The Fixer Who Can’t Fix Her

(A Companion to “The Change She Knows She Needs”)

He sees it.
The heaviness in her eyes. The restlessness. The pain she doesn’t talk about.
Something inside her is hurting, stuck, lost—and he wants to fix it.

Because that’s what he does.
That’s what he’s good at.

Fix the broken thing.
Patch the leak.
Solve the problem.

But she’s not a problem.
She’s a person.

And when he tries to fix her—offering solutions she didn’t ask for, advice she didn’t need, or silence when she needed presence—he doesn’t make it better.
He makes it worse.

Not out of malice.
But out of misunderstanding.
Out of a desperate need to feel useful in a moment where he feels helpless.

He wants to do something—anything—to make her okay.
But she doesn’t need to be made okay.
She needs to be seen. Heard. Held.

And this—this is where it hurts:
What she needs most is the one thing he wasn’t taught to give.

He wasn’t taught how to stay without fixing.
How to listen without trying to make sense of it.
How to hold space for someone else’s pain without needing to control the outcome.

No one told him that sometimes, the most powerful thing he can offer…
is his presence.

No hammer. No glue. No blueprint.
Just him—still, patient, open.
Not fixing.
Just loving.

And when he learns that—truly learns it—
he’ll realize that maybe she didn’t need answers.
She just needed to know she wasn’t alone in the dark.

And that kind of love?
It doesn’t break her.
It helps her begin to heal.