If it’s easy getting into a relationship with an exploiter, getting out isn’t always so simple. What makes the getting out so difficult?
In retrospect (if we’re lucky enough to say “in retrospect”) it seems like it should have been a no-brainer. In truth there are many reasons it can be hard to leave a destructive relationship and destructive person. I’ve addressed several of them in previous posts, and the LoveFraud community in general has addressed this theme comprehensively.
But here I’d like to consider a less-appreciated factor.
I regard it as the factor of habituation. Optimally the best time to end a relationship with an exploiter is the very first signal you get that something is amiss. The next best time to leave the relationship would the second signal that something is amiss.
When we don’t act on these early signals, increasingly we are less likely to act on subsequent ones. One of many reasons for this is the process of habituation.
Habituation is basically how, through repeated exposure to something initially uncomfortable, even highly disturbing, we adjust to it. We are built, it seems, to habituate to unsettling situations and experiences.
And the key to successful habituation is exposure. Sustained exposure to almost anything increases our tolerance of, and comfort with, it.
Consider what happens when we’re willing to endure the initial shock of cold water in a lake, or pool. Our sustained exposure (non-flight) gradually results in our bodies’ adjusting, or habituating, to the cold water, which begins to feel less cold, maybe even warm.
This is great news for someone with a social phobia. We just have to be willing to intentionally expose ourselves, repeatedly and sustainedly, to disturbing social situations, and quite likely we’ll experience a gradual reduction of anxiety.
Unfortunately the same thing can be said of abusive, exploitative relationships. The longer you expose yourself to, and repeatedly tolerate, the abuse, the more habituated you become to it.
Alarming behaviors that initially signaled our self-protective response (like flight) gradually lose their activating properties as we habituate to them. The avoidance-flight signal particularly—in the face of repeated, sustained exposure—dulls and/or we become less responsive to it.
Heeding the avoidant-flight response, in other words, can be critical to our safety and self-interest. It is great to confront and conquer avoidance when the avoidance hinders our personal growth; but it is dangerous to do so in the face of real, violating circumstances.
When I work with partners of sociopaths and other abusers, I find that habituation to the exploiter’s abuse often has occurred over time and contributes to the inertia that keeps the exploited partner in the relationship.
Of course there are often many other (and sometimes more compelling) reasons that one stays in a relationship with an exploitative partner.
But habituation to the abuse, I believe, is not only real, but sometimes helps explain why an otherwise dignified individual would tolerate behaviors that, from the outside—that is, from the unhabituated’s perspective—should be (or should have been) no-brainer deal-breakers.
When relevant I encourage clients to examine this factor in their analysis of the indignities they’ve sustained sometimes for years in relationships with disturbed, violating partners.
Paradoxically (and precisely to my point) their suffering was often highest early in the relationship before, through habituation, they grew slowly more numb and inured to—more tolerant of—the abuse, and thereby less motivated to do what was advisable at the outset—flee.
(This article is copyrighted (c) 2008 by Steve Becker, LCSW.)
Iwonder: My EX pretended to be getting a business off the ground … of course I invested as well as two investors ($125,000.00 each) … then he fled the state, after he not only took our money, but stole the rest of my money out of my bank account using my ATM card.
I never paid attention to anything in my life at the time, I was in shock from 6 years of abuse and harassment by my boss and I was licking my wounds … not ever thinking I had to watch my fiance …
So my EX was the 2nd shoe that fell on my head … both shoes were coming down simultaneously, I just didn’t know it at the time … it was years later when I went through his and my paperwork that I saw the truth versus all his lies … and he lied to me from the day he met me, he was going to take me down, before he ever met me.
Peace.
Iwonder: That’s because of their Narcissism … not being able to take directives from others, so they constantly quit their jobs … even if it’s over another co-worker and something innocent they should say, they’d quit their jobs … hence, why dating is their job … and they take from what they can get from us, hence, why their are others in the background, cause they are taking from them too… it’s a perpetual cycle with all of them (men and women who take, take, take, take, take).
Peace.
Trinity
It’s that Investment you made in him and the Mirrior that he put in front of you ! the Lie the HOOK ( we ) bit and ( we ) are already in the net before we have a name to call them EVIL LOVE jere
Trinity
Google Sociopath read first artical or Why women are attracted to the wrong men! KIKI Aniston LOVE jere
Indi: So true …
Excerpts from Proverbs:
10 My son, if sinners entice you, Do not consent.
11 If they say, “Come with us, Let us lie in wait for blood, Let us ambush the innocent without cause;
12 Let us swallow them alive like Sheol, Even whole, as those who go down to the pit;
13 We will find all {kinds} of precious wealth, We will fill our houses with spoil;
14 Throw in your lot with us, We shall all have one purse,”
15 My son, do not walk in the way with them. Keep your feet from their path,
16 For their feet run to evil And they hasten to shed blood.
17 Indeed, it is useless to spread the {baited} net In the sight of any bird;
18 But they lie in wait for their own blood; They ambush their own lives.
19 So are the ways of everyone who gains by violence; It takes away the life of its possessors.
20 Wisdom shouts in the street, She lifts her voice in the square;
21 At the head of the noisy {streets} she cries out; At the entrance of the gates in the city she utters her sayings
22 “How long, O naive ones, will you love being simple-minded? And scoffers delight themselves in scoffing And fools hate knowledge?
23 “Turn to my reproof, Behold, I will pour out my spirit on you; I will make my words known to you.
24 “Because I called and you refused, I stretched out my hand and no one paid attention;
25 And you neglected all my counsel And did not want my reproof;
26 I will also laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your dread comes,
27 When your dread comes like a storm And your calamity comes like a whirlwind, When distress and anguish come upon you.
28 “Then they will call on me, but I will not answer; They will seek me diligently but they will not find me,
29 Because they hated knowledge And did not choose the fear of the LORD.
30 “They would not accept my counsel, They spurned all my reproof.
31 “So they shall eat of the fruit of their own way And be satiated with their own devices.
32 “For the waywardness of the naive will kill them, And the complacency of fools will destroy them.
33 “But he who listens to me shall live securely And will be at ease from the dread of evil.”
Peace, peace and more peace.
Pray for them.
Can someone give me a Praise Jesus sister Mary you go right a head and dance !:)~ AMEN! LOVE jere
Indi: Not all cases are we are attracted to the wrong me, or vice versa, men attracted to the wrong women.
It has to do with WE did not know “they” had a hidden agenda. They talk and act normal, that is “their” mask … and we only find out … after they go down that evil path of theirs.
Everyone, and I mean everyone puts their best foot forward … do you think they meet us and say their nasty sayings, do their nasty deeds on the first meeting? No way, they act normal, nice, decent … that’s their hook.
Period.
Correction – I meant to write “attracted to the wrong men” …
Typo.
Indi, that’s the thing … it’s all in the Bible, it’s not that we are looking for bad boys/bad girls … their deception has gotten better as the world evolves … they just put their “masks” on tighter, not to have them slip … hey, look at the Wall street Bailout … talk about evil feet … walking that path to their deaths … all our deaths.
You forgot men attracted to the wrong men Wini Wini wini! :)~