Relationship Ranking
Alfred Adler, an Austrian psychiatrist and contemporary of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, was, by most accounts, the first to associate birth order with personality. In 2007, Time magazine devoted an article, “The Power of Birth Order,” to this subject. One cannot choose the pecking order within his family — his parents do that — but, in a romantic relationship, he can. Relationship ranking, like family ranking, affects one’s personality and demeanor. Why, then, do so many men choose relationships in which they won’t be numero uno?
The simple answer is, these men don’t feel worthy of being top dogs and, therefore, don’t insist on supreme ranking when choosing their girlfriends and wives. Worse, they don’t even think they’re permitted to demand it.
In the past two weeks, I had separate conversations on this subject with a man and a woman, each romantically involved with a parent of children who are his or her top priority. My question to each was, If you want to be #1 in your paramour’s life, why did you choose one who cannot or will not treat you that way? This query hit them like a hammer between the eyes, forcing each to examine his self-worth and choices.
The aforementioned man, like so many people I’ve met, told me that a chief reason he fell in love with his girlfriend is that she’s such a great mother, and he admires her for that. My response: “Terrific! What does her motherly devotion have to do with you?” Of course, the answer is absolutely nothing. I saw an expression on his face redolent of someone just zonked on the head with a can of V-8. In other words, he was thinking, That’s right! It has nothing to do with me. Why did I choose her?
Cut Those Umbilical Cords
To be fair, I’ve met or encountered just as many women who fell in love with men because they are good fathers or good sons. And, I asked them, What does this have to do with you? Same answer: absolutely nothing. Never equate a good father or son or mother or daughter with being a good boyfriend or husband or girlfriend or wife.
In fact, I assert that a woman overly devoted to her children or parents will be a terrible girlfriend or wife. Now, if she is a bad mother, you don’t want her, either. Part of being a good mother, though, is teaching her children to become independent and to respect her private life. If she refuses to impart this to her children, she is doing them — and herself — a disservice; she is the kind of woman you must avoid. The only reason to bring a woman into your life — and this is critical to remember — is that she’ll be good for YOU.
How do you know what priority or ranking a woman places or will place on you? Ask her! If she says, “I’m sorry but my children must come first,” you know where you rank. If she often states, “I’d like to spend the weekend with you, but I have to help the kids with their homework,” she is giving you a low ranking. This does not make her a bad person; it makes her a bad girlfriend. If you ignore her honesty, don’t blame her down the road for making you second, third, or fourth in her life.
Alas, many of you will do just that. Your only choice is to walk away, to find another woman. If being first is important to you, find a woman who can and will make you first. She must be able to separate motherhood from womanhood. She must be able to cut those umbilical cords, both upstream (with her parents) and downstream (with her children). If she can’t or won’t do that, she’ll be an endless source of frustration to you. By the same token, if you can’t cut your umbilical cords, you’ll be a terrible boyfriend or husband.
If you choose to get involved with a woman who can’t or won’t make you #1, it means you place a low value on yourself, your wishes, and your needs. To rationalize her inadequate, unsatisfying devotion to you with thoughts of accommodation, compromise, being a good guy, and admiration of her mothering skills is to reduce your own importance, significance, relevance, and ranking. It means, with all honesty, that your esteem tank is low. It’s that simple.
Nobody forced you to be with the woman in your life. Ultimately, if she accords you a low ranking, you’ll harbor feelings of resentment and self-loathing. Why hurt yourself that way? Perhaps, based on your upbringing, you think this is what a relationship is supposed to be. If you want to be depressed, it’s easier and cheaper to buy season tickets for the San Francisco Giants.
The NoNonsense Bottom Line
I am a big advocate of communication. It bewilders me how many men and women don’t or won’t or can’t talk to each other about critical issues — money, equality, birth control, unintended pregnancies, intended pregnancies, sexual styles and appetites, and relationship ranking. And, then, they are “astounded” in a few months or years to discover infidelity, abandonment, or divorce petitions. Why?
Nothing in your relationship ever should be a surprise — if you are paying attention, expressing your wishes, receiving reciprocal communication, and compatible with your partner.
To be number one is to be the most-important person in your partner’s life. It is not to be more important than your partner. Critical distinction. It is not selfish to want to be your partner’s numero uno; it is essential. Why else have a partner? When you live alone, you are number one in the house, and it feels great. Why, then, elect to become anything else but first?
Today’s kids don’t know their place. Why? Because too many parents put kids above each other, and everything else. Moreover, female-ly courts require that children and mothers come first; that’s why the entitled generation of “millennials” exists.
Men and fathers aren’t on the radar screens of any politicians or any legislation; so, they already have two strikes against them. Becoming involved with a woman who placed her kids above her ex-husband and everything else, therefore, is an automatic strikeout — because she’ll do the same thing to you. Moronic masochism. You’d be amazed how many men willingly sign up for that.
If you’re in a relationship with a woman, are you her number one? If not, you’re number two — and that stinks.
About the Author
Marc H. Rudov is an internationally recognized radio/TV personality and author of 70+ articles and the books Under the Clitoral Hood: How to Crank Her Engine Without Cash, Booze, or Jumper Cables (ISBN 9780974501727), and The Man’s No-Nonsense Guide to Women: How to Succeed in Romance on Planet Earth (ISBN 0974501719). Mr. Rudov is a regular guest on Fox News Channel’s Your World with Neil Cavuto and The O’Reilly Factor.
Rudov’s books, articles, blog, and podcasts are available at TheNoNonsenseMan.com.
Copyright © 2008 by Marc H. Rudov. All rights reserved.
fourthwire said,
Marc’s right - that’s just plain masochism in action.
The concept that Marc is communicating is based on a common-sense notion, yet so many men settle for second-best priority for her attention, time, and efforts….. or third-best, or even fourth-best (behind her children, mother, and even the family pets!).
“It is not selfish to want to be your partner’s numero uno; it is essential. Why else have a partner? When you live alone, you are number one in the house, and it feels great. Why, then, elect to become anything else but first?”
The NoNonsense Man has blogged once again….. and I couldn’t possibly agree more.
February 25, 2008 at 7:56 pm
steven deluca said,
I too have noticed men just taking it, being put down, sheepish grin, trying to explain and justify. I ask why they stay and they really don’t have an answer other than “it’s what they are used to and they are afraid of change. They are afraid to ask for as much as they give and most of them give as much as their wives do although there wives don’t seem to notice.
So, married for the third time, kids in college, and the third time around we are both - a priority for each other, getting older and realizing what is is worth it and what is not. It’s too bad that we don’t learn when young, especially men, that you do have a right to expect to be treated well and if you accept less, from a woman who is comfortable with giving less, than you are likely getting what you deserve. I am very happy with my wife today because I demanded a lot and I gave, and give a lot.
I see too many couples that seem to be like bankers, always expecting it to be 50-50 while if they simply spent part of the day making sure their partner was happy, felt appreciated, they would get that back and not have to ask. Doesn’t always work that way because some people “just don’t get it” …
SD
February 25, 2008 at 8:48 pm
steven deluca said,
February 25, 2008 at 8:50 pm
donnieboy57 said,
February 25, 2008 at 8:55 pm
Marc H. Rudov said,
Playing the frightened victim won’t help you achieve anything in life. Try to empower yourself … for a change.
February 25, 2008 at 10:31 pm
Bambino said,
“I now kiss the groom…”
February 25, 2008 at 11:12 pm
conservativation said,
This directly speaks to Marc’s issue here. First, they likely somehow think this dedication expression is appealing, like “look at me Im a dedicated Mom, and have a GOOD relationship with the ex.”
I find it a negative. Whats hilarious and double minded is the approval of the ex as THE dad…but, er, um, YOU divorced him you *&%&*.
Between this statement and the other sure winner “Friends First” (a cyber chasitity friggin belt) its a wonder they ever get a date…but then again, we can glean one thing about American men so we dont feel left out….we are pretty dang ignorant.
February 26, 2008 at 9:32 am
PolishKnight said,
For men, being a good father is ALSO about being a good husband because both roles require him to be a provider and protector for his wife and children. On the other hand, good “mothers” in our culture today are not necessarily good wives (or even mothers or citizens for that matter). Divorce court and the welfare state rewards single women who exploit children as a support tool and raise future criminals.
Steven Deluca’s statement that his wife is a priority for him sounds a bit dry. I know where he’s going: We need to retain our personal identity. If we view ourselves totally as fathers, sons, or even husbands (or mothers, daughters, and wives) then we lose ourselves and ultimately wind up ineffective in our roles anyway. That said, though, most husbands put their money where their mouth is and support their wives while few wives do so for their husbands without there being a catch.
This deserves a separate paragraph: Sexual equality in the workplace has broken relationships between men and women and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men can’t fix that. At best, we live with the situation and deal with it. That’s what men do after all. We live with war, economic upheaval, natural disasters, and oppression and still manage to go on. If we have the spare cycles, we try to make things better.
Let’s remind men of this forgotten truth.
February 26, 2008 at 9:56 am
Carl51 said,
I agree with your article on being #1 in a woman’s life. Unfortunately for me I was ranked behind my own kids with my ex even when I was married. I can’t even imagine how low a man would rank these days.
I was thinking though, if you take the old row boat analogy and that your new wife/gf was in a row boat with your child and it was sinking and you could save only one person, who would you save? I have to believe most people overwhelmingly would save their child. I think that’s just how it is.
Carl
February 26, 2008 at 11:54 am
randyf said,
That being said, there’s a difference in meeting a child’s needs and obsession. A man should expect personal time. His needs should be very important. It’s the idea of “place” that Mark alluded to. Once basic needs are met, kid’s should not be overindulged at the expense of the man.
Certainly, if your partner turns to the children as her comforters and advisers, or as her intimate partners, then run. Who does she turn to for grown up needs? And more importantly, does she take care of your grown up needs?
At differing times, the kids will come first. At other times, you should come first. And demand that you do.
February 26, 2008 at 2:03 pm
fourthwire said,
Children are to varying degrees unable to care for themselves, teach themselves, protect themselves, guide themselves, discipline themselves etc…… which works out nicely since those activities fall within the scope of parenting.
Yet many American women feel the need to down-prioritize, neglect, and devalue their husbands and boyfriends in order to provide for their children.
And they do so because they can….. because so many nutless wonders accept that sort of neglect, perhaps even out of fear of divorce and loss of any contact with their own children.
If a mother neglects her husband’s needs and uses their children as an excuse to do so…… he married badly.
As for those men STUPID enough to have relationships or even marry women with children from an earlier relationship or marriage, I pity the fools.
I enjoy being the king of my household.
February 26, 2008 at 2:50 pm
Marc H. Rudov said,
Visit the typical house and you will see the kids artificially — and incorrectly — in charge. Parents are too dysfunctional and weak to prioritize.
Listen to my latest radio interview (02.26.08) on The Jagger Show in Dallas about this subject. Go to TheNoNonsenseMan.com, where you also can join my mailing list.
February 26, 2008 at 6:29 pm
amfortas said,
Visit the typical house and you will see the kids artificially ? and incorrectly ? in charge. Parents are too dysfunctional and weak to prioritize.”
I can only agree and add my part in support.
It isn’t a question or birth order but as Sullivan theorised in a much more cogent and supported fashion, the stance that a child takes of him/herself vis a vis the parents. It is taken when the child is pre-cognitive and relies on a ‘felt’ appreciation of power relations. Dr Tom Harris MD illustrates it well discussing the contributions of Freud, Penfield, Adler, Berne and others in understanding early development in ‘I’m OK, you’re OK’, a capital little book. Sullivan argues that the most common attitude we have (a good 80% of us at the outset) is one of ‘inferiority’. It is an astute determination by a child who is inherently inferior compared to parents. It is the spur to improvement and growth, development of capacity and motive to succeed.
The most common strategy that a child - and the successful adult - employs, is the ‘Role Model’; the one who is looked up to, mimicked, followed, sought for advice and mentoring. For a child it is the ‘good parents’, the only role models available for the formative years.
Both parents, ones who are flawed but recognise and admit their flaws, who strive to do better and tolerate failures and try to correct and do better, who recognise the child’s inherent incapacity and help the child to develop, these produce psychologically healthy children with a sound sense of their own potential and place in the world. These produce the roughly five percent of children who start out in life with a positive and reality grounded outlook.
The parents who are untrustworthy, who refuse to admit fault but display them, even revel in them, who ‘blame’ and rationalise in their own favour constantly, provide a milieu of Unreality - the druggies, the divorcers, the relationship-incapables-incompetents - these produce the eight or so percent (and rising) of children who start and go through life in a state of constant anxiety and suspicion, of fear, doomed to either jails or institutions (if caught) or delinquency and crime (or the Womyn’s movement, often as manginas!).
The very tiny percentage of children born to psychopathic / narcissistic parents (again rising) who abuse and torture emotionally, intellectually and physically become sociopathic themselves (again swelling the ranks of the Womyn’s movement).
These latter two sorts of child abusers are found in increasing proportions and are joined by those parents that Marc describes - usually single mothers - providing an unreal ’superiority’ to children, a new form of abuse.
They raise children into positions of seeming power, but in fact the children are their excuse, their shield from responsibility. “In the best interests of the children’ is the lie they use to cover their own incapabilities and to rort the society they are scared of. Such raising up of children to a ’superior’ position that they have no skill or ability to employ for the common good is a way of stealing power for the woman woman of inflated but inferior ego.
A balloon woman. They can always blame the children when there is no man around any more and her balloon is pricked. “If it wasn’t for you”. “All the sacrifices I made for you”. The only truth they inadvertently tell is “I did it all by myself”.
The parents who raise their co-parent spouse to the ‘Primus inter Pares’, the first among equals, in the relationship, succeed in bringing their own egos into harness and benefit the child enormously. The child feels safe and protected and honoured for the potential it has.
So many men are raised by women, mothers, who have been failed in the past and continue to fail in the present. Narcisstic women. The female failure to harness ego is revelled in, flaunted as ‘empowered’. Hardly any wonder that female role models for a happy and constructive ‘bondability’ are hardly to be found. Hardly any wonder that the ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ is alive and well in so many men who know no different.
February 26, 2008 at 9:50 pm
David R. Usher said,
Guys who misunderstand this and think they are white knights, or Superman, who feel sorry for troubled women and feel powerful saving them from themselves, or men who choose based on bedroom performance (women who are overly sexual are also emotionally unstable) end up in huge trouble. The white knight ALWAYS gets blamed for everything that goes wrong.
Psychology talks a lot about passive-aggressive people. This is the man or woman who prefers to let somebody else do everything so they are not responsible for anything. This is the manipulator who says “if you loved me you would . This is the person who withholds sex until they get what they want. This is the person who gives and then immediately expects reciprocity. You never know exactly where you stasnd with this person, and you are always guessing what she/he will be like when you get home. The passive aggressive person is never wrong, but is often critical because the behavior of the other person is never up to standards. This is the person who withholds cooperation until they get what she/he wants. Both men and women are capable of doing these things. It always ends up in disaster.
Good marriages are based on a healthy form of interdependence — when both spouses have talents and abilities to offer. Both accept the love, gifts, and labor of the other unconditionally — and feel fully loved because of it. When these are contributed without hesitation (or expectation of tit-for-tat reciprocity) — the “open hand’ principle — things usually work out fine. Neither do anything to hurt the other — and avoid doing unreasonable things that hurt the other (AND THE MARRIAGE) (you know exactly what I mean folks). In healthy marriages both partners keep the slate clean. They openly forgive minor things, and willingly work through the common major problems of marriage and aging.
February 27, 2008 at 3:21 am
metalman said,
Your essay points to what Warren Farrell has proposed (rightly) for so long: That men are actually second-class citizens form birth. Why is it that we still die an average of seven years younger than women? Why is it that despite society heralding women’s entry into the armed forces, they are rarely found on the front lines dying for their country? Why do men, on average, still work longer hours than married AND unmarried women? Because we are trained to believe that it is a MAN’S job to put his needs second to women’s. Nearly ALL men believe the lie that their needs are not as important as a woman’s simply because she is a woman.
Changing this won’t be as simple as telling men to think differently (although it’s a start). An entire paradigmn shift is needed. The ideology that “Women are Valuable and Men are Disposable” must be challenged and destroyed.
As far as ‘Communication’ is concerned - is it any wonder that men shrink with fear and nauseau at the word? ‘Communication’ with a modern woman usually entails being required to sit in silence and agree as your significant other bitches and complains. ‘Communication,’ in modern relationship parlance, is a con-game foisted on men. Effective communication with someone means that there is a fairly even give and take, as well as occasional compromise. Today’s western woman is not really interested in either. She is on an everlasting quest to get what she wants at other people’s (usually yours) expense.
Good relationships usually do not have communications problems, because people are DOING what they are supposed to be DOING. They are not busy TALKING about what they are supposed to be doing. Specfically, as a man, I’m usually too busy DOING things to spend my time TALKING about things I should be doing. People who need to yap yap yap about this and that all the time are usually just angling for something or trying to put one over on you.
February 27, 2008 at 7:49 am
Marc H. Rudov said,
The reason men are second-class citizens is that they tolerate being second-class citizens. Life isn’t complicated — it’s simple.
When men grow balls, they’ll have better lives.
February 27, 2008 at 11:15 pm