The (2) Reasons Why Women Self-Sabotage Relationships!
I began officially dating girls when I turned 17. I had feelings for girls prior to that, but due to my family's frequent relocations during my childhood, it was challenging. Although I am a military brat, that wasn't the reason for our moves. In fact, the first time I met my biological father, I was 8 years old and was celebrating my 9th birthday with my big sister, Stephanie, whose birthday just so happens to be one day before mine even though she is 5 years older than me. I was a military child, but I never moved due to a parent being stationed. My mother and stepfather often had arguments and spent years in a cycle of breaking up and reconciling. As a result, whenever I found a girl I liked, I typically kept quiet because I was aware that we wouldn't remain in one place for long. By the time I reached my junior year, it was just my mother, sister, and me; I was certain that we wouldn't be moving again.
Puppy Love
I still remember the day I came home and told my mom that I was planning to ask my friend, Jessica, to be my girlfriend. Jessica was a Puerto Rican girl with whom I had been friends for about two years, and we had even gone on a trip together to the USS Yorktown ship in Mount Pleasant, SC. She was incredibly smart, kind, and we always had a great time together. She also was the first girl I ever kissed. It was her idea! Of course, I wanted to. I can vividly recall how nervous I felt kissing her in the garage, especially since her father was just a few feet away. He was built like Vin Diesel, and my only way to escape him would have been to crawl under the pool table and hope for a miracle. She assured me nothing was going to happen and thankfully, I lived to tell the story.
Dog Days
My "first love" was sweet and innocent, but the relationships that followed grew more intense and emotional. I went through every phase of a romantic relationship that a man can go through. I’ve fallen deeply in love with a woman, gotten engaged, married, and even divorced. Through these experiences, I gained a lot of insight about myself and women. For example, I discovered that I tend to give more than I take; I cherish quality time; I don’t ask for much from the woman I’m with, just that she is attractive, mature, and adventurous; and enjoys being pampered. How hard can that be? Regarding women, I found that they generally desire one main thing - a balanced man. They want someone who is funny, but not a clown; intelligent, but not a snob; strong, yet open; attractive, but not more so than they are; and a man who loves them but also knows when to give them space. The list could continue indefinitely, but I’ll pause here! Nevertheless, among all the lessons I’ve learned about women and romantic relationships, one stands out as something many men still find hard to grasp. It’s a question that continues to be asked by so many men today . . . Why do women thrive on drama? The answer is quite straightforward.
Why Do Women Like Chaos?
The reason many women tend to choose relationships filled with drama, conflict, ongoing arguments, and toxicity is that they often misunderstand how to express love and have no idea how men love. Why is that? There are several reasons! Here are two of them.
1) Like Mother, Like Daughter
When a girl is brought up solely by her mother, she often witnesses someone who deals with issues through emotions rather than logic. This does NOT always mean that a girl raised by her mother alone will turn out to be a bad person; it simply suggests that women who are raised by their mother only do not always learn how to handle problems, conflict, and unfair circumstances correctly. She grows up in an environment with a woman who frequently fails to manage her feelings, often reacting with anger and expressing her emotions without considering the impact on the family. This poses a significant issue because young girls miss out on learning how to resolve conflicts, and living with a combative, angry, and dismissive mother can damage the mother-daughter bond. Even if they communicate and seem to have a relationship, a woman who has never felt a close connection with her mother may sometimes (though not always) struggle with feelings of neglect and abandonment and may not grasp how to give and receive love properly, which brings me to my final point.
2) Women Think We Love Like Them
Another reason some women may find themselves drawn to unhealthy and toxic relationships is their belief that men love women in the same manner that women love men. What does this imply? It suggests that women think men express love by becoming emotionally charged, irrational, and worked up, just as they do. A woman exhibiting such behavior may have been raised by a distant mother who lacked self-control, thereby indirectly teaching her daughter to emulate this behavior. Alternatively, she might simply be a woman with low self-esteem, a distorted perception of love, and a desire to feel significant. Consequently, whenever a man opts for silence or withdraws from conflict, a woman often interprets this as a lack of love. She believes he does not love her because he does not allow himself to be affected by her erratic and tumultuous behavior.
When a man demonstrates discipline, self-control, and refrains from reacting impulsively, she assumes his silence indicates that he is not in love with her or that she is not as important as she once believed. As a result, she frequently leaves the man who exhibits self-control and genuinely respects her in pursuit of a relationship that offers a stronger 'connection.' She fails to recognize that she already has a healthy relationship because she is too preoccupied with the desire for a man to be influenced by her emotional highs and lows.
Although women won’t admit it, they often struggle to live in peace because peace is often misconstrued as boring. Some women need to argue, not because it is healthy, but because they thrive on having something to be mad about. However, MEN aren’t like that which is why she will often break up with a mild-tempered man. She is seeking a man whom she can manipulate by provoking him, making remarks that irritate him, and engaging in actions that affect his demeanor. If she can compel him to stop eating, lose sleep, inundate her with text messages, repeatedly call her, and plead for reconciliation, she will perceive this as a sign of his love. For her, a man displaying anger, becoming emotional, or prioritizing her above all else signifies love.
Yet, this presents a problem because (1) men should NEVER permit a woman or anyone to derail them, cause them to lose sleep, disrupt their eating habits, or miss work due to feelings of depression, (2) the legal repercussions a man may face from losing his temper do not align with the consequences, or lack thereof, that women face, and (3) it is simply not how love should go. When a man truly loves a woman, he will be considerate of his actions and words towards her. He does not need to demonstrate anything to her by becoming emotional or irrational.
Should I Stay Or Should I Go?
If a man finds himself in a relationship with a woman who grew up in an environment where self-discipline was not emphasized, or with a woman who becomes perplexed by his refusal to express emotional turmoil over her, he faces two options. He can either exit the relationship or remain by her side, affirming her worth and potentially seeking counseling for their partnership. In my view, neither option is inherently wrong. Nevertheless, the latter choice may require considerable time, lacks a guarantee of success, and even if it does yield positive results, it could be accompanied by significant emotional distress throughout the relationship. This distress, despite the relationship appearing to stabilize, could have severe repercussions, particularly if there were numerous tumultuous periods, children involved, and resources squandered. The real issue is not whether a man decides to endure a relationship with a woman accustomed to drama, toxicity, and conflict, but rather whether the situation will ultimately yield positive outcomes.
Take It From Me!
Walk away! In 2022, I concluded a two-year relationship with a woman. I never had the opportunity to truly fall in love with her due to the complexities and instability of our relationship, although I did care for her. I loved her and was planning on marrying her. I had even shown her mother a picture of some rings shortly before she passed; she picked out the one I was thinking about getting. But unfortunately, she embodied the characteristics I have described.
She grew up in a single parent home, wasn’t as close to her mother as I initially thought upon meeting them and also hadn’t been in a real relationship before (her prior relationships were long distant and usually digital). Her relationship history was also a significant issue, as she believed she was perfect & didn’t appreciate being told anything about herself, as she once admitted to me herself. It didn’t matter how gentle my delivery was; the mere fact that I was saying she needed to work on something made her feel attacked, which made her attack me.
Her perception of love hinged on my engaging in arguments with her, losing my temper, and enduring prolonged periods of silence (sometimes lasting days or weeks) before she would reconcile, all while being preoccupied with her erratic emotions. She would become physically aggressive, block me from contacting her on social media, and then apologize to me days later after ignoring me. Even when I attempted to check on her or drop off food to still show that I was on her “team,” she still persisted in being difficult. I eventually caught on to her.
These Kind Of Women HATE Accountability
I observed that at the beginning of our relationship, when I did engage in arguments, she seemed to be entertained and even amused by it. However, once I opted to cultivate greater self-control, started leaving her apartment or asking her to leave mine, and showed a sense of self-respect, she reacted negatively. Once I started moving on, ignoring her, not being moved by the lies she told about me, and didn’t reach out to her, she suddenly became more agreeable. But it was all a facade! She would only act that way until I allowed her back into my life. Eventually, I came to the realization that our relationship was unlikely to stabilize, and even if it had the potential to do so, she failed to persuade me that she was worth the wait and effort. Most women FEAR stoic & confident men simply because these men will metaphorically hold a mirror to her face and point out all the flaws that family, friends, and co-workers have tolerated for years, thus making her become responsible for being a better person - this is NOT something most women want to do. So, consequently, I made the decision to leave.
