Love. When you hear the word, what do you think of? The Notebook, Romeo and Juliet, your favorite ice-cream, your family, your spouse? Do you think of control, pain, lust, deception, anger, embarrassment? I am a black woman. I grew up black and I was raised by a black mother, but I never truly witnessed healthy black love up close.

We’ve all seen Baby Boy and What’s Love Got to Do with It, and believe me that’s not love but in the black culture we tend to normalize dysfunction and attach mantra’s like “ride or die” to our significant others as if it’s some sort of fabled award when really it’s a demeaning expectation. We, at times, are expected to be so selfless in the black love we give, it’s supposed to be a strong love, an enduring love, the “I’ll hold you down through your bid love,” and although technically speaking there’s nothing wrong with those various flavors of love, they are not always the healthiest choice.

When you are too selfless with your love, you can lose pieces of yourself, some that you’ll never find again and as you try to put back the pieces that he or she chipped away at, overtime you won’t recognize yourself in the mirror. He or she looks like a faint resemblance of who you used to be. Being selfless can be healthy but not always. When you give so much with nothing gifted to you in return, you’re just pouring and pouring from a cup that’s not endless.

Real love is a two-way street not a one way.

Stop letting people be selfish with you, while you are being selfless with them. One more time for those in the back.

Stop letting people be selfish with you, while you are being selfless with them.

Selfless is defined as being concerned more with the needs and wishes of others than with one’s own and is synonymous to altruistic, magnanimous and self-sacrificing. It’s not a bad trait but not everyone deserves this level of consideration. If you love so hard that you make yourself an afterthought, you’re subconsciously telling yourself that your lovers needs and wants hold precedence over your own. In my opinion, that’s a prime example of love that exists on a one-way street. You deserve two-way street love, remember that.

You’re welcome.