15/04/2025
This is a post I saw on Facebook and I thought to share it. It's from a man who finally owned up. After years of therapy and work, and probably a long trail of broken hearts, he takes some accountability.
Woman often know in their guts when something is off but due to neglect, lack of parenting and love, lack of a mother to guide them correctly and the ongoing amount of conditioning in society for woman to adhere to old protocols of being, they don't follow their inner knowing, they side line their truth, they don't listen to that little voice inside that says this is not ok and why, they try to be what men want them to be. Why because most of these woman are unmothered in the right ways, because they lack the knowledge on how to protect themselves due to that and because patriarchy and other conditioning have often made them sabotage themselves for others. This is the work for woman. They often land up feeling confused, exhausted and anxious. Following improvement after improvement. Suffering from illnesses like auto immunity and feeling half dead rather then alive. Confused in every relationship thinking they are at fault.
The gaslighting hidden in men's shadow is vast. They often project it into woman to be able to not face it. Why does she keep nagging.... she nags, she creates drama when I just need peace and space, she is acting crazy, she is always hassling me to listen, she is toxic, she is too much. The long list.
Whenever I see a woman at the end of her rope, what is referred to as hysterical or crazy, many times there is a man on the other side unwilling to open and calling her names. He isn't loving her with his full heart and presence.
As woman we all need to do the work to listen to that gut voice inside, know how to protect what is precious. Being alone is better then feeling insane because of a partner. Don't settle. Come learn the skills. Let us find those hidden mothering skills that were untaught. Learn to protect yourself and still remain open and loving. Feel alive but not be taken for a ride sharing your energy with yet another man not ready to take accountability and really love you.
Here is the article from the guy:
I used to think women were confusing.
Too emotional.
Too sensitive.
Too complicated.
One moment soft, the next moment sharp.
One day wanting closeness, the next needing space.
I didn’t get it.
And if I’m honest,
I didn’t really try to get it.
I just reacted.
When a woman got emotional,
I’d shut down.
When she asked for more,
I felt attacked.
When she pulled away,
I either chased or withdrew completely.
I made it about her.
Her being “too much.”
Her being “unstable.”
Her being “needy.”
But now I see,
what I called “confusing”
was just humanity I wasn’t ready to meet.
Because I hadn’t met my own.
I didn’t know what to do with my own pain.
So I dismissed hers.
I hadn’t faced my own shame.
So I rejected her vulnerability.
I didn’t know how to hold my own emotions.
So hers overwhelmed me.
And the worst part?
I thought I was being “the calm one.”
The rational one.
The grounded one.
But I wasn’t grounded,
I was guarded.
And I wasn’t calm,
I was emotionally unavailable.
It took me years to understand that.
It took heartbreak.
It took watching myself repeat the same patterns
and lose women I actually cared about
because I didn’t know how to stay present when it mattered.
Eventually, I had to ask the question I’d spent years avoiding:
Is it really them?
That question changed everything.
Because once I stopped projecting my fear onto women,
I started to actually see them.
I saw how much they long to feel safe.
Not protected by control,
but safe to be themselves.
To be soft without being judged.
To be strong without being punished.
To feel everything, without being told it’s too much.
I saw how much pressure women live under.
To look a certain way.
To be pleasing.
To not speak too loudly.
To not need too much.
I saw how much they give,
without always being received.
And I started to understand
that what I called “drama”
was often just a nervous system in fight-or-flight
because she didn’t know if I was really there with her.
That what I called “neediness”
was often a woman asking,
Can I trust you to stay when I stop performing?
And when I could finally hear her beneath the words
feel her beneath the reaction
be still enough to hold her storm without getting pulled into it…
everything changed.
Because the moment a woman feels truly safe
in my presence,
when she senses that I’m anchored,
unshakable,
not because I’m cold,
but because I’ve met my own pain
and no longer run from hers,
she softens.
Not because she has to.
But because she finally can.
And that softness?
That’s where intimacy begins.
Now, I don’t need to fix her.
Or figure her out.
Or make her less.
I just need to be with her.
And that’s when love becomes the most natural thing in the world.
Jan-Willem van der Heiden
