We’re quick to judge people who find themselves remaining in unhappy, toxic, or abusive relationships.
As outsiders, these relationships might seem quite puzzling to us. Most of us wonder how the hell could someone stay with a partner who mistreats them, an abuser, or a narcissist and why is it so difficult for some to end the cycle of negativity and abuse.
“How can she tolerate being abused?”
“How can he keep up with her toxic behavior?”
“Why doesn’t she just leave him?”
From the outside, leaving a toxic relationship seems like an easy decision. And yet, things are far more complicated from the inside. For those who are stuck in those relationships and remain at a toxic partner’s side, let’s just say that things aren’t so simple as black and white.
What follows is a breakdown of:
- why people find it hard to get out of toxic relationships
- what can you do if you find yourself in a similar place
Let’s dive right in.
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#1. The Start Is Always Sweet
No one would willingly pursue a relationship with a person who treats them badly. Usually, you won’t know you’re entering a cycle of emotional abuse until it’s too late.
In other words, the start of a toxic relationship is always sweet. A toxic person won’t show their true colors until they have you hooked. In the beginning, you’ll only see a charming, good, and generous person.
As psychotherapist Noel Bell states in his article:
“Toxic behaviour is subtle and undermining and contaminates your self-esteem and self-concept. However, toxic people often start off by appearing to be engaging, generous and charming.”
You start thinking you’ve found a lifetime partner and slowly become addicted to them and their validation. But then, when their mask falls off, you’re like a drug addict who stopped getting their daily dose of cocaine.
You’re like a child whose parents stopped giving attention to. You feel lost, disoriented, and struggle to figure when and why things went so wrong.
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#2. Familiarity Can Be a Monster in Disguise
I always say that if you’re looking to improve your relationships, no self-help book will help you as much as analyzing your own childhood will.
The reason? Your childhood experiences lay the groundwork for your love life.
Often, what we look for in love, is familiarity. We want someone who’ll make us feel the way our parents or primal caregivers made us feel when we were children. Of course, that’s great if your parents were loving, kind, and generous.
But if you grew up with cruel, abusive, and emotionally unavailable caregivers? As contradicting as it might sound, you’ll search for a partner who’ll make you feel exactly the same way.
As psychotherapist Ken Page explains in his article in PsychologyToday:
“Even though we may be adults, we often have unresolved childhood hurts due to betrayal, manipulation, abuse, and neglect from our caregivers. Unconsciously, we seek the healing of these wounds in our intimate relationships. But that means we’re most attracted to people who can wound us in just the way we were wounded in our childhood!”
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#3. Trauma Is Lurking Around the Corner
Childhood trauma, if left unresolved, can follow you throughout your life, and significantly influence your adult relationships.
As marriage and family therapist Zoe Reyes states:
“Complex trauma refers to prolonged exposure to a stressful event. This would include children who have grown up in physically, sexually, and/or emotionally abusive households. Without the safety net of a secure attachment relationship, children grow up to become adults who struggle with feelings of low self-worth and challenges with emotional regulation.”
You might believe you’re emotionally ready to form a healthy relationship, but your unresolved trauma will be lurking around the corner to prove otherwise.
And if you find yourself in a toxic relationship, your trauma will be there telling you it’s your fault your partner treats you so badly or will try to convince you you won’t be able to find someone else if you leave your current toxic relationship.
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#4. Denial Is Your Drug of Choice
Your brain might find it incredibly difficult to process how a person you love, and who claims to love you back, keeps mistreating and emotionally harming you for no apparent reason.
That’s a shock for your mind as well as your body.
And just like someone might use opium in order to ignore, forget, and detach themselves from their emotional pain, you might use denial as a defense mechanism that will protect you from confronting your cruel reality.
In marriage and family therapist Darlene Lancer’s words:
“Denial is a defense that helps us. There are many reasons we use denial, including avoidance of physical or emotional pain, fear, shame or conflict. We’re actually wired to deny for survival. It’s the first defense that we learn as a child.”
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What to Do if You Find Yourself in a Toxic Relationship
If life worked like the movies, we would all find ourselves with our ideal partner early on in our lives.
But because real life doesn’t work like a fairytale, anyone could end up being romantically involved with a toxic person at some point in their lives — especially if they’re young and inexperienced.
Here’s what you can do if that has happened/will ever happen to you:
Step out of denial: It requires a lot of honesty and courage to admit you fell for a person who ended up poisoning your life, but acceptance is always the first step towards change. Remember that there’s nothing, nothing to be ashamed for — it’s something that could happen to anyone.
Replace “I can’t” with “I will”: The truth is you can leave your partner. You can break the cycle of emotional abuse. as long as you stop your inner mindless chatters. You are not alone. You are strong enough. You just keep telling yourself otherwise because you don’t want to live the pain and the consequences your breakup will bring.
But believe me, in the long term, the pain of staying in a toxic relationship will far outweigh the pain of ending it.
Communicate with someone you trust: Talk to your close friends, your parents, or someone else you trust. If you don’t feel comfortable sharing your situation with anyone from your social circle, you can seek a therapist’s help.
It’s important that a person you can trust knows about your situation so that they can prevent you from going back to them, or give you shelter in case your partner exhibits violent behavior.
Allow yourself to heal: Once you take that crucial step and leave your unhealthy relationship, you need to focus on healing. Healing is a process that takes time and patience. You should allow and yourself to heal, and that includes:
- not rushing into forming a relationship with someone new
- not being too hard on yourself for feeling hurt, depressed, or reminiscing about your relationship
- spending more time with friends and family
- filling your free time with things that make you happy
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To Sum It Up…
From the outside getting out of a toxic relationship seems like no big deal. But from the inside, things can be much more complicated.
Getting out of a toxic relationship is hard because you have to deal with:
- the transition from a sweet start with a seemingly perfect partner to a cruel middle with a toxic person you don’t even recognize
- unresolved childhood hurts that make you seek familiar, yet toxic relationship patterns
- complex trauma that lurks around the corner and influences your thoughts and actions regarding love, your partner, and your relationship
- succumbing to denial as a way to protect yourself from the pain of your reality
Once you find yourself in a toxic relationship, ending the cycle of emotional abuse might seem impossible — but it’s NOT.
On the other hand, if someone from your social circle struggles with a toxic relationship, don’t rush to judge them or rationalize their behavior. Be there for them, offer your help, and encourage them to change their situation.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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