6 Harsh Truths About Men I Learned After Breaking Off My Engagement
I ended an engagement so you don’t have to.
LightField Studios | Shutterstock When I was 21, I proposed actual marriage to an actual human man, a guy I had been dating for a year and a half and loved enthusiastically. Two and a half years later, several months before the wedding, I left. Here’s why. First, because we weren’t right for each other. Second, because I was young and didn’t understand he was different than me.
It was a powerful learning experience that caused me to re-evaluate everything I thought I knew about men. Attitudes that were frankly adversarial, which I had unknowingly internalized, melted away, and I realized men are amazing, and relationships with them can be joyful and transformative. Now, I’m able to sustain a happy relationship. So learn from my errors, I ended an engagement so you don’t have to.
Here are 6 harsh truths about men I learned after breaking off my engagement:
1. Men need to adore their partners
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Literally. Adore. You. By ‘adore’, I mean the man in your life needs (not just wants, but needs) to be your hero, provide for you, give you everything you want, and more, to fill your life with joy. This is transformative and elevating for everyone involved.
When you’re able to be receptive to this, you’ll discover firsthand that you deserve profound love and appreciation. It will allow your man to be vulnerable and acknowledge he has many worthwhile things to give, even if he believes otherwise.
He needs to adore you, just like you need to adore him. Studies from the American Psychological Association on adoration support that if you don’t feel adored, chances are it isn’t the right relationship. Sometimes, we love people who need things we can’t provide, or who provide things that aren’t quite what we need. A relationship involves both parties asking if they have what the other needs and vice versa.
2. Men crave our femininity
I’m not just talking about subjective, arbitrary traits our culture has saddled women with. I’m talking about the living archetype of femininity. Every person has it. But some of us hide it.
I thought femininity was a weakness. I acted like ‘one of the guys’ and dressed in a masculine way and didn’t let myself be receptive and vulnerable. I never let myself admit I needed him. Men need to see the femininity of their partners, however, that manifests in a particular person, man or woman.
They need us to receive whatever gifts they are giving, to allow them to be the men they are (regardless of whether they fit society’s arbitrary definitions of ‘masculinity’), and they need us to trust them with our gentleness.
Meanwhile, with men I dated, often they would provide all sorts of stuff I wasn’t open to receiving. They wanted to be strong for me, and I would never let my guard down enough for them to give me that beautiful gift. Being receptive and vulnerable is very challenging and scary, and men need their partners to do it.
This is about far more than gender roles. some women aren’t trying to hide part of themselves when they dress in a masculine way or hang out with guys. That’s who they are, and in their case, that is what their femininity means.
Vulnerability and receptivity know no gender. Yin energy knows no gender, as demonstrated in research on the Yin-Yang theory of communication. Still, in our culture, Yin energy is devalued, and many people are taught to hide it behind a tough Yang exterior.
3. Men are incredibly vulnerable in love
I know, who isn’t? The thing is, our culture has an image of men as being less invested in romance. That’s just not true. When a man lets himself love, he grants a huge amount of power to his beloved. We can make or break them. Our power over the men who love us is incomprehensible.
Our support can give this man the confidence to take on the world. When we’re receptive to him as he is, when we see him as a hero because he’s being a hero for us, he starts to see himself that way, a little bit at a time. A lack of support, derision, complaining, and lack of acceptance, all of these have a devastating impact on men.
4. Men don't want physical intimacy all the time
Oh, the shame, anguish, rejection, fear, sadness, and heart-breaking loneliness that could have been avoided if I’d known this from the start! Oh, lamentations! Sure, I knew I wanted to be physical as much as guys do.
I knew it in my head but not in my heart. When men I dated didn’t want to get physical every day, or even every week, I thought there must be something wrong with me. I wasn’t attractive enough, I was doing something wrong, and our relationship was failing.
Lots of people end up in this situation. We live in a culture that valorizes male virility. According to dubious experts and the wisdom of rom-coms, men are ‘supposed’ to want it now, all the time, three times tomorrow, etc. Guess what? They don’t. And that’s normal and has nothing to do with you.
5. Men often believe their value to a partner is dependent on their net worth
A lot of men believe this. My dad told me his father once said “Any man working less than 60 hours per week isn’t much of a man.” This is why he worked himself half to death: not for the money, but to be the man he believed his wife and family needed. It was a beautiful act of devotion, sacrifice, and service.
Many men do the same. They work hard, scrimp and save, and go for the harder, more stressful job because it pays better.
Research from the American Psychological Association on men’s self-compassion and self-esteem shows how lots of men have deep-seated shame, a little monster inside tells them they aren’t good enough, the people they love will never be happy with what they provide, so they have to provide material things for those they love instead.
Meanwhile, lots of people see their man working through another weekend, blowing off another date, and feel rejected. This ties back to love languages and unfortunately, in this case, there’s much lost in translation.
Most men will go through phases in which they work hard and don’t have much head space left for their partner. That’s not because he doesn’t love you. It’s because he’s trying to build something, usually to share it with the person he loves most.
6. Men are incredible
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Thanks to the Pick-up Artist community, and other misogynistic guys they would have no chance of attracting a partner on their own, many men believe who they are as a person isn’t enough and they have to use gimmicks (or rely on money) to attract and please a potential mate.
But men are incredible. Men are amazing. Men have so much to give. Part of loving men is loving men. Loving, appreciating, and being receptive to manhood, positive masculinity, Yang energy, and the masculine.
Sure, there are jokes about how men always try to solve problems instead of holding space. Then there’s the reality, in which men cannot bear to see their beloved suffer, and would do anything to make their problem go away.
There are jokes about men being insensitive or only wanting one thing, when in fact, men are as human as anyone, as vulnerable and sensitive in love. I’m frequently overcome by the profound generosity of my man, and the non-romantic men in my life. I didn’t always realize this, as I was too busy protecting myself from the potential of the bad man.
In reality, caring men were waiting for me to let my guard down, so they could give their presence, kindness, care, and love, selflessly and endlessly. Men are incredible.
Kathryn Hogan is an author, coach, and spiritual student who writes about authenticity, spirit and love with a fun and sassy twist.