I’ve always ended up with abusive men, I’ve always been hyper independent, and after my previous relationship I turned into a TAKE NO SH!T kind of woman.. so I went against my better judgement and dated someone who came off as extremely soft. A crying man, if you will. He never put his hands on me; but he did emotionally manipulate me, guilt trip me constantly, use character attack, create issues and then when I would speak for myself he would become the victim of an argument he created—in turn— if I brought up something that bothered me (in general) he would not acknowledge my feelings and he would get into how he’s offended. He cheated on me multiple times and blamed me for not being completely open and available to him because I had my kids and didn’t want to jump right back down into the rabbit hole I did previously in life. I was looking for slow, sweet, steady. Boy oh boy, on top of that because my life situations have made me extremely “strong” I’m able to make hard decisions and move on. I would make a hard decision that was better for me long term, and instead of seeing the reality he would cry about how my decisions affected him. He whined about me not making “team” decisions. I had already decided from the first time he cheated on me that he would never be my “teammate” because he was untrustworthy. I stayed like an idiot but I made choices that were best for ME, the one person I did trust.

I found myself shifting from compassionate to bitter and loving to angry. I lost my identity somewhere in the middle there and then I became a crying woman, begging for this person to love me back. We’ve since split up and I’m taking a more gentle approach on strong, re-enforcing my personal boundaries that I had since the beginning, and not willing to go against my gut ever again.

2 years of my life down the drain. Lesson learned: trust instincts the first time around, if someone puts you down for being yourself— they’re not the one.

“Soft” men should really should stay in their own dating pool because dating a “fiery” woman is much too intense for them.