The Men Who Secretly Loathe Women

Not the ones who shout it, who spit it in the streets. Those are easy to spot. You step around them like puddles. It’s the quiet ones you miss—the ones who call you darling, sweetheart, who post photos with their hand at the small of your back, smiling for the camera like devotion itself. The ones who swear they love you.

But underneath it all, they seethe.

They hate how you take up space. How you laugh too loud, shine too brightly, write too well. They hate the reminder that you exist outside their orbit, that you have thoughts they can’t predict, a voice that carries further than theirs ever will.

They even loathe how attractive you are—the way other men look at you, the way compliments drift your way without effort. They hate that you could be desired beyond them, admired outside their reach. So they chip at you in small, mean ways: the raised eyebrow when someone calls you beautiful, the sarcastic snort when a stranger lingers too long on your face. They’ll never say it out loud. Instead, the bitterness leaks through silence, through side-eyes, through the carefully timed sigh when someone else sees what they can’t bear to admit. That you are luminous.

Because if they can make you doubt it, even for a second, they win. If they can make you believe you’re ordinary, you’ll cling to their approval like oxygen. 

And if he’s your partner? That’s the most dangerous version. He’ll say he loves you while quietly wishing you smaller. He’ll hold your hand in public, then cut you down in private. He’ll insist he supports your dreams and sulk when those dreams start paying off more than his.

It isn’t love and it isn’t devotion; it’s envy in disguise. 

You feel it—you always do—in the pause after your good news, in the glaze of his eyes when you speak about something that matters, in the sharp little comments thrown like stones (meant to bruise, not to bleed).

These men hate women, but they hate you most—the woman who reflects their failures just by thriving, daring to be visible.

Here’s the truth: a man who secretly hates women will never love you. Not really. He’ll perform love. Mimic it. Weaponise it. But deep down, he’s only waiting for you to dim yourself enough for him to finally feel tall.

Don’t. Stay bright. Stay luminous. Stay loud. Stay unbearable.

Let him choke on the light you refuse to shrink.

You won’t see it at first. No one does. That’s the trick. You meet him and he looks at you like you’re the only light in the room. He says he’s never met anyone like you. You believe—of course you do—that maybe this one will stand beside you instead of behind you. Someone who won’t flinch at your fire.

But then the cracks start. Tiny at first.
The way his face falls when you laugh too loud.
The pause before he congratulates you.
The casual put-downs disguised as jokes. The passive aggressive comments. 

It takes time—too much time—to understand who you’re with: a man who doesn’t love you. Not really. He loves the idea of you—the version he can control, shrink, reshape. The real you? The one with words and opinions and rage and tenderness? That woman terrifies him. That woman makes him small.

So he hates her.
He hates you.

It’s a strange kind of violence, that secret hate of a partner. You don’t see it on your skin. You feel it deeper—in your chest, in the way you second-guess your joy, dim your voice, soften your edges just to keep the peace. You feel it in how your body folds in on itself, apologising for existing. In the way his eyes roll when you stay up writing. In the silence when you share something you’re proud of. In the way he makes sure you know his work is real, while yours is “just a hobby.”

His love has rules: be quieter, smaller; don’t embarrass him; don’t outshine him. Break them, and the smile vanishes. His jealousy seeps through the room like gas—silent, poisonous, impossible to ignore.

And remember this: small men are loud. Small men make you doubt yourself, make you think less of yourself, so you’ll work harder to earn what should’ve been yours already. So you’ll feel grateful he’s “chosen” you. But it’s the other way round. You were out of his league from the start; he just couldn’t risk you realising it. Truth is: you can do better. You always could.

And when a man like that fumbles you—when he mistakes humbling for leaving—you’ll see the joke write itself. Because men like that never trade up; they downgrade to safety. They leave for easier. For someone who makes them feel tall just by standing beside them. They go where they can be unthreatened, where brilliance won’t glare back at them.

You’ll hear who he’s with next, and it’s like watching a child pick the toy that won’t talk back. You might even feel a flicker of second-hand embarrassment when people whisper, He had you and now...this? But it makes sense... Same smallness. Same dim light. He’s finally found someone who won’t outshine him, someone simple enough to believe his version of events. As naïve as he needs her to be, as stupid as he hopes. He’s exactly where he belongs. A perfect match in mediocrity.

Psychologists who study narcissistic behaviour call it the devalue–discard–replace cycle. The downgrade isn’t random; it serves a purpose.

Punishment and control. Choosing someone you’ll read as “less” is a kind of humiliation ritual. It says, I decide your value. It makes you doubt yourself and keeps you circling his story for answers.

Threat reduction. Partners with confidence, ambition, talent, visibility, or beauty trigger constant comparison. Picking a smaller, quieter partner soothes the fragile ego.

Triangulation. By parading the replacement, he builds a triangle: you watching, her admiring. Two sources of supply, one performance.

Plausible deniability. Because the choice looks absurd, he can call your pain vanity, your questions jealousy. Confusion is the cover.

This isn’t about ordinary endings. It’s the predictable finale when cheating becomes dominance theatre: a staged act that punishes you while restoring his power. If you were beautiful, he’ll pick someone he knows you’ll call plain. If you were brilliant, someone incurious, and so on... The downgrade is engineered to sting.

Men like that always want you less. And when you refuse—when you stay too bright, too alive—their love curdles into resentment. The kind that sharpens its teeth behind closed doors. The kind that whispers Who does she think she is? while still holding your hand in public.

And here’s the thing you finally learn: a man who secretly hates women can’t love one. His hate will always leak through, corrode whatever tenderness he pretends to offer. He can rehearse love, stage it, sing it, even sell it to the world, but underneath he’s waiting... waiting for you to fold, to fade, to hide, to forget yourself enough for him to feel whole.

Don’t.
Don’t dim.
Don’t make yourself smaller so he can feel tall. 
Don’t cut your voice to fit the cage he built.
Don’t mistake his hunger for love.

Because men like that never truly have women.
Not the real ones.

And the real you—the loud, burning, impossible you—is the only one worth being.