Romantic Hastiness: Reconciling the “Come Up Woman”

The “come up woman” does not know initially that she is a come up woman, and it is arguable if she ever truly discovers her status in and out of the relationship with a romantic partner. She never plans as a come up woman. She never designs strategies from the angle of come up woman.

She only plans for the relationship that she has with her romantic partner to work. Why else would she be in a relationship with someone who has no intention to remain in the relationship? The come up woman plans from the perspective of long-term. She envisions the future that her partner refuses to acknowledge. She is, indeed, a visionary.

The primary problem with the come up woman is that she spreads herself too thin with investing, emotionally encouraging, and financially funding her partner’s needs, desires, and wants with the expectation and hope that the relationship she has with her partner will convert to long-term.

If she is already married to her husband, whatever she does she believes is for the good of the family and her husband. Whether her husband reciprocates, she would still invest. She would still nurture. She would still give her very life to ensure that her family has what it needs. She would still support her husband through trials, tribulations, bouts of infidelity, statements of “I’m sorry,” and protestations of love despite the lack of truth to validate the sentiment.

However, the come up woman is no one to be played with. She has a purpose. She is conscientious. She has the personality of a bulldog when she sees something she wants. She needs to feel emotionally secure, financially safe, and psychologically necessary.

She gains a sense of belongingness and affiliation when she is with her husband and family and friends. She is the life giver everyone needs, the conversation everyone respects, and the wisdom that everyone applies. Although she may be perceived as the come up woman in her husband’s eyes, unbeknownst to her, she is more than a mere place placeholder. She is nobody’s substitute!

The secondary problem with this understanding is that the come up woman does not understand who she is, how her partner has framed her, and the consequence that will ensue once her husband decides to exit the relationship. The husband has already cultivated a backup mate as a form of mate insurance to secure his future romantic life.

He has laid claim to someone else who is not a come up woman to honor, but this person has done nothing for him. He frames his current partner as someone to leave behind because it is like leaving behind his struggle. When he chooses someone else different from the come up woman, it is to signify a measure of success.

This article introduces a possible research plan to study the come up woman. The ideas explored within this article are subject to change, but they are similar to other research projects that I have completed and that are also ongoing for similar reasons.

Those research projects include exploration of rebounding, rebound relationships, romantic setback, romantic hastiness, and psychology-related concepts such as mate value, mate preference, mate retention, mate replaceability, and mate switching.

This research project will support another research and writing project I am considering on emotional eviction, which may further segue into a larger, more comprehensive undertaking. All research projects are in progress. The introduction of ideas and thinking surrounding these concepts are explored through writing blog articles and creating audio lectures. Writing helps to keep a record of ideas.

You may review a recent article I wrote that explores the come up woman as a target (similar to a case study) for discussion to gain insight into my thinking about this concept. The previous article is about the costs of mate switching.

PRE-DISCUSSION QUESTIONNAIRE

The following questions gauge your thinking about the concept of the come up woman, your status as a come up woman if it applies, and whether you believe you are susceptible to engaging another romantic relationship as a come up woman in the future.

• Do you know the definition of the concept “come up woman”?
• Have you ever been a come up woman?
• When was your last experience as a come up woman?
• How soon did your ex-partner exit a relationship with you to pursue his next romantic interest?
• Would you ever pursue being a come up woman in a future relationship?
• What are your social, cultural, and financial perspectives about the come up woman?

Think about these questions as you read through this article. This is a preliminary questionnaire and is subject to change or extend based on future research and critical thinking.

The Argument

The argument surrounding the come up woman is that she is necessary for a man to be able to pursue his own dreams. She may be a person with dreams, but those dreams are put on hold to facilitate a greater purpose. That purpose is the man’s purpose, and he will manipulate and control the relationship to pursue his intentions.

This means that there is a level of insecurity with a man who struggles to support his woman’s need to pursue her own purpose in life. In fact, the way in which he facilitates ensuring that he goes before her is symbolic of getting ahead of her. He must go first!

For example, a man who says that he wants to know if a woman is real and that a prenup is necessary to separate finances prior to marriage is a man who cares about his assets, as he should, but he can also be a man who is unwilling to ensure his partner is financially secure if something should happen to him.

This means that certain men who project what is seemingly reasonable conditions for marriage onto a future partner can still operate with ulterior motives. If finances are considered separate coming into the marriage, and if the prenup is iron clad to the point that the wife gets nothing if they divorce, then what is the expectation of the wife who exits the marriage through no fault of her own?

This question is necessary to consider if the husband desires that she also does not work. She is not earning any money while in the marriage. She is expected to support her husband emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually throughout the marriage, which also includes a requirement to support him in pursuing his dreams.

This looks like a wife who may serve as the first receptionist for his company, a wife who is there at the foundation of the business, a wife who is expected also to tend to the house and bear his kids, and a wife who, when the husband decides that she is of no more use, is expected to leave quietly and do so without even a hint of bitterness.

Because the husband frames her as someone he can leave, he structures the marriage to facilitate and perpetuate this argument. When thinking about her role and whether she can now pursue her own dreams, the husband may ask the following questions and make these sample statements:

• Are you sure you want to do that? Is it time?
• We are still working on the business. It’s not time to go back to school. Just wait until we get to a good place.
• This is my business. This is my house.

The last statements are about emotional manipulation and control to keep the wife in the marriage. If a woman gets it into her head that she is going to do something, and she is good at follow through, then she will get it done. Men who frame women for the come up understand the nature of the come up women.

By the time the husband has reached the last statement he knows he is on his way to making the right moves to push him further into his dream. This means that what he has been doing and what his wife has been doing to help him is working. He is about to make it! It is at this point where the husband assumes possession and where and when the wife or long-term partner becomes the come up woman.

When the husband shifts into territorial thinking, from “we” to “I” and “my,” the come up woman cannot stay. She must leave. The husband now creates a campaign to exit her out of the relationship. This campaigning always begins with seeking an affair partner, reflective of the woman who has made no direct contribution towards achieving his dreams.

The husband’s argument, thus, is not about whether the come up woman is useful and has been a major contributor to helping him achieve his dream. She doesn’t need to be honored for that. After all, she is a wife who is supposed to be a helpmeet, according to the Bible. That’s her role anyway. Why would she need to perform any other role than being accessible and available for her husband? She doesn’t need flowers for doing what she is supposed to do. She doesn’t need recognition or honor.

However, the new woman in his life does need such honor. She deserves to get all the praise for choosing a man who is now successful, for making the right decision to be available for him as he continues to make his social climb, and for introducing him to a new way of thinking about money and connections. The wife has no such connections and possesses no such thinking about how to make moves that matter.

Essentially, the husband prepares to discard the come up woman because she represents struggle, and he does not desire to take struggle with him where he is going. The new woman represents success, albeit false, and he wants to take and maintain success where he is going. This is the husband’s argument.

CHARACTERISTICS

The characteristics of the come up woman always fall under certain personality traits and mindset. It is clear that the come up woman has character, high morals, wholesome values, integrity, staying power, follow through, and heart. There are also some characteristics that make it easier for men to play her and mishandle her gifts, talents, and kindness.

Most come up women derive from a family dynamic where they were expected to be people pleasers. The helpmeet they are to their husbands begins with helping their mothers in the home. They are expected to be available for their mothers, at will and with consequence if they do not comply, and they are expected to run the house as a pseudo-parent.

They suffer under parentification in which they are subjected to role reversal, serving as a caregiver to their siblings. If they do not have siblings, then mom and her issues becomes the next project, and the come up women usually have had to serve in some caregiver roles for their mothers.

Then they pass that type of thinking into a marriage, and they are essentially taking care of their mothers all over again. In other words, the husband becomes the new mother. The come up woman feels that she needs to sacrifice herself and her own well-being to ensure her mother and by extension, her husband, get what they need. It is a never-ending cycle because the provision of help and assistance continues even when the come up woman gets sick.

Personality

The personality traits of a come up woman fall under the Big Five, which is a psychology concept I discuss in all my writing and audio lectures: NEOAC. Study the visual for insight.

Strangely enough, the come up woman embodies all these characteristics and personality traits. I have not conducted any official research concerning this assumption, so this discussion is highly presumptive.

The visual suggests that the come up woman prefers routine and predictability and less opportunity to embrace curiosity (openness to experience). The come up woman is more hardworking and less impulsive (conscientiousness). The come up woman can be or is expected to be withdrawn emotionally and less outgoing (extraversion).

The come up woman may be too empathetic, which means that she is less suspicious and critical (agreeableness). Lastly, the come up woman may be anxious and prone to negative emotions, which leaves her less even-tempered and less emotionally secure (neuroticism).

These immediate ideas should be validated with research intent, which requires the development of a research question, hypothesis, data gathering, literature review, and topical analysis. The development of this idea in applying the Big Five to the concept of the come up woman is ongoing. It will begin with compiling and writing a literature review.

Mindset

The mindset of a come up woman falls under the distinctions between fixed mindset and growth mindset. Mindset is also a common topic I discuss in various articles, have taught in my English classrooms, and feel the need to apply it to different topics within my writing projects. Mindset is a very useful concept.

The come up woman believes she may epitomize a growth mindset because of her undying loyalty and her commitment to stay the course in her marriage, through the trials and tribulations, and her struggle to remain consistent with the help she provides her husband. However, if she is still with a partner who frames her as a woman to use, and who will discard her as soon as he is financially able, then the come up woman really reflects a fixed mindset.

For example, when challenges affect the immediate romantic relationship, the come up woman does not address those issues. Instead, she applies her critical thinking skills to areas of the husband’s dream that need resolution. In other words, she resolves the working relationship she has with her husband and not the emotional and psychological and romantic relationship she has with him.

It is the passive aggressive nature of her problem-resolution skills that positions one issue over another and that positions his needs over her own. The come up woman takes a back seat. Without a firm foundation for the marriage, it is subject to crumble when pressure hits it.

When the issues of the romantic relationship are abandoned, maybe not completely, the come up woman focuses on the practical aspects of helping her husband reach completion of his ideas and supporting his efforts towards achievement. Arguments and personality clashes cannot be resolved. The come up woman does not know at this point that the husband no longer wants the romantic aspect of the relationship.

The business and “making it” are what matters going forward. But even if the husband does not outline his own criticisms of the relationship, subconsciously the come up woman feels the emotional disconnect. Instead of utilizing a growth mindset, she will remain in a fixed mindset, focus all her efforts on validating the ideas of her husband, and then be genuinely surprised when she is discarded from the relationship and the husband’s life.

In other words, the come up woman’s efforts will eventually plateau. She might help her husband reach his highest level of achievement, thereby preparing him for some other woman, but she will never reach her own achievement within the marriage, failing to prepare herself for new levels of success.

Although she would have allocated all efforts to ensuring her husband is successful, he will leave her as if she is a failure. Thus, she becomes a failure in her life and with her relationship. She will take this mindset into another environment, maybe a different marriage, and struggle with reconciling her contributions within the previous context.

The come up woman’s contributions did not manifest into success, especially success in the marriage. This is something she has to live with emotionally, mentally, psychologically, spiritually, and financially the rest of her life.

PSYCHOLOGY PERSPECTIVES

The obvious psychology perspectives are ones that I have discussed in multiple articles and audio lessons. They are the ones that address mate value, mate preference, mate replaceability, mate retention, and mate switching. Take some time to review those concepts in previous articles. Click the “Blog” tab.

I will be brief in exploring these concepts here. Definitions derive from the psychology literature and are summarized within Toxic Encounters: Why People Pursue Rebound Relationships, Part I. The title is available on Amazon.

• Mate value: the perception of one’s mate value compared to the mate value of available partners on the mating market.
• Mate preference: determines who a person chooses and how much that choice has an impact on their health, status, and number and quality of offspring.
• Mate replaceability: defined as abandoning a partner who does not fit one’s mate preferences.
• Mate retention: based on mate value and it includes two types of behaviors: benefit-provisioning (compliments, gifts) and cost-inflicting (insults, sexual jealousy) mate retention behaviors.
• Mate switching: short-term mating strategy defined as someone leaving one mating relationship to remate with another partner.

The come up woman has lower mate value. She may represent quality mate value as an individual woman, but her connection to a man or husband who has framed her as someone to leave and abandon suggests that her mate value is lowered compared to someone the man or husband perceives as having higher value.

This means that the man or husband prefers the new woman or any other woman besides the come up woman. Even if he knows the come up woman is the right person for him, and she has proven her worth, it doesn’t matter. He will discard her because she does not fulfill his mate preference.

His mate preference can be a woman who falls under a certain beauty standard. It can be a woman who has social status and comes from a good name. It can be a woman who is young and sexually appealing. Regardless, the man really does not outline his mate preference, and I’m not sure he knows what it is. The only thing that matters is that he has sustained access to whatever resources he needs to continue fulfilling whatever goal he has in the moment.

When a man or husband does not plan to stay with the come up woman, he will replace her based on any condition he sets and/or changes. If he required that his woman or wife cook at the beginning of their relationship, then this no longer matters when he designs strategies to exit said relationship.

This does not mean that he will not eat what she cooks. It just means that he begins acting out what he thinks the relationship should be until he leaves! He will not go so far as to insult the wife about her cooking, but if she threatens to leave because she does not feel emotionally fulfilled, then he might use mate retention behaviors to keep her in the relationship and/or marriage.

These include both benefit-provisioning and cost-inflicting. All this does is set up the man or husband to replace the woman or wife. Eventually, the time will be ripe for mate switching.

The Man Who Uses

If it is not clear about who the man is who uses a come up woman, then I’m not sure if there is still enough room to explore this idea in this article. Regardless, it is important to consider this individual and what he brings to a romantic relationship and how he frames the come up woman for use and discard.

The man who uses the come up woman is a man who needs financial resources. Love and emotional support are second to assets and resources that he feels he needs to get him to where he wants to be and where he wants to be that is recognizable and financially successful. Maybe he comes from a poverty background or a toxic family dynamic. For this type of man, he needs to get to a place in his mind that is not necessarily financially stable but more along the lines of representing financial abundance. This same man does not do the work, directly, to get to a place he wants to be financially and socially.

This is why he uses the come up woman because he knows she will put in the long efforts, long nights, consistent contribution, hard work, and persistence. He knows that she will endure whatever he throws at her emotionally, psychologically, mentally, physically, and financially. In fact, her finances are his finances because he never keeps a job long enough to save money or make any true financial contribution to “his dream.” When she is not up to the task to complete anything he wants her to do, he will pout and moan that she is not a good woman and that she needs to stick it out with him through thick and thin.

In other words, his push to get her back on task is based on the underlying expectation that she is a “ride or die.” He will continue to frame her in this way until she finally breaks. This makes it easier to discard her, validating his assumption that she does not have what it takes to go the distance. This assumption is his ultimate justification for mate switching, mate replacing, and mate discarding.

Viral Post

In completing this preliminary discussion on the come up woman, I am reminded of a viral post that got the attention of both men and women. In the following visual, the man suggests that he does not plan on remaining with his girlfriend once he finally gets his life together.

This supports the assumption that men who use women for a come up opportunity do so because they lack the finances to maintain their own adult living. It is better to use the resources that a come up woman has, i.e., house, car, money, etc., than to create opportunities for them to get these items without the assistance of a woman. Read the visual. It is enlightening. The full visual is at the end of this article, marked as an addendum item.

What this man is suggesting through his “truth” is that he never planned on staying with his girlfriend, which is clear. This also suggests that he would have been willing to stay years with his girlfriend until he found a decent job. Finding a decent job could take a lot of time given the fact that you may not always have the education and/or experience necessary to land that type of job.

Therefore, he would have been willing to tolerate the situation with the woman even through unhappiness, unfulfillment, and instability. Whatever is necessary for him to get to the next level of his life, then that is all that matters. If he has to sleep with the woman, eat her food, take her money, and let her be a nurturing force in his life, he will do it. He has other plans and such plans do not entail sustaining the relationship with the woman beyond his initial goal of landing a decent job. That is his goal, not the development of a romantic relationship with the come up woman.

Homeless

In concluding this full discussion, return to the initial visual of the woman sitting in a homeless shelter. The come up woman is really emotionally homeless in a relationship where she is framed as someone a man or husband can abandon and ultimately leave. That picture is sufficient.

There is no need to explore it further in this blog article. Just remember that if the come up woman ends up in a homeless shelter, this suggests that there is little reconciling her life by sustaining the status of come up woman. To get out of homelessness, whether physical or emotional, she will need to address her belief system, reflect on her life, and move forward out of the type of thinking of being someone’s ride or die to the detriment of her own life and dreams.

Therefore, future activities on this topic might include a full exploration of how the come up woman becomes homeless after dealing with a man or husband who has drained her of emotional, psychological, spiritual, and financial resources. An additional exploration will consider the concept of rebounding and rebound relationships. All research and writing activities are in progress.

Thank you for reading.

Regina Y. Favors, Owner/Operator

The Regina Y. Favors Website

The vision of the site is to be the preferred online curriculum you need for life recovery.

REFERENCES

The resources within this section do not represent the full exploration of the topic. They begin the discussion. The source list is subject to change. You may also click the “Rebounding” tab for a complete list of resources. It is the official research tab for the site. A topical bibliography is available on the “Toxic Encounters Books” tab as well.

AccidentFantastic482. (n.d.). Fear of being the come up woman. Building with my boyfriend. Reddit.com. Retrieved from https://www.reddit.com/r/RedPillWomen/comments/q6wnzx/fear_of_being_the_come_up_woman_building_with_my/. Accessed 28 June 2022.

Anthony, J. (2021, November 23). Something you should know about come up women. A woman’s highest display of love gone wrong. Medium.com. Retrieved from https://medium.com/illumination/something-you-should-know-about-come-up-women-c448a97f9ee4. Accessed 28 June 2022.

Buss, D. M., Goetz, C., Duntley, J. D., Asao, K., & Conroy-Beam, D. (2017). The mate switching hypothesis. Psychology and Individual Differences, 104, 143-149. Retrieved from http://carigoetz.com/docs/PAID_MateSwitchingHypothesis.pdf

Additional link: https://labs.la.utexas.edu/buss/files/2013/02/The-Mate-Switching-Hypothesis-FINAL-PUBLISHED-2017.pdf

Cherry, K. (2021, February 20). The big five personality traits. VeryWellMind.com. Retrieved from https://www.verywellmind.com/the-big-five-personality-dimensions-2795422.

Conroy-Beam, D., Goetz, C. D., & Buss, D. M. (2016). What predicts romantic satisfaction and mate retention intensity: Mate preference fulfillment or mate value discrepancies. Evolution and Human behavior, 37, 440-448. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301855883_What_Predicts_Romantic_Relationship_Satisfaction_and_Mate_Retention_Intensity_Mate_Preference_Fulfillment_or_Mate_Value_Discrepancies. Accessed 28 June 2022.

Conroy-Beam, D., Goetz, C. D., & Buss, D. M. (2016). What predicts romantic satisfaction and mate retention intensity: Mate preference fulfillment or mate value discrepancies. Evolution and Human behavior, 37, 440-448. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301855883_What_Predicts_Romantic_Relationship_Satisfaction_and_Mate_Retention_Intensity_Mate_Preference_Fulfillment_or_Mate_Value_Discrepancies. Accessed 28 June 2022.

Dillow, M. R., Afifi, W. A., & Matsunaga, M. (2011). Perceived partner uniqueness and communicative and behavioral transgression outcomes in romantic relationships. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. 29, 28-51. Retrieved from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0265407511420191. Accessed 28 June 2022.

Favors, R. (2021). Toxic encounters: Why people pursue rebound relationships. Favors Publications.

Shimek, C. & Bello, R. (2014). Coping with breakups: Rebound relationships and gender socialization. Switzerland: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute. Retrieved from http://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/3/1/24. Accessed 28 June 2022.

Spielmann, S. S., MacDonald, G., & Wilson, A. E. (2009). On the rebound: focusing on someone new helps anxiously attached individuals let go of ex-partners. Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc., 35 (10), 1382-1394. Retrieved from https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/a7e5/6e2a9edcd28960620fd070e9f81354ab6581.pdf . Accessed 28 June 2022.

Tunariu, A. D., & Reavey, P. (2003). Men in love: living with sexual boredom. Sexual and Relationship therapy, 18 (1), 63-94.  Retrieved from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1468199031000061272?journalCode=csmt20. Accessed 28 June 2022.

Addendum

Full Visual