10 Stories about Toxic Relationships That Lasted Too Long

Psychologists around the world reflect on why some people struggle to stay in a relationship where they are not happy. Perhaps most couples do not separate over children or material possessions; they don’t want to harm their children or lose financial stability. But there are also other reasons, such as fear of loneliness or change.

To understand what happens to many couples who have toxic relationships, we asked men and women why they stayed in that situation and didn’t get out of it while there was time. O awesome.club interviewed people who had troubled relationships and shares their impressive stories with you.

Next, you will be able to read these reports and understand a little about their motivations.

My parents separated when I was 5 years old. My mother, practically the day after the divorce, began desperately looking for another husband because she was brought up under the “a single woman sucks” system. The same happened to me, because I practically prepared myself to be an “ideal lady”, ready to serve her husband. My mother taught me how to cook, how to sew, how to clean the house, and when I was 10 years old, she left in my room a book about how babies emerge.

I married at age 20 with the son of a friend of my mother’s. Within the first month of their marriage, he began to say that he needed to fish, while I should stay home. I did everything he asked to eat and I dressed up all the time. For several years he would regularly go “fishing”, while I would cook his favorite foods, and always try to be well-groomed for him. Anything to not be the “failed spinster”, as my mother would say. The result: he left me and married a younger woman who fishes, hikes and visibly doesn’t wear makeup…

M. 28 years

It was my second marriage, and the first had not ended very well: with my ex-husband I shared practically everything, even what I was entitled to take entirely. But before divorce, I didn’t foresee problems. My first husband was a consistent and generous man, and I couldn’t have imagined that we would break up. Apparently, somewhere in the depths of my soul, I feared that this situation that had cost me a lot of sleep would repeat itself. Therefore, I did not dare to break off the obsolete relationship of my second marriage. How did it end? He met another one and left, saying that he hadn’t had any feelings for me other than friendship for a long time. We don’t share anything.

M., 36 years old

I lived with my wife out of pity. He was a very good person, very kind. It helped NGOs. I never said anything negative to anyone. I felt that she would literally commit a crime if I abandoned her, and that she could live without me and suffer so much for being so sweet. In the end, she also lived with me out of pity, thinking that I would be completely helpless with life’s problems. She met a guy who also volunteered at one of those orphanages she went to, but she didn’t leave me until he insisted that she tell me everything. Now, I’m friends with the 2 and godfather to their son.

E., 30 years

I was single for a long time, and none of my relationships lasted more than 2 months. I was recently married in my 30s, and I only did it because I was afraid of being alone for life, and he was apparently looking for a housewife to replace his recently deceased mother. We didn’t even have a wedding, we just went to a civil registry and signed the documents.

A month later I got pregnant. It was a very difficult stage. The child wasn’t born very healthy, my husband didn’t pay any attention, and I didn’t dare to divorce for the same fear of being alone. Two years later, when my son’s health improved, I decided to end the situation and move in with my parents. So, I asked for a divorce. The funny thing is that he had no idea of ​​my motives…

S., 35 years

You know when we fall in love with someone’s family too? That’s pretty much what happened to me. Not long ago I moved to another city and met a very sweet guy, super smart and calm. We went out for a month and he then invited me to a party at his family’s house. They were the happiest and most pleasant people in the world! I immediately became friends with his sister.

After a month, we moved in together. In fact, he didn’t know how to do anything alone at home and all decisions were made after consulting his mother. I lived with him for a year, but I couldn’t stand it any longer and decided to leave. The sister ended up staying by my side the whole time. Now, when I think about why I hadn’t gone before, I come to the conclusion that I was simply afraid of losing the only close friends I had in this city, his family.

O., 25 years

This is not my story, but my mother’s. Our father was not, to be very generous in my estimation, the best person in the world. No, he didn’t hit my mother, insult her, drink or smoke. But he was a little loose. Throughout his life he worked, at most, for about 2 years. The rest of the time he spent on a couch with a book, not interacting with the people around him.

I have a brother and a sister, so my mother was responsible for 3 children (4, including my father, who did nothing to help around the house). When I grew up and my father died, I asked my mother why she hadn’t separated from him. She replied that she lived with him for the sake of the children, so as not to leave them without a father, and that he “did not drink or beat her”. I didn’t want to say anything so as not to hurt her, but the fact is, we never had a father, exactly…

P., 24 years old.

It probably sounds strange, but I wasn’t separated from my wife out of a feeling of possessiveness. She wasn’t very cultured, but she was very beautiful. She didn’t seem to be interested in very complex books or movies, and she preferred to just listen to music when she was tidying the house. But she would do absolutely anything for me. One of the things I loved the most was when we went out together and other men craned their necks to look at her, she was so beautiful.

I realized I didn’t love my wife as soon as we were married, but the idea of ​​all this beauty ending up in someone else’s hands drove me crazy. Three years after the wedding, I met a woman not as beautiful as my wife, but incredibly interesting, and I separated from my wife. I must admit that she took it all calmly. Honestly, I don’t think she ever really realized what was going on. In the end, it was good for her too, for I was only with her out of vanity.

I., 41 years old

It’s been 10 years since I broke up with my boyfriend after 5 years of an unhappy relationship. In fact, it was our parents who encouraged us to live together and, as we were very childish, we agreed. They bought us an apartment and we lived in it. A year later we had a child although we were quite immature.

Not that I was unhappy, but I wasn’t happy either. The same thing was certainly happening to him. Sometimes I told my mother that I wanted to live without a husband, but she only replied that I should look for a job first, and she always threatened to stop helping me with money. We divorced when my husband was reunited with his former classmate, the great love of his youth. He left and let me have everything, even the apartment.

E., 39 years old

When we got married, I was extremely passionate. We lived for 5 years in perfect harmony. We had 2 children, we were all happy. But at a certain point, she changed: she became irritable, she was constantly in a bad mood. I tried to find out what was happening because my feelings for her hadn’t changed, but the more I asked, the more she distanced herself.

One day, she finally gave up and said that she had met a man at work and had had an affair with him. We talked and she promised that she would break up with him, and I forgave her because I loved her so much. My wife broke up with the guy, but I couldn’t forget the betrayal, and that stopped me from living peacefully because there was no more trust. As a result, a year later I filed for divorce, even though my feelings for her were the same as before.

S., 39 years old

My childhood was not easy. I wasn’t hungry or very poor, but I don’t like to remember that period. I had no father and my mother worked in 3 places to support us. So he rarely appeared at home. I was raised by my grandmother, a very serious woman who, at times, was even a little mean. She didn’t hit me, but she humiliated me all the time. She said I was stupid and ugly and that I would never marry because no one would want a person like me.

I got married at 18 to a guy who’d been chasing me since freshman year of high school, and who proposed on the day of the school’s graduation party. I didn’t feel anything for him, but we lived quietly and peacefully for 5 years, until I met a man I really fell in love with.

A., 28 years old