You're listening to On Attachment, a place to learn about how attachment shapes the way we experience relationships and where you'll gain the guidance, knowledge and practical tools to overcome insecurity and build healthy, thriving relationships.

I'm your host, relationship coach Stephanie Rigg,

and I'm really glad you're here.

Hey, everybody, welcome back to another episode of On Attachment.

In today's episode, we're going to be talking all about

why toxic or dysfunctional unhealthy relationships

are so hard to recover from. So this is one of those areas

where it's really counterintuitive. You would think that a relationship that's been a bit of a

train wreck, a bit of a shit show is something that you're going to leave and feel this big sigh of relief, put it behind you, and suddenly

you're free of all of that drama and you can move on with your life and be better for it.

While that is what it feels like it should be on paper, the reality of it is often much

messier than that. And as I said, counterintuitively, I think that

we can struggle a lot more to detach from and make sense of these really dysfunctional dynamics

compared with if we were moving on from a breakup of a relationship that was broadly healthy and stable.

You'd think that those ones would be the ones that we'd really struggle to let go of,

but that's generally not the case. So I'm going to be unpacking why that is,

why it's such a common experience, to really struggle to not only leave and let go of

these dysfunctional relationships as in

getting to the point of breaking up, but why the aftermath can feel so confusing and disorienting.

And I'm hoping that in doing that, it will not only normalize that experience if you've been in

that or maybe you're in it at the moment and you're wondering, you know, what's wrong with me? I know rationally that that relationship was really unhealthy for me.

And yet I feel so consumed by thinking about it and playing out all of the what ifs and all

...