Relationship – Why Struggle Love Must Fall
– Love or just another patriarchal scam? Most women have been raised to believe that love is tough. We look into why there’s no reason to stay in a relationship that comes with struggle
A 2018 Twitter post by @PreMed_ BlackMed read: “I want black women to experience love that doesn’t involve suffering first and being glorified later”.
This is the type of tweet that gets many retweets and nods of agreement, but receives just as many complaints from those who disagree. And the maths is simple — the reason it evokes such a strong response is because it hits a raw nerve.
The concept of being hurt because someone likes you starts way before children become adults. “It’s one of society’s norms that when little boys like a girl, they might go pull her hair or push her in the playground. Most people see it as harmless, but this is when the programming starts,” says Khanyisile Xaba, a Durban-based counsellor. “This notion that it’s normal for boys to hurt the girls they like, grows with people and becomes the harmful messaging that it’s normal to be repeatedly hurt in the name of love.”
On shows such as Our Perfect Wedding, it’s common to see the brideto-be regaling the audience with tales of their partner’s infidelity and how it’s paid off now that the main inflictor of her pain is finally marrying her. “It has been normalised to a point where people speak about it publicly and preach it as though it is a norm that cannot be fought,” Xaba adds.
LEARNT DYSFUNCTION
The belief that suffering is part of the journey to being declared the “chosen one” is prescribed exclusively to women. “Terms like ukubekezela, being told to forgive infidelity and other hurtful acts as well as the idea that continued pain and suffering make you a stronger and better person are solely directed at women,” Xaba points out.
Psychologist, Khosi Jiyane agrees but says this socialising also comes with some of our most primitive makeup as human beings. “The glorification of that suffering is partially society striving to maintain balance because there’s a recognition that the man has one foot out the door at any given time. Through the evolution of human beings, women have been the nurturers while men were hunters and protectors. Their role wasn’t steeped in being expected to be around and being emotionally supportive,” she says.
Even though we have evolved since then, society has kept a part of that script going. The messaging is supported by what young boys and men are taught about love. “They are told a woman who sticks by them no matter what, is the one to choose. This thinking doesn’t require them to love her back, or more importantly, to stop hurting her. Being malleable and all-accepting is often seen as one of the qualities of a great wife, so this leads a lot of men to choose wives they know they can walk over with no real consequence, because their entire relationship has been that way,” she adds.
For Nontobeko Ndlovu*, 39, the belief that you must suffer for love was deeply entrenched. “I come from a very religious family and I’ve been groomed to be someone’s wife. When I was dating my ex husband, he cheated a lot, but I always forgave him. The main reason was that I loved him and wanted to be his wife. Secondly, I was raised to believe all men cheat. So I wasn’t willing to lose a man I loved, because I thought everyone would do that to me,” she shares. After six years of dating and several episodes of infidelity followed by short-lived breakups to punish her boyfriend, Nontobeko got the ring she wanted. “I don’t want to sugarcoat what I felt at that time. I felt I had won the ultimate prize. I felt our marriage would shut up the women he had disrespected me with. I also felt the marriage was a fresh start for us and he’d respect me and our love more now that we were married,” she recalls.
After the fairytale wedding, reality set in and the same issues from their dating years resurfaced in the