A Woman's Right

A woman has the right to walk away.

A woman has the right to turn round and say no.

No man has the right to stop her.

A woman has the right to say 'Don't contact me again'.

And a man must leave it at that. He must get over it.
He has no right to continue to hound her.

He has no right to try and destroy her, simply because she wanted to walk away from him.
He has no right to make her frightened of leaving by holding over her the fact he knows things about her past which could harm her reputation.

He has no right to make insinuations about her and follow round after her making her life a misery.

He must accept that people move on. That not all things are meant to be.
If he ever truly cared, he would understand. He would let her go and wish her well.

Some birds are not meant to be caged.

A woman may find comfort in spending time with a man and say things they later regret. She may find her life changes and now she no longer needs him, or wants him in her life. A bright future beckons, in which he has no part.

A man must accept that. He has no right to be bitter and spiteful about it.

And he would certainly have no right to destroy that future, simply because she chose not to spend it with him.

And there are men out there who do not see these points. There are men out there who are so blinded by what they think is love, they do not really get love.
Love means wanting what is best for the other person EVEN WHEN, what is best, is the other person never hearing from them again.

And a man who understands love, would not be bitter about that.

There are men who will not let a woman go. And we all understand that sometimes, a woman dare not tell a man she wants to go, because she is frightened of what he will do.
And she knows that the man will not let her go, because he cannot see that the situation they are in is destructive, that the two of them are poison to eachother.

She knows that he will assume there is someone else, his pride will refuse to accept that she has no hidden lover, that she just wants out. She cannot take it any more. She cannot take the pressure, the strain, the jealousy, the constant apprehension of how the other party is going to react.

She just wants to wake up one day and him not be there in her life.

We accept all that. We understand that women can feel intimidated by the man they are trapped with, that they dare not speak out.

And should she go, he will cry to the world that she is a whore, a manipulator, a liar, a deceiver.

He will follow her, lie about her to her friends. He will not accept her choice, she will pay for jilting him.

And we do not accept as an excuse for his behaviour that she broke his heart. We do not accept the fact that he is still in love with her as an excuse for his hounding of her.
Let her go, we say. Grow up, be a man.

Anything less is unacceptable.

'But I want answers' he cries. 'I want closure.'
But she doesn't want to talk to you, we say. We can understand why she just cannot face it.

She dreads every second she hears his voice, fears every e-mail from him.

And if we looked further and saw that the man was many years older than her, that she had only recently come out of a terrifying ordeal when they first met, and that really, she had been confused about her feelings in the first place, then we'd certainly say;

'Let her go. You were there at a certain time in her life. But she is not for you and you are not for her. It was an illusion you both got trapped in.'

And a man who truly loved her would understand. Broken hearted as he was, he would realise that her wounds were starting to heal, and now he must let her fly. He would sigh and remember her, maybe with a slight pang in his heart as he remembered the false dream he had of them growing old together, but then he would see her in a new light, a bird with a broken wing whom he nursed back to flight.

He would maybe watch her from afar and smile.

He certainly wouldn't want to draw back his sling and shoot her out of flight.

Such a man, would not have nursed her because he loved her, he would have nursed her simply to cage her.

A woman always the right to say 'Please leave me be. Let us now lead separate lives. I'd like you out of mine.'

And no matter much it might break a man's heart, he must just leave it that. He must make no attempt to contact her again. Once she asked for contact to end, it is up to her to decide whether or not to re-ignite it. He must retreat to the sidelines and accept her choice.

And it is not his business to follow her round, watching her relations with other men.
She has moved on, so must he.

We know all these things are true.

Now read the post again, but reverse the gender roles.

Men have rights too.