Dear young woman, your love alone won't save that man.
Stop giving misogynistic men a chance.
You have a big, pure heart.
You see the best in everyone, and you sincerely believe that everyone can change.
You see their potential. The one that they often miss within themselves, but you’re seeing their Higher Selves, the ones who go beyond the traumatised and conditioned selves they are walking this world identifying as who they are.
You see the goodness in them, and so you want to give them a chance to reclaim it within themselves. It makes you feel safe to trust in that goodness. To hold onto that light because you know the shadow side too – that when they are not embracing their goodness, they can be well, acting from their wounded and traumatised parts in absolutely monstrous ways.
You’ve been hurt by their hurting, and today, you really want to create a safe space for your hurting inner child by believing that if you just love hard and perfectly enough, maybe the hurting will finally stop. Within you, and within them too.
You call yourself an empath, too, and you say, “I just can’t help but feel their pain and want to help.”
So you see a misogynistic man, and you want so desperately to believe that your love can fix him.
You haven’t yet connected that what you’re wanting is to heal your father so he could love you in ways that you have always been worthy of being loved.
Instead, you continue to give the man who disrespects you as a woman, the one who continues to spread hate about women, whether it’s through his digital spaces, or when he is catcalling them down the street, a chance by staying with him.
You shrink in his presence but remain with him. Sometimes you send him an article and give him a book, in hopes that it will awaken him to his wounding. He doesn’t read the article or the book.
He has no interest in changing.
He is drowning in self-hate and feelings of unworthiness, and you continue to reach him desperately, hoping that your arm will be strong enough to pull him out.
Meanwhile, you don’t realise that you’re starting to sink, sink, sink to where he is too.
He has no genuine interest in getting himself out, and he sees you trying, and some days his wounded parts cling onto you with greedy wanting. They want to latch onto you and drain your energy. They want to keep you all to himself, his demons coming out and seeing you as a plaything for him to toy with and still, you stay.
You believe that your love will fix him.
Then other days, he despises you for daring to see that light in him that he cannot see because he is blinded by the learned hate and feelings of being unlovable. You see it, and he wants to gouge your eyes out because how dare you go against what he has been convincing himself is just who he is for so long.
He hates that you believe in his goodness, and so he brings out all of his lostness and attacks you with it. He is cruel. Either to you, or to women. He might kiss you goodnight before he goes onto a forum to talk about how much he hates you. He might smile in your face right before he curses you and wishes ill will on you, but you continue to say, “But I see his light”.
It’s beautiful to see his light, but you have to accept that you can’t fix him and you can’t change him.
That is his journey, and until he chooses to face it, he will remain in his wounding, and his hurting will bring you hurting, and you are worthy of so much more.
So, more than anything else, heal your father wound. Meet the little girl within who was raised by a man or lacked the presence of a man who is very similar to the one you’re trying to save now.
Heal the father wound through accepting the pain that has lingered and knowing it’s not your fault that you ended up carrying your father’s wounding.
You don’t have to recreate it through the men who carry the same signature as him. Instead, it’s time to get out of the way of these men’s karma. Because the more you linger around trying to save them, the less they will realise they are drowning and they need to be the ones to start the process of strengthening their arms to swim to shore.
You need to save and choose yourself. And sometimes (often) this will look like also saying goodbye to those who cannot coexist with the version of you that is saving herself and choosing her. Why?
When you’re loving yourself, as a woman, you cannot be with a woman-hater. It just cannot coexist. You won’t be a match anymore. You have a big heart, you do. Now it’s time to open your heart to the little girl within. She needs you.
I created a Digital Journal with shadow work prompts for Divine Feminine healing to help you with this, available via my website.
Thank you for being here,
Laurel