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Cardi B said something in her recent sit-down with Angie Martinez that sat in my spirit. She admitted she loves marriage, but she also understands the plight of the older aunties like myself—the women who decided that after a certain point, they weren’t going to keep exhausting themselves in relationships that brought more drama than joy. Women who opted out of bullshit and chose peace. And let me tell you, as an unmarried Black woman who’s closer to 50 than 40 and absolutely fine with being unmarried until the rapture actually happens,  I felt that in my bones.

Cheating, lying, manipulation—those are the entry-level offenses. I’ve survived far worse. I’ve been love-bombed by a man who came in like he was my saving grace, only to turn around and try to emotionally wreck me. This was a man I helped keep alive—literally—because he was diabetic and had no healthcare. I provided him coverage while he told me with a straight face that I “wasn’t all that,” that I “would be nothing without the internet.” That’s the kind of twisted gaslighting that leaves scars you don’t see. And it’s not just me. My girls have lived through the madness too. One sister opened her home to a man, only to realize he was plotting on her property, trying to get control of what she had worked her whole life for. Another had her televisions stolen out her house by the same man who laid up in her bed. I know a woman who was put out on I-20 in the middle of the night like they were disposable. You can’t tell me that isn’t warfare—emotional, mental, and spiritual.

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At this stage of my life, I don’t have the energy or the interest to fight battles that should never exist in the first place. The older I get, the more I realize that peace is not a luxury—it’s a necessity. Baby, peace is freedom. And had I understood the true value of peace in my twenties and thirties, I would’ve walked past a whole lot of chaos instead of trying to fix it, manage it, or compromise with it. Some of the storms I got caught up in? I should’ve just sidestepped them completely. That’s why me and my sisties—the aunties, the single sisters—are bullshit bankrupt. We’re overdrawn on lies, manipulation, and struggle love. I don’t have the emotional, mental, or spiritual capacity to give a man who doesn’t serve me well, who doesn’t value me for who I truly am, who only measures my worth by what he thinks he can get out of me. I refuse to invest in people who want to receive more than they’re ever willing to give.

Now, I choose peace every single time. That’s not loneliness—that’s liberation.

That’s the lesson my generation wasn’t taught. We were raised on “ride or die,” on proving our worth and loyalty through a suffering attached to the idea of love. Thank God, that narrative has been changed. Today—women are rewriting that script. Cardi spoke it. Teyana Taylor showed it. Kash Doll is walking it. High-profile or not, women are waking up to the truth: choosing yourself is not selfish. It’s sacred. It’s UNAPOLOGETIC AF. It is self-love in its highest form.

Listen niece, no one deserves grace for bad behavior, IDGAF how much you love them, how good the D is, how many years you’ve shared or whatever else you’re telling yourself makes this man worthy of a pass. And here’s what fills me with joy: younger women getting this lesson earlier. Don’t wait until hate, hurt and exhaustion cause you to feel worn down, depressed and defeated. Choose you first, First! Because you deserve love that adds, not subtracts. Walk away, that’s a flex— not a failure.

yes, we aunties may be single but it is by choice. We could easily be with somebody’s son who is disturbing our peace and cause our edges to fall out. And yes we might open our heads and our hearts to something new and promising But what we are not doing is allowing the unks to traumatize us at this big age— and the prayer is that you’ll assume the same posture when it come to the YN’s or whatever you call them. Oh and, we are bitter. We are not broken. We’re not sitting around wishing somebody’s son would have chosen us. We’re sitting in our peace, finally, and it feels so damn good. And we’re cheering on the next generation as you learn to do the same—without apology, without guilt, and without delay.

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The post Cardi Said It Best: We’re Single ‘Til the Rapture— Why Aunties Like Me Are Choosing Peace Over Struggle Love [Op-Ed] appeared first on MadameNoire.



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