People stay in toxic relationships due to seven interconnected psychological mechanisms: normalization (where childhood experiences create schemas that make abuse seem normal), the identity trap (where relationships become the foundation of self-worth), the slot machine effect (where intermittent rewards create addiction), cognitive dissonance (where people rationalize bad behavior to maintain belief in the relationship), the sunk cost fallacy (where past investments make leaving feel like a loss), the guilt cage (where people blame themselves for staying), and the terror of the void (where fear of the unknown makes leaving feel impossible). These mechanisms work together to create a psychological trap that makes leaving feel more difficult than staying, even when the relationship is clearly harmful.
Toxic Relationships, Solved: Why We Stay (And How to Leave)Added:
Drew, you're still sick.
>> I know.
>> Spoiler alert. We recorded the last episode two hours ago.
>> That's right.
>> But you're still sick.
>> I continue to be sick.
>> Why?
>> I don't know. I never get sick either.
This is weird.
>> This is uh highly inconsiderate of our production schedule.
>> I know.
>> I'm I don't appreciate your >> I don't appreciate it either.
You don't appreciate it.
>> Well, I would appreciate it if you'd stop being sick by the end of this episode. So, >> I'll do my best. Yeah, get get to work on that. This is our version of a abusive toxic relation that you are unable to leave.
Trapped. You are trapped. That is what we're talking about today. Everybody, if you have ever watched somebody you care about and you love stay in a relationship that is absolutely destroying them, >> uh this episode is for you. If you have been the person yourself who's been white knuckling through what is actually just an absolutely terrible relationship, staying in it for way longer than you should, uh, making bad decisions, this episode is also for you. I feel like this is something that everybody goes through at some point in their lives. They stay in a bad relationship for too long. Um, and it's there's a lot of different like I I've definitely done it myself and I look back with a mixture of like regret, shame, embarrassment, confusion, like what was I thinking? Um, and so the prepping for this episode, it brought a lot of clarity. Ultimately, it's not about being dumb. It's not about being weak. It's not about being needy or desperate. We've identified seven psychological mechanisms that act against us, that keep us in bad romantic situations and make it feel reasonable and logical to stay when you're in that situation. So whether you're somebody who has gotten out of a horribly toxic relationship and wondered what the [ __ ] you were thinking, or you are somebody who is currently in a bad relationship and struggling to make a decision to leave, this episode should shine a lot of light on whatever you're going through. Now, the crazy thing, too, is that the smarter you are or the more emotionally attuned you are to the people around you, in some cases, the more susceptible you are to falling into a bad relationship, getting trapped inside of it, and not knowing how to leave. So, there's just a lot of misconceptions around who gets stuck in a bad relationship. There's a lot of misconceptions about why, and I think we're going to dispel all of those misconceptions today. So, a few of the things that we're going to talk about today in this episode of Solved. One, why in bad relationships, it's the good moments that are in many cases actually more dangerous than the bad moments. The invisible process by which a controlling relationship doesn't just restrict what you do, but it quietly rewires how you see yourself, how you feel about yourself, how you see the world. Why the people most likely to end up in abusive relationships are often the most empathetic. How the traits that make you good at love are also the traits that make you most vulnerable to the toxic forms of love. Why resilience can often backfire. You are able to tolerate more [ __ ] for a longer period of time.
We'll talk about the bystander effect, which is in this case is applied to close friends and family members, people who stand by and watch a slowmoving train wreck happen in front of them without ever voicing an opinion or trying to stop it. and we'll talk about why just leave is potentially the most useless piece of advice uh for somebody stuck in a bad relationship. That and much much more. My name is Mark Manson.
I'm the three-time number one New York Times bestselling author and this is Drew Bernie, my co-host, producer and better half of my codependent relationship. And this is Solved, the most comprehensive podcast on the planet where we take one burning life question and we solve it for you once and for all. Now, we're doing this episode a little bit different, Drew. I'm excited because we're experimenting with a little bit of a shakeup here.
>> So, for our listeners, to give some context, what we did is Drew and I, we agreed on the episode topic. We agreed on the main point. We did some initial research and agreed on the main points that we were going to hit, the seven psychological mechanisms that keep you stuck in a bad relationship.
But from there, we split up the task completely. So what Drew did is he went with the research team and they dug into all sorts of research that I am not aware of. I don't know what you guys dug up. I've not looked at it. Um, so a lot of it's going to be news to me. And then on my side, I went and found a case study of two very prominent people who were stuck in a famously horrible relationship. And we're going to use them as the example as we work through these seven concepts and these seven mechanisms.
>> And Drew does not know who these people are. He does not know the story.
>> Are you ready for the reveal?
>> I'm I'm Yes, I'm ready for the big reveal. I've been waiting all these weeks.
>> Fun fact, nobody on the team has >> I know you didn't. You you you kept a tight lip.
>> I kept a tight lip. So, our story today begins with a young man named Johnny Depp.
>> Oh. Oh, okay. Oh, I didn't even think of that one. Okay.
>> Born in Kentucky.
>> Over 60 years ago today.
>> So, Johnny was born in Kentucky to workingclass parents and he moved around a lot as a kid. Um, according to to him, he moved over 30 times by the time he reached high school age. So that's like twice a year for your entire childhood.
And I think that's really interesting because it it it kind of explains, you know, why you would become good at acting or maybe have a natural talent for acting.
>> Johnny was obsessed with music as a child. Uh, he wanted to be a rock star.
He learned to play guitar. He joined a band. Um, he actually toured with that band around He ended up in Florida. He toured with that band around Florida and the southern US and then eventually moved out to Los Angeles to try to make a career in music. Now, the interesting thing about Johnny that's relevant for this story is that his mom was extremely abusive and violent. She used to throw things at him. She would scream, yell, uh just verbally abuse and berate Johnny and his siblings. Um, and then she would throw things at him, throw ashtrays, telephones, uh, break furniture, um, and just beat the [ __ ] out of him.
>> And he would later say that his mother could be both the sweetest and warmest person in his life and the most doing with love. Um, but she could also be the the scariest and most most violent and most harmful person in his life. This is going to come back. You want to guess who discovered Johnny Depp? You'll never guess. It's crazy.
>> Oh, I I have no idea.
>> I had no idea until last night. Nicholas Cage discovered >> Nick Cage did. Really?
>> Nick Cage discovered Johnny Depp. And the reason was >> so Johnny was trying to make it as a musician in the mid80s.
>> Um he was dating a makeup artist >> um who worked on Hollywood films and Hollywood sets. And the makeup artist was good friends with Nick Cage. And so Nick started hanging out with Johnny and after hanging out with him a few times was like, "Dude, you'd be a great actor.
you should audition for something. And so he introduced him to to his agent and then went to his first audition and immediately landed a role on Nightmare on Elm Street.
>> Okay.
>> The Freddy Krueger movie.
>> Yeah. And >> so that was his big break. And so he it's kind of funny. He was never trained as an actor, never took theater, never practiced, never like went through the whole grind of Los Angeles.
>> Just got a part and from there uh got a TV part on uh 21 Jump Street. Mhm.
>> became a became a teen heartthrob. Uh was on the cover of all sorts of teen magazines and stuff in the late '8s. Uh became a a huge celebrity and he absolutely hated it. And so by the '9s he had decided I'm only going to take roles um that are kind of artsy and weird and um he Johnny always had a desire to kind of subvert expectations of the audience. Um, and so he he started taking he started turning down very prominent, you know, kind of big typical Hollywood star roles and he started taking a bunch of kind of weird off-beat uh roles instead. Landed in Edward Scissorhand in the early 90s that kind of established him as that type of actor.
>> Um, and then he went on to have a extremely successful career throughout the rest of the 90s. get to the 2000s, Disney was creating a concept called Pirates of the Caribbean, and they wanted a unique character for the the main role, Captain Jack Sparrow. They wanted somebody who was uh both mesmerizing, but a little bit offbeat, a little bit like, you know, not your typical Disney role or Disney character.
It was the first kind of big mainstream role that Johnny auditioned for and like really wanted. Um, and people in Disney were very torn over it. Even like after they filmed the movie, they were still unsure if they were actually going to use him. Uh, a lot of Disney executives were like, "What are we doing? This guy's a nut job." In fact, there's a there's a funny anecdote where some of the people from Disney um, actually asked Johnny on set like, "Hey, man, what's the deal with what's the deal with this character? Like, is he drunk?
Is he mentally ill?" like does does he have brain damage? And Johnny just looked at him and said, "Yes."
>> I remember thinking the same thing when those movies came out. I'm like, "What is with this? This is a wild character.
>> Such a such an incredible character."
Like such an incredible character. But something interesting happened. So, uh, obviously Pirates of the Caribbean is massive hit. Massive massive hit. I think there were four movies and I I forget the exact number but uh combined across the four movies they they grossed uh well into the billions and and Johnny at the time >> um you know had a piece of that. So it was pretty standard back then that if you were an A-list actor like he was uh you would get what was called the 2020 deal which is that you would get 20 million upfront and then you would get 20% of the gross.
>> So Johnny became extremely rich, extremely rich. We're talking hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars over a short period of time.
>> On top of that, Captain Jack Sparrow became so popular and so synonymous with him that what happened was what happens to a lot of actors who experienced maybe a little bit too much success with the role is that he couldn't shake the character.
>> From then on, everywhere he went, >> he was Captain Jack Sparrow. all of his little offbeat quirks and funny lines and awkward things that he would say. Uh they're like, "Oh, he's doing Captain Jack Sparrow." Not realizing that like, "No, that's who he is." Um he tried to do he tried to branch out into other roles and start doing other movies, but it just nothing ever seemed to land. The audience now had a different relationship with him. And so he ended up in this place where he felt kind of trapped by the success on the personal life side. Uh he had a long-term partner. He had kids. Uh that relationship was going south. He was starting to drink a lot. He was doing drugs again. He was uh kind of spending a lot of money. He bought an island in the Bahamas. I think he bought I think it was 17 properties in like eight different countries or something. He had a he bought a wine seller with like 10,000 bottles of wine. there's a building here in downtown LA where he bought all three pen houses. Uh even though he's just one person.
So he just kind of went on this spending spree. And at one point, I believe at the peak, he his monthly expenses were $2 million just to cover like just to cover the like property taxes, you know, landscapers, uh, housekeepers, like everything um, on all of his properties. So, he was burning through an insane amount of cash. So you've got this weird dichotomy where he's on the one hand like at the peak of his success, the peak of his fame, but he's feeling trapped and stifled creatively, professionally. On the other hand, his personal life is completely spiraling out of control. Uh his his they never got married, but the mother of his kids, like they're growing apart. She doesn't really want to see him anymore. Um he's spending all his money. He's drunk all the time. He's be kind of becoming a [ __ ] And then that's when he meets Amber. Amber Heard, funny enough, grew up where I grew up.
>> I didn't know that either.
>> She and I actually had uh a few mutual friends in high school.
>> Oh, I didn't know that.
>> Um I never met her, >> but um she I believe she went to St. Michael's. I went to St. Andrews. Um, it's funny actually. One of my childhood friends uh did know her in high school and I I asked him a number of years ago what she was like in high school and his answer was uh smoking hot.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
Uh but Amber Heard grew up outside of Austin like I did. Um and Austin in the 80s and 90s was a very different town.
It was extremely conservative. Uh it was the Bible belt. Everything was about Jesus and football. I've talked about this before and very much like me, she [ __ ] hated it and could not wait to get out. Um, by all accounts, she grew up with an abusive father. Um, used to beat the [ __ ] out of her mom. Uh, drug problems, alcohol problems, in and out of jail, legal problems, the whole gamut. So she dropped out of high school at 17, moved to New York, became a model, moved to LA, uh started her acting career, and like a lot of beautiful faces in LA was kind of like climbing up the ladder, you know, starting with like music videos and little, you know, side roles in small TV shows and then maybe starring a indie horror movie and then kind of working her way up to more prominent feature films, but still as like a supporting actress or like kind of a minor role. Um I think she was in uh Pineapple Express, she was in Friday Night Lights. Um so she's like making a living but she's by no means like famous.
>> Um and then she lands on the set of the the Rum Diaries uh acting opposite of Johnny and that's when she met him. This episode is brought to you by Factor. You know what's funny about an episode on bad relationships? Nobody ever talks about the one you have with food because it's the same pattern. You know what you should be doing. You know what's good for you. And then it's 7:00 p.m. and you're exhausted and you're standing in front of a fridge and you're like, you know, I guess cheese counts as dinner.
That was me for years. Eating healthy was never a knowledge problem. It was more of a setup problem. I knew what I should be eating. I just didn't have the energy to make it happen at the end of a long day. But factor is one of the things that fixed that for me. So everything shows up fresh. It's never frozen. It's ready in 2 minutes. This week I tried one of their new ready to eat salads with alote corn. And honestly, I did not expect a delivered salad to hit like that. They've also got over 70 add-ons now. So, they've got green juices, peanut butter, energy bites, stuff that I'll grab between meals without thinking about it. It's made my whole day easier, not just dinner. They've got over 100 rotating meals every week. High protein, calorie smart, Mediterranean, muscle pro if you're training, even GLP1 support.
Every meal is designed by dieticians, crafted by chefs, made with real functional ingredients. No artificial sweeteners, no refined seed oils, no high fructose corn syrup. They ban over 175 ingredients from their meals. It's real food that actually tastes like someone gave a [ __ ] I use Factor, and honestly, you should, too. It's one of the easiest ways to stop negotiating with yourself about food every single day. So, head to factormeals.com/solved20650 off. That's one word. and use the code solve 202650 off to get 50% off and free daily greens per box with a new subscription only while supplies last until September 27th 2026. See the website for more details. So the first psychological mechanism that I want to get into with both of their backstories is the concept of normalization which is that we all come to our romantic relationships with a map and understanding of what romantic relationships are supposed to look like.
Uh there's a great book that we bring up sometimes by Harville Hendricks called uh Getting the Love You Want and he talks about this throughout that book that basically the one of the primary roles that your parents play in your life is that their relationship becomes the standard by which you judge all of your future partners. So it's like whatever mom and dad did with each other and whatever mom and dad did with you, that is quote unquote normal and that is expected and that is like your definition of love. And so here we have two people who come from abusive households. In Johnny's case is he has an extremely violent mother who physically abuses him. In Amber's case, she has a alcoholic, drug-addicted father who's also abusive. And this is just their understanding of what relationships are. And it's the water they swim in. And so the things that would maybe strike you and I as a red flag doesn't strike them as a red flag.
And I think all of us who struggle deeply in our relationships, we have to deal with this at some point. There's like always a moment where we're like, "Oh, this thing that I always thought was normal is actually kind of [ __ ] up and I have to come to terms with that and maybe change my programming a little bit, like change my definition of like what is intimacy or what's okay." um otherwise things are going to get very destructive or or unhealthy >> in the research they call this your schema >> right that's what gets normalized is you have the schema this this this program running in your head I guess and it is based on those early experiences and there's really it's not just the family though too right there's the actual there's other layers to it as well the family is kind of the personal um layer to it but then there's also your social circles so the people around you too uh and then the the wider culture as well you You know, so like we we talk all the time about like Latin American cultures.
Well, jealousy is seen as like passion, right? So you don't have the quite the vocabulary there as as something being like if someone is very jealous or controlling in that culture, it might be very it that might be seen as almost a good thing, right? And so the schemas actually develop throughout that whole layered system. So it's not just the family, but the family is the one of the most powerful I would say. Yeah.
>> Yeah. I think the culture point is really important especially >> in the context of >> Johnny Depp and Amber. It's >> there's a Hollywood culture ecosystem that they they exist within, right? So Johnny is the the troubled genius.
>> Uh he's the rockstar actor, right? He's he was >> Hunter S. Thompson at Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, right? He's like famous for these kinds of roles. He's famous for being a little bit unstable. He's famous for being just offbeat and kind of wild and crazy.
>> And so there's there's a little bit of an enabling that goes on, right? So it's when he's drunk for three he goes on a three-day bender and blows uh $2 million um on wine, like >> people kind of shrug and they're like, "Well, that's just Johnny being Johnny, right?" And I think in Amber's case, she also exists within this ecosystem at the time where, you know, beautiful young women are taken for granted, not treated well, not respected, >> um, put up with a lot of [ __ ] and you're just kind of expected to suck it up and deal with it. And all of this is playing out on that backdrop of expectations >> of like what's normal and what's not.
I'm curious if you've like run into anything in your relationships that like something was very normal for you and then it took a relationship or two for you to be like, "Oh, wait, no, that's kind of [ __ ] up. I should stop doing that."
>> Yeah, of course it does. It does for all of us. I mean, not necessarily as uh explosive as that necessarily, I would say, but even things like avoidance, right, that gets normalized. Yeah, >> I think that was you and I probably actually share a lot of that and like when I was growing up, avoidance was kind of like the baseline, >> right? You just don't talk about it.
>> Don't talk about it. Don't rock the boat. Like and and put on the face that everything is okay. I think that's a very very common one, too. Probably more common than the like explosive stuff.
Well, I don't know. Maybe maybe not. But I know for me anyway, just not addressing problems. Like that was the baseline.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Um because if you if you admitted to the problem or if you're addressing the problem, you're admitting defeat, basically, right? Like, oh, something's not right. So, just don't even bring it up. And if it doesn't come up, then it's not a problem. Yeah. So, I think that was >> one of the first ones I found anyway. Um I didn't realize that you could have a healthy disagreement with somebody that you loved. You know, that that wasn't >> that was weird to me. That was very strange to me.
>> I experienced the same thing. And it's funny cuz in my early relationships, I used to experience like I used to catastrophize. So if if my partner would get upset with me or we'd have a fight, >> I still do that. Yeah.
>> My brain would immediately go to over.
Yeah. We're breaking up. This is it.
Like >> I I still do that.
>> She's mad I didn't take out the trash.
I'm I'm going to be single forever. Like that that's immediately where my brain would go. And uh >> and it took me a long time to realize just how irrational that was.
>> Right. Speaking to the culture thing, the normalization thing, I think it's a relationship can become healing if the two normalizations kind of balance each other out, >> right? So, like for instance, I have the same thing. It's just like pretend there's nothing wrong.
Sweep it under the rug. It's going to be fine. Ignore it. My wife comes from a world where everything's a [ __ ] problem, right? And you like you you get in people's face about it. And >> um like there's too much drama and too much conflict and people are too confrontational. Like they're they're stirring up problems where there are none just because that that's how they un understand intimacy and that you you care and love for each other. And so it's interesting because I think she and I balance each other out really nicely.
I think she has learned to pick and choose her battles and like really stop and think like is this worth it?
>> Nah, let it go.
>> But on the other hand, like if there is something that needs to be addressed, she's very able to address it. She's very able to bring it up to me and be like, "Hey, we should talk about this."
U whereas I struggle to do that.
>> And on the flip side, if I see her kind of freaking out about something that doesn't matter, I'm very good at being like, "Hey, chill out. This this doesn't really matter. Like let's go for a walk.
like this isn't this isn't a big deal. I think it's healthy if those two pre predispositions are kind of balancing each other out.
>> Where things get really ugly is if you get two people who have either complimentary or the same issue because then it starts reinforcing each other, right? So, >> and we'll see this in the case of Johnny and Amber like in their minds it's this is just par for the course. Um it's like yes, addiction problems, drunk benders, violence, breaking furniture, throwing things at each other. Like to both of them, this is normal. And so when it keeps when it as it escalates, >> none of it like doesn't really occur to either of them to like slam on the brakes or like pull the rip cord.
>> The other really dangerous thing about this is that if you grow up around [ __ ] up chaos, [ __ ] up chaos starts to feel like home. I think the danger of this normalization like what it actually the way it actually plays out is that even though it's really toxic and unhealthy, it's known. It's the old saying like it's you prefer the devil you know than the devil you don't, right? So it's like okay, I'd rather I'd rather tolerate something known but uncomfortable than to push into the unknown >> and like explore a relationship that I've never experienced before.
>> Yeah. related to that too is kind of the when things get normalized, you kind of think that you're the exception almost.
You know, you you kind of think that, oh, okay, yes, I see this person. I see what they do to everyone around them, but I know this. This is normal to me, and I can handle this.
>> I can handle this. I It's It's not something that's not going to kill me, so it's going to make me stronger type of thing. I can do this.
>> I survived this once before. I'll survive it again, and I can fix it.
>> Right? and everybody else around me, maybe they can't handle it, but I can because this is normal to me. Yeah.
Yeah. So, yeah, that's a that's a very insidious subtle trap you get.
>> Yeah. Which is the resilience thing, right? It's like >> it's uh being resilient's good unless you're >> tolerating something you shouldn't be tolerating.
>> Right. Right. Um I think one one interesting thing we found too about schema formation. So these these ideas this normalization kind of machine you have in your brain a counterintuitive finding is that it emotional neglect is actually more powerful for schema formation than say like physical abuse or you know all the screaming and yelling and then throwing things you're talking about. It's actually the emotional neglect that comes from like a bad relationship, especially when you're growing up and you're young, that actually has a more powerful uh effect on the the way you approach uh relationships than any sort of like physical abuse. It it's it's kind of strange like kids um can tolerate that a little bit more apparently or they can at least navigate it better. But emotional neglect is actually one thing that's just seems like we can't come back from which is I don't know cruel.
>> Yeah. if you think about it. Yeah.
>> Um but yeah, it was it's something that's been found in the relationship literature anyways that uh emotional and neglect is actually one of the most powerful drivers of the schema that you end up creating in your own mind going forward.
>> I think the the the bond a child has with their parents. It's evolutionarily is driven for survival, right? Like it's it's >> mother nature needs the parents to take care of the child.
And so it kind of programs the child to like mold themselves to whatever the parents what whatever is going to get them attention and affection from the parents even if it's really harmful and damaging >> because then at least it's attention at least they're paying attention. They're around >> um whereas if the parents are are just like checked out and gone um then then the child's even more vulnerable, >> right? Yeah. Yeah. I think that's what it is. Yeah.
>> All right, moving on. Um, so Johnny and Amber meet on the set of Rum Diaries in 2009. Apparently there's intense chemistry, but nothing happens. Um, Amber at the time is in a relationship with a woman. Um, in I did not know this, but she apparently she was the first prominent actress to ever publicly come out as bisexual. Oh, >> okay.
>> Um, and was celebrated for it at the time and was in a long-term relationship with a woman. Um, and it and at the time, this was mid 2000s, uh, it was it was seen as a career risk, especially for somebody who's not like A-list.
>> Um, and it could have potentially affected her career negatively. Jump ahead to 2011. The The Rum Diaries, which was filmed in 2009, is about to be released, and Johnny and Amber are about to do a press tour, um, which you do for a film. So, you travel around the world together. You go to premieres. You do a bunch of interviews. Um, you show up to film festivals, Q&As's, all sorts of stuff. So, you're spending a lot of time together. And at this point, Johnny's I'm going to call it marriage, even though they legally weren't married.
Johnny's marriage is basically over. His wife has moved to France with the kids.
Amber's relationship is also ending. Um, and so she's in a really a state of flux, struggling to know who she is. And this brings us to our second concept, which um I'll call the identity trap.
>> Basically, our intimate relationships form a large percentage of our identity.
They they dictate largely how we view ourselves, how we feel about ourselves.
Anybody who's dated somebody for a long period of time, like you notice that your interests start to converge, your habits start to converge, your preferences start to converge over time.
Like that's not an accident. It's because a lot of your your ego and self-identification is based on your partner. Um, and if you have a healthy relationship with that partner, that's actually extremely healthy. Like I think this is >> I I don't want people to lose sight of this. You know, that merging of identities to a certain extent is potentially healthy. like you can that's that's where the healing of a relationship takes place where if you you know let's say you have some shame or trauma in your background that you've never completely dealt with. Um by kind of integrating with your partner and uh experiencing that loving acceptance from them like that can heal that part of yourself and that relationship with yourself um in a way that you you wouldn't necessarily be able to do on your own. the identification with the romantic relationship is ultimately a good thing uh in a vacuum.
>> But the downside is that once you exit a significant romantic relationship, there's there's an identity vacuum.
There's this feeling of like I don't know who I am anymore. I don't remember what I like on my own. I don't remember what I do on my Saturday mornings on my own. I don't >> uh I I don't know how lovable I am. I don't know why people like me. I don't know who I'm going to spend time with.
Right? So, there's all these unanswered questions of who you are, what you're going to do, how you're going to spend your time. And that's like a very there there's a bit of an existential crisis that takes place in that moment because you have to go through a process of figuring out who you are again and trying to understand. Now, people who are extremely codependent, and by codependent, I mean like they they derive all of their self-worth from their partner, they suffer really intensely when they come out of a romantic relationship because their supply of self-esteem has just been like yanked away from them. And so, those are the people that you see just kind of go from monogous relationship to monogous relationship. Like, they can't really >> they can't seem to emotionally sustain themselves while being single. Johnny Depp was definitely one of those people.
Um, on top of all of his other issues, right, he's professionally stagnant.
He's been typ cast into this character that he can't seem to get away from. And similarly on her side, you know, she's still climbing that career ladder, still trying to make a name for herself. And up to this point, the thing that she's best known for is being that Hollywood actress with a girlfriend. But that girlfriend's gone now, right? So, who is she? like why is anybody going to pay attention to her? Why is anybody going to be interested in her? Why why is anybody going to give her a role in a film?
>> And so he fills a void. Right now she gets to be Johnny Depp's girlfriend, right? It's like now she's she gets to be a part of his world and it's this huge like it opens all of these doors not just professionally but emotionally and like psychologically for her. So this is the identity trap. When you enter a relationship, not because you have a strong identity and your partner has a strong identity and you're genuinely very attracted to each other's identities, but you enter a relationship to fill a gap or a void inside of who you are.
You're using that person to like build an identity for yourself. This creates a very unstable foundation to build off of. And what's very paradoxical about this is that it's these it's the identity trap that you see this like intense romantic chemistry very very quickly. Like the people just become like they latch on to each other and they're like, "Oh my god, where have you been my whole life? Thank god you're here. I'm safe again." Right?
>> And this is exactly what you see with Johnny and Amber. It's just like [ __ ] 0 to 60 within a month. She's likely she's like moved in with him. She's like >> traveling the world with him. She's going to set with him. Like she's every everything. She's there every day. She's involved with everything. It's like very very very intense. This episode is brought to you by Wealthfront. One of the things that keeps coming up in this episode is that people do not stay in bad situations because they want to.
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>> What happens is you come into a relationship, you feel like two individuals, right? You enjoy each other's company. You start figuring learning about each other, figuring things out about each other. Over time, that develops kind of into like a we, you know, you have this language around what we like to do or what we do or who we are, >> right? There's one way you're talking about it where it's like you just skip that altogether and you just fuse right away, right? And that's like that's usually fireworks what you see right away and not in a good way.
>> Yeah. Both good and bad. Yeah.
>> Right. Right. The more normal healthy way though is yeah you do have this kind of gradual um they call it self-concept.
Your self-concept uh of the relationship kind of I don't know if I want would say merges but you develop a self-concept um that includes the other person in your in in the relationship. Right. Right.
>> Um and you have that language around like we and us. Yeah.
>> Uh where it starts to get toxic or um maladaptive is when you start to think of like what is the other person how how would they think about this and how should I think about this because of what they think. Yeah.
>> Right. Your identity like takes a backseat to whatever the other person's preferences are.
>> It can even be weaponized by one of the people too, right? Like you oh you your your social circle kind of goes out the window. It's just you two. It's us against the world. all of these kind of like that's when your identities themselves start to merge. Not that like the separate kind of uh healthy normal thing has been created that greater than the sum of its parts if you will, right?
>> Yeah.
>> But it's that that that over identification with uh the other person and and what the other person wants >> uh where your needs and identity even to just take a back seat. I I think one way to think about it, you know, so back in the purpose episode, we we discussed um diversifying your identity, like finding purpose and meaning from multiple different places. And >> I think in the ego episode, we also talked about having like a diversity of things that you identify with and >> a diversity of ways that you see yourself.
>> I think the danger here is and and this is I hear you're getting at and you're describing is like you think of like two people's identities as like a vin diagram, right? Like I think a healthy relationship is there's a significant percentage of overlap between the two circles, but it's definitely not completely overlap, right?
>> Yeah.
>> And a toxic codependent relationship is when the two circles are like almost 100% overlap. Like both people >> are are literally emotionally incapable of functioning without each other, unable to make decisions without each other, unable to like think or do anything without each other's approval.
Right? like that's it's a very dark toxic place to be and and that's where a lot of abuses abusive relationships begin which we'll get into why in a minute. Another unhealthy version of this is just when the vin diagrams are like completely separate and there's no overlap, right? Like that that's when you're like uh >> that's like the people who are married for 20 years but feel like roommates, right? Like that's the people who >> um you know haven't really talked to each other in six months even though they've you know they've got three kids together, you know? So, it's you want some of that overlap, but you don't want all of that overlap.
>> Mhm. Yeah. And I I think too, one of the things >> in this story in particular, too, is that there I don't think there was a whole lot of You've mentioned this already, there wasn't a whole lot of clarity for either of these two of who they were even necessarily, right?
>> They they mixed a lot of their professional and personal identities together. And so, it wasn't very clear to either of them who they were. Yeah.
And that's actually in the research that comes up with where you have a lower self-concept clarity, what they call it, like yes, I know who I am and I'm very clear about that. They didn't. They like, and I think that happens in a lot of creative spaces, too. Your work and your personal life get all mixed in together and you it's very hard to know who you are.
>> Absolutely. I mean, it's it's I think on her side, right? It's like she started getting all of these acting opportunities. All these doors started opening. Things started getting financed that she wanted to do because she's Johnny Depp's girlfriend. We'll kind of get to the public side of this later. I think there's some interesting commentary we can make on that uh towards the end of this episode.
>> I want to save commentary on the legal case and kind of how the cultural moment of Johnny and Amber uh until after we've kind of gone through the relationship itself.
>> So like even if you you give her credit and you you you don't assume you assume she's not like this evil conniving [ __ ] who's like using him and leveraging him like right like it's just being a human being with incentives, right? Like it's it's like if like dating this guy [ __ ] 10xes your career overnight, like it's really hard really hard to bring yourself to question that relationship there. You know, it's that it's that famous Upton Sinclair saying of like um it's impossible to convince a man uh that he's wrong if his paycheck depends on it. Like it's just that's how human beings function. It's just it's not evil. It's just the way our minds work. It's a psychological mechanism that we all have inside of us. I think on his side, he's probably deep. I mean, it sounds like he's deep in a midlife crisis, right? Like his career has peaked. He knows it. Uh he's he's getting old at this point. He's he's in his 50s. His family's left.
>> You know, he's in a funk. He like doesn't know what to look forward to. He doesn't know, you know, what to be excited about, right? And then he's got this young beautiful girl who's like madly in love with him. And it's it's something, right? something to kind of like put himself into. It's interesting.
So, one of the fascinating things about this story uh is that we two things are very unique about this story, aside from them just being famous, right?
>> Um >> we have three court cases worth of depositions and uh evidence that's been introduced into the public record. So, that is interesting on the one hand. Um, and we have hundreds of witnesses, you know, bellboys, uh, assistants, >> drivers. Yeah.
>> Drivers, doormen, like so many people were around when all this stuff happened and have gone on the record to like describe >> Mhm.
>> the the certain events. Um, the other thing that's really unique and this I in a sick way I found this amusing is that the relationship became so volatile so quickly that both of them and both of them were very aware of how prominent they were and how this could go south.
So both of them began secretly recording conversations without the other knowing, >> which I to me there's just like there's like a divine comedy in that that they're both secretly running tape recorders while they're fighting >> knowing that like one day they might be in court and have to like use it against the other one. So So tons of these fights that they had are are actually recorded in and are again in the public record. I mean, I will say in ter in terms of like the identity stuff goes though, um they it's even if you're not, you know, Johnny Depp or Amber Herd, the more your identity gets entwined with that relationship, the harder and harder it is to leave, let alone just see what's even going on, right? Because again, it's not just that, oh, we I have the shared kind of self-concept with this person that we have this life together over here and then I'm over here. It's not that at all. It's like this is who I am. I'm all wrapped up in it. Who am I without it? Just like they were in their previous relationships as well. It that's why from the outside looking in, you look at somebody and they're like, why don't you just leave?
Well, this is one of the reasons is like because your identity is wrapped up in this.
>> They're literally your whole world.
Yeah.
>> Like you can't imagine life without them. The the other aspect of this like I think it's worth explaining the reason why these relationships become so volatile is because if your entire identity is based on another person >> and then that person comes home drunk and says something mean to you >> like that that feels catastrophic, right? like this is this person is 100% the source of your selfworth and they're coming home and denying you validation and respect. Like >> it just feels so awful. Whereas like again somebody with maybe a healthy identity, a healthy ego and a healthy balance in their life, >> right? Like what would you say if your girlfriend came home and said drunk and said something mean to you? I if my wife did that, I'd be like >> go the [ __ ] to bed.
>> Don't talk to me like them. We'll talk about this when you're over.
>> Yeah. Yeah. It's like like don't talk to me like that and you should go to bed.
Uh and then that would be the end of it and the next morning she'd probably wake up and apologize and then we'd life would move on, right?
>> Whereas if your identity is all wrapped up into that, you're like, "How can I how can I get this fixed? How can they fix this for me? How can I get them to fix this?"
>> It's absolutely intolerable.
>> Okay. Yeah. So that volatility that that roller coaster ride of high highs and low lows, this leads us into the third psychological mechanism that keeps people trapped in in abusive relationships or bad relationships. Now in the psychological literature this is known as variable ratio reinforcement but uh we're just going to call it the slot machine effect which is basically if you go back to behaviorism in the 1950s with BF Skinner and the test that he ran on rats what they found is that if you provide unpredictable rewards for behavior uh people are much more likely to get addicted to that behavior. And so this is why gambling is so addictive is because you go to the slot machine and you you have no idea what's going to happen each time you pull it. But sometimes something great happens, sometimes something bad happens, but you want to keep pulling it. And if something great happens, you want to pull it again because something great might happen again. And then if something bad happens, you're like, well, I should pull it again until until something great happens. And so you what you see around addictions is that it's a lot of it is very much based in this variable ratio reinforcement of like not not knowing when the reward is coming.
Like the reward does come sometimes, but it doesn't always come and it's not clear. You can't really predict when it comes or not. And so what you see is that people literally get addicted to the relationship. And I've often in previous episodes, I've often described toxic relationships as an addiction.
Like people behave the same way addicts behave. They justify. They rationalize the same way addicts rationalize. They they lie and cover their tracks the same way addicts lie and cover their tracks.
They they become delusional the same way addicts become delusional. Anything to get their next fix, which is in their case the relationship. Um and sadly, the more volatile the relationship M >> the more this addiction mechanism kicks in because >> hey anytime it's bad you wonder like well maybe today will be good.
>> You know >> maybe this next trip will reconnect and things will be better.
>> Um you know he's so great when he's sober like may if I can just get him to cut back on the drinking like things are going to be great.
>> There's that little shred of hope.
>> There's always Yes. There's always and again it's it's like the gambler at the blackjack table. It's like you know one more hand.
>> One more hand.
>> One more hand. Yeah, they've even se shown too like in with people who are addicted to gambling if you let them win every single time they get bored and they they leave. Yeah, >> it's it's insane. I know it's it's very counterintuitive, but it's not like the bad moments that you get trapped in.
Like people from the outside looking like this is awful. Why don't you leave?
And it's like because there is that little shred of hope >> cuz when it's good, it's so >> good. The good thing like you have all this dopamine building up, right, in anticipation and then once it finally does hit, it's so good because and even compared to those bad moments, it's so good. Yeah.
>> Is exactly why you get trapped inside of that.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> And interestingly, you know, >> there's reams and reams of text messages from both both sides, Johnny and Amber, and you see this pattern play out across both sides. It's it's there's there's this cycle of um you know there's a blow up and then there's a reconciliation and then there's like oh I'm so sorry like let's make it good again let's be good to each other and then things are amazing and they're madly in love and there's all this like sweet loveydovey stuff going on >> and then one of them gets triggered and then it escalates and then there's a blow up and it there's an escalation to it and I think what people need to understand is that escalation is necessary right because that's What keeps both sides feeling loved? It keeps that sliver of hope. Like the bigger the problem you surmount, the bigger the high on the other side of coming back together. But the bigger the high on the other side of coming back together, the more upsetting the next blowup is.
>> And the more furious and frustrated and hurt and angry each person gets, which then makes the makeup that much more intense, which makes the next high that much more intense. And so you get this just like this escalation that keeps happening to keep both people justifying staying in the relationship.
>> Oh, it's not just people that do this too. It's fascinating study. Uh I found actually rats do this as well.
>> Really?
>> Yeah. So if you expose them to these variable reward schedules like you put them in the Skinner box and you know give them a give them a treat just every randomly every time they >> press a lever five times, 10 times, whatever it is random, right? They actually, if you do this long enough, you do this over a period of weeks or so, um, these rats will actually become more risk-taking. They'll seek out risk more. Yeah. So, you'll put them like in an open field or something like that, which is for a rat, an open area with the bright lights is very it's it's dangerous. They usually don't want to go out into the middle of that open field like that. But, they'll do it more often if you expose them to more variable rewards.
>> Interesting. So, it's just it's like a fundamental mamillion thing for some reason that if we're exposed to like these kind of uncertain environments, then we have to ratchet up that risk-taking. And this happens in relationships as well. So, it's pretty wild.
>> Interesting.
>> Yeah. This episode is brought to you by Ultra Pouches. Every day after lunch, the team and I do the same walk. The walk of shame. No, it's called the walk of caffeine. We stop at a convenience store and we stop at a coffee shop. Why?
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And they actually work. You just pop one of these pouches into your mouth and you get one to two hour. Sorry, I can't talk with a patch in my mouth. You get one to two hours of smooth focus without a crash. Now, we keep all these on our desks in the office. So, when that post-launch slump hits, we pop one in and we get right back to work. The blue raz flavor is moderately delicious. I prefer the tropical myself because, you know, I was a sour patch kid. Now, Ultra is ultimately guilt-free because it delivers instant focus and mental clarity without the addictive qualities of nicotine and caffeine. So, new customers can use the code solve to get 15% off at takera.com. That's take Ultra.com for 15% off with the code solved. After you purchase, they'll ask where you heard about them. So, please support the show and tell them that Papa Mark sent you. So, I think the volatility with Johnny and Amber started relatively quickly according to a lot of >> people who worked with them or were around them a lot, assistants, employees.
>> The fight started kicking in within a couple months and they just slowly escalated from there. It was interesting. Um, a lot of Johnny's friends described him during this period as happier than than they had ever seen him before, but also distant, disconnected, and aloof, >> which I think is very indicative of this sort of relationship, right? Like it is again like an addict like when they're in the throws of their addiction, like they're happy. They're going to tell you like, "Everything's great. Met this new girl. She's incredible. we like we're flying around the world together. We're doing all these amazing things together.
We're working on all these amazing projects together. But meanwhile, they've lost interest in other things.
Like they're they've they're losing interest in hobbies. They're losing touch with friends. They're disconnecting from family members. And it's again like an addiction. It's it it prunes your outside life away from you.
And not again, not in like an evil, conniving, manipulative way.
>> Sure.
>> It's it's purely because the more invested you get into the relationship, the more of your self-worth you're deriving from the relationship, >> the more you're writing the volat the emotional volatility and the the slot machine effect, the more boring and unimportant other things are going to seem to you, right?
So, it's like, well, why why should I reach out to my music buddies or, you know, why should I bother flying home to see my mom? Like, it's I I got too much going on like right now with her and, you know, we're in a good spot. I don't want to mess anything up. And so, you just kind of end up isolating yourself with the partner, which then just feeds back into the dynamic even further, >> right?
>> So, it's probably worth describing the volatility. Johnny's substance abuse just got more intense, more more extreme. His binges got longer and longer. He would lock himself in rooms for days at a time. He would disappear for days at a time. Nobody knew where he went. He'd come back completely [ __ ] up, like barely conscious, incoherent.
Her volatility was much more around emotion and anger.
>> So, initially, I think the violence started on his side, but it wasn't directed at her. He would break things.
So, he would like destroy an entire hotel room. He would break a bunch of furniture. He would throw stuff through a wall. Um, he would just kind of make a mess of everything, but obviously it was like very scary and very intense. Um, there's no like from what I found, and don't come at me in the comments, but like from what I found, there's no direct evidence that he hit her.
>> Obviously, she says that he did. Um, and there's a whole defamation suit. We'll we'll get into that in a minute. Um, but it it does seem that his violent outburst seem to be more like substancefueled and more directed towards uh, you know, the the kitchen cabinet, right, than a human being.
>> Whereas her violence seemed to definitely be directed towards him. Um, at some point she started violently lashing out at him, hitting him, >> throwing things at him. Um, and this is on recording. It's on the public record.
So, it's that's not a controversial statement to say that.
>> But again, plays back into the normalization, right? So, it's like now she's tolerating this drunk drug addict [ __ ] weirdo like her dad. Mhm.
>> Um and he's the woman he loves most in the world is like throwing [ __ ] at him when she's mad. So that feels like home.
>> Yeah.
>> You know.
>> Yeah.
>> So this this slot machine escalation of the relationship takes us up to early 2015. Uh Johnny and Amber are married in February and in March they're in Australia and Johnny is hospitalized because Amber threw a vodka bottle at her and it shattered on his hand and cut off the tip of his finger. Like most people in an abusive relationship, he went to the hospital and tried to explain to the nurses some [ __ ] story that he tripped and fell and it was an accident and all this stuff, but um is it's things were pretty ugly by that point and it was only about 3 years in. But then you ask yourself, okay, as this volatility escalates, as the fights get worse and the makeup gets better, like how do people rationalize this? How do people justify what's going on?
>> And this we get into the fourth psychological mechanism that keeps us trapped in bad relationships, which is cognitive dissonance.
>> And we've we've talked about cognitive dissonance multiple times on the show before. Um, I forget which episode, but like we've gone pretty deep into it in the past, but for new listeners, cognitive dissonance is basically um when you believe something's true and you're faced with a contradictory reality, generally speaking, people do not change their beliefs. They just warp their perception of reality to fit the prior belief. And so I think in the case of a a a of a toxic relationship, probably the most common belief that everything gets wrapped into is that I can fix this.
>> I can change things. I can change him or I can change her. And you see this in their text messages around this time.
She's often texting her sister and her mom saying, you know, when he's sober, he's so amazing. He's the best guy in the world. I just got to he's just got to quit drinking. his text messages.
He's explaining the friends like, "You don't understand. Like, when things are good, she's the most caring, loving person I've ever met. She understands me better than anybody else I've I've ever known. She's just, you know, I've got to be better. I've got to change things.
We've We're going to fix it." Blah blah blah blah blah. And this is just this is this is quicksand. It's like the more you say it, the further you sink, the worse things get. The really dark thing about these rationalizations, these justifications, is that each time you rationalize bad behavior, you lower the bar. You normalize it. Right?
>> So, it's like the first time she throws a vodka bottle at you, maybe you're extremely upset, but then the third time she throws the vodka bottle, it's like, "Oh, this is just another fight." And so that normalization starts to expand. and the bar of your expectations continues to lower. And again, this feeds back into that escalation of the volatility until you eventually reach a point like all cognitive dissonance, you reach a point where >> you're just kind of detached from reality. Like you've lost track. You've just completely lost the plot and you can't >> you you're no longer a reliable source of like what is okay and what's not. And I think this is this is the point that like friends and family and loved ones kind of look on with a little bit of shock and concern of like well no dude like throwing a vodka bottle at you is not okay. Like you shouldn't be okay with that. It's hard. It's hard because it's it's like once you're in that world and this is normal to you like it's it's hard to see outside of the bubble, >> right? And there's that. So, so it's the cognitive dissonance kind of coupled with the rationalization is the mechanism here, right? Which is, you know, the the cognitive dissonance is that like like I love this person and yet all these terrible things are happening. How do I resolve that? And you start rationalizing like that. And like you said, they kind of escalate.
>> Yeah.
>> And this is definitely what they find like first you see, you know, maybe somebody's like, "Oh, they're brilliant." Uh, but and brilliant people are difficult, you know, like amazing people are just hard to like Johnny Depp, right? He's he's an a brilliant actor. of course he's going to be difficult and he's quirky and he's weird and yes this is what I signed up for right >> those just escalate and escalate >> until even somebody from the outside at some point when they do come in it's usually way too late right it's usually at the point where this person has has been rationalizing this behavior for so long that anything you throw at them they're going to already have an excuse for it so that's why I think uh a lot of people are like you know I I brought this up to them I brought it to them I I pointed it out to them I don't know what else I could have done well you were too late at that point typically because there's this kind of like slow progression and you just that cognitive dissonance you you get really really good at resolving it with rationalizations.
>> It's almost like kind of brainwashing yourself.
>> Yeah, it is it is into the rel like both people brainwash themselves into believing that the relationship's okay and normal. Yeah.
>> I'll give you a couple text message examples. So, there's a an example of of >> um >> Johnny texting one of his his friends justifying her behavior, saying, "She's so passionate. That's what I love most about her. Um, similarly, she texted her mom at one point. She said, "No, his drinking is the problem, not him."
>> Right. Right.
>> Talk about rationalization.
>> Yeah. Right.
>> Yeah.
>> Um, it's interesting. I don't know if you've ever ridden this escalation roller coaster in a toxic relationship before. I I did in my first relationship. Okay. And I have a pretty vivid memory of this dynamic of this kind of slow brainwashing that happened.
>> So my first girlfriend and I both young, stupid, damaged, inexperienced, like it it it was a bad situation and we were both bad to each other in different ways. Um, but we both justified it and and you know found reasons to to stay together. And so we kind of ended up on this like escalating roller coaster that that happens with toxic relationships.
And my memory was, you know, we were doing the last year of our relationship, we were doing long distance and and we would just have these like horrible fights and um just like hold all these awful things against each other and say all these terrible things to each other and and then we would make up and we would see each other again and it was just like bliss. It was absolute heaven for like 3 days >> and and then we'd have a huge fight and then things would go to [ __ ] and you know we'd break up with each other or one of us would cheat on the other and like so on and so forth. But it's funny because like I when I think about my mental state at the time like the thing I had this unwavering belief that we were meant to be together and like this was like >> it didn't matter how like and part of that was because we had already been through so much. I was like we've been through so much already like nothing's going to pry us apart. If we were going to break up it would have happened years ago.
>> Like we've survived so much turmoil. M >> so clearly we're we're going to go all the way. So this is just another obstacle. This is just another thing to get through. And then once we would get through it, it would just reaffirm that myth of like, see, I knew we were supposed to be together. See, we just got through another thing.
>> And it like it kind of becomes this >> again it comes back to the resilience, right? Like it it starts working against you. Like the fact that you are you are able to just eat such a so many [ __ ] sandwiches >> is starts to become the problem, >> right?
>> Like you when I look back at at at that, you know, my 21-year-old self, I'm like I'm like, dude, like [ __ ] stand up for yourself. Like cut like just >> draw a line in the sand and and end it.
Uh but it it that would dispel that mythology. It would kill that romance.
it would destroy that narrative and then it would destroy that identity. So it just it it never happens.
>> That rationalization again, it can be so like it's it's so powerful. The the people who this is why I'm just very suspect of anyone who's like, you know, it's us against the world or this is my ride or die. Like all that kind of language is usually some sort of rationalization for really shitty behavior.
>> Most of the times what I see anyway is that. And like I get it. Yes, you want somebody who is going to stick by you through like, you know, tough times.
Like I get that. That makes sense. But not like shitty behavior after shitty behavior. That's a whole different story we're talking about.
>> I think one thing that's that's important to note here too is that social aspect. So I remember in my personal case, you know, I had been I was in college. I was long distance with this girlfriend.
All my friends knew I was in a long-distance relationship. You know, every all of her friends knew like everybody we were traveling all we were driving hours and hours to see each other all the time. We were giving up weekends. We were visiting each other in each other's schools. We were like it was there was so such a logistical mess around our relationship and we had invested so much into it um that it just felt there was I I like the idea of admitting that that was a waste like felt very shameful like you didn't want to >> you didn't I like I the idea of like facing my friends and being like oh you know that girl that I've been driving eight hours to see for the two years.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> Yeah. She She was terrible. It actually didn't work out. Like it just feels so bad. Like so you don't even want to like >> face that thought. So you just convince yourself that it's it's okay.
>> And it's interesting like one I think one point with with like Johnny and Amber that maybe didn't come up is is like they were they were being written about in such glowing ways in the tabloids at the time. like they were being kind of held up as like the most beautiful couple in Hollywood and like the brilliant stars and all this stuff.
They were like all these tabloids were doing these like gushing features about their wedding and their honeymoon and >> and so it's it's I I imagine if you live in that world, it's the pressure to like keep up appearances must be really really intense. This episode is brought to you by Masterclass. You know what? Nobody tells you about bad relationships. The problem usually isn't that you picked the wrong person. It's that nobody ever taught you how to be in a relationship in the first place. You've never seen healthy conflict. You've never heard someone model what it sounds like to set a boundary without blowing everything up. And that's actually what got me into Esther Pel's class on MasterClass. She talks about how the person you're attracted to isn't random. It's connected to patterns that you've been running since childhood. And the thing that stuck with me is this idea that the quality of your relationships is determined by the quality of the conversations you're willing to have.
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Head to masterclass.com/solved to see the latest offer. Which I guess brings us to mechanism number five, which I think a lot of people will relate to this one, which is the sunk cost fallacy.
>> Yes. This huge huge. Yeah. I This is probably one of the like top reasons a lot of people will I don't know if they'll say it out loud, but if you pay attention to what they're saying. Yes.
>> You'll see this is oh, but I put so much time into this. I put so much of my love into this. I put so much money into this. But you know, we built a life together.
>> I can think of two relationships of people I know off the top of my head that >> I think the only reason they're still together is sunk cost fallacy.
>> Yeah. All right.
>> So, we might as well explain the sunk cost fallacy for people who don't know.
>> Sunkost fallacy comes from economics.
So, it's it's the it's the $15 movie ticket problem. Let's say you buy a $15 movie ticket, you go into the movie, you start watching it, within 10 minutes you're like, I [ __ ] hate this movie.
Mhm.
>> But you spent $15, so you stay the entire two hours and watch it to the end.
>> Right.
>> Technically, that is a waste of time. Uh you already spent the $15, you can't get it back. So the the fact that you stay even longer is actually just devaluing what you've already invested.
>> But our psychological mechanism makes us feel accountable to that decision. So it's like we don't want to feel like we wasted money. We want to feel like I got the full two hours worth of my money.
>> So you you stay in a bad thing to justify a a prior bad decision.
>> And we do this all the time, right? So it's people in in the case of relationships, it's people who are like, well, I've already been with them for eight years. Like what's another year or two to see if things get better?
>> Like why not put in a little bit more time, a little bit more effort? Uh in gambling they call it throwing good money after bad. You know, it's it's uh uh you know, you lose you lose a bunch of money on a bad decision and so you bet more the next time hoping to earn it back and it's like no, actually that's an even worse decision. So yeah, this shows up in all sorts of different places and um and it's it's it's extremely common.
>> Yeah, they they've shown it empirically, Mark. I mean there's a a study uh I don't know if it was meta analysis probably actually that was 50,000 people participated in this and it was RS built investment model okay there's actually three parts to sketchy right uh there's actually kind of three parts to in like how what determines how invested you are in your relationship one of them is relationship satisfaction right okay more satisfied you are the more invested you're probably going to be right >> right >> uh quality of alternatives too so like okay what where do I stand in the in the dating market or you know what are my alternatives out there and then third is this investment size.
>> And what they found through this huge study that they did on this was that investment size like the time spent the the emotional energy spent the money spent within a relationship that actually predicts whether or not you stay in a relationship above and beyond satisfaction even too. Oh wow.
>> So people will like they will hold on to a lot of misery. they they will tolerate a lot of that just abject misery because they have like sunk so much time and energy and just emotional uh bandwidth into another person.
>> It it's so ironic because the cost of leaving a relationship only gets higher the longer you stay.
>> And that's yeah that's what they find too is that like sunk time effect it it it it ratchets that effect up even more so. And that's exactly what they found.
I've literally seen this with friends of ours. Like we've had friends who are like miserable in their marriages >> and they're like, "Well, let me stick it out for another year or two and just see if it gets better, right?" You know, we're moving or >> he got a new job or like, you know, whatever it is, whatever rationalization it is.
>> Yeah, let's just see if it gets better.
And then they not realizing that a year or two down the line, it's going to be even harder >> cuz now they're even more invested and now their identity is even more merged into the other person. Mhm.
>> This is painful to watch. The sunk cost is just like it's upsetting when you see somebody you care about doing this. It It's very very upsetting.
>> It's and I mean it's not just about like it's not just going forward like oh I got to give all of this up and it's just going to be gone. It's like now I look back at my past.
>> Yeah.
>> Everything I've done all of that all of that pain and heartache or whatever was was worse for nothing.
>> For nothing.
>> So like it does make sense in in some >> weird way. I get it.
>> The other dynamic at play here is that, you know, we talked earlier about how toxic relationships are isolating. They have a the one of the side effects is that they isolate you, right? So, it's like what >> it's doubly bad because what happens is is like you end up giving up other parts of your life. Yes.
>> To try to make your partner happy, right? So, you you give up hobbies, you give up friendships, you give up uh trips and things that you were looking forward to to try to keep your partner happy. And the fact that you gave those things up creates more of a sunk cost fallacy >> that's going to keep you there and keep you >> that's vicious.
>> It is vicious.
>> Yeah. As this sunk fallacy becomes more and more real to someone, they're like, "Oh my god, I've spent all this time put all this effort and all this heartache into this relationship. Can't leave." It becomes kind of a what they call that action inaction framing.
>> Okay.
>> Uh kind of takes over. So in a 2018 study, they found that people have this bias towards doing something.
When a relationship is bad, you want to do something about it, right?
>> And so leaving feels like giving up. It feels like inaction in some way. So what you end up doing is you end up doubling down more. Yeah.
>> And investing even more in it. So it is like every step of the way with this sunk cost fallacy that we're we're talking about, it just it ratchets up.
>> Gets worse.
>> It just gets worse and worse and worse.
Taking action. I mean, I I if if staying is fra framed as taking action, well, no, I'm going to stay and I'm gonna fight this out. I'm going to do something about it. I'm not going to give up. I'm not going to leave. Yeah.
>> That usually there's some more cognitive dissonance going on there as well. But it just ratches up that sunk cost fallacy even more.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> You know, cuz we were talking earlier about how people get kind of caught in this cycle of like, you know, we're going to figure it out and I'm going to fix them and it's going to get better and, you know, our love is going to conquer everything. You know, you kind of have this mythology that you've bought into. I think once you get to the sunk cost fallacy, there's almost this like despair and resignation that sets in and probably resentment as well. The people I I've known who have definitely been in the sunk cost fallacy territory, there's like some really intense resentment of the other person and like why haven't you changed? Why haven't you gotten your shift?
>> Given all of this, why haven't you done any of this? Yeah.
>> And waiting for some return or something. Yeah.
>> Right. Yeah. In the case of Johnny and Amber, they definitely reached the spot pretty quickly after their wedding. Um, he started just traveling all the time for work. Um, you know, they were checked out quite a bit. They were openly angry at each other >> almost all the time.
>> Uh, there was a very famous incident during this period uh with the the bed [ __ ] uh which is >> probably the most >> who pooped the bed.
>> Who pooped the bed?
This is probably the most amusing thing that came out of this entire episode.
>> The internet went crazy for that when I remember.
>> Oh my god. Uh it's it's uh so the story behind it is that uh Johnny was out of town for some work engagement. Amber was at at the apartment uh in LA. She hosted a party with a bunch of friends. By this point, uh her friends hated him.
>> She kind of hated him. Like no, everybody nobody liked him. And so when he came home from his trip, mysteriously on his side of the bed was just a load of [ __ ] And to this day, nobody knows who pooped in the bed.
>> She claims it was the dog. M mhm.
>> Um, this I found this absolutely hysterical is that they actually introduced as evidence in the the trial uh like photos of the poop and um and they had like witnesses render opinions on whether this was actually dog [ __ ] or human.
>> Oh my god.
>> Expert turd analysis.
>> Turd analysis.
And sure enough, by consensus, yeah, everyone pretty much agreed because their dog was like a tiny Pomeranian or something. Okay. Yeah.
>> And uh pretty much everybody agreed by consensus that it the the [ __ ] was much too large to be a dog.
>> Um but nobody nobody has stepped forward and taken taken responsibility.
>> That one might never get solved.
>> The mystery of the bed chitter.
>> Oh my god. Okay.
Ah, so we talked about how there's like kind of this hope and faith that leads you to a point of delusion. I think at some point that starts to get shattered, turns into despair and resentment.
>> Now, let's talk about guilt.
What's interesting is that people in the worst relationships tend to have the most guilt about those relationships, right? So, you're you're in this awful situation.
Maybe you hate your partner. Maybe you love hate your partner. Maybe it's up and down with your partner. Things are not working. They haven't worked for a long time. You feel stuck. You don't know where to go.
And interestingly, in that moment, a lot of people start blaming themselves. They start saying, "I should have known better. I shouldn't have stood for this.
I should have left years ago.
>> I shouldn't have enabled that behavior."
Um, they start finding all of these reasons.
um that they [ __ ] up and and it's almost like they are justifying their own misery, >> right? Like it comes back to how we tend to rationalize how we feel. Um you know, we we we invent the narratives to justify the feeling, not the other way around. They feel awful about where they are and so they find narratives that justify what they've done to deserve this. Mhm.
>> And this this just takes you to a very dark place. I mean, now you're justifying everything.
>> Right.
>> Right. You know, it's like I have to do this, right? Because I it's I I chose this. I I didn't leave soon enough and now I'm here and there's no way back.
>> Yeah. It's my fault. Yeah.
>> Yeah. It's my fault. You also see a lot of the guilt come up with the the prospect of leaving, you know? So, it's like if I leave, he's going to destroy himself. I'm the only thing keeping him sane and tethered to reality. Um, if I leave, uh, it's I'm going to hurt my family. I'm going to hurt the kids. I'm going to, you know, mess up everybody's life, right? So, it's like there there's a there's a feeling of guilt of like, why do I even want to leave in the first place? I'm going to cause such a problem for everybody.
not realizing that it's like you're not actually the problem. You're not the cause of the problem. You're the effect of the like the leaving is the effect of the problem, not the cause.
>> Yeah. And there's some there's some good research that by the time you get to this stage though too, one little silver lining um I think is that if if there is external support and it's very concrete and like look, I I see you're you're feeling guilty, you're afraid, this and that. Um, but if there's external support and like a plan um, coming from the outside with somebody who's supportive, that's actually usually a pretty good entry point for like to at least plant the seed for somebody to leave a a bad relationship like that.
So, >> yeah.
>> Yeah. I mean, it it sucks.
>> Yeah.
>> Uh, the you're blaming yourself, you know, there's all sorts all sorts of these um like the costbenefit analysis that goes into this is is distorted um big time by the other person. So this is where like external help can come in and and actually do some good.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> There's an interesting parallel too with with the addiction angle. You know, one one of the common traits of addicts is that they experience an intense amount of guilt and shame and embarrassment for their own behavior >> and their own decisions. And ironically that that guilt and shame and embarrassment ends up motivating further indulgence in whatever they feel addict whatever their vice is. Um, I think the same thing you you could say kind of a parallel thing is play plays out here and that you you feel so much guilt, shame and embarrassment for what you've tolerated, what you've been through um what you've done that you feel like you owe it to the relationship >> to to fix it, to make it better, to like >> you you can't abandon it. You can't like ruin something and then just leave it there. you have to at least clean up the mess you made. It's interesting because a lot of Johnny Depp's text messages centered around guilt. Like just this constant apologizing for his behavior, uh for his addiction, for his blowups.
Um it's actually really [ __ ] up. His his substance abuse got so intense that he like a lot of the stuff that he was put on trial for >> he didn't he didn't remember because he was so [ __ ] up. So, he had the answer that I I don't I don't remember. I blacked out.
>> That's sad.
>> So, it's like you like your your ex-wife is literally saying he beat me.
>> Yeah.
>> And then a a judge asks you, "Did you beat her?" And you're like, "I actually don't know."
>> Jesus.
>> Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
>> On her side, I think it it was a little bit of a savior guilt, right?
>> Which happens a lot with codependents and and who are with addicts, which is like, >> "I'm the only thing keeping him alive.
I'm the only thing keeping him sane. I'm the only thing keeping his life together. If I leave, he's probably gonna die without me.
>> So, I have to stay and it it becomes it kind of imprisons you.
>> Um, it becomes like a cage. And then the final psychological mechanism >> we'll talk about is the terror of the void.
>> Okay.
>> The the fear of the unknown.
>> You got to explain this one to me, Mark.
I do not get this one at all. I I mean, I I get it. Like, from an intellectual level, I get it. Yeah. Okay. But I've never been afraid of this. Be like, "Yeah, I'll be single. It's fine."
>> Well, you're an avoidant.
>> I'll be annoyed. I'll be alone. Yeah.
But even then, even I don't get like >> there's pressure from the outside. Like people are like, "Oh, but my family's pressuring me or whatever." I'm like, "Yeah, my family's pressuring me. I don't care. I don't But like what is it?" I guess what what is that?
>> For the record, I' I've never experienced this either.
>> Okay. Okay.
>> First of all, let me describe it. So the terror of the void is like you know once your identity is so in meshed with the relationship you like it's completely merged you're cut off from so much of the outside world you've lost friends family hobbies interests >> um like your partner's just everything >> um there's a real fear of like how how am I going to function without them like who am I without them where am I going to go what am I going to do um it's it is like a a very real fear and Tim Ferrris has this great quote where he says most people would rather be right than happy.
>> Right.
>> Right. Yeah.
>> And so it's I think the the true here the truth here is that like people would rather deal with with a hell that is known >> than an unknown anything.
>> Um especially once their self-worth and self-esteem has just been brutalized for years and they have like absolutely zero confidence in themselves to function >> in the outside world alone.
the prospect of like taking a chance on that. They're like, you know what, I can tolerate this a little bit longer.
>> To answer your question, I also have never felt this. But I will say I think I can sympathize a little bit, but only because I've now been with my wife for 14 years.
>> Yeah.
>> Like one of the interesting things that's happened, I would say just in the last three or four years with her is I I I've actually gotten to a point where I don't remember what I was like without her. Okay. Yeah.
>> Like I can't remember who I was. Like and that that sounds very abstract and philosophical, but like that >> that is an honest feeling that I have like when I try to imagine >> who am I >> without her in my life like I I can't >> like nothing comes up.
>> Okay.
>> Because the last time I was without her >> I was 27 >> which is like I was just a completely different person.
So I can see.
So the the thing I struggle to sympathize with is like the desire to leave. I have zero desire to leave my marriage. But I imagine if my marriage was bad >> like that that would be very intimidating. It'd be very intimidating of like >> I don't know what I like. I don't know what I would do. I don't know. Like would I keep my friends? Would my friends keep me? Like >> would I would I okay live in LA? Would I move somewhere else? Would I? Yeah. What would I I I honestly I have no idea.
Okay. You know.
>> Okay. Yeah. See, I guess my my because I've never experienced that. Like I've never been in a relationship with someone for 12 years or whatever it is.
Um I like I get the whole our lives are imshed. We've moved in together. We've like have this whole life that like there's a big big cost to leaving. I get that. Yeah.
>> I just never got like oh I guess I can't face the void alone. I guess because I've always just faced the void. I don't know. I've I've always been like just growing up I was kind of just you know raised to be independent. That was >> the family I grew up in like everybody was just you were expected to be independent and so >> I understood that. Like I said sometimes family members make remarks like you know your 40s and singles. I'm like I don't care what you think. I just don't care what you think. I don't give a [ __ ] >> Well I really don't.
>> This is probably partly why you don't end up in relationships like this is because you're not this way. Like I think it's it's one of these kind of sick things where like the people who h >> have no ability to emotionally function as individuals are the ones who end up in relationships like this.
>> Yes. Okay.
>> Which then makes it even scarier for them to try to function like >> individuals. Right.
>> Okay. Yeah. And and I get it too like we were talking about if you don't have like a a strong sense of your own identity anyway and you get into these relationship and like with Amber and Johnny it provided them you know both publicly and privately a an identity that's very intertwined. Yeah. Okay. I get that too but I don't get that like the external pressure. I don't know. I don't get that. Maybe that's not what we're talking about here but I don't know.
>> Yeah. I don't I don't know if it's external pressure. is just as like cuz I think the part that we can't we really shouldn't gloss over here is that >> when you're in a toxic relationship like this, you know, we mentioned it in passing earlier, but like when you're in a toxic relationship like this, >> it actively wrecks your self-esteem.
>> Okay. Yeah. Because essentially what what you're doing is you're putting yourself in a emotionally harmful, sometimes physically harmful environment >> intentionally and then justifying to yourself that you deserve it, >> that this is okay, that this is normal.
And so like if you just imagine like what that does to your self-esteem, your self-confidence, >> and then run that out for like 8 years, 10 years, 12 years, whatever, like you as an individual, you're going to hit a point where you're just like >> you're like a [ __ ] mouse. You're terrified of your own shadow. You feel like you don't deserve anything. You don't know how to do anything, especially if you're coming from a relationship where your partner is extremely controlling and dictates everything about your life.
>> Um, and it it's Yeah, it can be it can be terrifying.
>> Okay, that that makes a little more sense because I have been in relationships where for a short amount of time where that felt like the case and it was just very disorienting and I didn't know what was going on. And I was like, I got to get out of here. And so I did. And I I can see if that goes on for years and years though. Yeah. That would be >> you have a complete >> uh like disassembly of your own identity. You don't know who you are at that point. And and so facing anything outside of that is probably terrifying.
>> It's like the the you know the old learned helplessness experiment with the dogs. Um >> which is that that's actually probably an interesting thing to go into, you know. So Marty Seligman, >> really extremely famous psychologist. uh kind of made his name in the 60s by doing these experiments where it's kind of [ __ ] up now, but um back then they didn't treat animals animals as nicely.
He took dogs and he found that, you know, if you punish them predictably, you could train their behavior, but if you punish them unpredictably, >> eventually they would just give up trying.
>> They would just lay down and they would just take it. you know, it was a pretty salient question around that time in the 50s and 60s uh was about the Holocaust, you know, like why why didn't the Jews rise up? Why didn't they resist? Why didn't they rebel? Um similar questions kind of around slavery. Um and the Salman experiments around learned helplessness were really really impactful in kind of providing a psychological explanation of like why people just give up and accept abuse after a certain point. And and again it comes back to that variability of of reward and variability of punishment. If the variability of reward is like it generates addiction and like people compulsively keep keep pursuing something >> and the variability of the punishment uh just kills all mo internal motivation and and like desire to do anything.
>> Yeah.
>> Any agency or anything. So, to wrap up, we'll let's let's wrap up the the Johnny and Amber story and then we'll talk about um takeaways, kind of final thoughts, >> um practical things that people can use >> to assess in their own lives why why they stay in bad relationships um and what maybe they should do if they are in a bad relationship.
>> Um so, 2016, uh allegedly, uh Johnny Depp threw a phone, hit Amber Herd in the face. Um, she immediately went to city hall, filed for divorce.
Um, she was photographed with bruises on her face. He denies that he did anything. Um, witnesses say that he didn't do anything. Those witnesses were employed by him, so they're not exactly the most reliable witnesses in the world. Interestingly, her mother died just a couple days before the incident.
Mhm.
>> Um I think one thing that happens often with people is when a parent dies or a loved one dies, they kind of have this a little bit of a carpaded moment of like, holy [ __ ] life is fragile. It's it goes by fast, like stop [ __ ] around, like change things.
>> Um so I I imagine that was an influence on it. Um this happened in 2016. They had a divorce settlement. Um, they had a public statement. Everything kind of went went on life as normal until the next year. The Me Too moment happened >> and she decided to write an op-ed in the Washington Post describing hers herself as a domestic abuse victim. Um, not naming him by name, but clearly insinuating that he had been violent and abusive throughout their marriage and that she was a survivor and that that she was, you know, it was kind of her me too statement.
He immediately lost some very large movie roles. Uh it tainted him across the entire industry. Um people he was doing the there was a Harry Potter spin-off that he was supposed to star in. There was like a boycott to get him to get him unccast from that. Um it completely [ __ ] up the trajectory of his career. I imagine it [ __ ] up his personal life quite a bit. Uh and so he filed a defamation lawsuit. She immediately counter claim counterfiled a a lawsuit against him. They went to court. That's where all these audios and recordings and stuff came out. Turned out that they had both been recording the marriage through through most of the relationship.
>> Um eventually the court the court ruling was like amazing in that it it both rewarded damages to him and to her. So basically the court the court was like >> you're both right. You're you're both [ __ ] awful. So >> here each of you take your money.
>> She appealed one of the results. They ended up settling out of court. So a lot of money changed hand. Um there's the very tragic ending to this is that it basically obliterated both of their careers.
>> Yeah.
>> Neither career has recovered. also during this time and in the immediate aftermath and through all the lawsuits and everything, he ran through pretty much all of his money. Um, she definitely ran through all of her money.
So, they're both broke. They're both out of work. Um, and it's it's just like nobody won in this situation. It's it's like it's it's terribly sad. Um he according to one source that I saw he spent over that that 101 15 year period he spent $650 million.
>> Oh my god. He had that much money. Oh my god.
Okay.
>> Yeah.
>> Wow. the aftermath of relationships like this is it's I think it's different than a lot of you know again comparing it to an addiction right like if you have an alcohol problem and then you go and get cleaned up it's kind of like like sure there's probably things you did and people you hurt that you need to go and and deal with and reconcile with one-on-one but in terms of like public reputation >> like the public kind of gives you a pass, you know, uh the the the relationships in your life, you kind of get a pass. It it it's like the the collateral damage of this whole thing has been so severe that it it's just hard to imagine them being palatable in public life ever again.
>> The other interesting thing about this is that >> she very much became an emblem, a cultural emblem of the me too moment.
And when he sued her, it and the fact that she counters sued him, it even made her more like she was celebrated as a a hero, right?
>> Um, interestingly, he then be kind of became a hero once the trial actually started taking place. He became a hero for I for men who felt like me too overstepped.
>> And he was kind of emblematic of the uh justice for for men who had been >> either wrongfully accused or uh there had been an overreaction against them.
>> Yeah.
>> And so it became very much became this cultural moment about 3 or four years ago and everybody was talking about it and it was like you couldn't go anywhere without seeing something about it. And it's all it's it's kind of crazy. It's like it's one of those like, "Wow, I can't believe that thing happened."
>> Yeah. Nobody won, like you said. Yeah.
Nobody won.
>> The public didn't win either.
>> No. And everybody, you know, you might have an opinion about this, but nobody won. Two two lives were destroyed and and and nobody won.
>> Yeah. Which it's funny if you ever you always know a good lawyer when you talk to them about a case and they tell you that they're like, "What's the best case scenario here?" Yeah. Right. And then they kind of lay it out and they're like, "Okay, great. You you won some money.
>> You you burnt tons of bridges. You spent three years of your life being upset and angry and >> [ __ ] hating somebody.
>> Um are you sure this is winning? Yes.
You know?
>> Yeah.
>> So, let let's let's go through like what what are some of the takeaways here? I think it's it's worth revisiting each each of these seven and just kind of maybe speaking for a few minutes on how can we counteract these tendencies or how can we kind of best prepare ourselves. I think in the the case of normalization, I think honestly just listening to podcasts like this is and like reading books and and informing yourself about relationship dynamics and educating yourself on like what a good relationship looks like um is probably the best thing you can do, especially if you grew up in a family that was not super functional or your parents were not the most emotionally mature. like simply educating yourself on these concepts, understanding how these dynamics work. Um, understanding your own tendencies and proclivities is like >> a huge part of the battle.
>> You mentioned it at the top, uh, but that book >> Getting the Love You Want by Harl Hendris, great. Cannot recommend it enough.
>> Around this whole like normalization thing, why you do what you do, the way you behave in relationships, what you need from someone else, and it's called getting the love you want for a reason.
Uh that will I think that will take care of a lot of these issues here >> by the way. Like why is this [ __ ] not taught in schools?
>> Yeah. Well, I don't know. Would you would you have paid attention to that either? I mean, I would have. Or you think so, >> dude. I mean, once you're old enough.
Yeah. Okay.
>> For sure.
>> Yeah.
>> For sure. Or maybe college. Like >> Yeah.
>> I I feel like if I read there's like a handful of relationship books, that being one of them. If I read when I was 18, I I do think it would have >> it would have helped. Yeah. Yeah.
>> Maybe maybe not would maybe wouldn't have prevented uh all the dumpster fires that I >> there would have been some awareness though.
>> But yeah, a little bit more awareness probably maybe some damage mitigation.
>> Um just understanding like what the [ __ ] was because I mean I remember it wasn't until I got in therapy that I started having like a a decent understanding of how my my childhood and my parents affected me.
>> It's one of those water you swim in type of things. You don't realize how weird >> your family is until you can compare it to something else objectively. Yeah.
>> And I think that either therapy or a book like that.
>> Yeah.
>> Goes a long way to help you with that.
Yeah.
>> Mechanism number two, the identity trap.
I think the biggest takeaway here is is you have to maintain your own independent identity within a relationship. It's it's healthy for both people.
>> Um it's >> it's harder when you're young, too. I think the younger you are, the harder that is because you don't know who you are.
>> Yeah. Yeah. I I also Yeah, that's actually a really good point. I think young people tend to often have very toxic relationships and I think >> that's where all my the worst relationships I have when I >> And I think part of that is a lack of experience and lack of emotional regulation. But part of that too is like you just don't know who the [ __ ] you are, right? Yeah. I I remember being that age and it was like pretty much whatever any girl I dated was into. I that's what I was into.
>> Yeah. Same. Yeah. it. So yeah, maintain your own identity, keep your interest, keep your own friends outside of the relationship and um tr try to strike a balance on that vin diagram. The slot machine effects, >> this is this is a hard one.
>> I I'll say this, if there's enough conflict in the relationship >> to create this effect, like that in and of itself is the problem.
>> Yeah. Yeah. And and I think you know the point you made about gamblers getting boring if they won too much. God that's so true with like healthy relationships like because it's >> it looks so boring doesn't >> if normal for you is toxic.
>> Oh okay.
>> Healthy feels very boring.
>> Right. Right.
>> Very boring. And >> I resisted that for a long time.
>> There were a number of of of women I dated when I was younger who were very healthy and mature and secure >> and they just struck me as boring.
>> I was like this sucks. I'm out of here.
>> Yeah.
>> There's no fireworks here.
>> Yeah. No. Now for me, I don't know. One of the more exciting Well, I don't know.
It's not exciting. It's still boring.
But one of the more satisfying things for me is just having a conversation.
>> Yeah.
>> Like that's one of the I same thing when I was younger.
>> So So domestic.
>> I want to Yeah. Well, but it is it's weird. I know. Like you hear that and if you are somebody who's like addicted to all that drama, you're like that you are so [ __ ] boring. I'm never going to be like that. blah blah blah. No, it's >> Yeah, >> you don't know it until you're in it.
>> Again, a young person thing like >> Yeah, >> I think we talked in the the happiness episode how young people tend to associate happiness with excitement, >> you know, with novelty, >> whereas when you get slowly as you get older, you you begin to associate happiness with calm and peace.
>> Um, I think that's definitely true.
Like, yeah, it's my idea of being happy when I was 21 was like getting hammered and [ __ ] all night, right? You know, like that was like peak relationship experience.
>> Now I like to be in bed by nine and like >> Yeah.
>> reading a good book together.
>> Uh number four, cognitive dissonance. Um >> this one is tough. I I feel like >> it's tough because you you you you're literally tricking yourself so you don't know when it's happening.
>> Yes.
>> And this is not just in relationships, but any beliefs you have, you know, political beliefs, whatever they are.
That's why it's so hard is because you're literally tricking yourself. So, by definition, you're not aware of it.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> I think the remedy to this is finding people in your life that will call you out >> if you're in a bad situation.
>> Trusting them to say something and also trusting them when they say it.
>> Right. Yeah.
>> The paradox here is that somebody who is toxic and is going to end up in a bad relationship like this is probably also not going to have very healthy friendships.
>> Right. Yeah. Right. Right. and like people that they trust and can count on and and will listen to if they say something.
>> So yeah, this is a bit of a catch22, I think. But that is probably the solve.
>> Maybe family members.
>> Um but again, if you grew up in a family that this sort of behavior was typical and normal, then what are you going to do, >> right?
>> Sunkos fallacy. This you can train yourself.
>> This you can absolutely train yourself.
This is something that once you're aware of and you start spotting because this this happens everywhere in life, right?
Everywhere in life. There's even things like I remember like six months ago, my wife and I, we bought tickets for a concert and we got halfway there.
>> We were fighting LA traffic, right? So, it's going to be like an hour and a half to get there. We got halfway there and my wife realized she forgot the tickets.
And so, we're like, "Oh my god, we got to go back to the [ __ ] house." So, we turn around, drive back to the house, get back, and then go back get back on the 10, get back in the in the traffic, and we're like, "Dude, we're going to get there like the show's going to be half over by the time we get there.
We're literally going to spend more time in traffic than we are at the show." And I remember having this conversation with her and it's and it's funny because early in our relationship like she she was very much especially around money she was always you know she grew up poor so she was she was like >> we we bought the tickets we're going to the [ __ ] show >> whether you whether we like it or not >> and uh but slowly over time you know it's gotten a lot better at being like okay >> we can either go home now and just enjoy our evening or we can spend two and a half hours in traffic to enjoy 40 minutes of a concert and we're like, "Let's go home."
>> Okay.
>> And enjoy the night.
>> Yeah.
>> So, you can practice this in multiple areas of your life and you can train yourself to spot this and and nip it in the bud.
>> Yeah. I used to be absolutely terrible about this that sunk cost thing too, you know, like I've talked about grew up humble means too and all that. Uh, you know what actually helped me though is years ago you uh I think I don't know if it was a blog post or a social media post at one point, but you were like, you know, if you're reading a book and you don't like it, you don't have to finish it.
>> And and you like like you said, we do this in all areas of our lives. You know, you go to a restaurant and you pay for a crappy meal and you're like, well, I'm going to eat it even though it's a crappy meal or or you know, your kid doesn't eat it and so you eat it.
>> I'm bad with that.
>> I'm bad with that kind of stuff, too.
But that little that was a little in for me that you had like this is a which is kind of like for me it was a big investment, right? Not money-wise, but it's a lot of time you're investing in a book or whatever. Y >> if it's if it's a crappy book, just stop reading it. Who cares if you gave up on it? It's fine.
>> And that showed me just in other areas of my life where like, oh, this applies in so many different >> so many >> so many different areas. And so if you can just find something like that and then you're like, oh, okay, that wasn't so bad.
>> We discovered it with trips, too. So, like we would book say like a 10day trip somewhere and then we'd get to like day seven >> and want to go home >> and then we'd force ourselves to stay the last three days and like do all this stuff we didn't want to do. And and eventually like finally like three or four years ago we were just like >> change the flight.
>> We should just change the flight and go home.
>> Yeah.
>> Like it's it's so stupid.
>> Yeah.
>> Um all right, number six, the guilt cage. Um, this one's hard because again, I think it's downstream of that cognitive dissonance, that rationalization, >> but it's, you know, the thing that comes to mind when I think about this is that scene in Goodwill Hunting where like Robin Williams is like hugging >> Matt Damon and he's like, "It's not your fault. It's not your fault." Until Matt Damon starts crying.
>> Yeah. It's just I feel like that's just kind of what people in this spot need to hear is that it's not your fault. It's like >> you're human. You act like this. You acted in a completely human way. You love this person.
>> You want to be able to look back and say that you gave everything and tried to make everything work >> and you're not doing them any favors by enabling bad behavior.
>> That too. That too.
>> So I like >> you're not saving them.
>> That that's that's really hard. You're not just going to tell somebody that and they're going to stop. I get that. But helping somebody see that.
>> It's not your your responsibility.
>> Yeah.
>> Right. Yeah.
>> And in many ways, you can you can actually be, you know, if you're enabling them, you can actually be holding them back from the transformation that they need to have, >> right?
>> Um, so yeah, it's it's hard to come to that conclusion yourself. Again, I think >> I think the support network is key here.
I think probably a good therapist or a marriage counselor is is like super key here.
>> I feel like there's going to have to be somebody outside of you like kind of calling that out and being like, "It's not you. It's not your fault. And then the void, the fear of the unknown. The only thing that comes to mind here is just having faith that you will figure something out.
>> That it's like there's so many stories of so many people who have left awful marriages, relationships, gone out on their own. I mean, like so many stories of particularly like abused women who like leave in the middle of the night with a toothbrush in their pocket and no money and and they they make it work.
They figure it out. It it's obviously it's not easy, but it happens. And um as we talk about this, I feel like there's maybe a little bit too much resilience within the relationship and not enough resilience outside of the relationship.
>> Um and and maybe maybe part of this too is like you can kind of rehearse for this by build starting to build that identity outside of the relationship.
>> You know, find things you're interested in outside of your partner. Find things that you can do. people, make connections, reconnect with old friends, reach out to a family member, like build some sort of scaffolding outside of the relationship before you make the leap so you're not leaping purely into the unknown. Plan plan the escape. Anything else, Drew? Any any ahas or takeaways for you here?
>> You know, for me it was I think all of these these seven things we went through. I I think at some point I've realized before that, oh yeah, that's a contributing factor. seeing them all together and how like kind of interlocking they are though now it makes a lot more sense to me anyway. I I think I'm a little more sympathetic to people who do end up in these situations.
>> Um because this is like each one of these kind of builds on the other, right? And they kind of interlock to form this really really like tight psychological trap that people feel when they're inside these relationships. So for me it was just like I have a little more compassion for that and a little more understanding around that. And you know I you could usually point to one of these like oh they they feel guilty they don't want to leave this person because they think they would you know wouldn't make it on their own or whatever. Yeah.
>> You kind of understand that. You're like yeah but that's not a very good reason.
But when you stack all seven of these together man that's a that's like a psychological steel trap you've put yourself in.
>> It really is.
>> And it's just hard. I I I have a new appreciation for how hard it is to get out of one of these. Yeah. I I think the insight I got from from this episode is just how in like you said, how interlocking those things are, how reinforcing they are because like >> that's it. Yeah.
>> You know, like you said, I've I've had friends that are clearly stuck in the sunk cost fallacy with the relationship.
I've I've had friends that are, you know, racked by guilt.
>> I've had friends that have grown up in super [ __ ] up situations, don't even realize how messed up their relationship is. But like realizing that all these things kind of like reinforce one another, >> right? Like the more you tolerate, the more volatility you deal with, the more cognitive dissonance you introduce into the relationship, >> the more addicted you get to it, the more Yeah.
>> the more you normalize it, the more you justify it, the more guilty you feel, you know. So, it's like everything kind of compounds on top of itself. Um, it is intimidating.
>> It is. Toxic relationships are are scary. Mhm. Mhm.
>> It's uh you know, we talked on I forget which episode back in February, maybe the dating, maybe the the love relationship, but it's the researchers really do find that it is better to be single than in a bad relationship, but is better to be in a good relationship than no relationship.
So, it is relationships are amplifiers.
I've always this, you know, love is not doesn't necessarily make you happy. It amplifies whatever is already there. So um if you love somebody who is bad for you and is toxic and abusive and hurts you and makes you feel guilty, your love for that person is only going to amplify all those feelings and dynamics. Whereas if you are with a person who is healthy and secure and happy and is supportive and cares about you, then the love just amplifies all of those those aspects as well. So >> all right, that is it for this episode.
Um, as always, please leave a review and follow the show on whatever platform you're on. Thank you for tuning in and we will see you again.
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