For partners stuck in dysfunctional relationships, Thomas Fiffer offers a roadmap for getting out.
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You know it’s not right. You’ve always known it deep down, though it may have felt right, almost too right, at the beginning.
“He said I was the only one for him. He made me feel so special.”
“She knew we were soul mates from day one.”
Now you wish to God you’d never met this person, much less moved in, gotten married, or had children with someone who seems determined to make your life a living hell.
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“My family told me to slow down, but he couldn’t wait to get married.”
“All her previous partners were a-holes. But I was different.”
And now?
Now you wish to God you’d never met this person, much less moved in, gotten married, or had children with someone who seems determined to make your life a living hell.
But you’re still not leaving, right?
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“I’m not a masochist,” you say. “I just got stuck in a tough situation. I was taught to stick it out, and I’m going to make the best of it.”
I hear you. I was you. But hear me. Because here’s the rub.
Wise up and check your damage-ometer, the kind that appears over the characters in your kids’ video games. How many bars do you have left? Two, maybe only one?
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The first step to getting out of something that’s killing you is to understand that you’re in something that’s killing you. That your emotional life is not immortal. That some things are unsustainable. That eventually, you’ll collapse in a heap that doctors call a nervous breakdown. Either that, or you’ll do something to your partner or yourself that you’ll regret. Either way, you’re looking at irreparable damage if you stay, but you’ve deluded yourself into believing you can take it. Just one more day. Just one more year. Wise up and check your damage-ometer, the kind that appears over the characters in your kids’ video games. How many bars do you have left? Two, maybe only one? Your family’s worried about you, but they don’t want to interfere. Your friends won’t say you look like shit to your face, but they talk about you after you leave. You’re living a pretend life—happy on the outside, miserable within. Am I getting through yet?
There’s a phrase I’m fond of when people ask me how to travel from despair to joy when these two points seem so distant. “You have to bend the map.”
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Painful as it is, you can eventually become aware of what’s actually happening in your relationship. You don’t need my help for that. Just the kick I already gave. What’s harder to grasp, and where assistance is helpful, are the flawed reasons that are keeping you imprisoned, the false belief that you cannot leave. I’ve identified four blocks that keep us chained in dysfunctional relationships. There may be more, but I consider these the four horsemen of the relationship apocalypse. Each centers around avoiding something our brains are wired to hate and fear, which is why it’s so hard to see leaving as being in our ultimate best interest. Once we strip away the accumulated dirt and debris on these blocks, they reveal themselves as the means of our escape, the golden tickets we can hand over for a journey towards happiness and fulfillment. So here they are, along with a strategy to turn each one around and use it to your advantage. There’s a phrase I’m fond of when people ask me how to travel from despair to joy when these two points seem so distant. “You have to bend the map,” I say. And that’s exactly what these strategies will do for you.
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We’d much rather say, “I’m struggling,” than “I gave up,” even when giving up means our salvation.
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1. Admitting failure. Let’s face it. We hate to fail. I know I do. It feels shameful. Embarrassing. Humiliating. Sure, we’re told it’s OK to fail in business. Fail frequently. Fail up. Fail your way to the top. But when we fail in a relationship, especially more than one, we always wonder. Did I not try hard enough? Is there something wrong with me? Or the worst question: Am I not relationship material? We’d much rather say, “I’m struggling,” than “I gave up,” even when giving up means our salvation, even when there are no more boundaries left for our partner to overstep. The way around admitting failure? Shift your perspective. You’re not admitting failure. You’re acknowledging futility. There’s no way you could have succeeded at this, no way anyone could. And the sooner you make the move to an environment where you can succeed, the faster your ascent will be.
If time is money, we keep throwing good years after bad (in my case, 15 years) with the hope that next year things will turn around.
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2. Loss of sunk costs. Almost as bad as failure is the total loss of an investment—a wipeout—and particularly a costly one. We feel foolish. Stung. Stupid. And full of regret. If time is money, we keep throwing good years after bad (in my case, 15 years) with the hope that next year things will turn around, the stock will go up again, and the relationship will be right again—the way it was in those blissful early days. Only it never happens that way, because dysfunctional partners are like bottomless pits, and they keep demanding more. Even when you’re tapped out, exhausted, depleted to the core, they kick you like a dray horse and add to the load. The way around sunk costs is to act like a shrewd investor and cut your losses without emotion. When the decision to leave becomes about your survival, not your partner’s disappointment, hurt feelings, or nasty reaction, it’s a simple calculation—you live or you die—instead of tangled morass of questioning and guilt.
Chances are if you opened up about what was really going on, your friends and family would be horrified. They might even schedule an intervention.
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3. Trading bad for worse. Sure, my situation sucks. But it could be worse, so I might as well stay. It’s possible your partner has tried to convince you that the hell you’re in is normal and that no one has it any different. That’s a typical tactic of abuse. Combine this with our innate tendency to focus on the good things a partner offers (particularly the physical) and minimize or ignore the bad, and you end up believing that most people suffer similar tortures to yours. But think carefully about what you tell your friends or family—which is what you’re telling yourself—and compare it to the truth. Chances are if you opened up about what was really going on, your friends and family would be horrified. They might even schedule an intervention. And you’d get confirmation that what you’re experiencing isn’t anywhere near normal. You’d learn that other people enjoy partnerships based on supportiveness and respect. The way around trading bad for worse is honesty. Take your veil off and see the world through new eyes.
Fear of loneliness leads us to substitute being tolerated for being accepted, to settle for indifference instead of demanding respect, to mistake being wanted and needed for being loved.
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4. Fear of loneliness. This is by far the toughest of the four blocks. No one wants to be alone. I stayed in a dysfunctional marriage for years partly for this reason. I was afraid I wouldn’t ever find anyone else. We’re designed to thrive on companionship, and healthy relationships (whether intimate or just friendly) play a key role in both physical health and longevity. Fear of loneliness is cold and paralyzing. It stops us from taking risks. It leads us to substitute being tolerated for being accepted, to settle for indifference instead of demanding respect, to mistake being wanted and needed for being loved. Combine this with a partner who constantly tells you no one else would want you, and you’re frozen in a cave of ice. The way around fear of loneliness is pulling the future into the present and see that your worst fear has already come to pass. As Robin Williams said as Lance Clayton in World’s Greatest Dad, “I used to think the worst thing in life is to end up all alone. It’s not. The worst thing in life is ending up with people who make you feel all alone.”
♦◊♦
I hope these four strategies will help you bend your own maps and make the journey out of hurtful, destructive relationships. You deserve better, and you can have better. In relationship physics, the shortest distance between two points is not always a straight line, and happiness is actually much closer than you think.
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This post is republished on Medium.
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You forgot financially stuck. You let yourself go so much that you basically lose everything and are trapped by your own design to please this person until they don’t want you anymore or your now ‘no good’, except when they need you. I like that you touched on some things but it seems the solutions would be hard to confront on one’s own or to escape without a lifeline of some sort. It isn’t like this person is leaving physical bruises or broken bones. Everything is subjective when your trapped like this. There is no evidence and usually, by the… Read more »
What a beautiful, honest, and helpful article. I knew I needed to break off my engagement when I felt lonelier with him than without. You’re a courageous person. Thank you for sharing this.
Referring to anyone as ‘crazy’ signifies an issue within yourself too. Has issues, mental illness, etc. is a little more mature and responsible. Sorry. But men who speak about people (men or women) that way are getting what they create. You’re half the responsibility of ‘crazy’ so be sure to take a lot of time to ask yourself: Where did I hold the cards in this situation? Very rarely is anyone a victim, and your reference to women here shows a lot about who YOU are, too. Point at someone and remember, five fingers point back at you.
Thomas, Thanks for this. The quote about being with people who one feels lonelier with than without helped me to feel connection. Thanks again.
Daniel, You’re welcome. That quote speaks to so many.
Powerful echoes and questions for me here. After 33 years of marriage (no children) last year my wife ‘came out’ to herself and to me as a lesbian. So a low sex marriage became a no sex one. Yet we’re still committed to making our marriage work, committed to each other and to monogamy, when most outside voices would be saying that we’re mad and that it can never work. One thing is not to compare my inner knowledge (of my sadness and frustrations) with the outside image that other project (where everyone’s having great sex, and I’m the only… Read more »
Brassyhub, There are many different kinds of relationships, and where there’s love, any kind can flourish. Not comparing is extremely helpful. We can only truly know our own world and determine whether or not we’re happy in it.
This is a great piece. I am still trying to extricate myself from a lonely isolating relationship with someone who, even after 8 years of separation is still wearing his wedding ring and calling me his wife – because HE made a COMMITMENT of FOREVER. I am still trying to get the courage for a divorce… he tells me I am abandoning him and the children (they have been with me the whole time, and he lives in a different city). I left because of verbal, physical and emotional abuse. I left because I could not stand after 9 years,… Read more »
Sharon, The situation you describe is tough, heartbreaking, and typical of dysfunctional relationships. It sounds as if your husband would rather drag you with him into misery than see you be happy. Honoring yourself and your feelings is always the best way to go, and I’m glad you’ve built a new life filled with happiness.
“I was afraid I wouldn’t find anyone else…” Amazing to see how skewed and closed down my thinking was then…you only think that until you meet other people and one thing leads to another and then your whole world view opens up….I remember at one point I was so unhappy, yet I could see how light-hearted other people were and how much fun they were having….it did not take long for me to sneak away to go to parties and Friday late afternoon mixers….it was so simple…and all it took was little shifts in my thinking and gradually, I could… Read more »
Leia, Those blinders are powerful and can cut off a world of opportunity. So glad you took them off.
Thomas, you’re lucky you got out. And other men who do not have such courage will never understand your point of view fully until they extricate themselves from their unhappy situation. You hit the nail on the head with this post. I think men are hesitant to pull the plug for all those reasons. But I think another reason that gives men pause is our societal belief that it shouldn’t take much for a man to be happy. We subscribe to this whole “happy wife, happy life” routine without considering why women’s happiness should be put first. So men are… Read more »
mensanity, You make an excellent point about the myth that it shouldn’t take much for men to be happy. I look forward to reading your pieces.
Ed, I’ve read some of Tara’s work, and it is helpful. She is one of the few resources specifically for men, but books such as “Stop Walking on Eggshells” are gender-neutral and useful for men as well as women.