7 Ugly Reasons We Cling When We Should Leave
Thomas Fiffer wonders why we hold out in horrible relationships — -and unearths 7 ugly ties that bind.
The thrill is gone The thrill is gone away The thrill is gone baby The thrill is gone away
- B.B.King
“Everything depends upon courage: Without the ability to say ‘no’ your ‘yes’ means nothing.
- Rabbi David Wolpe
This morning I checked out some articles on why people stay in sucky relationships. My research rounded up the usual suspects. Topping the lists were fear of loneliness and guilt of hurting your partner along with hoping things will improve, and in the case of marriages, kids and money. I also noticed that most of these articles were not widely circulated, and that got me thinking: If these pieces didn’t resonate, maybe they weren’t identifying the real reasons we stay. Maybe fear and guilt, fantasy and delusion, kids and money are the stories we stick to, the surface adhesives, but not the true force behind the gravity of inertia. So I tried an experiment. I paralleled each of the seven deadly sins with a reason for staying, and I was surprised by my revelations. You may be, too.
1. Lust. This first one is obvious. The sex is phenomenal. The relationship isn’t. You fight like cats and dogs every day and f**k like bunnies every night. Angry sex can be hot, and you can work out a lot of nastiness by doing the nasty. Plus, mind-blowing, body-shuddering orgasms cover a multitude of sins. But there’s no substitute for sex that flows naturally from love and consummates — -rather than tries to concoct — -emotional intimacy. If you’ve never experienced this deep, intense bonding, you don’t know what you’re missing, and you’re staying for chemistry and compatibility, not true connection. The inability to come together with words speaks volumes about your relationship.
If you’re a glutton, you stay because you’re getting all your needs met while not meeting your partner’s …
2. Gluttony. It’s not about food, but it is about consumption. If you’re a glutton, you stay because you’re getting all your needs met while not meeting your partner’s, and you’re consuming all the energy and resources in the relationship. This lopsided dynamic is a sweet deal for the glutton and attracts many people whose personality disorders feed on it to thrive. But gluttony sucks big time for the giver, who’s constantly being depleted. A rare glutton who loves his or her partner will either work to restore balance or gracefully step away and stop taking, but most remain at the trough as long as they can. Meanwhile, givers delude themselves that one more morsel will be enough, not realizing it’s their depletion itself that gives the glutton pleasure.
3. Greed. Greed follows gluttony, but it’s less about money and more about conquest. You got someone. That person is yours, and you’re not going to let go, even if holding on is unhealthy and will eventually destroy you. Greed-based relationships center on ownership and control and the greedy partner’s fear of loss and sense of entitlement. Loss of any kind is terrifying, and losing your partner — -even if that person is a source of pain and torment — -is unbearable. The more a healthy person asserts power and independent rights, the more a greedy person clamps down on the insurrection. If you’re the rebel, you fear punishment, because greedy partners have a scorched earth policy. They’d rather see you dead than with someone else.
4. Sloth. Sometimes, you’re just too lazy to make a change. You’re set in your habits, and life is predictable, even if it’s predictably unhappy. Change is risky — -you could end up worse off. So you rationalize: I may not be joyously fulfilled, but little is expected of me, and I don’t expect much of my partner, which enables us both to avoid disappointment. Sloth is perhaps the saddest of reasons. The only growth in a sloth-based relationship is the weeds overtaking your field of dreams, the vines twisting around and strangling your tree of life, as the crumbling foundation you’ve built with your partner sinks and settles into the ground.
5. Wrath. Wrath keeps you bound in misery in two ways. First, anger can substitute for intimacy. I’ve written about this in “Why Couples Fight: The Real Cause of Conflict.” But the wrath that enables you to eviscerate your partner every day and leave Prometheus to grow a new liver every night is the wrath fueled by your hatred of your partner and your desire for revenge over how you feel you’ve been treated. You’re staying to exact punishment, to pursue your pound of flesh. Punishment is never appropriate between adults (except in the criminal justice system), but that doesn’t stop wrathful partners from inflicting pain they see as deserved. Often, the recipient accepts the punishment as penance, failing to see there is no chance of redemption.
6. Envy. Envy is “resentful longing” aroused by someone else’s accomplishments or good fortune. The envious partner wants what he or she believes other “happy” couples have and will twist a counterpart in knots to get it. “You’re a complete failure, a poor excuse for a husband — -or wife. We should have …” and the list is endless. When you’re envious, you’d rather harangue a partner into providing your happiness than make the effort to create it yourself. You’re also aware on some level that another partner might not tolerate your ranting, so you keep firing arrows where they’ve already hit. The partner being pierced experiences shame and begins to buy into being responsible for your plight, and the barbed hook is set.
7. Pride. Some people take pride in being coupled or fear the opposite — -feeling shamefully incomplete if they are not. But the pride that keeps partners mired in misery takes two familiar forms. One is the pride of relationship longevity: “I’ve made it this far, and I’m not giving up now,” a stance that ignores sunk costs and the need to shear the chain of the anchor. The other is the pride of the animal trainer: “I’ve worked hard to train my monkey to perform, to behave obediently, to come when I call, to beg beseechingly when I dangle a treat, to submit humbly to the lash of my bullwhip.” The irony here is that the trained-monkey partner takes equal pride in being a doormat, in meeting any and every unreasonable request just to keep receiving the crumbs.
If you find yourself clinging for any of these reasons, it’s time for a partnerectomy, a clean cut that sets you both free from each other, severs the unhealthy entanglement, and opens up possibilities for happiness and growth.
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The story was previously published on The Good Men Project.
About Thomas
Thomas G. Fiffer, Senior Editor, Ethics, at The Good Men Project, is a graduate of Yale University and holds an M.A. in creative writing from the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is a professional writer, editor, speaker, and storyteller with a focus on diagnosing and healing dysfunctional relationships. You can find out more about his publications and services at Thomas G. Fiffer, and connect with him on Facebook and Twitter. His books, Why It Can’t Work: Detaching From Dysfunctional Relationships to Make Room for True Love and What Is Love? A Guide for the Perplexed to Matters of the Heart are available on Amazon. Recently, Tom and his writing partner, Julia Bobkoff, founded Christmas Lake Creative, an inspired community of writers, where they offer workshops and coaching. Tom lives in Connecticut and is working on a memoir and his first novel.
