Leaving a toxic relationship ~ why is it so difficult?

I am not pointing fingers, nor am I speaking about anyone here specifically. This post is based mainly on my own experience, but also what I have observed with many, many others over the years.

I notice many people having the same difficulty as I have had in leaving a toxic relationship, and I wonder why?

Marriage commitments, financial entanglements and children aside, WHY is it SO hard to leave?

Is it because a toxic person gives us breadcrumbs of hope for positive changes and therefore, the hope for a more positive relationship?

Is it because we hope that person will change, IF we talk to them, reason with them, explain to them, and work WITH them on changing the disrespectful, disgusting and despicable behaviors we don't like and which hurt us?

Is it because SOMETIMES they are loving and kind, and therefore, we decide we can put up with the bad times because there are also good times?

OR, is it because we ultimately fear being alone?

Is it because we're SO unhappy and SO miserable by ourselves in our own lives, that we therefore cling onto ANYONE and ANY relationship that serves as a lifeline and life preserver so that we don't have to face our own misery alone?

I know that whenever I have fallen into the trap of an abusive and/or toxic relationship, that I have not been happy on my own. Each and every single time.

And it's literally been the very next person who pays me attention or who showers me with their interest, I've ended up being in a relationship with. And usually, it's turned out to be toxic and/or abusive. That's been my personal experience at least.

And I think that MANY people find themselves in a very similar, vulnerable place in life, facing this exact same issue, making it SOOOOO much harder to want to leave, even if the relationship is toxic.

Desperation also makes it harder to be more discerning in the beginning stages of a relationship. If we're desperate, we overlook, dismiss and ignore all the red flags.

In my own life, I've learned through many, MANY hard experiences, that it IS far better to be alone and face my loneliness than to be unhealthy psychologically and emotionally in a relationship and/or abused.

When you're being abused or when you're in a toxic relationship, your mental health suffers, your self-esteem and self-worth suffer, and ultimately, it's most unhealthy for one to continue living that way. It makes one feel toxic themselves.

Facing our fears of being alone, facing and resolving our misery, is what needs to happen instead.

And the hope for positive change in a toxic person? That will NEVER materialize. Or at least, VERY RARELY.

A toxic person typically will NOT see their behavior, they will NOT own up to their poor behaviors, and they RARELY change.

Sure, they may change for the short-term, but not for the long-term. They will inevitably revert back to the toxic or abusive behaviors.

And putting up with the bad behavior simply because there are good times too? Well, if those poor behaviors are effecting one's mental health negatively, it's time to cut the cord.

One of my oldest and dearest friends said to me once, "you cannot fall in love with a person's POTENTIAL". They are who they are, and you must love them for who they are NOW, not for who YOU WANT THEM TO BECOME.

That always rang true for me and has stuck with me ever since.

This post is meant to help people having a tough time leaving a toxic relationship, and also to inspire discussion, if people want to contribute.

I got a divorce after 31 years of abuse. The Verbally Abusive Relationship by Patricia Evans saved my life...the reason I stayed, was the fear of being alone.

31 years is an awfully long time to deal with abuse, and I can completely understand your fear. Thank goodness you eventually left and thank goodness you found Patricia Evans!

Are things far better for you now?

Hugs to you. Thanks for sharing!

All the reasons you gave are commonly the reasons. There’s also the thought that being with someone else or being alone is not going to be better. A psy told me, “You probably never would have been happy with anybody.” So, the problematic person is me. I’m lucky anyone stays with me. I’m the toxic person.

Growing up, I broke up with guys who weren’t compatible with no trouble. I didn’t have toxic relationships. It was in my 30’s and married that things went south and have been on a downward spiral for 20 years now.

I just got called toxic (my husband was too) by our son. He said he doesn’t want the negative energy in his life we gave him over the past year. But, see, he turned it all around to suit him. He was on the offense. We were on the defense. It was really he who was what he accused of us. That’s what people do when their intentions are to be hateful and cruel. I hope if his relationship is toxic, he will find the strength to leave. His parents were sacrificial lambs.

So, we tend to think the toxic person is ourselves and there’s no real escape, just jumping from the frying pan and into the fire.

When it’s bad enough, we run. Physical harm is enough for some to motivate, while they will endure endless psychological harm.

@TishaBuv, you said some key words: "when it's bad enough, we run.... while they may .endure endless psychological harm".

What constitutes "bad enough", I wonder? And how come so many are willing to endure endless psychological harm?

I have trouble wrapping my brain around it sometimes.

Everybody has a breaking point. They vary among people. Also, we are all selfish in some ways, and stay for those reasons, too.

Also, we talk a lot here about healthy, non toxic relationships. Well, in my world I’ve yet to see something that looks like that.

I’ve also seen how some stay in toxic relationships because of the stories you’ve made up about the relationship in your head (and how you have spoken about the relationship to friends/family). For instance, I used to have a friend who fell pregnant while in college and the baby daddy was a no-show, treated her like less than human. She found a new man, within months they are living together, she’d also encourage her baby girl to recognize her new bf as Daddy. She was really forcing this relationship between them. However he had been caught having an affair, she was not allowed to question him/confront him about his behaviors, when he drank alcohol he became verbally abusive etc. Quite toxic. She had no plans on leaving though! She talked herself out of all the red flags.

And I honestly believe it was because of the stories and fantasy she created at the beginning of the relationship when everything was rosey. Maybe she felt ashamed for leaving, as if she would be judged by us? Or maybe because she already told herself that this man will be the father to my child, she felt trapped because of a commitment/expectation she created in the first place!

The conflict happens in the mind. I don’t think people in toxic relationships are naive about what’s happening. And I’m sure they know they are worth more. But it’s all the other fear-based “what if’s” and the “What will people say” and the “what if I never find a man who accepts me like he does” and “does this mean I’m damaged goods for the next guy?”

What a lot of people seem not to understand is that, if you're in a toxic or abusive relationship, you're already alone.

Worse, you're cohabitating with a hostile entity.

But maybe my uncommon personality type allows me to see things a bit differently.

All good points, and thanks for sharing this story!

How sad about this friend of yours.... oy.

I think SOME people can be naive about the toxicity and abuse, though. I think some honestly deny it, brush it under the rug, excuse it rationalize it, or believe somehow that they deserve it and are to blame.

I have a good friend who has BPD who honestly believes she deserves the crap her abusive husband dishes out. She believes it's her BPD that causes him to abuse her and mistreat her. She was abused as a child and inwardly falsely thinks she's unworthy of true love.

I find this to be true of many abuse victims.

A person with strong self esteem knows that if they walk away from abuse and no longer allow themselves to BE abused, that other people will congratulate them... they won't question themselves. And people with strong self esteem don't think "I can't find someone else" or "I am damaged goods".

It's frequently a low self esteem issue as well I think that keep people in toxic and abusive relationships.

SO true!

Well, unfortunately, most tend to be "what they know" too. Everyone grows up without any idea of what is supposed to be normal and healthy. And most grow up with parents that don't really KNOW how to raise a child and tend to raise their children according to their own idea of what a child is supposed to be and many parents exibit bad behaviors in front of their children not realizing how these behaviors can actually be unhealthy for their child to witness. Then, there is also the cultural messages of whatever generation a child's parents are encouraged to live by too.

Many individuals grew up encouraged to feel that if they did not excell in school, and behave certain ways that they were "not good enough". The message was to learn SOME IDEAL WAY, instead of actually being encouraged to develop one's OWN IDENTITY. Actually, some parents will say "I loved my child and would do anything for him/her", but they may not realize part of that was actually allowing that child to have their OWN identity. That means that there will be times one's child will choose to do things VERY different than what a parent would do according to whatever generation they grew up in. It can be VERY hard to say, "Ok, if that's what you really want then I will accept it".

Things our children choose to do are not always due to how we raised them either. Part of their choices, like our own choices are influenced by their own piers and their own generation too. This means there are going to be things that are different from whatever generation that came before. My daughter's generation is VERY different than the generation I grew up in. Never did I imagine same sex marriages taking place, it was not even anything that was on the radar at all in my generation. I even remember when there was a beginning of acceptance and awareness taking place saying it was ok to be attracted to the same sex. I remember how my daughter was in high school at the time and how her piers decided suddenly that it was cool to think of others of the same sex in a more sexual way. She described how the girls were all hugging and acting out in this new "cool way" too. Yet, ironically those that were really gay, still felt uncomfortable. I remember my daughter saying, "but mom, don't you get it, it's supposed to be ok to TRY anything you want with anyone". Ok, so tell me as a parent WHAT do you do with that message that your young impressionable teen child is encouraged to think?

Now, the trend is about women/females having more power, being equal. That is causing things to change as well, things unexpected too. Some of these changes can actually offend or upset a parent that always follow a certain tradition to suddenly hear their child say, "No big deal and I am going along with it". Truth is, it's not always the parent's fault when their child changes and chooses different things or way of living their lives. Often as mentioned, it can be a trend of change in their generation. It can most definitely feel like one's own child is somehow getting swept away by some kind of ocean tide and it can even be heart breaking.

I stayed in a relationship that was unhealthy for me. However, there really was not enough KNOWN at the time about what I had dealt with. I sit here and read about it and can see the toxic I had to live with, maybe chose to live with thinking it would get better too. Yet, I have to remind myself that at the time and in my own generation, LOTS of women stayed in unhealthy relationships. I married a binge alcoholic, yet, I did not KNOW at the time how to identify that and unfortunately, my father was also a binge alcoholic as was many men in his generation so it was actually a normal thing for MANY of my piers to fall victim to, not just me.

One day my therapist and I were talking and he told me to find the series "Mad Men" because it did a good job at depicting the generation my parents were part of. He explained how there was a LOT of alcoholism and NARCISSISM and womanizing and how different that generation was. He also said, just know that when you watch it, it can be a bit triggering too. So I did find it and watched it and YES there were things I remember and some of these things were also a part of my own generation too. It takes place when my parents were in their thirties, and also just after WWII as well. So the men had a very different mindset and that mindset did affect me as I struggled through my own childhood. I actually remember typing on one of those typewritters shown in that series too, even being a secretary for a while when I was very young too. (I am 63 now) so I am a child growing up in the late 50's and 60's and there was some pretty wild that took place in the 70's when I was a very young adult too. I even remember when I was in high school and got Mono so bad I ended up in the hospital and was missing a lot of school. The doctor told me "no big deal, you just worry about finding a man that is educated and has a good job to take care of you". Women were not expected to have their own careers and be self sufficient and they were encouraged to get married and have the man take care of them. That's very different then what is taking place now.

Truth is, I witnessed my father treat my mother badly and look down on her and expect her to do things HIS way. I witnessed my older brother be so badly punished and actually ABUSED because back then they did not have any idea what ADHD or learning disabilities were and these children were often treated BADLY. What they did not know is that some of these children were actually far from stupid and some actually had genuis level intelligence. They just learned differently, that's all. Lots of women stayed in unhealthy marriages, they were part of a generation that tended to encourage that and "divorce" had a negative stigma to it.

Truth is sometimes a person doesn't really KNOW what HEALTHY love is because they never witnessed it. There was a lot of "trauma bonding" that took place long before anyone gave it a name. A lot of times if a marriage failed, it was THE WOMAN'S FAULT too. Just as if she was raped, it was often considered her fault as well. Women did not talk about it because they felt too much SHAME. I see many comments from individuals that ask "why did this woman not report it or say anything, why wait until 30 and 40 years later?". Thats because these individuals are only thinking about what takes place NOW and NOT how it was all those years ago. So many don't know the kind of POWER men had over women all those years ago. My mother had her gynocologist try to rape her. She never talked about that FOR YEARS. People like to think these bad things did not happen years ago WELL THEY DID happen, but people where ashamed and did not talk about it like they do now.

There are times when a person stays in a toxic relationship because they are genuinely afraid and also they even get brainwashed because the individual CAN at times be kind and loving and then be mean and controlling at other times. Sometimes they believe they are not worthy of something healthier too. And other times there is something FAMILIAR about it that they themselves grew up experiencing and witnessing and thinking is "normal".

Yes, I think it can definitely be familiar to those who grew up in a toxic, abusive or dysfunctional family environment. But then as adults through dating and relationships, ideally we learn much more about what a healthy relationship looks like. If one never had one, then one may never know. But something always should feel "off", even if one has not been exposed to a healthy relationship dynamic. And by "off", I mean, always feeling upset, always feeling low and always feeling put down and treated "less than".

I grew up with a somewhat toxic environment, but I knew through the abusive relationships I personally had that something was drastically WRONG. I saw healthier other relationships around me, not full of drama, fighting, negativity and abuse, and I knew the difference. Then I educated myself on what a healthy relationship consists of and what an unhealthy relationship consists of, and I developed my self esteem on my own.

I honestly think a lot of this boils down to low self esteem issues. People with strong self esteem walk away from abuse. Those with low self esteem remain in the relationship and try to fix the person and "make it work".

True, some don't even realize they have low self esteem. My mother had low self esteem and felt she was not good at anything and the way my father treated her contributed to that. However, she was actually very smart and resourseful in her own way. A person can have low self esteem and yet be very brave at the same time.

In my life, it seems like it's either being alone or have someone; and then that one I have in my life is toxic. It seems like that's the only choice I have.

There are toxic people and then there are those who are alright but not perfect. After all no one's perfect, right? But in that case, where do you draw the line between not perfect and toxic?

Right now for me I just have one friend. We have a pretty good relationship but we argue a lot. He gets very critical with me and I find it annoying more than helpful And then I have my sister, and she's all that I have in my family. My family was toxic and her included.

The line is drawn between not perfect and toxic when the toxic person effects one's mental health negatively. If one feels constantly drained, upset, low or very negative after being with a person, then you know that they are toxic to your mental health. That's how you know the difference.

And when someone who is constantly critical of you? Yes, that can be toxic as well. I would suggest expanding your social circle and meeting new people. Life does not have to be this way.

Toxic and perfect are both two extremes, they both don’t bring any peace. This reminds me a lot of me (and why maybe I’m hesitant to go back into fully committing to dating) because I would either attract psychos or boring/no spark kind of guys. When I was being honest with myself I realized the reason I was attracted (sorry to say) to toxic unavailable men is because that was what was modeled to me growing up.

And I was also looking for the perfect man by the way! And I made the criteria so impossible it was funny. This was me reflecting my own feelings of inadequacy. When I liked a guy I would always find something wrong in them so that I could end the relationship quickly. The ones who had so much wrong in them, I wanted to nurture and embrace them because “I understand what he’s going through”

I can’t give you any updates now because I’m not fully in the dating space (in and out). But I definitely know I deserve quality and I’m not afraid to block someone after a week of chatting. Even if I was never raised by one or had one as a friend, I know I could match a good man with the love I can give. And that’s all that matters really!

[QUOTE=Have Hope;6783124
And when someone who is constantly critical of you? Yes, that can be toxic as well. I would suggest expanding your social circle and meeting new people. Life does not have to be this way.
[/QUOTE]

I agree with that. However I have tried to expand my social circle and meeting new people and it hasn't
worked out for various reasons.

How did you try meeting people?

Well I had a horrible relationship I was able to get out of Thankfully.

But .... I want to touch on something that gets little to no attention

My husband was previously married for 18 years, they have 3 boys.

She verbally and mentally abused him from 3rd anniversary on .. anniversary 16 she started hitting him. He never hit her, he was raised you never hit a woman. He demanded couples counseling.. she flat refused.

One night she beat him 2 black eyes , split lips in numerous places and a broken nose. He kept trying to leave she would not let him have the car keys he went outside she followed , lots of yelling cold show up , it’s obvious he was the one beaten. The cops told HIM to go stay somewhere else..

So men can be abused just as easily.
Most men will NOT admit there partner is abusing them.

So any men out there ... find a Therapist and come up with a plan to leave , and leave.