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When a Woman De-Romanticizes Men but Falls in Love With Life

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In this episode, we explore a quiet transformation many women experience but rarely name out loud: the moment a woman stops romanticizing men and begins romanticizing life itself. Rather than closing the heart, this shift often opens the door to deeper sovereignty, richer daily experiences, and relationships rooted in recognition rather than projection. We discuss feminine magnetism, life design, and how reclaiming the romantic imagination allows a woman to build a life that nourishes her mind, body, and spirit. 


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Welcome to the Create Love, Create Freedom Podcast. This podcast explores feminine psychology, relationships, and what shifts when you begin living from your own center rather than from expectation or conditioning. On today's episode, we are going to be talking about when a woman deromanticizes men, but when she actually falls in love with life. So she doesn't get rid of this romanticization of her own life. She just begins to shift the narrative as to where it originates. There is a moment many women experience that culture rarely names. I think that this shift is a move from perhaps her maiden or mother phase and into more of a crone, a wild woman and a crone phase. It can often happen quietly, sometimes in a woman's thirties or early forties, sometimes it follows heartbreak, sometimes it follows exhaustion, and sometimes it follows years of trying to live inside a story, a society that never quite felt right. A woman looks up one day and realizes men are just men, not necessarily heroes, not saviors, and not the center of life's meaning. Just human beings. For some women that realization becomes bitter and bitterness. But for others, something far more interesting happens. They stop romanticizing men and start romanticizing life itself. Now I personally think that this shift again comes on subtly. There are some small things that start to happen. Things within society and the society that she lives in doesn't fit her feminine rhythms. I think, especially during a wild woman phase, and as a woman ages, she can begin to care less about following the quote-unquote rules of society or of government, where she feels like pushing back a little bit, even if it's in her own little quiet ways. In a late-stage capitalist society, like where I'm from in the United States, this could be choosing work that is meaningful to her, but also doesn't require just an eight to five system. It doesn't require her sacrificing her feminine rhythm, the things that she needs to be healthy in order to produce enough, produce enough wealth, be efficient enough. And I think that a woman also, as she moves into this stage, she begins to also have very little reverence for men and especially men in power. And by reverence, I don't just mean I don't like any men, all men are terrible. But there is a shift. There's a shift, as I said before, where a woman simply realizes he's just a man. I have been told my entire life, I have been indoctrinated with this belief that most things revolve around a man. And I think as a woman steps into not just maturity in terms of age, but psychological maturity, she begins to shift. So first we're going to discuss this shift from reverence to evaluation. Earlier in life, many women are socialized to place men, especially powerful or confident men, on a symbolic pedestal, a romantic pedestal, an intellectual pedestal, and an authority pedestal. And over time, when someone becomes very psychologically and intellectually developed, that pedestal often dissolves. And what replaces it is evaluation rather than just straight reference. Instead of men are impressive by default, the new orientation of this woman becomes any individual person may or may not be impressive. Let's see. That shift is actually a sign of psychological differentiation, not cynicism. And this is also a woman seeing through structural conditioning. Men are often products of their cultural environment, which shows a systems-level understanding of behavior. Many people, men and women, are shaped by social expectations, cultural narratives, family dynamics, institutions and societies, governments as well. And when a woman moves, I think, far enough along in her life, again, not necessarily just due to age, but also due to her own psychological and emotional development, she begins to see some of these things clearly. Once someone sees these different shapings, right? How they were, for lack of a better term, indoctrinated. To think a certain way, to believe a certain way, to view things a certain way. Once a woman sees that clearly, it becomes difficult to view large groups in romanticized ways. So instead, a woman begins to see individual variation within a system. One of the shifts I personally think that a woman makes in this stage is what I like to call the dessert versus ten course meal. I often joke when I say something like, most men are like desserts, tasty, forgettable treats. But if a man ever came along and he was a ten course meal, then I might be interested. When I say something like that, I'm distinguishing between pleasant experiences, right? Enjoyable masculine presence, attraction or chemistry, sometimes short-term enjoyment, and rare depth, intellectual connection, emotional maturity, respect and admiration in both directions, and of course, psychological compatibility. And that distinction reflects high relational standards, not necessarily loss of interest in connecting with men. High standards can create rarity without creating hopelessness. When a woman moves into her sovereign feminine, right, she has gone through some things. She has matured, she has stepped into a space of knowledge, but also wisdom, wisdom about the world. She may have tried to fight the patriarchal system for a period of time. And then she realizes one of the best things that she can do is simply just to not live within it. That doesn't mean that she's not, you know, governed by the laws of her society and whatnot, but she chooses small, measurable ways to do what is best for her, not just what society or religion or social groups deem as appropriate. When this shift happens, high standards come into play. When people, and especially women, develop strong internal lives, right? Sovereignty, several things are happening at the same time. Their tolerance for superficiality decreases, their standards increase, and the pool of people who match them becomes smaller. And this is true when it comes to business partners or friendships. Also, when it comes to romantic relationships. It simply means that compatibility becomes more specific rather than more common. Many people who operate from intellectual and psychological depth experience relationships this way. One of the interesting things that I think happens to a woman at this point is a subtle shift in orientation. Instead of organizing her life around whether or not someone, a man, chooses her, her posture becomes my life is already full. Someone would have to add something truly meaningful to enter it. And what that does is that tends to produce a very different relational dynamic because connection becomes mutual recognition rather than pursuit for validation. This is, this is that time, this is that shift, right? A woman usually goes through being the maiden, being the daughter, the good daughter, sometimes the rebellious daughter. A woman moves through a mothering phase. That does not necessarily mean that she has had her own children. It can often simply mean she tried to fit within the systems, right? She tried to be nurturing within the systems that were masculine dominated, that were in this space where she tried to fit into the system. She tried to get along well with men. She tried to see through some of the disparity because, gosh, it's getting a bit better. Certainly better than what my grandmother went through. And eventually something happens in her life. There's usually, even if it's a small catalyst moment, there's usually a catalyst moment when there was a shift. And when she said, wait a minute, my health is deteriorated. I'm more stressed. I have higher cortisol. I don't sleep well. I am overworked. I am underpaid. I am all of these things. I have stepped so far away from my feminine energy, my feminine rhythms, that I'm not radiant anymore. And then she begins to, sometimes in the beginning, she can be quite vocal about it, right? Many women go through it could be a man-hating phase. It could be a phase of really speaking out. What I have found as well is that's a lovely phase. But it as women, we're not meant to stay there. We're meant to stay there as long as we need to. And then it's time to continue moving on into that crone or wise woman phase. And again, you can be in your 20s or 30s and be in this phase. Generally, I see it in the 30s and 40s, where a woman says, okay, I could spend my whole life fighting the system, or I could choose a completely different system. I can choose something different. What I have also found as a woman moves into this Crone phase, this isn't a recent awakening so much as a long-standing orientation that is sharpened over time. Some people, some women wake up suddenly, questioning systems. In the Crohn's phase, by the time she gets to that point in her life, she also, I have found, tends to notice that she was always slightly outside of the script. And different life stages simply made that stance clearer and more articulated. So we're going to go deeper into the deromanticization of men because it's a fascinating psychological process and it happens on several layers. So first is the cultural romanticization of men. In most cultures, religious and secular, girls are raised with several overlapping myths about men. The first is the authority myth. Men know more, men lead, and men are the natural heads of systems. Then there's the protector myth. Men protect women and children. Men are morally responsible for safety. Then there's the romantic myth, the quote unquote right man will complete your life. And male love confers value or status both to them but also to you. And then the hero myth great men shape history, and male ambition is noble. These narratives appear everywhere. Religion, literature, politics, fairy tales, film, and family structures. Even very intelligent girls absorb some of this atmosphere simply by growing up in it. Now, we're going to look at what deromanticization actually is. Deromanticization isn't hatred or rejection of men. It is when the symbolic aura dissolves. Instead of seeing men as heroes, authorities, protectors, and destiny figures, you begin seeing them as people with personalities, conditioning, strengths, and limitations. This is when a woman kind of says, Most men are just men. At the end of the day, he's just a man. And that statement isn't hostile. It is it really comes from a sense and a space of wisdom. Instead of putting a man on a pedestal, it is a place where we relate to a man as being human. It's really anthropological as well. So let's look at why this often happens to highly observant women. Women who think analytically about systems tend to notice patterns such as how many powerful men are mediocre, how much status is tied to institutions rather than actual wisdom, how often male authority lies on social reinforcement rather than competence, and how frequently women quietly maintain systems behind the scenes. Once you start noticing these patterns, the mythology becomes difficult to maintain, and the pedestal erodes. I really enjoy talking a lot about feminine archetype, right? And when we look at the sage feminine archetype, that is Athena. Athena archetypes, when that shows up in a woman, they often develop early comfort with male spaces, right? Athena, depending on the myth, was either born of Zeus, her father's head or his leg. And this is a space where she is a woman gets along well with men, works well with men. Yet then there can be, there can come a point in her life where she realizes the limitation of that, right? Where she put a man on a pedestal. And some women have dominant sage, um, like the sage feminine archetype, and others may kind of come into it or use it as necessary, right, as a secondary archetype. I have found that this Athena archetype often developed early comfort with male spaces, which then gives these type of women, these kind of more analytical women, a unique vantage point, right? They're close enough to observe men directly rather than just through cultural myth. That proximity often produces realizations like many men are intelligent, but emotionally limited. Many men are ambitious, but psychologically underdeveloped. And some men are remarkable, but those men are also rare. Lathena figures, right, sage feminine archetype figures, tend to respect competence and intelligence, not gendered authority. And this is where that shift will also happen in her life. Now, granted, the shift looks a little bit different depending on what some of the other dominant feminine archetypes are. Now, let's be clear, this does not rule out all men. Individual men can still stand out. Individual men can be very special to a woman, right? This is when a woman, instead of just saying, all men are like this, this is how I view all men, she can say, some men are special, right? She's moved from group myth to individual discernment. Men as a category no longer carry symbolic power, but a particular man can still earn admiration, not necessarily over-romanticization, right? Or being put back on that pedestal, but there's still admiration, there's still a deep connection with specific men. This metaphor that I used before, dessert versus a 10-course meal, I think that it really suggests that there are three relational tiers of men. There are background men, pleasant presence, the men who have this kind of pleasant aura about them, but they're not particularly memorable. And then there are enjoyable men, right? They bring chemistry, attraction, and some fun. And then there are rare men. These are the intellectual, emotional, and psychologically deep men. And I find it interesting when we as women have moved into this crone kind of phase, right? We're not just angry at all men anymore. Although I do think that that is regardless of how long it lasts, I do. Think that that is a healthy phase. So long as we also can say, okay, most men I struggle with or can struggle with due to the way that they see the world, due to the way that they have been conditioned. But these certain men, I can still point out and pick out a few that I'm like, that is an exceptional man. That is a man who is worthy of my time, my effort, my love, my trust. This could also be someone who's not even a romantic partner. It could be a father, it could be a family member, it could be a friend, it could be an employer, a boss, a mentor. It doesn't mean that we have to continue grouping all men in a space where we say, nope, you don't get to be on a pedestal, or I'm not going to show any admiration for you. I do think that when we can get to that point in our lives, this is a really wonderful place to be. I see how most men act. I'm not interested in most men. I'm interested in the ones who have also done some of their deep work. An important thing to mention as well is why this process, right, of deromanticizing men can feel very isolating. When a woman deromanticizes cultural narratives about men, religion, authority, etc., they sometimes discover that many people around them still operate inside those myths. This can often create a feeling of standing slightly outside the collective script, not alienated exactly, but observing rather than participating fully. This is often where a woman feels still very drained, either by her society or by the people, you know, the men that she interacts with, the people that she has to interact with. And so there is a quiet trade-off with this kind of clarity. There are fewer illusions, there are fewer automatic attachments, but there is also much sharper discernment, which often leads to a life organized around quality rather than quantity, fewer friendships, but deeper ones, fewer romantic interests, but more meaningful ones, fewer intellectual influences, but stronger ones. And this creates a beautiful space for her, a different space, sometimes a harder space, depending on her personality type, but a different space. So let's go a little bit deeper into this space of deromanticizing men. Again, many women grew up with their imaginative life organized around men, right? A future partner, a future marriage, the love story, the male protector or leader. And a huge portion of feminine romantic energy is culturally channeled outwards, outside of herself, towards men. So when women deromanticize men, that energy doesn't disappear. It reorients. So instead of following primarily flowing primarily towards men, it begins flowing towards beauty, maybe atmosphere or environment, into her intellectual life, her creative environments, friendships, and self-authored spaces and experiences. So this is where that deromanticization of men shifts into life itself becoming the love affair. One of the things that I have found many women do when they have reached different spaces in their life, right? They are in the process of becoming the sovereign feminine or are already in that space, right? The crone, they've moved through their kind of wild woman phase. They still tap into it when they need to. But they now create, consciously create and shape their sensory world. So I've often found many women who create homes that are like sanctuaries to them. They create beauty where they're at, a place that they can return to, with or without a man, that feels like it's a bit of a sanctuary from the world, from the pressures. And this isn't superficial decoration. It's a way of saying my daily life deserves intentional beauty. People who romanticize their life tend to treat ordinary moments almost like scenes in a film or a novel. Not in a performative way, but very privately. They'll do little things that they've kind of come across, that they've heard other women say, that make the role like the romance continue. But instead of it being directed outwards towards a man, it is a space where they do that for themselves. They bring that back to themselves. They allow that to flow back to themselves. Now there is a difference between romanticizing life versus romanticizing consumption. So this is where a woman doesn't just create a space or an environment about and around status objects. What she will create her life around is sensory richness that allows her inner masculine to rest a little bit and her inner feminine to come forward and also have a place to rest, but have a place to create, have a place to grow and expand and flow. This could be things like flowers in her home or plants. This could be music, handles, rituals, fabric textures, right? The kind of bedding that she uses, the kind of sofa that she has, the way that she orders her space. And this is where luxury is a quality of experience, not just the accumulation of more things or even that specific thing, because that's what rich people or whatnot go towards. It's very much about what makes her feel like she can create romance in her own life. When we discussed admiration for certain kinds of men being very selective, this actually fits very perfectly with this lifestyle, however, she wants to build it. And so when a woman has built a highly curated life, one that she's willing to change as she changes, but they also and often become selective in other areas. They become selective in the people that they surround themselves with. Only those people who add depth, warmth, or insight are allowed in her space now. Also, objects. She only allows objects that carry beauty, meaning, or craftsmanship. It's not because everybody shops there and that's the piece of furniture she needed. It's because she saw that desk and that meant something to her. Maybe she needed to sand it down and repaint it and put some new hardware on it. But regardless, this is something that she that really aligns with her. And also, speaking of alignment, those are her experience, you know, her experiences are, you know, also become much more selective. Only those experiences that feel aligned with the life that she wants to create are allowed. Now, this filtering process in order to romanticize her own life is then applied across her life in many other areas. There is also a quiet recalibration and reallocation of energy. So something subtle often happens when women stop orienting their romantic imagination towards men. They gain immense creative and psychological energy. That energy can flow into their intellectual work, their business creation, their aesthetic environments, their friendships, and their philosophical exploration. This it's not that romantic that romance disappeared. It simply moved inward into the architecture of a woman's life. Now, interestingly, this orientation has existed in women across history. Women who lived this way in the past often appeared as scholars, artists, mystics, strategists, and intellectual companions. Also, the women who hosted like salons, you know, when you would go, you would sit with each other, that kind of thing. These women weren't necessarily anti-men, but they also weren't organized around men. And I think that this is really the key when you deromanticize men, is that men who enter a woman's world or women of the past, they had to rise to the level of the life already being lived by the woman. That is where the shift happens. Wonderful men, exceptional men are allowed, but they're not automatically allowed. A woman doesn't center her life around a man at all times. So when this happens, this is actually very coherent psychological integration. This is when this is very clear to me when we look at it through three lenses at one time, right? Deromanticization combined with energy reallocation, and then also archetypal balance. This is where a woman's structural reorganization happens into where her energy flows. When we pedestalize people, we also can't allow for the real truth and reality of who they are to be present in our lives. Right? So when we stop centering men, what actually happens is that there is kind of a complete reorganization. For many women, romantic projection functions almost like an energy magnet. It pulls imagination, hope, planning, emotional labor, and identity toward one person or toward the idea of partnership. When that projection collapses, two things can happen. Some women can become cynical or closed. And when a woman chooses neither cynicism nor closed offness, let's be honest, maybe she does for a little while, right? We can all dabble in a few things every once in a while, or from time to time, or for a certain period of our time, for period of time. But eventually, we often get to a point as sovereign women, and in order to become sovereign women, we have to reclaim the energy that had been flowing outward and then redistribute it across our life. This is where we as women can often begin cultivating our home, our rituals, our intellectual work, our personal sovereignty, our aesthetic environments, and our strategic ambitions. In psychological terms, this is often called reclaiming projection. So instead of projecting beauty, meaning, or destiny onto a person or a man, the sovereign woman begins to build those things into her life without needing to put it on somebody else. It's just for her. One of the shifts that can actually happen for a woman at this point is that later relationships, after she's been in this phase for a while or moved through it, can feel healthier or cleaner, even if they don't actually work out. This is very typical when someone stops romanticizing another person and instead starts romanticizing themselves in their life. Because at that point, you're meeting someone as they actually are, not as the story you want them to be. And so it changes the relational dynamic from projection-based connection to recognition-based connection. Recognition, excuse me, recognition is quieter but more real. And that allows for something really important. You can enjoy someone deeply without needing them to complete the entire narrative of your life. So in this space, right, of going through the collapse, seeing the world as it is, feeling the collapse of projection, and moving into this space of falling in love with life, this really moves the moves a woman into her most magnetic feminine form. So this shift often creates something pe something that people call feminine magnetism. But magnetism is frequently misunderstood. It's not just about attracting men, it's about creating a life that attracts you. A magnetic woman asks different kinds of questions. Does my life nourish me? Does my home support my nervous system? Does my work stimulate my mind? Does the rhythm of my days feel aligned with who I am becoming? And when the answer becomes yes, a woman begins to radiate a quiet form of power, not desperation, not performance, but just embodied presence. So again, this moves a woman's relationships into becoming optional beauty. When a woman builds a life that is already meaningful, then something else changes. Relationships stop feeling like structural necessities. They become optional expansions. A man no longer needs to complete her life, stabilize her identity, justify her choices. Instead, if she chooses to get into a relationship, it becomes something much simpler. Two whole lives meeting. If the connection adds depth, joy, and recognition, it stays. If it diminishes the life she has created, painstakingly created, she walks away. Not angrily, but simply and clearly. One important thing that I want you to take away from today is deromanticizing men doesn't mean closing your heart. When a woman deromanticizes men, she does not stop believing in connection. She stops believing in illusions. Again, something interesting happens. She no longer needs a relationship to complete her life. She can meet someone without projection, not as a fantasy, but as a person. And sometimes that leads nowhere. And sometimes it leads to a connection that is quieter, slower, and far more real than the stories she once lived by. In the end, the deepest transformation is this. A woman becomes the author of her own life. She builds a world that nourishes her mind, her body, and her spirit. And if someone extraordinarily walks beside her for all or part of that journey, the experience is beautiful. But the story was never waiting for him, for the man in order to begin. It began the moment that she chose to live that life. And that is really the big shift, right? The shift from needing something external to yourself and instead stepping into a place where everything internal is created by you and for you. And then you can share that with the people in your life. So that is what I have for you today. Thank you so much for being here. Let whatever was useful settle in its own time. Clarity, I have found, tends to unfold naturally when we give it space. If you find yourself wanting deeper support in your personal work, I have created two spaces, the School of Self-Transformation and the Feminine Reclaiming Course. They are designed for women who are already self-aware and ready to live with more coherence, stability, and self-trust. You can explore both of these with the links in the show notes, or you can go to create lovefreedom.com. And for women who are also thinking about leadership, work, and financial direction, I share a different layer of the work of this work through a podcast called The Feminine Ledger and my advisory practice at The Sovereign Ledger, where I work with women founders, and we focus on structure, decision making, and long term financial stability for your business. Until next time, stay rooted, stay sovereign, and stay true to your feminine path.