There are stories that end long before saying goodbye. Relationships that continue by inertia, even when there is nothing left to save. According to psychology, one of the most common reasons why we fail to leave a person is a mental mechanism called the lost costs fallacy (sunk cost fallacyfor those who love technical terms).
Translated: we remain inside something that no longer works just because we have already invested too much – time, energy, love, sacrifices. The brain, by instinct, hates losing: it hurts us more to throw away what we have built than to start again from scratch.
So we keep trying, even when happiness is just a memory. “With everything I have done for him/her”, “I can’t throw away years of my life”… Yet, this very thought nails us to relationships that no longer nourish us. We live in a painful comfort zone, where the disappointment of staying seems more bearable than the fear of starting again.
When the head says “enough”, but the heart doesn’t listen
To complicate the picture there is also another dynamic: emotional dependence. It’s not just about “loving too much”, but about not knowing how to be without the other. And here psychology has a lot to say.
A recent international study, published in 2024 and authored by Janire Momeñe, Ana Estévez and Mark D. Griffiths, has put the link between insecure attachment and emotional dependence under the lens. The title sounds complex – The Impact of Insecure Attachment on Emotional Dependence on a Partner – but the message is simple: those who have difficulty managing their emotions tend to stay even in relationships that hurt.
The sample analyzed (741 young people between 18 and 30 years old) showed that those with an avoidant attachment, that is, those who experienced little affection or emotional rejection as a child, are more likely to become dependent on their partner. The mechanism is this: those who learned as children that negative emotions “should not be shown” – because they were not welcomed – tend to suffocate them as adults. And in order not to hear them, he clings to the relationship. Even when that relationship hurts.
The authors of the study found that difficulty managing sadness, anger or fear is the key linking insecure attachment to emotional dependence. In practice: it is not just fear of losing the other, but fear of feeling the pain of loss. And so we remain. Because leaving doesn’t just hurt the heart: it hurts the idea we have of ourselves.
The perfect combination to never leave
Combine the lost cost fallacy and emotional dependence, and you have the perfect formula for getting stuck. On the one hand the rational mind tells us: “I can’t waste all this time”. On the other, the emotional one whispers: “I can’t live without him/her”. Two different voices, same result: we stay where we shouldn’t stay.
This mixture creates a real psychological trap: the longer you stay, the more you invest, and the more difficult it becomes to give up. A bit like sinking into quicksand with the belief that if you keep moving, you’ll get out.
Learn to leave
According to researchers, the key to breaking the cycle is not to “get stronger” but to learn to regulate emotions.
Accepting feeling bad, recognizing fear, giving a name to sadness. It seems like little, but it’s a huge step. Those who learn to tolerate unpleasant emotions are able to let go with more awareness and less sense of failure.
Leaving, then, is not synonymous with surrender. It is a form of self-respect. Because staying at any cost is often not love. It’s just fear disguised as loyalty.
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