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David and I have been together for four years, but his actions have caused me a lot of emotional pain. Despite this, I find that I cannot let it go. He often ignores my feelings, making me feel unimportant. He criticizes me regularly, which makes me feel insecure and unworthy. David tends to ignore me when I need support, leaving me feeling isolated and alone. Despite these hurtful experiences, I still feel deeply connected to him, and I don’t understand why. I want to be able to leave the relationship, but I can’t get to it myself. Can you help me understand why I’m struggling to let go of this relationship, despite the pain David has caused me? Why am I so attached to someone who hurts me??
Answer:
This is a fairly common concern that people come to therapy with: not being able to let go of someone who has hurt them and continues to hurt them, despite wanting to. This is something I share with many of my clients: that being with someone like that often comes with a lot of shame. Maybe you have friends who keep telling you, “Just break up with them!” or, “You have to love yourself enough to walk away from this.” Such statements, even if well-intentioned, often bring a lot of judgment. That often makes it difficult for the person stuck in a bad relationship to open up to their friends.
The first order of business here is to free yourself from shame. It’s not easy to walk away from someone you love, even if he or she hurts you. This does not make you weak or less worthy of respect. There are several reasons why it is so difficult to leave such a relationship:
- You wait and hope desperately that they change. There must have been good parts to your relationship. No relationship is all good or all bad. You could hold on to the good and give it multiple second chances in the hope that maybe this time it will be different. After all, hope is stubborn and not easily abandoned.
- You want to believe he’s better than this, and maybe he has been in the past. All people have the deep subconscious belief that bad things cannot happen to them. It is what gives us the courage to go through life, even when our safety is not guaranteed. This creates the urge to deny how bad things really are in your relationship and how poorly you are being treated. You may accept it intellectually, but not emotionally.
- Part of you may believe that you deserve to be treated this way or that it is okay for you to be treated this way. Of course you don’t want that, but that doesn’t change your belief. It can be helpful to check your self-esteem and work to increase it. As the quote goes, “We accept the love we think we deserve.”
- The known evil is less terrifying than the unknown. You know what to expect in your relationship. You may even be able to predict your partner’s reaction. But there is safety in this familiarity—you know what it is and what it will be like. Breaking up would mean throwing yourself into the unknown, which offers opportunities to get better and worse. Just a friendly reminder: fear often lies to us, and we often suffer more in our heads than in reality.
- Maybe your partner is good at crumbling you with affection. Treating you well every now and then is just enough to keep the hope alive in you that things can get better. This is a common technique used in emotional manipulation. Keep your eyes open and avoid falling into the trap.
- Finally, you may also feel responsible for your partner’s happiness and progress. Maybe you entered this relationship thinking that love could change him. I’m sure you know this, but it’s really not your responsibility to make sure others are happy or to make sure they grow and heal. Your primary responsibility is to yourself.
As we say goodbye, I just want to tell you that you don’t need the attachment to go away to leave someone. Sometimes, to protect yourself, you leave someone, even if you still love him or her. You can’t always reason with your attachment, but you can make a choice for yourself that keeps you physically, mentally, and emotionally safe.
Frequently Asked Questions
There are many reasons why you may have feelings for someone who hurt you:
1. You hope they can change
2. You remember the good times with this person and want to go back to them
3. Your feelings linger from the time this person treated you well
4. You forgive their actions because you may think it’s okay for them to treat you this way
5. You fear the possibility that you won’t have feelings for him or her
1. Give it time. It is important to be kind and patient with yourself, just as you would be with a child.
2. Spend time creating moments of joy in your day. These little bursts of happiness can give you enough to get through it
3. Invest in yourself. Do something for yourself that you have always wanted to do. Show yourself the right way to be loved
4. Work on increasing your self-esteem and separate your self-worth from the way others treat you
5. Spend time with people who make you feel good about yourself
6. Consider therapy or counseling
We often keep going back to the same situation even though we know the answer because we want it to be different. Hope is stubborn, and it is this hope that brings us back to them.
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#attached #hurt