About Men, Myself, and Love.
by Jules Webber, Professional Intimacy Expert
Last Fall, I started what felt like a novel journey at the time, but ended up being one of the bravest things I’ve ever done: a nine-month break from dating, from guy friends, and from seeking male attention of any kind. I was 15 months out from an amicable divorce at the end of a relationship that lasted a decade, realizing not for the first time that I’d never taken time in my life to be intentionally single. I instinctively felt that a choice like this would be a gold mine of self-discovery, and I wasn’t wrong. However, my Man Pause gave me nothing I thought I wanted and everything I didn’t know I needed. Yes, this women’s intimacy expert surprised herself over and over again with what she learned. Here are my greatest lessons from this experiment-gone-incredibly-right, and my tips if you’re considering your own Man Pause.
1. Men are not as confusing as we tell ourselves they are.
The beginning of my man pause brought an interesting phenomenon with it: a clearing of sorts. I noticed that as I had set an intention to clarify my own relationship with men in my life, the ones who consistently felt “confusing” presented an opportunity to create closure. A friendship that involved attraction without clarity reached its sad but freeing breaking point; another opportunity to clearly tell an ex how he had hurt me when he suddenly reached out led to a helpful and final goodbye; and I finally put definition around exactly the relationship I wanted to have with my children’s father. Gone were the days of inevitable frustration as we tried to create a resolution around old pain between us. Clarity allowed me to let go.
Lesson Learned: No one can be more committed to your confusion than you. Where might there be clarity with men if you allowed yourself to see them for what they are really showing you?
2. Our pain will follow us, even when men are out of the picture.
Many women, including myself, have harbored deep subconscious beliefs that men are responsible for much of the pain we experience, and so naturally we carry a lot of blame toward them. This is one of those things that feminism, in my opinion, hasn’t really helped us with, despite its good intentions. All of us are caught up in a painful patriarchy, and men as well as women are victims of this. Men as well as women perpetuate this. Men as well as women can heal and disrupt this. But men are not to blame. Neither are women. One symptom of patriarchy is the insatiable need each gender has for consuming the attention of the other; and the way we judge ourselves for the loneliness we experience. When you take responsibility for how you feel when you’re alone, and stop expecting men to fix that pain, you get to acknowledge and validate what’s real for you and let go of the blame that’s keeping you guarded.
Lesson Learned: How can I relate with men, and myself, from a lens of personal responsibility, and not just through blame? If I could let go of the blame I place on men as a gender, would I be less guarded when it comes to love?
3. You can break a promise to yourself, forgive, and keep going. You’re allowed to feel weak. You’re allowed to “do it wrong”. You get to be human. This is where confidence is created.
Nothing will show you how human you really are quite like feeling alone on a Friday night and reaching to text that guy you know will respond before you even realize what you’re doing. Using men to validate my very existence was and is a compulsion most women carry that I am so grateful to be aware of. I know what it feels like in my body to crave male validation because I chose to sit in it; and when I didn’t, I learned the quick but regrettable release that came when someone saved me with their attention; and I know how to forgive myself in that regret and recommit.
Lesson Learned: When we give ourselves the space to be alone, we find that we can outlast loneliness. We can live through emptiness, and we don’t have to use men to escape that. They don’t deserve that, and it doesn’t make us happy anyway. Letting that go is the best thing I ever did for my dating life.
4. Nothing will build in you an appreciation for men, and for partnership with them, quite like their absence. Men offer invaluable support, perspective, strength, and love when we are willing to open up to it.
My incessant need since my marriage ended to live totally self-sufficient was a life season that made a lot of sense for me at the time, but it didn’t serve my desire for intimate partnership. I knew that and I still needed my independence until I didn’t anymore. Someone with a history of codependence will often need to experience their own independence in order for them to better understand the value and purpose of interdependent partnership. Don’t be hard on yourself about your anxious or ambivalent attachment styles, if you have them. Instead, lean into your experience of your own neediness, or overwhelm, and learn how to hold it. That way, when a man offers to support you, he is met with gratitude instead of chasing or closure, and you get to feel the love you’ve always craved.
Lesson Learned: Men in our past may have caused us pain, but we are always empowered to create our own closure in those experiences and hold ourselves through it where they could not. There are kind, brilliant men out there who understand their role in healthy relationship, just as you will very soon if you don’t already, who want to meet you half way. They can’t go 90% and they won’t expect you to either. What might healthy, reciprocal partnership look like for you when you’ve had the chance to partner with yourself first?
In the Flawless & Feminine Digital Course, we start with the assumption that our bodies are worthy of the relationship with us that we all crave with a partner; and then we use that relationship to build a foundation of deep kindness and integrity that you can take into your dating life, marriage, or intimate partnership. This is the work that I needed to get me to the space where I was able to dive head first into this Man Pause. It shaped the way I saw myself and allowed me to hold space for myself in those lonely moments.
If you’re interested in working with me 1:1, you can click here to book a call.