(On other words, how to keep your financial freedom and ability to have side women while living with your main girl)
I was married for over a decade before I finally got divorced 7 years ago. And I can confidently tell you that I will never get legally married again. Unless she makes way more money than you there’s no upside as a man, but there can be a ton of downside to getting married.
So why did I bother reading the “Ultimate Marriage Manual“? Because I could some day see myself living with a woman again. Not now but some day.
But I’d only live with a woman if I set things up properly and on my terms.
Don’t let the “open marriage” in the title fool you…this book is really about how to live with a woman on your terms (regardless of legal structure), which is something most men want to do at some point in their lives.
As with all of Caleb’s stuff, these are the books I wish I had when I was 14 years old and first trying to understand what it meant to be a man, how things really worked beneath the veneer of society, and are what the rules and process to follow to get the results you want.
TL:DR – If what you want is to live with a woman on your terms, than this is the book to learn how to do that (the author uses “marriage” to mean any time you live with a woman, regardless of legal status).
Arguably the biggest decision a man will ever make is whether to have children and what woman will be the mother of his child. And related to that question is whether or not you will ever want to live with a woman.
Most men naturally seem to want this at some point, and yet doing this wrong has the potential to have the biggest negative effect on your life of any choice a man can make.
It doesn’t have to be, but it has that risk. The last time I lived with a woman I made all kinds of mistakes.
I didn’t like my apartment at the time, and I needed a surgery on my hip that would leave me immobile for a month. My girlfriend at the time (who was looking to settle down) “innocently” suggested that I live with her in her place. I’d save a lot of money on rent and she’d be able to take care of me while I recover.
Not thinking past a few months out, it seemed like a great idea at the time. Of course, I’d been cheating on her regularly since I never stopped dating other women even after she gave me an ultimatum early in the relationship to be exclusive and I didn’t think through what living together would mean with that.
After a few months I found I hated not having my freedom and having to see her every single day took a lot of the joy out of the relationship. I started dating even more women on the side. My girlfriend eventually found my supply of condoms and realized I’d been fucking other girls the whole time, and we had an ugly breakup where we fought nightly until I could find a new place to live. Not fun.
I got off easy. My divorce cost me half my net worth. My breakup with my girlfriend was an ugly affair that caused me a lot of drama and daily fights for weeks. But there could have been larger legal issues, child custody issues, and more if I had been less lucky. These are just a few examples of how a man can fuck up from my own personal experience. There are countless other pitfalls as well.
The best way to avoid all this is to do what I’ve done the past 5 years since the breakup with my last girlfriend – date multiple women at the same time, don’t see any one woman more than once a week, don’t call or text too often….you can get close to them but don’t get too close so you avoid getting burned.
This actually has been good for me for several years, and I think for some men it’s enough for the rest of their lives.
But at another level I believe most men want to pair bond and have children. It’s in our DNA and you can argue that passing along a legacy to your children is the entire point of life.
Everyone’s life goes in phases and there will likely come a phase where a man is ready to bond more deeply with one women over the others and move in with her.
But how do you do this on your terms and avoid all the legal pitfalls and loss to your freedom?
This book sets the framework for how to do it right.
The framework from the book is consistent with all the other dating and game skills and principals that I’ve advocated, as does everyone else in this community of men who actively game women and look for what actually works.
Here is a list of just a few things I took away from the “Ultimate Marriage Manual” that I’m sure I’ll use some day when I actually live with a woman:
- How to create an open relationship with your girl in the first place.
- How to decided whether or not you want to live with a woman.
- When you do decide to live with a woman, how to structure the logistics and financial aspects to protect your future income and assets, while also giving you the freedom you need to do your own thing (including banging fuck buddies on the side as part of your open relationship).
- How to maintain her attraction for the length of the relationship (there is no end game even when you live with a woman) and ensure you get the sex you want. A big part of this when you live with a woman is preventing “Betaization”.
- Various optimal living arrangements with a woman, including having your own additional separate place for your side girls.
- How to balance the time you spend together vs the time you spend apart.
- Specific process and techniques for minimizing and correcting her drama and handling emotional situations with her. These are especially useful when you can’t “soft next” her because you live in the same place.
- Legal factors to consider in addition to keeping finances separate, include asset protection strategies and cohabitation agreements.
- Additional things to consider to make all of this successful if you also have kids.
Most men could go through divorce and bad breakups like me and never figure out all of the above on their own.
But here it all is in one place. Everything you need to live with a woman on your own terms.
I’d highly recommend this book to any man who dates women.
Magnum 