The High Psychological Cost Of Giving Too Much For A Relationship
When we are asked to describe what it feels like to experience love, most of us say, not without reason, that it is something that goes far beyond words.
Falling in love comes accompanied by a hormonal torrent and in a way, our brain reacts as if we were taking a drug every time that designated person is nearby.
But at the foundations of relationships there is not only a cascade of hormones: There are also expectations It is a component of emotional life that can be expressed in words, since they are simple ideas about what a courtship is like or should be like.
However, despite being in the realm of words, we often ignore our own expectations, and that is precisely what can make them become a mental trap. And expectations can transform us into slaves of our own relationship, to the point where we the person who gives without receiving is always us
Before understanding the role that expectations play in all of this, we can stop to see what makes trying too hard for a relationship cause so much discomfort.
If something characterizes asymmetric relationships, that is, those in which it is always the same person who makes the effort and sacrifices, it is a mixture of fatigue, stress and helplessness. Fatigue is due to the fact that, materially and psychologically, making the relationship “work” always depends only on us There is no one by our side in an experience that, paradoxically, has its reason for being in the fact of sharing something exciting.
This not only means that we will make efforts to face difficult situations, but it will also be up to us to decide at all times what decision to make, to choose the least bad option. so that this courtship takes one more step forward without having resolved the underlying problem and knowing that it will reappear sooner or later. It is the latter that generates stress: the anticipatory anxiety of knowing that we have only achieved momentary relief.
Helplessness goes hand in hand with hopelessness and in them a paradox occurs: the expectations that cause these sensations are, at the same time, the lens through which we examine our love problem to see if we can find a way out.
Why Expectations Can Create an Emotional Quagmire
To understand the psychological impact of giving everything for a relationship, we must understand that the expectations about a courtship will always be there Having beliefs about what a commitment of this type will be or should be like allows us to make it gain meaning, to point in a direction. This means that asymmetrical relationships in which someone constantly sacrifices themselves for the other person do not arise simply because of the existence of those expectations.
How does the problem arise, then? People who bet too much on a relationship do so in part because they have a value system in which pure sacrifice is seen as something good, dignifying From this perspective, situations of constant use and abuse of power by our partner not only do not warn us that we are in a toxic relationship, but they give more reasons to continue sacrificing ourselves for it, to continue testing that capacity. of sacrifice without giving in to adversity.
In these cheating relationships, the problem is that the long history of personal sacrifices made to make the relationship work is a reason to continue doing so indefinitely. It is a loop a phenomenon in which the causes of this constant commitment to the relationship are, at the same time, the effect of continuing to do so at the expense of our health.
Why do we sacrifice ourselves this way for the relationship?
We have already seen that asymmetric relationships in which one person gives everything and the other hardly makes any effort are due in large part to the effect that certain expectations have on us: specifically, the expectation of keep moving forward despite adversity that may arise, whatever they may be and without thinking too much about their anticipation.
But… what psychological mechanisms explain why we can behave in such an absurd way in one of the most important areas of our lives? Fundamentally it is one called “cognitive dissonance.”
Cognitive dissonance and the sacrifices that never end
Cognitive dissonance is a feeling of discomfort that appears when we have in mind two ideas or beliefs that contradict each other and to whom we give importance. To make that unpleasant sensation (and which can become an obsession that constantly occupies our attention), one of the ideas must “win” over the other.
However, this battle of beliefs it almost never comes to an end through the use of reason In fact, we usually tinker” to make the cognitive dissonance go away.
For example, in the case of asymmetric relationships, these ideas are usually the following:
In this struggle of beliefs, the second option is arguably more attractive, as it offers a way out and is linked to a sense of well-being. And yet, many people choose the first. Because? Because it is what does that our beliefs and our vision of things waver less
If we assume that a relationship in which another person does not do their part is not a relationship that suits us, we would have to face many other cognitive dissonances, because our self-image would have been greatly affected: it would be demonstrated that this sacrifice for something that has formed part of one’s own identity has been meaningless and we would have to build a new vision of things that allows us to feel good about ourselves and our decisions.
The sooner it is cut, the better.
That is why it is important to detect situations in which our expectations act as a prison for our emotional life
Even though relationships are about more than one person, cognitive dissonance makes let us be the ones who boycott ourselves transforming the discomfort caused by unhealthy expectations into a reason to continue betting on that source of discomfort.
