Never heard about that until now. Very cool movement.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/straight-edge

The comment about your wife is related to his comments about you beating him and breaking his arm. He’s decided you’re abusive and are part of the reason his childhood was so messed up. It probably helps him cope with a few things. For example he doesn’t feel guilty when he abuses you or your mom’s hospitality or generosity because you owe him. Anyways he decided that you’re abusive and so you probably beat up your wife worse than he does. It’s self protective, if you’re worse than him (he assaulted his wife and you kill yours) then he can still be a good guy in his own mind by comparison.

He sounds pretty fucked up honestly, and his coping mechanisms are maladaptive. If you want to help him, reach out occasionally to let him know you’re there. Don’t give him money or things or a place to stay. He doesn’t see you as a role model, he sees you as someone who owes him Infinity for what you’ve done, meaning he can abuse you in significant ways and it’s all fair in his mind. You owe him for what you did.

If he ever realises that he’s the problem in his life, and that to make his life better he needs to BE better, only then can you help him.

You can’t help someone be better if they don’t want to be better.

I’m not really going to argue with that much defeatism, I just want to clarify that being a person that’s enjoyable to be with doesn’t mean being a Hollywood movie definition of a “fun” person. It doesn’t require you to change into someone else. It just means you work to improve yourself, reduce the aspects of yourself you don’t like and increase the prevalence of aspects of yourself you do like.

You don’t need to become a “fun” person, just a YOU that you would want to spend time with.

Nobody is forcing you to improve yourself, but like I said before, if you wouldn’t want to spend time with yourself why would anyone else? Even if you live the rest of your life alone, would you not prefer being able to enjoy your own company?

Finding a partner has two roadblocks.

1. Would you date yourself?
2. Could you date yourself?

The first asks are you fun to be around? If you were a fly on the wall in your house would you think “this is a person I want to be with, their activities, demeanor, and level of self-care are something I find attractive”. If you don’t want to be with yourself why would anyone else? Work to being and staying a person you enjoy being around.

The second is more applicable to people who are alone and introverted. If you lived two streets over from yourself how could you meet yourself. If you’re not someone that ever interacts with new people then how can you meet anyone? Find ways to open yourself up to meeting people you want to be with and who want to be with you. This could be through hobby based communities, to socializing with classmates and co-workers, to meeting friends of friends, to joining new groups or classes you’re interested in.

I’m generalizing here, but men’s lib looks VERY different to women’s lib. Women started from a position of very low power, liberation was nearly a continuous improvement for all but the most privileged women.

Men’s lib requires first giving up a lot of patriarchal power before gaining the benefits of men’s lib, which in my opinion far surpass those of patriarchal power. There are a lot of barriers to this. First, most “online” feminists talk only about giving up patriarchal power. This feels hostile to most men and has bolstered misogynist influencers like tate et al. Second real life men and women are typically both complicit as men in enforcing patriarchal views of what a man is supposed to be. You can see experiences of men crying or expressing real emotion in front their prospective significant others as a prime example of this. Third there is no easy to access popular description of the benefits to men of men’s lib. There are great examples, but they aren’t as culturally relevant as patriarchal influencers yet.

The path to men’s lib is complex and has very different challenges than women’s lib. I think we’re getting there, but it’s certainly a slow process and at this time I think the counter reaction is more prevalent and popular.