The reason I don't have a lot of time for the "I'm getting short-changed in my marriage" complaint so many men have, is because it invariably comes down to two issues: - you vetted poorly - you negotiated poorly In the case of the former, there's no constructive way forward because she is either bad faith or the incompatibilities are too great to manage. There is no point staying with such a woman; you are enabling a parasite, and it is always the worst option (I don't care what excuses you have, it's always better on the other side). But you only learn the character of your woman for certain by trying to fix the marriage - in other words, renegotiating the dynamics in the marriage. Which is why regardless of what the core problem is, men must always start their process of improving things there. This is where you learn the more or less universal truth: most men have terrible marriages because they are terrible negotiators. I am not even simply talking about their poor persuasiveness, but the absence of fundamentals. They lack self-control, self-respect, and the willingness to walk away. Most actually lack the will to even address relationship issues openly. They are afraid of conflict. Suffice to say this kills their ability to change anything in the relationship from the outset. Their woman knows subconsciously she has full control and leverage in the marriage. Appealing to her good will under these circumstances is silly and weak. It's like Guatamala insisting the US to treat them as an equal. A good woman may give you some of what you want (weekly maintenance sex, for instance, vs dead bedroom), but never all of it (enthusiastic sex on the regular). She has no incentive, emotional or practical, to do otherwise. In other words, in order to achieve change in your marriage - you need to want the change more than you want to keep what you have. You cannot be afraid of how she responds. You have to know what you deserve. That may include addressing fundamental weaknesses in your live to prove you deserve it, like improving your preselection and persona (how you look, your wealth/status, and how you act). But more often than not, the real variable missing in is cultivating the belief that you should be getting more. You must address the deeper self-worth issues lowering the vibration of your personality - like internalized shame. Once you get a foothold on some of these issues, you will usually see improvement in the marriage. But it's never a decisive change, because after you address this first stage of being a doormat comes the second trap: the overly empowered ego. Now you are finally willing to express what you want, but you are pretty much all you care about. You are defensive. This takes the form of reactivity or excessive deterrence, where guys blow up over disrespect and become volatile, or escalate situations to deliberately make her feel unsafe or insecure. Things get toxic; trust gradually breaks down. Although superficially the woman feels like she can't control a guy like this, subconsciously she knows she still can - because they're caught in a pattern with each other. She can provoke him, and get his attention. The difference is just that the dynamic has gone from win-lose with her winning without a fight, to a power struggle. If a guy has enough leverage, it's possible he may decisively flip the dynamic in his favor. But this position will always be tenuous romantically, as the woman will always resent her position, and be looking for a way to change it. And since marriage laws give women power, you are never really safe trying to exert control over her. You are also never going to have an intimate relationship with a woman under these circumstances, since you are getting your own needs met at her expense, and in this context she will view any attempts to get emotionally close with her as weakness. So what should you do differently? Do not push back against her bad behavior and disrespect as an assault on your ego, so much as an assault on the connection between the two of you. This framing is so important, because it shifts the conflict and misunderstandings between the two of you from the strategic to the tactical. You are not saying she needs to give you X or Y. You are saying X or Y needs to be given in order to have a healthy relationship. You are stating your needs and requirements, but in the context that your needs and requirements being met lead to hers being met. You are not criticizing her. You are calling out a way she's operating - a modus operandi that is not only stopping you from being treated the way you deserve, but from her from getting the love she wants. This shifts the entire frame of the conversation between the two of you from win-lose to win-win. In other words, she gets what she wants by giving you what you want. But the only way you can do this is a) knowing what it is she really wants at her core from a man beneath what her dysfunctional patterns are incentivizing, and b) by being willing to give up what you have been getting from her in the short term. For instance, you may want more passionate, connected sex - but that means you need to be willing to discard the low-effort maintenance sex to get it. You have to have higher standards, which means walking away not simply from nothing... but from "OK". This is usually a subtle, multistep process that requires gradual self-confrontation over our validation issues and letting go of them. Because in the end, to get what we want from the people we emotionally invest in, we have to paradoxically let go of the need for them to give it to us in the first place. We need to break our co-dependence with them, which emerged from making them responsible for our own fulfillment. Women control us in committed relationships not because they are evil, but because we told them in so many words and actions that we needed this sexual and emotional fulfillment from them, and gave them not only pressure but leverage. This obligation is what killed their agency, and when choice dies so does desire. To have a passionate marriage, a woman must experience the duality of you deep want and desire to be with her, along with your unbending commitment to honoring yourself at all costs. She can have you, but never own you. Yet to have you and your love she must surrender completely; if she holds back she is manipulating you, and you won't accept that. You will walk, and she will get nothing. A woman can only truly trust and give herself to a man who is simultaneously devoted to her and committed to his own truth like this, and the result is a relationship that has the weight of a long pair-bond, with the lightness of the honeymoon phase - instead of the usual one of mutual extraction and frustration. But becoming this type of man is easier said than done. It is a long process, that starts with confronting your fears, and then confronting your woman, and then confronting yourself. It involves enormous pain and release. And just when you think you've finished the process, you find another layer of obstacles to intimacy. It never ends - because the path of releasing fear is eternal. There is always a new edge to confront. But each barrier you overcome opens up not only more love in your life, but more freedom. You really can have your cake and eat it too. But no one said it would be easy.

This is not just because religious couples usually have better polarity & shared purpose, but because they are more selfless and generous towards each other. It's EGO that destroys relationships; usually the woman's when it comes to sex. The bedroom dies when it becomes a means of control not maintaining connection. This is why the win-lose paradigm you see promulgated on here over and over again is so dangerous to digest. The more red pill / feminism you internalize as "the complete truth", the less you're able to humanize the opposite sex. Relationships become extractive - and you cannot extract from someone over the long term and keep them. Operate in good faith, and you might get burned. You might have to learn some lessons about discernment and boundaries the hard way. But if you operate in bad faith you're guaranteed to push everyone functional and decent away from you in life. Don't be so obsessed with cultivating desire that you forget trust.