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Few things can make one more miserable than being stuck in a bad marriage or in an unhappy relationship. Hours, days, weeks, months, years of emptiness, lack of empathy, lack of intimacy, animosity, hatred. Why on earth would anyone want to stay in such a situation? After all, our time in this world is finite. The scent of cardamom and cinnamon while decorating the Christmas tree, the feeling of waves gently lapping on your feet as you enter the sea, the full moons you admire in the hot August night – endless, don’t they seem? Hard to believe you have 10, 20, maybe 30 of those left before you die. Why would you waste them being with someone that doesn’t love you and, most probably, despises you? Maybe the Bard has the answer:

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover’d country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;

The Fear of Change Is Greater than the Fear of an Unhappy Relationship

Sadly, more often than not we choose to bear the ills we have, because we are too scared to fly to others that we know not of. Perhaps you have heard of some people who, having spent a very long time in prison, dread of being released because they cannot cope outside the controlled (though oppressing) environment of the prison.

It is the exact same thing with a bad marriage or an unhappy relationship. The fear of the grand unknown can be so powerful, that a sad majority of people – both men and women – become numb and accept their fate. This course of action is not unlike that of a martyr. The questions seem too complex, too difficult, too overwhelmingly powerful.

“What will happen to me if I am single?”
“And what will happen to the kids?”
“What will happen to the mortgage?”
“God, how about my parents, friends, or coworkers; what will they say?”
“I’m too old, it’s too late now, who will love someone my age?”
“I’m unlovable, who would be interested in me, a failure?”

Gradually, the interrogative becomes the affirmative, and the sad self-victimized figure begins to come up with excuses and to provide the answers him/herself.

“I don’t know from where to start. Besides, s/he isn’t always that bad”.
“S/he is too stressed with work, it will eventually become better”.
“Sex isn’t everything in a relationship”.
“Cheating isn’t the end of the world, it was just a phase”.
“No wonder s/he is all the time upset with me, I’m such an idiot”.
“Maybe if I tried harder, things would be better”.
“Things will be better once the kids grow up”.
“S/he’s too old to change now, better get used to it”.

Being Stuck in An Unhappy Relationship is a Boiling Frog Problem

Remember the boiling frog problem: it is easier to become accustomed to gradual suffering or tyranny, out of fear of worse evils. It is also worth noting that such unknown evils are largely imaginary and self-imposed. And so the poor devil continues leading a sorrowful existence, one immersed in misery, lies, and unhappiness. There is a powerful feeling of cognitive dissonance in such a scenario, because human minds are not stupid. The conscious self might be, but the unconscious knows better. So, on the one hand you have “someone” telling your unconscious that “the situation is not that bad”. On the other, your unconscious self secretly knows it’s so bad that death feels preferable.

How, then, does one get out of it?

Sometimes it’s sheer luck.
Sometimes, you have to make your own luck.
But if your close friends are united in their opinion that you need to get out, then it’s overwhelmingly possible that you just might have to.