Here's why people stay in loveless relationships, according to psychologists

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It has long been wondered why couples who grow distant or are dissatisfied with each other still choose stick together.

Even those who end up with their childhood sweethearts can tire of the same routine, or the relationship may have lost its spark or maybe they just dislike one another, and yet, choose to stay together.

Among the many explanations put forth for why many couples choose to remain together, fear of change and fear of loneliness are recurring reasons. Research conducted by and published in the journal Current Psychology however, suggests they may have found the real answer.



It is an all too common a state in marriage, when the daily routine eclipses romantic feelings and leads to plain dislike between the partners. Similarly, it is probable that the couple will still stick by each other despite the obvious reasons that they have in hand to quit.

According to Indy100 the extensive research used almost 1000 participants who were split into four groups and asked to imagine themselves in a hypothetical loveless marriage with different scenarios.

The first control group were told they were generally in an unhappy marriage, the second were told they were married for one year (instead of 10). The third were given a detailed scenario of their marriage, whereby they had financially invested and purchased a house together.

PHOTO: BDLW

The final and fourth group were asked to imagine that they had put a lot of effort into trying to save this imaginary marriage. The answers of the participants were then recorded.



The results revealed that 35 per cent of people who had invested money or effort into the marriage imagined they would stay with their spouse. However only 25 per cent of the group that had only been married a year said they would remain in the marriage.

It was further broken down and discovered that when the effort and money put into the marriage was at stake, the partners were more likely to stick to the marriage. Psychologists therefore coined the 'suck cost effect' term to define this.

It was disappointing to find that instead of love and happiness, materialistic and selfish reasons served as a driving force for couples to stick with each other in toxic relationships.

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