Some women struggle to learn from past relationships with men. They cycle through their relationships, unable to stick to a relationship and stay committed. Then, when they are single, they complain they want a man, but it’s ‘’so hard.’’
This post specifically refers to women who tend to do one or more of the following:
- break up first with a man to avoid pain
- have a hard time committing to their partner or staying in a long-term relationship
- Have an authority complex – they want a ‘’manly man’’ but have a hard time surrendering to their feminine essence
- Be picky about men, who she wants, what she likes/doesn’t like in a man
- Tend to complain and blame their exes instead of owning up to their part in the relationship
- Avoid self-reflection because it’s too uncomfortable
In this article, we are going to explore why some women struggle to learn from past relationships with men.
Complain and blame exes instead of taking accountability
Women who tend to complain and blame their exes have a hard time taking accountability for themselves. It’s so easy to be angry and frustrated about your ex, and perhaps blaming them provides an emotional release. But this release is temporary and does not fix why you are unable to reflect and learn from past relationships with men.
A reason many women don’t want to own up to their share of what happened in the relationship is that it makes them look like the ‘’bad guy.’’ There could be a lot of judgment regarding being the person who did something harmful or counterproductive in the relationship. It is even more painful to recognize verbal or physical abuse you may have participated in during the relationship.
Not all men are abusive, but sometimes women like to blame men for being the difficult ones to avoid their responsibility and contribution to abuse.
Perhaps you read or saw something like: the man is always wrong, the woman is always right, which makes you believe you can never be at fault. But maybe something or someone challenges your original beliefs, which may be uncomfortable for you, because you’ve always seen or believed men to be less than women.
It’s Uncomfortable to Reflect
For many of us women, we can struggle to learn from past relationships with men because it requires us to reflect. Looking back and observing who we were and how we behaved with our exes can be uncomfortable, especially if we want to understand how we contributed – positively or negatively – to the relationship.
Because let’s be honest, it’s not always about the guy within a broken relationship. Or, if we’re in a friendship, a friendship breakup is not always the other woman’s fault. There is always an aspect of us that contributed to how the relationship became.
A relationship is made up of two or more people, and each person has a responsibility for how the relationship will be, regardless of the circumstances. The health of a relationship does not fall on one person. So if something ‘’bad’’ happens in the relationship, or a breakup happens, each person has their point of accountability and contribution to what happened.
And to see that some of the issues in the relationship were your fault can be hard to accept. Some women can handle it and use that fault to learn from. But for other women, it’s too uncomfortable to bear.
If you, as a woman, do not want to look at how you created part of the breakup, you will either:
- Repeat the same situation in a relationship again, or
- You will be involved in another relationship where you will be forced to take responsibility for yourself.
Generally, many people in life do not learn their lessons; that’s why they repeat the same things repeatedly.
Learning from the Past, Changing the Next Cycle
If you ever see yourself repeating or going into the same cycle with a person or a situation, that indicates there is something for you to learn from. Once you know the lesson, the test will come where the same problem happens, but you can apply the changes you made or act upon the realization you had to transcend the point.
For example, let’s say you realized you tend to pick on and judge your man on things he naturally likes. You remember how you would make fun of one man’s hobby of race cars and his tattoos. When he did speak up about it, you’d become stubborn and feel righteous, claiming you have the right to share your opinion. You continue to judge and pick on him. You didn’t consider how your words and attitude were affecting his confidence. He opened up to you, he was vulnerable, and you shut him down.
Over time, the relationship disintegrated: The man became quieter while you continued to pick on him. He didn’t know how to effectively communicate with you and stand his ground to show you how unnecessary your judgments were. But also, you weren’t able to reflect on how your decisions and words were hurting him.
Both contributed to the disintegration of the relationship. It wasn’t just the man or the woman, but both people needed to learn from what happened.
Ideally, the woman would learn that her pickiness and judgments were something not to do in the next relationship because she wouldn’t want her man to do that to her. Hopefully, the guy would learn how to speak up more and not let women make him feel bad for things he loves.
So in the next relationship, when the woman sees she is getting irritated about her man’s hobbies or tattoos, she works deeper to uncover why these things make her so emotional. And why does she want to release this irritation by judging and picking on her guy?
Other Reasons Why women struggle to learn from past relationships with men
- When you acknowledge your poor characteristics, you are faced with a choice to change. Sometimes, women don’t want to change because it would bring them outside their comfort zone and may challenge the life and relationships they already have
- Due to some harmful ways of thinking, some women have a superiority complex and don’t want to reflect and admit where they are wrong. Doing so makes them feel equal to men, who they already see as less than.
- Some women like cycling through relationships and coming out to look like the victim. It gives them a high or temporarily soothes some need, like getting attention.
Feel Your Feelings – You Will Learn From Them
It can be tough to feel your feelings as a woman, especially in our fast-paced world filled with work and distractions that prevent you from doing so. But also, as children, we probably weren’t taught to feel properly, and instead, we were made to suppress or be made to believe that expressing our anger or emotions as girls is wrong.
Regardless of how we were brought up, as adult women, we must start finding ways to tune into ourselves and how we feel about certain things. If we are miserable and upset for being single, feel that. Cry about it. Let it out. But don’t make it consume you where you become bitter and resentful towards men and/or women who are in relationships. If you are, that shows there are underlying points you need to work through, but it’s possible not to be resentful forever. You can find meaningful, healthy ways and outlets that can bring joy in life.
Featured photo by Miss Nimue