Single, People Pleasing Guy Murdered by Neighbor (Incident Triggered by His People Pleasing) – Another Precaution for Codependents (and for Complementarian Women)

Single, People Pleasing Guy Murdered by Neighbor (Incident Triggered by His People Pleasing) – Another Precaution for Codependents (and for Complementarian Women)

I’m not blaming this guy for his own murder, but I am saying in this post if you’re a people pleaser, an empath, or a codependent and/or you are a woman who was brought up to believe in Christian gender complementarianism, you need to learn how to start having boundaries right away (regardless of what your church or church preacher thinks), and get very comfortable with saying “no” to people, or you could end up like this guy.

The chain of events that led to his death was his good nature, kindness, willingness to help other people and an inability to say “no” to people.

I suspect he was a codependent.

First, here is some background before I resume with my observations:

(Link): Ronald March Murder: Where is Lance Standberg Now?

Excerpts:

October 2022

A vicious attack in an alley in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada, left Ronald March dead in August 2012.

The authorities quickly found the person responsible, though, since both men had a history of animosity.

Investigation Discovery’s ‘Fear Thy Neighbor: Hell-Bent’ focuses on the events leading up to Ronald’s death and how the tragic attack occurred.

So, let’s find out more about what happened then, shall we?

How Did Ronald March Die?

Ronald William March was described as an avid reader and an intelligent man. Loved ones remembered the Vancouver resident as gentle and kind, always going out of his way to help others if needed.

Sex in Your 50s… Has the Rise of Mid-Life Dating Triggered a New Epidemic of Post-Coital Problems in Older Women?

Sex in Your 50s… Has the Rise of Mid-Life Dating Triggered a New Epidemic of Post-Coital Problems in Older Women?

Has the Rise of Mid-Life Dating Triggered a New Epidemic of Sexual Problems?

The article below is sex British-based, so I am unsure if all the products listed are available to Americans or others outside of Britain.

I don’t necessarily endorse sex outside of marriage – the doctor who wrote this is fine and dandy with people committing fornication.

After reading articles like the following, which discuss all the possible (health) ways sex can go wrong (lead to pain, discomfort, physical injury, etc), I don’t think sex sounds like it’s worth it. Sex sounds like more trouble than it’s worth.

This is an extremely long article. If you’d like to read it all, please use the link below:

(Link): Sex in your 50s… Has the rise of mid-life dating triggered a new epidemic of post-coital problems with one-in-three older woman suffering pain related to intimate liaisons?

Excerpts:

By Dr. Philippa Kaye
February 15, 2023

[The article beings by discussing a woman in her 60s named Anne who had only ever had sex with her husband, but he and she divorced a few years before, her daughters got her to join a dating app, she met a new man via the app, had sex with that guy, which resulted in physical health issues]

…I had to break it to Anne that as we age, while the spirit might be willing, the body, so to speak, isn’t always so up for new romance.

Sex after the menopause can continue to be enjoyable.

But, to put it bluntly, changes to the vagina mean that, for some women, this doesn’t come as naturally as they may have hoped. Without a small amount of medical help, sex can lead to discomfort, bleeding and infections.

I’d like to say at this point that patients like Anne are not unusual.

As our surgery’s women’s health specialist, cases like this often come to me, and over the past five years or so they’ve been increasingly frequent.

Divorce, desertion or the death of a partner all mean the same thing: people in middle age find themselves newly single.

And the rise of online and app-based dating services, while fantastic in many respects, has meant problems such as Anne’s are increasingly common.

… And if you are having a tough time becoming sexually active again with a new partner – or even struggling with a not-so-new one – there’s actually a lot GPs can do to help. Painful sex is not something you have to put up with.

The Chelsea Handler Childless Woman Upset: Other Conservatives Wrongly Conflating Married Motherhood with Womanhood or Happiness, Meaning, Purpose

The Chelsea Handler Childless Woman Upset: Other Conservatives Wrongly Conflating Married Motherhood with Womanhood or with Happiness, Meaning, or Purpose

After entertainer Chelsea Handler uploaded (Link): a Tweet with a video of herself listing the numerous ways she enjoys life due to being childless – I didn’t see anything in the video mentioning abortion – a lot of other conservatives jumped to shame and scold Handler for being happy about being childless and publicly expressing that happiness.

Others have said that Handler had two or three abortions in the past. The fact that Handler previously had abortions does not change the substance of my problems with conservative reaction to Handler’s video.

I am pro-life, not pro-choice, so I don’t agree with Handler’s actions to terminate her pregnancies.

However, again, I don’t recall Handler’s “happy to be childless” video advocating abortion or mentioning anything about abortion.

I don’t think her video criticized or shamed women for being mothers or for wanting to be mothers.

The only possible, even remotely “anti motherhood” take away one can get from her video is that mothers – assuming they are good, non-abusive mothers – invest a lot of time in child-rearing, but Handler doesn’t frame it in an anti-motherhood way.

It’s Okay For Women to Be Childless at Any Age and to be Happy About Being Childless, Just Like It’s Okay For Mothers to Be Happy About Being Mothers

Handler was just showing ways she has more free time because she doesn’t have to participate in childcare – which is not the same thing as being “anti-motherhood,” or telling other women they are wrong to be mothers.

It’s perfectly fine for a woman to be single and childless and to be happy about it.

Women can and should find meaning and purpose apart from marriage and motherhood. It’s unhealthy for any person to wrap up all their happiness, meaning, or purpose into one identity, station of life, or role.

If you are a married mother, your children will grow up, move out, and seldom visit you once they’re gone. Your husband may develop dementia, abuse you, or cheat on you, so that you will be without emotional support or you will have to divorce him.
In all these situations, you will be left with yourself, by yourself, and god help you if you never forged purpose, identity, happiness, or meaning apart from a spouse and children.

There’s no reason to criticize or shame an adult, man or woman, for being single and childless and for being happy about it and posting about it.

My fellow conservatives often push motherhood (via podcasts, tweets, magazine articles, church sermons, blog posts, etc) to a loopy, creepy, fevered pitch, about how super awesome, fulfilling, and wonderful motherhood supposedly is – but goodness forbid a childless woman lists or publicizes the ways she’s happy with being childless – and do so without criticizing motherhood or mothers. That’s a huge double standard.

I also didn’t agree with Handler’s mockery of single women who choose to remain virgins until marriage or to remain chaste (I blogged about that (Link): here a few years ago).

Unfortunately, in the midst of criticizing Handler, a lot of conservatives today were conflating “womanhood” to married motherhood. 

However, a woman remains a woman regardless if she has a child or is infertile, childless, or childfree, or whether she wants to have children or not.

The Myth of the Career Woman by M. Notkin – Why Women Are Still Single in Their 30s and Older

The Myth of the Career Woman by M. Notkin

I’m a conservative, but I’ve been beyond fed up for years now at how so many other conservatives, as well as sexists of whatever variety, assume that the reason why most women are single past the age of 30 is because they chose career before marriage.

Along with that is the other annoying, very wrong, and sexist assumption by men online that all of us women who remain single past the age of 30 had lots and lots of “nice guys” who wanted to date us back in our 20s, but we coldly, cruelly turned them all down.

I don’t know what the hell those men are talking about, because I did not have lots and lots of men asking me out on dates when I was in my twenties.

But it’s simply not true that all women choose career over “marriage and family.”

Why aren’t men giving up careers to be stay at home fathers, taking care of children?

I never cared much one way or the other if I ever had children, but I had wanted to be married. And I’m not single because I “chose career over spouse.”

I have more observations about this essay below:

(Link): The Myth of the Career Woman by M. Notkin

The image of the single, childless “career woman” is drawn so sharply in our minds, so deeply ingrained in culture and overused in media, it obfuscates the real story. Contrary to popular belief, most working women are not putting their careers ahead of love, marriage and motherhood.

Never mind that there are no “career men” — no one accuses a single, childless man of prioritizing career over love and family just because he’s single and can pay the rent.

But women are made to wear this label — though I have yet to meet a woman who has declined a date with a guy she’s interested in because she’d rather be on a Zoom call.

While college-educated women are settling down and having children later than was once the case, the “career woman” is mostly a mid-century myth, an outlier like Mad Men’s Peggy Olson, who belongs to a time when women went to college to earn their “MRS” degree.

Divorcee Learns to Enjoy Life Again After 35 Year Marriage Ends by J. Ivey

Divorcee Learns to Enjoy Life Again After 35 Year Marriage Ends by J. Ivey

I could not find a copy of this online, so I cannot link to it. I have a print copy.

Someone did upload a copy to Scribd, but you have to have a subscription or whatever to read past the first few paragraphs

Girlfriend Power

Excerpts:

February / March 2022

It was the first Valentine’s Day after my marriage ended. The last thing I wanted to do was go to a party with a bunch of single ladies

Girlfriend Power by Jennie Ivey

[The author opens the piece by explaining that she and her husband George were divorcing after 35 years of marriage.]

… For the first time in decades, I wasn’t part of a couple. For the first time in my life, I was living alone.

… Why oh why had I said I’d go to my friend Pat’s Valentine’s party? “Celebrate with other singles at a girls’ night in,” the invitation read. “Food! Music! Games! Fun!”

[Initially, she called her friend who was throwing the party to decline. The friend told her the reason for the party started years before, when her husband served her divorce papers on Valentine’s Day, and her father died on Valentine’s Day a few years prior. The friend replied,]

… “instead of moping around because we’re not coupled up, we get together to have a good time.” She wouldn’t take no for an answer.

“And one more thing, Jennie – you have to wear pink or red. It’s a Valentine’s party rule!”

[She mentions that her ex husband George was a surgeon, and while he wasn’t the greatest husband, he did okay on Valentine’s – he’d bring her flowers or candy in heart shaped boxes and so on]

Before I left for Pat’s I said a quick prayer. I hadn’t done a whole lot of praying since the breakup of my marriage. Sometimes I felt mad at God. Furious even.

Did he care that I was suddenly single at 60, an age when most couples were looking forward to retirement and spending time with their kids and grandkids together?

My prayer that evening was short and to the point: God, please show me how to be single.

The Most Important Factor in Aging Happily as a Single Person: Guest Post by Cathy Goodwin

The Most Important Factor in Aging Happily as a Single Person: Guest Post by Cathy Goodwin 

I think this is from Bella DePaulo’s Medium account.

By the way, the anecdote about all the married couples immediately departing from welcoming the new woman neighbor once they found out she had no husband?
Read the book “Singled Out” by Field and Colon to see example after example of Christians doing the SAME THING to new single adults who show up in their lives, even to church services or church events (such as luncheons) –
– the minute the married Christian women find out you are single and/or childless, they immediately act freaked out, or weirded out, and will turn their back on you to run across the room to greet a woman who they know is married and/or a mother.

Treating adult singles as though they are dangerous, weird, or flawed, and then immediately avoiding them to run off in search of another married mother to chat with, is very hurtful behavior to the adult singles in question, but it seems to be common behavior by married Christians in many churches and Christian culture.

Married Christian men treat single women as though they are all harlots, so they avoid single women, which is also insulting, demeaning, and hurtful behavior. (At least this is true of the Christian married men who aren’t looking to commit adultery.)

God says in the Bible he does not play favorites, and I believe God instructs Christians to avoid playing favorites
– which would mean, (and since so many Christians have turned The Nuclear Family into idols they worship), Christians do play favorites, they almost always prioritize married parents above single, childless adults, and so,
they will instantly ignore or otherwise marginalize any adult who crosses their path (even at church) if that adult is single and childless (ie, these adults don’t have a Nuclear Family of their own, they’re not married parents).

The church should not be doing this; the church is supposed to be above this behavior – but it’s not.

(Link): The Most Important Factor in Aging Happily as a Single Person: Guest Post by Cathy Goodwin

Excerpts:

Aging happily while single isn’t about doctors, diets or relationships. It’s about choosing the best place to live.

Nov 11, 2022

From Bella: Guest blogger Cathy Goodwin really knows how to get to the heart of things that matter to single people.

A guest post she wrote for my Living Single blog on (Link): how the medical establishment makes it hard for single people to get the care they need, is one that readers go back to again and again. Now she is out with a new, provocative book on aging, (Link): When I Grow Old I Plan to be a Bitch.

Prepare to hear some ideas you’ve never encountered before, and to laugh out loud along the way. I invited Cathy Goodwin to write a guest post about aging when single and I am delighted that she agreed.

The Most Important Factor in Aging Happily as a Single Person

By Cathy Goodwin

Go to any online forum about being single, growing older, or even “being single while growing older.” You’ll find dozens of posts like this:

“I can’t seem to find anything meaningful to occupy my time.”
“I’m having trouble making new friends.”
“I couldn’t get help when I was sick.”
“I feel like an outsider in my community.”
“I’m just not enjoying life the way I’d hoped.”
What happened to most of these folks?

They’d say they’re lonely. They might say, “It’s part of growing old.” They’d be wrong.

The truth is, they moved to a place that’s all wrong for them.

Single by Choice: Why I Am Content to Be Without a Plus-One by M. Weldon

Single by Choice: Why I Am Content to Be Without a Plus-One by M. Weldon

(Link): Single by Choice: Why I Am Content to Be Without a Plus-One

Excerpts:

And, no, I don’t have an affliction in need of a cure.

By Michele Weldon
October 17, 2022

…Married for nine years (we were together for 12) from the mid-’80s to the mid-’90s and divorced for the past 26 years, I have been in one serious, nearly seven-year relationship since my divorce. It was a mostly calm alliance that he ended with his declaration that he never was number one in my life, and needed to be.

…Proposing a rebuttal to Three Dog Night’s 1969 cover of “One Is the Loneliest Number,” I suggest that for many women 50 and older, being single is not just a holding pattern until the next best person comes along.

In her latest book, Not Too Old for That: How Women Are Changing the Story of Aging (2022), award-winning journalist and author Vicki Larson writes, “What if being self-partnered is nothing to fear, but something actually to celebrate?”

Survey Reveals Singles Over 50s Can Still Be A Good Catch

Survey Reveals Singles Over 50s Can Still Be A Good Catch

(Link): Survey reveals singles over 50s can still be a good catch

by Chris Matthews
Oct 3, 2022

Single over 50s can still find love but it helps if they have paid off their mortgage, can cook a Sunday lunch, have not married more than twice and have their own teeth, according to a survey.

A list of partner must-haves for over 50s singletons has been revealed in research, with sense of humour topping the list, as a massive six in ten said it was the number one thing they look for in a significant other.

Being well read, not having been married more than twice , having your own hair and being up to speed on current affairs are all factors which make someone over 50 more alluring.

I’m Pregnant With My Own Son’s Baby by A. Diaz – and Conservative Reactions to the News Story

I’m Pregnant With My Own Son’s Baby by A. Diaz – and Conservative Reactions to the News Story

This post has been edited after publication to add more commentary, links.

---

I find these types of stories to be a little… gross.

I see that conservative site “Not Babylon Bee” has shared this news story on their Twitter feed – as if to suggest they find this gross and icky.

They made it a point to mention that the age of the woman in the story is age 56 (you can see their tweet embedded in this post below).

However… I am a conservative who has spoken out on this blog for years about how too many secular and religious conservatives have turned parenthood, marriage, and the nuclear family into idols that they worship.

A reminder: I am not “anti parenthood,” I am not “anti marriage,” and I am not “anti nuclear family,” but I have been long disturbed by how so many conservatives have elevated parenthood, marriage, and the “the family” to an unhealthy degree, even beyond what the Bible itself does.

Among many conservatives, Motherhood is falsely said or thought to be a woman’s highest, or only, calling by God, which leaves never married and celibate women (such as myself) marginalized, or infertile women marginalized.

So… I find it a tad hypocritical that any conservative outlet would share this news story as though it’s gross, since they’re not being consistent with their hyper- pro- nuclear family, hyper- pro- parenthood view points.

The “Not Babylon Bee” site, to be consistent with their idolization of motherhood and the nuclear family, should be joyously proclaiming, “Oh, how lovely, this older lady is pregnant with her son’s baby.” But are they approaching it like that? Nope.

It’s possible I’m wrong, and they are, once more, unfortunately extolling the virtues of motherhood (as if being a baby carrier is a woman’s only value), but  the vibe I get is that they think it’s disturbing that a 56 year old is carrying, as a surrogate, her son’s kid.

Either way you slice it, Not Babylon Bee’s take on the topic can result in being sexist.

(Link): I’m Pregnant With My Own Son’s Baby by A. Diaz

Sept 22, 2022

A pregnant mother is expecting … her own grandchild.

Nancy Hauck, 56, can’t wait to give birth to her granddaughter. “I never planned for it, but I am so glad I chose to carry my son’s baby,” she told SWNS.

The grandmother offered to become a surrogate for her son Jeff, 32, and his wife Cambria, 30, after her daughter-in-law had a life-saving hysterectomy following the traumatic birth of their second set of twins.

“I just suddenly had a feeling a few months after that I should offer to do it,” she explained. “I told my son, and he teared up and was shocked — I hadn’t even told my husband at that point. But he was really supportive.”

The young couple had struggled for six years before they welcomed twins, Vera and Ayva, now three, and then, Diseal and Luka, 11 months, via IVF.

Number of ‘Lonely, Single’ Men is on the Rise as Women with Higher Dating Standards Look for Partners Who are ‘Emotionally Available, Good Communicators, and Share Similar Values’, Says Psychologist

Number of ‘Lonely, Single’ Men is on the Rise as Women with Higher Dating Standards Look for Partners Who are ‘Emotionally Available, Good Communicators, and Share Similar Values’, Says Psychologist

If any of the usual conservative commentators, male or female, get wind of this article by this psychologist, they will somehow try to pin the blame for more men going single longer – on all women, or on feminism.

I’m a conservative who doesn’t agree with progressive woke ideology, but I’ve noticed that other conservatives, despite claiming to believe in the concept of ‘personal responsibility’ never- the- less do not want to hold men accountable for the failures of men, whether on the individual level or men as a group.

Then, these same conservatives, who bemoan the “victimhood” mentality of progressivism, go on to depict all men as being poor, put upon victims.

If men of today are finding it more difficult to get dates, they need to take personal responsibility and work on improving themselves, rather than go the usual “blame feminism” or “blame all women” route, which is what they normally do.

I can see secular and Christian conservatives blaming women for this phenomenon – they are going to blame and shame women, and yell at women to lower their standards.

I find it absolutely refreshing to learn from these articles that women are now vastly out-numbered on dating sites.

I think I read the figure is 62%; that is, 62% of the participants on dating sites are male, the rest are female, so that women have the pick of the litter, LOL. This is a nice turn around.

This is the total opposite of churches.

Most churches have gender imbalances that favor single men – most churches have way more single women than single men. If you’re a single, practicing Christian woman that wants marriage, you need to dump the “equally yoked” rule and perhaps giving dating sites a second look.

Not that dating sites and apps are a god-send, because there are weirdos, rapists, and wackos on there, but you have more single men to choose from on dating sites than in many churches.

(Link):  The Rise of Lonely, Single Men by Greg Matos

Excerpts:

Dating apps and a drastically changing relationship landscape.

KEY POINTS

• • Dating opportunities for heterosexual men are diminishing as relationship standards rise.
  • Men represent approximately 62% of dating app users, lowering their chances for matches.
  • Men need to address skills deficits to meet healthier relationship expectations.

(Link): Number of ‘lonely, single’ men is on the rise as women with higher dating standards look for partners who are are ’emotionally available, good communicators, and share similar values’, says psychologist

August 15, 2022
by Jessica Green

Men are lonelier than ever as they struggle to meet the higher dating standards of modern women, according to a psychologist.

American psychologist Greg Matos wrote in a recent Psychology Today article that the current state of young and middle-aged men’s love lives shows they need to ‘address a skills deficit’.

He said: ‘I hear recurring dating themes from women between the ages of 25 and 45: They prefer men who are emotionally available, good communicators, and share similar values’.

Yet, he claimed he’s found that modern men’s biggest problem is communication, which is ‘the lifeblood of healthy, long-term love’.

It comes as data shows dating apps are overrun with men – who represent 62 per cent of users – and figures collected in the US in 2019 showed more men than women were single.

Dr Matos said society fails to teach young boys the importance of communication, which has resulted in growing numbers of unintentionally single men.

Your Attitude About Aging Could Add 7.5 Years to Your Life

Your Attitude About Aging Could Add 7.5 Years to Your Life

One thing this article seems to be saying is that a problem you have in life is not your problem per se, but how you choose to view your problem – a perspective I’ve begun to appreciate in the last few years.

(Link): Your Attitude About Aging Could Add 7.5 Years to Your Life

April 23, 2022
By Haley Goldberg

When Yale professor Becca Levy began conducting her decades-long research on the psychology of aging, she would routinely ask people to think of five words to describe an older person. In the US, the most common answer was “memory loss.” In China, it was “wisdom.”

As her research would find, the answer to this question had major impact. Your answer could fundamentally change how you age — even adding 7.5 years to your life.

In the new book “Breaking the Age Code: How Your Beliefs About Aging Determine How Long & Well You Live,” Levy draws on decades of research and interviews to show how positive age beliefs are key to enjoying our golden years — and maintaining our health.

“In study after study I conducted, I found that older people with more-positive perceptions of aging performed better physically and cognitively than those with more-negative perceptions,” Levy writes. “They were more likely to recover from severe disability, they remembered better, they walked faster, and they even lived longer.”

Divorce Attorney Reveals SHOCKING Reasons That DESTROY Relationships And Cause Bad BREAKUPS – via ‘Women of Impact’

Divorce Attorney Reveals SHOCKING Reasons That DESTROY Relationships And Cause Bad BREAKUPS – via ‘Women of Impact’

I’m not even half way done with this video yet (linked to and embedded below in this post), but this lady in the video is giving some great insights and advice. (I’ve just finished listening to the entire video, and it is worth the entire watch.)

The lady in the video mentions she didn’t get married until around (or a bit after?) age 40.

The divorce attorney (who later became a judge, if I understand correctly) said up until that point, she did get a lot of questions from people asking her why she wasn’t married yet.

(I also had to put up with that, or with other nasty assumptions, from others, when I was still single into my 30s. I was raised in a conservative Christian church, and a lot of Christians wrongly assume if you’re a woman who has not married by the age of 30 or 35, it’s because you are a man-hating feminist or that that you were too “career focused.” It’s a very victim-blaming, sexist world view.)

Some of the points this lady, Faith Jenkins, addressed in the video includes but is not limited to (these are also points I’ve learned along the way with life experience, and just mulling things over):

• You have to know who you are and figure out who you are before you get married.
• It’s far more healthy to learn to be single before you get married.
• Don’t wait to get married to start living and enjoying your life – she says, “being single is not a rest stop. [At the time I was single I concluded that] it’s time for me to really live.”
• Don’t look to someone outside of yourself to make you happy.

(Note from me, the blog owner: this is a big one.
If you go through life making your sense of self worth, happiness, or opinion about yourself contingent upon external circumstances or on how others treat you, you will never, ever achieve stable, consistent, or lasting healthy self esteem or happiness
– and along the way, if you keep making your self worth contingent on how others treat you or their opinions of you, you will tend to attract selfish people, abusers, and very emotionally needy people who will want all your time and attention, leaving you drained
– I’ve learned the hard way that many of the people who will want to use you as a sounding board, a “rock” they lean on, will not return that courtesy to you – they won’t allow you to talk to them about your problems)

• She says you should know who you are before you marry – I think this is also a good idea prior to dating.

If you know who you are prior to dating or marriage (you know your identity and your likes, your dislikes, and your values), you won’t change to please someone else (a lot of abusive or controlling people will either badger you, pressure you, threaten, or demand that you make changes to yourself or your life to please them), and it makes it easier to weed out incompatible or potentially abusive partners.

• She discourages you from trying to clean up, fix, rescue another person, what she refers to as “rebuilding” another person.

I agree with her on that – you ultimately cannot change another person, and you will only exhaust yourself trying. I think a lot of women who do this are people pleasers or codependents, and it’s a huge waste of time.