Stop Blaming Women for Men’s Choices

“I will not water what is dead; I will walk in the garden that grows with light, abundance, and care freely given.”

There’s a dangerous narrative circulating online, masquerading as “relationship advice,” that subtly shifts responsibility for a man’s behaviour onto women. You may have seen posts that say things like: “He does less because you accepted less. He does less because you trained him. Because you clap for crumbs. Because you stay.” These messages are everywhere, disguised as wisdom, but what they really do is blame women for the choices men make. Let me be crystal clear: this is victim-blaming. And it is fundamentally wrong.

A man has free will. He makes choices. He is responsible for his actions. Beyond the care and guidance his mother may have given him in childhood, it is not a woman’s job to train a man, fix a man, or monitor a man to keep him from slacking off, neglecting, or behaving poorly. When we start telling women that their job is to shape, negotiate, or enforce a man’s standards, we excuse men from owning their own moral and relational accountability. We normalize mediocrity and irresponsibility in men while subtly shaming women for noticing it.

A man who steps back the moment a woman needs a break—or the moment she is not in the room—is not just “lazy” or “distracted.” He is unworthy, unhealed, and toxic. These are qualities that drain rather than uplift. No woman should bear the burden of trying to change someone else’s behavior to make up for his lack of integrity, empathy, or effort. And yet, this is precisely what victim-blaming advice encourages women to do: monitor, negotiate, and adapt themselves endlessly to make an unwilling man appear “good enough.”

Women are not guilty for recognizing a man’s shortcomings. Women are not guilty for leaving a man who refuses to show up fully. Love is not a business transaction where a woman must constantly teach, negotiate, or negotiate boundaries just to survive. Women deserve partners who show up with consistency and generosity without coercion, without manipulation, and without training wheels. Anything less is a reflection of a man’s limitations, not a woman’s failure.

If a man is giving less than he is capable of, leave him. Don’t waste your energy trying to mold someone unwilling to meet you at the level of honesty, generosity, and care you deserve. The right man will continue to give—not because he’s trained, punished, or coerced, but because it is his nature, his choice, and his standard of being. He shows up willingly, happily, and consistently—even when you ask for less, even when you shrink yourself to make space. That is a man worthy of love, a man aligned with integrity, a man who treats partnership as a sacred exchange rather than a burden he tolerates.

Your job is not to compensate for a man’s unwillingness. Your job is to recognize your worth and refuse to settle for less than what is mutually abundant. Walk away from posts, advice, and ideologies that normalize victim-blaming. Walk away from men who are unwilling to show up fully. Walk toward your own sovereignty, your own standards, your own life.

Because here is the truth every woman must know: a man’s effort—or lack thereof—is never a reflection of your failure. It is always a reflection of his choices. And those choices are his alone. They are his standards, his integrity, his responsibility. You owe no one the labor of compensating for a man’s moral or emotional immaturity. Love yourself enough to expect nothing less than what is freely given in alignment with who he is at his core.

“Do not set yourself to carry the weight of another’s choice; the fool may stumble, but the righteous walk upright.” — Inspired by Proverbs