When You Are Strong Everywhere Except in Your Relationship
- Nada Johnson
- 7 days ago
- 4 min read
Black History Month often centres on stories of endurance, loyalty, and perseverance. These narratives honour survival and resilience. They also shape how many Black women learn to stay, carry, and endure long after something begins to cost them.
For many high-achieving Black women, the most exhausting place to be strong is not work.
It is home.
✨ Being Married and Still Feeling Alone
Many of the women I work with at NJCCS are successful, capable, and deeply responsible. They manage careers, households, parenting, and extended family needs. They are organized, reliable, and emotionally attuned.
And yet, inside their intimate relationships, many feel unseen.
When partnered with a self-centred or emotionally unavailable partner, women often describe a familiar pattern.
They are the ones who remember everything.
They anticipate needs.
They manage emotions.
They carry the mental and emotional labour.
Over time, the relationship begins to feel one-sided.
Not because the woman is incapable of receiving support, but because she has learned not to expect it.
✨ Emotional Neglect Is Not Always Loud
Emotional neglect does not always look like cruelty or conflict.
Often, it looks like absence.
It looks like needs that are minimized.
Conversations that never quite go deep.
Support that is inconsistent or conditional.
Feeling alone during moments that should feel shared.
Many women tell themselves they are asking for too much, being too sensitive, or expecting perfection.
Instead, what they are experiencing is an imbalance.
✨ The Silent Grief No One Sees
One of the most painful parts of these relationships is the grief that goes unnamed.
Grief for the partnership they imagined.
Grief for the emotional safety they hoped for.
Grief for the version of themselves that felt more open, softer, or more confident.
Because things may look fine from the outside, this grief often stays hidden.
Women continue to function.
They continue to achieve.
They continue to hold it all together.
And slowly, confidence erodes.
✨ How This Affects Self-Esteem and the Body
Living in a relationship where your emotional needs are consistently unmet takes a toll.
Many high-achieving Black women begin to notice:
✔️ chronic exhaustion and burnout
✔️ sleep disruption and physical tension
✔️ emotional shutdown or numbness
✔️ hyper-independence and over-functioning
✔️ self-blame and perfectionism
✔️ questioning their worth despite success
The nervous system adapts to carrying everything alone. Rest begins to feel unsafe. Letting go feels risky. Asking for help feels unfamiliar.
This is not a weakness.
It is an adaptation.
✨ Cultural Conditioning and the Pressure to Stay Strong
Cultural messages around loyalty, endurance, and silence often make it harder to name relational harm. Many Black women are taught to be patient, resilient, and grateful.
As a result, distress is often internalized.
Women tell themselves they should be able to handle it.
They compare themselves to others who appear to have it worse.
They stay longer than feels safe or sustainable.
Success can make suffering invisible, even to the woman herself.
✨ Reframing Healing as Strategic
Seeking support does not mean you failed at love or strength.
It means your nervous system is asking for relief.
At NJCCS, therapy offers a culturally responsive and trauma-informed space where Black women and women of colour can explore relational patterns, emotional neglect, and identity loss without judgment or pressure to minimize.
In therapy, women often begin to:
🌿 name relational harm without self-blame
🌿 understand how chronic stress has shaped their responses
🌿 reconnect with their needs and boundaries
🌿 rebuild confidence that has quietly eroded
🌿 feel supported rather than responsible for everything
Healing is not weakness.
It is a strategy.
✨ A Black History Month Reflection
As we honour Black history, it is important to honour Black women not only for what they endure, but for what they deserve.
If this resonates, you are not alone.
I offer a thoughtful, steady therapeutic space grounded in cultural understanding, nervous system awareness, and respect for lived experience.
You are welcome to book a free 10-minute consultation to explore whether this support feels like the right fit.
You do not have to carry this alone 💙
With warmth,
Nada Johnson, MSW, RSW
Registered Social Worker, Psychotherapist / trained Family Mediator / EMDR Trained Therapist / Certified Racial Trauma Clinician / Mental Health & Sexual Violence Consultant / Professional Speaker
🌍 Website: www.nadajohnsonservices.com
📩 Contact: info@nadajohnsonservices.com
Nada Johnson Consulting & Counselling Services – Online phone and video sessions available
Village Healing Centre: 240 Roncesvalles Avenue
Please share this post to support another black woman who may be carrying too much alone. 🤝
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