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A couple of months ago, I went through a breakup that hit me hard. Like any self-respecting man, I supposedly should have hit the gym, buried myself in books, bought a new car, landed a higher-paying job, and found a hotter, smarter girlfriend who cooks for me! Just kidding—though I did start going to the gym more and working on beating my addictions. Most importantly, I ate lots of ice cream and rewatched the first two seasons of The Seven Deadly Sins like a champ. Only the first two seasons, mind you—we don’t talk about anything that came after. While the later seasons didn’t get much love, those first two were straight fire.

After being in back-to-back relationships for eight years, I noticed that during every breakup, I kept returning to one particular episode: The Trials of Season 2. This time was different, though. When I watched it, I had to hold back some manly tears. I had genuinely loved this woman, but there was a darkness within me I hadn’t addressed. I couldn’t love her the way she deserved. Losing her unleashed a chaos of emotions—anger, sadness, freedom—all surging outward and inward. What I saw in this episode reflected an internal process I recognized in myself. The trials of Meliodas, the sin of wrath, and his romantic arc serve as a modern mythology—a framework for the transformation that the masculine spirit undergoes, and in some cases, must undergo, in modern love, in our quest to find our Elizabeth.

Meliodas and Elizabeth: The Eternal Masculine & Feminine

"The gods and goddesses, heroes and demons, are not to be understood as literal personalities, but as metaphors for eternal aspects of the human psyche. Their stories represent psychological realities that are common to all humanity." — Joseph Campbell

Meliodas, son of the Demon King, fell in love with Elizabeth, daughter of the Supreme Deity—a Romeo and Juliet situation with cosmic stakes. When Meliodas abandoned his position as Leader of the Demon Clan to pursue his love for Elizabeth, they were both cursed. Meliodas received the curse of resurrection, where he would be sent to purgatory and return, leaving behind pieces of his soul and emotions with each death. This gradual loss would cause him to revert to his former self: the cold, ruthless leader of the demon clan’s army. I saw this process as similar to that “chip on the shoulder” attitude guys develop when relationships end. You don’t want your get-back?

Elizabeth was cursed with reincarnation—she would live as a human from birth to old age (if she didn’t die by other means), with her goddess powers dormant, only to be reborn again and again. From a guy’s perspective, this mirrors how women move on after relationships. When a woman decides to end things, you’re done. She’ll hit you with the “watch this” energy, and that version of her might as well be dead.This cycle continued for 2,000 years, creating an excruciating pattern where Meliodas repeatedly witnessed his beloved’s death, each time losing more of his emotional stability and unleashing his darker half—his wrath. His struggle to maintain his emotions while facing repeated loss mirrors the modern man’s challenge in remaining emotionally available after each failed relationship with their Elizabeth, a woman he truly loved.

Reincarnation of Elizabeth: Renewal of the Anima

I’m focusing on the male perspective here. The rebirth of Elizabeth parallels every new relationship I’ve experienced, where the spirit of Elizabeth represents that feminine energy or archetype—the essence that runs through all women. This goes beyond mere physical traits to encompass deeper feminine qualities. Each girlfriend uniquely embodied this spirit through her personality and character. Each death of Elizabeth mirrors the end of a relationship. When I lost someone I truly loved, it felt like losing a piece of myself, a part of my identity.

"Every man carries within him the eternal image of woman, not the image of this or that particular woman, but a definitive feminine image. This image is fundamentally unconscious, a hereditary factor of primordial origin." — Carl Jung

Each new relationship embodies a fresh incarnation of the anima—that eternal feminine spirit. These relationships mirror Elizabeth’s cycle of birth, death, and rebirth—when one ends, that expression of the anima dies, only to emerge later in a new form, a new love. The pattern is both beautiful and tragic. Just as Meliodas bore the weight of remembering every death of Elizabeth, I carry the emotional memory of each lost connection, each failed attempt to preserve that sacred bond. The anima represents more than our romantic ideals—it embodies our capacity to embrace the feminine aspects within ourselves: emotional depth, intuition, and nurturing connections. When a relationship ends, we lose more than a partner—we temporarily lose touch with these parts of ourselves, much like Meliodas losing fragments of his emotions and soul.

The Sin of Wrath: Emotional Unavailability

Each time I loved and lost, I became more emotionally detached. Like Meliodas, who loses his emotions and becomes a darker, colder version of himself when he dies, this mirrors men in modern dating—when our “Elizabeth” dies, it represents the death of both the relationship and a version of ourselves.

The best thing you can do after a relationship is to truly heal and integrate the experience. One of my biggest mistakes was partially healing and then rushing into another relationship. The longer you postpone this process, the more emotional baggage accumulates, and it inevitably surfaces later. In the show, Meliodas earned his title as the sin of wrath by losing emotional control and unleashing his full powers—destroying an entire city. Similarly, each relationship added another layer of complexity, making it harder to balance deep feelings with strength in my next love.

The natural response seemed to be adopting a stoic, detached approach to love. I overdid it, transitioning from monogamy to dating multiple women simultaneously. I went full Andrew Tate. Why commit to one Elizabeth when you could have many? Especially since they’d leave anyway. Yet gradually, I realized I’d lost the ability to truly love my Elizabeth. I lost someone I genuinely wanted as my wife—my last Elizabeth. And truthfully, I did lose her. Yet, just as Beatrice guided and inspired Dante’s journey from hell, the prospect of finding my true Elizabeth still calls to me. Next time, I will be ready.

The Instinct to Suppress The Shadow

After earning his title as the Sin of Wrath and recognizing his lack of emotional control, Meliodas made a profound decision to seal his powers within a vessel for safekeeping. The show was revealing the Jungian shadow concept in vivid detail. His darkness—his demonic powers—represented access to his shadow self, a theme that becomes increasingly significant during the Trials. Like Meliodas, I felt incapable of wielding my own shadow, my inner powers, and there was truth in that feeling. I lacked the psychological tools, maturity, and wisdom necessary to integrate my shadow. So I retreated to a smaller, more manageable version of myself.

The shadow consists of those aspects of your character that belong to you but that have not been given any conscious place in your life. Assimilating ones shadow is the art of catching up on those facets of life that have not been honored or lived out adequately. -Transformation by Robert A Johnson

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This shadow aspect is crucial to understand, because there inevitably comes a time in every man’s life when he must reclaim his powers—in other words, assimilate and integrate his shadow self into his conscious being. Meliodas’s journey through loss and redemption mirrors the modern man’s path toward emotional wholeness. His story reveals how suppressing our pain only deepens our wounds, while confronting our shadow self—though difficult—leads to true healing. Real strength comes from integration. Just as Meliodas had to face his trials to reclaim his powers, men today must learn to embrace both their capacity for love and their darker half. Each new relationship offers a chance for growth and deeper understanding. Success lies not in avoiding pain but in maintaining emotional authenticity while navigating love’s inevitable cycles of joy, loss, and renewal.

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