IF you’ve ever talked yourself out of something you wanted because a man told you it wasn’t realistic, this piece is for you. It may not have been because you were naïve, but because persuasion is powerful when it comes from someone confident and close.

Let’s talk about how women get gently steered off course, and how to tell the difference between support and sabotage.

These women tell their stories of men watering down their sparkle, being hoodwinked into settling for less, and how they watched their self-worth diminish.

Aaliyah, 29:
I was pregnant with a deadbeat’s child and on the way to being a single mom when I met him. He accepted me and the belly, and for a couple years I endured the most, because I felt like I owed him something. When I told him I wanted to go back to school, he told me no, as when I finished, I would think I was above him and leave. I just managed to leave a year ago, and I’m in college now. I have a couple more kids, and baggage, but if I hadn’t been dependent, I wouldn’t have almost lost my worth over a man.

Destiny, 24:
My dad told me I was too young for the stress, but at 21 I fell hard for a man who had three babymothers, and who told me I was “different”. He was a good, involved dad, and so when the kids came over, I was a stepmom in every sense of the word. During a hurricane scare a while back, he told me that the last babymom was coming to stay with us, and I didn’t have a say. She remained at the house, years later, and it’s shame that made me pack up and move back to my parents three months ago, when he proposed to her in front of me.

Simone, 37:
He would constantly remind me how much he had done for me, and in the beginning he did help, but over time, I also contributed. In fact, I was the one who did his business plan, and now he has a very successful business. You would never know though, because he introduces me to people as a stay-at-home mom, in a condescending way, as if I don’t have an education and good prospects too.

Jasmine, 36:
Unequally yoked exists outside of religion too. A man who thinks that you’re better than him in any sense; example, if you’re better qualified academically or if you earn more, will always seek to put you in your place, no matter how ‘woke’ he claims to be. Save yourself the trouble of going through life continuously trying not to step on his toes.

Jada, 32:
Once a man realises that you’ll accept anything, then he will give nothing. I was a victim of that, because I was in love. He would cheat openly, and tell me that he was being honest because we shouldn’t have secrets with each other. When this kind of relationship finds you, it’s OK if it’s just life experience, and it’s okay to be foolish, as long as you don’t get pregnant and bring forth Satan’s spawn. It’s okay to be fool-fool for a man, but take your birth control.

Roxanne, 42:
He said he was telling me about his other babymothers because he didn’t want people on the streets mocking me and taking me for an idiot. For a long time I was OK with that, sadly.