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In today’s conversations about relationships, the term struggle love has gained attention.
While perseverance in relationships can be healthy, struggle love often crosses the line into abuse, disguised as devotion or loyalty.
What Is Struggle Love?
Struggle love is a dynamic where one person bears the weight of the relationship while the other’s actions—or inactions—cause harm. It may involve enduring betrayal, neglect, manipulation, or even outright abuse, with the promise that things will eventually get better. The narrative often sounds like:
“Love means standing by someone, no matter what.”
“If you leave, you didn’t really love me.”
“Relationships are hard; this is just part of it.”
While all relationships face challenges, struggle love normalizes suffering, making it a prerequisite for proving love.
When Struggle Love Becomes Disguised Abuse
Abuse doesn’t always look like screaming matches or physical harm. Often, it’s subtle, woven into the fabric of the relationship under the guise of love and devotion. Here’s how struggle love can mask abusive behaviors:
Emotional Manipulation
Statements like, “If you really loved me, you’d stay,” are used to guilt partners into enduring unacceptable behavior.
Apologies are followed by justifications, making you feel like you’re to blame for the mistreatment.
Gaslighting
You’re made to question your reality. For instance, when you point out hurtful behavior, the response might be, “You’re too sensitive” or “That’s not what happened.”
Over time, this erodes your confidence in your own feelings and perceptions.
Control Disguised as Protection
Controlling behaviors, like monitoring your phone or isolating you from friends, are framed as acts of love: “I just want to keep you safe.”
This leads to dependence, making it harder to recognize or leave the cycle of abuse.
Overemphasis on Forgiveness
Forgiveness is weaponized, with phrases like, “Love keeps no record of wrongs.” While forgiveness is important, it’s not a license for ongoing harm.
Inconsistent Affection
Moments of love and affection are used as rewards after periods of neglect or harm, keeping you invested in the relationship despite the pain.
The Cost of Struggle Love
Struggle love erodes self-worth, leaving you feeling like love must be earned through suffering. This dynamic can lead to emotional exhaustion, depression, and a warped sense of what healthy love looks like.
Women in these relationships often internalize the belief that love requires sacrifice at the expense of their own well-being. This belief can stem from childhood programming, cultural norms, or even spiritual misinterpretations that glorify suffering as noble.
Recognizing the Difference: Love vs. Struggle Love
Healthy love:
Builds trust and emotional safety.
Involves mutual effort and accountability.
Allows space for growth without sacrificing self-worth.
Struggle love:
Normalizes pain as part of love.
Centers one partner’s needs at the expense of the other.
Keeps you in a constant state of anxiety or self-doubt.
Breaking Free from Struggle Love
Breaking free starts with recognizing that love is not supposed to hurt. Here are a few steps:
Acknowledge the Reality: Write down the patterns you’ve noticed in your relationship. Seeing them clearly can be eye-opening.
Seek Support: Reach out to trusted friends, family, or professionals who can help you navigate your feelings and options.
Prioritize Your Healing: Focus on building your self-worth outside the relationship. Therapy or support groups can be invaluable.
Set Boundaries: Recognize that you are not responsible for fixing someone else’s behavior.
Struggle love is not a badge of honor—it’s a warning sign. Love should lift, support, and inspire, not demand suffering as proof of its existence. If you’ve found yourself caught in a cycle of struggle love, know that you’re not alone, and there is a way out.
Healing begins when we reject the idea that pain and love are one and the same. True love doesn’t hurt—it heals.
You deserve that kind of love.
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