Dear Beautiful Women,
Have peace to know that you can be seen and loved. The season of waiting can be one of the most difficult spans you ever face. The uncertainty of choices, options, advances, offers, or whatever form you may experience the potential for a proposal of a shared life – is wildly intimidating.
With the seemingly complete uncertainty, and the pressure of perfectionism, how can you ever be certain you are making the right decision now? You don’t. That’s risks.
- You desire for a man to choose you.
- You desire to be held.
- You desire a man to binge on Netflix with you while putting down buttered pecan ice cream.
- You desire to give birth to his children.
- You desire for your man to wash the dishes while you play with the children.
- You desire for him to lock eyes and appreciate you in a room full of people.
- You desire for him to take out the trash.
- You desire for him to whisper sweet every-things to you.
- You desire for a man to Love you.
Your desires are good, and you deserve for them to become reality.
This letter is written from several men who have a request. That when that moment of uncertainty is upon you, and you can’t say yes, please say no. If a man has initiated to “define the relationship” please be ready to de-fine.
Once a man is in your life, and is offering himself to you, it is daunting. This decision may not be easy:
- You may feel pressured.
- You may feel a lack of freedom.
- You may not be able to commit now.
- You may have other plans or something to achieve.
- You may not be able to say yes.
He is asking a lot. In that moment you may realize that he is asking you to give up or change everything you’ve known to be good and comfortable:
- Stop spending as much time with your friends so you can spend time with him.
- Sacrifice your desires for travel to build a family.
- Leave your family.
- Change your job.
- Maybe move to another town.
- Make new friends.
- Essentially change everything about you to accommodate him.
We understand how this can be significant. We’re asking you to forsake almost all you know to risk something unknown. Call us crazy if you want, this may be the easiest decision of your life. Do not let that season of waiting be perpetuated by fear of uncertainty.
But with great respect, that if we do ask and you can’t say yes, at least say NO. We need you to be definite in your response.
We have heard your shouts (and countless blog posts) for men to step up, to initiate, to lead, to give – in response to the pain inflicted by men in your life who have not done so.
But with great respect, that if we do ask and you can’t say yes, at least say NO. We need you to be definite in your response.
You see, hope is a strong force. Fr. Luigi Giussani speaks of hope as a reflection of memory. The great desire for something that we have experienced, and to experience it yet again.
“hope as an affirmation that resolves, an affirmation of desire, in which the needs of the heart are determined. An encounter excites, solicits, reawakens the needs of the heart; one starts to desire because this has to do with a type of future; one begins to desire.” Is it Possible to Live this way? Volume 2. Hope.
It’s been said if you desire to sail, do not hire a crew and give them jobs. Inspire them to long for the vastness of the ocean. A.K.A. a man who loves you is not marrying you simply to perform the tasks needed to love you, he performs the tasks required because he longs for the vastness of your mystery.
For man continually desires you because of hope. He has experienced a small part of you that changed him, moved him, makes him desire more. The memory of you excites him and he desires to experience that excitement and awakening more.
Nothing in this world moves a man as much as woman. Adam experienced his humanity through the experience of Eve. Jacob labored for 14 years to receive Rachel. Hosea loved his wife even though she was continually unfaithful. Christ left heaven and came to us in order that we may know His love.
Woman was made so that man could be moved toward God. If a man is moving toward you and if you can’t say yes, at least say NO. We need you to be definite in your response.
Consider Newton’s laws of motion. An object will remain in motion unless acted upon by an outside force.
You see, we may attempt to say the same end but with different words. Just as you call us to understand and pursue you, we call you to use words that we know. If you challenge us to initiate, we challenge you to adequately respond.
“I can’t say yes right now” does not mean no.
“I feel pressured, and a lack of freedom.” Good. Love requires surrendering some of our freedom. If I’m not mistaken, it was St. John Chrysostom that first referred to married love as a ball and chain.
“Love consists of a commitment which limits one’s freedom – it is giving of the self, and to give oneself means just that: to limit one’s freedom on behalf of another. Limitation of one’s freedom might seem to be something negative or unpleasant, but love makes it a positive, joyful and creative thing. Freedom exists for the sake of love.” Love and Responsibility, P. 135 The Commitment of Freedom.
Though we are made for infinite love, as humans we are subject to truths that are finite . . . I.E. we require response that is de-finite. This is the reason that St. JP2 titled his work “Love and Responsibility” because as he lays out:
“But since reciprocity is in the very nature of love, since the interpersonal character of love depends on it, we can hardly speak of “selfishness” in this context. The desire for reciprocity does not cancel out the disinterested character of love. . . Reciprocity brings with it a synthesis, as it were, of love as desire and love as goodwill.” Love and Responsibility, p. 86 The Problem of Reciprocity.
Love is not easy. Yes we’re asking you to leave father and mother and bind yourself to us. To sacrifice and walk away from all. However we offer to you now to be mindful that when we ask you to say yes, this is what we are asking you to say yes to receive:
- That you let me choose you.
- You let me hold you.
- You let me binge on Netflix with you while putting down buttered pecan ice cream.
- You let me be present when birthing our children.
- You let me wash the dishes while you play with the children.
- You experience me locking eyes with you and appreciate you in a room full of people.
- You let me take out the trash.
- You let me whisper sweet every-things to you.
- You let me Love you.
Yes we’re asking you to sacrifice, but first and foremost, we are asking if you will let us sacrifice for you. This is our pressure.
Next time a man proposes to offer his life as a gift to you, envision that encompassed in that one question is not simply a “yes” or “no” but offering a lifetime of his own body, his own time, his own love – so that you can be loved.
When a man offers himself to you, what he is saying is “let me change my entire life as to make a gift of myself in effort to enrich yours.”
If we are to take the text of Ephesians 5 to its end, your subjection to your husband is not one of degradation, or disrespect, but placing yourself within his mission to serve and love you.
You see Christ primarily does not offer Himself for himself, He offers Himself for our sake. As we encounter Christ, how sensible is a response that “I can’t say yes” or “I feel too pressured, and a lack of freedom.”? Christ calls us to respond to His gift of self, and so dear sisters . . . if as men we are called to be Christ (Priest, prophet, and King) of the domestic Church . . . please be definitive in your response.
We apologize for the men who have been selfish and not lived the image of Christ’s true gift. We apologize for the ways that we have been blind to what you need. And please understand that even the men who strive to be Christ to you, are not Him.
We’re not perfect. But if you’re willing to say yes, we are more than capable of giving our entire life to be good enough to labor for your good.
Not all decisions in every moment can be seen as black and white. True decision takes discernment (shameless plug for my prior post. Click here!). However we humbly ask, that when offered this precious and exclusive gift “Let what you say be simply ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Matthew 5:37
Sincerely and with peace,
The men who strive to be good.
“I’m no good at waiting on any kind of talk at all from you to me each day.
And I’m sorry, I’m so sorry I never can quite seem to pull my weight.
I don’t want to rattle, and I’ve got no plans to let myself get tossed away.
But this muscle, all this muscle could never lift a thing without you anyway.
And you have me, you have me, you have me only
when I keep, when I keep, when I keep listening.
You wanna come and stay here and depending on the day, I want to let you in.
But I know me, I know me, I’m scared I’ll just wake up and want you gone again.
‘Cause I’m not proud, I’m not proud, I’m not proud of me.
So how could you, how could you, how could you ever be?
Well I’m not proud, I’m not proud, I’m not proud of me.
So how could you, how could you, how could you ever be?”
p.s. This post comes from several conversations I’ve had with a few close friends. In particular one with my buddy Justin over some whiskey after a holy hour.
Basically from our ranting from being tired of the “man up” accusations and a response to our own pursuits of women that felt ambiguous in response. The frustrations of women challenging men to be blunt, but our confusion of our courage being met with a lack of courage to respond definitively – and being accused of pressuring or placing women in a space of non-freedom.
Straight un-poetic words: Dear women, we need you to be blunt. If you don’t know what you want, please tell us you don’t know what you want. If you don’t want to be with a man who is genuinely pursuing you, please tell him to bug off. Hope and love make a man do crazy things, so unless you tell him to stop . . . he will continue to be crazy. However I genuinely believe to a degree that crazy is only defined by its non-acceptance. From the wise words of the bud-light commercials. “It’s only weird if it doesn’t work.”
In the simplest of terms, should someone offer you a gift, the only respectable (looking intently) response is to accept or decline. To continually avoid either of those responses disrepects (looks away, ignores) from the purpose of the gift.
Even before writing this article I reached out to several women I really respect, and only one was open to having the conversation with me. She shared that the man in her life offering himself was very intimidating, and he did it over and over again for several years. It wasn’t until she finally surrendered to his gift of love that she has experienced more joy than she did the whole time they awkwardly danced around one another.
“And holiness is measured according to the ‘great mystery’ in which the Bride responds with the gift of love to the gift of the Bridegroom.” Mulieris Dignitatum, 27.
The title of our beloved St. Pope’s writing is not “Love and Ambiguity” but precisely Love and Responsibility.
Thank you for taking the time to read this vulnerable challenge.
Peace.
Colby
Colbytallen
