Once upon a time, little girls all over the world were told that the best thing that would ever happen to them would be men loving them and romancing them. Men making them wives and mothers, giving them rings and homes and babies. Men!!! They’re just so amazing because… romance!!!

Romance is the glitter inside the giant choking-hazard pill we must swallow that is men in relationships. Or really men at all–the true nature of men. Their danger, their power, and their hunger for violence as expressed through war and sex.

I have never in my lifetime met a young woman who believed war was a good thing when considering the innocent blood that is always shed because men in power can’t get along. When I talk to young servicemen about war, it’s clear that they are excited at the prospect. To them, going into combat, killing others and trespassing on foreign land to satisfy their elitist handler’s agenda, is just “doing cool shit.” Men are not yummy balls of glitter that are meant to make women feel warm and fuzzy. That (aka romance) is the candy coating they put on the pill to get us to commit to them eternally before they can reveal their true nature.

With that understanding, it’s no surprise that all famous, old romances are written by men. Women have learned from men to view themselves through the male gaze and to view men through romantic-colored glasses. Romance: he’s going to make you feel special and beautiful, and give you things that you want, and make “sacrifices” to “save” you and make you happy. He’s going to love you forever and never let you down, disappoint you or betray you. What you don’t know, because it’s in the fine print you didn’t read, is that none of that is real.

What is romantic love? It’s the delusion that another person can, does and will love you better than your parents could, healing all the wounds your childhood left you with. It’s a delusion fed to men just as much as women, except men are inherently selfish about it and fall back on their power. They don’t give up anything to love a woman, whereas she often gives up everything to love him. Romantic love is the idea that marriage (simply being bound to another person) will satisfy the void in one’s soul. Believing in it, we cling to our partners for dear life, feeling nothing short of devastation if they decide they don’t need us to insulate their soul’s void anymore. Or if, instead of similarly insulating our souls, they actually penetrate our old wounds even deeper, we are shocked and believe we must’ve just chosen the wrong person.

The glitter pill is the romantic idea that we need men to be our healers by being our boyfriends, husbands, best friends, providers, protectors, comforters, caretakers, financiers, fanatics and refuges in order for us to be fully okay in life. Without men’s attention, devotion and passion, we are cold, lonely and wandering. With men who truly love us romantically, life should just be utopia.

Now, you might be thinking to yourself, what is she talking about? Isn’t she married? Does she hate her husband?

A few months ago I wrote about my marriage and how I’ve come to believe marriage is a powerful container for healing. This is not to say that I believe my husband is supposed to heal me or will ever heal me. The point was rather that the safety of a committed attachment (marriage) is the ideal place to heal my own wounds using my triggers from my past. My attachment to my husband often mirrors my first attachment to my parents and everything that was wrong with it. Every time he triggers me, and I stay with my trigger, and I give myself what I always needed, I heal and eventually get triggered less and less. The “pain” of a good marriage is not in the cuts he gives me but rather that he exposes the cuts I came to him already having. And with the assurance of commitment, I have the space to tend to my wounds as I become aware of them. As every therapist I’ve ever had has told me, healing happens in relationships. Not just romantic relationships, but rather those that are long and intimate enough to create a felt sense of safety when attachment has only ever felt dangerous before. Life in a vacuum is not ideal for healing. We can absolutely use our friendships and family relationships to heal, and I’ve even written about how working with toddlers healed me in a powerful way. But, no relationship is a more powerful vessel for healing to happen than marriage.

However, I believe the delusion of romantic love actually holds us back from healing. See, “romance” tells me that my partner is supposed to love me unconditionally and never say or do anything to hurt me the way I’ve been hurt before, and if he does, I must be devastated and heartbroken and shattered, and I must leave him and learn to trust someone new again, only to repeat the cycle. However my “mirror” tells me that if I’m deeply triggered by something my partner says or does to me, he just touched a specific wound of mine that needs my attention. As I heal that wound, I find that I naturally either a) attract better treatment from him and all my other mirror relationships or b) repel people who consistently treat me in a way that hurts me. Things always align themselves in my favor according to how much love and attention I give myself.

A common complaint on my TikTok videos, in which I give married women advice on how to command more respect and take back their sense of agency, is:

“Why do women have to do all the work to make up for men being awful? They should be the ones to change, not us? Why is it always us who has to change?”

This mentality is very childish. It is akin to being at a restaurant and ordering a steak with the sauce on the side. The waiter brings you steak but it’s smothered in the sauce. It’s not what you asked for. It’s not what you wanted. They did mess up. What will you do? Sit there and bemoan that they messed up, and not do anything about it? Or will you tell the waiter that they messed up and you need it fixed? Some women don’t want to use their agency or autonomy. They want things to correct themselves, and I completely understand this mindset. However, it gets you nowhere in life.

You’re right, men should change, and the waiter should’ve gotten it right. But they don’t, and he didn’t. You can sit there and take it, or you can stand up for yourself and choose a new place to dine.

Sometimes we say we want autonomy and agency, but we secretly want to let go of both and surrender everything to men. This is the delusion of romance and the fantasy of childhood neglect. We want to let go completely, because we want someone else to rescue us. We know what happened wasn’t our faults, but instead of mourning that and moving forward, we stay stuck there and moan. Don’t give up your agency because you’re afraid to move on and heal. Don’t succumb to the lie of romance and lose yourself in the delusion. Use the men in your life just as they use you: to heal, to grow, and to build a better life for yourself.