“I Don’t Want to Hurt Them”: Why We Stay in Relationships That Don’t Feel Right
Many people stay in relationships long after they’ve realised they’re unhappy — not because they’re weak or indecisive, but because their nervous system confuses guilt and fear with love and safety.
1. The Fear of Hurting Someone: The Fawn Response in Disguise
When someone has learned from a young age to maintain peace at any cost, caring for others becomes a form of survival.
In trauma psychology, this is the fawn response — a reflex to appease, please, or over-adapt in order to avoid rejection or conflict.
So when they imagine leaving a relationship, their body registers it not as freedom but as danger:
“If I cause pain, I’ll lose connection. If I disappoint someone, I’ll be abandoned.”
This isn’t about being overly kind — it’s about an old survival code.
The guilt that comes up isn’t moral guilt — it’s attachment anxiety disguised as responsibility.
2. The Fear of “What If I Never Find Better”
Underneath this fear is usually a scarcity template formed in early attachment.
If love was unpredictable or conditional — “I’m only safe if I please you” — the nervous system learns that connection is fragile and rare.
So even when love feels unfulfilling, the brain says:
“Don’t risk losing this — you might never find it again.”
It’s the same survival logic that keeps someone clinging to an unreliable parent:
“Some love is better than no love.”
3. Self-Doubt and the Inner Critic
Another reason people stay is the belief,
“Maybe I’m the problem.”
When childhood involved criticism, gaslighting, or inconsistent validation, a person learns to internalise blame.
Their brain links harmony with self-erasure.
So when conflict arises in adulthood, the nervous system assumes:
“I must be doing something wrong.”
Leaving then feels like moral failure rather than self-protection.
4. The Biology of Fear and Dependency
Biochemically, attachment bonds — even unhealthy ones — release oxytocin and dopamine, the same chemicals that regulate safety and pleasure.
Breaking that bond can trigger literal withdrawal symptoms: anxiety, obsessive thoughts, body ache, even panic.
The nervous system doesn’t distinguish between safe love and familiar love — it clings to what it knows.
That’s why people say, “I know this relationship isn’t right, but I can’t seem to move on.”
It’s not willpower — it’s neurobiology.
5. The “Caretaker Identity”
For many trauma survivors, especially those who were emotionally parentified as children, the idea of causing someone pain feels unbearable.
Their self-worth is built on being needed.
Ending a relationship means dismantling that identity — the giver, the healer, the good one.
So they stay, half-present, half-dying inside — because leaving would mean redefining who they are.
6. Healing: Learning That Compassion Can Include Yourself
The turning point often comes when a person realises that staying to avoid hurting someone is, in the long run, a deeper form of harm — to both people.
Healing involves:
Distinguishing guilt from empathy.
“I feel bad” doesn’t mean “I’m doing bad.”
You can care and still choose yourself.Rewiring safety around honesty.
The body learns that telling the truth doesn’t equal abandonment.Expanding your inner permission.
“It’s okay to disappoint someone and still be good.”Somatic repair.
Working with a trauma-informed therapist (EMDR, IFS, somatic experiencing) helps the body unlearn the survival link between love and self-erasure.
7. A New Narrative
Leaving or setting boundaries doesn’t make you cruel — it makes you conscious.
You are not abandoning someone; you’re refusing to abandon yourself.
And when your nervous system finally learns that safety can exist within you — not just through others — relationships start feeling freer, not heavier.
In short:
People often stay not because they don’t see the truth, but because their body remembers danger where there used to be love.
Healing means updating that memory — teaching the nervous system that choosing peace doesn’t have to mean losing love.
