By Amber Ault, Ph.D.
One of the many difficult questions survivors of toxic relationships ask themselves is “why is it so hard to leave someone who treats me so badly?” As rational people, we recognize that a relationship is extremely problematic and believe that the rational course of action would be just to stop the drama.
And yet.
And yet, this is usually harder than it sounds.
While there are practical and logistical barriers to people exiting, the emotional resistance to leaving is usually present even when there aren’t kids or property or business deals or divorce laws slowing us down.
What accounts for this? Why is it so common?
Social science has some insights that help to explain what’s going on here. Knowing them may help you understand your own behavior (and the toxic person’s), help you exit or recover, and help you comfort yourself with the knowledge that if you’ve been caught in a toxic relationship, the dynamics that hooked you are dynamics that have tripped up many other human beings. They are also dynamics that you can change or avoid, once you’re in the know.
Here are seven principles from social science that will help you understand why it’s challenging to “just get the hell out.”
- Intermittent reinforcement
They come, they go. The love you, they disappear. They love-bomb you, they tell you nobody else would want you. These mixed messages may come quickly or may emerge slowly, but they hook us by making us wonder how we can stay on the happy side of the person’s attention and affection.
If the messages were all negative, we could easily walk away. When we’ve had some taste of what it feels like to be “loved,” and then the behaviors we interpret as love disappear, it’s the fact of intermittent reinforcement that keeps us hanging in, trying to get the good stuff back.
- The principle of least interest
At first, you are the center of their attention. Over time they are “just not that into you.” The principle of least interest argues that the person who has the least interest in preserving a relationship has the most power in it.
Think of how this works with car salespeople: if you can walk away from the deal, you have more negotiating power. Toxic partners and family members manipulate the principle of least interest. As they back off, ignore, you, ghost you, or otherwise fade or disappear emotionally or otherwise for periods of time, they also accrue power if you allow it by remaining intensely interested in “saving” the relationship.
- How secrets create intimacy between secret keepers
Sociologist Georg Simmel argued that, “every relationship between two individuals or two groups will be characterized by the ratio of secrecy that is involved in it.” In healthy relationships, people are transparent with each other in generous degrees.
In toxic relationships, toxic people withhold information to manipulate you and have power over you and your choices. When they have affairs, they create intimacy with someone else who is then in on a secret (the relationship) that is invisible to you.
You may not leave because of the information that has been withheld from you, or because your partner’s other relationships are used to provoke you into competing for their attention, or if you aren’t savvy about how triangulation (the classic “love triangle” between three people) can be triggered by secret keeping.
- Cognitive Dissonance
The experience of holding two competing beliefs simultaneously, cognitive dissonance is common among people in toxic relationships. “I love them” and “They treat me badly” are two beliefs that create the kind of tension associated with cognitive dissonance. “They are my sister so I should help them” and “they never repay the money I loan them” are two similarly competing beliefs.
Cognitive dissonance keeps us in emotional turmoil and slows us down in figuring out the best course of action to take for our health and happiness.
- The Sunk Costs Fallacy
“Sunk costs” are the investments we have already made in an enterprise or a relationship. The “fallacy” refers to our human tendency to over-estimate what we will lose by ending the endeavor and to under-estimate what we will lose by continuing.
In toxic relationships, this works to your disadvantage because it creates a tendency to expect, despite the evidence to the contrary, that if you just invest a bit more, the other person will become kind, appreciative, or reciprocal. We underestimate the advantage of the “risk” involved with walking away. You can see how this belief sets you up to give until it hurts even more.
- “Opportunity Cost” denial
Every day we spend in a toxic relationship is a day we don’t spend enjoying our single life or sharing happiness with a loving, supportive partner. While our focus is on the drama, pain, or trouble created by a toxic relationship, we are missing out on opportunities for joy, connection, freedom, and happiness because the opportunities are less in our line of sight. Just like the moon behind the clouds, though, they are there all the time. When we see true alternatives to suffering, we can make choices to minimize opportunity cost.
- Decision fatigue
Toxic relationships involve extraordinary decision making, often including re-evaluating every day whether you will stay in the relationship or exit. Neuroscience tells us that decision-making demands remarkable amounts of mental energy, leaving people exhausted.
As a result of decision fatigue, the quality of our decisions declines; we become less able to clearly see our options, assess potential outcomes, and accurately evaluate what we might gain or lose as a result of different decisions. Because of our tendency to under-estimate the costs of staying and over-estimate the costs of “losing” a toxic relationship, we may be inclined to continue to choose to stay when deciding from a place of decision fatigue.
Understanding what happens in toxic relationships through the insights of social science can help us see exploitive relationships more clearly. Even more importantly, these concepts can help us see more clearly the ways our own minds work, how we are vulnerable to making decisions that keep us in difficult situations, and how we can redirect our energies into more liberating, more loving relationships.
Dr. Ault’s upcoming webinar
Dr. Amber Ault will present a webinar for Lovefraud Continuing Education called, “Helping Lesbians Leave Crazy-making Relationships: Addressing Barriers to Treatment and Delivering Effective Support.” The program will take place on Monday, Oct. 10, 2016, at 12 noon Eastern time.
Webinars on escaping sociopaths, narcissists and relationship abuse
Dr. Ault is author of “The Five Step Exit: Skills You Need to Leave a Narcissist, Psychopath, or Other Toxic Partner and Recover Your Happiness Now,” and “The Wise Lesbian Guide to Getting Free from Crazy-making Relationships.”
3 sociopathic partners, one after the other
You forgot #8
They hold your vulnerable child hostage
This is done by simultaneous love bombing the child and making an alliance with the child against you, as in parental alienation.
This one-two punch sways a vulnerable child to think the sociopath LOVES them and that you, the focus of the smear campaign, are hateful.
And you know, you cannot leave b/c your vulnerable child will choose the sociopath in a custody battle, and that child will be abused in every way possible as your punishment for failing to submit to the will of the sociopath.
So I stayed until my child was grown and out of the house. Yes, he manipulated her into being incredibly hateful towards me, the parental alienation was agonizing b/c I knew she’d carry enormous guilt once she realized what she’d done. But at least I prevented him from full access, he was unable to sexually rape her so he didn’t “win” that way. And eventually with life experiences, she realized he was a manipulative monster and I Loved her unconditionally, always. Now she is a wonderful daughter and he has moved on to suck the soul from some other woman’s children.
Amazing article. This explains why I am still with my current socio.
Wow, NWHSOM! That is so true. I totally relate to the inner child aspect. I feel like this part of me has historically, and strongly, responded to these types.
My mother is a narcissist, so that inner child cycle was pretty automated in me, due to some deeper lack of awareness and need for more healing.
That wounded child in me had me running in circles for years and years and years. Every time I thought I had her feeling safe and secure, I would still feel like I needed to give into some crazy impulse to satisfy her childish needs.
My emotional and behavioral pendulum swung wide for many years. On the one hand I was responsible and articulate. On the other side I was still making very childish choices. This has some far reaching implications, that went far beyond being taken in by numerous disordered people. But they certainly complicated my life for many decades.
Thanks for bringing this up. I think it is important for us to remember to look at our own healing from this perspective.