Undoing Toxic: The Desire to Be Kept

Written By Monique Evans

It is love weekend everywhere.

Bouquets of flowers.
Chocolate.
Prix-fixe dinners.
Social media posts of soft launches and hard launches.
Declarations. Captions. Public belonging. Friends posting “my forever.”
Family group chats filled with hearts.

Valentine’s Day has a way of amplifying whatever season you may find yourself in. If you are partnered, it feels celebratory. If you are dating, it feels anticipatory. If you are unsure, it feels…loud. And if you are alone, it can feel exposing. They say there is somebody for everybody. So where is your person?

But love is not only romantic. This weekend, I went to the New Edition tour: New Edition, Boyz II Men, and Toni Braxton. If you know me, this was a dream come true. A solo date and a well-deserved gift to myself. Somewhere between singing along to “Can You Stand the Rain,” “End of the Road,” and “Un-Break My Heart,” I felt myself revisiting entire chapters of my life: Beginnings, first loves, endings, grief, heartbreak, healing, and growth.

Music has a way of holding memory. I sat there surrounded by couples, friends, women dressed up for the night, husbands holding purses, aunties singing every lyric like testimony. And I realized something: Love was everywhere.

In the nostalgia.
In the friendships.
In the shared joy.

Valentine’s Day has a way of centering romantic love as the one and only headline. But there are so many forms of love that sustain us long before and long after a relationship begins or ends. Let’s not forget about self-love, family love, love of your children, love of community, and love of music that carried you through heartbreak. Undoing toxic is not about rejecting love; it is about expanding our definition of it. The desire to be kept, to belong, does not only live in romance. It lives in our friendships, our families, our faith and in the ways we show up for ourselves.

“You Look Like a Kept Woman”

I attended a dinner recently and someone told me, “You look like a kept woman.” They said I gave married energy. Settled. Maintained. Secure. Initially, my mind translated “kept woman” into something else entirely: side chick undertones, dependency, being provided for in exchange for something. But that was not what they meant.

They meant I looked well put together, polished, confident, and at ease.

My first thought was simple:
This is all me. Nobody keeps me. But the comment lingered.

It is not the first time someone has assumed I am married or spoken for. I do not wear a ring and I am not hiding anyone. So what is it? Am I unapproachable? Why do people create narratives instead of asking questions?

And then I realized something deeper. Wanting to be kept is not really about money or maintenance. It is about belonging. To be “kept” in the healthiest sense is to be chosen, prioritized, claimed. It is the desire to know that someone sees you and stays. Valentine’s Day is essentially a public ritual of belonging. It is a day to love and celebrate your person.

The V-Day Blues No One Admits

Even the most self-aware, accomplished, beautiful, knowledgeable women can feel the sting of Valentine’s Day. Being single does not mean you are confused and being introspective does not mean you are immune. I was also recently asked, “How do you have the power to be so introspective all the time?”

The truth? Introspection does not cancel desire. You can understand attachment theory and still want to be held. You can process childhood wounds and still wonder why love has not landed the way you hoped. Healing does not erase longing. And here is the hard truth: being single, beautiful, emotionally intelligent, or successful does not protect you from manipulation, games, uncertain people, heartbreak, or betrayal. It does not guarantee loyalty nor does it secure love. Love is not a reward for self-improvement. A humbling and necessary realization.

When Longing Meets Pressure

Women especially are often socialized with a quiet but persistent message:
Don’t focus too much on your personal goals.
Don’t be “too ambitious.”
The real goal is to be chosen. To be kept.

Find your person.
Find a provider.
Find someone to support you.

And over time, that external narrative can become internal desire.

You start wanting your person.
Wanting 2am pillow talk.
Wanting shared mornings, shared bills and shared bodies.
Wanting to be held and loved in ways that feel deeply intimate, satisfying, safe and permanent.

There is nothing wrong with that desire.

But desire must be examined. And people need to be honest about what they want. What is the end goal?

Are you longing for partnership? Or are you longing for relief from loneliness?
Are you wanting connection? Or are you wanting certainty?

Sometimes we confuse chemistry for destiny. Sometimes we confuse familiarity for alignment. Clarity changes how you date and discern. Who gets a chance and who does not make the cut?

What Are You Hoping Love Would Heal?

I invite you to reflect on this question: What are you hoping love would heal?

Loneliness?
Insecurity?
Proof that you are desirable?
The ache of not feeling chosen? The desire to prove that you are lovable?

Sometimes we buy into a certain level of uncertainty in relationships because we believe the eventual reward will justify the wait. We tolerate mixed signals, lack of direction, and emotional ambiguity because we tell ourselves, once this becomes real, I will feel secure.

We endure uncertainty for healing and tell ourselves it is for good reason. Many of us learned that love requires patience, endurance, proving. We do it for the male gaze hoping these qualities are valued and recognized. That if we just hold on long enough, it will settle and we will be chosen. We tell ourselves that intensity equals depth and that brief but intense romance is better than nothing. Chemistry can be intoxicating. Intimacy can be blinding and desire can be persuasive.

But undoing toxic requires asking: Am I waiting for love or waiting to be validated?

Different Seasons of Love

Not every season is partnership.

There are seasons of casual dating.
Seasons of loneliness.
Seasons of brief but intense romance that burns bright and disappears.
Seasons of super-singleness, self-focus and deep personal growth.
Seasons where you feel desired but not chosen. Seasons where you question whether you even want traditional love at all.

Guess what? Each season teaches us something:

Casual encounters can teach boundaries.
Loneliness can teach self-soothing.
Intense romance can reveal attachment patterns.
Silence can teach discernment.

There is a Jamaican proverb (I told you there are many) “Every mickle mek a muckle.” Every small thing adds up. Our experiences even in relationships are cumulative. Every season contributes to who you become. But the danger comes when we try to rush seasons and skip steps. When we start performing for belonging. When we shrink, over-give, or over-function just to avoid being alone on love weekend or any other day of the year.

Undoing toxic means refusing to lose yourself in any season.

Not shrinking to be chosen.
Not performing for belonging.
Not mistaking attention for intention.
Not romanticizing chronic uncertainty.

Not losing yourself while searching or waiting for love is the work.

We Don’t Heal in Isolation

Esther Perel says, “We don’t heal in isolation, we heal in relationships.” Even the queen of solo travel and solo dates has had to struggle with this. Eventually, I said to myself: Aunty Esther is right.

There are wounds that do not and will not activate when you are alone. Point blank period. You can feel whole and steady until someone gets close. Then old patterns surface. Fear of abandonment. Over-functioning. Withdrawal. Over-giving. Hyper-independence. Some wounds only show up in connection because they were formed in connection. Relationships are mirrors.

So, if you choose to be alone, how can you do relational work? No man or woman is an island. You cannot practice secure attachment alone in your apartment. You cannot learn healthy conflict without someone to disagree with. Relational healing requires relationship. Let’s be clear, that does not mean tolerating dysfunction, toxic patterns, or even abuse in the name of growth.

In Spanish, there’s a saying: Es mejor estar sola que mal acompañada.
”It is better to be alone than badly accompanied.”

Both things can be true. Connection can heal and not every connection is worth keeping. There is another truth we don’t talk about enough.

You can be desired and still feel unseen.
You can have options and still lack direction.
You can have chemistry and still feel uncertainty.

Being wanted is not the same as being chosen. And wanting to belong does not make you weak. It makes you human. It might also mean allowing yourself to want love without shame.

Undoing toxic this Valentine’s Day might mean:

  • Not romanticizing uncertainty.

  • Not mistaking attention for intention.

  • Not confusing intensity with alignment.

  • Not abandoning yourself to secure someone else.

  • “Soon” with no timeline.

  • Feeling like you’ve been here before.

That feeling of déjà vu? That tightness in your chest that says, not this again? That is not paranoia; it is data. Your gut feelings are information.

The Desire to Be Kept

When I reflect on being called a “kept woman,” I realize there is a version of that energy I do desire.

Not kept as being controlled by another person or dependent on them. But kept as in secure, held, and chosen without confusion. But until that alignment appears, I refuse to abandon myself trying to create or perform for it.

Belonging is beautiful. Romance is beautiful. Partnership is beautiful. Love is beautiful.

So is family love.
So is friendship.
So is motherhood.
So is dancing in an arena singing Toni Braxton and Boyz II Men songs at the top of your lungs on a solo concert date.

Undoing toxic this Valentine’s Day weekend might simply mean expanding your definition of love without shrinking your desire for it. It might mean acknowledging loneliness without letting it dictate your standards. It might mean admitting you want to belong, while remembering you already do.

The flowers will wilt. The weekend will pass. The captions will fade. What remains is you: whole, desiring and growing.

Love will come in its season. It may not look the way you imagined and might even catch you by surprise. Valentine’s Day is a celebration about finding and belonging. Belonging is beautiful. But the most stable form of belonging starts internally—knowing who you are, what you need, and refusing to trade that for anything less.

Thank you for reading. Happy Valentine’s Day and love weekend.

Let’s connect. Email me: moniqueevanstherapy@gmail.com

Accepting individual, couples, and family clients (self-pay and select insurance via headway.co- Monique Evans, LCSW)

For social work clinicians, I also offer clinical consultation meetings (Not to be confused with clinical supervision for licensure hours) at any level of practice.

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