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Romantic love, when weaponised by a misogynist, does not operate as an emotion. It operates as a controlled substance.
Society looks at addiction with self-righteous contempt, dismissing it as a moral defect, a weakness of will, or personal stupidity. In doing so, society deliberately looks away from the roots of dependency: unresolved childhood trauma, warped family dynamics, economic desperation, and an agonising, hollow loneliness. Romantic copium is not born out of a desire for degradation. It is an induced survival mechanism.
When a woman is trapped in an abusive relationship, love functions as an intermittent reinforcement machine. The highs of the initial pursuit, the whirlwind that blinds rational judgment, and the rare, unpredictable scraps of warmth keep her chemically hooked.
The breadcrumbs feel intoxicating precisely because she is starving. The terror of being discarded feels far more lethal than the routine agony of being bruised or belittled. She moves closer to the very fire that scorches her, chasing the high of his approval just to silence the unbearable withdrawal of his contempt.
Before an abuser can fully hook a woman to these crumbs, he must dismantle everything else in her life. Misogyny does not coexist with a woman’s autonomy; it engineers her complete enclosure.
The campaign begins with deliberate isolation. A misogynist systematically severs her from the world that loves her, until he becomes her only remaining reality. He stalks her movements, monitors her phone, interrogates her whereabouts, and restricts where she goes under the false banner of protective concern. To guarantee she stays inside the cage, he resorts to public humiliation. He insults her in front of loved ones and makes grotesque scenes around her colleagues, until the sheer exhaustion of anticipating his rage makes her detest leaving the house. She cuts off lifelong friends and stops visiting family simply to avoid the unbearable embarrassment of his behaviour.
Then comes the assassination of her inner world. He belittles her career, sneers at her intellect, and mocks her hobbies until she is thoroughly ashamed of her own ambition. He strips away her community, her financial footing, and her creative joy, leaving her entirely stranded within the walls of his approval.
At the centre of this trap sits a calculated setup: the pedestal.
A misogynist never loves an autonomous, flesh-and-blood human being. He falls in love with an idol constructed inside his own head. He builds a shrine to a fantasy that cannot make a mistake, possess an independent will, or express a need of her own.
Under patriarchal conditioning, women carry the impossible burden of immaculate morality. They are commanded to be spotless vessels, emotional shock absorbers, and domestic saviours. When a man cheats, rages, or destroys his home, society rushes to excuse him with a tired shrug about human weakness and male nature. But when a woman shows a single human seam, an inconvenient boundary, or a moment of exhaustion, the illusion shatters, and his adoration turns to bile.
Why do we call it reverence when a man places you high enough only to ensure the drop breaks your neck when you fall? If male fragility requires an immaculate saint to steady it, why is it that only women are commanded to bleed for peace while men are permitted to destroy it without consequence?
He does not grieve the loss of real intimacy. He rages at the ruin of his spectacle. Because he cannot tolerate the failure of his own delusion, he punishes her for existing as a human being.
The violence, delivered by tongue or fist, is framed as her doing. To ensure she never regains the confidence to walk away, he deploys an arsenal of psychological tyranny. He flirts openly, betrays her with chronic infidelity, and pits her against unattainable beauty standards, constantly reminding her that she is inadequate, ageing, or easily replaced. He erodes her body image until she looks in the mirror and sees only failure.
He manufactures an impending atmosphere of violence and instability to keep her permanently paralysed. He convinces her, and the community echoes him, that if she had only been softer, prettier, quieter, and more compliant, he would not have been driven to stray or strike.
This is where self-annihilation becomes a survival strategy.
To survive the enclosure, a woman twists herself out of shape. She barters her dignity piece by piece, hoping that today’s silence will purchase tomorrow’s peace. She abandons her instincts, swallows her voice, and refuses to utter so much as an ouch when she is cut open. Instead of directing justifiable, furious rage outward at her abuser, she turns the blade inward. She converts righteous anger into self-reproach, taking the blame for her own persecution. She searches endlessly for the magic key that will keep her in his favour for twenty-four hours. That key does not exist. The lock changes the moment he demands total submission.
At what point did endurance stop being a virtue and become an open-ended contract to absorb cruelty? How many years of your youth are you willing to deposit into a man whose only consistent return on your investment is humiliation?
Romantic copium trades survival for the empty illusion of male validation. It convinces a woman that her suffering is noble, that endurance is proof of love, and that her hope will eventually extract remorse from an unrepentant man. Hope inside an abusive structure is not faith. It is an anaesthetic that keeps you numb while you are being dismantled piece by piece. His cruelty is not a defect waiting for a woman’s devotion to fix it. It is an intentional weapon designed to keep her obedient, terrified, and drained.
No amount of devotion can love a man out of his contempt for women. A pedestal is never an honour. It is an altar where a woman is prepared for sacrifice.
