All Things Black & Sexual  

It is my opinion that we don’t even question the things we are told make a good relationship.  Supposedly, a good relationship should be 50/50, meaning that each partner puts in an equal amount of energy into the relationship.  Instead of us saying that relationships should be 50/50, we need to start focusing on relationships being balanced.  

In any relationship, there are going to be times when one partner is going to have to focus on career or personal goals and not be able to give as much time and attention to their partner.  Their partner should then step up to the plate and balance out the equation.  If one spouse can only give 20% then the other is going to have to pick up the slack and give 80%.  But the scales of balance must always swing both ways.  If one partner gets very sick, the other partner has to give their 100% and then some in order to keep the relationship alive and well. 

The problem in most relationships is not that one person loves one person more than the other.  The problem in most relationships is that people love themselves more than they love their partner.  They want their partner to give, to provide, to do all the work so that they can feel all the warm fuzzy feelings inside but they don’t want to have to lift a finger to make their partner feel warm and fuzzy.  We get into relationships because in the beginning we put our best foot forward, we romance and show the other person all these great things about us.  Then, when we get the commitment, we want to sit back and let the other person make us feel good without doing anything to make them feel good.  No relationship can survive if both parties are expecting their partner to meet their every need without giving anything in return.

In this Christian, patriarchal society, men are socialized to expect women to wait on them hand and foot.  They believe that women are supposed to cater to their every whim, fantasy, and desire and just be happy to be in a relationship, that is their only reward.  They want feelings of love but they don’t want to do any work, they don’t want to sacrifice anything in order to make their spouse happy.  How many times have you heard a Black man beating his chest and saying, “I wish it was like in the old days when women made men king of his castle.”  That means, “I wish it was like back in the old days when a man didn’t have to do anything and women shouldered 100% of the burden for a relationship and didn’t complain.” 

The other quintessential problem with relationships is that so many people are dysfunctional, so few people know what a healthy relationship looks like, it’s impossible to form one without any knowledge of HOW to be balanced in a relationship.  You can’t know how to be there for your spouse if you’ve never seen a spouse take up the slack for their partner.  You can’t know how to seduce (in a healthy manner, not some sort of manipulation) your partner and make them feel special if the closest thing you’ve seen to a relationship is your mother’s string of boyfriends that only stick around three weeks at a time. 

50/50 is not even something we should be striving for.  We should be striving to give 100% percent of ourselves to a partner who is committed to giving 100% of themselves in return.