Why do women with masochistic persistence choose destructive relationships? They practice again and again in order to eventually decide that it is easier to completely give up love than to experience new disappointments.
According to writer Peg Streep, the problem often lies in childhood experiences that continue to shape our behavior throughout our adult lives. In her book, Daughter Detox: Healing an Unloving Mother and Reclaiming Your Life, she explains why girls who lack parental love will continue to choose the wrong men into adulthood.
The book is based on data obtained from research and interviews with women. I will provide excerpts from an article in which Peg Streep outlines the main reasons why an unloved daughter ends up in a toxic relationship.
She reaches out to familiar situations
All people gravitate towards situations and relationships that replicate them past experience. Research shows that we are more likely to form bonds with people who resemble our parents. This process is unconscious and difficult to control.
It's good if you have loving parents who made it clear that the world is safe and people can be trusted - you will probably look for a partner who will give you the same feelings. Unfortunately, an unloved daughter will also be drawn to traumatic and uncomfortable situations.
Receptive to nice gestures
Mass culture imposes the image of love as a storm of emotions and passions that knock you off your feet. The one who didn't get enough parental attention As a child, beautiful gestures and gifts can easily confuse. A guy who is reserved and thoughtful and slow to act will come across as boring or unsexy, although this may not necessarily be true. For those who are not spoiled by love, it is difficult to distinguish the external picture from the essence and understand the true intentions of the partner.
She mistakes drama for passion
This important observation is made in Craig Malkin's book Rethinking Narcissism. I think many of us have experienced similar emotions:
Romantic suspense often excites us.
Girls who are not spoiled by affection learn from childhood that love must be earned, one must fight for it, suffer, and it is never given for nothing. Negative feelings like anger, pain and fear they accept as an integral part of the relationship and continue to feed on this unhealthy psychological arousal in the future. Being on such a roller coaster may seem exciting, but that is not how love or commitment should be measured.
Doesn't notice how they really treat her
If a girl grew up in a family where verbal abuse was the norm and approval had to be constantly earned, she may not even realize bad attitude partner. This seems to contradict common sense, and the person who survived negative situations should avoid them in the future. But those who lack love lose own desires and needs.
We all try to normalize our experiences and think that by severing past ties, we are getting rid of their influence. However, overcoming childhood trauma is much more difficult than it seems, and unloved girls are vulnerable to it.
Blames himself for everything
Even as a child, the girl learned that the reason for all failures was flaws in her character. Unhealthy self-criticism has led to the fact that she is now inclined to blame herself and does not see her partner’s share of responsibility for what is happening. If the guy responds to her remark with aggression, she will decide that she chose the wrong time to talk, although in fact some scoundrel simply does not want to admit his mistakes.
Often it is self-criticism that prevents you from seeing what’s wrong with you toxic person, and leave unhealthy relationships.
Doesn't trust his own perceptions
Girls who are told from childhood that they are too sensitive, do not understand everything correctly, or should not react this way, stop trusting their thoughts and feelings. Neglectful parents teach their child that their emotions don't matter, whether they say so directly or show it through their behavior.
As a result, vulnerable and susceptible girls grow up, unable to understand their own feelings.
Afraid of being alone
In childhood, a person who lacks support and warmth believes that he is the only child who is not loved by his parents. This feeling of isolation is as destructive as the lack of love itself. Because she was denied approval from her mother or father, she still judges herself by how others treat her, seeks reassurance, and obsesses over the opinions of others.
In this sense, loneliness seems to confirm what was instilled in the girl in childhood - she is ugly, not worthy good attitude and doesn't deserve love. Unfortunately, this is with a large share will likely push her into relationships that will support these beliefs.
- Forgiveness as a strategy is needed to calculate the risks of revenge in comparison with the possible benefits of further cooperation.
- Forgiveness does not mean going into denial or pretending that there was no offense. In fact, forgiveness confirms the fact of the offense, because otherwise it would not be required.
- Forgiveness also depends on the behavior of the offender. If he admits his guilt, nothing threatens the self-esteem and self-respect of the forgiver.
- The desire to forgive can become an obstacle to real healing, or it can, on the contrary, allow you to finally completely break off relations with your mother.
The question of forgiveness in a situation where you have been severely offended or betrayed is a very difficult topic. Especially if we're talking about about a mother whose main responsibility is to love and care. And this is where she failed you. The consequences will remain with you for life, will be felt not only in childhood, but also in adulthood.
The poet Alexander Pope wrote: “To err is human; forgive - to the gods." It's a cultural cliché: the ability to forgive, especially a severely traumatic insult or violence, is usually taken as a marker of moral or spiritual evolution. The authority of this interpretation is supported by the Judeo-Christian tradition, for example, it is manifested in the Lord's Prayer.
It is important to see and recognize such cultural biases because an unloved daughter will feel obligated to forgive her mother. Psychological pressure can be provided by close friends, acquaintances, relatives, complete strangers and even therapists. In addition, the need to appear morally better than one’s own mother plays a role.
But if we can agree that forgiveness is morally right, then the essence of the concept itself (what it is and is not) raises many questions. Does forgiveness erase everything bad that a person has done, does it excuse him? Or is there another mechanism here? Who needs it more: the forgiven or the forgiving? Is this a way to release anger? Does forgiveness give more benefits, than vindictiveness? Or does it turn us into weaklings and conniving people? We have been trying to answer these questions for years.
Psychology of forgiveness
Since the dawn of history, people were more likely to survive in groups rather than alone or in pairs, so forgiveness was theoretically a mechanism for prosocial behavior. Revenge not only separates you from the offender and his allies, but can also go against the overall interests of the group. In a recent article by a psychologist from the University North Carolina Janie L. Burnett and her colleagues hypothesize that forgiveness as a strategy is needed to calculate the risks of revenge in comparison with the possible benefits of further cooperation.
Something like this: A younger guy has taken your girlfriend, but you realize that he is one of the most strong people in the tribe and his strength will be greatly needed during the flood period. What will you do? Will you take revenge so that others will be disgraced, or will you take into account the possibility of a future collaboration and will you forgive him? A series of experiments among college students showed that risk taking in relationships was influenced by great influence the idea of forgiveness.
Forgiveness includes: empathy for the offender, a certain amount of trust in him and the ability not to return again and again to what the offender did
Other studies show that certain personality traits make people more forgiving. Or, more accurately, more likely to believe that forgiveness is a useful and appropriate strategy in situations where they have been treated unfairly. Evolutionary psychologist Michael McCullough writes in his article that people who know how to benefit from relationships forgive more often. The same applies to emotionally stable people, religious people, deeply believers.
Forgiveness includes several psychological processes: empathy for the offender, a certain amount of trust in him and the ability not to return again and again to what the offender did. The article does not mention attachment, but it can be noted that when we talk about anxious attachment (it manifests itself if a person did not have the necessary emotional support), the victim is unlikely to be able to overcome all these steps.
A meta-analytic approach suggests that there is a relationship between self-control and forgiveness. The desire for revenge is more “primitive”, and a constructive approach is a sign of stronger self-control. (Sounds like just another cultural bias, frankly.)
Kiss of the Porcupine and Other Insights
Frank Fincham, an expert on forgiveness, offers the image of two porcupines kissing as an emblem of the paradoxes of human relationships. Imagine: frosty night these two huddle close to each other to keep warm, enjoying the closeness. And suddenly the thorn of one digs into the skin of the other. Oh! Humans are social creatures, so we become vulnerable to “oops” moments when seeking intimacy. Fincham carefully breaks down what forgiveness is and is not, and this analysis is worth taking note.
Need to deal with negative emotions(the consequences of the offender’s actions) and replace the urge to fight back with goodwill. It requires a lot of emotional and cognitive work
Forgiveness does not mean going into denial or pretending that there was no offense. In fact, forgiveness confirms the fact of the offense, because otherwise it would not be required. In addition, causing offense is confirmed as a conscious act: unconscious actions, again, do not require forgiveness. For example, when a neighbor's tree branch breaks your car's windshield, you don't need to forgive anyone. But when your neighbor takes a branch and breaks the glass out of anger, everything is different.
According to Fincham, forgiveness does not imply reconciliation or reunion. While reconciliation requires forgiveness, you can forgive someone and still want nothing to do with them. Finally, and most importantly, forgiveness is not a single action, it is a process. You need to cope with negative emotions (the consequences of the offender’s actions) and replace the urge to fight back with goodwill. This requires a lot of emotional and cognitive work, so the statement "I'm trying to forgive you" is absolutely true and has great value.
Does forgiveness always work?
From own experience or from anecdotes you already know the answer to the question of whether forgiveness always works: in short, no, not always. Let's take a look at a study that analyzes negative aspects this process. The article entitled "The Doormat Effect" could be called a cautionary tale for daughters who expect to forgive their mothers and continue their relationship with them.
Much of the research focuses on the benefits of forgiveness, so the work social psychologists Laura Luchis, Eli Finkel and their colleagues look like a sort of black sheep. They found that forgiveness only works when certain conditions are met—namely, when the offender has repented and tried to change his behavior.
If this happens, there is no threat to the self-esteem and self-respect of the forgiver. But if the offender continues to behave as usual, or even worse - perceives forgiveness as a new excuse for breaking trust, this, of course, will undermine the self-esteem of the person who will feel deceived and used. Although the bulk of the study recommends forgiveness almost as a panacea, there is also a paragraph: “The reactions of victims and offenders have a large impact on the situation after abuse.”
If your mother hasn't admitted her mistake and promised to work with you to change, your forgiveness may be just a way for her to see you as a handy doormat again.
The victim's self-respect and self-esteem are determined not only by the decision to forgive the offender or not, but also by whether the offender's actions will signal safety for the victim and his importance.
If your mother hasn't laid her cards on the table by openly acknowledging how she treated you and promising to work with you to change, then perhaps your forgiveness is just a way for her to see you as a comfortable doormat again.
Dance of denial
Doctors and researchers agree that forgiveness of offenders is the basis of the ability to build close relationships, especially marriages. But with some reservations. The relationship should be equal, without an imbalance of power, when both partners are equally interested in this connection and put equal effort into it. The relationship between a mother and an unloved child is by definition unequal, even when the child grows up. He still needs mother's love and support that he did not receive.
The desire to forgive can become an obstacle to real healing - the daughter will begin to underestimate her own suffering and engage in self-deception
The desire to forgive can become an obstacle to real healing - the daughter will begin to underestimate her own suffering and engage in self-deception. This can be called the “dance of denial”: the mother’s actions and words are logically explained and fit into some version of the norm. “She doesn’t understand that she’s hurting me”; “Her own childhood was unhappy, and she simply does not know that it could be different”; “Perhaps she is right and I really am taking everything too personally.”
The ability to forgive is perceived as a sign of moral superiority, which sets us apart from a whole host of vindictive offended people. Therefore, the daughter may feel that if she reaches this mark, she will finally receive the most desired thing in the world: her mother's love.
Perhaps what needs to be talked about is not whether you will forgive your mother, but when and for what reason you will do so.
Forgiveness after a breakup
“Forgiveness comes with healing, and healing begins with honesty and self-love. By forgiveness I don’t mean “It’s okay, I understand, you just made a mistake, you didn’t do it out of malice.” We give out such “ordinary” forgiveness every day, because people are not perfect and make mistakes. But I'm talking about a different kind of forgiveness. Like this: “I really understand what you did, it was terrible and unacceptable, it scarred me for life. But I move forward, the scar heals, and I no longer hold on to you.” This is the kind of forgiveness I strive for as I heal from trauma. However, forgiveness is not the main goal. Main goal– healing. Forgiveness is the result of healing."
Many unloved daughters consider forgiveness the last step on the path to liberation. They seem to focus less on forgiving their mothers and more on cutting ties with them. You are still emotionally involved in the relationship if you continue to feel anger: worrying about how cruelly your mother treated you, how unfair it is that she was your mother in the first place. In this case, forgiveness becomes a complete and irrevocable severance of the connection.
The decision to forgive your mother is a difficult one, it mainly depends on your motivation and intentions
But one of the daughters did describe the difference between forgiveness and breaking ties:
“I will not turn the other cheek and extend an olive branch (ever again). The closest thing to forgiveness for me is to free myself from this story in some Buddhist sense. Constantly ruminating on this topic poisons the brain, and when I catch myself thinking such thoughts, I try to focus on the present moment. I concentrate on breathing. Again, and again, and again. As many times as needed. Depression is thinking about the past, anxiety is thinking about the future. The solution is to realize that you live for today. Compassion also stops the whole toxic process, so I think about what made my mother like this. But it's all for my own brain. Forgiveness? No".
The decision to forgive your mother is a complex one and depends largely on your motivation and intentions.
I am often asked if I have forgiven my own mother. No, I didn't forgive you. To me, deliberate cruelty to children is unforgivable, and she is clearly guilty of this. But if one of the components of forgiveness is the ability to free yourself, then this is a completely different matter. The truth is, I never think about my mother unless I write about her. In a sense, this is the real liberation.
About the expert
, American publicist. Author of 11 books about family relationships. One of them, “The Art of Retreat,” co-written with Alan Bernstein, has been translated into Russian (Potpourri, 2014). Currently working on two books on psychology.
Letting go of the past and setting and maintaining personal boundaries are three critical life skills that those who grew up in unloving homes often struggle with. As a result, they developed an anxious type of attachment. Often they build the “Great Chinese wall”, which allows you to avoid any conflicts, preferring not to change anything, just not to take on the solution to the problem. Or they are afraid to set reasonable boundaries for fear of abandonment and, as a result, hold on to commitments and relationships that are time to be abandoned.
So what are these habits?
1. Trying to please others
Fearful children often grow up with anxious adults who try to maintain peace and calm at all costs. They try to please everyone and not express dissatisfaction, because it seems to them that any attempts to express their interests will lead to conflict or rupture. When something goes wrong, they blame themselves, so they pretend nothing happened. But this is a losing strategy, it prevents you from moving forward and easily makes you a victim of manipulators.
Trying to please the one who offends you all the time also ends badly - you only make yourself more vulnerable. In personal relationships, similar principles apply. To resolve a conflict, you need to discuss it openly, and not wave a white flag, hoping that everything will somehow work itself out.
2. Willingness to endure insults
Children who grew up in families where constant insults were the norm do not consciously tolerate offensive statements; they often simply do not notice them. They become desensitized to such treatment, especially if they do not yet understand how childhood experience shaped their personality.
To distinguish insults from constructive criticism, pay attention to the motivation of the speaker
Any criticism aimed at a person’s personality (“You always...” or “You never...”), derogatory or contemptuous epithets (stupid, freak, lazy, slow, slob), statements aimed at hurting, - insult. Silent disregard—refusing to respond as if you weren't heard, or responding with contempt or ridicule when you say something—is another form of abuse.
To distinguish insults from constructive criticism, pay attention to the motivation of the speaker: does he want to help or hurt? Great value has the tone in which these words are pronounced. Remember, people who insult often say that they just want to express constructive criticism. But if their comments leave you feeling empty or depressed, then their intent was different. And you should be honest about your feelings.
3. Trying to change others
If you think that a friend or your partner needs to change in order for your relationship to be ideal, think: perhaps this person is happy with everything and does not want to change anything? You can't change anyone. We can only change ourselves. And if your partner is not right for you, be honest with yourself and admit that this relationship is unlikely to have a future.
4. Regrets about wasted time
We all experience fear of loss, but some are especially susceptible to this type of anxiety. Every time we think about ending a relationship, we remember how much money, worries, time and energy we have invested. For example: “We have been married for 10 years, and if I leave, it will turn out that 10 years were wasted.”
The same goes for romantic or friendly relationships, work. Of course, your “investment” will not be returned, but such thoughts prevent you from deciding on important and necessary changes.
5. Excessive trust in other people's (and one's own) excessive criticism
What we hear about ourselves in childhood (praise or endless criticism) becomes the foundation of our deepest ideas about ourselves. A child who has received enough love values himself and does not tolerate attempts to belittle or insult him.
Try to notice any excessive criticism, someone else's or your own.
A child who is unsure of himself anxious type attachment person, who has often heard derogatory comments about his abilities, “absorbs” these ideas about himself and becomes self-critical. Cause of all life failures such a person considers his own shortcomings: “I wasn’t hired because I’m a loser,” “I wasn’t invited because I’m boring,” “The relationship broke up because there’s nothing to love me for.”
Try to notice any excessive criticism, someone else's or your own. And you don’t need to trust her unconditionally. Focus on yours strengths, argue with " inner voice”, which criticizes you, is nothing more than an echo of those comments that you “absorbed” in childhood. Don't let the people you interact with make you an object of ridicule.
Remember that by becoming aware of your hidden automatic behavior patterns, you will take the first step towards important changes.
About the author
Every time I find myself at a dead end and understand that nothing will change, thoughts immediately pop up in my head: possible reasons reasons why I shouldn’t leave him. It drives my friends crazy because all I do is talk about how unhappy I am, but at the same time I don't have the courage to leave. I have been married for 8 years, in the last 3 years the marriage has become a complete torment. What's the matter?
This conversation interested me. I wondered why people have a hard time leaving, even when they are completely miserable. I ended up writing a book on this topic. The reason is not only that in our culture it is considered important to endure, to continue to fight and not to give up. People are biologically programmed not to leave early.
The point is in attitudes inherited from ancestors. It was much easier to survive as part of a tribe, so the ancient people, fearing irreparable mistakes, did not dare to live independently.
Unconscious thinking mechanisms continue to operate and influence the decisions we make. They are the ones who lead us into a dead end. How to get out of it? The first thing you need to figure out is what subconscious processes paralyze the ability to act.
WE ARE AFRAID OF LOSSING OUR “INVESTMENTS”
The scientific name for this phenomenon is the sunk cost fallacy. The mind is afraid of losing time, energy, money that we have already spent. This position seems balanced, reasonable and responsible - shouldn't an adult take his investments seriously?
Actually this is not true. Everything you spent has already gone, and you won’t get your “investment” back. This thinking error does not allow you to budge - “I have already spent ten years of my life on this marriage, if I leave now, all this time will be lost wasted!” – and doesn’t let you think about what we can achieve in a year, two or five, if we decide to leave.
WE DECEIVE OURSELVES BY SEEING IMPROVEMENT TENDENCIES WHERE THERE ARE NO TRENDS
We can thank two features of the brain for this: the tendency to treat a “near-win” as a real win and the susceptibility to intermittent reinforcement. These properties are the result of evolution.
“Almost winning,” research shows, contributes to the development of casino addiction and gambling. If 3 identical symbols out of 4 appear on a slot machine, this does not in any way increase the likelihood that next time all 4 will be identical, but the brain is sure that a little more and the jackpot will be ours. The brain reacts to a “near win” in the same way as to a real win.
In addition, the brain is susceptible to what is called intermittent reinforcement. In one of the experiments American psychologist Burress Skinner put three hungry rats in cages with levers. In the first cage, each lever press gave the rat food. As soon as the rat realized this, it went about other things and forgot about the lever until it got hungry.
If actions produce results only sometimes, this awakens special persistence and gives unjustified optimism.
In the second cage, pressing the lever did nothing, and when the rat learned this, it immediately forgot about the lever. But in the third cage, the rat, pressing the lever, sometimes received food, and sometimes not. This is called intermittent reinforcement. As a result, the animal literally went crazy pressing the lever.
Intermittent reinforcement also works on human brain. If actions produce results only sometimes, this awakens special persistence and gives unjustified optimism. It is very likely that the brain will take isolated case, will exaggerate its significance and convince us that this is part of a general trend.
For example, your spouse once did as you asked, and immediately doubts disappear and the brain literally shouts: “Everything will be fine! He has corrected himself." Then the partner takes up the old thing, and we again think that happy family won't, then all of a sudden he becomes loving and caring, and again we think: “Yes! Everything will work out! Love conquers all!”
WE ARE AFRAID OF LOSSING THE OLD MORE THAN WE WANT TO GET NEW
We are all built this way. Psychologist Daniel Kahneman received Nobel Prize in economics, proving that people make risky decisions based primarily on the desire to avoid losses. You may think of yourself as a daredevil, but scientific evidence tells a different story.
Evaluating possible benefit, we are ready to do almost anything to avoid guaranteed losses. The attitude of “don’t lose what you have” prevails because deep down we are all very conservative. And even when we are deeply unhappy, there is probably something that we really don’t want to lose, especially if we have no idea what awaits us in the future.
So what's the end result? Thinking about what we might lose is like shackling our feet with 50-pound weights. Sometimes we ourselves become an obstacle that needs to be overcome in order to change something in life.
