Why You are Addicted to Your Toxic Relationship & How to Break Free

“I just don’t understand why I’m so obsessed. I know this is bad for me, but I just can’t stop,” the text said.

Diana is my coaching client and is one of the most most “together” women I know. She’s a successful executive at a tech company, is healthy, athletic, happy, and has a solid community. At least she was.

That was until she completely blew up her life about a year ago for a man. When she met Jason, she was in a loving 4-year relationship with a man she was planning to have children with. In a single weekend, she did everything she normally wouldn’t. She cheated on her partner and ended her relationship in the most callous way possible.

It was as if she was completely swept up in a love rush and did not recognize any part of herself. The relationship with Jason continued to be explosive and volatile for the next year.

None of Diana’s friends could understand what happened. Neither could Diana herself. As we dug into the history of their relationship, Diana revealed that Jason’s relationships were always a roller coaster ride. It seemed that Jason had a pattern of creating psychological obsession.

What exactly did Jason do?

The Anatomy of Romantic Obsession

Love bombing

The very first night that they met, Jason had told Diana that he had never met anyone like her before and that she was his perfect woman. He repeated reinforced their amazing chemistry and how he just “knew” that theirs was a once-in-a-lifetime connection. Within the week, he had told her that he loved her and couldn’t live without her. He begged her to be with him.

This is almost a textbook example of love bombing. This phrase describes a situation where a person showers the other person with over-the-top professions of love. Here’s the thing — Jason didn’t actually know Diana at this point. He was projecting what he loved about the idea of her.

Emotional vomit

Diana also told me that she had been drawn to Jason because he had been extremely vulnerable with her. He had immediately shared all the details of his childhood trauma with her and told her that he had never shared those with anyone else.

It was clear to me that what Jason was doing is what I call “emotional vomiting” versus authentic vulnerability. Here’s the difference: Real vulnerability is earned. It is usually shared after trust and safety has been built over a period of time. Jason had shared everything right away as a means of making Diana to feel special.

Guilt and shame

Diana’s language about herself changed after meeting Jason. While he worshipped her as a person, he also constantly made her feel shame and guilt.

“I’m not a good partner. I’m so selfish. I can see now that I’ve never really been a good person,” Diana sobbed. The pre-Jason Diana would normally have said, “I’m not perfect but I’ve been trying really hard to be intentional and considerate of others.”

Jason used guilt and shame to make Diana feel bad about herself so she wouldn’t be tempted to leave him. He also made her feel that she would ruin his life if she left him.

The most concerning thing was the way he made her behave so out of character with herself. To appease Jason, Diana cut off her relationship with all her male friends and completely withdrew from her other friendships.

Cycles of withdrawal

Jason often cycled between interactions of intense rage or love bombing with complete withdrawal. Often, the episodes of rage or love bombing had nothing to do with Diana’s actions.

This would create a powerful longing in Diana which Jason would capitalize on when he returned. What Diana failed to understand was that this cycle of intermittent reward plays on a very fundamental part of human psychology which we will get to now.

Disclaimer: The material contained in this article are for informational purposes only. It is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical and psychiatric advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of a qualified mental health professional before undertaking and any action relating to information you have read on this article.

Intermittent Reinforcement (IR) and Romantic Addiction

On August 23, 1973, two machine-gun carrying criminals entered a bank in Stockholm, Sweden and took four hostages for 131 h. The hostages were rescued 5 days later and despite threats and abuse, including being strapped with dynamite, they were surprisingly supportive of their captors. Amazingly, one woman later became engaged to one of the hostage takers and another developed a legal defense fund to assist their captors.

This excerpt was taken from a journal article exploring the reasons behind why people choose to be held hostage by people they love. The authors concluded that a necessary component for this devotion despite being treated badly was that the bad treatment was interspersed with good treatment. This is also known as intermittent reinforcement (IR).

In a relationship, this would be flowers after disappearing, tearful apologies after a fight, or promises to change after humiliating someone. IR is powerful because it works both on a psychological level as well as a biological basis.

The biological basis of intermittent reinforcement

If you are feeling stupid for falling for this form of manipulation, don’t. It is not because you are weak of mind. It appears that there is a strong biochemical response that occurs in your body in response to intermittent reinforcement. The addiction that it causes can easily be recreated, even in rats.

According to scientists, attraction isn’t just in your mind. It is also fueled by the powerful biochemicals of dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin. Even more interestingly, the research shows that being in love activates the exact same part of your brain (nucleus accumbens) as being addicted to drugs and alcohol.

Though the other chemicals contribute to your obsession, dopamine is the most powerful biochemical at play when it comes to IR. Dr. Susan Carnell explains why:

• Dopamine is released when you have a great experience (like being loved)

• Dopamine is also released when something we previously found rewarding is within reach.

• Less dopamine is released if you overindulge, and dopamine flows more freely when you get a reward sometimes.

  
  

What this means is that if you get a rush of dopamine when someone love bombs you but then removes it from you, you will get another rush when you think you might get it. And worse, if they make you feel good only sometimes, dopamine will flow more freely than when someone is nice to you all the time.

Scientists have shown that this is because when it comes to addiction, the amount of addictive substance we receive (whether it’s love or cocaine) is less important than the timing of exposure. They concluded that receiving it intermittently is far more likely to lead to addiction than continuous reinforcement (CR).

To make things worse, a separate study also found that an addiction that was developed from IR is also much harder to break than one developed from CR.

The psychological basis of IR

Behavioral scientists have known since the 1950s that intermittent reinforcement (IR) is far more effective for behavior modification than continuous reinforcement (CR).

One of the reasons for this is because by first love bombing someone and then withdrawing, it causes the victim to keep seeking the approval of the abuser in the hope that they can get back to the honeymoon phase. The victims settle for the small breadcrumbs of affection because they it gives them hope that things will get better or that the abuser will change.

Akin to a gambler at a slot machine, the early wins “hook” the victims to keep playing despite huge losses because maybe the next time, they will get a reward. Because they can go through extended periods of not getting the “high” they seek, it causes them to crave it — amplifying the effect of the small gestures of kindness.

How to Break Free

Knowledge is often not enough to cause us to end a toxic relationship. After all, Diana is one of the most intelligent people I know.

Understanding the concept of intermittent reinforcement was only half of what Diana needed. Prior to understanding it, she thought that her intense emotions were because Jason and her had an incredibly special connection.

After learning about IR, she realized that she was drawn to him because of the dynamic he created and not because there was something inherently special about Jason. This helped her get to the conclusion that she wanted to break up from him, but it did not change the feelings she had. Every time she tried to break up with him, she experienced all the symptoms of withdrawal that any addict experienced.

In the book, Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard, Dan Heath and Chip Heath describe why this is the case by using the analogy of the elephant and the rider. Imagine that your rational mind is the rider of an elephant, and your emotions are the elephant.

Even though the rider decides the direction, if he cannot convince the elephant to agree, he will be unmatched every time because the elephant is so much bigger than the rider.

So, in order for Diana to break free, it wasn’t enough to decide it in her head, she had to also focus on changing her feelings. Here are the exercise I encouraged her to do:

Steps to Break Free Emotionally

1. Write down the qualities you want and compare it to your partner

When I asked Diana to write down what qualities she wanted most in a partner and how she wanted to feel, she wrote down some of these key words — emotional safety, consistency, partnership, communication, cared for.

I then asked her to write down Jason’s qualities and how she felt in their relationship. She very quickly realized that she couldn’t name the qualities about him that she liked, she was simply addicted to the highs he created. She also realized that she didn’t feel any of the things she wanted to feel.

2. Lowlights reel

To help remind her of how bad things were whenever she was tempted to keep trying with Jason, I asked Diana to create a “lowlights” reel. The point here is to remember the worst times and the horrible emotions she was feeling as vividly as possible.

This included every time he had unexpectedly blown up at her for no reason, when he had derailed major events they were going to do, and when he withdrew from her or humiliated her.

3. Imagine how you want to feel every day

Diana was once a vivacious and happy person who was felt deeply loved, confident, and happy. I asked her to think of all the things she wanted to feel again.

I asked her to imagine the emotional freedom of not having someone control her emotions and take her on a roller coaster ride at a whim. She also chose to create feeling emotionally safe and not having to walk on eggshells with everything she said or did.

4. Imagine your future self if this continued

I asked Diana to compare who she was pre-Jason and who she is today. I then asked her to imagine what she thought she would become two years from now if she continued to stay.

Diana realized that she had been so drastically reduced to a lesser version of herself in just a year and that there was no good future self that she could imagine if she stayed with Jason.

5. Find your mantra

Don’t ever underestimate how difficult it is to break free from this obsession. In your brain and body, it is no different to breaking and addiction to drugs and alcohol. As we knew that the moments of weakness where not an “if” but a “when”, I encouraged Diana to come up with a simple mantra to remind herself of why it was important to walk away. Diana’s was:

“I love the person that I used to be and the person that I can be.”

Takeaway

Remember that falling prey to psychological manipulation is unrelated to how intelligent you are. All that is required is for you to have an unmet need at that moment.

You may not always be able to avoid meeting or even falling in love with someone who creates a toxic relationship, but you can know the red flags of what a toxic relationship looks like. And you can choose to walk away. Find your mantra to remind yourself to always love yourself first and most.

The incomparable poet and author, Maya Angelou — herself a survivor of abuse says it best:

“When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”