TW: mention of mental, verbal, and physical abuse, coercion, manipulation, and narcissistic abuse.

Salutations all, welcome back to my little corner. I do hope that you're all doing well; I wanted to talk about something that has recently become very prevalent amongst those in my social circle, and that would be staying/settling in bad relationships to avoid being single and the correlation of low self-esteem with abusive relationships.

This is a stray from what I’ve been currently putting out; we'll have more “what has inspired my screenwriting” pieces very soon, don't you worry about that; a discussion I’ve been having with some of my girlfriends is why we (some of our friend group, myself included) will willingly entered bad relationships with men that are noticeably problematic, abusive, narcissistic, horrible people as opposed to embracing our single life and spend time with the people that we love who care, love, and support us, and more unfortunately, watch each other become the former shells of our once vibrant, bright, colorful selves.

It's a question that has been burning in my brain after I happened to catch up with a friend (ironically, whilst on a date with a lovely guy, who I shall introduce as HW). brought me up to speed up with what I had missed in her life and found out that her ex had been incredibly unsupportive (T, if you're reading this, te amo mija I’m always here for you no matter what, and I’m so sorry for all you have endured.) I'm side tracking, but having heard some of the things he did made my blood boil, but the other half of me was overjoyed that they weren’t together anymore. T was glowing; her dark feminine 6’3 stature is something everyone should be in the presence of at least once, a true goddess in my eyes.

I always thought that it was counterintuitive to enter a toxic/unhealthy relationship. I was very well aware of the various psychological, societal, and personal factors that contribute as to why we (being the utterly flawed beings that we are) would stay.

For this article, I want to talk about the reasons (with some anecdotal notes) as to why we prefer committing to bad, unhealthy relationships over remaining single, whilst doing my best on shedding light on the complexities of human emotions and choices.

The first reason that I had was a very classic, tried and true reason, fear of loneliness. This is in every single one of us, with how the way that we’re bombarded by relationships, it comes to the point where it feels like suffocation when you are single. These are the times that I would advise that one should avoid trying to form a connection, just hear me out, I have a slightly different perspective as I’m polyamorous and currently choosing to date as close to what monogamy would look like for me, I don’t feel alone with the person that I’m currently seeing, which is why this feels like physical and mental whiplash.

Looking back on what I subjected myself to when the lonely bug began to itch at my skin, it was really, quite unfortunate what I had let fall by the waste side just because I wanted (in hindsight, looking back, I thought that I wanted to be with someone, when in all honesty, I desired the need for companionship and comfort and very much confused the two with one another and very much know the difference now), what’s unfortunate is that we only seem to grow after for the better (or the worst in some cases) after disastrous interpersonal situations happen.

Another reason that came to mind is societal pressure. This leads me back into my previous point, where I believe the two to go hand in hand. When you’re being pressured by: friends, family, other couples and possibly even those you work with coupled (excuse the pun) with loneliness can become too much for some and they can and most likely will leap into whatever or whomever will pay them attention in the hope they’ll feel more complete or even to appease/silence the noise of those around them which we all know for a multitude of reasons never, ever ends well, how it manifests is always interesting to me; a friend grew up reading Jane Austin as a child and when she entered her adult life she was shattered and disappointed at how the pages that gave her comfort aren’t a reflection of how relationships work outside of aristocratic circles (granted this is public knowledge but sometimes we have to bring our slightly delusional friends back to reality and ground them with the truth).

All that being said, with how social my generation is (gen y) and those who came after us (gen z, who do in fact scare me a little) put their romantic relationships to the forefront of their social accounts gives me the impression and writes the narrative that romantic love = complete and total happiness, this internalized and deeply rooted problematic way of thinking is depriving us of the independence and freedom we should all have as women, men, non-binary and trans people alike and sometimes the idea of a relationship is more what some are looking for than actually getting to know someone and grow to love them deeply for years to come.

The next and the most important reason of this article is low self-esteem. This is something I have noticed a lot with a select few of my girlfriends as well as a few guy friends. It frequently had been the reason for the untimely end of their relationships, whether they were breaking up with someone that they perceived to be more attractive, wealthier (whether that meant they came from a good background or just made more than them), or deemed them to be above them to some capacity, and more often than not, they were on the receiving end of being broken up with for the insecurities that slowly simmered and came to a boiling point during said relationships is the embodiment of “getting burnt by the flame that once gave your warmth.”, if you will.

Another reason I came to is one that I struggled with, which had been familiarity and comfort. I had been in a relationship with someone I met while working on set and I didn’t expect for it to go the way that it did, but what I also didn’t expect is after being cheated on that I chose to stay, I’m usually the first to French-Exit if I even sense an ounce of infidelity, but very frequently it was presented that I’m far too harsh when I do this and should try to “forgive” and “see if the problem could be fixed” and guess what folks, I decided to do exactly that, now, let’s fast forward as I’m not here to trauma dump, I’m now paying a ridiculous amount for therapy after experiencing severe mental trauma issues and distress after carrying out that terrible and injudicious experiment, the person I dated after caused further aggravation so when it came to breaking up.

I had told him something to the effect of “If you want to break up just text it to me, it’ll make my life easier so don’t have to leave the house as I can assume that’s what you want to speak with me about” I was indifferent at that point (I could’ve said much worse), but if only all breakups were that simple. I saw it coming, but he still desperately insisted he wanted to do it face-to-face and possibly hoped I’d plead with him to stay together, which I did not, so he took himself back east, and that was the last I saw of him, thank Christ. In the future, I’ll stick to protecting myself, my wallet, and my sanity, as the concept of “better the devil you know, than the devil you don't” had been incredibly prevalent.

We’ve all gone through this one, but this isn’t one I can’t particularly relate to fear of starting over. When one ends a relationship (re: what my girlfriends have told me), whether it’s good, bad or indifferent (rarely indifferent), it’s a terrifying upheaval to the soul; they have to confront the unknown, deal with the emotional aftermath, and rebuild their life to adapt to their singleness where I always found this rather curious, as I thought one became sad and then slowly drifted and detached. Apparently not, ha. I guess we all have our methods to do with unwanted singleness.

The next reason that I came to may strike you as odd, but many girlfriends have called me about this which I was utterly confused as to how this presented as a hypothetical but it’s very much a real issue and this would be social isolation and it was described to me as so “Ali I know you’re not going to understand this sniffles coughs but when you’re in a relationship even if it is a bad one but you have to bring them to social events, family gatherings and other relating activities – to which I responded “no you don’t” as you can imagine she wasn’t pleased by this to which she steamrolled on ahead by continuing on by saying “yes you do! Why the fuck do you think I’m still in this mess my parents love him, despite the fact he’s batshit crazy! And having to be single over the holidays is mortifying do you know that my sister married a doctor!

He's a neurosurgeon for Christ’s sake! How am I supposed to be alone when I’ve got carbon copies of the brady bunch for in-laws!” she continued to wail, and I nodded on the other end of the phone wondering how I could best advise her. I knew I had to be delicate, but I fucking hated the guy and would bury him at a moment’s notice if she asked (I’m joking, obviously) but she knew I didn’t like him and quickly began to catch on to what I had noticed which was a multitude of bad behavior. She left a week after New Year’s. It’s always good when people catch on quickly and ditch what truly never served them in the first place.

This reason that a very good friend of mine is guilty of is, the hope for change. This one presents a hard truth that we have to swallow and none of us want to hear, certain people won’t change even if you give the ultimatums that would send the majority into submission out of fear. When people that are let’s call it, “complex” it will take a lot more than a screaming match to shift their perspective no matter how ridiculous, delusional, or deranged it may be. The amount of emotional energy it takes to try and change someone to reflect your specifications and expectations fully well knowing they didn’t match them, when you have continued to date them knowing that is a matter, you must take care of yourself, but save yourself the energy and do something you love. Alone. Self-care is important, stress and early graying is not. The last and final reason/conclusion that I have come to would have my younger self hissing, kicking, and screaming and most likely throwing up, (if you know you know), and it would be good old emotional dependency.

This specific circumstance got me a couple of years ago, I know, it’s shocking and very unlike me, I happened to be particularly fond of an individual, what I didn’t realize at the time all those years ago that there had been an itty, bitty, teeny, tiny, co-dependency issue, just a small one; whilst I didn’t rely on them for validation, or a sense of identity (thankfully) I did for emotional support, we worked in the same industry and when things got stressful, I came to them and would lean on them for support. Stupidly enough I didn’t think it would be held over me as emotional leverage, but hey, we live and learn. I left out mostly unscathed but a little bitchier than prior entering the relationship.

Another relationship I had been in recently I unfortunately yet again became incredibly attached and we were both very co-dependent on one another but what I later didn’t realize is that he was (which he will probably deny) quite manipulative, abusive never physical but verbal without the raise of a decibel which is probably why it took a while for me to realize how bad the relationship was as we never argued but he was very fond of coercion, looking back he was incredibly calculated about how he used his mental health as a leverage for me to look after him, while he couldn’t completely isolate me he did occupy so much of my time that it dawned on me it had been around three months since I had seen some of my closest friends.

Abuse, trauma, manipulation and bad relationships are such a complex experience to go through, whilst I never had my skin carved into or had been isolated from my friends by a partner, monitored about what I could and couldn’t do, survived narcissistic abuse, been stalked, raped or attempted to be killed I still was dealt with my own version of horrific events and I am traumatized to some degree, part of me still can’t forgive myself for allowing myself to stay for that long and then get into an even worse relationship afterwards with someone so morose, manipulative and thinking to read out your suicide note because it’s edgy, keeping a list of drugs you’ve taken and how many times, being verbally abusive to your mother in front of me and then having the audacity to think traumatizing your family because you thrive on attention.

Before that I had money stolen from an ex, another verbally abused me to the point where my mother didn’t even recognize me, I’ve been an emotional steppingstone when the person they wanted wouldn’t text back, so they’d bide their time until they did. After some time, the way I viewed relationships changed and I went into them far more cautiously at times that was fine other times it wasn’t because it was either their expectations of what a woman should be to them or nothing. I’ve learnt to be alone for long periods of time and whilst it can bring up things you wish to keep buried its healing and it can then bring wonderful people into your life whom I wouldn’t trade for the world.

To close, interpersonal relationships are incredibly complex and the reasoning behind staying (despite the reasons I listed) are still mostly unknown there still is a force thar pulls us to stay defying all logic. People are complex, flawed, messy and can have the ability to care for lowly individuals (myself, included), the one piece of advice that I will give, keep your peace and sanity over anything, emotional distress is never worth it no matter how you convince yourself otherwise. Do not do it for the plotline, your film could end abruptly.

Please take care of yourselves, and check in on the people you love, and be delicate with them because it’s very rare for a person to see the situation because, more often than not, they’re wearing rose tinted glasses whilst yours are clear. Encourage those people to open conversations about relationships, self-worth, and the importance of personal happiness, as it can help individuals to make hopefully better-informed decisions whilst you give them the support, they need to navigate the complexities of their relationships.