Women Don’t Like Jerks — We Get Stuck With Them

If you took a snapshot of the last three months of our relationship, it would be impossible to see why I was with my ex-boyfriend Richard. He was a drunk.

He couldn’t get an erection, and while that happens to most men at some point in their lives, his was caused by his inhuman alcohol consumption and steroids.

He was a gym bro who paid more attention to his pecs than his girlfriend.

We didn’t have sex at all the last year we were together.

I’m serious. We had sex zero times.

He was destructively jealous and would explode into fits of rage without warning. Looking back, it’s obvious he was roid raging. The guy did all the wrong things to make his girlfriend happy.

He fought tooth and nail to keep me from having friends. When I would go out with my family from out of town, he would show up unannounced to “check up on me” and make sure I was okay.

He was really checking to see if any men were with me and if he needed to threaten or intimidate them. -eye roll-

Our relationship was an annoyance 100% of the time and brought me no joy.

This same story is shared by every woman I know.

The charming guy who once swept us off our feet had devolved into a shell of his former self. Over the years, he stopped trying and caring and let himself go. Over time, he showed the world his true colors.

When people are attracted to someone, they put on an act. Sometimes, their act is so convincing that it makes Denzel Washington look like an amateur.

Eventually, the mask comes off.

Usually, I write about the good experiences I’ve had. I write about great lovers and beautiful connections. But lately, over the past few years, there’s been an undeniable jump in the number of men subscribing to the idea that women are closet masochists who want to be controlled by powerful men.

Ironically, most men preaching the gospel of patriarchy are neither rich nor powerful or stunningly good-looking. They fantasize about a world where women are obsessed with influential men when they’re far from influential.

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It sounds like they’re trying to prove themselves right in order to justify why they should stay miserable.

“See! All women really want powerful men. They want to be dominated. They want money! And since I have none of these things, the world is unfair!”

I’m not here to complain. I think it’s important women like me tell our stories so people can understand why it might seem like we love to date total jerks.

Richard was a total jerk to me for the last year and a half of our relationship, but he was once kind, charming, sweet, full of smiles and laughter, and made me feel warm inside.

He was a gentle giant who cared for his body and focused on his dreams.

By the end of our relationship, he was a deranged psycho who stalked me.

After I broke up with him, he continued to call me. I wasn’t going to be so cruel that I totally ignored him, so we talked. He acted as if nothing had happened. He acted like we were still in a relationship even though I clearly told him it was over.

I lived in a second-story apartment at the time. He showed up at my apartment complex and scaled the balconies. He knocked on my sliding glass door and tried to open it.

I called the cops. Predictably, they did nothing.

One cop told me, “Can you blame him? You’re just so beautiful!”

I wanted to puke.

Eventually, his incessant calls and texts stopped. He got the hint.

He calmed his erratic behavior. He settled down, found a nice woman, stopped taking steroids, and started focusing on work and his family.

He stopped drinking alcohol which caused half of his problems in life when we were together.

We’re friends who talk occasionally, but I’ll never forget the monster he became in our relationship.

This is what patriarchal movements miss. They see that snapshot of two people in a relationship, an attractive woman and a total jerk bodybuilder guy, and they assume we’re with him for those traits.

Most women don’t like massive, dehydrated bodybuilders with bulging veins and anger problems. And none of us want to be with an abusive jerk.

They miss the months or years we spent patiently waiting for our boyfriends to return to the men they once were. They don’t see the hidden tears we shed every time another blowup happens.

The idea that women love jerks comes from a superficial interpretation of our relationships made by total strangers and anonymous online profiles.

You’ll never hear our therapists say we love jerks. You’ll never hear the social workers at domestic abuse survivors’ clinics say women are secretly attracted to powerful men who will abuse and dominate them.

We aren’t attracted to jerks. We get stuck with them.

That doesn’t mean we don’t love them. We love them for the men they once were and the men we hope they can be. We pray they’ll change for months or years until we finally lose all hope.

We’re told that being a good girlfriend or wife means sticking by your partner when they have problems. Most people have no clue how much guilt we experience when we think about leaving the man we love because he’s not the man he used to be.

No matter how horrible he is, we feel like it’s awful to leave him when he’s going through a hard time. And he’s always going through a good time. That’s how he keeps the cycle of manipulation going.

Eventually, we get tired of it, and we walk away. And somewhere along the line, we learn the tricks, the tactics, the manipulations they use to get us to stay long after we should’ve been gone.

If you’re wondering if women are secretly attracted to total jerks, the answer is no. And whenever you see us with one, realize that we just haven’t left them yet.

But we will.

Once we learn better.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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