Covert contracts are such a bitch. Most men who are running Dread are actually making a better mousetrap. If they do the right things their wife will love them back. It never works. It’s overtly manipulative which has a negative effect.
In order to upend the power dynamic, you have to kill it first, and not expect it to return
Operation Scorched Earth is the mental model of truly letting your relationship die. Remove your expectations and you then make better decisions without the hundreds of manipulative and unattractive tells that sabotage your efforts. The thousand foot tow rope is when you’ve found that you have a woman who wants to fight to keep you, and to make the shit from shutting the fuck up, to actually communicating.
Like everything in the Red Pill, everything is contradictory, until you understand it.
Operation Scorched Earth
In Praxeology, volume 1 I wrote about covert contracts, or the unspoken expectations of men towards women:
“If I do X then you’ll do Y and I should never have to ask. Then we will have a problem free life and you’ll love me forever!”
When running Dread it’s the ever present hydra. Every time you chop a head off another one pops up in its place. Some men have years deliberate work in killing their covert contracts. Every time they think they have them all and have a well developed frame they find another one. The worst one, when it comes to Dread, is the covert contract wherein they are building a better mouse trap, while convincing themselves they are doing this all for themselves.
I touch it in volume 1’s section on the 2 year Dancing Monkey Improvement Programme. Guys talk about it when running Dread. Still, most guys experience that eureka moment when they realize the entire time they have been working at Dread in their marriages and relationships, it’s all been a horrible covert contract. It sets them back years, but with renewed resolve to do it properly. The question you have to ask if you’re concerned about the covert contract is:
If she refuses to follow me along for any of this, would I still be doing what I’m doing?
Don’t answer it, think about it. The best way to run Dread is with serious, honest self reflection. I’m not asking whether you think you would be still following the path you’re following, I’m asking you whether your actions reflect a man who is his own mental point of origin. It’s not a failing of you as a man either, most men find their way here because they still love their wives and girlfriends, no matter how shoddy her treatment of them. They only want her to love them back.
The problem with this is it ultimately frames Dread in a supplicative fashion. The problem with this is it creates hundreds of small changes in behavior and decisions that no one consciously pick up on, but manifest as the same unattractive validation seeking that got a man into that situation, that life of quiet desperation. So what can you do?
Operation Scorched Earth. This only works when you expect it not to work. Your marriage is dead. It doesn’t matter who is at fault, but it’s dead. Nothing you do will change that. She has been demoted to roommate and sparring partner. You have to live your life as if you’re preparing to separate as soon as conditions become favorable and your journey of self-actualization is complete. It can’t be an affirmation, it has to be a certainty.
This small shift of mental models makes everything else possible. Are you being nagged about the dishes? Do you actually want the dishes done now? Then do them. Do you want to do it tomorrow? Then do it tomorrow. Do you think the woman talking about birthday or anniversary gifts deserves one? If not, anniversary is canceled.
When guys hear this they automatically assume cruelty. This is the entire problem. When a woman has been deified her entire life, being treated like a human being seems like oppression. When, as a man, you’ve made all of your decisions based on unspoken provision and pleasant demeanor, acting in your own self interests seems like misogyny. In reality, you’re doing two things that every realtionship counselor and dear Abby columnist has been saying for years … You’re being honest and in touch with your feelings.
And if you’re doing Dread, you’ve been feeling taken advantage of, sexually denied, and you’re not happy.
This isn’t about taking your ball and going home, and the difference is subtle and important. Taking your ball and going home is overt manipulation. If she doesn’t fuck you, you become irritated until she does. This has the opposite effect of what you’re trying to achieve. This is an indirect pedestal. It’s all stick and no carrot. People don’t just not respond to overt manipulation, they actively fight against it.
This is why that 2 year covert contract happens. Guys are consistently taking their ball and going home, only to find out it’s not working like it’s supposed to. They haven’t learned anything but to parrot the steps in some self help guide, missing the entire point. Dread is not about getting your wife to fuck you more, Dread is about learning to never be taken for granted. The sex life is a lagging indicator, not the result.
Operation scorched earth is about removing expectations and your self interest; being independent of the actions of others.
For example, meeting with an expert over your assumed separation is a must. This is because most men fear divorce. Not the actual process or consequences of divorce, but of the vague, undefined fear of divorce. One that is portrayed in the media from the handful of especially damaging cases that exist. This is by design. People won’t watch the news or read about divorces unless they are savage.
A story I use often is one in my home country Canada. A man with a 100k salary, a 1.2m home, 5 kids and a wife. She decides to divorce him and demands no change in her quality of life as a stay at home mom. Dad does the math and realizes he literally can’t afford to eat if this happens. Instead of letting the court enforce a modern day debtors prison he self-exiles to south Asia in a non extradition country.
A normal man reading this is terrified. His lizard brain in the back assumes all divorces are like this, because thats the only divorces you read and hear about. So he submits to his wife in hopes that she won’t criminalize his want to be around his kids. Unfortunately, by doing this you’re making a separation more likely.
It’s that dancing monkey improvement programme, and it’s completely false. When you meet with a professional, you don’t ask him what will happen if your wife leaves you. Instead you approach it as a man with frame, specifically a man with a vision. You say what you want. What custody would you prefer, what kind of financial costs are you willing to bear. How do you want to split your resources after a separation. Aim for the stars, you want what you want.
And this is the crucial strategy. Instead of asking what happens in a divorce, you’re asking what you can do to achieve this goal or get as close to it as you can. If you’re completely delusional they will say so. If you have to make certain sacrifices then you’ll be aware of them. If there is a standard calculation then you’ll know this too. All together this defines the terms of operation scorched earth.
For example, courts will never give custody to a father who is in the military. You’re able to be deployed at any time, therefore it’s way too unstable for the kids. Now you know your choices. If you want custody, you have to leave the military. Now you understand the trade-offs, and they are no longer some abstract existential fear of you exiled to the third world. You can pick your career and mitigate around custody, you can leave and get custody. Make a decision, accept the consequences.
For example, you find out that the spread of income between you and your wife increases the child support you have to pay. Now you can make a decision. In your life do you really want to work those 80 hour weeks to hopefully get that new promotion when your lifestyle is perfectly comfortable for you and your family already? Maybe you take a move that offers more free time and you spend it with your children. Those choices look to the court like you actually want custody with your children. Instead of holding onto the dream of the father/provider you make decisions based on what you want.
For example, if you’re more Machiavellian, I’ve seen guys report of coming down with ‘mental health’ issues, or volunteering for layoffs at their companies. They take cuts in pay, in hours, sometimes periods of unemployment. For dual income families this can change the alimony calculations in a mans favor. Of course, the courts also frown upon anyone attempting to game the system, so I don’t recommend playing with the courts. They will always have more experience with scams than anyone has with clever planning. This isn’t to say leaving your job to start your own business isn’t a good idea.
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One of the funniest field reports I’ve ever seen was from a woman who called herself Darla. She lived and worked in New York City, something in fashion and in her own company. She married a man who was equally career focused and had a kid. Once the kid was born her husband unilaterally decided he was going to be a stay at home dad. After a year she filed for divorce as she wasn’t haaapy. The courts decided she had to pay him alimony.
The revenge for downtrodden men wasn’t the funny part. The funny part was how she became Red Pilled after being treated like a man. It worked out in the end. She made enough money that she weathered the payments. She stopped acting like a boss bitch and started acting like a feminine woman. She landed a divorce firefighter who had a kid of his own and they Brady Bunch’d themselves into a wonderful second marriage.
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This is operation scorched earth. You move forward as if all this work you’re putting into Dread will not rescue your marriage nor your sexlife with your wife. This changes fundamentally how you approach situations and make decisions. This fundamental shift ensures that you act in your own best interests. These actions make it less likely to end up as the threatpoint examples that are used to scare men into submission.
Outside of a separation, this also applies to chores around the house. Forget about mens work being X and womans work being Y. You keep the house to the standard that you can live with. Husbandry becomes a system up to your standards, and on your time lines. No more accommodating the neurotic placements of forks to the left and spoons to the right, or cheese only in the left drawer. You have a house maintained to a standard that you can be proud of.
If you cannot manage it yourself, then you downsize. If you have too many clothes to wash and put away, you throw them out. If your minivan payments are too much and hockey practice too infrequent, you buy yourself a nice used car. If you live 90 minutes from work so you can live closer to in-laws you cant stand, you make the decision to move somewhere better. You do the requisite work to solve the problems in your life that impede on your happiness. While you take into account the needs of your family (or at very least the people who choose to be in your inner circle) you ultimately make the decisions that work for you.
This is operation scorched earth. You live life as if the woman in your life is dead and you’re moving forward as a bachelor or single dad. How would you organize your life then? Do that. And for that eventualy divorce situation? You’ve done all that you can do to protect yourself financially and legally. The worst case scenario is something that may not be ideal, but something you can live with. You give yourself freedom to know that no matter what you do in your life and your marriage, the worst case scenario is OK. Fear is literally no longer an option.
The 1000 foot tow rope
While you have organized your life like your wife is dead, this doesn’t mean you become oblivious to her. The marriage that you used to have may be dead, but this doesn’t mean you will never have a woman who wants to fight to be in your life still. Without expectations, you’re able to see her actions, and ignore your hopes and dreams. They don’t happen over night, but it does happen. This is the 1,000 foot tow rope.
And it’s not what you think
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