Serayah, Joey Bada$$ and the hard truth about love, cheating and relationships
Serayah and Joey Bada$$’s breakup sparked discourse about love and cheating. Therapists explain why love alone can’t sustain a partnership.
This week, Serayah announced the end of her engagement to rapper Joey Bada$$.
“I loved deeply, believed wholeheartedly in the life we were building, and wanted nothing more than to protect our family,” the actress and singer wrote siting infidelity as the cause of the breakup. “If your intuition is telling you something is wrong, listen to it. Don’t make yourself smaller to keep someone else comfortable. Don’t compromise your values because you’re afraid of losing the future you imagined. And don’t allow someone else’s choices to become a referendum on your worth. Love should not require you to abandon yourself.”
Naturally, the news of the couple which once filled moodboards and “couple goals” aesthetics sparked waves of discourse across social media. And amid resurfaced podcast clips, paparazzi photos, and internet investigators trying to spot the beginning of the end for one of the internet’s most viral couples, broader reflections and questions on love and relationships have emerged. If a man loves a woman why cheat? Is love enough to sustain a relationship, let alone cheating? Where does the concept of discenment stand when thinking about the imperfections of loving another person? What are the costs of loving another human, understanding that we are an ever-evolving species?
TheGrio sat down with couples therapist Beverley Andre and author and therapist Kier Gaines to get some perspective on the growing discourse. And both experts agree that love isn’t enough when you’re thinking about the sustainability of a relationship.
“Love isn’t enough in the best relationship where there is no infidelity. There are so many components that factor into a ‘successful’ relationship. Obviously, love and admiration for that person, consideration, trust, having a friendship, being aligned on values, having a similar vision of life that you’re both working towards,” Dr. Andre shared. “If love was enough, a lot of people would still be in their relationships. There are a lot of people who leave their relationships even though they still love the person. But there are other factors that they’re considering, that maybe that love or that relationship does not feel safe anymore, and it doesn’t feel like they can truly feel safe in their love for that person because it’s being taken advantage of or misused.”
“There is love, the feeling, and then there’s love. The business, love. The feeling is this indescribable, intangible attraction, magnetism, fondness that you have for a person that accumulates over time,” Gaines shared. “Then, there’s the business, which we call partnership. Partnership isn’t as much about the feelings that you all have between one another as it is about how you all manage each other’s existence while still managing yours, while still managing the collective. It’s a three-part harmony.”
“So, is love enough to deal with you for long enough and try to see past [challenges]? Yes. Enough to navigate and overcome that challenge in and of itself? No.”
Similarly, Andre, who has worked with couples who have both decided to move past infidelity and dissolved due to infidelity, echoed that there is so much more to these conversations. However, as many social media users noted, Serayah’s experience highlights a pattern women have faced for years.
View on Threads
For decades, the concept of men cheating has lived within media, cultural discussions, music, books, etc. So much so that the counter phrase “Black men don’t cheat” has been popularized to diffuse the stereotype. But while it is fair to say all Black men don’t cheat, there is a pattern in men as it relates to infidelity, which Gaines explains is tied to sexual validation.
“Simply put, it feels good,” he shared, emphasizing it does not excuse the ethical and moral consequences of the act. “Sex is validating, and I don’t know why we don’t have this conversation about sexual validation…sex validates men in a way that you just don’t get in other ways in society.”
Although the validation often comes from each other, the “It All Starts When You Do” author notes that there is “an ecosystem of validation amongst Black women out in the world where people pour into you. And from my lived experience being a boy and also counseling boys and men in therapy, it doesn’t feel the same way, and sometimes we don’t get it from enough places that are varied. And sex is like this cool compilation of validation, performance validation, identity validation, and exceptionality validation.”
With that understanding, when thinking about how the concepts of infidelity, love, and relationships arise in the content and conversations men have, he notes that one way communities can hopefully see a change in this pattern can come from young men being connected to men who “genuinely love, appreciate, and enjoy their wives.”
However, as Gaines noted, there’s no ultimate solution to cheating. However, we can try to address the ways we talk about these situations. Amid all the opinions and think pieces, a level of judgment has been passed on Serayah, as old sound bites of the Brooklyn rapper discussing his affinity for polyamory have resurfaced. With some social media users calling out what they perceive as a lack of discernment, Andre reminds us of people’s ever-changing nature.
“There are a lot of people who were polyamorous at one point in time. Now they’re monogamous, and vice versa. People change, people evolve. And all you can do as a human being is make the best decision with the information that you have at the time that you know to be true,” she shared. “Discernment is gained through experience; wisdom is gained through experience. There are times where you can see somebody else’s situation, and you’re like, ‘Okay, I can use that and and and and learn from that.’ But we can’t fault somebody from learning from a situation that they’re currently in. It’s not a question about discernment. It’s just sometimes people do learn a lesson through the experiences that they’re in.”
View on Threads
View on Threads
Ultimately, change is part of the cost of being in a relationship with people, whether romantic or in friendship. And while in many cases those costs feel worth it because there is a level of mutual respect and understanding between both parties, Gaines notes that loving someone through change is honoring “the thin line that exists between giving a person grace and allowing a person to get away with things that need to be called out or that need to be walked away from, a there’s no secret formula to figuring out which is which.”
“I tell my clients that a relationship is sometimes like a blindfolded walk up the mountain. You don’t know if the next step gets you closer to the peak or closer to the cliff. You don’t know. So one of the best ways is not to be so enamored of love, or so in love with the idea of love and partnership, that you become completely blind to what’s happening,” Gaines advised, sharing examples of things to take notice of, including:
- Not just how a person treats you, but also how they treat the people around them because as he notes: “If a person is horrible to everybody else but you, you might not be exception; it just might not be your turn yet.”
- What people’s family dynamics look like.
- Their ability to repair conflicts with friends.
“Keep in mind, the idea of love isn’t enough. Don’t allow them to sell candy in your ear, and that candy is laced with poison. Always interrogate yourself. Why am I here? What keeps me here? What makes me feel love? What makes me feel validated? We might be two good people, but are we two good people for each other? Can we talk and have a conversation and come out of it with some semblance of a solution?”
“The idea of love isn’t really practical. It’s impractical. But the partnership piece is built, built around, centered on, and pillared by practicality.”