Many decisions about whether to stay in a bad relationship are driven less by affection and more by material and caregiving realities. When a woman lacks financial resources, has limited access to work or housing, or is the primary caregiver for children, the practical costs of leaving—losing income, affordable housing, health insurance, childcare, and social supports—can be prohibitively high. In rational-choice terms, “exit costs” include both one-time and ongoing burdens (moving expenses, legal fees, reduced lifetime earnings, single-parent childcare costs) that make the expected utility of leaving lower than the utility of staying despite poor partner behavior. These constraints can lock people into relationships even when abuse, neglect, or dissatisfaction are present.

References: rational choice models of the family and divorce (Becker 1981; Oppenheimer 1997), research on economic abuse and barriers to leaving (Adams et al. 2008).

When someone believes they deserve poor treatment or thinks they can’t do better, several psychological forces keep them in unhealthy relationships:

• Learned self‑worth: Repeated criticism, neglect, or earlier trauma can teach a person to value themselves poorly. Low self‑esteem makes accepting bad behavior feel “normal” or inevitable. (See: Bandura on self‑efficacy; Herman on trauma and self‑perception.)

• Internalized blame: People often blame themselves for their partner’s actions (“If only I were better, they wouldn’t act this way”), which reduces the likelihood of setting boundaries or leaving. This can come from cultural messages that prioritize women’s self‑sacrifice or shame victims for relationship problems.

• Fear of loss and scarcity thinking: Believing one can’t find someone better leads to staying put to avoid loneliness, financial insecurity, or social stigma, even at a high emotional cost.

• Diminished agency: Low self‑esteem lowers confidence to seek help, negotiate change, or leave. It may also make abusive behaviors feel like deserved punishment rather than abuse.

• Cognitive distortions and hope: People may minimize harm, rationalize behavior, or cling to hope that their partner will change, especially if occasional kindness suggests a different reality (intermittent reinforcement).

Together, these factors create powerful inertia. Addressing them requires rebuilding self‑worth, external support, and sometimes professional help (therapy, support groups). For further reading: Judith Herman, Trauma and Recovery; Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection; research on attachment and self‑esteem in adult relationships.

Short explanation for the selection: The previous summary draws on multiple literatures—attachment theory, behavioral psychology, feminist and economic analyses, and clinical work on domestic abuse—to show that staying in a harmful relationship is usually the result of interacting psychological, social, and material factors rather than a single moral failing. That’s why the selection cites both individual-level mechanisms (attachment, intermittent reinforcement, self‑esteem) and structural forces (economic dependence, gender norms, custody concerns).

Authors and ideas to explore (concise list):

• John Bowlby — attachment theory: how early bonds shape adult relationship dependence and responses to separation.
• Mary Ainsworth — patterns of attachment (secure, anxious, avoidant) that predict relationship behavior.
• B. F. Skinner / behavioral psychology — intermittent reinforcement: unpredictable rewards sustain behavior (applies to abusive cycles).
• Lenore Walker — “battered‑woman syndrome”: psychological dynamics and learned helplessness in abused partners.
• Judith Herman — trauma and recovery: effects of trauma on attachment, memory, and leaving abusive situations.
• Arlie Hochschild — emotion work and gendered expectations: how emotional labor and role expectations influence staying.
• Deniz Kandiyoti / feminist political economists — bargaining power and how economic position shapes women’s options.
• Martha Nussbaum / Nancy Fraser — philosophical and feminist accounts of social injustice, dignity, and structural constraints.
• Shelly Lundberg & Robert Pollak — economic models of household bargaining and the role of resources in exit options.
• Evan Stark — coercive control: non‑physical forms of domination that trap partners.
• Anne Ancelin Schützenberger / trauma researchers — transgenerational patterns and family-of-origin influences.
• Research on intimate partner violence (IPV): WHO reports, CDC resources, and academic reviews summarizing prevalence, risk factors, and barriers to leaving.

If you’d like, I can provide (a) brief summaries of any one author’s view, (b) key papers or book references with citations, or (c) resources on safe exit strategies and support services.

Human attachment forms deep emotional bonds that persist even when a partner behaves poorly. John Bowlby’s attachment theory (1969) shows that early-formed attachment patterns shape how people seek closeness and respond to separation. In romantic relationships, positive memories, occasional kindnesses, and the comfort of intimacy create strong motivational and memory traces that make the idea of leaving feel emotionally and psychologically painful. Those bonds can generate hope for change, fear of loss and loneliness, and a tendency to prioritize maintaining connection over confronting chronic problems — all factors that help explain why someone might stay with a partner who treats them badly.

Reference: Bowlby, J. (1969). Attachment and Loss, Vol. 1: Attachment.

Social expectations and stigma shape behavior by making the costs of leaving a relationship visible and tangible. Erving Goffman’s work on stigma and impression management helps explain this: people perform social roles to avoid shame and preserve a valued identity. For many women, prevailing gender norms — ideas about femininity, caregiving, and the “proper” family — create pressure to maintain partnerships even when partners are mistreating them.

Concretely:

• External judgment: Friends, family, and community often judge separated or single women more harshly than men, framing relationship breakdown as a personal failure rather than a structural problem. Avoiding that stigma can deter leaving.
• Role expectations: Cultural scripts that prioritize women’s roles as partners and caregivers encourage endurance, rationalizing bad behavior as a husband/partner’s private failing or an opportunity for the woman’s sacrifice and patience.
• Practical consequences coded by norms: Because gendered expectations influence access to resources (childcare responsibility, financial dependency, custody assumptions), staying can seem the safer social and economic option.
• Impression management: To preserve social standing, women may conceal problems or tolerate mistreatment, managing others’ impressions to avoid being labeled “difficult,” “irrational,” or “failed” in their expected role.

These forces don’t determine individual choices but powerfully shape the social environment in which decisions are made (see Goffman, Stigma, 1963; Connell on gender norms).

Short explanation for the selection: These examples illustrate the main mechanisms that keep people—especially women, given social and economic inequalities—in harmful relationships. They show how emotional bonds, material constraints, fear, and intermittent kindness interact to make leaving difficult, and why seemingly irrational choices often have understandable causes.

Examples:

• Attachment and love: Maria remembers the early years when her partner was affectionate and supportive. Even after he becomes controlling, her memories and love make her cling to the hope he’ll return to that person.
• Economic dependence: Aisha works part‑time and is the primary caregiver for two young children. She fears losing housing and can’t afford childcare, so staying seems the only viable option.
• Social norms and stigma: Priya’s community stigmatizes divorce. She worries about being ostracized and the impact on her family’s reputation, so she tolerates humiliation.
• Intermittent reinforcement: Jenna experiences cycles where her partner alternates insults with grand apologies and gifts. The unpredictable kindness feels rewarding and reinforces staying.
• Low self‑esteem/internalized blame: Kate has been told for years that she’s “too sensitive” or “causes problems.” She begins to believe she deserves mistreatment and doubts her ability to find someone better.
• Fear for safety/escalation: Lin has been threatened when she mentioned leaving. She fears that attempting to exit could provoke violence, so she stays until a safer plan is possible.
• Lack of alternatives/informational problems: Rosa feels isolated after moving to a new country; she doesn’t know how to access support services and doubts she could meet a better partner, so she remains.

If you’d like, I can add brief suggestions for supporting someone trying to leave safely or provide citations to the research mentioned.

When kindness and affection appear unpredictably amid mistreatment, they function like intermittent reinforcement: occasional rewards make a behavior much more persistent than constant reward or constant punishment. B.F. Skinner’s work on operant conditioning shows that behaviors reinforced on variable schedules are highly resistant to extinction. Applied to relationships, sporadic warmth—unexpected compliments, short-lived apologies, or rare loving moments—creates hope that the next reward will come, so the person endures the negative treatment in pursuit of that unpredictable good. Cognitive and emotional factors (selective attention to positives, investment of time and identity, fear of loss) amplify this effect, making it difficult to step away even when overall costs are high.

References: B.F. Skinner, “The Behavior of Organisms” (1938); research on intermittent reinforcement and relationship dynamics (e.g., Baumeister & Vohs on self-regulation and investment).

Many people stay with poor partners because they perceive few better options and struggle to interpret social signals. Limited alternatives can arise from small social circles, time constraints, cultural pressures, or fear of being alone; when prospects seem scarce, tolerating a bad relationship can feel safer than risking rejection or starting over. Informational problems compound this: identifying genuinely available, compatible partners is hard, and people often misread cues—overestimating interest, ignoring red flags, or rationalizing bad behavior as temporary. Cognitive biases (optimism bias, attachment needs), asymmetric information (partners hiding flaws), and mixed or ambiguous signals all make it difficult to distinguish a workable mate from a poor one. Together, scarcity of alternatives and noisy information push some women to stay with men who are a poor fit.

Sources: literature on mate choice and signaling in evolutionary and social psychology (e.g., Buss 2016; Finkel et al., 2012).

When abuse—physical, sexual, emotional, or financial—is present, leaving can increase danger rather than reduce it. Abusers often react to a partner’s attempt to leave with intensified threats, violence, stalking, or efforts to isolate them further. Victims therefore weigh immediate safety for themselves and any children against the long-term harms of staying; for many, remaining in the relationship (or delaying departure until a safer plan is possible) is a harm-minimizing choice. Practical barriers—lack of money, housing, legal protection, or supportive social networks—compound the risk, and the realistic fear of retaliation makes “staying” a rational response to an unsafe environment rather than a sign of weakness or consent.

For further reading: work by Evan Stark on coercive control and advice from domestic violence organizations such as the National Domestic Violence Hotline or Refuge (UK).