Why Do People Stay In Bad Relationships?

This is certainly not a complete typology of reasons that people stay in bad relationships, but I wanted to try my hand at reasoning through why people stay in bad relationships through the lenses of decision theory, microeconomics, and behavioral psychology/economics.

• I do want to try to list out reasons in broad strokes as to increase the possibility of someone recognizing within themself something from this article.

What do I mean by “bad relationship”?

My definition of a bad relationship is very loose but I’ll stake it around the idea that the person would be clearly better off alone or with someone else. The word “clearly” is doing a lot of the heavy lifting there, but in many instances there are pros and cons to being in a relationship with someone that wouldn’t make it clearly apparent that two people shouldn’t be together. When it gets to that point and people are asking you why you haven’t broken up with this person then I believe it has begun getting to the point of it being a bad relationship.

So why do people stay “bad relationships”?

These are the possible scenarios of deciding to leave/stay in a relationship depending on your appraisal of the quality of the relationship:

I believe in all scenarios there are rational decisions being made (i.e. there is some kind of cost-benefit analysis occurring), but they are made from valid but unsound premises (meaning there was likely a skewed cost/benefit calculation).

• If all of the judgements about the relationship were correct, then it would justify staying there, but somewhere one of the judgements is mistaken, hence why you shouldn’t stay in the relationship.
  • It is important to note that this is not a reflection of intelligence or moral character.

I will acknowledge that there is a world of difference between not bad (but not good either) and bad, but I think that a relationship should be good (i.e. add to your life), rather than just being neutral.

• Would you take on a new relationship that is just not bad? It seems to me to be motivated as a way to defer detachment.

Being Attached to the Outcome

• Needing the relationship
  • You might not have anyone else close in your life, be very attached to this person (whether past, present, or future versions), money/status/lifestyle with this partner, living together
• Socialized to make a relationship work by any means possible
  • This is especially true of people who were socialized as women.

Ego/Face/Stubbornness

This can be conscious or unconscious, but the main idea is that in dissolving the relationship will make you look dumb for putting up with so much.

• I am right
• I made the right decision
• I did not waste my time
• I can fix them
• If we break up people will look down on me/pity me or tell me I told you so
• This is a version of the sunk cost fallacy as well

Detachment Costs

• It takes a lot of energy to dissolve a bond so maybe the total cost of energy to suppress and deal with everything in the relationship is still less than the energy required to dissolve the bond
• There are perceived costs and actual costs, meaning you can mis-evaluate detachment costs
  • You don’t really know how you or your partner will react and how long the grieving process will take
• This is a valuation problem because then it means that you value staying than not valuing suffering.
• You can easily come to rely on a person so if they meet some of your needs it can be harder to dissolve the relationship.
  • Or maybe you want them in your life still, just not as your partner, but you’re not sure how that will go over/if you will be able to sustain that.

Uncertainty Around Detachment

Uncertainty is interesting because the lack of information is a risk, and depending on how risk averse you are, it may change how you value things.

• Will I ever find someone else?
• What if this relationship could get better and I just need to keep holding on?
• What if this is the best I ever have?
• What if this is all I deserve?
• Who am I outside of this relationship?
  • In a related vein: This relationship is all I know.

Misattunement to Suffering

• Suffering is all relative, so if you’ve already gotten used to putting up with this a small increase might not be that much, but you would have never agreed to doing such if you were starting from nothing.
  • This is sometimes referred to as “creeping normality”.
• The Sunk Cost Fallacy would be that if you’ve suffered this much you want it to mean something so you stick out in hopes it will get better
  • You might think that it can’t get any worse but do you have no evidence for that?
• The Hedonic Treadmill: “the observed tendency of humans to quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness (or sadness) despite major positive or negative events or life changes.” (Wikipedia)
  • i don’t think that high highs balance the low lows but they help you forget the lows

there is blindness or unkindness towards ourselves so sometimes it’s better to imagine your friend or a stranger going through the same circumstances—what would you tell them

Misappraisal of Partner

• You may attribute to them better intentions/excuse their behavior (“They were tired”, “Lots going on at work”) when they could really just be lazy/not care enough
  • I think that particularly empathetic partners are susceptible to this, they give people lots of grace with the expectation that they would receive that in return, which is not always the case.
  • You don’t want to be partnered with a bad person so this is somewhat protective of yourself to attribute to them more positive intentions/qualities. It also helps with attraction that the person has positive qualities so you may need to maintain that image to maintain attraction.
  • Who you are partnered with also reflects onto you, so you want to be with someone who is a good person.
  • Assumed reciprocity, similar to the false consensus effect, where you might assume that your partner is thinking about the relationship in a similar way to you or that they would do that same things as you given the chance

“We accept the love we think we deserve.”

• This is partially a self-esteem problem and partially an imagination problem.
  • You don’t/can’t know what’s out there, so you stick to looking for relationships from your role models (parents or close relatives usually) and media. These aren’t necessarily always positive influences, but we cannot deny their effect on your perceptions.
  • “This is the best I’m ever going to have”, “No one else will ever like me”