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PostPosted: Mon Sep 24, 2012 12:16 am 
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Hi - I've been lurking this forum for a couple weeks now, and I downloaded and read the Manipulated Man on the advice of many of the men here, and after finishing it I felt compelled to share. I don't know if this is the right section to post this in, so feel free to move it if necessary.

Ok, so unlike some of the people who have posted in various threads about their anger/bitterness that welled up in them after reading The Manipulated Man, I felt only a small amount of that. I think this is because my dad is so overwhelmingly manipulated that I long ago had to come to terms with a lot of the insights from the book on my own.

The impact the book did have on me, however, was to realize that its not just my mother who is a powerful, cynical manipulator, but rather its all women (though some not as cynical as others). This is a bit bittersweet for me, since I have gone through periods of intense hate for my mother for the manipulation that she has perpetrated on my father, and realizing that its something that all women do has in some ways reduced my anger at my mother, while at the same time making me more suspicious of all the other women in my life and in the world.

The book also put a few things into much better words than I have been able to for myself, and addressed feminism more directly than I've ever bothered to.

-------

In any case, here's a bit of my parent's story, since this might be helpful/instructive to some of you guys out there. I've had to piece this together from stories that each of my parents have told me at various points, but I'm convinced that its accurate.

My dad was always puny, twerpy, nerdy, very low self confidence, and thought he was unworthy of women and that he wouldn't be able to "get a good one". In other words - a total symp. He's very book smart though, really good with computers at a time when they were just really starting to become commonly used in big businesses/research. So basically he was a symp with decent prospects of being a good workhorse (able to bring home $$$). He never actually ended up making huge amounts of money, but my parents had three kids and my mom was a stay-at-home mom for 15 years, and my dad worked his ass off to make ends meet, so he was a pretty decent provider.

When he was 26, my mom (age 31) met him and they started dating. My mom had been married about 5 years earlier, but her first husband was murdered by rebel guerillas while traveling shortly after their honeymoon. (No joke - this part of the story is pretty nuts).

So anyway, when they started dating, less than a year in, my mom decided that my dad was an acceptable workhorse and she needed to lock him up so he wouldn't be able to leave. I think she must have realized that her social value was only decreasing as she was getting older, and that she felt like my dad had enough potential to provide for her and her other prospects weren't very good.

My parents were just using the "rhythm method" - so half of the month no condoms, and the other half of the month using condoms. The story my dad revealed to me when I turned 25 was that they were entering the part of the month where they needed to start using condoms, but my mom told him that she didn't want him to use one. She told him that "she was a woman and she knew her body, and she had an intuition about it, so she was sure she wasn't ovulating" so he shouldn't stop and go get a condom.

My dad did what he was told, and 2.5 months later my mom comes to him with a couple positive pregnancy tests and tells him that he's going to marry her and he doesn't have a choice. Both my parents are catholic, so she played the religion card on him too, and he capitulated and agreed to marry her. 5.5 months later out came my sister (who doesn't know this part of the story).

Just in case my dad would consider leaving my mom after only 1 kid, my mom convinced him that as long as she was breastfeeding she couldn't get pregnant again, so four months after my first sister was born, my mom was pregnant with my second sister, and my dad was officially locked up. I came long 3.5 years later. I don't know what the circumstances were surrounding my mom getting pregnant with me.

My mom, of course, stayed home with me and my sisters while my dad worked very hard as a computer systems administrator for a university during the week, and then spent all his weekends remodeling the house because my mom wanted it bigger/nicer, etc.

Now if that weren't enough, my mom emotionally abused/intimidated my dad all the time from at least as early as I can remember - almost like she was punishing him for something he did (though I'm not aware of him doing anything in particular). The part that pisses me off the most is that she used my sisters and I as manipulative tools against my father. As an example - whole family sitting at the dinner table, my mom would lean across the table and tell my sister's and I "your father is a rejecting, selfish, lazy, wimp." She would say this to my sisters and I even though my dad was literally sitting right next to her. And he would just sit there an take it. Sometimes he wouldn't say anything - just sort of fume, and other times he would apologize to everyone at the table for "not being perfect".

Maybe 1 out of 20 times my mom would do this kind of thing, my dad would lash back at her in anger (always verbal, never emotional). Sometimes she would shout him down until he backed off, and other times she would pull an end-around on him - leaning over to my sisters and I and saying, "do you see this? do you see how your father is a terrible human being?" And you could see the look on his face when she did this - it was like she had a vice-like grip on his balls, but he was tied down so there was nothing he could do.

It took me a long time to recognize the depth and power of the manipulation that my mother has perpetrated on my father, and still does to this day. I'm the youngest, and I'm 28 now. My sisters and I live several states away, so there's no more "staying together for the kids" kind of excuse that my dad can use for not leaving my mom. However, he's completely blind to the power game that he has been playing and losing all these years. There's honestly 0% chance that he will leave my mom at this point. He is dependent on his slavery and the abuse he takes, and without it, he would fall apart.

It also took me a long time to be able to think about this without white-hot anger boiling up in me. Now, I'm mostly just sad for my dad, and I pity him. He's not only stuck in the matrix - but he's further confined to a shitty little corner of it, deep down in the depths somewhere that he will probably never be able to climb out of, if he ever had the inkling to do so.

--------

Anyway, I've told other people this story before, and its always a bit cathartic, but nobody who has heard it yet has had a real deep understanding of the social matrix and how it operates. I don't purport to have that understanding myself completely yet, but I feel as though I have definitely swallowed the red pill at this point, and am coming to terms with what is.

Soon I would like to start really learning Kung Fu, and it seems like you guys here are good people to learn it from.

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PostPosted: Mon Sep 24, 2012 12:35 am 
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Don't feel bad...most fathers are. Such is the way of the Matrix. :ugeek:

Oh and welcome. :mrgreen:

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PostPosted: Mon Sep 24, 2012 1:16 am 
I was dating this one girl that I ended up being with for a while. I went to her house a lot, went out to dinner with her and her parents, a lot of stuff like that. She loved her dad. She felt like her dad knew everything about life and would go out of her way to try to do something nice for him. She thought he could do know wrong and basically was a saint. Now I'll admit, the guy was really smart. Also he made great money at one time in his life before millions of Americans lost there jobs. I think his salary was like 300k.

Her mom, well, I really don't know how to put it in words. I guess obsessive compulsive comes to mind, boring, over complicated the smallest tasks, etc... Now this girl thought her parents had some kind of awesome marriage and they were perfect. Not once was I ever a witness to that. The dad looked like he couldn't stand his wife and never really looked happy. There were times I remember he would come home from work and wouldn't even acknowledge anyone.

To me I felt like because he was an intelligent guy, deep down inside himself, he sees it's all bullshit. But at that same time, he feels like its too late. I actually feel really sad for him too.


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PostPosted: Mon Sep 24, 2012 7:51 am 
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@ The kidd - thanks for the welcome.

@ Mikey - It seems to me that deep down (maybe only subconsciously?) I think most men who are that badly manipulated must have some understanding of whats going on. They must either think that there isn't any other option, or they are scared to find out what the other options are. (Red pill blue pill). I guess that sentiment of "its too late" is a rationalization to help them resign themselves to their situation.

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"The society gives you a map; I give you only freedom. The society gives you character, I give you only consciousness. The society teaches you to live a conformist life ... I give you an invitation to go on an adventure." - Osho


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PostPosted: Mon Sep 24, 2012 8:27 am 
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You'll overcome this anger eventually dude, the more you see into it the more you will make peace.

That reminds me of my parent's story, from what I know my mom manipulated my dad into moving in together (something he did not want, as he offered to find her a place to live when she moved to his country) and then they got married and had kids, they both had dellusions of a nuclear family but it didn't quite work out that way. After 18 years of unhappy marriage (which I seem to be the only one to have been aware of) they split up, which didn't bother me cuz to me it was inevitable. Shortly before this and in the years to come she manipulated her kids into believing she was a being who could do no wrong and that my dad was the devil himself, I have my own issues with him but he was no more of a fuckup than she was. Far as I'm concerned they're equally accountable.

Realizing my mother's manipulation over me angered me the most, but despite my feelings towards my father he actually had some elements of a pimp tight personality, he just had a weakness that she exploited, and vice-versa. He got her, so much that she hasn't really 'left' him, cuz the guy she's with now is just like my dad, because subconsciously she's still attracted to him. The woman my dad's with now I imagine is similar to my mom cuz she locked him down soon after.

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PostPosted: Mon Sep 24, 2012 8:42 am 
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Thanks for your reply Alchemist. I bet a lot of the guys on this board have fathers who were badly manipulated. The rest probably didn't have fathers around, or maybe the rare father who was around but was a total jerk.

You're right about the anger declining. I already am vastly less angry about this than I was before. On a scale of 1-10 (with 10 be over the top angry) - I was a 10 five years ago, and now I'm more like a 3.

Also, while writing this post: http://www.naturalfreedom.info/viewtopi ... 257#p24257
I had an insight that even though my dad is the slave in the situation because he is manipulated into doing whatever my mom wants him to and he can't leave - in reality my mom is also a slave to her own manipulation of him. She's trapped into a bad pattern and a bad situation that she can't leave just as much as my dad is.

I think this is why she is so outright insulting and mean to him - she resents him for the fact that she is stuck with him and his spinelessness, and her resentment has built into anger and bitterness, and there are no negative consequences to bullying him, so there's nothing holding her back.

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"The society gives you a map; I give you only freedom. The society gives you character, I give you only consciousness. The society teaches you to live a conformist life ... I give you an invitation to go on an adventure." - Osho


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PostPosted: Mon Sep 24, 2012 9:19 am 
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I have a sympathy for you dude, must have been hard to see your household like this..

I was thinking about my father too and as I understand things now, it's more confusing then it was year ago.. I thought my father was a total symp, but he may not be that much. Instead, I think my mother told me some shit lies, but more because she's confused more than she's dishonest - I Know her current boyfriend AND her lover (He's in jail now, but he's cool guy know) And my father seems like PERFECT combination of those two I'm almost amazed. And from what the lover told me about mother, I'm clear that mother has no fucking idea what she wants at all, even at her 40s :roll: She can't just decide what's better for her from what I've seen :lol:

I don't know the entire story yet :| But in my case the oedipus complex seems obvious when I observe.. I want to tell you, to be conscious, because you will probably (at least for some time) attract and be attracted to women like your mother is..


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PostPosted: Mon Sep 24, 2012 9:43 am 
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Thank you for posting this Meraki.

Very well articulated and a story that many of us here have seen around us, if not in our own parents, in parents of friends and family.
Meraki wrote:
there are no negative consequences to bullying him, so there's nothing holding her back.

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PostPosted: Mon Sep 24, 2012 10:35 am 
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Come to think of it... Respect your father that he didn't ventilate his anger on your sisters or you (At least it seems he didn't , correct me if I'm wrong..) Because many people would and I know fathers who do this..


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PostPosted: Mon Sep 24, 2012 3:46 pm 
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great story man thank you for sharing,
Quote:
Both my parents are catholic, so she played the religion card on him too, and he capitulated and agreed to marry her.
I owe Kidd but esp. Grinus (cause he took the time to explain it to me in depth) a carton of smokes.

I used to think that religion always makes people better.

Of course we must distinguish between people who really believe vs. people who use religion just as a tool to get something. Esther also mentioned something about this in the manipulated man (don't remember what she said exactly)

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PostPosted: Mon Sep 24, 2012 5:41 pm 
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We can't be angry at them. Oftentimes a woman does what she must to survive. They were raised to depend on the resources of men, whilst expected to be baby vessels. Nothing more, nothing less. This is their programming, and despite the feminist de-volution, equality and women in the 'work-place', the blueprint remains. My ex-GF is a prime example. She just wants a Daddy, and her existence is geared toward having a family, and putting her happiness into them. So when they pour out their bitterness and resentment onto their husbands, it's merely a reaction against the deep-seated awkwardness of an unnatural programming. Like trying to spit out a virus or something.

My Mother is a good example. She's not consciously manipulative, lacking the intelligence to be so, but she is bitter and bullies my Father. I grew up with a shadow of a man. He had all the traits to be a real man, but by the time I was born his energy had dissipated. Despite giving my Mother a decent shot at life, he allowed....ALLOWED her to diminish his self-respect. He takes it like a bitch. So my role model was pretty poor aswell. Luckily, I have always been aware of this, and more or less have always been able to put my foot down and hold my own. I instantly recognise when a women is handing out shit, and I can and will catapult back into their face. If I were my Father, she would have been slapped by now. So you should take the opportunity to learn through observation, without pity or remorse.

My main point is- don't get caught up in other people's lives, even your parents. Especially your parents. Let go of the anger you feel for her and the shame you feel for him. They couldn't exist without eachother, ironically, and being too old and stupid to see the cause of their actions and feeling's, atleast the will have a semblance of blind comfort in eachother, no matter how treacherous it all may seem. Don't be angry at her, she doesn't know any better. My Mother, for example, had to break up a marriage to forge(or rather have forged for her) a comfortable life. But I hold no anger toward her now, because I know her history, where she came from, and how she was abandoned and did what she had to. I actually applaud her for this. My old man is too gentle, his energy too gone to fight back. That is his responsibility, and my Mother will be the left-over when he dies. But he's not miserable, just waiting to die I suppose. Forget your parents, it's not your business despite what you may think. We are alone. Thinking we are intrinsically connected to our family, and feeling all their problem's and neuroses, will make us unhappy. Painful pill to swallow.

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PostPosted: Mon Sep 24, 2012 6:38 pm 
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Welcome ;)

As with most things in life, you can either take this as a positive or a negative. It's already happened, and, sad as it is, nothing is really going to change about the situation or the past. You can choose to either let if fester and hold on to your anger (it's totally fine to feel angry at first, but don't try to hold on to it) or learn from it. I suggest you view it as the latter and, as harsh as it sounds, use your parents' situation as a stepping stone to greater awareness.

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PostPosted: Tue Sep 25, 2012 7:53 am 
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fufe wrote:
Come to think of it... Respect your father that he didn't ventilate his anger on your sisters or you (At least it seems he didn't , correct me if I'm wrong..) Because many people would and I know fathers who do this..
Thats definitely a good point Fufe. My dad has always tried to do what he thought was the "responsible, mature" thing to do. I fully think that my upbringing could have been an awful lot worse...
Sniper wrote:
I used to think that religion always makes people better.

Of course we must distinguish between people who really believe vs. people who use religion just as a tool to get something. Esther also mentioned something about this in the manipulated man (don't remember what she said exactly)
I tend to think of it as investigating and delving into spirituality often makes people better, but religion almost always makes people worse. I see religion as just the dogma that holds back people's spirituality, and religious organizations as no different than political parties.
Rolan wrote:
My main point is- don't get caught up in other people's lives, even your parents. Especially your parents. Let go of the anger you feel for her and the shame you feel for him.
Very well put. Thank you Rolan. This is what I have been working (stumbling) towards for a while now. Its very helpful to hear it from others and to gain a lot of the insights from posts on this board.
moose35 wrote:
use your parents' situation as a stepping stone to greater awareness.
Also very well put. This is what I am doing for sure. In some ways I see it as a blessing that my father was so badly manipulated, as there was no way I could miss it and trick myself into believing that my parents situation was the way things were supposed to be. It was so egregious that I had to confront it head on and decide between blue and red pills consciously. The feelings of anger and disgust are what have driven me to work on myself, to increase my awareness, and to grow.

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"The society gives you a map; I give you only freedom. The society gives you character, I give you only consciousness. The society teaches you to live a conformist life ... I give you an invitation to go on an adventure." - Osho


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PostPosted: Tue Sep 25, 2012 9:53 pm 
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Do you talk or see your father now ?

I think he would have very appreciate if his son would respect him and forgave him - My father did


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PostPosted: Tue Sep 25, 2012 10:50 pm 
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He's actually coming to visit me this weekend. He lives the next state over, so about a 9 hour drive.

I have forgiven him. I used to be angry at him a bit too, though never as bad as at my mom. But I'm no longer angry at him at all, just sad for him.

I don't know that I really respect him though. I guess (like was said earlier) that I'm glad that he didn't take out his frustrations on me and my sisters, but I'm not sure that he has my respect on the balance of things.

I'm not sure what he could do to earn my respect either. Respect for him is something I haven't really thought about much.

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"The society gives you a map; I give you only freedom. The society gives you character, I give you only consciousness. The society teaches you to live a conformist life ... I give you an invitation to go on an adventure." - Osho


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