Why do we stay?

I work in the financial services industry. We get studies and surveys all the time about customer service and loyalty. One of the statistics is that, on average, a customer only considers leaving their bank after their bank screws up in a major way at least six times.

Why? Because they've taken years to build a relationship with their bank, because they're comfortable where they are, because it's a tremendous amount of work and effort to move all of their banking services to another bank, because a new bank is an unknown quantity - who's to say that the same problems won't happen at the new bank?

Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

And there's a lot more invested in a relationship or marriage than in a dumb bank account.

Usually it takes a crisis event - an affair, physical abuse, criminal charges - to shake us up enough to make a change. And even then... it's still very, very hard.

As I mentioned in another post about my own marriage, I think that everything in life is about weighing benefit vs. risk. We'll stay so long as the real or potential benefits outweigh the risks.