How automatic thoughts keep you stuck in relationships—don’t let them control you
I’d say on average, women in a relationship tend to not want to break up until long after its clear things are terrible. Not every woman, or even most women, just, this seems to happen more often than women breaking up carelessly and regretting it. And when we stay in a relationship far longer than we ought, it’s often driven by unconscious reasons we accept automatically, without ever really noticing them. They might be totally untrue or at least exaggerated, but we listen to them anyway without realizing that. It’s helpful to instead examine them and align them with the truth. Once we become aware of them, we can question and challenge them.
A friend of mine honestly wasn’t excited about her boyfriend, sometimes even to the point of disdain (which she felt terrible for). It was because he was unemployed, not looking, and had no clear ambitions. She wasn’t expecting someone to provide for her; she’s a tech worker with her own money and can take care of herself. It just bothered her. But when she thought about this dissatisfaction, she’d always immediately reject it and walk it back with thoughts like, “no I wouldn’t leave him because he’s ‘not ambitious’, that’s so superficial! What am I, a gold-digger? I’m not like that.” Her identity felt threatened. These automatic judgments in her mind shamed her away from considering leaving, though the fact remained the relationship wasn’t working. Maybe you’re judging her too, as you read this. If you did find yourself judging, think about why. I will say, I have seen multiple people with this same complaint just keep forcing the unhappy relationship (even marry), and no the problem did not get better, for any of them. But the point here isn’t any specific reason to stay or go. It’s stopping to examine our automatic thoughts, without premature judgement.
What strikes me here is that nothing in her life suggests that she’s a shallow gold-digger at all. She’s successful in a career she enjoys, she pays for half of everything on dates, she lives frugally. She has friends and family from all walks of life. So, this shame crops up despite real-life evidence against it. But she reacts reflexively to defend herself, and then ends up stuck. The cycle of automatic thought, shame, and defense/escape moves so quickly that she doesn’t notice or question it.
I’m here to say: blindly obeying that critical voice is the not only way to keep shame at bay. You can pause (weakening the cycle), and then examine its claims logically, asking in detail how true and reasonable they are:
Could they be part true and part false?
What’s the evidence for and against?
Could they be blown out of proportion?
Could there be alternative explanations?
Could they be guessing about the future, based on unfounded assumptions?
With this questioning process, we can make better decisions.
Another example would be when he sometimes yells and gets very mean towards you, you give him “grace” (bonus serving of this psychological conditioning if you’re Christian) because you’re “a compassionate, forgiving person” and “I did mean things to him too; I deserved it.” Even more out there, “If I break up with him over something like this, how will I ever have a successful marriage? Am I going to be so demanding over every little thing?”
Our minds can generate weird, emotionally-charged excuses like this extremely quickly. That protective mechanism is not an intrinsically entirely bad thing (e.g., it can keep an already-married couple running efficiently through minor misunderstandings and hiccups). But left unchecked, it might eventually convince you to let go of fundamental standards and boundaries. Some examples: if he’s cheated on you, if he treats you with contempt even just sometimes, or if you feel physically or psychologically unsafe with him. You don’t want important issues like these to be swept aside because your brain instantaneously made excuses, and you accepted them by default.
If you’re holding on to a relationship you strongly suspect isn’t right: What positive, admirable thing does staying seem to say about you? Could it imply that you have determination, patience, or compassion? “I’m loyal.” “I’m not a quitter.” Whatever it is might be very important to you. Can you find the evidence of your having this lovely quality in other arenas of your life, outside this relationship, like your friendships and family ties? (E.g. “I’m loyal, I stuck by my friend through the years when the rest of the group ditched her.”) Or perhaps in your career, volunteer work, or hobbies? Look in other realms for these reference experiences when you’re over-indexing on relationships to form your identity, that show you’re kind and forgiving or what have you.
If you already demonstrate those fine qualities in other realms of your life, you don’t have to stay with this person to prove yourself. There is nothing you must prove that can only be proven romantically. There are several legs on the stool of your identity, not just the one single tippy stem of a romantic relationship.
Your sense of identity is constantly being updated and informed by the feedback you get from the outside world, other people’s reactions, and your own judgements. But never let your identity flap around wildly in the wind just based on your romantic interactions. How you see yourself must be bolstered before continuing to date, to achieve good outcomes.
