The Fear Beneath Your Strength

What feels like strength is often a hidden form of protection & The Pressure We Put on Men

There is a fear inside you that has nothing to do with weakness.

It’s old.
Inherited.
Passed down through women who had to survive without softness.

Your mind may not notice it.
But your body remembers.

So even though you long for closeness, for safety, for the sweetness of being cherished…
something in you tightens.
Something pulls away.
Something whispers, “Please don’t let me get hurt again.”

You don’t experience it as fear.
You feel it as irritation.
As doubt.
As restlessness.
As the sudden urge to distance yourself just when things begin to feel tender.

It feels like strength.
Like self-protection.
Like being “the capable one.”

But underneath, it’s simply your heart trying to guard its own longing.

And without knowing it, you may begin asking him — silently, energetically —
to carry what no man can carry:

Be stronger than my past.
Protect me from every loss.
Convince me you’ll never leave.

No one can meet a request they cannot see.

And when your hidden fear meets his hidden fear —
the fear of not being enough —
love starts to strain under a weight neither of you intended.

You might wonder,
I don’t feel afraid… so why does this keep happening?

Because this fear doesn’t look like fear.
It looks like competence.
Independence.
Control.
The careful distance that says,
I’ll be safe if I don’t need too much.

But here is what I want you to know:

The presence of this fear only proves how deeply you long for love.
Longing and fear rise together —
two threads of the same desire.

And the moment you notice this fear in you,
a softness becomes possible.

Awareness creates space.
Space creates breath.
And breath creates choice.

You can pause.
You can feel.
You can stay open one second longer than your patterns expect.

You can place one hand on your heart, and whisper: let tenderness return.