Men are NOT a Project

Why do women think men are a project that they can perfect?

For years I have had more than one friend who has said this same thing to me in the middle of a challenging relationship. They tell me that they can’t leave their relationship because he will find someone else and be wonderful to that person. I always ask why they think he will change for someone else, like magic? They always say, because of all the work they put into him, what if they made him perfect…for the next woman. This concept literally seemed strange to me when my friend who had dated her boyfriend for over fifteen years said it, but when my friend who was only dating her man for one year said it I started to think there was an epidemic going around.

Do women really get so involved with a failing relationship that it becomes a job? A project to manage? The answer is yes, and this has to stop. First of all, if I was moving on with my life after a breakup and months later got a call from an ex that told me I was only doing well because of how much work he put into me, he made me better (I have been told this by the way- I will discuss later how I think it’s crazy) I would have a few choice words for him. Hell No! I am doing better because of the lessons I learned from my life, my not so perfect choices and the work I did to move on. That being said, I have never seen one of these “perfected” men actually move on and do so much better with someone else. Typically they make the same mistakes with the next person. We can only hope that any of us grow from our relationships and do better next time. This takes personal work within ourselves. I have had a man tell me that he learned some big relationship lessons after he dated me, and he was able to think on this over time and find a woman who was better suited to him and now able to give her things he couldn’t give me. His growth was more about his own emotional maturity than my personal work of art. He also wasn’t the right person for me or it would have worked out. We take on these man projects because it was something in us that we needed to challenge or deal with at that time. It has nothing to do with the other person. We don’t actually want to be in this type of relationship, and once we realize what we deserve we are able to find a man who can be our partner with instead of our project. 

I will always do my best to lift my friends when they are down, man or woman, to tell them they deserve the best. I don’t think being in a relationship day to day should feel like you are in a prison. You can always change your life and get out. The world will not fall apart, it will be difficult, but that is why knowledge is power. This knowledge comes from the years of what I call metaphorically walking off the plank into open water and hoping I would be saved, not drown. I have managed to always keep my head above water, but enough with the metaphors, sometimes you just have to take chances in life. You have to trust that there is something better beyond the situation you are in. I promise that there always will be.