What Every Woman Stuck In A Bad Relationship Needs To Hear — On Repeat

It takes seven tries before an emotionally abused woman leaves for good. According to Iyanla Vanzant, there's a very simple reason why.

Iyanla Vanzant, separate image of a crying woman TikTok / Africa Studio - Shutterstock
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At some point in our lives, we’ve all seen a woman or been a woman that was unable to let go of a relationship that was clearly toxic. We hold on thinking that if only we can get him to understand our feelings and emotions or see the value in us, the relationship will turn around.

The signs that this won’t end well are all there—baggage, yo-yoing back and forth, and constantly trying to fix his problems while making him see you. But you keep holding on, while your partner continues to hold you hostage emotionally, make you take care of his needs and has unlimited access your body, so he feels no need to move on.

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Maybe you think it’s love that keeps you together. Of perhaps you believe they are your soul mate or your twin flame. But renowned relationship expert, Iyanla Vanzant, has a simple reason that women stay ‘stuck’ in bad relationships.

   

   

In the video, uploaded to her own TikTok account, Vanzant pulls no punches, giving women the much-needed answer right out the gate. She starts by saying, “It don’t hurt bad enough. That’s why you’re still there”.

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Women leave relationships when the pain becomes intolerable.

According to experts, it takes women seven attempts before they leave an emotionally abusive relationship. They take so long to move on due to a fear of what happens after they leave and shame over losing their ‘couple’ status. It could take years of possessiveness, manipulation, isolation, sabotage, belittling, guilting, volatility, betrayal, and deflecting responsibility before a woman cuts her losses.

But according to Vanzant, women stay in these toxic relationships because the pain has not yet become too much to bear.  “I know it’s horrible. It’s difficult. It’s sad. I don’t care how much you whine—how much you complain, how many stories you tell and how many people you tell the stories to. It don’t hurt bad enough. That’s why you’re still there,” she told viewers.

She went on to say that the day the relationship hurts a woman bad enough, she will leave and nothing in the world will be able to stop her. “Hopefully that day is coming,” Vanzant said as she ended the video.

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Many women don’t know what a healthy relationship looks like.

Every day, we are inundated with images, videos, and posts that show relationship toxicity at its finest. We watch people lie to, cheat on, and even abuse the people they love so much that it becomes the norm. When the same thing happens to us, it’s easy to feel like we should grin and bear it since it happens to everyone.

Though every relationship has its share of conflict, it can be healthy or dysfunctional. Healthy conflict involves listening to your partner, validating their feelings, and coming to a resolution that benefits everyone. Those disagreements should be over differences of opinion and not choices that your mate made, knowing how negatively they would impact you.

When you are involved in a healthy relationship, there will be honesty, trust, respect, equality, fun, and accountability, things that every woman who is in love should experience. If you find that your partner is giving you none of those things, it’s time to move on before you are subjected to trauma that might take years to overcome.

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NyRee Ausler is a writer from Seattle, Washington. She covers lifestyle, relationship, and human-interest stories that readers can relate to and that bring social issues to the forefront for discussion.