Bad relationships don’t happen all at once. They slowly creep up on us revealing their true nature once we are immersed and adopted. If relationships start bad in the beginning, no one will ever start them again.
Typically, people leave bad relationships when they realize that they are not being treated right or that their partnership is not serving their interests or needs. Yes, some people will stay in an abusive relationship despite the trauma and heartbreak.
Some people may stay in a toxic relationship long after it has become clear to them and everyone around them that it is time to leave. Instead of trying to learn how to move on, start over, heal, and find a healthy relationship, they refuse to leave and believe they can fix the relationship forever.
Related: 3 Extremely Toxic Expectations That Kill Your Relationship
This is why it’s so hard to leave a toxic relationship:
- You feel like you’ve spent too much time to give up now.
Once we start a relationship and put in the emotional effort to keep it going, stopping feels like we will lose our investment. Realizing that we wasted months or years of our lives being with the wrong person is often difficult for us to come to terms with, so we prefer to stick with it rather than face failure.
Related: I Stayed In A Toxic Relationship Because Of Love — Big Mistake
- You want to be the hero of your relationship.
Sometimes, we imagine ourselves as the other person’s savior. We tell ourselves nonsense like: “The breakup will destroy them so much that they will never recover.” Or “I should wait until they’re more stable before I broach the topic.”
You’re not doing anyone any favors by continuing a relationship with them because you feel bad about telling them it’s over. However, many people stick around because they are too ashamed to admit that they are emotionally dying inside.
Related: The Difficult Truth About Moving On From A Toxic Relationship
- You believe this relationship is what you want, even though you don’t want it.
This is difficult. Confirmation bias (also called confirmation bias or “sideways” bias) is defined as “the tendency of people to favor information that confirms their preconceived notions or hypotheses regardless of whether the information is true or not.”
What this means for relationships is that once you’re in a relationship, you’ll work hard to make sure that continuing the relationship is a good option. This natural tendency is beneficial in a good relationship because seeing the good helps us get through difficult times.
Unfortunately, confirmation bias contributes to disaster when we find ourselves in a toxic relationship.
In the honeymoon phase, we often tell everyone (especially ourselves) how excited we are for our new partner. Then, when we realize that the other person is no good for us, we stay longer (sometimes a lot) in the emotional space of not wanting to admit that we cut the wrong pony from the herd.
If you feel like you have fallen into the emotional trap of refusing to leave and thinking that you can fix the bad relationship forever. It may be time to start learning how to break the deal, move on, start over, heal, and find the healthy relationship you deserve.
