Madispace

We’ve been conditioned to believe that suffering in silence is normal

We need to have a talk, girl to girl.

I’ve noticed something about this generation…and honestly, it’s been sitting heavy on my heart. This generation has gotten way too comfortable settling for bare minimum relationships. And I’m not here to judge anyone. I’m saying it because I’ve lived it, my friends have lived it, and so many women I love are living it right now.

So many of us are staying in relationships where our needs aren’t being met. Where we don’t feel seen or heard. Where we are begging for effort and then gaslighting ourselves into believing we’re “asking too much” for wanting just the bare-minimum. And a lot of us quietly think we are the problem, when in reality we’ve just been conditioned to tolerate things we never should’ve tolerated in the first place.

Many of us grew up watching the women before us take everything on in silence. The disrespect, emotional neglect, cheating, inconsistency, abuse, and still call it “love”. Women are taught, “be patient, be kind, be forgiving, you’re too emotional.” Society has said “love is supposed to be hard”, “if he doesn’t change, you’re supposed to adapt”, or my favorite, “men are just like that”. When this is how it is everywhere around us, it has become the new normal. I’m here to tell you that just because it is common does not make it normal.

Then we feel stuck because we have invested so much time, energy, money, and shared this life with them. We don’t believe we have any other options. We believe we are running out of time. So even if the relationship isn’t that great, all of that time and effort we’ve put in makes us feel like we are glued there.

Tell me that doesn’t sound like half the situations we are in, or that we see around us.

Then there’s the emotional side of it. Women often carry the emotional load in the relationship. We are the ones checking in, smoothing things over, keeping the peace, noticing when something feels off, and trying to fix it. We end up carrying the emotional weight of the relationship while the other person checks out. We often become the ones managing all the emotions, the communication, and the effort. And we take the responsibility of keeping the relationship emotionally stable, even if it’s killing us. Aren’t you tired?

We are in a time where people are so scared of being alone that they’d rather stay half-loved than risk starting over. We choose to stay because of the memory, the potential, the soft moments, the promises, the “good days”.

You are not supposed to feel constantly anxious in your own relationship. You are not supposed to feel like you’re begging for someone to show up. You are not supposed to be confused for months about where you stand. You are not supposed to be the only one trying.

If any of this has resonated with you, I want to sit with you, give you a big hug, and also be really honest with you… you deserve more than this. In case nobody told you.

You deserve effort that matches yours. You deserve communication that doesn’t make you question your sanity. You deserve partnership, not parenting. And you deserve to feel chosen, not tolerated.

You can leave. You’re allowed to change your mind about what you want, about who you are, about what you thought would make you happy. The past version of ourselves didn’t know everything we have lived through since. Even if you’ve invested years. Even if you thought this person was your forever. That’s not failure, that’s growth. That’s being brave.

This generation doesn’t need more women suffering in silence to prove they’re loyal. This generation needs more women choosing themselves so that the “bare minimum” stops being acceptable.

This is the season of choosing peace. This is the season of choosing self-respect. This is the season of saying, “This doesn’t serve me anymore”.

I say all of this from experience. There came a point where I had to sit with myself and be brutally honest about what staying was actually doing to me. It wasn’t just ‘a rough patch’ or miscommunication, it was slowly costing me my peace, my confidence, and all the parts of myself I used to be proud of. I realized I was pouring so much energy into trying to feel supported and understood that I barely recognized that version of me inside that relationship anymore. And I didn’t walk away because the love disappeared, I walked away because I respected and loved myself enough to walk away when the relationship stopped serving me. Choosing to leave was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever made, but it was also the moment I started choosing myself again. And that changed everything.

We are not dating losers anymore. We are not begging for scraps. We are not confusing intensity with chemistry or inconsistency with fate. And you don’t have to either.

With Love,

Madi.

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