# Muck Tests



## AFEH (May 18, 2010)

I’ve started a new thread on this for a very specific reason. The reason is I think there’s a massive misunderstanding on what a shet test is.

A shet test is an outright act of aggression. As an act of aggression it is designed to hurt and wound and maybe to dominate as well.

There are two types of aggression. One is overt the other covert (passive aggression). An overt act of aggression would be if your wife thumped you in the face. A covert act of aggression is a shet test.

Both are best handled with boundaries of intolerance. “I do not accept that behaviour”. It is then for the overt or covert aggressive abuser to modify their behaviour, or not as the case may be.

If, in the face of your boundary your wife continues with her acts of aggression (her shet tests) you know for a fact that you live with an aggressive woman who is unable to (pathologically/compulsively) control her own behaviour and a woman who wants to hurt and wound you.

Fitness tests are very different to shet tests. Fitness tests are perfectly healthy and normal and used during the courting stage. They may later be used after your wife has had an affair. For example she wants to reconcile, but is she remorseful, is she sorry, can she truly see the harm she has done etc.


----------



## AFEH (May 18, 2010)

How do you know if you’ve been shet tested or fitness tested?

You can easily see a man who is constantly shet tested. He usually looks pretty sad and may even look depressed. Within himself he will feel very mentally confused and as though he is hurting. He will have a lot of negative emotions inside of him.

This is much the same as a woman who is physically abused with the exception that her physical wounds may show, although they may well be hidden from view.

You know you’ve failed a fitness test if she wont go on a second date. You know you’ve failed a fitness if she wont reconcile after you’ve had an affair.

With both shet tests and fitness either way you may well feel negative emotions but the cause will be very different.


----------



## alphaomega (Nov 7, 2010)

Afeh

Perhaps we are on different wavelengths. To me, both are the same. Some say it's behaviorally embedded in a female that she will continue to test you throughout her entire marriage, even after dating, to see if you are still both mating and parenting material. This would be an unconscious effort on her part, and often, though not always, done without malicious intent.

I think what you are getting at is direct and malicious acts of aggression designed to hurt and punish. I'm not sure that's a shat test....? I would call that sociopathy.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


----------



## CandieGirl (Apr 27, 2011)

Can somebody give me a clear example of a sh!t test AND a fitness test please?


----------



## AFEH (May 18, 2010)

There is a difference in the instinctual, primal responses to a shet test vs. a fitness test. With both types of tests the person on the receiving end will feel sadness and disappointment.

But the person receiving a shet test will also feel an immediate, primal anger. This is a natural anger response to the aggression and associated wound of the shet test.

And again this is where boundaries come in. This time it’s an out going boundary such that the angry man does NOT respond to his anger with his aggression. If he does that, then all is lost. For him at least.

What happens next depends on the depth of the wound and the level of his anger. More often than not the man must walk away, process, management and dissipate his anger in healthy ways. This is another boundary “I will not let my anger turn me into an aggressive man”.

The really big thing is NOT to turn his anger into aggression. If he does that then he will in turn shet test his wife but probably in an overt, not covert way. And so it goes on.

Sometimes the man internalises his anger which unbeknown to him does big damage to his internal systems. Anger processing and management is a very big part of “manning up”.

And then he returns after the shet test with a new incoming boundary which says something like “I will not tolerate that type of behaviour”.

How many times he has to assert that boundary will totally depend upon his wife’s levels of self control and how much patience and tolerance the guy has. Unfortunately the latter just gives the go ahead for yet more shet tests.

It will also greatly depend on his wife’s own pain and anger management processes. She’s already pretty screwed. Effective boundaries put the onus on her to get herself sorted.


----------



## AFEH (May 18, 2010)

alphaomega said:


> Afeh
> 
> Perhaps we are on different wavelengths. To me, both are the same. Some say it's behaviorally embedded in a female that she will continue to test you throughout her entire marriage, even after dating, to see if you are still both mating and parenting material. This would be an unconscious effort on her part, and often, though not always, done without malicious intent.
> 
> ...


You get to know if you are living with a sociopath or not by having effective boundaries. You just tell them you don’t tolerate that behaviour and if they continue for sure you then know you are married to a sociopath!

Some sociopaths are very highly functioning, not so extreme and yes some are married. And sociopaths probably think their behaviour is normal. They do play some seriously dysfunctional games.

The last thing you want to do is play games with them because there’s only one loser in that game.

WE can all, male and female, get “mad in the moment” and lash out with something designed to hurt. And typically we all regret it and feel remorseful when we do. And yes that is a shet test, an aggressive act design to hurt.

It’s the not in the moment anger and aggression, the planned aggression, the planned shet test that is the single biggest problem.


----------



## AFEH (May 18, 2010)

CandieGirl said:


> Can somebody give me a clear example of a sh!t test AND a fitness test please?


Fitness tests are easy. One example would be the list of tick boxes some women have for a prospective husband. If a guy gets all the boxes ticked, he’s passed her fitness test, if not he failed.

Fitness tests are not designed to hurt (although they can), they are not acts of aggression.

A shet test would be “All my other boyfriends have a bigger penis than you”. An exceedingly aggressive act. And it may not even be true.


----------



## CandieGirl (Apr 27, 2011)

AFEH said:


> Fitness tests are easy. One example would be the list of tick boxes some women have for a prospective husband. If a guy gets all the boxes ticked, he’s passed her fitness test, if not he failed.
> 
> Fitness tests are not designed to hurt (although they can), they are not acts of aggression.
> 
> A shet test would be “*All my other boyfriends have a bigger penis than you*”. An exceedingly aggressive act. And it may not even be true.


Oh god...I have never said anything like that...to anyone! But how is that a test? It just seems to be a rather cruel statement. Wouldn't a shet test be more along the lines of some type of silly game, such as a woman pretending a man is flirting/chasing her, for the sole purpose of trying to make her husband jealous?

Fitness tests on the other hand, would seem that they can be 'conducted' privately. Am I right? Just going by your example above...


----------



## AFEH (May 18, 2010)

How is it a test? It’s a test for how the man responds to it.

Normally a guy responds to shet tests with anger and maybe aggression. If he does, in effect his wife has “won”. She achieved her aim in wounding him and she knows the depth of the wound not only by the expression on his face and his demeanour but by the level of his anger as well.

I like watching Judge Judy on occasion. The last episode there was an 11 year old girl and a twelve year old boy. The boy had hit the girl and her mother was suing for medical compensation. They had been cute on one another or whatever it’s called at that age and the parents put a stop to it because they’re 2nd cousin related (JJ reckoned the parents were over the top). It turned out the girl had taken the boy’s long term friend to the playground and was playing with him right under the boy’s nose. He got angry and hit her.

JJ has daughters and says she saw them developing the skill of getting right under people’s skin from age four. She took it very seriously that the girl had deliberately antagonised the boy and really tried to get through to the girl’s mother what a bad thing it is to do.

The girl performed a shet test on the boy, at age eleven. The boy failed her shet test because he hit her. He didn’t fail it for her, he failed it for himself, if that makes sense.

Shet tests are a deeply dysfunctional and sometimes downright wicked and evil manipulation of a man’s emotions. The more maladjusted a woman is, the more shet tests she will perform. It is all about healing wounds and anger management. Some never heal their wounds, so they live a life performing shet tests.


----------



## alphaomega (Nov 7, 2010)

“All my other boyfriends have a bigger penis than you”

Omg. If I heard that statement come out of a girls mouth towards me I think I would start laughing my head off. A statement like that drips with juvenile behavior.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


----------



## Tall Average Guy (Jul 26, 2011)

AFEH said:


> Fitness tests are easy. One example would be the list of tick boxes some women have for a prospective husband. If a guy gets all the boxes ticked, he’s passed her fitness test, if not he failed.
> 
> Fitness tests are not designed to hurt (although they can), they are not acts of aggression.
> 
> A shet test would be “All my other boyfriends have a bigger penis than you”. An exceedingly aggressive act. And it may not even be true.


But there are also in relationship fitness tests. Tests about making sure that I am keeping my emotionally stability. My wife gave them, and I generally failed until the last couple of years. As I learned and started passing them, they increased briefly, then really decreased in both amount and intensity. 

The last one I can really remember was about 3-4 months ago (and I think I have mentioned it here). I was doing some paperwork while my wife was relaxing a bit. After finishing, I got myself a beer and sat down. About five minutes later, she asked me to go to the basement, get a bottle of wine from the fridge, and pour her a glass. I told her to call the butler to see if he was still on duty. She laughed, gave me a good kiss as she got up, and did it herself. We ended up having great sex that night.

I really don't think she even thought about the exchange, and I don't think that was the cause of the great sex. I do think that my reaction was what she really wanted - a confirmation that I am her man, not her servant. In a sense, it is her (subconsiously) taking the temperature of the relationship and ensuring that I am still being the man she needs.


----------



## AFEH (May 18, 2010)

But surely you were the one shet testing (as opposed to fitness testing) your wife? Or did you really not think to ask her if she’d like a drink?


----------



## AFEH (May 18, 2010)

But why did the eleven year old girl perform a shet test on the boy? It was an aggressive act designed to cause pain and wound. But why?

If he hadn’t responded at all then she would have known that he doesn’t have feelings for her anymore. But what a maladjusted and dysfunctional way to find out. Where did she learn that behaviour, or is it instinctual?

Did she want to wound him deeply and thereby generate so much anger in him such that he couldn’t control his aggression and hit her and he got into trouble? Which is actually what happened. Where did she learn such behaviour from or was it instinctual?

Had he hurt and wounded her and her anger and aggression was designed to get her revenge?

Did she have any reason at all to be aggressive towards him? Had somebody else wounded her and he was the one who got her revenge? Does she just enjoy hurting people? What’s the future for such a girl? 

Personally I don’t see any of the above as a “Sign of love”. I do though see it as dysfunctional, maladjusted anger and aggression management. I was really impressed the length JJ went to find out what had happened before the boy had hit the girl. Apparently she’s been a family judge for going on three decades.


----------



## AgentD (Dec 27, 2010)

I used to take tests..when I was in school!


----------



## Tall Average Guy (Jul 26, 2011)

AFEH said:


> But surely you were the one shet testing (as opposed to fitness testing) your wife? Or did you really not think to ask her if she’d like a drink?


Not really. She had gotten a drink (my recollection was that it was a glass of water) about 10-15 minutes prior while I was getting my stuff finished and put away. Both of use are usually pretty good about offering to get the other something when we are already up. For whatever reason, she did not when she was up this time.


----------



## AFEH (May 18, 2010)

alphaomega said:


> “All my other boyfriends have a bigger penis than you”
> 
> Omg. If I heard that statement come out of a girls mouth towards me I think I would start laughing my head off. A statement like that drips with juvenile behavior.
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


What I am trying to bring to others attention is covert aggression. Everyone knows about overt aggression.

There are those who have not a clue about the covert aggressives game! Not a clue. They just don’t know what hit them when they are hit by a passive/covert aggressive person. It’s both invisible and deniable.

There are others who confront issues at the time they happen and get them resolved. There are those who heal their own wounds, forgive and never walk the path of revenge. Those types of people have zero need for acts of covert aggression and no need for revenge and so they haven’t a clue what covert/passive aggression is all about!

I’m unfortunately now quite experienced at passive/covert aggression and can see it coming not perhaps from a mile away but most certainly when it’s affected me. I just never knew there were so many covertly aggressive people around and wouldn’t be at all surprised if it was greater than the number of overtly aggressive people.

It’s the overtly aggressive people that “hit the headlines” as their acts of aggression are all too plain to see. Covert aggression is invisible such that it can be denied, be deceptive about, lied about, blame shifted … and hence never be proved! Unless of course you snoop like I did. But even then it’s “minimised”. Covert aggression is amazingly sneaky, cunning and I think cowardly and takes a great actor to carry it out.


----------



## donny64 (Apr 21, 2012)

I just received an overt chit test the other day...out of left field. 

Was sitting outside finishing up on the computer, and she instead of opening door and asking me to come in for dinner, stood in the doorway and had a "look" on her face, like she was angry. I looked back and mouthed "what"? She turned to walk back to the kitchen. I got up and went inside and asked what was up. Thought maybe she was angry about something, like maybe I didn't help mix the salad when she went in and said "I'm going to get the salad ready". 

At any rate, I walked in and she said "it's ready". I was like, "well, uhm, okayyyyy, why didn't you say something". She said "I'm hungry". I repsonded, "well, okay, let's eat then". I was a little ticked at the stern look she tossed through the glass door, but let it go.

Here next move was not her best one. As we grabbed plates to go sit down, she said "Ha ha...I got my way".

I put my plate down, said "uhm, NO, you did not" and walked back outside and got back on the laptop.

Classic chit test.

She was out a few seconds later. "What, are you mad?!!! I was joking!". I just said "babe, we have never played those kind of games or talked to each other that way, and we are not starting now. I'm not a toy or a dog you're trying to get to do a trick...so don't treat me like one".

Very calm and non-aggressive on both parts. Chit test was given, taken, and the fallout over in all of 2 minutes. She may not have realized what she was doing and maybe thought it a little joke...but I did the instant it happened.


----------



## Drover (Jun 11, 2012)

alphaomega said:


> Afeh
> 
> Perhaps we are on different wavelengths. To me, both are the same.


Yeah, I think AFEH is trying to come up with his own terminology, or else he's the one with the massive misunderstanding of what a sh*t test is. His own personal definition of a sh*t test sounds like just her being a *****.


----------



## AFEH (May 18, 2010)

Drover said:


> Yeah, I think AFEH is trying to come up with his own terminology, or else he's the one with the massive misunderstanding of what a sh*t test is. His own personal definition of a sh*t test sounds like just her being a *****.


All of a sudden you are an expert at being a Non Nice Guy. You read a couple of books and an expert you become.

Books just give you information, data. Knowledge comes from experience. As you go through your manning up process you will become experienced in it’s application. But still you might not learn because some people never do. But if you do learn from your experiences you will then have gained knowledge. Yet still you might not be the expert you profess to be now.

For me you are somewhat blind to what goes on around you. A lot of people are. That’s why I recommended Awareness by Anthony de Mello.

Your game on post. For me as a man who had sex with his wife whenever he wanted and as much passion as any man could desire for over 40 years your post was truly weird. I was a bit tempted to respond to it but in a mocking way, so I left it alone.

Others kind of cheered you on, I assumed that’s because they know the depths of this Nice Guy thing whereas I don’t and they recognised what a mighty step it was for you. For me it seemed juvenile. I will say, that if I did what you did to my wife she wouldn’t have liked it one little bit and would have thought me a truly weird man.


----------



## happylovingwife (Jun 5, 2012)

I've recently begun read MMSL. I'm a woman and am in a very happy marriage. There is no real need for me to read these type of blogs, because we legitimately are very healthy. However, my intellectual nature is of extreme inquisitiveness into psychology and especially men's psychology. It really intrigues me to see how the other side thinks. That's why I enjoy TAM. I've learned so much about men in general and I think that's useful as a wife so that we stay happily married and also as a mom of two boys. 

With that introduction under way, here are my thoughts on shet tests. My first reaction was, "Oh I don't do those..." Then I thought about the course of our relationship and I remembered that I used to do the fitness and shet tests frequently. We started dating when I was 17, and I came from an extremely dysfunctional home. My mom was single mom and was bipolar type II (not rapid cycling but has long episodes of mania and delusions). So even thought I did extremely well in school and was well-adjusted by all outward appearances, I was reeling inside. Along comes this extremely generous and loving boy who was head-over-heels in love with me. I was very pretty and athletic and he was a bit of a nerd in high school (handsome though). I knew he had potential to be a pretty perfect husband some day but at the time I was very conscious of my higher sex rank (to keep terminology consistent). I fell deeply in love with this boy but at times I would do these awful, mean things to him. I didn't even know why I did it. I really wouldn't understand it myself. 

These shet tests came pretty often in the beginning because he was young and adored me. As time went by, he became more mature and more manly and actually threatened to dump me a few times. I thought he was serious and the shet tests became pretty infrequent. After another 10 years, they shet tests have all but stopped. Reasons I guess: 1. He is in a position of authority over a lot of people at work now at a big company so he knows how to handle things like a man now. 2. I would estimate his sex rank is at least equal to mine if not exceeding it. I hate to use such crass terms, but I know I could be replaced if I continued to act the way I did in my youth. He still adores me, BUT I give him reason to love me now. I think my explanation has made our relationship look really shallow on paper. The way I write it almost makes me look like I only act good because I'm afraid he'll leave. That's really not the case. I act better now because I'm more mature and my dysfunctional past has become a memory now that I've been in a healthy relationship for 13 years. I've also learned to really appreciate how amazing my husband is. I WANT to make him truly happy. I research ways to make him happy. Seeing him smile is one of my biggest driving forces. 

I'm sorry if this tangent is too long or not useful. I just wanted to give a woman's perspective of shet tests. They do exist and most of the time they're truly unconscious. We do them as a way to see the man's true feelings. Sometimes I think men do such a good job of hiding their feelings that we as women feel the need to push them to an expression of them.


----------



## Tall Average Guy (Jul 26, 2011)

happylovingwife said:


> I've recently begun read MMSL. I'm a woman and am in a very happy marriage. There is no real need for me to read these type of blogs, because we legitimately are very healthy. However, my intellectual nature is of extreme inquisitiveness into psychology and especially men's psychology. It really intrigues me to see how the other side thinks. That's why I enjoy TAM. I've learned so much about men in general and I think that's useful as a wife so that we stay happily married and also as a mom of two boys.
> 
> With that introduction under way, here are my thoughts on shet tests. My first reaction was, "Oh I don't do those..." Then I thought about the course of our relationship and I remembered that I used to do the fitness and shet tests frequently. We started dating when I was 17, and I came from an extremely dysfunctional home. My mom was single mom and was bipolar type II (not rapid cycling but has long episodes of mania and delusions). So even thought I did extremely well in school and was well-adjusted by all outward appearances, I was reeling inside. Along comes this extremely generous and loving boy who was head-over-heels in love with me. I was very pretty and athletic and he was a bit of a nerd in high school (handsome though). I knew he had potential to be a pretty perfect husband some day but at the time I was very conscious of my higher sex rank (to keep terminology consistent). I fell deeply in love with this boy but at times I would do these awful, mean things to him. I didn't even know why I did it. I really wouldn't understand it myself.
> 
> ...


I would suggest that you also love and trust him because he has demonstrated that he is the type of man that you want and is worthy of placing your trust with. Hanlding these tests is a way for you to (subconsiously) make sure he is what your consious thinks he is. I suspect that you do occasionaly test him even now, though probably in a pretty mild way. He likely handles them so effortlessly now that you don't even realize what happened.


----------



## AFEH (May 18, 2010)

Wow. That’s fabulous happylovingwife and we need more good women like you to step forward and help these guys out. I truly admire good women like you who speak out in the way you have done.

I was with my wife from when she was sixteen (I was eighteen) right up till she was nearly sixty. I witnessed and experienced many changes in her, not least her shet tests and fitness tests in the years we were courting. Unfortunately some types of shet tests are premeditated in the form of covert/passive aggression and it’s difficult to differentiate between what is and what isn’t a conscious act. But mostly man is blinded by his wounds and anger when he’s on the other end of them and that’s all he sees and feels. But the woman knows “mission accomplished”.

I’m truly glad things have settled down for you and you are having a good life. There are many phases within a marriage as I am sure you now know. You’ve a few more to come as yet and I’m certain they’ll test the two of you and I’m certain you’ll come out of them even better people.


----------



## AFEH (May 18, 2010)

Menstruation can be a source of shet tests. Your wife can feel pretty uncomfortable even to the point of being in pain, run down due to the loss of iron, frustrated because she feels like she does and it may even prevent her doing something she enjoys. In fact she may well be feeling angry (at men, at the world, at you) inside!

We had two sons. At the time two little men and one big one. And some relationship problems, financial problems and all the normal things. I could see though, a time when I had my donkey blinkers off, that things got kind of got intense on a monthly basis. Although I’d had a mother and two younger sisters in my life I had not a clue about the emotional and psychological effects of the period.

I began to realise that on a monthly basis I was being quite seriously poked, shet tested. And I wondered what to do about it. I decided to simply duck and not respond. That was quite a big decision for me and I had a chat with our sons and asked them to duck as well. I couldn’t believe how quickly the situation changed. My wife more or less immediately saw what was happening and no longer let her internal anger turn into external covert/passive aggression designed to wound me.


----------



## AFEH (May 18, 2010)

I think one of the biggest sources of shet tests, passive/covert aggression, is resentment.

Resentment: (also called ranklement or bitterness) is the experience of a negative emotion (anger or hatred, for instance) felt as a result of a real or imagined wrong done.

So if your wife is resentful, inside of her she will have anger and/or hatred inside of her for you. She may well also love you at the same time. But if you have a wife who has inside of her unresolved resentment (unresolved anger, unresolved hatred), then she will undoubtedly shet test you. That is, she will think of passive/covert aggressive ways of wounding you.

Most significantly this is done by withdrawing, withholding her love from you in order to wound you. If she knows you like sex, she will withhold sex from you in order to hurt you. If she knows you like a certain type of cake, she will stop baking that cake for you. These are well thought out acts of aggression designed specifically to wound you.

For me it’s crazy stuff. It’s lack hacking away at and destroying the very foundations of the home you are living in. And then being surprised when indeed the home has collapsed right on top of them.

Resentful people keep their anger and hatred inside of them for years, sometimes decades. Instead of healing their wounds they keep picking and poking away at it to keep it open. That’s how they hang on to their anger and resentment. It’s crazy making stuff.

I had an Uncle who was a mentor for me, the man I’d go to when in need of some wisdom. In his later years in his eighties I enjoyed sitting with him trying to get him to talk about “the old days” which he enjoyed doing. But all the while there was his wife pecking away at him, talking about the times when he was angry.

I knew that my Aunt was an Agoraphobic. Every single day of his working life while they were married for over 60 years, he would call her at 12:00, let the phone ring three times and then put it down. She never ever mentioned that. He loved South Africa having read Wilbur Smith’s novels and he could have gone and stayed there for three months with his elder son who worked there, but he didn’t because of his wife. She didn’t even consider let alone mention that or any other sacrifice he made for her.

All she could do is keep picking at her wounds to keep them open and her anger and hatred going right up to the day he passed away. My wife’s resentment and her subsequent covert/passive aggressive acts are the major reason I ended my marriage and the major reason I haven’t restarted it.

I think resentment is the biggest source of shet tests ever in marriages and many marriages fail because of it. Quite simply because although the two people may well still be “in love” with one another they let their resentment kill their loving actions off. And so love dies and if a man’s got any sense the marriage dies as well.


----------



## Drover (Jun 11, 2012)

CandieGirl said:


> Can somebody give me a clear example of a sh!t test AND a fitness test please?


They're the same thing.


----------



## Drover (Jun 11, 2012)

AFEH said:


> All of a sudden you are an expert at being a Non Nice Guy. You read a couple of books and an expert you become.
> 
> Books just give you information, data. Knowledge comes from experience. As you go through your manning up process you will become experienced in it’s application. But still you might not learn because some people never do. But if you do learn from your experiences you will then have gained knowledge. Yet still you might not be the expert you profess to be now.
> 
> ...


Relax, man. I think you have me confused with someone else.


----------



## Racer (Sep 24, 2009)

Drover said:


> They're the same thing.


Umm... No. A fitness test has a lot more to do with testing your boundaries and exploring who you are as a person put into a "situation". Like her trying to encourage you to take her to a strip club, then getting pissed that you did and 'looked at those girls' followed by berating you for objectifying women...

A sh1t test I found has more to do with testing her place in your life and where she stands. Does he love me? Then she'll create a situation where your proper response she wants is for you to somehow prove it. Does he trust me? And doing something where you have to prove it. It's all about you proving something to quench her silly insecurities.

There are crossovers like the strip joint thing. "A good husband wouldn't let a delicate flower like herself go into a joint like that." (sh1t test element). The rest is about judging you once you are in the place to show you where you are flawed...


----------



## AFEH (May 18, 2010)

Drover said:


> They're the same thing.


Man has many and sometimes weird ego defence mechanisms. Sometimes the thought of our wife deliberately and maliciously wounding us is so unpalatable we simply deny even the possibility. She’s my wife, she’d never deliberately hurt me! I am way too good a man for her to hurt deliberately me! I would never deliberately hurt her and I know for a fact she’s exactly the same as me in that respect!


Yet within your marriage you are a hurt and wounded man. And still you deny the possibility that your wife is deliberately and consciously hurting you. Research denial, take a look at Denial - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.


----------



## AFEH (May 18, 2010)

There’s a whole host of personality disorders each being the source of shet tests. These PDs are categorised into Clusters: (from Personality disorder - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia).

_Cluster A (odd or eccentric disorders)
Not to be confused with Type A personality.
Paranoid personality disorder: characterized by irrational suspicions and mistrust of others.
Schizoid personality disorder: lack of interest in social relationships, seeing no point in sharing time with others, anhedonia, introspection.
Schizotypal personality disorder: characterized by odd behaviour or thinking.

Cluster B (dramatic, emotional or erratic disorders)
Not to be confused with Type B personality.
Antisocial personality disorder: a pervasive disregard for the rights of others, lack of empathy, and (generally) a pattern of regular criminal activity.
Borderline personality disorder: extreme "black and white" thinking, instability in relationships, self-image, identity and behaviour often leading to self-harm and impulsivity. Borderline personality disorder is diagnosed in three times as many females as males.[13]
Histrionic personality disorder: pervasive attention-seeking behaviour including inappropriately seductive behaviour and shallow or exaggerated emotions.
Narcissistic personality disorder: a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and a lack of empathy. Characterized by self-importance, preoccupations with fantasies, belief that they are special, including a sense of entitlement and a need for excessive admiration, and extreme levels of jealousy and arrogance.

Cluster C (anxious or fearful disorders)
Avoidant personality disorder: social inhibition, feelings of inadequacy, extreme sensitivity to negative evaluation and avoidance of social interaction.
Dependent personality disorder: pervasive psychological dependence on other people.
Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (not the same as obsessive-compulsive disorder): characterized by rigid conformity to rules, moral codes and excessive orderliness.


Appendix B contains the following disorders.[14]
Depressive personality disorder – is a pervasive pattern of depressive cognitions and behaviours beginning by early adulthood.
Passive-aggressive (negativistic) personality disorder – is a pattern of negative attitudes and passive resistance in interpersonal situations._


These PDs are on a spectrum. Some people have a PD but are very high functioning in other areas and so live more or less very healthy lives and have no need whatever to be sectioned or medicated which only happens in extreme cases.

There’s a new PD being proposed called Post Embitterment Stress Disorder. These are people never able to heal wounds from their past and so carry their anger, hatred and subsequent aggression around with them all the time.

This of course is resentment. So a man may well be married to a woman who’s aggression is not at all anything to do with him but has everything to do with someone else. But the woman doesn’t realise for some reason or other that she’ll never have peace and contentment inside of her and around her until she has healed her wounds. She’ll just take her aggressive “life” from one relationship to the next.


----------



## AFEH (May 18, 2010)

The single biggest thing with each and every shet test is for the man to look at and understand his emotions. To name his emotions, to manage and process them. For me this is a lot of manning up work, it’s work headed in our direction of individuation, of becoming “whole”. A very necessary part of a man’s life is the processing and management of his own emotions.

In that way he is able to see what’s going on around him very much more clearly in that he has control of his emotions, his wife no longer has.

Faced with a shet test, if you are alive inside you will be angry. That anger is instinctual and natural and we’re designed that way for exceedingly good and valid reasons. But you do need to manage and control your anger, not respond to it as Neanderthal Man.

Your anger is based on pain, you have been wounded either subconsciously or consciously by your wife. Or you could have totally misread the situation. Either way, if you let your anger decide your next steps it will not only make the situation a whole lot worse, it will blind you to what actually happened.

So when angry, walk away and manage, process and dissipate your anger until it has left you. It may not even totally go because until you’ve healed you are still wounded. But you have to get your anger dissipated and that red has to go before you will make any sense of the situation.

And whatever you do, be the Real Man and never while you are still the Wounded and Angry Man hit back with acts of aggression because then you will have lost all self control and that is not very manly at all and can have dire consequences for all concerned.


----------



## AFEH (May 18, 2010)

My wife royally shet tested me on a number of occasions in the 4 decades we were together. I think I totally failed every one but the last one.

I found not a single “relationship” book that helped. Not one. 

Two really helpful books I found are Awareness by Anthony de Mello and Emotional Intelligence. Awareness finally helped me see what was actually going on both inside and outside of me, but it didn’t help me put an end to it. Emotional Intelligence taught me a lot about what our emotions are for, where they come from and how to process and manage them. Some say EQ is of more value to an individual in their social and work life than IQ and I tend to agree. But you do need a reasonable IQ to make sense of these things.

But the single biggest thing that helped me with my wife’s shet tests was personal boundaries. I didn’t discover those until I was sixty years old! It wasn’t until I put boundaries of intolerance around my wife’s specific type of shet testing behaviour that I truly realised the pathological, compulsive nature of it.

She literally could not hold it back, she could not stop, control herself. She could not control her impulse to shet test in the way she did.

It’s analogous to a man who cannot stop himself from beating his wife with his fists and kicking her when she’s down.


In all other areas of her life she was an immensely self controlled woman and had tremendous values and qualities that I dearly loved. But in this one single thing she could not control her own behaviour, she could not resist her impulse to shet test me so great was that impulse.

I didn’t truly discover that until I discovered personal boundaries, in this case boundaries of intolerance.


----------



## moxy (Apr 2, 2012)

Hmm....I'm not familiar with these kinds of tests. It sounds like it's acceptable to test someone's loyalties when doubt has entered the equation, but not as a means of controlling the other person or pushing boundaries. Is that sort of the difference between the "fitness test" and the "shet test"? 

My stbxh continually tested my loyalties, though I'd never given him cause for doubt; a number of people have cited his behavior as passive aggressive or controlling and I think it was designed to allow him to locate and test and push boundaries because he did this with people in general, not just with me. He creates/escalates conflict to see how people react to it and it was offensive to me. I don't test people like this, continually. At least I don't think I do. I wonder if this is related to poor enforcement of boundaries. It seems like maybe we all test or gauge or evaluate the actions of those with whom we form relationships, but maybe not all of us do this deliberately or mean-spiritedly.....

Anyway....good topic!


----------



## moxy (Apr 2, 2012)

happylovingwife said:


> [Some women] do them as a way to see the man's true feelings. Sometimes I think men do such a good job of hiding their feelings that we as women feel the need to push them to an expression of them.


Why wouldn't a woman just ask her guy about his feelings instead of indulging the insecurity? If I was feeling the need for attention or affection, I'd just ask for some time with my partner. Is it better to test and tease the emotions out of someone, or just to ask for what one wants? 

I've been on the receiving end of a lot of manipulative game-playing from a lot of people and I just don't indulge in it (when I can recognize it); I indulge what's acceptable to me and will compromise, but when it's over the top, then I'm just done with the person. My tolerance for this sort of thing is very high with those I care about and very low with those who are not in my inner circle. So I'm particularly interested in this thread and what you all are saying about these "tests".


----------



## donny64 (Apr 21, 2012)

> I think resentment is the biggest source of shet tests ever in marriages and many marriages fail because of it. Quite simply because although the two people may well still be “in love” with one another they let their resentment kill their loving actions off. And so love dies and if a man’s got any sense the marriage dies as well.


I'm not sure if it is the biggest source, there is still the "fitness test" componenet to it (though again, I really don't differentiate between the two), but I think that you're right, resentment can play a big role, and relationships fail because of it. In fact, I'd say resentment and complacency are the two biggest relationship killers. Those are the two main things I try to avoid myself, and try to nip in the bud when I see it from my W. I simply won't allow her to become complacent and take me for granted, and I stay very vigilant to make sure I don't do the same to her. A chit test like she threw at me the other day is nothing more than complacency. She hasn't done such an overt one since we were first together. She got complacent, and tried again. Nope! Still same old H here! 

When I see it, in her or me, I act. If I don't (on my part), the resentment builds. If I ever needed a more vivid reminder of this, I just got it and it came to me just recently with the W's and my present LDR. I didn't react to things as I normally would have because I didn't want to "rock the boat" during the 6 month LDR thing. I kept my mouth shut about the little things that she was doing that caused resentment in me. It snowballed horribly until I snapped over a mistake she made (which she also made so as to not rock the boat). We learned our lesson. Sometimes the boat needs to be rocked in order to maintain a healthy relationship.


----------



## Accipiter777 (Jul 22, 2011)

AFEH said:


> Fitness tests are easy. One example would be the list of tick boxes some women have for a prospective husband. If a guy gets all the boxes ticked, he’s passed her fitness test, if not he failed.
> 
> Fitness tests are not designed to hurt (although they can), they are not acts of aggression.
> 
> A shet test would be “*All my other boyfriends have a bigger penis than you*”. An exceedingly aggressive act. And it may not even be true.


my response : "That explains why your p u s s y is like a wet tissue."


----------



## AFEH (May 18, 2010)

donny64 said:


> I'm not sure if it is the biggest source, there is still the "fitness test" componenet to it (though again, I really don't differentiate between the two), but I think that you're right, resentment can play a big role, and relationships fail because of it. In fact, I'd say resentment and complacency are the two biggest relationship killers. Those are the two main things I try to avoid myself, and try to nip in the bud when I see it from my W. I simply won't allow her to become complacent and take me for granted, and I stay very vigilant to make sure I don't do the same to her. A chit test like she threw at me the other day is nothing more than complacency. She hasn't done such an overt one since we were first together. She got complacent, and tried again. Nope! Still same old H here!
> 
> When I see it, in her or me, I act. If I don't (on my part), the resentment builds. If I ever needed a more vivid reminder of this, I just got it and it came to me just recently with the W's and my present LDR. I didn't react to things as I normally would have because I didn't want to "rock the boat" during the 6 month LDR thing. I kept my mouth shut about the little things that she was doing that caused resentment in me. It snowballed horribly until I snapped over a mistake she made (which she also made so as to not rock the boat). We learned our lesson. Sometimes the boat needs to be rocked in order to maintain a healthy relationship.


I think you are high up on the awareness spectrum, at the very least relative to me. I like your vigilant. Like a sentinel or a somewhat detached observer ready to report. I was never that until my 5th decade.


----------



## Conrad (Aug 6, 2010)

Accipiter777 said:


> my response : "That explains why your p u s s y is like a wet tissue."


Sounds like you passed that one.


----------



## AFEH (May 18, 2010)

Accipiter777 said:


> my response : "That explains why your p u s s y is like a wet tissue."


For me that’s a total and absolute failure of a shet test. It’s meeting aggression with aggression and who knows where that will end? If it’s a shet test within a long term, or even a short term relationship it’s a declaration of open warfare. It indicates a massive loss of respect (if there ever was any) for both the partners and things can only get worse. The aggression will escalate as each shet tests the other more and more.

For me it’s far better to recognise what she said as an act of aggression designed to wound. And then to make the judgement that you are living with an aggressive woman intent on wounding you in some way or another.

You meet that type of aggression just like you would any other, with boundaries. “I do not tolerate your aggression. If you want to get yourself sorted out, I will most certainly help you. Meanwhile keep your aggression to yourself”.

If she ignores your boundary and repeats her aggressive acts then you know you have a pathologically or compulsively or habitually aggressive person on your hands. Much like the husband who can’t control his aggressive acts of beating his wife.

Neither the passively aggressive wife or the actively aggressive husband have healed their wounds, they are still very angry and as a result and cannot resist their urges/impulses to wound with their aggressive acts. To attack.

No way will your aggressive response help matters. Aggressive people had aggressive childhoods, they witnessed aggression when young and are experts at the game. They want you to play their game with them and more or less welcome your aggressive responses. In some crazy dysfunctional way it proves to them you love them as they cannot drive you away no matter how much they wound you with their acts of aggression. The husband keeps on wounding his wife with his fists but she stays. So she must love him. The wife keeps on wounding her husband with her passive aggression, but he stays so he must love her.

This “married way of life”, a life based on wounds, anger and aggression can be as bonding as a married way of life based on love, tenderness, mutual respect, appreciation and desire. If both are in the mix it can literally be a deadly combination in extreme cases.


----------



## AFEH (May 18, 2010)

moxy said:


> Hmm....I'm not familiar with these kinds of tests. It sounds like it's acceptable to test someone's loyalties when doubt has entered the equation, but not as a means of controlling the other person or pushing boundaries. Is that sort of the difference between the "fitness test" and the "shet test"?
> 
> My stbxh continually tested my loyalties, though I'd never given him cause for doubt; a number of people have cited his behavior as passive aggressive or controlling and I think it was designed to allow him to locate and test and push boundaries because he did this with people in general, not just with me. He creates/escalates conflict to see how people react to it and it was offensive to me. I don't test people like this, continually. At least I don't think I do. I wonder if this is related to poor enforcement of boundaries. It seems like maybe we all test or gauge or evaluate the actions of those with whom we form relationships, but maybe not all of us do this deliberately or mean-spiritedly.....
> 
> Anyway....good topic!


Part of what I’m trying to communicate is that some wives can be very to extremely aggressive but not in a physical way.

The aggression of a man is very easy to see, especially in the extreme cases when he uses his fists. Not so of a woman’s aggression.

But the aggressive woman wants to wound her husband just as much as the aggressive man wants to wound his wife. But often she’ll do it in ways the husband cannot see or hear. All he knows is he’s been hurt and he’s angry. And he’s likely, just like the wife of an aggressive husband, to think he is the cause of his wife’s aggression.

In part it’s to do with this manning up, where the mantra is you can only change yourself, don’t focus on your wife, focus just on yourself. As though if he changes the shet testing he gets from his wife is suddenly going to stop and he will no longer be wounded and angry, or sad and depressed.

I say that is wrong. That part of his manning up process should include putting boundaries of intolerance around his wife’s shet testing, aggressive behaviour. If she continues with it then for sure he’ll know exceedingly quickly that he has either a pathologically, compulsively or habitually aggressive wife on his hands (it’s important to find out which it is). Just like the wife of a husband who asks him to stop beating her knows he cannot control himself because he continues with his beating.


----------



## Sawney Beane (May 1, 2011)

AFEH said:


> For me that’s a total and absolute failure of a shet test. It’s meeting aggression with aggression and who knows where that will end? If it’s a shet test within a long term, or even a short term relationship it’s a declaration of open warfare. It indicates a massive loss of respect (if there ever was any) for both the partners and things can only get worse. The aggression will escalate as each shet tests the other more and more.
> 
> For me it’s far better to recognise what she said as an act of aggression designed to wound. And then to make the judgement that you are living with an aggressive woman intent on wounding you in some way or another.
> 
> ...


Hence the need to learn the way of fighting without fighting. You're right - if you meet force with force, you don't know where it will end. All you can say, is that in the context of what is supposed to be a loving relationship, it probably won't be a good place.


----------



## AFEH (May 18, 2010)

moxy said:


> Hmm....I'm not familiar with these kinds of tests. It sounds like it's acceptable to test someone's loyalties when doubt has entered the equation, but not as a means of controlling the other person or pushing boundaries. Is that sort of the difference between the "fitness test" and the "shet test"?
> 
> My stbxh continually tested my loyalties, though I'd never given him cause for doubt; a number of people have cited his behavior as passive aggressive or controlling and I think it was designed to allow him to locate and test and push boundaries because he did this with people in general, not just with me. He creates/escalates conflict to see how people react to it and it was offensive to me. I don't test people like this, continually. At least I don't think I do. I wonder if this is related to poor enforcement of boundaries. It seems like maybe we all test or gauge or evaluate the actions of those with whom we form relationships, but maybe not all of us do this deliberately or mean-spiritedly.....
> 
> Anyway....good topic!


_"He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it." -Martin Luther King, Jr._

Is a man who uses his fists in acts of aggression to hurt and wound his wife evil? If she asserts her boundaries and tells him to stop and he keeps on hitting her, does that make him more evil? Does it make the man a pathologically aggressive, violent man because he cannot control his behaviour? What happens to such a man?

If the wife does not protest against her husband’s violent acts, is she cooperating with his evil? If another man stands by and watches him punch his wife, is that man cooperating with evil?

What about a woman who uses her husband’s love of her to hurt him? What if she wounds him and causes him pain using deliberate and conscious violent acts of passive/covert aggression? Is she just as evil as the man who uses his fists? What if the man asks her to stop yet she continues to cross his boundaries? Does that make his wife a pathologically violent woman?

Is the angry and aggressive woman just as evil as the angry and aggressive man? What’s the difference between anger and aggression?

Why don’t people heal their wounds? Is it so they have an excuse to hurt others? Has the aggressor turned the person they wounded into an aggressor? Or has the wounded person turned themselves into an aggressor? Why doesn’t the aggressor see the light and put a stop to it all? Why do they want to live in a perpetual state of wounds, pain, anger and aggression?


----------



## AFEH (May 18, 2010)

Sawney Beane said:


> Hence the need to learn the way of fighting without fighting. You're right - if you meet force with force, you don't know where it will end. All you can say, is that in the context of what is supposed to be a loving relationship, it probably won't be a good place.


Why not start a thread on it SB? I for one would be very interested.


----------



## AFEH (May 18, 2010)

moxy said:


> My stbxh continually tested my loyalties, though I'd never given him cause for doubt; a number of people have cited his behavior as passive aggressive or controlling and I think it was designed to allow him to locate and test and push boundaries because he did this with people in general, not just with me. He creates/escalates conflict to see how people react to it and it was offensive to me. I don't test people like this, continually. At least I don't think I do. I wonder if this is related to poor enforcement of boundaries. It seems like maybe we all test or gauge or evaluate the actions of those with whom we form relationships, but maybe not all of us do this deliberately or mean-spiritedly.....
> 
> Anyway....good topic!


That does sound like a shet test by way of passive aggression.

I think you have has “intent” wrong though. In that it’s not typically done to see how people respond (although there are game players like that). It is an aggressive, violent act designed to wound and cause pain. Just that there are no fists or shoes involved. And because of that immensely difficult to prove and easy to deny.

In exactly the same way a man using his fists in a violent and aggressive way is designed to wound and hurt his wife. There are no differences to the intents, motivations between the two acts of aggression, active or passive, covert or overt. They both have the same intent and that is to wound. The passive aggressive uses psychology to wound by way of the emotions, the active aggressive uses their fists.

Your stbxh knows/knew what hurts you and he uses/used that to wound you. It’s really tough to think the person you love/loved actually in a deliberate and conscious way set out to wound you and cause you pain. But if you ever do reach that point of awareness and it’s true, it is a massive wake up call.

Then when you call time on your partner’s aggressive behaviour with boundaries to protect yourself from it and they continue with it, it really is time to call time on your marriage. Because now you know exactly what’s going to happen in the future if you stay in it. Just like the beaten wife knows for certain she’s going to get beaten again.


----------

