10/20/2025
A book to add to my collection. It does appear that some men despise women so deeply that no amount of love or support will change them.
When I first saw the title Men Who Hate Women and the Women Who Love Them by Dr. Susan Forward, I flinched. The word âhateâ felt too harsh, too absolute, surely, I thought, this doesnât apply to the charming, complicated, sometimes cold man I once loved. But a few chapters in, I realized this book was not about caricatures of cruelty. It was about the quieter, more familiar kind of harm, the kind that hides behind love.
Dr. Susan Forward doesnât write like an academic. She writes like someone whoâs sat across from women breaking down in her office, trying to make sense of how they went from confident to confused, from adored to diminished. Her words cut through denial with surgical precision, but she delivers them with empathy, never blaming, always unveiling.
She describes how some men carry deep resentment toward women, often rooted in early experiences of maternal control, shame, or neglect and how that resentment gets played out in adult relationships. They might not scream or hit; they might instead withdraw affection, belittle emotions, mock vulnerability, or use guilt as control. And if you love them, you start shrinking without even realizing it.
Lessons from Men Who Hate Women and the Women Who Love Them:
1. Love cannot heal contempt.
Forwardâs central truth is brutal but freeing: you cannot change a man who resents women by loving him harder. Compassion wonât reach him until he chooses to face his own inner hatred. Until then, your love only becomes another stage for his war.
2. Emotional abuse thrives in confusion.
These men often oscillate between warmth and withdrawal, tenderness and cruelty, keeping their partners disoriented and desperate to regain the âgood versionâ of them. Recognizing the pattern is the first act of liberation.
3. Self-blame is the glue that keeps toxic love intact.
Victims of emotional manipulation often internalize the belief that if I were just calmer, prettier, quieter, more patient, things would be different. Dr. Forward dismantles that lie. The problem isnât that youâre too much, itâs that he cannot love without dominance.
4. Boundaries are not cruel, theyâre sacred.
Setting limits or walking away is not vindictive; itâs survival. The moment you stop excusing cruelty as âstressâ or âmood swings,â you begin reclaiming your dignity. Love doesnât demand the destruction of self.
5. Healing begins where hope ends.
Many women stay because they still believe in potential â in the version of him they met at the beginning. Forward calls this âaddictive hope.â True healing begins when you stop waiting for him to change, and start choosing yourself instead.
Reading (or hearing) this book is not comfortable. Itâs not meant to be. Itâs meant to wake you to pull you out of the fog of rationalization and back into your own light.
Dr. Forward doesnât promise an easy path, but she gives you language for what youâve endured, and tools to leave it behind. The most powerful thing she teaches is that you can love deeply without abandoning yourself.
And maybe thatâs what real love is, not the kind that saves someone else, but the kind that finally saves you.
BOOK: https://amzn.to/4hnjXxe
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