I like hearing men's perspective on things. So, while watching a video on their hot take on relationships, as I read the comments, I noticed one that said, "There are only three reasons for a man to get married: You hate sex. You hate your money. You hate peace." Ouch.
While I don't agree with that particular hot take (because I know some husbands who truly love being married), it's not like this mentality is coming totally out of the blue. I counsel many couples who are in sexless marriages. It always fascinates me that the majority of divorces are filed by women (somewhere around 80 percent) and a lot of those wives do end up receiving alimony. And when husbands tell me their number one pet peeve in their marital union, nagging always tops the list (there are Scriptures in the Bible to back that up; ones like Proverbs 21:9). So yeah, I get why some men are gun-shy about making a long-term commitment. I really do.
When I ran this guy's resolve up the flagpole of some of the men featured in this article, it was interesting what most of them said. To paraphrase everyone's point, "A lot of this is because many marriages start off on the wrong foot. Couples aren't friends. People don't really get what they are signing up for. And a lot of men feel pressured to get married, so they're not really ready when they do it."
Yeah, this point hasn't escaped me either. I actually know several men who said they got married because they were given an ultimatum and/or they proposed but then the wedding date was put on the fast track and/or they loved their significant other but marriage was all that she talked about and so they did it to satisfy (and sometimes pacify) her.
Listen, some of y'all aren't gonna like this piece. A big part of that is because oftentimes, we'd rather decide how a man thinks (or should think) or berate him if it's not what we wanna hear. Yet you'd be amazed by how much bullshishery you can avoid if you'd simply listen to them. You don't have to agree. You don't have to enjoy what you hear either. Still, if you listen to what men are saying, it can give you a different outlook than your girlfriends have which can spare you a lot of frustration and disillusionment. It can also help you to better understand why sometimes we're on one side of the fence and men are totally on another when it comes to certain matters. There's nothing wrong with that. We're designed to be different, and therefore bring about a balance, for a reason.
So, when it comes to jumping the broom and the pressure that some men feel comes with doing that, here are what 10 different men had to say about feeling pressured to get married. Try and avoid going on the defensive. Just hear 'em out, OK?
*Middle names have been used to protect the men's identity. Folks tend to be more candid this way.*
Craig. 28. In a Serious Relationship.
"Some ladies won't want to hear this, but I don't think a lot of men see it as 'pressure' so much as manipulation. Like that saying, 'The man is the head and the woman is the neck that can turn the head however she wishes?' WTF is that? If you grow up thinking that it's your role to manipulate men, then you will believe that includes marriage. If a man wants to spend the rest of his life with you, trust me, you won't need to 'twist his neck'. He will come to that conclusion all on his own. He will make it very clear without your help too."
Frederick. 46. Married for 20 Years.
"I hate ultimatums. They're futile. If you are out here telling some guy that unless he marries you, you're out, you best leave because if he falls for that power play, he's going to always resent you on some level and you're always going to wonder if he truly wanted you to begin with. What men want, they will strive for. Marriage is no exception."
"I married my wife when I was ready and she never brought marriage up once. Sure, we discussed goals and desires but that whole, 'So, how long before you propose?' stuff? I never heard it and that was really attractive to me. I was clear that she didn't want to date forever but I wasn't pressured into moving at a faster speed than we were going. I chose her. I wasn't pressured. We both have no regrets to this day."
Lavell. 35. Single.
"What's crazy is all of my boys got pressured into marriage. Not one of them has told me that they got married because they decided on their own that they wanted to be with their wife. There were ultimatums or engagement ring pictures that were laying around or pregnancies that happened and their baby's mom saying, 'I don't want to be a single parent'—something along those lines. It's like women assume that the only way a man will marry them is if they push them into it. Why is that?"
Stanton. 33. Narrowing His Options Down.
"I know that I'm considered to still be somewhat young, but I dated a lot in my 20s and it's crazy how much marriage came up even then. I definitely didn't bring the conversation up. A lot of the ladies I dated seemed to almost be programmed to get married. Like it's not something that they necessarily wanted to do but it was expected of them. Now that I'm in my 30s, I've had some time to see what I want and don't want…what I like and don't like. There is one woman, in particular, who I am strongly considering becoming exclusive with. One thing that I really like about her is she's really confident. She has told me that she wants to get married one day, but in the meantime, her life is full and good. That is the kind of woman that men are drawn to—a lady who knows what she wants and also knows she'll get it, whether it's you or not. 'She' is never lacking in men who consider her to be wife material."
Jago. 40. Twice Divorced.
"My first wife, I was totally into her. Long story short, we didn't work out because we were too young. If anything, I pressured her to marry me. My second wife, she had just come out of a long-term relationship and was on this 'I date to marry' tip, so everything was on the fast track. Clearly, I cared about her because I married her, but in her mind, she couldn't be loved without a wedding ring and so the focus was so much in having to prove things to her rather than allowing things to naturally evolve. Marriage ended up being her end goal, so once it happened, she didn't know what to do next. We separated on our fourth wedding anniversary. She's on her third marriage now. I was her first."
Benson. 39. Dating.
"If you bring marriage up on the first three dates, I'm already checking out. Women like that sound like they are more interested in saying they've got a husband than getting to know a man for himself."
"At this age, it can get super crazy because women in their mid-30s who want children are really trying to fast track it. Then, when you're like 'slow down', they try and act like you've got some kind of unresolved issues when really, they come off as needy and desperate. Let us get to know you as a person first. Damn."
Alexander. 24. Single.
"This topic is comedy to me because can you really pressure a man into doing something he doesn't want to do? If he decides to go ahead, for whatever the reason, he must've wanted to on some level, right? Maybe that's just me."
Nathan. 30. Married for Two Years.
"This is what I'd like women to consider—please stop with all of the 'God told me you are my husband' stuff. Do you know how many celebrities say that and are on their umpteenth marriage? You make God look crazy out here. Besides, if he told you, he will also tell the guy. That's how it works. Spiritual manipulation is also a form of marital pressure. It's the worst kind too."
Donovan. 33. Single.
"This topic. Why is it that when an accomplished woman in her 30s or 40s is still single, it's some form of liberation and when a guy, especially a Black man, is in the same boat, somehow we must be defective or commitment-phobes? A lot of the men in my circle aren't afraid to get married. We just don't want to get a divorce. So, if it takes longer to find 'her', it's all good. The one who is the quick turn-off, though? The woman who tries and emasculate us by making us feel like if we're not with someone then something is wrong with us. No one wants to be shamed into marriage."
Luke. 42. Engaged.
"Remember when you showed me that article you wrote about a man being marriage material is a man who wants to get married? That really is the bottom line. If a woman wants to get married, she needs to get involved with men who are on the same page. Don't wait until you are so emotionally invested that you feel like you've got to drag a guy down the aisle because you have put so much of yourself into it. Men who are ready for marriage are gonna act like it. They won't need to be pressured. They are already in that head and heart space."
Again, some of this may not have been your favorite thing to hear yet it is directly from the mouths of men. And if you were paying attention, pressure isn't beneficial—to them and, in the long run, for us either. Bottom line, a man who is ready for marriage embraces it. A man who isn't—while he might respond to pressure, it ultimately isn't the wisest approach. Choose wisely, y'all.
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Amber Riley has the type of laugh that sticks with you long after the raspy, rhythmic sounds have ceased. It punctuates her sentences sometimes, whether she’s giving a chuckle to denote the serious nature of something she just said or throwing her head back in rip-roarious laughter after a joke. She laughs as if she understands the fragility of each minute. She chooses laughter often with the understanding that future joy is not guaranteed.
Credit: Ally Green
The sound of her laughter is rivaled only by her singing voice, an emblem of the past and the future resilience of Black women stretched over a few octaves. On Fox’s Glee, her character Mercedes Jones was portrayed, perhaps unfairly, as the vocal duel to Rachel Berry (Lea Michele), offering rough, full-throated belts behind her co-star’s smooth, pristine vocals. Riley’s always been more than the singer who could deliver a finishing note, though.
Portraying Effie White, she displayed the dynamic emotions of a song such as “And I'm Telling You I'm Not Going” in Dreamgirls on London’s West End without buckling under the historic weight of her predecessors. With her instrument, John Mayer’s “Gravity” became a religious experience, a belted hymnal full of growls and churchy riffs. In her voice, Nicole Scherzinger once said she heard “the power of God.”
Credit: Ally Green
Riley’s voice has been a staple throughout pop culture for nearly 15 years now. Her tone has become so distinguishable that most viewers of Fox’s The Masked Singer recognized the multihyphenate even before it was revealed that she was Harp, the competition-winning, gold-masked figure with an actual harp strapped to her back.
Still, it wasn’t until recently that Riley began to feel like she’d found her voice. This sounds unbelievable. But she’s not referring to the one she uses on stage. She’s referencing the voice that speaks to who she is at her core. “Therapy kind of gave me the training to speak my mind,” the 37-year-old says. “It’s not something we’re taught, especially as Black women. I got so comfortable in [doing so], and I really want other people, especially Black women, to get more comfortable in that space.”
“Therapy kind of gave me the training to speak my mind. It’s not something we’re taught, especially as Black women."
If you ask Riley’s manager, Myisha Brooks, she’ll tell you the foundation of who the multihyphenate is hasn’t changed much since she was a kid growing up in Compton. “She is who she is from when I met her back when she was singing in the front of the church to back when she landed major roles in film and TV,” Brooks says. Time has allowed Riley to grow more comfortable, giving fans a more intimate glimpse into her life, including her mental health journey and the ins and outs of show business.
The actress/singer has been in therapy since 2019, although she suffered from depression and anxiety way before that. In a recent interview with Jason Lee, she recalls having suicidal ideation as a kid. By the time she started seeing a psychologist and taking antidepressants in her thirties, her body had become jittery, a physical reminder of the trauma stacked high inside her. “I was shaking in [my therapist’s] office,” she tells xoNecole. “My fight or flight was on such a high level. I was constantly in survival mode. My heart was beating fast all the time. All I did was sweat.”
There wasn’t just childhood trauma to account for. After auditioning for American Idol and being turned away by producers, Riley began working for Ikea and nearly missed her Glee audition because her car broke down on the highway while en route. Thankfully, Riley had been cast to play Mercedes Jones. American Idol had temporarily convinced her she wasn’t cut out for the entertainment industry, but this was validation that she was right where she belonged. Glee launched in 2009 with the promise of becoming Riley’s big break.
In some ways, it was. The show introduced Riley to millions of fans and catapulted her into major Hollywood circles. But in other ways, it became a reminder of the types of roles Black women, especially those who are plus-sized, are relegated to. Behind the scenes, Riley says she fought for her character "to have a voice" but eventually realized her efforts were useless. "It finally got to a point where I was like, this is not my moment. I'm not who they're choosing, and this is just going to have to be a job for me for now," she says. "And, that's okay because it pays my bills, I still get to be on television, I'm doing more than any other Black plus-sized women that I'm seeing right now on screen."
The actress can recognize now that she was navigating issues associated with trauma and low self-esteem at the time. She now knows that she's long had anxiety and depression and can recognize the ways in which she was triggered by how the cult-like following of the show conflicted with her individual, isolated experiences behind the scenes. But she was in her early '20s back then. She didn't yet have the language or the tools to process how she was feeling.
Riley says she eventually sought out medical intervention. "When you're in Hollywood, and you go to a doctor, they give you pills," she says, sharing a part of her story that she'd never revealed publicly before now. "[I was] on medication and developing a habit of medicating to numb, not understanding I was developing an addiction to something that's not fixing my problem. If anything, it's making it worse."
“[I was] on medication and developing a habit of medicating to numb, not understanding I was developing an addiction to something that’s not fixing my problem. If anything it’s making it worse.”
Credit: Ally Green
At one point, while in her dressing room on set, she rested her arm on a curling iron without realizing it. It wasn't until her makeup artist alerted her that she even realized her skin was burning. Once she noticed, she says she was "so zonked out on pills" that she barely reacted. Speaking today, she holds up her arm and motions towards a scar that remains from the incident. She sought help for her reliance on the pills, but it would still be years before she finally attended therapy.
This stress was only compounded by the trauma of growing up in poverty and the realities of being a "contract worker." "Imagine going from literally one week having to borrow a car to get to set to the next week being on a private jet to New York City," she says. After Glee ended, so did the rides on private planes. The fury of opportunities she expected to follow her appearance on the show failed to materialize. She wasn't even 30 yet, and she was already forced to consider if she'd hit her career peak.
. . .
We’re only four minutes into our Zoom call before Riley delivers her new adage to me. “My new mantra is ‘humility does not serve me.’ Humility does not serve Black women. The world works so hard to humble us anyway,” she says.
On this Thursday afternoon in April, the LA-based entertainer is seated inside her closet/dressing room wearing a cerulean blue tank top with matching shorts and eating hot wings. This current phase of healing hinges on balance. It’s about having discipline and consistency, but not at the risk of inflexibility. She was planning to head to the gym, for instance, but she’s still tired from the “exhausting” day before. Instead, she’s spent her day receiving a massage, eating some chicken wings, and planning to spend quality time with friends. “I’m not going to beat myself up for it. I’m not going to talk down to myself. I’m going to eat my chicken wings, and then tomorrow I’m [back] in the gym,” she says.
“My new mantra is ‘humility does not serve me.’ Humility does not serve Black women. The world works so hard to humble us anyway."
This is the balance with which she's been approaching much of her life these days. It's why she's worried less about whether or not people see her as someone who is humble. She'd rather be respected. "I think you should be a person that's easy to work with, but in the moments where I have to ruffle feathers and make waves, I'm not shying away from that anymore. You can do it in love, you don't have to be nasty about it, but I had to finally be comfortable with the fact that setting boundaries around my life – in whatever aspect, whether that's personal or business – people are not going to like it. Some people are not going to have nice things to say about you, and you gotta be okay with it," she says.
When Amber talks about the constant humbling of Black women in Hollywood, I think of the entertainers before her who have suffered from this. The brilliant, consistent, overqualified Black women who have spoken of having to fight for opportunities and fair pay. Aretha Franklin. Viola Davis. Tracee Ellis Ross. There's a long list of stars whose success hasn't mirrored their experiences behind the scenes.
Credit: Ally Green
If Black women outside of Hollywood are struggling to decrease the pay gap, so, too, are their wealthier, more famous peers.
Riley says there’s been progress in recent years, but only in small ways and for a limited group of people. “This business is exhausting. The goalpost is constantly moving, and sometimes it’s unfair,” she says. But, I have to say it’s the love that keeps you going.”
“There’s no way you can continue to be in this business and not love it, especially being a plus-sized Black woman,” she continues. “We’re still niche. We’re still not main characters.”
"There’s no way you can continue to be in this business and not love it, especially being a plus-sized Black woman. We’re still niche. We’re still not main characters.”
Last year, Riley starred alongside Raven Goodwin in the Lifetime thriller Single Black Female (a modern, diversified take on 1992’s Single White Female). It was more than a leading role for the actress, it also served as proof that someone who looks like her can front a successful project without it hinging on her identity. It showcased that the characters she portrays don’t “have to be about being a big girl. It can just be a regular story.”
Riley sees her work in music as an extension of her efforts to push past the rigid stereotypes in entertainment. Take her appearance on The Masked Singer, for instance. Riley said she decided to perform Mayer’s “Gravity” after being told she couldn’t sing it years earlier. “I wanted to do ‘Gravity’ on Glee. [I] was told no, because that’s not a song that Mercedes would do,” she says. “That was a full circle moment for me, doing that on that show and to hear what it is they had to say.”
As Scherzinger praised the “anointed” performance, a masked Riley began to cry, her chest heaving as she stood on stage, her eyes shielded from view. “You have to understand, I have really big names – casting directors, producers, show creators – that constantly tell me ‘I’m such a big fan. Your talent is unmatched.’ Hire me, then,” she says, reflecting on the moment.
Recently, she’s been in the studio working on original music, the follow-up to her independently-released debut EP, 2020’s Riley. The sequel to songs such as the anthemic “Big Girl Energy” and the reflective ballad “A Moment” on Riley, this new project hones in on the singer’s R&B roots with sensual grooves such as the tentatively titled “All Night.” “You said I wasn’t shit, turns out that I’m the shit. Then you called me a bitch, turns out that I’m that bitch. You said no one would want me, well you should call your homies,” she sings on the tentatively titled “Lately,” a cut about reflecting on a past relationship. From the forthcoming project, xoNecole received five potential tracks. Fans likely already know the strengths and contours of Riley’s vocals, but these new songs are her strongest, most confident offerings as an artist.
“I am so much more comfortable as a writer, and I know who I am as an artist now. I’m evolving as a human being, in general, so I’m way more vulnerable in my music. I’m way more willing to talk about whatever is on my mind. I don’t stop myself from saying what it is I want to say,” she says.
Credit: Ally Green
“Every era and alliteration of Amber, the baseline is ‘Big Girl Energy.’ That’s the name of her company,” her manager Brooks says, referencing the imprint through which Riley releases her music after getting out of a label deal several years ago. “It’s just what she stands for. She’s not just talking about size, it’s in all things. Whether it’s putting your big girl pants on and having to face a boardroom full of executives or sell yourself in front of a casting agent. It’s her trying to achieve the things she wants to do in life.”
Riley says she has big dreams beyond releasing this new music, too. She’d love to star in a rom-com with Winston Duke. She hasn't starred in a biopic yet, but she’d revel in the opportunity to portray Rosetta Tharpe on screen. She’s determined that her previous setbacks won’t stop her from dreaming big.
“I think one of my superpowers is resilience because, at the end of the day, I’m going to kick, scream, cry, cuss, be mad and disappointed, but I’m going to get up and risk having to deal with it all again. It’s worth it for the happy moments,” she says.
If Riley seems more comfortable and confident professionally, it’s because of the work she’s been doing in her personal life.
She’d previously spoken to xoNecole about becoming engaged to a man she discovered in a post on the site, but she called things off last year. For Valentine’s Day, she revealed her new boyfriend publicly. “I decided to post him on Valentine’s Day, partially because I was in the dog house. I got in trouble with him,” she says, half-joking before turning serious. “The breakup was never going to stop me from finding love. Or at least trying. I don’t owe anybody a happily ever after. People break up. It happens. When it was good, it was good. When it was bad, it was terrible, hunny. I had to get the fuck up out of there. You find happiness, and you enjoy it and work through it.”
Credit: Ally Green
"I don’t owe anybody a happily ever after. People break up. It happens. When it was good, it was good. When it was bad, it was terrible, hunny. I had to get the fuck up out of there. You find happiness and you enjoy it and work through it.”
With her ex, Riley was pretty outspoken about her relationship, even appearing in content for Netflix with him. This time around is different. She’s not hiding her boyfriend of eight months, but she’s more protective of him, especially because he’s a father and isn’t interested in becoming a public figure.
She’s traveling more, too. It’s a deliberate effort on her part to enjoy her money and reject the trauma she’s developed after experiencing poverty in her childhood. “I live in constant fear of being broke. I don’t think you ever don’t remember that trauma or move past that. Now I travel and I’m like, listen, if it goes, it goes. I’m not saying [to] be reckless, but I deserve to enjoy my hard work.”
After everything she’s been through, she certainly deserves to finally let loose a bit. “I have to have a life to live,” she says. “I’ve got to have a life worth fighting for.”
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