The Good Guys Hurt Me the Most of All. What’s After #MeToo?
Women’s expectations of men have just leveled way the fuck up.
The #metoo moment declared women weren’t letting the “bad guys” in the workplace silence us by threats of sexual harassment any longer. Now, women are also no longer accepting the more subtle ways the “good guys” that they did invite into their bed get away with their part in toxic masculinity.
Since #metoo, I’ve been a part many conversations where a group of women sit around saying some version of “I’ve had enough of this bullshit. Men are shit. I can’t with it anymore.”
As much as the workplace harassment stuff has infuriated me and suppressed my professional growth in a million inarticulable ways, I can compartmentalize the bad guys as being over there where they can’t wound the deepest parts of me. I don’t let them that close to me. The good guys I’ve allowed into my heart and bedroom have hurt me the most deeply.
I can’t count the number of times I’ve had a romantic partner haul his exhausted, overwrought, stressed out, hungry, dehydrated, annoyed, distracted self to my house. That was the best he could do, and he was a wreck. Was he emotionally centered enough to be present with me for a conversation? Hell no. Was he meeting me as a peer in the relationship? Hell no. But he’d “made an effort” to spend time with me, and in his mind that was all he had to offer. My choice was to take it or leave it. After months of this pattern happening over and over, I left it. I was not going to accept the scraps of his attention and care anymore.
Ladies, find and use your NO voice.
Let’s be real — dudes are going to level up a lot fucking faster when we stop allowing their lame ass behavior like not doing their part of emotional or domestic labor. When your good guys asks you to do something for or with him, check in with yourself. Feel what comes up in your body. What are the physical sensations actually in your body? Take a breath or three while you feel into your throat, chest and belly. Does your body feel heavy or light? If it feels heavy, I encourage you to say no. Let’s practice.
He says, “can you help me change the sheets?”
You take moment for a couple of breaths to see what physical sensations come up in your body.
You say “no, I am not going to help you change the sheets.”
Here’s a partial list of reasonable reasons why to say no –
I’m choosing to do something else instead.
I’m tired, I’m going to rest.
When I imagine helping you change the sheets, my throat tightens into an ball like a fist, and I feel like screaming like a dragon whose thirst can never be quenched.
You know what else is a completely fucking reasonable reason?
I don’t want to.
Stop doing things you don’t want to do. It doesn’t matter if other people want you to do or think you should do it or you wish you wanted to do it. Choose the discomfort of saying no in this moment over resentment later. I know this is HARRRRRRRRD.
Living a life of resentment is harder.
If your sweetheart is unhappy in a relationship where you only do the things you want to do, then that relationship needs to end. This goes in both directions. If he doesn’t want to do something you ask, you can’t make him either, but you can express how him not meeting that request impacts you. Then he gets to decide with this new information whether he still prefers not to meet your request.
You both ask for what you want and need. You both say no when you don’t want to do that for whatever reason up to and including “I don’t want to.” In every moment, connect with what nourishes your own body and soul and trust that what you are willing to give freely is enough.
You are worthy of love and belonging whether or not you help him change the sheets. That’s just the goddammed fact.
So, what’s after #MeToo?
I don’t know, but I do know how I’m figuring out my part of the puzzle. I’m writing a book of practical, physical exercises for all humans to learn to take better care of ourselves so that we can show up as fully functional humans. I believe that our emotional body is guidance system to direct us to doing our highest work, to love and be of service to all of those dear to us. The simple exercise I outline above of checking in with your breath is but one of the techniques in the book.
I’ll be shipping out card decks and guidebooks to a small number of alpha testers this June to help me develop these exercises. Pop your email into this box if that’s of interest.
