If someone asked you what would you do if you found yourself in a toxic relationship, what would you answer?
“I’d definitely run away”?
“I’d ask for help”?
“I’m not sure”?
You might be thinking that, once someone realizes they’re in an emotionally draining and even physically abusive relationship, the rational thing to do is to leave their partner immediately.
And yet, trying to explain toxic or abusive relationships with logic is no mean feat. Attempting to simplify them is, usually, a loss of time. Toxic relationships are insanely complex and leaving one is much easier said than done.
In other words, there are fundamental reasons why we stay in relationships with partners who undervalue and mistreat us. If you have ever stayed in such a relationship, this article is aimed to help you understand the reasons behind you doing so. If you have never been in a toxic relationship, this article might help you change your attitude and be less judgemental of those who stay.
Let’s dive right in, shall we?
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#1. We’re Too Committed to Sunk Costs
The more time and energy, we invest in a relationship, the harder it is to let go.
We hold on to toxic relationships because we don’t want to accept they’re not working. Sometimes, a failed relationship feels like a personal failure, like an investment gone wrong — and we can’t fathom the idea of having spent our money for nothing. In other words, we’re too committed to sunk costs.
According to this article, the sunk cost fallacy describes:
“our tendency to follow through on an endeavor if we have already invested time, effort or money into it, whether or not the current costs outweigh the benefits.”
Psychologist Robert L. Leahy explains about sunk costs:
“We can think of sunk cost as focusing on the past cost rather than the future utility. You are concerned with what you “paid” for something rather than what you will get out of it in the future. Sunk costs are backward looking decisions.”
Being too committed to our sunk costs, we don’t want to think that we wasted so much of our time, effort, and emotional energy on a relationship that hurts us instead of bringing us joy — so we close our eyes to our partner’s toxic behavior and hold on to them.
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#2. We’re Afraid of Losing Our Identity
Ending a relationship often means losing part of our identity and consequently, feeling lost, disoriented, and depressed — especially if we had been in a co-dependent relationship.
As psychotherapist and psychoanalyst F. Diane Barth states in her article:
“But here’s something that we don’t always think about in connection with a breakup: The end of an intimate relationship can also damage the way that you think about yourself. In other words, you can lose your sense of who you are in the world, what psychotherapists call your “self” or your identity.”
The prospect of losing our sense of self can be extremely scary. Being in a relationship means sharing our life with another person, growing and expanding our sense of self side by side with our partner.
When our and our partner’s thoughts, habits, and lifestyle patterns are in unison, letting go of them, also means letting go of a part of ourselves — which is something we instinctively avoid at all costs.
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#3. We Perceive Our Other Options as Lower-Quality Alternatives
Another reason we might choose to stay in unhealthy relationships is that we perceive all our other options as lower-quality alternatives. For example, some alternatives to staying in a toxic relationship might be:
- Remaining single, perceived as a lower-quality alternative by people who fear being lonely
- Pursuing a new relationship, perceived as a lower-quality alternative by people who have low self-esteem
- Going back to an ex, perceived as a lower-quality alternative by people who have a philosophy of never returning to previous partners
When all our alternatives seem less attractive compared to our current situation, in our case, being in an unhealthy relationship, the prospect of escaping the latter might seem scary and make us feel very uncomfortable.
After all, it’s in human nature to seek what’s familiar and comfortable — so most often than not, we prefer to remain in our comfort zone, even if that means staying with a partner who continuously mistreats us.
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#4. We’re Overly Attached
As you may already know, at the beginning of a relationship, both partners involved do their best to charm each other, by showing their good side — which, in the case of toxic people means not showing their true colors.
As therapist Darlene Lanser, explains in her article:
“There may have been hints of abuse at the beginning that we overlooked — abusers are good at seduction and wait until they know the partner is hooked before showing their true colors. By then, love is cemented and doesn’t die easily.”
Unfortunately, by the time the cycle of emotional abuse has started and we realize our relationship’s unhealthy elements, we might have already become dependent on our partner’s attention and validation.
In other words, when we are overly attached, even addicted, to our partner, it’s highly likely we’ll close our eyes to their mistreatment or abuse towards us — no matter how hard the people around us try to pull us out from our toxic relationship.
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#5. Repetition Compulsion Controls Us
When we look for a partner, we subconsciously search for personality traits that feel familiar, usually those of a parent (or our primal caregiver).
The thing is that, if we have some early trauma from our childhood we haven’t worked through, let’s say if our mother was abusive, and mistreated us, we’re gonna look for the same traits in a potential partner.
In psychology, this is called “Repetition Compulsion”. According to the APA Dictionary of Psychology, this phenomenon is defined as:
“in psychoanalytic theory, an unconscious need to reenact early traumas in the attempt to overcome or master them.”
In her article, therapist Darlene Lancer explains repetition compulsion as:
“It’s likely that we will seek out someone who reminds us of a parent with whom we have unfinished business, not necessarily of our opposite-sex parent. We might be attracted to someone who has aspects of both parents.This is known in Freudian parlance as repetition compulsion and helps us overlook signs that would be predictive of trouble.”
Unresolved trauma can easily bind us to the wrong people through repetition compulsion and makes it incredibly difficult to act rationally and let go of unhealthy relationship patterns.
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Putting It All Together…
The concept of toxic relationships is far more complex than people might think.
Outsiders tend to simplify things and underestimate the difficulty of breaking the cycle of emotional (or physical) abuse one might endure in their relationship.
If you are in a toxic relationship, you might feel like there is no way out, or that you’re too weak to escape your partner’s abuse. Let me remind you, there’s always a way out. You’re not weak — your partner made you think you are, so as to keep you bound to them. Talk to someone, be it family, friends, or a professional, and let them help you break the cycle of abuse.
If you know someone who remains in an unhealthy relationship, please don’t judge them and make them feel even worse. There’s more to these relationships than meets the eye. Be kind, patient, and offer them your genuine help — they need it.
Let’s stay in touch! For more relationship advice, you can subscribe to my free monthly newsletter here.
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Previously Published on Medium.
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