262. Intrinsic and Extrinsic Commitment and the Relationship Deal

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Commitment and the Relationship Deal

I already described the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic commitment in entry 98.    I described the problem of a mismatch between a woman in search of intrinsic commitment with a man, who offers her anything except this, in entry 256.    Also there is an extra page about what kind of relationship deal I am offering to my mindmate.

A relationship is a deal, and when people are entering a monogamous relationship, this decision is based upon the evaluation , that what they offer and what they expect to get is a fair balance.    A man often enters a monogamous relationship for the purpose of acquiring a steady method of maintaining sexual homeostasis, when he subjectively wants to be decent in not abusing women or when he prefers this over the efforts needed to regularly chase new prey, of both.   In return he offers, what he has to offer, what he is willing to offer, and what he believes that the woman wants.  

Both intrinsic and extrinsic commitment start like this.    But from then on, what women experience from bonding-disabled men limited to extrinsic commitment, and what they experience from mature high quality men able to give them intrinsic commitment, is very different.   

1.  Identity:   

An intrinsically committed man changes his identity.   By getting committed, he starts to experience and to perceive himself as half a couple, as part of a unit, as an ingroup consisting of two partners.   He merges into being incomplete without the other half.

An extrinsically committed man experiences and perceives himself as continuing to be a single man with a woman attached, who requires some price to be paid regularly to keep her there.     She is peripheral to his life.   He does not need her, she is a body, that can be replaced.    He experiences himself as someone protecting and defending his boundary and his space against someone, whom he wants to keep at a safe distance.   He wants her body to be available, but she is supposed not to interfere too much with his life.

2.  Deal:

For an intrinsically committed man, the calculating, how much he gives and how much he gets in return, ends with the subjective merging into a unit.   From then on he experiences himself as acting in the best interest of the couple, who has joined forces in the shared competition with their environment.    In his talking and in his thinking, he replaces 'I', 'me', 'mine' by 'we', 'us', 'our'.  

An extrinsically committed man continues to evaluate the benefits of the relationship by book keeping, by which he keeps record, if he gets enough and does not give too much.     He is ready to end the deal at any moment, when he experiences it as no more beneficial for himself.

3.  Obligations:

An intrinsically committed man considers the obligations of the relationship governance not as restrictions or as a burden, because his partner and her behavior is important enough to value her being bound by the same obligations.     He adheres to rules like not cheating, being bound by agreements, being honest, because it is for him the method to ascertain, that his partner's behavior is reliably determined by the same rules.   He perceives not lying as a very fair price for his own need of a partner's honesty as a basis of mutual trust.     He experiences mutual obligations as a part of making the relationship a safe haven for both of them.

An extrinsically committed man may consider it as a burden, when he has to pretend to be honest and try not to be caught lying., even though he is completely unconcerned and uninterested in what the woman says, be it honest or a lie.   Her honesty has no value, because all he wants is her body.    Not lying or not being caught lying is therefore for him an unpleasant price to pay to keep the woman available in bed.   It is not a price that he perceives as worth paying for her honesty, if he does not care about it.    He perceives all obligations as a restriction to his liberty, that he grudgingly pays to have her in bed.

4.  Caring and Consideration:
An intrinsically committed man perceives his partner's wellbeing as equally important as his own.   Whenever he is at the point of doing something, he automatically considers first, what impact his action would have on his partner.   If he cannot know it, he asks her.  He trusts her word, that she means, what she says and is honest about it.    He feels responsible for every impact, that he has upon her.    He cares to spare her pain and to fulfill her needs.  

An extrinsically committed man thinks economically.   He wants to get as much advantages as possible from his partner for the least cost, that makes her stay.    He cares about a woman's wellbeing only, when she explicitly asks for it as a part of the deal.  He ignores and denies her needs unless he is risking to loose her services in bed.    When  he cannot avoid caring for her needs, such a man bargains to get as much and pay as little as he can get away with.  

5.  Time Together:

An intrinsically committed man wants to be together with his partner and share those activities, where he can rejoice all the qualities, that she has in his evaluation.    He clings to being with her, because being with her is rewarding.

An extrinsically committed man wants to have the woman in his bed in the night.   If he shares other activities with her, this is not of any emotional benefit to him.    As long as he gets his homeostasis, he can be content to spend a lot of time without her.   

6.  Being Together:

An intrinsically committed man would not even think of dumping a partner, because he perceives her as an essential part of his life, of himself in his identity as a merged unit.   He feels only complete when being with her.  It would not even occur to him to incomplete himself, to amputate an essential part of his life.

An extrinsically committed man does not hesitate to dump a woman, as soon as he does not get anymore, what he wants from her.    

7.  Sharing Resources:

An intrinsically committed man accepts, that he joins assets and resources with his partner and that these are then joined property to be used only by joined and shared decisions.    Whenever the resources are limited, they both give priority to spending money on what is of benefit for them both together.    Spending money benefiting only one is based upon a shared decision.  

An extrinsically committed man considers a woman as a commodity and a tool to add as much benefit to his life for the least cost, he does not enter a relationship for her benefit.   Such a man spends as much money on himself as he has to fulfill this own selfish needs first.    Only if it pleases him to feel good about doing it or if he has the misguided wish to give something back for the woman's service in bed, he decides to spend money on her.    But no matter, if the spends money on himself or on the woman, he reserves the decision for himself and excludes the woman from it.

8.  Sharing Decisions:  

An intrinsically committed man has chosen his partner for her intellectual and emotional qualities.    Whenever he wants to do something, he expects to get some additional valuable input from her.   Therefore he talks about his plan and discusses his suggestions with her until they can agree and share the decision.    With this attitude towards her, consulting her before deciding anything is an automatic reaction.    Whenever some idea occurs to him, his next impulse is the question, what she thinks about it.   
Therefore such a man shares decisions with his partner as a method of enhancing the qualities of his decisions and the quality of the life of both.    He does not feel limited by this behavior.

An extrinsically man is convinced, that he knows best what is good for him.   He is focusing only on gaining his own benefits in competition with her and in using her.   He expects the same selfish goals from her too, he considers her as competing with him for resources.    Logically he does not trust her advice or her being a fair partner when sharing decisions.  

He wants the availability of her body and nothing else from her.    Therefore he decides, what he wants for himself, then he just does it without any consideration for her.   If she is involved in the execution of his decision, he uses, whatever means he has, to make her comply with his decision.
When she asks to be included in making decisions, that impact her, he perceives this as her attempts to control him.   

9.  Communication:

For a man with intrinsic commitment, who has chosen a woman for her intellectual and emotional qualities, deep unrestricted communication about his and her innermost feelings and thoughts are a rewarding activity of joy.   Trustful self-revelation and shared introspection enhance bonding, togetherness. belonging and feeling close.    Accepting each other's support is a welcome and asked for part of the commitment.    Such a man values his partner's support as he appreciates her personality.    Therefore, he feels good to tell her everything that he feels and thinks, spontaneously and without hesitation or restriction.

An extrinsically committed man has chosen the woman for the benefits of her body.   He is not really interested in her personality, he expects nothing from her.    He does not want to communicate with her, her attempts to communicate annoy him.    He considers his own inner life and his feelings as his private matters and none of her business.   He perceives her attempts to talk about it are as a violation of his boundaries.    He feels an urge to protect his private life from her, because he perceives her as a competitor for resources, for power, for control, and the more she knows, the more she becomes dangerous.   
He either avoids communicating or he derails all communication to topics, that he does not consider as dangerous, while he keeps all real important information about himself hidden from her.  



Of the above list of the differences between intrinsic and extrinsic commitment, only the first item of the man's identity is hidden  from direct experience and only accessible by the man's own declaration.   Everything else can be experienced by how the man behaves and treats the woman.  
If a woman wants intrinsic commitment and there is the question of getting married, she is wise, if she first makes sure to experience his ability to offer her the intrinsic commitment, that makes a relationship for her to be a safe haven of mutual trust, reliability, predictability and security.

261. Commitment and Pseudo-Honesty

Commitment and Pseudo-Honesty

Commitment requires unrestricted and uninhibited honest communication about the true innermost feelings, based upon mutual trust and enabling mutual support.   

Bonding disabled men often believe themselves to be honest, because they tell no direct lies.    But by hiding things, that would be important for their partner to know, they are not sincere.   When the partner of such a man experiences few or even no lies ever, she trusts his honesty much more than is justified.    This form of pseudo-honesty is a trap and can be very misleading to a committed woman.     Either she wrongly assumes that he is really sincere and what he tells her is all there is and there is nothing hidden.   Or she projects her own commitment upon him, filling the untold gaps with what she takes so much for granted, that she omits to be explicit about it.    Both mistakes often have very painful consequences.

1.  Such men omit telling the woman things, because they perceive themselves as singles with a woman peripherally attached, and therefore they consider a lot as their own private matters and as none of her business.     But a woman, who perceives herself in a committed relationship, feels the need and considers herself as entitled to know.   
As an example, a bonded couples decides together, what to spend their shared resources of money on, while a single man considers his money as his personal property, even when they share expenses, and he perceives it as his unlimited right to buy, whatever he wants to buy, without consulting her.   

There are two varieties of such a disruptive situation:
1.1.   The man does not talk with the woman about important issues, because it does not even occur to him, that it could be important to inform her.    He believes to be telling her everything she has a right to know.   
1.2.   The incompatible situation of a non-bonded man with a committed woman expecting commitment from him leads to conflicts, and he feels it as his right to slyly and sneakily keep information from her to avoid unpleasant arguments.   He is unaware of the fact, that by this method of avoiding conflicts, he also impedes any improvement of the relationship.   

2.   Sometimes bonding disabled men believe to be sincere, because they have some kind of psychological trouble, that either makes them unaware themselves of what they hide from her, or they lie to themselves and then expect the others to share their believe in their own lies.    When they are in denial of unpleasant realities or when they project their own problems upon others, they are dishonest with themselves.   
Narcissists are a good example.   They are emotional weenies behind a mask of bullies on the outside.   They firmly believe in their own grandiosity and expect reverence and adulation even from people, who are more skilled and better educated.    They hide the vulnerable, anxious weeny from themselves and therefore they cannot reveal the truth to a partner.   

In all these cases, there is a vicious circle.    Lack of sincere and unrestricted communication impedes bonding, and lack of bonding impedes sincere and unrestricted communication.  

My mindmate is someone, who reveals his true self to me, who shares his innermost feelings with me, who wants me to know him as he really is, with all his strengths and also all his weaknesses.   He is someone, who can accept support from a partner and who asks for support.   He is someone, who does not feel any need to play a role and hide himself behind a mask.     He is someone, who needs a relationship and a partner, and who is able to admit it.    
My mindmate is someone, who is not only honest by not telling lies, but who is sincere also in not hiding anything from me.  

260. Instincts and the Cognitive Dissonance of Intellectual Men

Instincts and the Cognitive Dissonance of Intellectual Men

This continues entry 256.

Animals and stupid, uneducated men enjoy their indulgence in what their instincts determine them to do, because they are not able to do anything better with themselves.    They are hedonists, because they lack the ability to be Epicureans.    They do not experience instincts as a force in themselves, their identity is determined by their instincts.   They copulate like dogs in the gutter with any consenting female body as a good way of life without even having any awareness of the alternative of considering women as persons available also as companions.   

But not only the alley dogs, but also most other men experience the lack of sexual homeostasis more or less strongly as a cognitive disabling affliction, making them temporarily dysfunctional due to the obsession and compulsion of the need for homeostasis.   

Rationally seen, the mere physiological experience of copulation for the purpose of restoring homeostasis is a very banal, dull and boring activity, if compared with intellectual pursuits.    The true value of physical intimacy is enhancing the bonding and the feeling of belonging together as a committed couple.   But enhancing means, it cannot create bonding, if the bonding is not the result of intellectual and emotional intimacy.  

Those men, who are intelligent, educated, cultivated, are prone and at risk to experience cognitive dissonance between the urges of their instincts and their cognitive interests and abilities.  

Wise mature intellectual men acknowledge that their banal need for restoring sexual homeostasis is an unwelcome affliction, that is detrimental to their intellectual life.    They would not want to waste time an energy to get only homeostasis, this would make their cognitive dissonance worse.   Therefore these men get committed to a companion, so that they have homeostasis as a side effect, while the companionship gives them something much better.   Such men want to enhance the feeling of being bonded for both themselves and their companions, and they appreciate, that this also keeps them in the homeostasis, which they need.   

Bonding disabled men avoid experiencing cognitive dissonance by one or both of the following methods:

1.  They accept the banality of sex by degrading women to instruments and commodities.    They experience the need for sex similar to constipation, and women are not more to them than a laxative.    They buy women's services as they buy the laxative.    This impedes them to experience, perceive and consider women as equals, as companions, they are not able to respect and appreciate the mind and personality of women.  

2.  They are in complete denial of the fact, that sex is dull and banal.   They idealize it as if it were the most beneficial and rewarding purpose of their life.    They identify with their instincts and are proud to be studs.    As absurd as this is, they are proud of their animal instincts.    Whenever they are at risk of experiencing sex as banal, they consider this as a challenge to invest resources into getting more thrill out of it.   
These misguided fools choose a woman not for her emotional and intellectual qualities, but for the amount of infatuation, they can get from her body for a limited time.   After that time, they discard her and replace her by another body, where they get more thrill.   

In their pathetic hunt for sexual thrill these fools pay incredible sums of money to a vast market of selling anything between sex toys and pornography in the vain attempt to get excitement from something too banal for the intellectual needs of mature men.        

As soon as a man is wise and mature enough to acknowledge, that sex by itself is a banality not worth to allow his life to be determined by it, he is ready to become a bonded companion.  

If bonding-disabled men would spend their money not for the temporary thrill sold by the sex business, but on therapy and counseling in how to learn bonding and finding homeostasis as a part of commitment, they would do less damage to themselves and to many of their female victims.    They would even find the happiness, that they can never find, as long as they focus on finding sexual thrill as a pathetic substitute. 

_______________________

I just added a new page with the tilte 'The Relationship Deal'.   I am explaining, what I offer and what I expect in return from a partner, this includes also the topic of homeostasis in a relationship.

252. Merging the Concepts of Instinctive and of Cognitive Mating

Merging the Concepts of Instinctive and of Cognitive Mating

Instinctive mating:
In entry 236 I explained, how mating between the instinct driven animals of the species homo sapiens is a three step process.   The first step is checking the visual and auditory signals for healthy offspring by sharing the social space, the second step is checking the chemistry by the olfactory perception of pheromones in the personal space and the third step is the copulation in the intimate space for the purpose of procreation.

Cognitive mating:
In the entries 174, 176, 178 and 185 I described the cognitive process of developing Commitment Governance as a process of three phases.  
The first phase is the decision phase to find out, if there is basic compatibility and if there are no incompatibilities, that are dealbreakers.  
The second phase is the engagement phase, which starts with an engagement pact.   This phase serves to verify the basic compatibility and the consistency between verbal agreements and actual behavior during direct personal contact.   This phase creates emotional and intellectual intimacy.   
The third phase is commitment, that begins with the commitment pact, which is the beginning of physical intimacy.

I am looking for my mindmate being hypoanimalistic.  That means, for him as for me, the forces of cognition are stronger than the forces of instincts.    But by hypoanimalistic I do not imply the complete absence of instincts, only the predominance of cognition, intelligence and rationality over the instincts.  

Hypoanimalistic mating is a process of the combined three steps of both concepts.    

1.   The decision phase includes the approaching and entering a shared social space.   In addition to the rational checking for intellectual and emotional compatibility, there is also the visual and auditory checking.  But the latter is not for the purpose of fitness for procreation, but to avoid physical repulsion as an obstacle to intimacy.
2.   The engagement phase includes the approaching and entering a shared personal space.   In addition to verifying in a more close contact, if there indeed is enough compatibility, there is also the olfactory checking to avoid repulsive reactions to each other's pheromones.       
3.   The third phase is commitment and sharing the intimate space.   Physical intimacy does not aim at procreation but as as symbolic beginning and then reinforcing of bonding and devotion of being a unit.    

111. Rephrasing My Quest

Rephrasing My Quest

I have been struggling for a while to find an accurate expression.   I called the love of Dorine and André Gorz deep bonding, but I know now, what to call them:  A Devoted Couple. 
For me as an atheist, the word devotion has no religious meaning at all, but since my role model of deeply bonded couples are often called 'devoted couples', I will use this expression for the same purpose.  

Therefore, I rephrase my own quest: 

I am looking for my mindmate to become a 

devoted couple.