Ask the Sigma: the Alpha's Widow
Ask the Sigma: the Alpha's Widow
A woman witnesses the SSH at work in a marital context
A female reader shares her experience of an Alpha Widow married to a Delta husband.
With SSH on everyone's mind, I had a thought this morning. My Mom initially married a solid Alpha, well-respected in the community, handsome, tall, very authoritative. He had a bit of a violent streak so she left him while I was still a baby before he could inflict it upon us. They divorced. She then remarried to a Delta and though he puts her on a pedestal and she is well provided for, she seems genuinely displeased with him though she claims to love him. I have been confused at her rebellious behavior in the past, but I wonder if she is in rebellion because she really needs an Alpha to slap her back down, so to speak? Maybe she is upset that she missed out on her Alpha?
When I got married, I married a Sigma. My mother hates him though she won't say it. He's sure of himself and what he does and he undoubtedly leads our family. He'll say no to her face if pressed but he's polite in his affirmations and declines, usually. A wonderful skill. On one family trip, though he was silent, she kept reaffirming the position as 'the Boss' of the family. Something I found both strange and very rude to my in-laws.
Years later, I now wonder if it was because she saw in my husband a sure family leader and hating it, while also wishing she had such a leader and compensating? This is all hypothetical and I am curious as to whether this female behavior is real. It would certainly make more sense than *just* that she is a psychobitch. Thanks for all you do.
Because a woman’s self-perceived status, and her status in the eyes of other women, is inordinately dependent upon the status of her man, it is very difficult for women to emotionally accept the reality of having a partner who is lower in the Socio-Sexual Hierarchy or its negative consequences for her own perceived status. This is most particularly true of women who previously had high-status partners. Hence the term Alpha Widow, which has nothing to do with actual widowhood, but simply means that a woman previously had a relationship, however fleeting, with an Alpha for whom she still socio-sexually pines.
In much the same way that any graduate of Harvard will invariably inform everyone he meets of where he attended college within the first thirty seconds of meeting them, a woman who once dated a professional athlete, a rock star, or sufficiently famous celebrity will invariably find a way to tell everyone she knows about it sooner or later, usually in a very coy and confidential manner. In most cases, it’s quite literally the most noteworthy thing she believes she’s ever accomplished, or ever will accomplish, in her entire life.
Alpha Widowhood can be identified when a woman, who might have been involved with, casually dated, or simply been asked out by twenty or more men in total, tends to talk about one man in particular, stalks him on Facebook, and remembers everything about him much more clearly than all the others. In her mind, he’s the one that got away, regardless of whether she actually ever had him or not. This is particularly obvious when she doesn’t see fit to mention other men that would seem to have been far more important to her, like a longtime boyfriend or an ex-husband, anywhere nearly as often or in similar detail.
If a forty-year-old woman seldom references her ex-husband, or the guy she lived with for four years after college, but keeps bringing up the high school quarterback who hooked up with her once at a party, or the guitarist from the local bar band with whom she had a brief summer fling, you know you’re dealing with an Alpha Widow.
In the situation that the woman shared, there are two factors at work here. First, her mother clearly despises her solid Delta husband because he doesn’t keep her under control the way her Alpha ex-husband did. We can safely conclude she also hates her ex-husband, regularly tells exaggerated tales of his awfulness and violence, and hates his current wife or girlfriend(s) with all the fury of a thousand burning suns.
It’s a tremendous pity that women don’t appreciate Deltas more, since Deltas are the literal bedrock of all human civilization, but they simply don’t because they aren’t physically attracted to the Delta qualities of competence, reliability, kindness, emotional stability, and devotion. But whereas some women, the wiser and smarter ones, eventually come to appreciate Deltas for those admirable qualities, the Alpha Widows never will.
The situation with the Sigma son-in-law is a different and unrelated matter. The mother is obviously a bit of a control freak, and her total inability to control her son-in-law, and the way he interferes with her ability to influence her daughter, enrages her. I don’t think she’s compensating for anything since this is the way most controlling women react to Sigmas, most of whom are far less circumspect than the daughter’s husband.
I’ve had women I didn’t even know start shrieking at me in response to nothing more than my bemused facial expression when they ordered me to do something. Female control freaks who aren’t accustomed to being told “no” by men usually use explosive anger to get men to do things for them, and they double-down on that when they sense it isn’t working, or worse, they see that the man they are attempting to order around observably finds their attempts amusing and irrelevant.
As an aside, this may be another area where the SSH is useful to women. Women don’t intrinsically understand in the way men do that you simply do not give orders to Alphas and Sigmas. The Alpha will not accept them and he even might resort to violence in response. The Sigma will not accept them and he might just burn everything down before dusting off the ashes from his heels and moving on. Never, ever, underestimate the extent of Alpha pride or Sigma detachment.
It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if one day, sooner or later, the reader’s Sigma husband informs her that he is no longer interested in enduring the presence of her mother any longer. But regardless, she is very fortunate to have a husband willing to stand up for her and serve as a shield for her and their children. She’s going to need him, because a bitter and controlling Alpha Widow is a blight and a burden on everyone around her.
In answer to the question, the behavior is real, it is normal, and it is deep-rooted in the female psyche.
This one made me smile. There are two men in this wide world that my mother in law hates, her ex-husband and me. We are the only two men in her life that have consistently told her to pound sand.
In general, a man must be more Alpha in his marriage regardless of his role in the SSH. Being a Bravo at work, doesn’t translate directly into the home. A good lieutenant should understand better how to lead a family as a Number One, despite his tendency to defer to his boss at work. At home, the buck stops with him. This is the nature of patriarchy and male headship.