Dear Women

Please accept this sincere apology and genuine promise to date you with purpose. We, men, realize we have been going about this courting all wrong; if the concept of courting can even be used in some instances.  We have not been what a man who seeks a wife needs to be.  We have not been what the example of a man needs to be for a woman.  We have not been what a husband should and needs to be to his wife.  We have made mistakes and we want to take the time to make things right.

We are starting with ourselves by taking ownership of what we have and have not been doing as the leader.

After taking ownership, we are apologizing.  After apologizing, we are planning.

We plan to change our ways.  We will implement our plan to be what we were designed to be and that is the man of your life.

Even if you don’t choose us, we want you to see how we have changed by showing you what you deserve.  We will get back to traditional and purposeful courtship and relationships.

It starts with us, men.

Ownership

We have failed you.

Whether we have excuses or reasons for our behavior, we are taking ownership.  We are not blaming Fathers, Mothers, society, friends, and/or our pain for what we used to be.  We are changing.

When our Fathers were a good example, we allowed the pain of our past to dictate how we treated you.  We allowed society to be our real teacher while Fathers took on the role as a substitute.  We ignored our Father’s teachings.  We never grew as men and maintained our boyish/childish ways.

When our Fathers weren’t there, we weren’t taught how to be a man, lover or genuine friend.   Other examples when they were there they represented the player lifestyle. Fathers disappeared at some point in life and there were no male figures to whisper or yell to us “that isn’t how you hold a woman’s heart in your hands”.  Fathers weren’t there to show by example, how to love the woman of your life.  Fathers showed us how to hurt mommy but remain smooth enough to have their cake and eat it too.

We, men, admit that.

Why Moms were there, they were not trusted simply because they were mothers.  Feeling as though they had to guide us with or give us a directive on relationships just because it was part of their roles as a parent.  Just like they had to tell us to take the trash out but ultimately when we move out, we would decide if we were going to take it out or not.  We didn’t genuinely accept their guidance.  We had the wrong idea of “what does mom know about how to be a man to a woman?”

We wanted to maintain our boyish/childish ways.  We wanted to have fun while not paying attention to the pain we were causing.  We held on to “We will change once we get engaged or married”.  We ignored the fact that Mommy was too embarrassed to tell you to leave her son before you got hurt.

On the other hand, some Mothers never showed how she expected to be loved.  Mothers never sat down to say, “this is how you treat women”.  Mothers never said, treat her like you would want a man to treat us.  Mothers never said treat women like you would want the women in your family to be treated.  Mothers never walked away from being treated poorly by the men in her life.

We ignored the tears behind their smile.

We, men, admit that.

Society has constantly shown men that it’s cool to have several women at one time.  That it’s a sport to juggle multiple relationships.  How to be a player was taught daily and men sat in the front of the class.

We applied those teachings to our lives and excelled or at least tried. Society has taught men that being with multiple women was cool, being chivalrous is corny, and being loyal is outdated.  Men were told to be fruitful and multiply.   We were told that a man was not made to be monogamous.

Men listened to society and put value in what was thought as opposed to how you thought of us.  Men let society dictate what beautiful was and held you to those standards.

We, men, admit that.

Man’s pain.  Pain that you weren’t responsible for but we held you accountable.  Pain from our pasts, we have adopted pain, and even have imaginary pain.  I say imaginary because we avoid it by inflicting it to you first.  I say adopted because we act as if the pain our friends, brothers, and other male counterparts have experienced were ours as well.

These pain points allowed men to be prepared for anyone planning on hurting us first.  I can admit, we sometimes expected you to hurt us.  We expected you to pay us back for what we did to previous women, and we expected to be that guy who got played.  We got you before you got us! Even though you never intended or planned to hurt us.

We took advantage of you being “cool” and treating you like one of the fellas emotionally.  We put your feelings and emotions in the friend zone but put your body in the sex zone.

Men ignored the impact it put on the man that comes behind us.  The next man suffered because of what the last man did to you.

We are taking responsibility and apologizing.

Apology

We have a lot of apologizing to do and we are here to admit that in hopes that we can move forward.

We apologize for not being who we were designed to be and that is a Man of integrity, honesty, and loyalty.

We apologize for behaving as if we didn’t ask you to be our lady.

We apologize for saying “I do” and continuing to do the things we did before we got married.

We apologize for not allowing your heart to leave or recover when we knew we didn’t really want, deserve, or cherish you.

We apologize for holding you hostage with our words and selfish intentions.

We apologize for using sex to tie your soul to what we wanted.

We apologize for apologizing with sex.

We apologize for making the notches on our belts a competition and celebration with our boys.

We apologize for creating the thought that you dressing sexually is okay and what we desire.

We apologize for allowing the wearing of less clothes to be the only way to gain our attention.

We apologize for getting good at sex and using it to define us.

We apologize for not taking the effort to know you instead of putting our efforts in knowing how to please you sexually.

We apologize for hiding our personality behind our wallets.

We apologize for attempting to buy you.

We apologize for knowing we’re not ready but going forward anyway.

We apologize for taking advantage of women to men ratio, where you outnumber us.

We apologize for using your insecurities to our advantage.

We apologize for influencing your pain and attitude in a negative way.

We apologize for saying we “love you” when not being sure if we “like you”.

We apologize for using your desire to be married as a desire to be carried.

We apologize for never emotionally maturing.

We apologize for leading you, only to let you down.

We apologize for trying to figure things out and leaving you feeling like we were using you as a test dummy for the one we really wanted.

We apologize for using your mind, body and soul instead of catering to it.

We apologize for the tears we caused to run down your face.

We apologize for abandoning you.

Plan

Now that we, men, have that off of our chest.

We will be different.

We will go over our plan daily and change our approach.

We will not apply our plan until we know we are ready.

We will be real, clear, consistent and present.

We will consider all of you when we make decisions to pursue you.

We will consider the expectation we have of how we expect our daughters to be treated.

We will consider how we want our sons to treat their future female friends, girlfriends, and wives.

We will be what our Father taught us or what we expected from him as the leader.

We will lead with care.

We will be what our Mother deserves or deserved.  We will be what she taught us to be as a man to a woman.

We will date you with the purpose of forever.

We will earn your trust and keep it.

We will treasure your heart.

We will stay connected to your emotions.

Instead of telling you our plan, we will show you.

(Image credit: KatherineCostellophotography.com)