We all know her, she is the one who handles a team of 20 people, she is the one who never gives up in order not to hit the targets, she is the confident and effective leader as well as the empathetic one. And respects the person. As amazing as it may sound, these successful and powerful women are often trapped in unhealthy relationships.
Today I’m talking about why smart and strong women stay in bad relationships and what you can do about it. I’m not talking about physically abusive relationships, although some low-quality relationships do involve some verbal or emotional abuse.
I’m talking about the relationships that aren’t good for you, the ones you know you don’t deserve, the ones in which you know you should be treated better. You may have evolved through it in many ways, and your partner no longer meets your needs.
Why do strong and intelligent women stay in bad relationships?
What I find is that strong women often find themselves in these types of relationships, but you often don’t know it because they won’t tell you for fear of being seen as weak. Many people think that being in a bad relationship is a sign of weakness when in reality it is a really bad use of your incredible strength.
In fact, women who are heads of household actually have higher rates of intimate partner abuse than women who are not heads of household. This sounds amazing, because these are the women who have the financial ability to get out of relationships, but these are the women who stay.
In fact, research shows that smart, successful women are more likely to be in relationships with toxic men than others.
Read : 10 Unexpected Things To Expect After Leaving A Toxic Relationship
It is not always low self-esteem
In researching willingness to talk about this topic, I came across a line of thought that says women stay in bad relationships because of low self-esteem, because they see themselves as less attractive and generally have lower expectations of what a relationship should be like — so they accept bad treatment.
I think this can be true in certain circumstances, such as if your parents are abusive, you may have lower expectations of what a loving relationship is like or even feel like being treated badly is normal on some level. But I haven’t found this to be true in any way with the type of women I treat in my practice.
All of the women in my practice who remain in low-quality relationships are wonderful, intelligent, highly successful women who are highly valued in the community. They are strong women who don’t take anything from others in their lives and make their way to the success they are witnessing today. But they are not that way in their relationship.
Reasons to stay
I think it’s important to say that maybe you didn’t know you were getting into an unhealthy relationship. You are definitely smarter than that. You found yourself in one over time. These are your reasons for staying:
- Strong women give their best in all aspects of their lives — including their relationships.
They are used to working hard and it pays off. They do not like failure and often invent a story that ending this relationship is a failure. it’s not like that. It can be a win, but if your story is a failure, you will keep fighting. And you expect return on investment (ROI) in the relationship.
Fall into the “throwing good money after bad money” trap. You have invested so much that you do not want to “lose” your investment and realize that the alternative is not as beneficial to you as your current state.
Read : 10 Unexpected Things To Expect After Leaving A Toxic Relationship
Hard work is familiar to you. You feel constantly challenged by this relationship and that is a normal feeling. Also, if your first experience of love in the world is not that stable, you may subconsciously look for a similar experience in your relationships.
Basically, high performing women can take on more and take longer and this is where your strength betrays you. You become sympathetic to the error. You make excuses for his behavior or feel like you can understand or fix it. You become a savior instead of saving yourself.
- Often, you may also value the positive characteristics of your partner more than the negative ones.
For example, if your partner is generous but not thoughtful, you may value generosity more than thoughtfulness over the course of your relationship (Fletcher et al., 200).
When making decisions about relationships, we often rely on emotions rather than logic. So, a woman who relies on logic and intuition for most of her life, which I explained before is not an emotional thing, often does very well in her life. But that same woman will depend on emotion when it comes to her relationships, and that makes her stay in an unhealthy relationship.
Casen (and others, 2011) also explains that you can have very negative thoughts about a partner and still have very positive feelings about your partner. This cognitive dissonance creates stress, but it is not enough to leave the relationship. However, it keeps you in a constant state of unhappiness.
- You are not ready to change your story – the way you see yourself or the way others view you.
This is a form of denial – or perhaps a calculated decision. - You find it difficult to change your life or break up your family.
- The worst thing in my opinion is that you might think you deserve this.
You created a story for yourself that didn’t involve being loved in a way that was true to who you were.
Read : The Narcissistic Love Script: Why He Chose You and Why He Dumped You
These are the reasons strong women stay in bad relationships. What now?
What is a strong woman to do?
First, you don’t have to leave the relationship, even though all of the reasons I gave you above are the wrong reasons to stay. What I do think is that you have to be willing to leave the relationship for it to change, which can be downright scary. If you aren’t ready to leave, then there is no motivation on your partner’s part to change and they likely won’t.
Stop waiting for him to change. It won’t happen without you changing first. Accept that you are in an unhealthy relationship. I didn’t give in to misery. Call the relationship what it is and accept it. Denying it gets you nowhere
Tell the truth to your partner. If you aren’t, you are part of the problem. You are enabling all of his behavior and you are dependent on the toxicity of the relationship. You may feel that telling him you didn’t bring him to a work party because you’re embarrassed about the way he treats you when you drink will add toxicity to the relationship, but it won’t. Telling him you forgot about it or that the couples weren’t actually invited is stressful.
Lies create a physical and emotional burden. think about it. The polygraph knows that you are lying only by the stress it causes in your body. Although he will probably get angry, you will tell the truth. This gives you freedom and reduces your stress in the long run, even if it increases it at the moment. The truth begins to create space for change in your relationship.
Tell him, no more! Let him know clearly that the relationship will end if XYZ continues. a period. That’s it. This is the hardest part and don’t make this move until you are ready to continue. An empty threat is the worst thing about your relationship and your self-esteem.
But when you are ready, you may find that he is willing to change. If not, you will still be fine. I call this a win/win. Either the relationship ends and you are free to live a healthier life, or your relationship improves and you are free to be yourself in the relationship and get what you deserve. Either way, it’s a win. When you can put yourself in this frame of mind, you are well on your way to a healthy place.
You deserve to be treated well, you deserve to be loved, and if you don’t get that from your partner, you deserve to leave. Reach out if you need some help. Keep tuning in to this podcast for more help strengthening your relationships, including the sometimes difficult ones with yourself.
