My recommendation if you want to write a heterosexual romance with a male lead who’s emotionally broken, has serious behavioral issues and is very dark but you don’t want it to end up as some sexist mess where the female lead develops a savior complex and becomes the light that saves him all in some vomitously patriarchal romantic climax is basic: make the girl ten times worse than him. And in the end, he’s the one who has to take on the role of caring, of maturing, of owning up to his role as a dysfunctionally functional adult because he chose as a partner a ticking time bomb who if not kept in check could burn entire cities down. Everything else is patriarchy. Sorry babes, in 2025 we don’t accept caretaker women for men with ‘little traumas’, in 2025, we’re the ones with the little traumas.
