Are You Fixer? Ask A Successful Woman

Are “successful” women destined to be single?

I put “successful” in quotation marks because the definition of success can vary greatly from one person to another. It doesn’t always have to be tied to money: success can mean that you own a house or a car or have a job you love or a family; it can mean that you’re happy, grateful and a good person; it can mean that you work hard for the things you desire and treat others with respect. Whatever your definition of success is, have you seen a correlation between your success and your relationship status?

The question I’ve been rolling around in my head the last couple of years is, are successful women less likely to find love? Are they less likely to find a man who isn’t threatened by her success?

I would consider myself to be successful. I don’t have a lot of money, but I own a home, a car, a business or three, and I provide a nice life for my two kids and myself. I work hard, am motivated and driven, and am always on the move: thinking, doing, dreaming. Yet I find myself alone in all of it.

I recently dated someone who I would consider to be very successful: he had a long laundry list of accomplishments, all very admirable. He was strong, masculine and in control. And in learning more about him, I discovered that he had some interesting things to say about the women he’d dated in the past. By his account, it sounded like the majority of these women fell into the wounded bird category. And by wounded bird category, I mean they sounded a little broken: needy, moody, manipulating, aggressive.

I couldn’t help but think about why this man would get involved with women who put him through so much rigmarole. Isn’t it true that all guys ever say is, “why can’t I just find a nice, normal girl? Why are y’all so damn crazy?” and my favorite: “No drama! I don’t want to deal with drama!” Yet, here you all are, dating women who manipulate you, control you, try to change you…break up with you and then want to get back together, hot and cold, back and forth. And so many of you stick around. Why is that?

Now I know this is where a lot of you might defend yourself by saying things like, “but I love her.” Or, “she’s a good person deep down, and she loves me.” And trust me, I know how complicated relationships can be and all the nuances you find yourself involved in. But the question is, at the first sign of crazy, what made you stick around? At the repeated accounts of crazy, you continued to stay, all the while maintaining some sort of miserable existence. Some of you stick around for years before finding yourself out, if ever.

Sidenote: have you ever heard of the book The Game by Neil Strauss? I haven’t read it but a good friend of mine summarized a section of it for me after I had complained to him about my experience with the most recent bachelor. He said that psychologically, “broken” or “difficult” or “demanding” women create a challenge for men; they make them jump through hoops to keep them happy or do what they want them to do. And men equate this “game” of jumping through hoops with value: if a woman makes them struggle and work hard, he perceives her as having more value. Did you hear that: a difficult, challenging or demanding woman can be MORE valuable to a man because he has to WORK for it. Meanwhile, all of us easy-going chicks are seen as less valuable because we don’t make you work. Go fucking figure. Clearly I’ve been going about my life in alllll the wrong ways.

So my thoughts on why men stay in these relationships: you fancy yourself a “fixer.” And perhaps you have a bit of a hero complex: these wounded birds need someone like you to take care of them; to help them because clearly they need your help. And what kind of validation does that give you? Enough validation to stick around I suppose.

So here’s the nuts of my argument here: when you are a “successful” woman, you don’t need a man to “fix” you. You take care of your shit, own your shit and live your life, with or without him. And honestly, I think that’s a little too much for some men to handle. With nothing to fix and no little wounded bird, how is he going to justify living in your world? What does he have to bring to the table? Are successful women just victims to men’s insecurity of their success?

I’ll end here on a note of hope because I have a feeling this post will strike a chord with some of you out there: what men (who claim they want a successful, confident woman) want to know is, what can I give this type of woman and also feel validated as a strong, successful man? Emotional support.

Seriously guys, that’s it. You just need to be there to support her emotionally. She doesn’t need your paycheck, or your house, or your vacation home: she needs you to honor her mind and her stress; to listen and provide positive reinforcement and feedback; to tell her she’s doing a great job; to remind her how lucky you are to have found such an incredible woman. Communication, honesty, trust, friendship, validation. All those intangible things that money can’t buy. That’s what she needs.