This is a tragic reality for people who endured childhood narcissistic abuse and trauma. People almost always gravitate towards what is familiar, even over what they know is good for them or in their best interests. This is one of the reasons why it is incredibly common for people raised by narcissists to end up in long-term adult relationships or marriages with similar individuals, because it feels familiar and normal to us.
Most of the time, when we reject a wonderful love interest who is genuinely a good person and would make an amazing partner in every way, we cannot articulate why we are rejecting them. We just know and feel that something is off. We can’t put our finger on it, but we reject this wonderful and amazing love interest. This is what is at the root of it—it feels completely unfamiliar and uncomfortable because we have never been in a relationship where we did not have to work hard to earn every ounce of love and affection we received. You must understand this fact and work on healing that part of yourself to permanently break this pattern of behavior.
The second reason we find it incredibly difficult to disengage from an emotionally unavailable person in a relationship is very similar to the addictive nature of gambling and why gamblers find it hard to stop. Let’s compare a relationship with an emotionally unavailable person to playing slot machines. Slot machines trigger a release of dopamine in the person playing the game. Dopamine is the pleasure hormone that gives us a feeling of euphoria, making us feel intoxicated or high. It’s incredibly pleasurable.
The dopamine release when playing a slot machine keeps us motivated and fixated on continuing to play the game. You lose and lose, and then you randomly win, experiencing a massive dopamine spike. This cycle keeps people playing the slot machine again and again because they are chasing that high of a win.
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