Men are never raised to believe they’re capable of being a good man to a woman. This isn’t an excuse for our behavior, as far as I see, this is just a fact of life.

The men I know who don’t want to get into relationships refuse not because they don’t feel like doing it, but because they feel like they can’t. And the ones who do get into relationships, well, the confidence they have to make such a step is fragile.

Maybe even too fragile.

So when a woman is shaking it up with more cries of woe, telling her man he isn’t cut out to be in a relationship, he internalizes that, starts believing it applies to every woman he meets afterward. When a man is doing right, she calls him a man, but when he’s doing wrong, she calls him a boy. If he hears it enough times from a woman — that he’s a boy, that he’s not ready to be a man — he starts believing it, and so he decides to remain single, because he doesn’t need a woman to determine his manhood. On his own two, he’s a man.

Dedicated to no woman in particular, just experiences with many, today’s post is for all the men out there who have ever tried to make it work and got beat up in the process. Let us not cheat. Let us not yell. Let us leave before things get any worse than they already are.

My pride is my best friend and sometimes my worst enemy. The way I have refused to back down from the challenge of being a good man to a woman who no longer believes I’m capable of doing such a thing caused damage I didn’t see until much later.

What happened wasn’t with any one girl in particular, and it isn’t something specific to me. I know a lot of men who have been told they’re not up to par from women who refuse to leave them. She claims to want to work with me, to make me better, but in the process, she’s only making me worse. She calls staying together tough love, and yeah, that’s cute and all, but umm, we’re going to break up now. Tough love to me, is moving on no matter how much it hurts to do so.

I have to conserve my energy because I only have so much of it, and if I give it all to this girl who constantly reminds me I’m falling short of doing the right thing, it would be a shame. We tried that whole break up to make up thing, and frankly, it’s become a  tired routine, so I have a new idea.

Break up to wake up.

We’re going to try that because I think the longer we stay together, the longer we’re sleeping on a person out there who’s more our fit. I’m a good man, but it’s clear to me, I’m not her man.

When did I know this? The other day.

We were arguing and she went on a rant. It was about me (again), a tirade about how I didn’t do this (again), and I didn’t do that (again). I haven’t changed (still), I haven’t grown up (still), I’m the same guy I was before I met her (still).

And all the while I’m thinking: If one of my female friends was talking about her man like this, and she asked me what she should do I’d tell her to leave him.

So we’re going to break up now. I know in doing so, she’s going to challenge me to stay, and probably say a real man would do such a thing, but see, that right there is why I’m leaving.

I don’t want to cheat. I don’t want to fight. I don’t want to lose. But I’m being made to feel like I’m a loser and frankly, it’s getting to me. I’m beginning to feel like the problem is bigger than being her man, it’s stretched over into being any woman’s man. She has me feeling like it doesn’t matter who I meet, that no matter what I do, I’m just not ready to be in a relationship. And maybe she’s right, but how will I know if I stay in this one?

We’re going to break up now, so I can find the answer.