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The story is as old as the world: she is beautiful, smart, successful, but for some reason dries for years for someone who, by all accounts, is not worth even her little finger. A selfish dork, an infantile type, eternally married — she is drawn to give all her love to a person who is not capable of a healthy relationship. Why are many women willing to endure, hope and wait for a man who is obviously unworthy of them?
We are told: you are not a couple. We ourselves feel that the man of our dreams does not treat us the way we deserve. But we are not leaving, we are making even more efforts to win it. We are hooked, stuck up to our ears. But why?
1.
The more we invest in a person, the more we become attached to him.
When we don’t get the attention and love we want right away, we think we deserve it. We invest more and more in relationships, but at the same time, our frustration, emptiness, and feelings of worthlessness only grow. Psychologist Jeremy Nicholson called this the sunk cost principle. When we take care of other people, take care of them, solve their problems, we begin to love and appreciate them more because we hope that the invested love cannot but return to us with “interest”.
Therefore, before dissolving into another person, it is worth considering: have we set an internal counter? Are we expecting something in return? How unconditional and undemanding is our love? And are we ready for such a sacrifice? If at the heart of your relationship there is initially no love, respect and devotion, selflessness on the one hand will not bring the cherished fruits. In the meantime, the giver’s emotional dependency will only intensify.
2.
We accept the version of love that we deserve in our own eyes.
Perhaps in childhood there was a visiting or drinking dad or in our youth our heart was broken. Perhaps by choosing a painful scenario, we are playing the old play about rejection, the unattainability of dreams and loneliness. And the longer we go in a spiral, the more self-esteem suffers, the more difficult it is to part with the usual motive, in which pain and pleasure are intertwined.
But if we realize that he, this motive, is already present in our lives, we can consciously forbid ourselves to enter into such frustrating relationships. Every time we compromise, we set the precedent for another failed romance. We can admit that we deserve more than a relationship with a person who is not very passionate about us.
3.
It’s brain chemistry
Larry Young, director of the Center for Translational Social Neuroscience at Emory University, concluded that losing a partner through a breakup or death is akin to drug withdrawal. His study showed that common vole mice exhibited high levels of chemical stress and were in a state of high anxiety after separating from a mate. The mouse returned again and again to the couple’s common habitat, which led to the production of the «attachment hormone» oxytocin and reduced anxiety.
An ancient defense mechanism can be traced in the desire to continue to keep in touch at any cost.
Larry Young argues that the behavior of the vole is akin to that of humans: the mice return not because they really want to be with their partners, but because they cannot bear the stress of separation.
The neurologist emphasizes that people who have been subjected to verbal or physical abuse in marriage often refuse to end the relationship, contrary to common sense. The pain of violence is less intense than the pain of a break.
But why are women more likely to tolerate the misbehavior of their chosen ones? In accordance with the theories of evolutionary biology, women, on the one hand, are initially more selective in choosing a partner. The survival of offspring largely depended on the correct choice of a companion in the prehistoric past.
On the other hand, in the desire to keep in touch in the future at any cost, an ancient defense mechanism can be traced. A woman could not raise a child alone and needed the presence of at least some, but a male.
In other words, it is easier for a man to leave the relationship in terms of his future reproductive prospects. For women, the risks are higher, both when entering a relationship and when it breaks up.
Source: Justmytype.ca.