Men Are Bigger. They Can Walk Away.
I had a conversation this week I can’t stop thinking about.
TL;DR: A man I’ve known for over a decade asked me to use my platform to share his story — a story where the “situation turned violent” and his much smaller wife ended up with marks on her body. I said no. This is about why size, strength, and who can walk away matter in any honest conversation about harm in relationships — and why “he was the real victim” doesn’t survive a basic look at the facts.
A man I’ve known for over a decade messaged me asking if I’d use my platform to amplify his story. I’m not going to get into the specifics, because the specifics aren’t the point. The point is that buried in the middle of it was a sentence that said the situation with their spouse “turned violent.” That she ended up with marks on her body. And that he was the real victim here.
I said no.
Not “no” to caring about people. Not “no” to believing men can be hurt in relationships, because they absolutely can. “No” to using my platform to repeat a story where a much bigger person left visible marks on a much smaller one and then asked me to call him the wronged party.
I want to talk about why.
The thing nobody wants to say out loud
Men are bigger than women.
I know. Not all men, not every woman, exceptions exist, blah blah blah. Sit down. On average, in the vast statistical middle where most of us actually live, men are taller, heavier, and stronger than women. That isn’t sexism. That’s biology. And pretending it isn’t true is how we end up in conversations like the one I just had.
Here’s what that biology means inside a fight…
A man can walk away. A woman only can if he lets her.
When two people the same size argue, both people have roughly the same physical options. They can both leave. They can both stand up. They can both get to the door. When one person is significantly bigger than the other, those options collapse for the smaller person. The bigger person can block the door. Pin them down. Carry them. Hold them in place. The smaller person’s options all run through the bigger person’s body.
What it actually felt like
I spent a decade with a man who used his size to control me. By the end of it, I flinched at the very sound of someone coming down the hallway. I knew the weight of his footsteps. I knew which mood was coming before the door even opened. You learn how to draw a survival map in your head when you live with someone bigger than you who has decided your body belongs to him.
The last time he had me pinned, All I wanted was to leave. I couldn’t. He got to decide whether I lived or died that day. He chose death. The only reason I’m here writing this is that he was bad at it.
I had no option to walk away.
He had every option, every single time, and what he chose instead was to use his size against me.
That is the part nobody wants to look at directly when we have these “but women hit too” conversations. Yes, women can be aggressive. Yes, women can do terrible things. Yes, men can be victims. All of that can be true at the same time as this: when there is a significant size difference, the bigger person almost always has a way out that the smaller person doesn’t.
“But she hit first” is not the gotcha you think it is
I have heard this so many times. She hit me first. She came at me. She wouldn’t stop.
Okay. And?
If you are a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier than the person hitting you, you have an answer that doesn’t end with her body bruised. You can stand up step out of the room. You can leave the house. You can call someone. You can do literally anything other than match a fight you would always, always win.
When a bigger person “wins” a physical fight with a smaller person, that’s not self-defense. That’s gravity.
And when the bigger person then tells the story afterward as if he was the real victim because she finally fought back? That’s one of the oldest abuser playbooks there is. I know that one by heart. It was read to me out loud for ten years.
Why this is the hill
People ask me why I won’t soften on this, even a little. Why I won’t say “well, it’s complicated” or “every situation is different” or “we can’t really know.”
Because I do know.
I know what it is to be the smaller person who couldn’t get out of the room. I know what it is to have a man twice your size decide whether today is the day. I know what it feels like to plan your whole life around not setting off a body bigger than yours. And I know the world is full of men who will hand you a perfectly reasonable-sounding story about why, in their case, the rules don’t apply.
The rules apply.
If you are bigger, you walk away. That’s the rule. That is the whole rule. You don’t get to skip it because she was loud, or because she was mean, or because she threw the first thing, or because you were having a hard week. You walk away. Every time. No exceptions. That is what being the bigger person actually means. Not morally. Literally. You are the one with the option. Use it.
What my platform is for
I’ve spent a long time building a place on the internet where women can come, read something, and feel a little less crazy. A little less alone. A little more like somebody finally said the quiet part out loud.
I’m not going to undo that to make space for a story that asks me to root for the bigger person in a violent fight. Not today. Not ever.
If that costs me a follower, a friendship, or someone’s good opinion, that’s a price I am extremely willing to pay. Because somewhere right now, there is a woman reading this who has been told her whole adult life that she’s “too much” for noticing the size of the man across from her, or for flinching when he raises his hand to scratch his head.
You are not too much. You were paying attention. That instinct kept you alive.
And anyone who needs you to pretend size doesn’t matter so they can feel better about how they handled their own fight is asking you to make yourself smaller so they don’t have to be accountable.
Don’t do it.
Men are bigger. They can walk away.
That’s the rule. I’m not bending it.
