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Men - Seek Helpmates, Not Soulmates

November 12, 2024


GirlFridayImage.jpg
Thomas Hardy and T.S. Eliot married their secretaries.
Dostoevsky married his translator. I married my webmaster.
It was love at first site.


Men have gone their own way. (MGTOW)  Here's why.

Before the Satanists turned men into sex addicts,
and women into porn stars & whores, women
appealed to men by being useful as companions
(wives) and mothers. Women need to learn to sacrifice. That's why men love them.



Love perfection but do not seek it in a flawed fellow human being, a woman.

"And God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make a help meet for him."  Genesis 2:18

DISCLAIMER- This is a template that has stood the test of time. If you've found a better answer, more power to you.

from Oct 15, 2019

Update-  I could almost feel my friend, a feminized male, flinch when I said, "The heterosexual dynamic is based on a man convincing a woman that his plan is in her best interests." 

As I have said, men want power; women want love. Heterosexual marriage is the exchange of the two. Women surrender power in exchange for male power expressed as love. Exclusive sex is the symbol of this contract. I'm not suggesting a woman should acquiesce to all men but only to the man who has patiently earned her love (trust) through courtship. If she ceases to acquiesce or he ceases to love, the contract is broken.

Feminism (Communism) taught women to seek power and compete with men. A wife can have power or love but she cannot have both.


In our society, there is a pathological emphasis on "relationships."  We seek from others what we won't or can't give ourselves. Paradoxically, this dependence on others impedes successful relationships. People don't believe in people who don't believe in themselves. The most important relationship is with your Self. The God within. The soul. That's the only approval we need. 

A woman should not be loved for her sex appeal or beauty. She did nothing to deserve them. They are gifts.  A woman should be cherished for her deeds. She earns a man's love by the sacrifices she makes for him and her children..



Updated from Oct. 10, 2018
by Henry Makow Ph.D.

I wish I understood the following 55 years ago when I was 20.

Men, marry a helpmate, not a soulmate. I have been married to one for 24 years. It works for me. If you can find a "soulmate," I tip my hat to you.

To those who say helpmates are boring, I say "Hallelujah." I don't depend on my marriage for excitement.  However, my wife is not what feminists call "a doormat." She has a masters degree and a career. She's smart, honest and has a good sense of humor.

"You contradict everything I say," I tell her.

"Not all the time," she replies. 

I have brought her breakfast in bed for 24 years, a gesture of my love and appreciation.

So, here's my advice in ten points. 

1. Man
is governed by his thoughts. Imagine steak and he salivates. Imagine a beautiful half-naked woman in handcuffs and he gets aroused. Whoever controls his thoughts controls him. Obviously, it's best if he controls his own thoughts.

erotomania.jpg2. Society suffers from mass hypnosis. 
We have been inducted by Hollywood into a bogus religion of romance and sex which have supplanted genuine religion. Hollywood's Cabalist Jewish assumptions have become our assumptions. They include:

1. Romantic "love" is the meaning and purpose of life.

2. Male life is impossible without women who are paragons of virtue and beauty. 

3. Since sex with these angels is the highest experience life has to offer, they do us a favor by sleeping with us. (Ethereal beings, they have no sexual needs.)  The drumbeat, "you're so wonderful; I need your love and can't live without you" is repeated ad nauseam by popular music. There is no correlation between a woman's appearance and her character.  

3.
Romantic love is a bogus religion- idolatry. "Love" is an ersatz of our relationship to God. We love perfection. People are not perfect.  "Be ye therefore perfect even as your father in heaven is perfect." Matthew 5:48.
The soulmate we seek is really God.

4. For heterosexual men, "love" usually involves a woman.  But, are women lovable? Most men mistake sexual attraction for love. After survival, sex is our most powerful natural instinct. But that's all it is. Programming. We shouldn't allow nature to control us any more than Hollywood.

5. What else can she do? In the "olden days," men looked for women who could cook, clean, sew, milk the cow and look after babies. Sometimes they could play the piano.  Women were facilitators. They made things happen. Now, many young women think they are good for one thing only, and that gets old fast.

6. Men were not intended to "love" women in the sense of adore them. That invariably leads to trouble. We adore what we want and we want sex. But that gives them too much power. Let's look at women, minus sex appeal. Let's demystify them. They're human and most want a husband to take charge.

Women are different from men. They tend to be more passive, emotional, subjective and practical. On walks, my wife warns me about stepping in dog shit. I have my head in the clouds. She has her feet on the ground.

Women are primarily interested in security and perhaps are less scrupulous than men. They tend to be insecure and harbor feelings of worthlessness unless a man gives them purpose. These are fine qualities in a helpmate but not a soulmate.

Paradoxically, this kind of realism makes a man more attractive to women who naturally disdain men they can control. They want to be lovingly controlled. 

7. The whole concept of a "soulmate" is bogus and extremely selfish. It's based on a time when women weren't expected to think. They would adopt their husband's ideas as well as his name. Many young men are still looking for these "soulmates." They are really looking for themselves.

8.  Distance is actually better than intimacy. It's intimacy elevated to a higher level. It involves a realization that "hey, you're totally different from me" and "are pretty limited in some ways" but "so am I in other ways and we don't have to be alike." It involves respecting differences. My wife was a Biden supporter. I respect her limitations. We don't discuss politics.


"Love" as commonly understood forces people to be too close. It holds men and women to an impossible standard.  People are not all that lovable. I'll settle for a bond based on respect, trust, consideration, and gratitude. Marriage is better when the societal pressure "to be in love" is removed.

9. Love is based on self-sacrifice.  I love the people who sacrifice for me and give me the benefit of the doubt. I want to reciprocate. Clear away the romantic nonsense and recognize that the basis of real love is mutual dependence. 

10. We don't recognize how oppressive and time-consuming our sexual obsession really is. I wasted my life chasing this chimera.


In conclusion, women used to sacrifice for husband and family and were cherished in return. They have since been reprogrammed. Their minds are at war with their hearts. They are ticking time bombs.

There is no Santa Claus. "Romantic love" is a crock. Sex is a delusion. It is meant to be linked to procreation, or at least marriage. It was not meant to be a recreation and full-time obsession.
You don't need to be sexually attracted to your partner to have great sex.  Inversely, sexually attraction does not translate into great sex.
Love does. Sex is a celebration of love. Hook-up sex is degrading, dehumanizing and a bastardization of marital sex.

Romantic infatuation is usually based on some perceived advantage rather than any genuine feeling. It's a woman's thing and turns men into women. When a woman sacrifices power for love, she is more feminine. This is how women love-- by trusting her husband. When men sacrifice power for love, they become women.

Men, decide what you want and seek a woman who will help you achieve your goals.  
When you love someone without illusion, a helpmate can transform into a different, better kind of soul mate.

---
Related-  Place for Possessiveness in Marriage
--------------  Be a Self-Made Man

Ken Adachi writes-

I cannot, however, agree with most of Henry's ten points of advice given below on the male/female dynamic; especially his utilitarian view of the man-woman relationship and the dismissal of the central role of love and romance in that relationship. Love is the central, dominant, and creative force of the universe. We exist because God loves us. God created woman and man to perfectly compliment each other and bring forth the fruits of His creation in this physical reality. We can only be happy and fulfilled in all our endeavours when we fulfil those desires with love in our hearts.

Romantic love IS love. There's nothing bogus or idolatrous about it. It's not a veneer for hormonal, biologic impulses alone. When we fall in love, we experience a gladdening of the heart because we have become entwined on the soul level with that person. I'm not talking about people who insincerely say "I love you" for convenience or to be polite. I'm talking about a man and a woman who are in love with each other and feel it to the core of their being. I do not like the casual use of the term 'soul mates' in movies or as a pickup line. It's thrown around like confetti. It trivializes the importance of the soul connection between a man and a woman who are in love. But make no mistake about it ~ it is a soul connection which has ramifications that go far beyond the physical world.

I also don't agree with the notion of a pecking order when it comes to your wife and God. Loving your wife with your whole heart and soul is loving God with the same level of devotion. We use the word "God" to identify the Creator, but God is not a being outside of us. God is within every single person. The Hindus understood this concept thousands of years ago. "The Kingdom of God is within" said Jesus. Realizing that God is within is the key to seeking God. Yogananda got it right. He called his devotional group the Self Realization Fellowship. Men and women manifest God's Divine plan by being nurtured into decent adults who follow the Golden Rule. They have fun, fall in love, get married, raise children, and grow old together in a life filled with happiness and contentment. Doing work you like is wonderful, but the greatest happiness comes from living in a home with a loving wife. There would be no divorce, and its disastrous effect on children, if husband and wife kept the love lamp burning strong within their hearts, act in ways that support each other, and avoid doing things that hurt one another.

I love the great romance comedy movies made in the 1930s, 40s, 50s, and 60s before foul language became the new norm. A good movie inspires people and fills them with hope and joy. Romance movies from the Golden Age of cinema, show men and women behaving in a way that is more in tune with decency, rather than the unwatchable mediocrity and vulgar trash of recent decades. Someday, the avant-garde will be the making of clean, decent movies again.


Christopher writes:

Your «Seek Helpmates» hits the proverbial nail on the head. You are NOT alone in realizing these truths somewhat later, rather than early on.

I suffered horribly from «being a romantic» and chasing all the unattainable, yet seemingly perfect «Les Wilis» (spirits). One woman, to this day, regrets throwing out all my amazing, uber-romantic love poems (inspired by her); an action dictated by her confused state of mind, thanks to the bi-polar nature of over-the-top absurd romanticism directed towards newbie feminist hysteria.

Despite a plethora of perfectly good, kind-hearted, helpful, and attractive women; I seemed driven to chase down and capture «the goddess.» Unfortunately, the majority of such «goddess» creatures were racked with psychological issues and conditions, from anorexia to kleptomania, and far beyond - often creating even dangerous relations. It became obvious that society was targeting such people, through indirect as well as direct means.

Talk about giving up one's innate power?!?

It wasn't just a somewhat faulty family dynamic that inspired this - it is was plain old programming, like the kind you find on TV. The average dating period, at that time in my life, never went over six months. Sadly, few - if any of these love interests ever remained even friends.

On any and every level, it was all an absurd waste, based on pulling out the dysfunctional threads of problematic family life, followed by the enhanced narcissism and hedonism programmed into a young, open mind.

Even the clothes of the period (the 1970s and early 80s) tell the story. Young men were pushed towards decidedly feminized fashions, with blousy shirts, skirt-like, large bell-bottom pants, and platform shoes; while young women moved either from the demure towards sex vixen outfits (like super short hot pants), or took on masculinized (see: Annie Hall) garb. This was just before the «I hate you - come here-go away», blackened eyes, bitch-vixen look, of the late 80s and early 90s fashions for women. And the Wall Street shark/slime-ball look, in that same following period, for men.

Finally, after «growing up», as well as reassessing the true nature and meaning of manhood, I began to see that the «Babe-age Factor» is quite short-lived, and utility - in the end - actually DOES become the real romance. It took a long time, but, at long last, I can now appreciate and respect ALL aspects of true womanhood, including those that ARE attainable, like; loyalty, exclusivity, trust, honor, faith, patience, charm, and the simple pleasure of just «being» with an important member of that gender that is different from my own... Vive la difference!

Don't believe it? Just ask my wife of seventeen years.





Scruples - the game of moral dillemas

Comments for "Men - Seek Helpmates, Not Soulmates "

rh said (December 13, 2023):

"A woman should not be loved for her sex appeal or beauty."

Henry,
If I play solitaire or chess on my I pad, I get these ads for women's clothes of all sorts. (I have tried to block them.)
If I look at the dresses in the ads, I say to myself, "Where would a woman wear such a tiny piece of clothing?" "Why?"
Then, there's the women's bathing suits and underwear ads...after a while...you can say, "When you've seen one, you've seen it all."
Men and women, over my lifetime, have done this to ourselves. We need to learn and appreciate modesty again. Men can encourage their wives, daughters and others to dress nicely and appropriately. The dresses of the Victorian age come to mind as beautiful and feminine. Would it be wise to find a healthy middle ground of then and now? I think so.

This might be an indicator of our societal mental health, that is, we are not healthy until we regain a modesty in our clothing.


Robert O said (January 4, 2022):

Your article on Jan 3, 2022 (or reprint) is brilliant. I have been studying male female relationships for 30+ years and have seen perspectives from A-Z and yours stands head and shoulders above all of them. I would have never expected such insight from an individual like yourself (i.e., not a relationship specialist) but you have truly grasped the inner dynamics of human relationships and conveyed them in a most clear and cogent manner.

As a man who has been married for several decades, I still seek to better understand marriage and I have found, in your writings, amazing insights that have answered some of the deepest questions that I have wrestled with on marital happiness and success. Thank you for your labors, persistence and website that has an enormous amount of useful and enlightening information that also has answered many questions I have had about society and world events.

What you are doing is much bigger than you realize. It is going to go national one of these days with the counter culture movement that is gaining momentum behind the scenes every year and your name is going to come up as a thought leader. I just feel sorry for the many women who will become casualties of the feminism movement in that it is going to create a tidal wave of single mothers, spinsters and divorced/unmarried women unrivalled in history because they were convinced that living for yourself instead of being part of someone else's story was the way to fulfillment. They will all turn to alcohol, recreational drugs and antidepressants to deal with their endless misery of hookup relationships and form these pathetic online communities of empowered females who hate men, life and the world. So rest assured these are not just astute musings of yours but the beginning of an awakening that will bring massive change in the male community toward women and their value. It will turn the tables on the whole issue and make women plead for someone to take them. It's hard to believe, but it is coming and when it does your insights will help steer those men and women who will listen how to get their lives back in order.


Marc A said (October 10, 2018):


Great article Henry and the comments are gold! I particularly liked the ones who mentioned the destructive impact of romantic music... very true. Listening to the radio every day for years did some damage to my psyche, I am sure.

I agree with your position 100%, you write from a position of authority and it’s clear all your wisdom was born through experience and years of thought.

I’ve been chasing after this romantic phantom for the past few years.

I totally replaced God for the Goddess. If I eventually found a soulmate, I’d thank God and worship Him... if not, well I’d be too busy searching for her to be bothered with my Creator.

My error, what a mistake.

I only became a slave pursuing this new religion and very unsatisfied. What a waste of life! I became spiritually poor because of it.
It is an addiction, endlessly searching for “the one”.

Maybe soulmates do exist, but the very nature of such a union is dependent on some providential force which many never experience in this life.

In this age of heterosexual dysfunction, many will have to learn to look within to find their happiness inside themselves.

But that is okay. Your life isn’t dependant on someone else entering it. Life is about a reunion with the divine while on Earth and that occurs in the heart.

It all goes back to God. You’re right. We seek intimacy but God offers us the most perfect intimacy. “He has numbered all the hairs on your head.”

I’m just paraphrasing what you already wrote - it hit home and I am preaching to my own stupid self here. The sorcerers in this new age religion worked their hypnosis well on me and I’ve been totally blind.


Peter said (October 9, 2018):

I'll just post the lyrics here for readers, it's on youtube.

https://genius.com/Skyhooks-loves-not-good-enough-lyrics

"We all want different things
But we all want to live like kings
We all want the best there is these days
Yeah it's just too tough
Yeah it gets so rough
'Cos love's not good enough these days"

Mind you it's an old fashioned harking song, but the 70's glam band were
dressed to the hilt in female clothing and makeup.

For my part:

Men are from Mars

Women are from Venus

Most women are Liberals

All Liberals are vacuous

Therefore Venus does not exist.

(I've never been married, I'll be no woman's wife, I expect to remain single, for the rest of my life... but I'm a sucker for a pretty face and I'd die for a Truther).


RPP said (October 9, 2018):

You are a most interesting individual for sure. Individual is a good starting description.

Even though you reject Yahshua as the Messiah the Christ, you have a deeper and stronger knowledge of His teachings and more importantly, the intent and application of what He said than most Christians.

Off hand I can't think of anything in which I disagree with you, with the exception of your lack of faith.

I appreciate your insight and bravery in the face of a total corrupt adversary.


JJ said (October 9, 2018):

Lesley's comment concerning love songs and being forced to hear them all the time in situations like work: Frank Zappa said, and I'm paraphrasing, that the vast majority of mental illness comes from love songs in popular music, songs that depict a reality that will never exist for the listener..These songs program you into thinking that you'll be happy forever with someone, thus making you disappointed when it doesn't happen. You can't go anywhere without hearing them. When you're awake, like Lesley is now, they're just annoying sonic wallpaper, but otherwise they affect how you think and feel, believe it.


Lesley said (October 9, 2018):

The last couple of days I have been thinking about things you have written regarding this issue.

Why? Because at work, I am subjected to listening to mundane and ridiculous radio stations that are all about love songs.

Every song is about romance and heartache and losing the beautiful woman or heartbreak.

It sickens me.

This is not what life is all about.

Thank you for waking me up to this realization.

Wish I would have known this 40 years ago.


Mark said (October 9, 2018):

I usually don’t take time to respond to much of what I read on the Internet because of time considerations and much of it, including Christian ministry, falls flat. I want to thank you for pointing out vital things that Christian churches are not teaching, including your latest column.

I was born in 68 in a time, culture and in a home where the meaning of male/female relationships was not properly taught; I am still fighting to get totally out of a deprogramming although I have been married 21 years to an incredible woman that is the right kind of woman you describe in your articles.

Thanks for all you do, considering that most Christian ministries that I have heard or seen won’t do it because of their marriage to pop culture or cannot do it out of ignorance.


Bonnie said (April 8, 2016):

What's missing from your narrative is intimacy, which is not the same as sex or romance. Lack of intimacy estranges us from one another. Historically, not only would your wife have had seven children and be familiar with every hair on their heads, but she would have counted yours as well, even if she kept a healthy distance. There were fewer distractions.

Remember, your wife owes her Masters Degree to feminism. Now her field of study competes. For that matter, so does yours. Education causes us to live inside our heads, so our senses, our intuition and our power of observation, all suffer. We don't trust our guts anymore. We are prey for scoundrels.


V said (April 27, 2014):

Another great article Henry. I especially like points 4, 5 and 6.

Point 5 reminds me of an old western movie I saw years ago. The husband's wife died in a rural prarie farm in the late 1800's. Know the poor farmer was left with two boys with no mother and he was left with no wife. What did he do ? We'll he didn't hit the bar scene or the internet as bars were few and far between and computers did not exist. The farmer found a widow in a nearby town and convinced her to move in with him and his 2 boys. He said that he needed a wife that could cook, clean, milk the cows and take care of the boys. In return he promised her protection, stability and a 'family life'. She accepted. Back then men and woman had roles and functions that each knew about and accepted. It was also a matter of survival.


Linda K said (April 27, 2014):

1Pe 3:1-4

“Likewise, wives, be in subjection to your own husbands, so that if any do not obey the Word, they may also be won without the Word by the conduct of the wives, having witnessed your chaste behavior in the fear of God. Of whom let not be the adorning of garments, or outward braiding of hair and wearing of gold, or of putting on clothing, but let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, the meek and quiet spirit, which is of great price in the sight of God.”

Here are a couple of clarifications in the original language (my husband is Greek, born and raised, and for many years studied Classical Greek).

subjection [Greek: hupotassō; under the leadership of]

man [Greek: anthrōpos; human being]


Ren said (April 27, 2014):

As a now very old man, I have seldom seen such a lot of twaddle as you wrote last. After five wives, none of them so-called fashion plates, I say this: Human beings are but animals like any other creature on this earth.

If we had not forsaken the pleasures of the field for the rubbish taught in every school today, we would still be able to enjoy the company of a woman that smells like a woman and looks like a woman.

All my wives including the present one had only one thought in their head after the first 6 months. How to rob a husband of his hard earned property and anything he slaved for in order to have a decent life.

It does not matter if he is financially hard pressed, they expect to get whatever they want and if they do not get it, they go and see a lawyer and get it the hard way. They don't have to pay for the lawyer, the state will take up the tab if need be. (abridged)


Chris said (April 27, 2014):

Hi Henry your first point about thought control reminded me of this -
from the Bible Phillipians chapter 4 starting at verse 8 "....whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things."


Mike said (April 27, 2014):

Now I don't wanna get all Biblical,...But the scripture clearly state a Woman's Role is to her man.

Genesis 3 : 16

16To the woman He said,
"I will greatly multiply
Your pain in childbirth,
In pain you will bring forth children;
Yet your desire will be for your husband,
And he will rule over you."

How many women has ANYONE heard of today like that.....?


Jennifer said (April 27, 2014):

Men Stop wasting your life looking for the beautiful perfect dreamy goddess women. Her beauty will quickly fade after the first child.

Stop using a beautiful woman to make you feel like you are someone. Find a good kind helpmate woman and become something yourself. When men "make-it" materially, they get some young beautiful woman --so now men, even poor, hunt for that beautiful woman regardless of who she really is to look like they are the successful guy.

I remember a date telling me when I was a beautiful 19 year old young woman and he was 25 year old HBS grad trying to be a Wall Street mogul, "Everyone's looking at me wondering how I got a girl like you!"

The facade: Eye candy on a man's arm= instant somebody. It goes with our instant gratification culture. It is overwhelming for a young girl to wake up one day a woman now -just 18 or 19 and have so many men flipping out over her and begging to be with her and putting her on a pedestal just because she fits their James Bond ideal. These men don't care really who she is. These men are selfish, its all about taking care of their superficial needs.


Magna said (April 27, 2014):

Thank you, your article had me thinking and your idea on soulmates was quite eye opening. In Islam the quran says that men should marry so the can find tranquility or repose in a woman.

Unfortunately most women of a feminist bend make the home life unbearable to the point that one would feel sorry for anyone who has the misfortune of living with them.

The Noble Qur'an - Ar-Rum 30:21

And from among His Signs is this, that He created for you wives from among yourselves, that you may find repose in them, and He has put between you affection and mercy. Verily, in that are indeed signs for a people who reflect.

Also the Prophet's (Peace Be upon Him) says are very informative regarding different topics:
On masculinity:

Allah's Apostle May Allah's peace and praise be on him cursed those men who are in the similitude (assume the manners) of women and those women who are in the similitude (assume the manners) of men.

On marriage:

O young men, those among you who can support a wife should marry, for it restrains eyes (from casting evil glances) and preserves one from immorality; but he who cannot afford it should observe fast, for it is a means of controlling the sexual desire.

One more thing, side issue. I think there are people who are more into looking for love and others who actively look for helpmeets could depend on their personality outlook.
rationals look for helpmeets and idealists look for romance Just a thought.
http://www.davidmarkley.com/personality/idealist.htm


Ken L said (April 26, 2014):

Many excellent points, thank-you. The last sentence is a gem, and is thunderous in its implications. We need to stop, stop, stop trying to worship one another. Its extremely unhealthy for the worshiper and the one worshiped. Sooner or later, it will bite both participants. Disappointment, resentment, and anger will follow. And then, a train of calamities...

I think God knew what He was talking about when He said, 'You will have no other gods before Me.'


Roshan said (April 26, 2014):

Brilliant article once again! Sadly, many people do not think this way, after being brainwashed into courting a woman purely on her physical attractiveness.

A real man would love his girl for what she truly is on the inside, not the exterior.

Women who are often not very physically beautiful often end up feeling inferior and feel no one will date them. I hope this article makes people think deeply over their attitudes.


Malcolm said (April 26, 2014):

Your argument should be read by all young men Henry. It seems you are called to tear down some mighty fortresses!

2 Cor. 10:4 (For the weapons of our warfare are not material, but powerful according to the norms and standards of God, for the purpose of tearing down fortresses [satanic strongholds], for the purpose of overthrowing false concepts [cosmic thinking])


Henry Makow received his Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Toronto in 1982. He welcomes your comments at