My dear earth sisters and daughters, it has come to my attention that there are too many–really, many too many–relationships that are leaving women drained, miserable and worried that they’ll never be in a good partnership, ever. So it’s time for me to speak the way I would goddess-to-goddess, to all of you down there who feel….disenfranchised, as though another date is just , as the song says, another four-letter word. I’m gonna talk turkey here.
Whether it’s their jealousy, their commitmentphobia, or their phobic unwillingness to be fully inside a relationship, certain men will always create messy melodrama in your life. They will leave you exhausted and wondering how in Goddess’s name you got here in the first place-yet unsure how to get out of it. Women used to put up with these men (“Men are such babies,” they’d say) because, if they were decent providers. little else was expected of them. But you, dear ones, have changed: most of you can provide the basics for yourselves. You expect much more of a relationship than women once did– one with equality and reciprocity; one in which the man is present, both physically and mentally. And whose presence is life-affirming, not negating.
But, alas, from where I sit, I see certain men stuck in the past. These 20th century guys still read from an old relationship script that 21st -century women long ago discarded. They’re what I call (and have written about in my earthly persona) Drama Kings–one-man shows hoping in vain to make a comeback, wishing their leading ladies were still doing little else with their lives but applauding their performances (and doing the laundry).
These men aren’t violent men, not psychotic men, not incarcerated, drug-addicted or pathological men, but they ARE emotionally isolated men who see women powering ahead in the world and, instead of moving along with the cataclysmic social change Americans have undergone, just dig in their heels, cross their arms over their chests, and refuse to play. They resent women’s power, even feel women have usurped power from THEM. They don’t want to give modern women what they need–and they hope, even if they don’t say so, that it all just passes somehow and that women go back to putting them back on center stage where they belong.
Drama Kings are attracted to you strong and high achieving women for both Darwinian and psychological reasons. Strong women are vital and fun and self-assured and sexy-and the men sense rightly that you are the ones most capable of filling their needs. But alas, my sweet loving earth girls, Drama Kings resent the very strength in you they’re attracted to; and so they proceed to chip away at it, or, just run away from it altogether. So how to avoid these throwbacks? Very simple. It’s not how they look-no one wears a sign saying “Unfit for Human Consumption.” But pay close, close attention, dear ones, to how you feel in the relationship. Really. This is the key. If you are exhausted; or feel like you’re walking on eggshells; or are just incredibly lonely…..then trust me, you’re better off alone.
And smart, strong women tell me that when they feel this way, and they Do get out, they feel magnificent. They shed these untenable relationships the way they would an old skin, and begin “growing” in its place a desire for, an insistence on, something newer, suppler, healthier and just plain better.
If you are feeling any of this, please let me know. I can help.
