Anybody could find themselves in bad relationships. Nobody consciously seeks out a bad relationship or anticipates that their seemingly perfect relationship could turn bad. But why stay in them even after realizing that they’re not healthy for you? That they could bring you nothing but hurt and pain?
If you find yourself in a similar situation where you know that the relationship you’re in is a bad one, but are finding it hard leaving a bad relationship, here are three reasons why that may be (don’t beat yourself up too much, because it’s a lot harder than it sounds):
1. You have invested too much time to give up now.
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Every relationship takes effort and time to keep it going. But to consciously stop doing it, feels like you’re losing all of yourself you’ve invested in it. You also realize that you’ve put in months, if not years, of your life staying with the wrong person in a bad relationship. And it obviously feels like a huge waste, and you resist leaving a bad relationship because you start thinking of salvaging what’s left of it, or worse, trying to make it work. Remember, a relationship that is inherently bad, probably won’t work out in the end, despite all your efforts.
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2. You make yourself the hero of your relationship.
You fancy yourself as your partner’s savior. You tell yourself that your partner would be ‘absolutely, positively devastated’ if you broke up with them. However, what you fail to see is that you are not doing anyone any favors by continuing to stay in a bad relationship. It just might be that you’re too afraid to do it or you feel about telling them that it’s over. Either way, you are still stuck in a bad relationship, maybe even dying a little inside every day you delay walking away from it.
3. You convince yourself that this is what you really want (even though you really, really don’t).
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Once you get into a relationship, you will obviously work hard to make it work. You also convince yourself that this is the best choice for you, even though your gut is screaming for you to walk away since it’s a bad relationship. That it’s totally not a good idea to stick around. This natural tendency to convince yourself that you staying in the relationship is good, is helpful when you’re actually in one. However, this is a recipe for disaster when you’re stuck in a bad relationship.
It’s all rainbows and butterflies in the beginning of a relationship, where you’ve got the rose-tinted glasses on your eyes firmly. You’re excited and giddy about having someone new in your life. But once you realize that the person you’re with is just not good for you or your mental and emotional health, you still convince yourself to stick around a while longer. You live in denial, unwilling to admit it to yourself that you made a mistake when you got into the relationship with them.
But, what does make it better is your leaving a bad relationship behind and starting over. Of course, it’s hard to do it. But you have to realize that you are the master of your own life. You need to take care of yourself. And if that means walking away from a relationship that’s just not good for you, then do it.
Featured image source: Google, copyright-free image under Creative Commons License
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