Hey everyone,

Made this as a comment but thought it deserved a post.

I’m probably a bit older than the average demographic here (early 40s), but I feel compelled to share my story because I constantly see this massive, dangerous myth being pushed online. You’ve all heard the narrative from the "traditional" and "manosphere" podcasters: “Just find a nice, pure, religious girl with a low body count, marry her young, and you’ll live happily ever after.”

I am here to tell you that I followed that exact script to a T. It still crumbled through my fingers.

My ex-wife isn't a "good woman," for certain. But she isn't bad either. She's real.

As u/ppchampagne put it: "there are just real women. And real women will be your greatest teachers."

The "Perfect" Beginning

I got married in my early 20s. I was young, religious, naïve, and fell hard for the first woman who paid any attention to me in college. On our wedding night, we were both completely inexperienced. Literal virgins. No "baggage," no past partners. Total purity.

We stayed together for over a decade and had kids. For the first few years, I thought I was the luckiest guy alive. I did everything by the book.

The Shift

Then, the marriage blew up in a way I never saw coming after the birth of our daughter. It started with the classic signs.

The main one was the fucking phone. It started coming to the dinner table—something we never used to do—and whenever she set it down in my presence, it was always face down. Sure enough, I found out she had downloaded dating apps and was talking to other men behind my back.

Shortly after, she dropped the bomb: she wanted to open the marriage.

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I tried everything to save my family. I begged for therapy. She refused. I told her, "Darling, I love you. Out of all the women I knew in college, I chose you. What do you need from me to make this work?"

Her response? "I need you to open the marriage."

The Wake-Up Call

Completely lost, I went to my mother—a devout Roman Catholic. When I told her everything, her answer was instant: "Divorce her."

I literally cried. "But mom, what about the kids?"

My mother sighed through the phone and said, "You can deal with that later. Take what is left of your self-respect and get out of there. And stop crying for her! You'll need your tears for other things."

So, I filed.

Whenever I see these modern social conservatives telling young men that a woman's past or her religious upbringing is a bulletproof shield against heartbreak, I absolutely wince. There is no magical "low body count" cheat code to guarantee a successful relationship. People change. FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) can hit a woman who felt she "missed out" on her youth just as hard as anyone else. There are no fairy-tale archetypes; there are only real women with complex, evolving, and sometimes destructive human desires.

Where We Are Now

Fast forward to a few months ago. We were at one of our kids' band recitals, grabbing coffee in the lobby. Out of nowhere, she asked me, "How's your dating life?"

Truth is, I don’t really date anymore. After the divorce, I had my share of girlfriends, one-night stands, and flings, but over the last decade, I’ve settled into my solitude. I love living alone. I love my routines, going to the gym whenever I want, and traveling solo when I don't have the kids (especially to Amsterdam and Berlin). For the first time in my life, I'm not putting out a woman's fires. I am finally at peace.

So I just shrugged and said, "Oh, here and there."

Her eyes welled up. She explained to me that she was dating a guy she had met online, and he was a recent divorced dude. But after expressing a wish to commit to this man, my ex-wife was put down: he didn't want to commit to a woman with kids already and quite honestly, he figured their relationship was a "rebound thing."

"I'm just so lonely. No one really wants to date a divorced mom," she sniffed, and she reached out and grabbed my hand.

For a second, a part of me felt genuine sympathy. This was the woman who bore my children. I could almost feel myself slipping, almost forgiving the betrayal. But then the voice of my late mother echoed in my brain: Take what is left of your self-respect...

I gently took her hand out of mine, patted her shoulder, and said: "You chose your path." And I left it at that.

TL;DR

Stop letting podcasters convince you that a woman's lack of dating history is a guarantee of her loyalty or future happiness. Green flags can turn red, "devout" signs can fade, and the script you're being sold is a lie. Focus on things where you can receive a net return for your investment: hobbies, travel, cultivating knowledge, gathering your strength in fitness. Eventually, at my age, you start to treat women like children with mammary glands. They're best seen and not heard.

Howdy ya'll,

My last post got me thinking about dating apps. They are the prevalent way of meeting women nowadays. Back when I was on them, alongside the usual corporate HR ducktalk and endless travel pics, I noticed a massive influx of a specific archetype: the woman looking for a "God-fearing man."

After speaking to a few of my friends I have noticed that it’s everywhere now—both on the apps and out in the wild.

For context, I grew up religious (Traditional Roman Catholic) when I was younger, so I know the language and the culture. But over time, my worldview shifted, and today I’m pretty much a materialist seeing religion from the lens a la Feuerbach: religion is a projection of ideas that we find within ourselves. I look at things through a practical, grounded lens. And looking at this trend through that lens, the math just isn't mathing. It got me thinking about the reality of what's actually happening in the modern US dating scene. It also got me thinking for our younglings on this esteemed subreddit that perhaps using church as a means to find a spouse just ain't gonna cut the mustard.

1. The Church Demographics Dilemma

The most obvious question is: If they want a devout, church-going man so badly, why aren't they finding him at church?

Religious communities are literally built around shared values and community. But if you look at actual demographics, modern church attendance is heavily skewed. The guys who are there are either already married, completely checked out, or don't meet the hyper-specific, checklist-heavy standards these women have cultivated online. So, they export their demands to the mainstream apps, hoping to convert or capture a guy who fits the bill.

2. Religion as a Tool, Not a Lifestyle

From a secular, practical standpoint, what I’ve observed time and time again is that "faith" is frequently used as a tool rather than a genuine lifestyle.

• They want the traditional benefits of a "God-fearing man"—someone who provides, protects, works himself to the bone, and stays strictly loyal.
• But they rarely want to offer the traditional reciprocity that historically goes along with it -- i.e. being a wife.

It feels less like a shared spiritual journey and more like a vetting strategy to find a guy who is easily agreeable, compliant, and bound by a moral code that keeps him locked down. It’s a utility strategy masked as piety. Nietzsche I suppose would have a field day with this.

3. The "Past Lifestyle" Reset

Let’s be real about another pattern in the wild: the sudden religious pivot. You see profiles of women who clearly spent their 20s living the modern, fast-paced lifestyle, only to suddenly find religion exactly when they decide it's time to settle down. Suddenly, they need a "provider who fears God." Coming from my perspective, it feels less like spiritual enlightenment and more like a tactical pivot because the lifestyle they chased for a decade didn't produce husband material.

Bottom Line

The western dating market is so depleted of genuine connection that even "religion" has been commodified. They want a guy with traditional, strict expectations of himself, but modern expectations of them.

Anyone else noticing this surge of secular-acting women demanding hyper-religious men on the apps lately? How are you guys navigating it?