The evening seemed cool enough as I took a sip of my freshly blended Opapine (blend orange, pawpaw and pineapple together). I got a call on my phone and Truecaller identified it as Judith Mills (any relation to the late Prof Mills I wondered).
I answered the call and Judith wanted more information on the upcoming Manokekame Trip but I told her we were still working out the details. After giving her that reply, the statement she made was that she was desperate to get someone in her life because all the men who came into her life would use her and dump her. I assured her that with the number of men who had called about the trip I wouldn’t be surprised if she gets more dates than she can handle after it.
As I ended the call her statement still stuck with me and I realized that I should have asked her what at all had been happening in her life to make them leave but decided to leave it till I meet her face to face. I also asked myself what are some of the things that would drive away men from their lives. I got most of my answers from the years of posting such similar stories. Here are 12 things women do to drive away their men.
Let’s delve into it right away shall we
#1 Spirituality
A lot of women will wonder what at all has spirituality got to do with love and I will say, plenty.
We have how many days in a week? Humor me. We have seven. The Sabbath is either one of the two weekends right? The business week starts on Mondays, right? Ok.
Now we have ladies who attend church on the weekends either Saturday or Sunday, Choir Practice on Monday, Church group meetings on Tuesdays, Midweek programs on Wednesdays, Thursday worship and Friday miracle service. The entire week she is in church right from work or school! Now when she’s there physically, she will be there virtually as more and more churches and groups are having zoom prayer sessions at midnight or dawn, mostly every day.
Even if the man who falls for her, also attends the same church how will the two of them ever get time together to get to know themselves? Some men do try but tend to fall for someone who is less ‘spiritual’ and can make some time for them.
Apart from that there are other ladies who will not visit the guy, will only agree to go out with him if it’s to a church related event and will only call to share Bible scriptures and pray.
Excuse me, but have those people read Songs of Solomon? That bride speaks about how she was prepared for her wedding day and her happiness at finally marrying the man she loves. Listen, the woman said she had been prepared for her wedding day. Definitely not too many prayers involved I tell you. Yes worship our Heavenly Father, I love Jesus Christ with all my heart but I’m not married to Him am I?
Don’t get me wrong I’m not saying put aside your principles just to please a man but make time to talk to the man, learn how he views the world, how he treats women especially you.
If not, you could end up attracted to how he worships God but not who he really is. A lot of failed relationships and marriages are because the women fell in love with the worshiping side of the man and not really the man himself.
#2 Freeloading
My understanding for freeloading is when you take advantage of someone’s kindness and take whatever you want without giving anything in return.
Guys call this ‘demanding.’
Let me break it gently in simple ways
a. The lady takes phone credits from the guy, texts him to thank him for the credits and that’s it. She never calls him with the credits and when they get finished will ask him for more credits. (Sometimes he’s even lucky to get a “thank you” call.
b. She asks for money for food, transportation, clothes, her relatives even her friends constantly. She’s literally become his dependent and would base how much he loves her on how he spends on her. Poor guy didn’t know he was going to land himself an orphan when he started dating her.
c. Takes so much from the guy and when he protests she’ll tell him he’s being stingy. Then she will throw in the ‘if you love me do it’ whine. The guy will then be forced to reluctantly provide what it was that she wanted.
Yep that’s freeloading alright.
#3 Assumption
I remember a scene I saw at the Kaneshie market one hot afternoon.
A guy walked hand in hand with a pretty lady to the Takoradi Ford station. He bought a ticket for her, stood near the car and chatted with her till the car got full. He waved to her when the car was leaving and turned around only to meet his fuming girlfriend staring at him. He was lucky her eyes didn’t kill him on the spot.
Everybody within hearing distance heard her spew insults on how she’d always suspected him of cheating on her and here was the proof. I was standing a few meters from them and watched as he removed his wallet. He showed her a picture and pointed to someone in the picture. That person was his sister whom she’d never met. That’s the person he’d come to see off.
She was so sorry and started apologizing. In summation, he’d escorted his younger sister whom she’d never met to the station only for her to throw a sissy fit. He left with her following closely behind him, begging to be forgiven. I hope he did.
That was jealousy plain and simple and we women love assuming about things that might not be so. Even if your instincts point at something, take your time to be sure to avoid jumping into conclusions or giving him more clues on how to hide what he might actually be doing.
#4 Gossiping
What women love to do is gossip- no make that share
We share our lives with our friends and loved ones, even mere strangers who will listen to us. So when we meet someone we like, what do we do? We share what we know about the person with our friends and family.
But gossiping has a lot of downsides. The chief among them is how the person you gossiped about will feel. Not a lot of guys in fact most guys will just not take it lightly when they realize that their woman is a PA System.
#5 Influence from others
A lot of women seek approval from others before they do anything. They need someone to approve their clothes, shoes, makeup even what to eat. It is therefore very natural for such a person to consult before either accepting or rejecting a guys proposal.
She will listen to him and then go and discuss him with her confidante, her girls’ group or even openly on her social media page. They will then listen to the opinions of people who don’t even know the guy to either reject or accept him.
Other women are also influenced by peer pressure. Some women refuse to date guys because their friends do not like a particular guy or class of guys. Some women are influenced by the parents or siblings against the guy.
I know a lady who had to date a guy secretly for 5 years because her parents didn’t like the man’s tribe. Unfortunately when it came to the time for them to marry, her parents still refused. After several ineffective tries, the guy had to forget about her and marry someone else.
#6 Pretending
Acting sweet at the beginning of the relationship and then changing.
There have been a lot of my male friends over the years who have complained about this side of us women.
At the beginning when we want to be with the man, we are gentle in our speech. We don’t get angry when he does or says something wrong. We hang onto his every word and compliment him on whatever he wears even when we hate it. We’ll hate to criticize him even when his garlic breath is making our innards churn. This is because we don’t want to hurt him but after being together, we become insulting, getting jealous even when we see him just chatting with a woman etc.
Of course the men don’t expect us women to see them as superheroes all the time. No matter what, they’ll do something we don’t like but, when we change from being understanding, helpful and careful to screaming trotro mates on our men constantly, they’ll review us and would decide to go where it’s calmer and sweeter; far away from us.
#7 No Breathing Space
We call it in local parlance -not giving gaba at all. Some women are so clingy that the men end up feeling suffocated.
She wants to know where he is all the time and will call or text asking where he is. She would even want to go with him to wherever he goes even on boys boys outing. She’s made him “see first” on his posts or turned the notifications on on his tweets and would be the first to like or comment. In the cases where she doesn’t comment, she would quietly monitor the ladies who comment on his posts, analyze their responses, his responses to them and give it to him privately.
She will send friend requests to those she thinks are too friendly with him just to query them on their friendship. She will monitor his phone calls to see those he calls often too among others.
Now there are some men who will of course play along but will quietly be doing their own whiles ensuring she doesn’t get to know. However, there are other men who genuinely need a breathing space. Who had a life before they met this woman in their life and want to have time to be either by themselves or with friends or family.
Clingy women tend to see guys who want do things without them as being selfish or as an excuse to cheat. What they tell the man by these actions is that they don’t trust him. Men want a woman who is confident in who she is and can trust him out of her sight. If she can’t, he could decide not to stay around for more jealous tantrums and bow out of the relationship.
8. Comparison
Women naturally like comparing things. It’s a learning tool that is ingrained in us. We compare whatever we have with what others do or have. That’s how we mostly learn the differences between situations and learn lessons from what others go through or achieve.
But, this comparison becomes even more pronounced when we compare our man with someone else.
Some women compare their man to their ex. They then will not hesitate to tell him the things their ex used to do that he’s not doing.
I know of women who compare their guys with others especially their friends’ boyfriends.
The worse is when some Ghanaian women compare their guys to an Indian actor in their favorite twitelenovela.
Am I talking to somebody?
I remember the actor who played Salvador in Second Chance. Oooh that man had some bod! Goodness me kill the visual!
Then there was Antonio in the old Mexican telenovela “Storm over Paradise.” I remember one time a lady got angry with her man because he was not as romantic as the Antonio character. This reminds me of the scene where he went to the beach with his lady love and sprinkled rose petals on a white bed sheet. He spoke sweet words to her making her fall ever more deeply in love with him.
Well women who like comparing their guys to others just end up driving them away. Because if you’re not content with what you have, naturally you lose it.
#9 Talking about other Men
A lot of ladies haven’t realized this but they annoy their men when they keep on talking about other men they know. Don’t get this twisted. You’re sharing your life with your man and would tell him about what goes on online, on TV, at work, school, church, home, virtually everything you want to share
However, if your favorite topic is about a particular man be it an ex, a celebrity crush or friend, it will not just annoy him but make him wonder what you’re trying to imply in between the lines.
Call it an ego thing but every man wants to know that he’s the only important man in his woman’s life. So the other person (perhaps a pastor, mentor, colleague, boss or other) might be a great person, but not making your guy feel inferior in anyway to them will be better than constantly beating him down.
#10 Uncaring
Uncaring means exactly that but in my dictionary it also means being mean or inconsiderate.
I remember a friend of mine, Ebo. He told me of how he would escort his girlfriend to Accra and return back to campus in Cape Coast. While some guys will see their lovers off to the bus station, he will get into the bus with her all the way to Accra and return. Such love. But did she do the same? No. He would go and visit her and she’ll wave him off from the comfort of her bed. There were times she wouldn’t even call him if he doesn’t call her.
I also know a woman whose husband was a doctor. He returned to the house around 9 am to meet his wife ready to go out. He begged her to take their two children along with her so he could catch some needed sleep. She refused and left. To cut a long story short, he was kept up all day taking care of the two toddlers. By the time she returned for him to go to work, he was exhausted.
There are a lot of instances I don’t want to go into that women show how much they don’t care about how their men feel. Through how they talk to the men, behave towards or allow others to treat them a lot of women are pretty inconsiderate and by doing so drive the men away.
#11 Nagging
The average woman hates being told what to do but, boy do they love ordering their men around.
They will tell the guy what to do, how to do it and when to do it. If he does it his way, trouble. If he gets up and doesn’t do it, trouble. If he does it exactly the way she said he should and it doesn’t work out well, trouble.
They’ll complain if the guy doesn’t listen and if he does, they’ll complain about something else.
Nothing sets off a man than when his ladylove is behaving like his mother. Keynote: you’re not his mother.
#12 Cheating
It could be physically or emotionally but women do cheat and drive their men away.
Some men cheat but some women too also cheat. That’s a hard fact. It takes someone who is confident about themselves and have resolved to love and be faithful to never cheat.
With men the cheating is mostly physical but with women it’s either just physical, emotional or both.
What do I mean by emotional?
Here goes.
You’re angry with your man but when you receive a call from a guy you like you’re so happy that you’ll gladly lie just to get the chance to be with that guy.
You’ll buy a particular dress or perfume because you know the other man will like it. You aren’t lovers with him…yet but, you do and say things to and with him that you won’t tell your man. Let’s talk about sexting. You are discussing ways of making love with another man even though you haven’t made up your mind to be with him. That’s also cheating.
The end result, when your man finds out, that could most likely mean the end of your relationship.
In conclusion, there are so many things that women do to men that they’ll hate if it were done to them.
Let’s take a smelly nyash or v-jay for instance. You’d hate to smell your man’s sweaty nether regions but expect him to be okay with yours?
Check what you’re doing.
Why aren’t you and your guy happy? If he did something wrong, how did you react? If the fault is yours, what can you do to correct it?
If you’re single, look back at your relationship(s) and try to recollect all the criticisms your ex told you about your behavior and character and ask yourself what you could do to become a better person before you enter into a new relationship.
