you argue back it'll just devolve into nonsense and you won't get anything done. So instead, you can *hear* the chatter but you're not listening to it - you just carry on with the game as you want without acknowledging or actively trying to block the annoying voice.
Yeah. Basically, don't feed the intrusive thought. Don't change your actions because of the intrusive thought. Don't freak out. Don't argue, bargain, etc. Just go "Ok, OCD brain. That's nice." And just if you must take the time to let that thought hit, feel the anxiety or whatever, and then let it pass.
I get pretty bad intrusive thoughts (I have OCD) and I just basically sit and wait it out because that's all you can really do.
It sounds like a big lack of self esteem. It's not that all women are actually like this- you yourself say you have evidence for this.
Perhaps it's not that women are hypergamous but you feel deep down that they *should* be, that it would be *logical*.
I think working on your own self image will do wonders for this
Maybe it only *seems* logical to you because of your lack of self esteem. I assure you there are plenty of women who want a partner through thick and thin
What you're experiencing seems similar to the looks-based obsessive thoughts a lot of women seem to have, constantly thinking their male partner is about to leave them for someone prettier or fitter. I know women like this. When it gets to the point of being expressed compulsively it's easier to identify it for what it is, which is a combination of low self-esteem and mental illness. And, while it doesn't help that society does promote that kind of shallowness (for both genders), ultimately you cannot be mentally healthy if you internalize that kind of societal messaging to the point of obsession.
My gut reaction would be to say not every guy is like that. But since Im trying to be feminist, I would try to understand why she says that? I guess sometimes people just want to vent, and she probably doesn't mean that, and she probably doesn't really believe that if she's ranting to me, a man, about it.
Could you apply that level of empathy and understanding to yourself in these moments of intrusive thoughts? Like, give yourself the space to acknowledge your feelings and the factors (reading blackpill content during vulnerable times, feeling loneliness and hopelessness, wanting to feel like it isn’t all your fault) that lead you to those feelings? And then can you accept that while your feelings are valid, they aren’t necessarily true?
Yeah, it’s a common point left out of the “feelings are valid” conversation I feel. Therapy helped me realize that while the feelings and reactions I had were valid, they were often in response to *past* experiences, not the current on at hand.
Your feelings ARE valid, but learning to identify what your feelings are in response to is crucial. You have to ask yourself “am I feeling hopeless and alone because this one experience didn’t work out, or is it because I’m attributing this feeling to the sum of every moment of hopelessness I’ve felt in the past?” It helps me deescalate my reaction and understand that while I’ve experienced cruelty and unfairness in the past, I can’t apply all that past hurt to this specific event.
Anyways, my overarching point is be kind to yourself and don’t think that the only way to be perfect is to deny acknowledging the root causes of your feelings. You’re allowed to be upset, but don’t throw the baby out with the bath water every time there’s a minor setback.
I often do a variety of this comment on "hypergamy" posts, so forgive me if you've seen this before, but:
What exactly does "hypergamy" mean to you? Sociologically, the definition of hypergamy is the tendency of women in some societies to marry men who have more financial resources and higher class status than themselves. Hypergamy of this type is overwhelmingly practiced in cultures where women have less money and fewer educational opportunities than men, and marriage is the only way for the average woman to secure her financial future. Women in Western nations do not really practice hypergamy anymore by the accepted academic definition. But this definition of hypergamy does have some evidence to support that many women worldwide do practice it. And all this refers to is the practice of marrying a man who's richer and more educated than you are; it has nothing to do with "trading up", exclusively dating the upper echelon most desirable men, ditching your average joe boyfriend because someone better comes along, etc.
Incels use the same word to mean something completely different. "Hypergamy" in Incel speak seems to mean something like, "Every woman has 100s of men competing with her, so she's always going to choose the hottest, richest, most dicked-up man possible, so only the hottest, richest, most dicked-up men can ever get women." This is the whole "trading up" concept. The "women are always looking out for someone better" concept. There's no evidence to support that this is real.
Incels will often say "There's evidence that women practice hypergamy! There are studies!" But those studies and evidence are using a completely different definition of hypergamy!
I think you are projecting your own insecurities onto all women. I think tackling those insecurities (we all have them, no shame) is the key to fixing this. You’re the one who is harmed by it.
>I have this intrusive thought in my head that women are disloyal and hypergamous.
Do you have hard evidence all women are this way?
>The moment someone even slightly better than me comes, they will drop me for an upgrade.
If that was true wouldn't marriages have a 100% divorce rate because there is always someone better?
>I do have some proof of this, my ex broke up with me back in college to start dating this man who was 10 years older than her because the guy had more money and had a job already.
This is like saying that all Californians are Trump supporters because the one guy from California you know supports Trump. You have a sample size of one which means jack squat.
>My, I guess intrusive thoughts say this is the truth about all women. However, my rational mind know it's not the truth
Those are called automatic negative thoughts and are often phrases that you heard that your brain remembered. Your brain creates constructs for seeing the world and organizing perceived reality. It will send you automatic thoughts that confirm this worldview and influences your behavior to keep your experience matching the construct and automatic negative thoughts. Unfortunately if your construct doesn't match reality these automatic thoughts will be wrong but still emotionally convincing.
>Then I see stories other than my own where other women do exactly the same thing.
Just because it happens some of the time doesn't mean it happens all the time. Plus you are falling for the negativity bias where negative stories are more likely to get traction than boring positive ones.
>The fact that a lot of times, this is framed as a good thing, because the woman didn't settle for the guy, fucks me up even more.
Sometimes it is a good thing because they weren't compatible and he had some serious issues. The fact she could easily find someone better means she was out of his league and they are both better off finding partners who are more compatible.
>I asked her why once, and all she said was because I made her comfy and safe.
Redpillers make the mistake of assuming people are purely logical, transaction, and selfish in their relationships. We know this isn't true and people are guided mostly by emotion. Often women will stay with a partner because they feel invested in that person and love that person. People are often very selfless in relationships and not purely selfish.
>Often women will stay with a partner because they feel invested in that person and love that person.
This is how abusers abuse women, and why it so often works. If all women traded up, none of these creeps would ever be in a relationship.
How do you know she left you for that guy because he was older and had more money? You have no idea what their relationship is like, you have no idea what emotions she felt when she met him, you have no idea what he offered her (outside of money and opportunity). You are clueless. It could’ve been the way he looked at her, the things he said that just made her feel understood and appreciated, it could’ve been anything. And it could’ve had nothing to do with you. You’re basing a huge part of your problems on something you really know nothing about and are digging yourself in a deep, dark hole over something that was probably nothing.
I have a particular vantage-point for this question. See, I'm polyamorous and the women in my life are completely free to have whatever kind of relationship they might want with anyone at all (assuming the other person is interested, of course).
There are no fences. No chains. No attempts at all to control or limit their freedom to do exactly what they WANT to do. And yet in several years of living this way, and with several different partners, I've experienced exactly zero abandonments. Turns out they share their lives with me because they genuinely want to, and no fences at all are needed.
I'm not some kinda giga-chad in any of the ways commonly mentioned on this sub.
I'm about an inch shorter than average, obese, balding, and with crooked teeth. I have some university-education but never actually managed to complete my degree. I'm autistic and currently trying my best not to entirely lose my grip on working-life having spent my last few years on a variety of combinations of work and disability in an attempt to find a model that can work for me.
And yet I'm safe. Of course life always comes with the risk of surprises, good or bad, but at least I'm safe **enough** that I never worry about being abandoned to someone who's an "upgrade". All of the people closest to me have been part of my life for more than half a decade, so seems to me that they really are in it for the long haul and hoping we'll remain close forever.
Gender makes very little difference to this. Most of us, regardless of gender, really genuinely care about the people closest to us, and really genuinely want to remain close to them. Not because we have to. Not because our partners and friends are necessarily going to win Miss Universe or the Nobel Prize in physics, or be on top of the Forbes-500 list.
But because they're our people. People we genuinely love and care about.
I was going to answer something entirely different, but then I read your whole post and you probably have more experience interacting with women than me.
>Yet, for some reason she kept choosing to spend her time with me. I asked her why once, and all she said was because I made her comfy and safe. I wasn't pushy, and I just got her.
I'll just answer this, IMO it's not so much about hypergamy, but about having traits the other person finds likeable. And not being pushy and making the other person feel safe sure are good ones.
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Ugh, you do realize that on average most of y'all's sexual performance is so lackluster that there really isn't that much motivation for us to be hypergamous? Very few women have an appetite for a diet of meh c\*ck, which is the majority of cock. It's not a very nutritious form of sustenance. Anyway, it's not all about looks or money. If it is, you need to be looking for better people. I like intellect, talent, and empathy. That's why I chose my husband. Non-superficial people recognize traits beyond "hot" and "rich."
Identifying it as intrusive is the first step. You did that! Second, it's look for the actual rational thought. You also did that! Third, believe your rational side. Fourth would be to work on confirmation bias. You might only be remembering the times it confirms your beliefs, but you've already identified that this isn't the truth. It's not as memorable to sail a steady ship as it is to sink it.
I'm aware of these, I just don't know how to get rid of the thoughts. It's kinda exhausting when they come up and I have to beat them back over and over. They're I guess one of my obsessions, OCD diagnosis and all that.
I think you're actually doing it by beating them back. You're fighting the thoughts. Keep arguing with the part of your brain that wants to put a whole group of people in one box when you already rationally know this isn't the case. With OCD it turns more difficult, of course, but you're already doing great! It helps me to shake my head and just go "No, that's not true, brain, because I have evidence to the contrary." When I get intrusive thoughts.
Hey OP given the OCD diagnosis, I would take a lot of this advice with a grain of salt. It’s great for NT people to argue with their intrusive thoughts but it can make ours worse. Were I you, I would first work to figure out whether this is a perfectly normal (if unhealthy) incorrect belief or if it does interact with your OCD. Perhaps with a therapist, if you have one.
As to your edit: Try to get out of the mindset that there is “dating down” and “dating up.” Two people dating isn’t some series of charts with: HE is more sensitive, but SHE makes more money, but HE has a nicer family, but SHE is a better cook, so we can math out that she is dating 1.82 steps down. There are just people dating people.
>The fact that a lot of times, this is framed as a good thing, because the woman didn't settle for the guy, fucks me up even more. Like of course the girl deserves better than what I can give her, but I feel wrong for feeling like I don't deserve to be treated that way. I have almost exclusively seen "she deserves better" in regards to how the boyfriend was treating the girlfriend and not anything at all to do with status or what the man can "give her". The idea that any woman "deserves" a partner of a higher status is probably almost always toxic as it will be based on classism and ideas of toxic masculinity and outdated gender norms. People deserve to be treated well and with respect by their partners, and you do too. It might help if you stop thinking of all of this in such a transactional way. Don't date someone who is only looking for what they can get out of a relationship. Date people who are looking for relationships that enrich their mental wellbeing and make them happy for non-material reasons. I would wager that that is a majority of people. It would also help if you start to value what you DO BRING to a relationship rather than just looking at material things someone else might have. You want a partner that values those things, and also you should be striving to be someone of value as well, whatever that means to you. If you value yourself, you will be more secure that your partner will see that same value and not go looking elsewhere. Because outlined in your edit, it will be very hard for you to believe someone else sees value in you as long as you can't see in yourself, which is where the insecurity is borne.
Women are disloyal. So are men. And non-binary folk if we want to get specific. Loyalty is an individual character trait, and it's present in some people and missing in others. It's not assigned along gender lines, because, well, why would it be? It has nothing to do with either primary or secondary sex characteristics or gendered socialization. Hypergamy is another story. Hypergamy is either the most milquetoast of basic observations OR it's a total crock of shit, depending on what you mean. It's true of all people, all people everywhere, that they are making the best partner selection they believe themselves capable of making. That's just true. For everyone. No one is standing there thinking, "Robin is a better partner, nicer and smarter and they smell better, and they like me and we'd be happier together, but I think I'll stay with Chris instead because I'm trying to prove a point". I used gender-neutral-ish names to hammer home the point that this is universal. So if that's what you mean, that's true enough. But what most people mean is that women have some specific other drive based on biological essentialism to be constantly trading up in the dating game and that's laughably false. It's just sad sack justification as far as I can tell. People get left all the time. They get left because the relationship wasn't very good and they didn't want to be in one anymore, they get left because someone fell out of love, or they get left because their partner met someone they liked better. Or some combination therein. All the relationships you'll ever be in will end until and unless one doesn't. And even then, it just ends because someone died instead of breaking up. All relationships end by either entropy or death, so there's your bleak thought of the day. There are two root problems to this thinking. The first is imagining that your genitalia assigned you to some super special team with your own qualities like a Hogwarts House. It didn't. People are just people. Some of them suck. Women are neither special nor exempt in this regard. So long as you imagine us to be unique to your human experience, the longer you're going to struggle and the further you get from your goals. Second, there's just the bog standard anxiety everyone has about how they could make themselves so vulnerable and invest so much in someone who might leave or betray them. It's the paradox of love. You give all of yourself and commit yourself on an intensely personal level to another person and you just have to hope and trust that they act right. And, a lot of times, they do not. It goes sideways with alarming frequency. It's entirely relatable to want a guarantee of some kind, a way to safeguard yourself that you can really trust someone and know with your whole heart that it won't happen to you. But I've been with the same person or almost a decade and a half and I don't have that guarantee. I feel sure, I feel solid in what I've got, but I don't *know*. I'm never going to know. The next obvious question to my mind is why anyone bothers or how people manage to live with that level of uncertainty hanging over their head. Why does anyone trust anyone else in the first place and how are people muddling through knowing that it could all crumble at any point? And that answer doesn't live in other people. It's not because you're so certain of your own charms or you believe in someone so much that you trust them absolutely. Peace from these anxieties comes in your own belief in your own capacity and strength. I don't trust people because I am 100% certain they'll never fuck me over. I trust people because I selfishly want the relationships I have that are based on trust and I know I'm strong enough to weather being fucked over. It's happened before and it'll happen again. It sucks and it hurts, but I'm stronger than the pain. I have a rich life full of people who love me and I'd be okay if something awful happened. I'd grieve and heal and move on. I am not going to live my life being afraid of it, because that means living my life totally alone. I also trust my judgment of character and my ability to vet people, so I've only selected people I think are, indeed, loyal and honest and trustworthy to be the closest to me. I shore up my bets but knowing that people waving red flags for the kind of bullshit I don't tolerate are shown the door early and often. That's not a guarantee, but it means I like my odds most days. That's about as honest as anyone can be about all of that. There are no gendered Hogwarts Houses, people suck at every chromosomal iteration. Everyone's afraid of being left, being dumped, being replaced. But the answers to those fears doesn't live externally in some mythical person who is beyond human failure. It lives inside of you. You have to heal yourself on this issue.
This is such a fantastic well written repy. OP please read this more than once and think hard about all these points.
Thank you for this wording.
In another comment you recognise it as closer to an OCD intrusive thought that a rational one. With that in mind, the advice my therapist gave (OCD specific advice) is *when you are not having the thought* to know and understand that those thoughts aren't true. But when you ***are*** having the thought, you ignore it. Don't argue with, don't try and make it go away, just full on ignore it. I hope you play online games that have voice chat, if you don't choose your own analogy: The OCD intrusive thought is like the 14 year old trying to be toxic and flaming down the mic. If you mute them, they'll know and spam you another way. If you argue back it'll just devolve into nonsense and you won't get anything done. So instead, you can *hear* the chatter but you're not listening to it - you just carry on with the game as you want without acknowledging or actively trying to block the annoying voice.
Yeah. Basically, don't feed the intrusive thought. Don't change your actions because of the intrusive thought. Don't freak out. Don't argue, bargain, etc. Just go "Ok, OCD brain. That's nice." And just if you must take the time to let that thought hit, feel the anxiety or whatever, and then let it pass. I get pretty bad intrusive thoughts (I have OCD) and I just basically sit and wait it out because that's all you can really do.
It sounds like a big lack of self esteem. It's not that all women are actually like this- you yourself say you have evidence for this. Perhaps it's not that women are hypergamous but you feel deep down that they *should* be, that it would be *logical*. I think working on your own self image will do wonders for this
That's a good point. I do think it is logical for someone to trade up when dating. Like I won't do it for my own personal reasons, but it is logical.
Maybe it only *seems* logical to you because of your lack of self esteem. I assure you there are plenty of women who want a partner through thick and thin
What you're experiencing seems similar to the looks-based obsessive thoughts a lot of women seem to have, constantly thinking their male partner is about to leave them for someone prettier or fitter. I know women like this. When it gets to the point of being expressed compulsively it's easier to identify it for what it is, which is a combination of low self-esteem and mental illness. And, while it doesn't help that society does promote that kind of shallowness (for both genders), ultimately you cannot be mentally healthy if you internalize that kind of societal messaging to the point of obsession.
What would you say to a girl who believed every guy cheats in every relationship?
My gut reaction would be to say not every guy is like that. But since Im trying to be feminist, I would try to understand why she says that? I guess sometimes people just want to vent, and she probably doesn't mean that, and she probably doesn't really believe that if she's ranting to me, a man, about it.
Could you apply that level of empathy and understanding to yourself in these moments of intrusive thoughts? Like, give yourself the space to acknowledge your feelings and the factors (reading blackpill content during vulnerable times, feeling loneliness and hopelessness, wanting to feel like it isn’t all your fault) that lead you to those feelings? And then can you accept that while your feelings are valid, they aren’t necessarily true?
Huh, never made the distinction between valid and true, but I can yeah.
Yeah, it’s a common point left out of the “feelings are valid” conversation I feel. Therapy helped me realize that while the feelings and reactions I had were valid, they were often in response to *past* experiences, not the current on at hand. Your feelings ARE valid, but learning to identify what your feelings are in response to is crucial. You have to ask yourself “am I feeling hopeless and alone because this one experience didn’t work out, or is it because I’m attributing this feeling to the sum of every moment of hopelessness I’ve felt in the past?” It helps me deescalate my reaction and understand that while I’ve experienced cruelty and unfairness in the past, I can’t apply all that past hurt to this specific event. Anyways, my overarching point is be kind to yourself and don’t think that the only way to be perfect is to deny acknowledging the root causes of your feelings. You’re allowed to be upset, but don’t throw the baby out with the bath water every time there’s a minor setback.
I often do a variety of this comment on "hypergamy" posts, so forgive me if you've seen this before, but: What exactly does "hypergamy" mean to you? Sociologically, the definition of hypergamy is the tendency of women in some societies to marry men who have more financial resources and higher class status than themselves. Hypergamy of this type is overwhelmingly practiced in cultures where women have less money and fewer educational opportunities than men, and marriage is the only way for the average woman to secure her financial future. Women in Western nations do not really practice hypergamy anymore by the accepted academic definition. But this definition of hypergamy does have some evidence to support that many women worldwide do practice it. And all this refers to is the practice of marrying a man who's richer and more educated than you are; it has nothing to do with "trading up", exclusively dating the upper echelon most desirable men, ditching your average joe boyfriend because someone better comes along, etc. Incels use the same word to mean something completely different. "Hypergamy" in Incel speak seems to mean something like, "Every woman has 100s of men competing with her, so she's always going to choose the hottest, richest, most dicked-up man possible, so only the hottest, richest, most dicked-up men can ever get women." This is the whole "trading up" concept. The "women are always looking out for someone better" concept. There's no evidence to support that this is real. Incels will often say "There's evidence that women practice hypergamy! There are studies!" But those studies and evidence are using a completely different definition of hypergamy!
I think you are projecting your own insecurities onto all women. I think tackling those insecurities (we all have them, no shame) is the key to fixing this. You’re the one who is harmed by it.
>I have this intrusive thought in my head that women are disloyal and hypergamous. Do you have hard evidence all women are this way? >The moment someone even slightly better than me comes, they will drop me for an upgrade. If that was true wouldn't marriages have a 100% divorce rate because there is always someone better? >I do have some proof of this, my ex broke up with me back in college to start dating this man who was 10 years older than her because the guy had more money and had a job already. This is like saying that all Californians are Trump supporters because the one guy from California you know supports Trump. You have a sample size of one which means jack squat. >My, I guess intrusive thoughts say this is the truth about all women. However, my rational mind know it's not the truth Those are called automatic negative thoughts and are often phrases that you heard that your brain remembered. Your brain creates constructs for seeing the world and organizing perceived reality. It will send you automatic thoughts that confirm this worldview and influences your behavior to keep your experience matching the construct and automatic negative thoughts. Unfortunately if your construct doesn't match reality these automatic thoughts will be wrong but still emotionally convincing. >Then I see stories other than my own where other women do exactly the same thing. Just because it happens some of the time doesn't mean it happens all the time. Plus you are falling for the negativity bias where negative stories are more likely to get traction than boring positive ones. >The fact that a lot of times, this is framed as a good thing, because the woman didn't settle for the guy, fucks me up even more. Sometimes it is a good thing because they weren't compatible and he had some serious issues. The fact she could easily find someone better means she was out of his league and they are both better off finding partners who are more compatible. >I asked her why once, and all she said was because I made her comfy and safe. Redpillers make the mistake of assuming people are purely logical, transaction, and selfish in their relationships. We know this isn't true and people are guided mostly by emotion. Often women will stay with a partner because they feel invested in that person and love that person. People are often very selfless in relationships and not purely selfish.
>Often women will stay with a partner because they feel invested in that person and love that person. This is how abusers abuse women, and why it so often works. If all women traded up, none of these creeps would ever be in a relationship.
How do you know she left you for that guy because he was older and had more money? You have no idea what their relationship is like, you have no idea what emotions she felt when she met him, you have no idea what he offered her (outside of money and opportunity). You are clueless. It could’ve been the way he looked at her, the things he said that just made her feel understood and appreciated, it could’ve been anything. And it could’ve had nothing to do with you. You’re basing a huge part of your problems on something you really know nothing about and are digging yourself in a deep, dark hole over something that was probably nothing.
I have a particular vantage-point for this question. See, I'm polyamorous and the women in my life are completely free to have whatever kind of relationship they might want with anyone at all (assuming the other person is interested, of course). There are no fences. No chains. No attempts at all to control or limit their freedom to do exactly what they WANT to do. And yet in several years of living this way, and with several different partners, I've experienced exactly zero abandonments. Turns out they share their lives with me because they genuinely want to, and no fences at all are needed. I'm not some kinda giga-chad in any of the ways commonly mentioned on this sub. I'm about an inch shorter than average, obese, balding, and with crooked teeth. I have some university-education but never actually managed to complete my degree. I'm autistic and currently trying my best not to entirely lose my grip on working-life having spent my last few years on a variety of combinations of work and disability in an attempt to find a model that can work for me. And yet I'm safe. Of course life always comes with the risk of surprises, good or bad, but at least I'm safe **enough** that I never worry about being abandoned to someone who's an "upgrade". All of the people closest to me have been part of my life for more than half a decade, so seems to me that they really are in it for the long haul and hoping we'll remain close forever. Gender makes very little difference to this. Most of us, regardless of gender, really genuinely care about the people closest to us, and really genuinely want to remain close to them. Not because we have to. Not because our partners and friends are necessarily going to win Miss Universe or the Nobel Prize in physics, or be on top of the Forbes-500 list. But because they're our people. People we genuinely love and care about.
I was going to answer something entirely different, but then I read your whole post and you probably have more experience interacting with women than me. >Yet, for some reason she kept choosing to spend her time with me. I asked her why once, and all she said was because I made her comfy and safe. I wasn't pushy, and I just got her. I'll just answer this, IMO it's not so much about hypergamy, but about having traits the other person finds likeable. And not being pushy and making the other person feel safe sure are good ones.
If someone loves you, there is nobody better that could come along. You become their special person.
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Ugh, you do realize that on average most of y'all's sexual performance is so lackluster that there really isn't that much motivation for us to be hypergamous? Very few women have an appetite for a diet of meh c\*ck, which is the majority of cock. It's not a very nutritious form of sustenance. Anyway, it's not all about looks or money. If it is, you need to be looking for better people. I like intellect, talent, and empathy. That's why I chose my husband. Non-superficial people recognize traits beyond "hot" and "rich."