Why Women Stay In Unhealthy Relationships

Why Do We Stay In Unhealthy Relationships?

So why do we stay? Why do we stay with someone who makes us unhappy?

He will of course not change so why don’t we just leave…?

This is a hard question to answer and to be honest one we don’t want to answer not even to ourselves. Its because if we are currently in one then we firstly don’t want to admit to ourselves as then we have to face the hard question is why won’t we leave?

So why do we stay with partner who are not good for us? Stay in unhealthy relationships where we are unhappy?

The truth is it is human nature not to want to be alone. We stick with unsuitable partners because we fear being alone. Also even more so there is the fear of the unknown, and it’s then becomes the case of better the devil you know (the situation as it is now), than the devil you don’t know (facing the world on your own).

Unfortunately throughout the ages a woman’s worth was first and foremost her beauty and youth which the better that was, meant the higher status and more well-heeled husband she would be able to get. If she is lucky then that marriage would also be a happy one, however if the marriage turns out to be unhappy then she would be stuck in an unhappy marriage. To leave would mean leaving behind the security of that marriage and what it provides. You can see this happening very often in modern life where women, especially those that married someone well off, cannot bring themselves to leave because of financial reasons and hence stuck in unhealthy and possibly abusive relationships. And it becomes evident when you see middle aged women end up in poverty once they divorced. Reasons could be either since they had married well, they did not think of involving themselves in the financials of the marriage, or do not have the skills to be able to earn anywhere near the amount they need to keep their former lifestyle.  

There is also a fear that there is no one else around, and/or how else are we going to find someone else? Fear that there will be no other partners if we leave this one, as bad as he is he is there and a known quantity. This relates to low self-esteem.

 The other thing is that if women did not have much relationship experience, particularly if this is a first relationship then she would not even know that this is an unhealthy relationship as she will not have anything to compare to. Or if all the past relationships have been like this one then it becomes a “normal” to her as she has not experienced what a healthy relationship is like. Take the case of Justine. When she first moved out of home she met Chris who became her first boyfriend and she moved in with him. However she was the one that had to work to pay all the bills because Chris (who was healthy, fit, and able) did not want to do any of the jobs that were available. Not only that, after work she had to come home and cook dinner for him and do all the cleaning, while he had spent the whole day at home surfing on the internet. Everyone could see that this was not a healthy or “normal” relationship. You have here a case where there is a partnership but one partner was doing all the work and taking on all the responsibility and the other partner was freeloading. She did all this because she loved him and could not see anything wrong with this situation simply because she had nothing to compare this relationship to.

 Therefore it is very important to know what a healthy relationship should be like in the first instance so that when you do find a partner you would be able to tell.