Tl;dr – My friend admits she’s in a toxic relationship but doesn’t want to leave
I know this is probably a commonly discussed topic, but I’d love to hear your opinions. My friend has had this guy in the picture for quite some time and over the months, it’s become blatantly obvious he is not a good person by any means. He lies, manipulates people, is a narcissist, and tries to isolate her away from other guys (this is not an exhaustive list). She always says how they’re not dating, but it doesn’t really matter what the title is if you still spend the time and entertain a guy like he is of romantic interest to such a degree. She’s also said if he wanted to date her she would date him. He has told her he doesn’t want to date but has tried to isolate her from other men so they are pretty much dating.
To keep this post short and simple, I’ve tried to ask her why she has no interest in leaving him or at least try to begin to distance herself from him and she won’t give me an answer. I guess my general question is, why do people stay in bad relationships when they acknowledge they’re bad? He’s already affected her relationships before in bad ways so I feel like it’s pretty obvious to at least acknowledge that person is not providing a net positive to your life. He’s also put her in dangerous situations among many other situations that are not good for her.
The only answer I can come up with is whatever benefit he is providing her outweighs the costs of this guy’s behavior. But besides this I’m genuinely perplexed. Any thoughts? All answers are appreciated. Even ones that might question if I’m correct in my assessment. Thanks!
6 comments
Sometime we come from extremely toxic relationships to just bad relationships and see that this new person isn’t as bad as the last and we think it’s the best it’ll get.
Took me some time to change my mindset in life but now I know my own worth, I know the difference between good, bad and toxic, and I’m more confident to say no to people that could potential be terrible for my life.
I hope your friend finds her way and I hope you have the patience to be there for her if she needs you
>whatever ***perceived*** benefit he is providing her outweighs the costs of this guy’s behavior
You’ve mostly answered your own question with one small change. It’s pretty much why anyone does anything – they believe they are getting more out of the action than they are putting in.
There’s something she gets out of the relationship with him. Could be attention. Could be intimacy in private. Could be that despite how bad he is, he’s better than what she’s had in the past so she believes it’s a step up. Whatever her perception is, that’s why she stays.
I’m glad you’re still going to be there for her. I completely understand you distancing yourself from that guy. It’s important to take care of yourself as well. I hope more of her friends know the situation she’s in and are as patient as you
Likely a combination of high interest level in him and low self-esteem. And for all the bad things he does, she picked him so that should tell you a little about her that maybe you don’t want to admit to yourself.
Sometimes because it’s complicated. Lets put a couple of assumptions on the table. 1) She actually has genuine feelings for the guy. Those are already powerful reality warping factors even for the most healthy and genuine of people i.e. you may help out people you run into on the street who are in need in help, you’ll fly/drive across the country for a family member. 2) covert/atmospheric/ambient abuse is *incredibly hard* to detect, process, understand and then call out at the best of times, let alone when you’re in love like 1). 3) This guy has developed emotionally abusive skills to satisfy his ego at the expense of other people’s mental/emotional well-being. And here’s the thing about these skills; seems like a lot of people have them, right? Does that mean that everyone who falls for it is stupid/it’s incredible that so many people do this shit? No, people learn to do it because they weren’t taught any better/they don’t care/most importantly, *it fucking works*. Abuse can take over your mind like crack cocaine; abuse isn’t meant to make you feel bad in a way that will make you run away, it’s intended to make you feel bad in a way that requires you to *get another hit to stop the cravings/fill the lack that the abusive person is creating.*
Those are just a couple of factors, and with those on the table, the situation is already immensely more complicated than just ‘this person sucks, you should stay away’. I called out a former flings abusive behaviour in a friend group over christmas after I’d already distanced myself for years and finally worked up the emotional energy to say my piece. I did it with a lot of grace, skill and nuance, and forethought for the consequences. It was like a goddam bomb went off. Because things don’t work rationally of ‘well I tell people the truth and they’ll all understand and it’ll be ok’. People have emotional investments, their own blindspots, traumas, their own abusive natures, see the world in different ways. Many people are terrible at being vulnerable with themselves and with others, which is what you need to be in order to actually perceive, understand, react to, and discuss abusive situations. In my case, 6 months out and I’m still dealing with the fallout with 3rd party friends while the main players are too afraid to face me because I broke their egos by pointing out that they were enabling and sheltering a profoundly abusive person, for years, and I knew it all along but didn’t say anything while I was in closer proximity because they would have lashed out.
So, that was the aftermath of my situation, what do you think the potential aftermath is for your friend? What about her mutual friends? The time she’s invested, and the ego to admit she made a mistake? What if the guy gets angrier, jealous, stalks her, intimidates her? Is she ready to take that step? There’s a lot of things on the checklist to go through in order to detach, and the best you can do is to try to gently plant seeds and then sit back and wait. Rarely does anything good ever happen quickly. Give it time.
Your friend has low self-esteem and low emotional intelligence. You said in another comment that you think your friend has high self-esteem, but most of the time, people love to mask and overcompensate for low self-esteem by coming across as having high self-esteem. A person who truly understands themselves and truly understands that they deserve to be treated well does NOT tolerate people like this “boyfriend”. There isn’t anything you can do. Someone else commented that you have posted about this same friend before and that she has other issues going on, which makes sense. She also lacks the maturity to see that she really should just leave this guy but instead, she’s choosing to keep this drama in her life. Hopefully she will wake up. Until then though, just let her know you are there for her but don’t try too hard to convince her to leave ’cause that’s her own decision to make.