Black Men Believe in Love. It's just not always represented.

Spend enough time on social media, and you might start believing Black men don’t want relationships with Black women. There’s always somebody talking about how we don’t want commitment, don’t know how to communicate, or don’t appreciate a good woman. I don’t buy that. Black men love Black women. We’re dating, getting married, raising families, and building lives together every day. Sure, some relationships don’t work out, but that doesn’t mean we should judge an entire group of men by the ones that failed.

And the numbers back that up. According to Pew Research Center’s February 2026 report, 78% of married Black men have Black spouses. What’s interesting is how that compares to other groups. In a separate Pew Research study published in 2017, which looked at newlyweds in 2015, 76% of Black men married within their race, compared to 74% of Hispanic men and 79% of Asian men who married within their respective groups. So our numbers were pretty much in line with those of other minority groups. Yet somehow, there’s still this idea that Black men don’t want Black women.

Of course, marriage isn’t everybody’s goal. Those numbers don’t tell us how many unmarried Black couples are dating or building lives together, and they don’t tell us how happy those marriages are or how people treat each other. But they’re worth mentioning when so much of what we hear about Black relationships is negative.

I think there’s another conversation we should be having, though. Sometimes Black men are showing love, but it doesn’t look the way their partners expect it to. Take a man who works hard, pays the bills, takes care of things around the house, and makes sure his family has what they need. In his mind, he’s showing love every day. He’s doing those things because he cares about the woman he’s with and wants to make her life easier.

But she might want something different. Maybe she wants him to tell her he loves her more often, plan a date without being asked, or spend more time talking with her. She appreciates what he does, but she wants to feel loved in other ways, too. Meanwhile, he’s wondering why she doesn’t recognize everything he’s already doing. Before long, both people are frustrated, even though neither one has stopped caring about the other.

I’ve had to learn some of these same lessons myself. It’s easy to believe you’re doing everything right when you’re looking at a relationship from your own perspective. You know how hard you’re trying, so you assume your partner should see it, too. But sometimes you have to listen when the person you love tells you something is missing, even when you don’t completely understand why it matters so much to them.

I also think we need to recognize the ways people already show love. If a man is making an effort to take care of his family and be there when he’s needed, that should count for something. At the same time, he can’t assume those things are all his partner needs. There’s room for both people to appreciate what’s being done while also being honest about what they want from the relationship.

And let’s not act like Black men aren’t romantic. Plenty of us enjoy planning dates, buying flowers, surprising our women, and doing all those things people associate with romance. Some men have no problem expressing their feelings, while others are more comfortable showing affection through their actions. I’ve known men who could talk about their feelings all day and others who would rather fix something around the house than have a long conversation. That doesn’t automatically tell you which one loves his woman more.

We’re all different, and I think that’s something we forget when talking about Black relationships. Every man has his own personality, experiences, and ideas about love. The same goes for women. Two people can genuinely care about each other and still have to figure out how to make the relationship work for both of them.

I also think we need to give each other room to make mistakes. Sometimes your partner is going to disappoint you, misunderstand something you said, or overlook something that matters to you. I’ve been on both sides of that, and I imagine most people in long-term relationships have, too. The important thing is being able to talk about those moments without assuming the worst about each other. You should be able to say what’s bothering you and trust that the person you’re with cares enough to listen.

That’s something I want to reflect in the Black romance stories I write. I want my male characters to feel like men you might actually know. Men who love women, enjoy being in relationships, and sometimes get things wrong. I also want Black women to see themselves being pursued, appreciated, and loved by men who genuinely want to be with them. We have enough stories about Black relationships falling apart. I enjoy writing about people finding reasons to stay together.

In my novel Into You, Darius Steele is a divorce attorney who’s seen enough failed marriages to become skeptical about love. Kiana Mercer is a wedding planner who believes in romance and marriage. Their offices share a wall, and they can barely stand each other. But as they spend more time together, they begin questioning some of the things they’ve always believed about relationships.

I enjoy writing stories like theirs because love doesn’t always happen the way we expect. Sometimes two people who see relationships completely differently end up being exactly what the other needs. And watching them figure that out can be a lot of fun. If you enjoy romantic comedies with characters who feel like real people, Into You, part of The R&B Mixtape Series, is available now.