

Years ago, when I was in long-term relationship in my early twenties, I remember being madly in love with the man I thought I'd marry, despite the trust issues that had tainted our relationship for years.
Maybe it was the random girls that would call my job and threaten me saying they'd be waiting for me after work because although Jason* was my man, he was their man and her man too. Maybe it was because at one point he demanded I erase all the contacts from my phone, including male friends I had known since middle school (but never had or would entertain the idea of dating) because he should be the only man in my phone besides my father. Or, it could have possibly been the sex tape I found of him and another girl he hooked up with allegedly while we were on a two-week break. OK….that was definitely it, and the final nail on the coffin of the terminally ill relationship I was attempting to hold onto with the man who took me to my senior prom.
I say all this to say that the reason that relationship was battered, bruised, and finally just fell the hell apart, was because of trust issues. It was because of two partners who in many ways weren't secure with themselves, and therefore couldn't be secure with one another.
It wasn't about cell phone security codes, Facebook passwords, or screenshots.
It was about trust that we had never taken time to build and a lack of trust that came as a result of the lack of respect for our individual boundaries and unique approaches to relationships. And it's why I'm not surprised that on a recent episode of the show "Married At First Sight," an exercise on trust had one couple sleeping at separate addresses.
If you're familiar with the show "Married At First Sight," you're already familiar with the arrangement I refer to as the "Hot Pocket of holy matrimony" that takes two strangers who have been paired up by a crew of relationship experts and follows them as they enter into marriage upon their first time meeting. The experts assign a series of exercises over several weeks to help the couples essentially microwave feelings and experiences that, in the real world, can take months and even years to develop. In a recent episode, the couples were asked to trade cell phones for an hour, giving their partner unlimited access to their Google searches, Facebook profiles, and Instagram stories.
Each couple's approach to the challenge was different, and the point was for them to explore their feelings on trust and privacy. One couple decided that the exercise was futile and that each partner had a right to privacy and didn't trade phones at all. Another couple sat down and did the exercise together, not really finding anything that either one considered seriously disrespectful to the relationship and spent more time laughing than being offended. But one partner, Jephte Pierre, ended up getting in his car and leaving his wife, Shawniece Jackson, alone in bed while she sobbed over his inability to open up.
In Shawniece's defense, she seemed more upset by her husband leaving for the night than his refusal to give up his phone. She shouts, "What's done in the dark will eventually come to the light!" After he simply expresses, "I'm not comfortable."
To me, that was telling.
It's not that Shawniece didn't have the right to give homeboy the side-eye, but whether you've been married for seven years or seven days, marriage is very much a give and take of stepping outside of your comfort zone occasionally, to meet your partner in theirs. Marriage is also very much about walking away if your partner is doing the nae nae on your last nerve. Sometimes more damage can be done by trying to work out problems when your emotions are running high instead of taking some time to calm down and look at the situation from a distance.
But does it necessarily mean your partner has something to hide if they don't feel comfortable giving up their passcode?
Remember that dysfunctional ass relationship I mentioned earlier? 97% of our arguments were over the phone: hiding it, locking it, unanswered calls, unanswered text messages, questioning why it was on vibrate, why is it in a location where the wifi sucks, why is my face not your lock screen, and anything else you can imagine. You name it, if it involved a Samsung or Apple product, we were arguing. And the worst argument I can remember, involved a literal tug-of-war that ended with me locking myself in a hotel bathroom while he banged on the door demanding I unlock my phone and let him see it. I remember sitting on that bathroom floor, realizing that I could have had that man's whole mug on my lock screen, my background, and answer all of his calls on the first ring and we'd still have the problem.
And it wasn't because I had ever cheated or did anything that I considered disrespectful to the relationship. It was because he didn't trust me, and it probably was because he thought I was engaging in the same unfaithful behavior I eventually discovered he was guilty of.
"Married At First Sight"Jephte Pierre
Now that I'm married to a person (who is not my sex tape-making ex)who has similar ideas about trust that I do, you won't see us catching butterflies every time our phones are left unlocked at the opportunity for unlimited access into our cellular activities. When you're married and sleep, eat, and breathe next to the same person every day, you develop a newfound appreciation for personal space.
Besides, they say if you're already looking for something, you're bound to find it and that saying is true.
Insecurity in a relationship could have me going ape s**t on my husband about who Brenda on 61st Street is and why is she texting him about laying pipe when I know damn well he's a plumber (I actually had been making that stale joke for years with him). Insecurity and lack of trust is like looking at your relationship through a pair of green-tinted lenses where everything and everyone will appear as a threat to your relationship. That's why trading phones or periodically checking each other's phones doesn't do a damn thing to strengthen my marriage, but it may remind my husband that I really need to make Banana Pudding Poke Cake instead of pinning it a hundred times.
Is trading phones the worst thing in the world?
No. Just like as the show illustrated, every couple has to do what works best for their own situation. But what may have left the one couple sleeping in separate beds at the end of the night was the nature of the show itself (Jephte returns home the next morning and apologizes after a friend gives him some solid advice on communication and making the effort in a marriage). Trust takes time to build.
It takes time to really get a feel for someone's intention and character so that you can honestly know that him chatting it up with the waitress is just him being an extrovert and not an excuse for him to keep looking at her ass. Trust is also being honest with yourself enough to know that when your partner says something about how they operate, they probably mean it and when I said I wasn't getting rid of my male friends, it was unfair of my ex to think love and time would change my mind. Compromise is awesome when it truly works, but an unwillingness to abandon values doesn't mean a person doesn't love you, it means they respect themselves and if you can't respect that, maybe they aren't the one for you.
Lastly, let's not underestimate a person's right to privacy.
I don't know what exactly is going on behind that bathroom door every time my husband has Indian food, but I have a good enough idea to know it's not something that I need to nor want to witness. In our marriage, we take the same approach to cell phones. Does he really need to see that tweet about wanting Michael "Bae" Jordan to "Killmonger" my cakes? No. Does that mean that it will actually ever happen, and I have my bags packed to get into some adultery Wakanda-style? Also, no. As an individual, regardless of if you are in a committed relationship or not, you're allowed to have a side to your life that your partner does not have complete access to, and you can have that without being disrespectful to them.
Lastly, when it comes to trust and personal boundaries, healthy communication will reveal more about your partner than a pin code or e-mail password ever will. If you're looking for passcodes before you even have a conversation, that may be part of the problem.
*Names have been changed to maintain privacy.
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Writer, sexual health superhero, and #BlackGirlMagic and #BlackBoy curator regularly featured on @Madamenoire. Toya can usually be found in between her earbuds, listening to trap music and refreshing her browser for concert tickets. Tweet her @thetruetsharee.
Devale Ellis On Being A Provider, Marriage Growth & Redefining Fatherhood
In this candid episode of the xoMAN podcast, host Kiara Walker talked with Devale Ellis, actor, social media personality, and star of Zatima, about modern masculinity, learning to be a better husband, emotional presence in marriage, fatherhood for Black men, and leading by example.
“I Wasn’t Present Emotionally”: Devale Ellis on Marriage Growth
Devale Ellis On Learning He Was a ‘Bad Husband’
Ellis grew up believing that a man should prioritize providing for his family. “I know this may come off as misogynistic, but I feel like it’s my responsibility as a man to pay for everything,” he said, emphasizing the wise guidance passed down by his father. However, five years into his marriage to long-time partner Khadeen Ellis, he realized provision wasn’t just financial.
“I was a bad husband because I wasn’t present emotionally… I wasn’t concerned about what she needed outside of the resources.”
Once he shifted his mindset, his marriage improved. “In me trying to be of service to her, I learned that me being of service created a woman who is now willing to be of service to me.”
On Redefining Masculinity and Fatherhood
For Ellis, “being a man is about being consistent.” As a father of four, he sees parenthood as a chance to reshape the future.
“Children give you another chance at life. I have four different opportunities right now to do my life all over again.”
He also works to uplift young Black men, reinforcing their worth in a world that often undermines them. His values extend to his career—Ellis refuses to play roles that involve domestic violence or sexual assault.
On Marriage, Family Planning, and Writing His Story
After his wife’s postpartum preeclampsia, Ellis chose a vasectomy over her taking hormonal birth control, further proving his commitment to their partnership. He and Khadeen share their journey in We Over Me, and his next book, Raising Kings: How Fatherhood Saved Me From Myself, is on the way.
Through honesty and growth, Devale Ellis challenges traditional ideas of masculinity, making his story one that resonates deeply with millennial women.
For the xoMAN podcast, host Kiara Walker peels back the layers of masculinity with candid conversations that challenge stereotypes and celebrate vulnerability. Real men. Real stories. Real talk.
Want more real talk from xoMAN? Catch the full audio episodes every Tuesday on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, and don’t miss the full video drops every Wednesday on YouTube. Hit follow, subscribe, and stay tapped in.
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My personal relationship with birth control pills is a bit of an odd one. Back when I first became sexually active (I started having sex with my first boyfriend a couple of months shy of 19), I took them for a couple of months, didn’t like how they made me feel, and so I quit using them altogether (and got pregnant almost immediately after). The rest of my adult life, I stayed off of the pill and pretty much only used condoms (and even then, not consistently — SMDH).
And yet here I am, now, all these years later, back on them again: surprise, surprise.
These days, it's for a completely different purpose, though. Now that I am in the hopefully latter stages of perimenopause (I’m not sure because my mother had a full hysterectomy at 29, her mother died at 53 and I don’t deal with my paternal grandmother because…chile… ) — although I have always had relatively easy cycles and I could definitely set my watch to them, about two years ago, my periods started to show up whenever they felt like it and it was damn near a crime scene once they did.
It was driving me crazy, and so, my nurse practitioner recommended that I take progestin-only pills to shorten, if not completely stop, my cycle: “After a year or so, we can wean off and see if you are entering into menopause on your own.” (Whew, perimenopause, chile.)
Although the first five months of being on this particular pill made me wonder if it was worth it to take this approach, I actually re-upped for another 12-month cycle because the extra progestin (a synthetic form of progesterone) has benefitted me in other areas as well because I am sleeping more soundly and my weight is more stabilized (by the way, when these things are “off,” they are signs of low progesterone levels). However, I did ask my nurse practitioner if, once I do decide to wean off of the pill, would there be any issues.
Her response is what inspired me to write this article because, until she said “post-birth control syndrome” to me, I had no idea there was such a thing. Anyway, if you give me a sec, I’ll explain to you what it is and why you should care if hormone-related birth control is currently a part of your life.
Yes, Post-Birth Control Syndrome Is a Very Real Thing
Okay, so it’s important to always remember that the way that birth control works is it “manipulates” your hormones so that you can significantly reduce your chances of conceiving. This means that taking them could result in some side effects including nausea; weight gain; headaches; irregular periods and/or spotting; increased stress; depression; blurry vision; breast tenderness, and/or a lowered libido.
That said, even though birth control pills are basically 99 percent effective (when taken correctly and consistently), if the side effects that you are experiencing are making you close to miserable, you should absolutely share that with your healthcare provider because…what’s the sense in preventing pregnancy when you don’t even feel up to having sex because you don’t feel good or your sex drive is shot? More times than not, your provider can find you another pill brand or option that will help you to feel more like yourself.
With that out of the way, think about it — if going on the pill can produce side effects, why would going off of it…not? And this is where post-birth control syndrome comes in.
For the most part, it’s what can happen to your body once you decide to come off of birth control. Typically, the symptoms will last anywhere between 4-6 months and, although the symptoms seem to present themselves most intensely as it relates to going off of the pill, any hormone-related birth control (like IUDs, injections, patches, the ring or implants) could produce similar outcomes.
Outcomes like what?
- Irregular cycles
- Breakouts
- Excessive gas and/or bloating
- Weight gain
- Anxiety and/or depression
- Fertility issues
- Migraines and/or headaches
- Shifts in your libido
- Sleeplessness/restlessness
- Hair loss
Whoa, right? And if a part of you is wondering, “Okay, if this is indeed the case, why have I not heard of this syndrome before?” It’s because it’s not a term that conventional method uses nearly as much as alternative medicine does. Still, it makes all of the sense in the world that if your body has to adjust to an uptick in hormonal intake, it would also need to adjust to removing those extra doses of hormones from your system as well. COMMON. DAMN. SENSE.
Anyway, if you were thinking about taking a break from birth control and taking all of this in has you feeling a bit…let’s go with the word “trepidatious” about doing so, I totally get it. There are some things that you can do to make experiencing post-birth control syndrome either a non-issue or a far more bearable one, though.
7 Home Remedies That Can Make Coping with Post-Birth Control Syndrome Easier
1. Take a multivitamin.Something that’s fascinating about what going off of birth control can do is it sometimes has the ability to lower your nutrition levels as it relates to certain vitamins and minerals; this is especially the case when it comes to vitamins B, C, E and minerals like magnesium, selenium and zinc. So, if you don’t currently take a multivitamin, now would be the time to start (along with consuming foods that are particularly high in those nutrients as well).
2. Up your vitamin D intake. Speaking of nutrient levels, a vitamin level that commonly drops after going off of birth control isvitamin D. This is hella critical to keep in mind as a Black woman since many of us tend to be naturally deficient in the vitamin as-is and vitamin D is important when it comes to fighting off diseases, regulating weight and keeping your moods stabilized (for starters). So, make sure that your multivitamin has vitamin D in it. Also make sure to consume vitamin D-enriched foods like fatty fish, eggs, mushrooms, yogurt and fortified orange juice.
3. Drink herbal teas. Since going off of birth control will cause your hormones to be all over the place for a season, consider drinking some herbal teas that will help to stabilize them. Black cohosh contains phytoestrogen properties, Chasteberry can help to level out your prolactin levels and green tea can help your hormones out by helping to balance out your insulin (which can sometimes directly affect them).
4. Keep some ibuprofen nearby. The headaches and migraines? Until those subside, you and ibuprofen are probably going to become really good friends; although I will add that ginger tea and inhaling essential oils like chamomile and lavender can help to ease migraine-related symptoms too.
5. Do some meditating. Waiting for your hormones to get back on track can be stressful as all get out. That said, something that can get your cortisol (stress hormone) levels to chill out is to meditate. If meditation is new for you, check out “7 Meditation Hacks (For People Who Can't Seem To Do It).”
6. Get massages. As if you needed an excuse to get a massage, right (check out “12 Different Massage Types. How To Know Which Is Right For You.”)? However, there is some evidence to back the fact that regular massages (somewhere around once a month) can help to lower your stress, boost your dopamine, increase blood flow and drain your lymphatic system so that you will have more energy.
7. Sleep/rest more. There is plenty of scientific research out here which says that sleep deprivation can throw your hormones out of whack — and since your hormones are already trying to stabilize themselves, you definitely need to get 6-8 hours of sleep and not feel the least bit guilty about taking naps sometimes too.
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Post-birth control syndrome may not be the most pleasant thing about getting off of birth control yet it is manageable. So, now that you know all about it, you can feel more confident about taking a birth control break (or getting off altogether) — without the surprises that can come with doing it. Give thanks.
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