Why people stay in unhappy relationships
Why is it that so many people stick it out in relationships that are clearly not working? It could be something to do with the sunk cost effect of the relationship – they’ve already invested so much time and effort into it that they aren’t willing to just let it go.
It’s a bit like spending money on an old car when you know it’s not going to last much longer – but you’ve already spent so much on it and owned it for so long that you find it hard to cut your losses and move on.
In a study released in late 2016 in Current Psychology, researchers found that people tended to focus more on how much time they’ve been in a relationship as a way of determining whether it was worth sticking with (even if it wasn’t the right partnership for them). So people felt as though they would rather stay in the relationship than feel as though they had somehow wasted the last few years of their life.
The study gave participants different scenarios, and they were asked to decide whether they would ‘stay or go’ in the relationship. The results showed that participants were willing to spend more time trying to fix a longer term (say, ten year) relationship than if it was shorter term (such as one year).
They key takeaway for the findings then, could be that if a relationship doesn’t feel right in the beginning, don’t wait too long to end it. Or you could find yourself stuck in a loveless relationship because your brain tells you that it’s better than having wasted all that time.
Do you know anyone who has fallen victim to the sunk cost effect in love?
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