People often equate relationship stability with relationship quality, but they overlook the fact that plenty of people are very unhappy despite the stability of their relationship. Reasons why people unhappy with their relationship may nevertheless stay in the relationship include:
- First, the more one has invested in a relationship, the less likely one is to leave that relationship. Investments include such things as joint memories, financial investments, friends, possessions, and children.
- Second, the poorer one’s alternatives to a relationship, including the alternative of being on one’s own, the less likely one is to leave the relationship. A woman might stay in an abusive relationship if she perceives her alternatives to be worse, including the option of being alone with no job skills and no financial resources.
- Finally, personal and social prescriptives against leaving relationships can keep a person within a relationship in which satisfaction is low. A person may have a quite miserable relationship with his or her child yet stay due to very strong personal and societal beliefs that one should never abandon one’s child.
--Effie's Psych
No comments:
Post a Comment