After generations of being taught to suffer for love, women are flipping the script, and struggle love is finally off the table.

There’s a growing, deliberate effort to roll back women’s rights, not just in policy, but in narrative. It’s happening in podcasts disguised as “truth,” in legislation disguised as “morality,” and in content creation disguised as masculinity. Everywhere you turn, some self-anointed alpha male is reciting a script about traditional values, positioning himself as a patriarchal messiah while preaching that women are the downfall of society for wanting autonomy, ambition, or peace.

These men are not revolutionary. They’re rebranded misogyny with a ring light.

And at the center of their worldview is this: women should suffer to be loved.

This is the engine of struggle love. It’s the belief that a woman’s worth is proven through her endurance. That she must bend, shrink, carry, and contort herself into something worthy of commitment. That if she’s just supportive enough, soft enough, sacrificial enough, he’ll transform, and maybe then, she’ll get to matter.

But women are done auditioning.

Struggle love has long been romanticized, especially for women in marginalized communities. It’s been sold as ride-or-die loyalty. As devotion. As a test of strength. But what it actually looks like is unpaid labor. It’s emotional housekeeping. It’s raising someone else's son inside your relationship. It’s doing all the internal work—for both of you—while being told you’re “too much” for wanting to be seen.

We are watching a very public campaign right now, sometimes called The Esther Project, sometimes just called “return to femininity,” which seeks to coax women back into domesticity under the guise of safety, God, and high value. The message is: Step down. Opt out. Give it up. Let him lead.

But what they won’t say out loud is what that leadership often looks like in daily life: weaponized incompetence. Control disguised as protection. Financial dependency as a form of silencing. A life where your dreams are taxed for his confidence. Your labor is the rent for his love.

No thank you.

We are not confused. We’ve seen what “traditional” looks like. It looks like invisible housework. Like dinner at six. Like falling asleep next to someone who hasn’t asked about your day in seven years. It looks like women quietly withering in the background of someone else’s big life.

And now, we’re seeing a quiet exodus.

More women are choosing themselves. Not because we’ve given up on love, but because we’ve stopped believing it should hurt to be held.

What we used to label as resilience in love, many of us now recognize as unnecessary suffering. And we are learning, finally, that love that asks you to shrink, to carry, or to wait indefinitely is not love. It is emotional labor dressed up in poetry and rom-coms.

Struggle love tells women they must earn love by enduring pain. That if you are patient enough, forgiving enough, if you prove your worth by staying through chaos, you will be rewarded. But the truth is: if it starts with confusion, pain, or absence, the good part rarely comes.

We’ve seen our mothers, aunties, and mentors pour themselves out and call it love. We’ve watched them trade their voices for vows. And now we’re asking—what if we simply don’t?

What if being alone isn’t failure but freedom?

What if growing old with cats is not a taunt, but a dream? A clean house, a soft robe, no one stealing your peace or your passwords. A life where no one is tracking your steps or gaslighting your standards. Where your joy isn’t a threat, and your voice isn’t a liability.

We’re not looking for perfection. But emotional immaturity is not a love language. Refusing to grow is not masculine mystique. And a man’s refusal to apologize should never be mistaken for strength.

This isn’t about rejecting love. It’s about rejecting that kind of love.

The kind that needs to be rescued. The kind that requires a woman to be both foundation and cushion. The kind that rewards silence and resents autonomy.

I’ve watched brilliant women leave “good” men who treated their ambition as an inconvenience. I’ve watched friends call off weddings with partners who didn’t believe in therapy, didn’t understand partnership, didn’t show up when it mattered. I’ve watched women break generational patterns, not because they’re bitter, but because they’re awake.

It is radical to believe that love can be mutual, nourishing, and rooted in respect. But that is exactly what more of us are choosing.

And if the cost of peace is letting go of old narratives, then so be it.

No more struggle. No more auditions. No more building empires with people who can’t even build a week of consistency. If love doesn’t feel like coming home to yourself, it’s not love.

Just real connection. Or real peace. Either way, we win.

 

Written by: Tasha Monroe

Founder, Simply Edyn & Co.

Editor & Writer, The Commons Dispatch

This piece is part of The Commons Dispatch.

Twice a month, we sit with the hard stuff that require reflection, resistance, and viewing the world as it actually is. It’s not perfect, but it’s honest. From Simply Edyn & Co., for whoever’s still listening. 

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