The Price of a Feeling We Already Own

 Women Are Delusional at Best

Women are delusional at best—yes, I said it. We walk into relationships carrying ideals, fantasies of what love should look like, and all the things we expect from a partner. But in the process, we disown the parts of ourselves we don’t want to face.

From the start, the signs are there. We see them. We know. But we ignore them because the feeling is too intoxicating. The newness makes us believe it’s love. And when the reality doesn’t match the picture in our heads, instead of leaving, we cling to the tiniest gestures—little bones tossed our way.

Like those “good morning” texts. A man sends one, and suddenly her whole day is brightened. She decides it must mean something deep, something lasting. But often, it’s just routine. Politeness. Bare minimum effort dressed up in our minds as grand affection. That’s how easy it is to fall in love with moments that were never meant to carry that much weight.

The Rollercoaster

The pattern is always the same: inconsistency. You confront it, he switches up for a minute, and you cling to that change. Then he slides back into complacency. And so the cycle continues—angry, sad, restless, frustrated, but happy in fleeting moments.

We hold on to those scraps because they feel like proof. But proof of what? Not love. Not partnership. Just survival dressed up as romance.

The Social Mirror

This isn’t just personal. Scroll through social media, flip on a court show, or sit in on a conversation and you’ll hear the same script on repeat.

Men’s posts: Complaints about women—what they don’t like, what they’ll never accept. Every now and then, a rare gem about business or growth.

Women’s posts: Overwhelmingly about relationships—losing themselves, finding themselves, trying to rebuild after it all went wrong. It’s the same recycled storyline, just with different faces. Every now and then, a rare gem about business or growth.

We don’t just live for feelings. We recycle them. And then we call it wisdom, but have learned nothing.

The Collapse Point

Eventually, the towel gets thrown in. You realize the years lost and vow to put yourself first. But here’s the truth: most of us were never whole to begin with. You can’t “find yourself” if you never discovered yourself.

Finding yourself isn’t about retrieval—it’s about building from the ground up. Patience. Goals. Honesty. Trust. Solidarity. Too many of us try to find ourselves through relationships instead of within ourselves. And the cost is high: drained energy, lost time, and trauma bonds mistaken for love.

Balance, Not Voids

Here’s the difference when the work has been done. A man’s role is not to fill a void—because a void will never be filled. His role is to create balance. When a woman has poured into herself—her independence, her goals, her soul—she comes with overflow. What she pours into him isn’t desperation, it’s abundance.

The right man won’t be threatened by her need for independence. He’ll understand it. He’ll nurture it. Because she’s nurturing him from overflow, not from scraps. His cup fills, hers stays full, and they pour into each other. That’s balance. That’s partnership.

The Unlearning

If the work is never done, all the unhealed pieces show up in the relationship. She’s not ready. He’s not ready. Neither one knows what to do with the other’s wounds. And what happens? It becomes toxic, tumultuous. You think it’s love, but it’s just trauma bonding. And people waste years mistaking that for intimacy.

We have to unlearn that. Because life is short. You’re born, you die, and what happens in between is supposed to be about discovering purpose—not attaching your entire identity to somebody else’s brokenness.

Yes, it’s human to desire love. But if you aren’t doing the work for yourself first, then what are you really offering? And worse—what are you really living for?

Your clock could stop tomorrow. So what will it say about the things you did yesterday?

Why Feelings Matter

At the end of the day, feelings matter. But they won’t matter if you don’t take the time to understand your own first. We don’t have to be desperate to feel something, and we don’t have to put ourselves through trauma just to be reminded that we’re alive.

Every feeling we chase in a relationship already exists inside us. The world itself is equipped to give them to us. You’re going to get angry. You’re going to be sad. You’re going to laugh. You’re going to fall in love with moments that have nothing to do with another person—maybe the way the sun hits your face, a piece of music, a discovery about yourself. That’s life.

That’s the gift. To feel is to live. But if the only way you allow yourself to feel is through chaos with someone else, then you’re not living—you’re just surviving.

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Author’s Note

I am at the eve of my 50th birthday, and for some reason, that number has become my catalyst for conversation. Fifty sounds like whoa. It keeps echoing in my head, not out of fear, but out of reflection.

When I look back at what I’ve done, what I’ve accepted, and—more importantly—what I’ve never done for myself, I feel the weight of it. Even in the greatest scope of love, which is where I believe I am now, I can’t ignore how much of a disservice I’ve done to myself as an individual. And that isn’t fair—not to me, and not to the people I love.

This isn’t contradiction. It’s clarity. I want to drive this message to those who may not yet understand what it looks like when you waste time. Because once you recognize that time is the only currency you truly have left—short or long—you begin to weigh just how much you’ve already spent, and on what.

At 21, nobody thinks like this. You believe you have forever. You marry young, you have children, you chase ideals, and you tell yourself, this will last forever—because at 21, forever doesn’t look that long. But then you wake up at 49, at 50, and realize forever wasn’t what you thought.

If it worked out—beautiful. You grew, you built, you created something special. But if it didn’t? If it was one cycle of turmoil after another? Then time becomes nothing but fatigue and regret. You look back and think, I can’t believe I wasted so much time on that, especially when you realize you don’t have as much ahead as you once thought.

Don’t get me wrong—50 is wonderful. I’m grateful. But there should be great experiences attached to it, not just survival. I shouldn’t have to search so hard for the pieces of myself that should already shine with pride. That’s my struggle. My transparency.

I am often reminded of my wins, the things I’ve accomplished. And I hear it. But it shouldn’t take someone else listing it for me to feel proud. True pride should flow from pouring into yourself wholly, not piecemeal, not as an afterthought. And if I’m still struggling with that now, at this age, then my hope is to help someone younger see it sooner. To stop waiting for the world or a relationship to validate your worth—and instead, to give yourself that fullness first.