Why Is It So Hard to End a Toxic Relationship?
Toxic relationships are hard to manage but they can be even harder to end. The realization that you’re in one can spring up on you out of the blue. When you realize it, it can be a huge shock and you may be unsure of what to do next.
You might not even leave as soon as you realize it. It's normal for people to stay in relationships even though they know they shouldn’t. One way to make it easier for you to end a toxic relationship is to understand what makes it so hard to leave in the first place. Knowledge is power and power may be exactly what you need to move on.
Because Leaving Might Make You Feel Like a Victim
Part of recognizing that your relationship is toxic is admitting to yourself that your partner hurt you. More often than not, in toxic relationships that hurt comes in the form of physical, emotional, or verbal abuse.
It can be hard to think of yourself as a victim of abuse. It’s a word with a lot of stigma even though anyone can find themselves in an abusive relationship. Thinking of leaving because you’re a victim can make you feel weak. Calling yourself a survivor might seem wrong if you don’t consider the abuse to be serious enough.
Understand that you don’t have to label yourself. If you leave, it’s not because you were too weak to make things work, it’s because you recognize that you deserve better.
Because You May Feel Like You Deserve the Relationship
While in toxic relationships, we are in survival mode and sometimes that means saying and doing things you would never usually do. You may feel like an awful person because of the way the toxicity makes you act out in self-defense. A toxic partner will throw those behaviors in your face and make you feel like you’re the bad guy.
Gaslighting you like that can make you feel like you don’t deserve better. Even if you recognize that your partner is terrible, you may think of yourself as being equally bad. You need to understand that toxic relationships can change us for the worse. When you end the relationship, you’ll find that you aren’t who your partner makes you out to be.
Because You May Be Co-Dependent on Your Partner
Co-dependency is a big part of toxic relationships. A co-dependent relationship dynamic makes it hard for people to leave because:
You have trouble cutting contact with your ex-partner
You have trouble doing things alone
You didn’t have enough personal time in the relationship to know who you are
You feel like you can’t be happy without your partner
Your partner guilt-trips you into staying
You rely on your partner’s opinions too much
You constantly feel like you need to fix your relationship or your partner
Because Change Is Scary
If you end things with your partner, it could be the start of a lifestyle change. It could mean that you move to a new city, a new home, change jobs, and change your friend group. All of this change is scary, especially if your current support system is made up of your partner’s friends and family.
Change is scary, but only for a moment. Eventually, you get used to life without your partner. Once you make that leap, you’ll be more confident than ever because you proved to yourself that you can do hard things.
