Stop Over Romanticizing Masculine Men

It’s not good for anybody.

When you meet a masculine man, your feminine energy will just flow. No defenses, no guard up, you can finally just be a woman.

This statement sounds great and it’s a good way to generate clicks and shares. And yes, when a man is masculine it is indeed easier to soften, surrender and trust. But it isn’t a cure-all. And too often, a “masculine man” is painted in a divine light in which he becomes more of a mythical figure than simply a man.

This can easily cause major relational issues, and also keep a woman perpetually single, forever on the hunt for a unicorn… The legendary “masculine man”.

When masculinity is absent, it seems as though it starts to become almost fetishized. 

Let’s explore this.

---

The Masculine Man: Fact or Fiction?

New age polarity teachers are the absolute worst for propagating overly poetic, flowery, romantic ideas about “masculine and feminine energy”. Any time you hear a man being described more like a god than a man, you should run from that teaching or teacher.

Too often, this is how the masculine man is presented. He is so perfectly “grounded in his masculine essence” that she starts to “radiate in her feminine energy”. Listen, if you want to make money, tell women pushing 30 that all of their relational problems would be solved if they could just surrender into their feminine to make space for a masculine man.

At face value these ideas are very simple and straightforward, which makes them appealing and easily digestible for people. But let me tell you from personal experience how much harm these ideas can cause.

I will also put my hand up and confess that early on with Masculine Revival I was guilty of putting more of this spin on my message. I did this unknowingly and believed what I was saying to be true. I didn’t know Christ yet, and when you read my earlier content, you can tell.

How Over-Romanticizing Masculine Men Harms People

Let me tell you how this works.

A woman finds content that suggests the problem in her relationship is that her husband isn’t leading well enough. She starts to consume content that makes her compare her husband to a masculine ideal being projected. This furthers her bitterness and resentment towards him. Now she knows for a fact he’s weak, and she has validation that his lack of masculinity is the problem.

She reaches out to me to try to get her man into one of my men’s groups. Maybe she can drop him off at the Masculine Revival Day Care and when she picks him back up, he will be the masculine man that she needs him to be.

In this way, masculinity content can be weaponized by women against their unsuspecting men. The content becomes the standard that he fails to live up to, so she takes that bar and batters him over the head with it.

The issue is compounded when he agrees that he is indeed the problem (even though he isn’t really). Now he sets himself out on a quest to try to meet her standard of what it means to be a man. Now he is royally screwed. If he falls short, he’s clearly an incapable loser. If he does meet the standard, he has now molded himself into the image of who she wanted him to be, which she is ultimately going to resent because she doesn’t want a man so spineless as to surrender his will over to her.

Do you see what I’m saying here?

Masculine Men: The Truth

Understand this. A masculine man is just a man. Flawed, fallible, fallen and sinful.

There are two sides to the coin when it comes to masculinity. There is being a good man, and being good at being a man.

Too many women are with good men, who are good husbands and fathers and completely lose sight of this. Why? Because in some ways, he struggles to be good at being a man.

What is forgotten is that every man has his work and his shortcomings. You know what else is forgotten? These same women have ways that they fall short too.

This dreamy masculine man isn’t going to take everything bad away forever and ever.

He could be the best leader in the world, and you will still have moments where you struggle to submit, trust and follow his lead. You will still sin against him, and sin against God, because you have a sin nature that his masculinity – no matter how cultivated and refined — will never overcome.

---

Being with a man who strives to grow and improve is a blessing and being with one who can take ownership and responsibility for his mistakes and shortcomings is too. If you look for perfection in a man, you will be disappointed. Your best bet at bringing the best out of your man is to love him, respect him and make your appreciation for him known. Not as a subtle manipulation technique, but because it’s the truth.