The woman who has been to hell and back is not easy to love.
Many have tried. Most have failed.
The weak need not attempt, for it will take more strength than you even know you possess; more patience, more resilience, more tenacity, more resolve. It requires a relentless love, one that is determined and not easily defeated.
For the woman who has been to hell and back will push you away. She will test you in her desire to know what you are made of, whether you have what it takes to weather her storm. Because she is unpredictable—at times a hurricane, a force of nature that rides on the fury of her suffering; other times a gentle rain, calm, still and quiet.
When she is the gentle rain that falls in time to her silent tears, love her.
When she is the thunder and lightning and ferocious winds that wreak havoc, love her harder.
She is a contradiction, a pendulum that will forever swing between fear of suffocation and fear of abandonment, and even she will not know how to find the balance between the two. Because today, although she will never tell you, she will feel insecure. She will want you to stay close, to tuck her hair behind her ear and kiss her on her forehead and hold her in the strength of your arms. But tomorrow she will crave her independence, her space, her solitude.
For while you have slept, she has been awake, unable to slow her thoughts, watching clocks and chasing time, trying to make the broken pieces fit, to make sense of it all—of where and how she fits. She fights her demons and slays her dragons, afraid if she goes to sleep they will gain the upper hand, afraid if she goes to sleep she will no longer be in control. Tomorrow she will be tired, and your presence will smother her. She will need only herself.
When she pushes you away, lover her harder.
New situations and places and people and experiences will make her anxious. She will be fiercely independent and long to overcome her fears, all the while as terrified as a small child alone in the big world. Sometimes she will need to be courageous, to prove to herself she has what it takes. Other times she will need you to take her hand and hold it firmly in yours. Sometimes she may not know what she needs, and you will need to read her like a book with worn pages and a tattered spine and be what she needs when she does not know herself.
When she is brave and steps into the world on her own, love her.
When she is scared, but refuses to take your hand, love her harder.
She will live in fear of not being enough and always being too much—an endless battle to find the middle ground. Ashamed if the scale falls one way or the other, ashamed to be herself for no one has ever loved her both when she is small and also when she is tremendous.
When she feels too much, love her.
When she feels not enough, love her harder.
Sometimes she won’t hurt and the light will shine from her eyes and her laughter will be a rare and precious melody. But sometimes she will hurt so much from the trauma still in her body; she will ache, she will feel pain and anguish. The light will grow dim and the music will fade.
When she is the light, love her.
When she is the darkness, love her harder.
She will always love you with caution, with one foot out the door. For she does not understand a love with no conditions, one that is powerful enough to withstand hard times. She cannot allow herself to fully trust in your love, and she will keep parts of her heart hidden—the parts that have been hurt the most, the parts she can’t risk being hurt again when she has worked so hard to stitch them together.
She will always watch, wait and expect you to leave first. And when you don’t, she has a truth written upon her heart that says you will—it’s only a matter of time, for everyone who loves her leaves her. And so she will seek to sabotage the relationship; she will seek to destroy it, she will seek to leave first, she will seek to hurt you before you can hurt her. This is how she stays in control, this is how she survives, how she will ensure she will not get hurt again.
When she wants to love you, love her.
When she wants to hurt you, love her harder.
Being out of control terrifies her. Don’t ever make her feel powerless, trapped or without her freedom. She needs to dance barefoot under enormous blue skies, to feel sand between her toes, to run with wolves as the wind weaves magic through her hair, for here is where her healing is found. Never clip her wings, for if she has the freedom to fly, she will always come back to you.
Love her when it’s easy, and love her harder when it’s not.
Love her in a way that will defy all she has ever known love to be.
Love her because you understand with every fiber of your soul the gift of her love, what it has cost her to offer you her fragile heart.
She does not need you. She has chosen you.
Because you have what it takes to survive the storm.
Because even when she doesn’t know how to love, you know how to love harder.
By Kathy Parker
Printed with permission
*EDIT* – From the author
Last year I published the article, How To Love A Woman Who Has Been To Hell and Back. This article has since been republished on more websites than I could even tell you. It has been shared hundreds of thousands of times all around the world, and has received millions of views. I can’t tell you how many hundreds of messages I’ve received from women who have thanked me for giving them the words they could never say.
But in the last while, my inbox has also been filled with messages from men such as you. Men who are trying to love the woman who has been to hell and back, but are struggling. Men who are doing the best they can, but are hurting. Men who are trying to understand more, do better, love harder, but aren’t sure if it’s worth the pain and exhaustion. Men who are confused, unsure, lost, and in need of answers.
Read more here Dear Man Who Loves The Woman Who Has Been To Hell and Back
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No surprise that your readership tends to be 100% against the crap that is being encouraged by your essay. Of course, you hear praise from the afflicted and those who thoughtlessly abuse their partners and excuse their behavior because nobody knows what they have been through and if they did they would understand why they are the way they are.
EveryONE…all of us…have been through struggles and have issues. Sure, some worse than others. But, we have to draw the line when people refuse to accept accountability for causing others pain and continue to do it for selfish reasons and childish reasons.
The first thought I have is that if there were an article that urged women who were victims of abuse, especially physical abuse, to just love their abusive partners harder claiming that ‘they only hit you because they are afraid to get hurt themselves,’ then there would probably be riotous boycotts and internet mobs setting fire to the cyber aether.
Truthfully, if someone wants to love her more, help her work through it all, tolerate what happens, then may they be happy and successful with their partner. But, if someone wants to run, then they should run and run fast. And, by the same token, if someone wants to push back by being aloof, by leaving the second they are told to “Just go”, by answering their abusive games with a well-developed set of counter-measures, then let them have at it with as much support and urge those who are strung about by fleeting men who they can’t figure out and who lead them chasing from one year to the next to just ‘love and chase them harder.’