Why we hold onto relationships that hurt us

A few weeks ago, I received an email from someone who recently read my post about the 9.5 year breakup that left me stranded in China. They were glad to see how my life had moved on, how I am better off now, but were curious to know, “Why didn’t you leave your ex-boyfriend earlier instead of sticking around?”

I thought about it for a while, and this was my answer.

When you’re in a relationship, especially one that’s close to 10 years, you tend to be more forgiving of each other’s mistakes and more tolerant, because it’s a relationship that you’ve already invested so much time and effort into that you’d much rather see past the negatives and focus on the positives. Even when there’s an argument, you try to work things out without ever resorting to a breakup because it’s not worth it when you weigh all the good moments you’ve had against the fewer bad ones.

I remember there was a time when my ex had come back home after a one-week business meeting in Hong Kong. He looked dejected, teary-eyed. The moment I saw him, I knew something happened. I knew something was wrong.

Me: “What is it? What’s wrong hun?”

Him: “…I’m sorry… I’m so sorry.”

Me: “Just tell me what it is. You’re scaring me.”

He told me what I couldn’t have ever believed— how one night, while drunk, he cheated on me. How he wasn’t thinking at the time and had mistakenly mistook a girl from a massage parlor for me. He was so drunk at the time that he didn’t realize what he had done until the next day.

At first, I was horrified, shocked. Then I was angry, angry that he had betrayed my trust, angry that he had waited days before deciding to tell me. I wanted to lash out at him, yell at him, scream at him but in the end, I couldn’t. He had looked so sad, so desperate for my forgiveness that instead of being angry, I sympathized with him. I felt bad for the way he was feeling more so than the breaking of my trust because deep down, I wanted to believe that this was an accident, something situational and not intended.

Sometimes, when you’ve been with a person forever, you can’t help but let your emotions get the best of you. You forget about the issue, you forget about the facts. Rationale and…