When we fall in love and start a relationship, we all become a bit irrational, but that’s completely normal. By irrational I mean we can’t stop thinking of that person, we get butterflies in our stomach as soon as we see them, we highlight their virtues, and ignore their defects (or see them as little quirks we’re okay with). In an ideal scenario, once the spellbinding effect of falling in love wears off, you’ll learn to love that person for who they are, and the good moments will outweigh the bad ones. Or maybe things go the other way, and you’ll move on with your life. But what happens when, from the beginning, you seek relationships that hurt you physically or psychologically?
You might wonder, “who would do that?,” but it’s actually much more common than you’d think. And no, it doesn’t mean there are people out there saying, “I like my partners tall, green-eyed, and emotionally abusive.” This constant search for unstable relationships occurs on a deeper, mostly unconscious, level. For many years, psychiatrists associated this behavior to Self-Defeating Personality Disorder (SDPD), also known as masochistic personality disorder. Although according to Nancy Mcwilliams PhD, it is no longer considered a mental health diagnosis, it does describe a series of self-sabotaging patterns and behaviors that many people have because of an association between pleasure and guilt, as well as fear of being alone.
In an article for The Guardian, relationship therapist Susan Quilliam states that most of us have masochistic tendencies (to a certain degree), and it’s easier to find it in women than in men. Part of this masochism happens because many people confuse it with selflessness, an attitude that’s often regarded as a virtue. However, the thin line between unselfishness and self-neglect is crossed once that attitude ends up hurting you or those around you.
You might be asking yourself whether a relationship masochist can actually hurt others. Yes, they can, and one of the things they do is sabotage a good relationship. This happens when you confuse passion with living in constant fear of losing your partner or having a chaotic relationship. In other words, you believe you’re so in love that you’ll literally fight and suffer all the time for it. In this way, even if a relationship is stable, you might unconsciously sabotage it or create situations that might destroy that relationship, hurting yourself and the other person.
Why would someone, consciously or unconsciously, want to be hurt by their relationship? Well, it all has to do with the belief that you don’t deserve to be loved. If you believe this, then, whenever you feel loved, you’ll feel guilty and do everything you can to stop feeling like that; you’ll sabotage your relationship or avoid healthy relationships. On the other hand, if you are mistreated or abused, you’ll feel your partner is “proving your point” by making you feel unworthy of love. As I mentioned before, you’ll try to “prove” there’s passion in the relationship by constantly fighting for it and leaving your integrity aside. These last points are related to “self-fulfilling prophecies,” that is, unfounded predictions or beliefs that come true because you make them happen. Emotional masochism relies mostly on never-ending cycles of self-fulfilling prophecies feeding the masochist’s idea that they don’t deserve love.
Unlike masochism on a sexual level, when it occurs on an emotional level it’s like an addiction to suffering rather than a desire for pleasure. Just like any other addiction, it ends up affecting different areas of your life and stopping you from enjoying a healthy and satisfying relationship. Fortunately, there are ways to move on from this behavior, and the best one, as you may have guessed, is going to therapy. Being guided by an expert will help you see which thoughts and feelings move you into self-deprecation, so that you can work with them. Moreover, you can always talk with someone you trust. You might not believe it, but there are people willing to help you, who care about you and want to see you happy.
Self-awareness is a good first step to leave masochist relationships aside. However, you are the one responsible for making a true change in your life. Help and therapy won’t work as long as you’re not willing to leave this addictive behavior and let yourself be helped by those who care about you. The effort of breaking those painful cycles will be completely worth it.
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You might be interested in these:
4 Ways To Overcome The Psychological Torture Of Gaslighting
6 Signs That You And Your Partner Are Falling Out Of Love
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Photos by Nøah Wølfe
Cover image by Naomi August
