Just like not all men are bad, not all women are good.
We’re talking so much about gender equality that we forget we are people before we are genders.
We’re so obsessed with making things right that we fail to notice when the shoe is on the other foot.
Women are no saints. And they are no sinners. Can we for once treat them like actual human beings who sometimes make mistakes? And sometimes they make the same mistakes as the men they bash?
One step towards real equality is being at the same level of accountability as men.
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With that in mind, this article is about 7 types of women who emotionally abuse men. I personally know most of them, plus 5 more that weren’t spicy enough to make the cut.
1. The one who treats men like dirt.
Meet Corrine. She isn’t a nice person. She’s entitled, angry, and narcissistic. And she had this good man who was head over heels in love with her.
He was good-looking, he was sweet, he was caring. And she was an absolute b**** to him.
For her birthday, he gave her pearl earrings. She threw a fit of rage because he didn’t know her at all and the pearls didn’t match any of her outfits.
Every time they went out (which was almost every night) he paid for absolutely everything. The drinks, the dinners, the tickets, the tips. Although she earned almost double what he did.
He genuinely liked her. Maybe it was just because she was mean to him or maybe he just thought she was a strong woman who wasn’t afraid to speak her mind and stand up for herself. And he respected that.
Unfortunately, he was wrong about her. She wasn’t strong and she wasn’t speaking her mind. She was frustrated, aggressive, and petty.
Because a lot of women are not used to speaking their minds or being direct about their wants and needs, people don’t really know what being assertive looks like in a woman.
So when a woman opens her mouth to voice an opinion she is either labeled a howling banshee or she is crowned a powerful queen, no matter what her message and attitude is.
That’s why women need to practice stepping up in assertive ways, not in insane bouts of rage that wipe out an entire village.
We learn by doing. And we all have an insane amount of emotional work to do.
2. The one who only dates married men.
Meet Tilda. Yes, Tilda. And yes, the names are made up. The people aren’t.
Tilda has been dating married man after married man for the past few years. 5 years in, she’s desperate. She just can’t find anyone that sticks. No kidding…
Naturally, she is the only one who is surprised by the situation.
Some say that she deserves it, others that those married men shouldn’t have been dating her either.
While they are assholes as well, the main responsibility for Tilda’s life belongs to herself. She is the owner of her own happiness and she is responsible for her own self-respect.
Dating men who are in (more or less) committed relationships is disrespectful toward yourself and toward other women. Unless that man is in an open relationship, you have no business going behind another woman’s back.
What’s even worse, constantly wondering why you can’t find a decent man to be with when you aren’t a decent human being yourself is a state of denial that needs to be addressed in therapy.
3. The one who treats men like cash cows.
Granted some men enjoy being women’s cash cows, but that doesn’t make women who take advantage of them good people.
Consent for abuse doesn’t make abuse ok.
Meet Jessica. She has a husband she never loved and a life she tries to escape from.
But escapism costs money.
She was thinking about getting a divorce, but eventually changed her mind because hubby is still good for something: he has that money.
Jessica likes money as much as the rest of us, or maybe even a bit more, and who else to finance her expensive cosmetic procedures and luxurious vacations? Hubby.
Hubby doesn’t mind or doesn’t realize he’s being used. He’s still in love with her and would rather pay for her presence in his life than live without her, even though her presence is physical at best.
This way, they both get what they don’t really want and certainly don’t need: she gets his money and he gets her presence. Lose-lose.
4. The one who wants to hurt all men.
Yes, this is an actual thing. Some women hate men and want to see them suffer.
My friend Michael used to date this gorgeous blonde Leo. Hair color and star sign are completely unimportant, but that’s what he used to call her, The Blonde Leo.
The Blonde Leo had several other relationships in parallel to him and her purpose in life was to destroy all men. She told him those exact words one romantic afternoon in the park, while they were making out under the golden rays of the setting sun.
I shuddered, but Michael reacted by buying her a pair of expensive shoes. They were stilettoes. I wonder if he thought she would hurt all the men with those sharp heels.
She eventually left him a broken shadow of the man he used to be. She took the stilettoes though.
5. The one who picks on men’s every fault.
Sure, men can do that as well, but I’ve seen it much more frequently in women. Belittling, nagging, laughing.
‘Joe, stop smacking that damn corn dog!’
‘It’s so tiny, are you sure you’re a man?’
‘You have no sense of style, don’t you know that MAGA T-shirts doesn’t go with rainbow underpants? Take those off!’
‘Do you have to breathe that loud?’
While it’s natural to ask for things from our partners, there has to be a limit to how much we want somebody to change.
If you don’t like him, what are you doing with him? Using him as an emotional punching bag is lame.
Women need to learn different ways to let off some steam.
Go to the gym and lift some weights. Do some angry painting, rent an empty room, and smear the walls with (no, not poop and not blood) paint! Find a (willing!) sparing partner. One that wants to have some teeth knocked out.
Built-up anger and resentment are not solved by passive aggressiveness and belittling your man. Ladies, you need to find a good therapist and simultaneously pick up boxing.
And you also need to learn one important lesson that I myself learned the hard way. Love them or leave them. Don’t try to change them.
No matter how incredible you are, you just can’t. You won’t. Just let them be.
Otherwise, you’ll end up ruining his life and yours. It’s just not worth it. Let him be the way he is and find another one that you actually like.
6. The one who exerts brutal revenge
I recently came across the photo of this man wearing nothing but underwear, with his body covered in tattoos of a girl. The same girl. 20 times. Nothing but her life-sized face tattooed on his entire body.
The story is that his girlfriend caught him cheating on her and left him. He begged her to take him back and he eventually agreed but only if he tatted her face on his body 20 times.
He did and she still left him!
I have to agree, my first thought was: somebody give this woman an award! I laughed! I laughed so hard at the sheer genius of the idea.
And then I paused for a moment.
Was the idea smart? Deliciously smart. Did he deserve it? Yes! The guy was a cheater.
But should we punish assholes by being assholes ourselves? He obviously made a mistake that he regretted afterward. Nobody says to take him back. Nobody says to even forgive everyone who apologizes. But revenge is lame. It’s small and silly.
Was what he did awful enough to possibly destroy his life by making him a walking poster of yourself?
I say live and let live. The best revenge is living well.
7. The one who likes to make men jealous.
She keeps multiple boyfriends. She has them lined up like dominoes: when the first falls, the next one follows.
Whenever things go bad in her main relationship, there she is, crying on a new hunky shoulder who is ready to take the place of her man.
Men are nothing but a safety net for her and she jumps from one safety net to the next.
Meet Marilyn. She has a steady boyfriend, but things between them are sort of shaky and they’ve always been that way. Her boyfriend’s main fear is that the moment he’s out of the picture cute little hazel-eyed Marilyn will start dating his best friend, who is kind of sweet on her.
Actually, a lot of men are, because she leaves a trail of honey behind her every place she goes.
And men love honey. Especially when it tastes like damsel in distress.
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Women are not better than men. They’ve been through a lot, but so have men. Different struggles, but just as difficult.
A lot of times, women’s struggles have been at the hands of men, whether they want to admit it or not. But punishing the present for the sins of the past is no way to live. And certainly no way to thrive.
“Sooner or later in life, we will all take our own turn being in the position we once had someone else in.” (Ashly Lorenzana)
In our own way, we’ll all be the abuser and the abused. When the time comes, let’s make sure we’re fair about it.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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Photo credit: Leon Skibitzki on Unsplash