If Women Loved Their Men Like They Loved Their Kids, A Lot More Marriages Would Last
We’ve made motherhood a space for unconditional love, but made relationships a place of constant testing.
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If women loved their men the way they love their children, half the homes breaking apart today might still be standing.
Let that settle for a second.
Because a mother’s love? It’s a force. It forgives. It tries again. It waits. It understands silence. It knows tantrums don’t always mean hate, and withdrawal doesn’t always mean the absence of love.
A mother doesn’t give up. She doesn’t pack her bags after a few tough nights. She doesn’t label her child “emotionally unavailable” and walk away.
She stays. She figures it out. She keeps choosing love — even on the days it hurts. Now imagine if that kind of love showed up in our relationships.
I’ve seen women carry the emotional weight of their entire families. I’ve seen them sacrifice, bend, stretch themselves thin, and still find a way to tuck their child into bed with a kiss.
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I’ve also seen the way some of those same women treat their partners: with less patience, less grace, and far less effort.
And I’m not saying this to blame. This isn’t some anti-woman rant. I love women — real love. Respectful love.
I see their struggle, their strength, their pain. But this one truth keeps following me around: We ration love. And we ration it most with the people we once said we couldn’t live without.
A child can fail and still be loved.
A man fails once, and he’s “not good enough.”
A child can scream, cry, or fall apart.
A man does the same, and he’s “too much,” “too broken,” “too soft.”
We’ve made motherhood a space for unconditional love and made relationships a place for constant evaluation. You can’t build forever when love has to pass a test every week.
And yes, men do it too — some men don’t love their wives the way they love their daughters.
They speak gently to the little girl who holds their hand, but harshly to the woman who held them down through all their storms. That’s a wound too.
So maybe we both have work to do. But today, I’m talking to the women. To the givers. To the ones who’ve been taught to nurture endlessly — but only in certain places.
What if you gave your man the same kind of grace you give your child? What if you saw his silence as confusion, not rejection?
What if you held space for his healing the same way you do for your child’s growth? I’m not saying stay in something that’s tearing you down. I’m saying stop confusing discomfort with destruction.
Stop leaving when things aren’t instant. Stop forgetting that love takes learning — and unlearning.
Love can’t survive when it’s being rationed.
It needs to feel like home, not like a courtroom where every mistake is a new trial. The truth is: relationships don’t always die because love disappears.
Sometimes, they die because we stopped choosing to love the way we once promised we would. Give him the love you want from him. Not a smaller version. Not a performance. Not a test.
And if he’s not the one, that’s okay. But don’t let the next man meet a woman who forgot how to love deeply, just because the last one couldn’t hold it.
We say love is unconditional. Let’s start proving it. Not just with your kids. But with the man you once swore you’d never stop choosing.
“This isn’t about blaming women. It’s about unlearning the patterns that make love feel more like survival than sanctuary. It’s about giving your partner the same grace you give your child — the patience, the softness, the belief that broken doesn’t mean beyond repair. Because real love — the kind that lasts — doesn’t ration itself.”
Muano Ratshivhadelo is a writer exploring the power of connection, emotions, and personal growth through candid storytelling. His essays on Medium resonate with readers for their honesty and heartfelt insight.
