Anger & Mistrust of Men: Have Your Walls Become Your Prison?
April 1, 2010 by Cathy Meyer
Filed under NoMore, Relationships
Submitted by Delaine
Do you ever wonder if divorce and/or infidelity have ‘hardened’ you? I don’t mean ‘hardened’ as in “made you stronger.” I mean as in, “encased you in a shell of mistrust and bitterness towards the opposite sex.”
Cause that’s what happened to me; I wasn’t even conscious of it at the time. Truth is, to this day, I still sometimes struggle with it. And I find it kind of scary – cause even though these feelings are a natural part of the grieving process, I can see how it would be easy to get stuck in them for too long. Some people never move beyond them… right?
I started building ‘walls’ between myself and men somewhere around eight months into my divorce. I’d already been out there dating for a few months by that point – which was more like me running around with my heart on my sleeve trying desperately to find a ‘replacement partner.’
But by the eight-month mark something shifted in me. I’d become more comfortable with the dating scene and realized I didn’t need to ‘panic’ - I even gave myself permission to fully ‘explore’ what the dating/sex scene had to offer. At the same time, however, I began processing my divorce/infidelities. And my ‘walls’ started going up – with ANGER and FEAR OF BEING HURT AGAIN acting as chief foremen.
My Anger proclaimed that I’d never again be a man’s doormat - not even for a moment – as I had in past relationships and in my marriage. Never again was a man going to rip my heart out by fucking other women behind my back; he’d never get close enough for me to care. Never again was I going to be the one who chased men, who spent hours daydreaming over ‘what might be’ – hell, figuring out men was a waste of my time and an insult to my purpose for being alive. I resolved that if a man wanted me, if he was TRULY worthy of me, he would not only pursue me with every ounce of his being, he’d have to be brave enough, strong enough, to blast through my walls and swoop me up…
And I’d laugh…God there were times that I”d laugh at and criticize men . I felt like I’d finally learned the truth about them; that I’d inflated them to be these magnificently evolved creatures when in fact, most were simple-minded, penis-lead duds who didn’t deserve the time of day. I felt like I’d been stupidly fooled and manipulated into believing that when a woman offers a man her heart, he’d treasure it, protect it, cherish it – not drop it on the floor as soon as a finely-dressed pussy walked by.
I even felt angry at our partriarchal society at large – for I’d spent my whole life hearing men comment about how women are ‘too fat”, “too old”, “her boobs are too small” etc, and every wounded part of my Woman Soul wanted to scream at them to get their priorities straight, to go home and look after their children, to work hard and pay support because it’s the right thing to do, to stop blaming us for everything, to open up their mouths and communicate for once from their souls, to evolve into who I THOUGHT they were, who they CAN be, if they’d just take their brains out of their pants…
(Shaking head)…Again, I wasn’t even aware of what was happening inside me. I was blaming the entire male species for the horrible transgressions done to me by a couple of men. Higher and wider the stones on my wall grew. I felt safe. Empowered. I had complete ownership of my heart in here.
But then…then the universe usurped control of my fortress: it sent in a Good Man when I wasn’t looking. And it was he, this Good Man – a man who was but a written voice on my computer, a man who I made jump through hoops to earn my trust and friendship, who announced: “You’ve got these huge walls up around yourself,Delaine. And I understand that they’re there to protect you…
But you’ve built them so high that you set men up for failure before they even start. And I’m warning you to be careful. Cause the Woman inside those walls is absolutely beautiful…but she’s blocking out any chance she may have at love and happiness; she’s becoming her own prisoner.”
One day months later, as I sat looking way up at the walls I’d constructed, I began to see the truth of his words. Slowly, hesitantly, I began dismantling them. And strangely enough, the more blocks I pulled down, the lighter I began to feel; it was like fresh air blowing through a room in my soul. Moreover – why lookee here at who had shown up: standing in my courtyard and reaching out to me were MORE Good Men. And I smiled, thinking: Ah.. a few Brave Men were sent to coax the Angry Woman out of her fortress.
I’m not going to say my walls are totally gone now; a couple of recent ‘mishaps’ have shown me I definitely still have work to do. Plus, a part of me still kind of needs the walls - to ward off the simple-minded, penis-lead-duds – I mean, ‘less suitable” men out there in the dating trenches.
But I’m aware of when I’m being defensive; I’m aware of when a trigger has been hit and I’m falsely blaming someone else for an old transgression. And on the whole, I’d have to say I’m happier and lighter within my relationships with men AND myself than ever before; I’m getting there.
And so I hope that my insane story lingers at the back of your mind to serve you somehow. May it comfort you in your Dark Phase if that’s where you are now. But may it also remind that you’re to be there only temporarily. Cause you can’t build up walls that shut out the other half of the species without you serving a painful sentence yourself.
Delaine – www.iamdivorcednotdead.com
Other Articles:
Understanding The Pain & Rejection Of Infidelity
Mental Health: Why Aren’t We More Concerned?
Well self preservation is a natural reaction. If you don’t put your heart out there it can’t be broken. But that will surely keep you out of range of the good guys.
I had an aunt who was divorced and betrayed while in her forties and I swear to God, she never recovered from it – the anger and bitterness she felt not only never disappeared, it got worse. Now that she’s in her seventies I sadly say I look at her and am terrified: That is definitely NOT where I want to end up.
As Sage said above, the walls we build are about self-preservation. But there’s the anger component too, and anger tends to be something that women bury within themselves and become depressed because of, instead of learning how to express it in an effective and healthy way.
Sometimes I too, feel the rage, Delaine. It’s one thing to be left for another woman (which attacks you on every level of your being admittedly or not), but when he then goes on to neglect his children and act like a total jerk in the divorce process, it’s hard to keep that anger and despair under control.
I guess time has a way of helping us sort our feelings and our lives into the proper compartments… But right now, I know I’m a dangerous force to be reckoned with in the dating department – my tolerance for men’s selfish behaviors and attitudes are at an all-time low. And though it may seem awful to say, it sometimes feels really good to call-them out and put them down – not to their face, but in conversations with gfs.
Funny in a way. I beleive my wife has had these walls before I ever met her. Her past marriages and past affairs sum it up.
Yet, Now after a decade of no intimacy of any type, her affairs and deception with past partners since we’ve been together has brought me to your point.
I thought women and my wife where carring and loving creatures by nature. I now realize they are not. I thought women want love and understanding. I thought women want hope and sharing but they don’t do they?
Women want a husband like an accessory, someone to donate spirm for their biological urge. To fix the house and pay bills. To allow them too feel normal or ok because they have married.
I thought women want a partner to share the wonders that life and a family can bring. But they don’t do they?
It doesn’t matter what a man does because there comes a time when his wife will begin tearing him down, decaying his soul and then when he’s destroyed internally and zapped of self, she will begin the new phase of distruction because he doesn’t seem to feel like he’s happy.
A man will keep trying only to be met with rejection after rejection and his once loving wife will cheat or divorce him telling all how deficult he is to live with.
This is the real truth because if you look close at all the men you no in your life the majority are unhappy and just existing. Taking their daily dose of verbal and psycological abuse from their loving wives ( You know the ones that everybody say “She’s so nice”)
Yes girls I was once a pretty happy man who loved and cared deeply for his wife.
I was an artist and musician. I wanted to give that gift to my kids.
But now I have walls and I don’t beleive I can ever trust women from what I have seen. I have become the walking dead at times and pain and missory has become a familiar mood. Thankyou lady’s and thank you my once sweet and loving wife.
I hope my sons never get married because the thought of them having to endure what I have is awful.
By the way; You talk about mood swings, Having been cheated on, imagining your lovely wife giving another oral sex, Knowing he has been cumming in her…
You wonder why every time she leaves the house or you go outside or to work your mind begins to panic. The problem is in the state I come from an affair is not recognized by a court. Welcome to no fault divorce…Walls,Walls, walls… I’m sure this is going to kill me in the end if it hasn’t already began.
Isn’t great how such a sweet lovely girl can rip your soul out and treat you like your the bad one,
Gee she bought cake to her work the other day for someone retiring, I bet everyone at work thinks she is so nice and caring.
How can my sweet little angle be so angry at me because I discovered she was f–ing and s–king someone else while I was at home with the kids or at their baseball game.
I am so blessed aren’t I? I should become a masin so I can built bigger, stronger walls…
Oh Joe, I can so remember and relate to the pain you are in. I felt like the Walking Dead and yet there was an inferno raging inside me at the same time. My entire world felt off kilter. And the worse part is that your imagination runs wild, trying to pull the data together, and when the horror of what you’re envisioning hits your heart it feels like it’s tearing you to pieces.
I’m not going to sit here rambling on about how this WILL pass (even though the acuity does lessen immensely) because I remember how people told ME that and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to hit them or if I just felt so numb I didn’t care.
My ex was screwing another woman throughout my entire pregnancy…one of many women I later found out. I discovered his affair when my baby was only six months old and I had other toddlers in the house too.
I’d thought we were a unit. I thought that, even though our marriage had problems, overall we were doing really well; that no matter what, we’d always work together, our priorities were similar, we’d built too much together – stuff that MATTERED – for either of us to EVER toss it out for sex.
Being deceived while I was pregnant added a whole new level of attack to my womanhood – that was a SACRED time of my life, and now it has been defiled. That he put me and the baby at risk for STDS too (he never used protection), it digusted me to such lengths I couldn barely eat for months.
Please just know that you aren’t alone Joe. The hell you feel right now has been and is being experienced by many other people too. I know that doesn’t help take away your pain and complete and utter disillusionment. But I hope you’ll find an ounce of repreive knowing you’re in sympathetic company here who has experienced this same horrific pain…and some have eventually moved beyond it.
Big hug to you Joe. I’m so sorry for your suffering.
There is nothing wrong with putting walls up when you’ve been hurt, and it’s not necessarily health to frame such a natural human reaction so that the individual doing so is made to feel shame or guilt for “punishing” others for his or her pain. That suggests a willful, conscious act when that is often not the case. Making yourself so vulnerable to another person is an act of extraordinary courage that we tend to gloss over sometimes. Maybe we shouldn’t gloss over it. Maybe, instead of shaming others for their hurt and distrust and telling them why they shouldn’t feel that way, we should be just be respectful of their healing process. Not saying you’re doing that here, but I have seen this “women are bitter” trope an awful lot lately, and it sounds to me like the ones who are saying it the loudest are often men, who are kinda telling us that they really just don’t want to have to deal with our “stuff” because they’d rather be with someone who smiles, looks pretty, and gives up the sex more than she talks.
I actuay ran into a couple of these gents after my divorce. Yes, I had my walls up. Damn skippy. That was where I was mentally. And when I told a guy this, there would be one of two reactions: either he’d respect my boundaries, or he’d push me. The ones who pushed, I knew would likely never respect my boundaries because they were more interested in getting something from me that I wasn’t ready to give than dealing with a fully fleshed-out human being. This refusal to respect another person’s boundaries remains my number one red flag.
Incidentally, I met a man during all this. A man who had enough respect for me to wait for me. To be there for me. Who didn’t see me as some kind of challenge. Because of this respect, I felt safe with him. We are now engaged to be married.