Learned Helplessness In Relationships And Love: What Is It?

Learned helplessness in relationships can be something difficult for us to identify especially if we are not aware of our thinking patterns that are affecting our relationships. Learned helplessness can also impact dating lives especially if you see similar outcomes every time you go on a date.

Are you tired of dating apps to the extent that you feel that there are no good people out there for you to find love? Do you believe that it is difficult for you to find people organically apart from dating apps? 

Are you reading news about people breaking up and also hearing how difficult relationships are from your friends and subconsciously thinking that a relationship will not work out for you?

Read on to understand how learned helplessness can affect relationships and what you can do to change your thinking pattern to something positive.

My Experience

To be honest, I am also suffering from learned helplessness in relationships because I have never really met anyone organically and fell in love with anyone that I met in real life. The only exception that I can make is the guy that I met in my college days.

Apart from him, all the guys that I met first connected through an online platform. Therefore, when I started dating again, I straight went on to dating apps because, to me, that was the best option to meet a lot of people at once. 

I also didn’t know how to break away from my usual comfort zone of being an introvert and meeting people was something I struggled with. Therefore, dating apps were something that I was addicted to in the past.

At this point, I have stopped using dating apps and to be honest I have not been on a date for the past nine months because I prioritized the quality of dates instead of just going on dates for the sake of it. 

However, I also am trying to find new ways to meet people organically and I embraced this challenge. I want to break away from learned helplessness in relationships and dating because I do not want to feed false information to my brain and think that I cannot meet people organically.

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Definition of Learned Helplessness

Learned helplessness in relationships is a form of passivity and powerlessness when faced with recurring failures to overcome the stress that is brought about by the failures.

If you have difficulties in forming harmonious relationships with people, you will be stressed and unmotivated. However, people who feel learned helplessness will not try to overcome the situation by trying something new to obtain success.

So, instead of trying to find ways to make things work in a relationship, people give up and stop thinking about it because they feel that they are powerless and they cannot do anything to improve the situation.

Signs of Learned Helplessness In Relationships: What Is It?

Here are some examples of how women can identify if they are feeling learned helplessness in relationships.

1. I Am Attracted To Toxic Men

Do you find yourself saying that you are only attracted to toxic men? Do you believe that subconsciously you only attract people who are not good for you?

When you say that you are attracted to toxic men or you attract toxic men into your life, you are telling yourself that you are not worthy of a good man in your life.

Rewire your brain by saying that you deserve a healthy relationship that you are capable of identifying toxic men’s traits, and will not fall for the same pattern again. 

We all learn from our mistakes and it is not your fault to have met a toxic man in your life. Furthermore, if let’s say you were on dating apps, and you never knew that it would be so bad that only toxic men can be found abundantly on dating apps, you cannot beat yourself up because you wouldn’t know something that you don’t know. 

You had to experience something in order to understand what it is all about. So, the next time you bump into toxic men, it does not mean that you only attract toxic men, it means that there are a lot of toxic people around and you still have the choice of not wanting to engage with them.

2. I Won’t Be Able To Find A Relationship

If you think that you won’t be able to find a relationship, this is also a pattern of learned helplessness in relationships. Failures can be something very difficult to overcome especially if you have been trying to date for many years now without success. 

However, if you think that you are stuck and you won’t be able to find a relationship, you most likely will not be able to find one because you are already thinking that you do not deserve a good relationship.

3. I Can’t Change My Thinking Patterns

I’m not attracted to certain types of men. I do not like dating men who seem to be boring, I don’t think I can get past the dating icks, and give me more chances in order to identify if they are good for me.

I’m not asking you to drop your standards and date anybody that comes your way. However, if you think that dating apps are not working for you but are relentlessly trying to find a date on the app because you think that you should try harder, it goes to show that you are hesitant to change your thinking patterns.

4. Who I Want Doesn’t Want Me (no one wants to date me)

Are you always complaining that the guys that you are attracted to are not attracted to you? Do you think that guys that you want do not want you?

I say this because I know a lot of people who are stuck in this situation where they find it difficult to see the proof of why love is reciprocal when all they have been experiencing is one-sided interest in love.

You know, the situations where you like a guy but that guy doesn’t like you back or maybe that guy likes you but you don’t like him enough.

It makes you think that you’re stuck in this cycle forever and nothing is going to change. However, this is also learned helplessness in relationships because you are telling your brain that you will always be stuck in this cycle and that you will never be able to meet someone who is going to reciprocate your love. 

To break away from this pattern, ask yourself if you could give a fair chance to everyone that you come across in life. This is because, it is almost impossible to find a perfect guy and if a guy likes you and is putting in enough effort to win your love, you may want to see if you could try to talk things out with him.

How To Overcome Learned Helplessness In Relationships

1. Try Dating Different Types of People

A lot of dating gurus have mentioned this before and I’m sure you have seen this advice before. 

However, this is valid advice because if you have been only dating through the apps and you think that it’s not going anywhere, it is definitely a sign that you should be trying to date different types of people from different platforms.

When you date different types of people, you will give yourself a chance to assess new traits in people and see if things can work out.

Also, it is good to ask yourself if you are already embodying the qualities that you’re looking for in a person. This is because, if you’re not reflecting the quality that you’re looking for in a match, you probably are not in the vibrational match for your ideal partner. 

So, perhaps, if you want a successful partner, you should be working towards success yourself and surround yourself with people who are successful.

2. Assess If People You Are Attracted To Are Toxic

Although getting attracted to toxic men is not your mistake, what you can do is assess if you are attracted to certain types of behaviors like men who love to blow things hot and cold.

Because, if you are attracted to guys who are excited and give you butterflies in the stomach, chances are they are not going to be sustaining their behaviors and therefore would be letting you down in the future. 

This actually circles back to your attachment pattern whereby if you have been denied love and attention when you were a child, you may have this tendency to attract people who do not give you enough attention because your inner child wants to win over the love of your primary caregiver when you were a child.

3. Are You Looking For The Perfect Match?

Are you looking for the perfect match? I know that it is incredibly difficult to actually ignore any one of the qualities you’re looking for in a partner from your list, but ask yourself if you are looking for the perfect match. 

Have you ever been attracted to a guy that has flaws but you’re ready to accept him? If you say yes, chances are you are quite realistic.

4. Look For Healthy Relationship Examples

Learned helplessness in relationships can be overcome when you look at healthy relationships around you. Instead of wallowing in self-pity, look at successful relationships among your circle of friends or even family members.

When you are looking at success stories, you will feed your mind with positive information and you will start to believe that love and relationship are not something difficult and you are worthy of it.

5. Talk To Older People Who Have Lived Your Path

When you talk to older people who have lived your path, you will be able to see the wisdom behind their advice. People who have gone through failures in relationships and finally found their soulmate will have a lot of stories to share with you. You can draw a lot of strength from their path and stories. It will give you hope to overcome learned helplessness in relationships.

Positivity Vs Toxic Positivity

I’m not trying to ask you to be positive all the time even if you are not feeling like it. Because there is a difference between being positive and toxic positivity. Here are examples of how positivity can quickly change into toxic positivity.

1. Trying To Over Work On Yourself

If you think that you should continue to work on yourself relentlessly to become the best version of yourself to be worthy of love, this is a sign that you are embracing toxic positivity. This is because we are all not perfect and it is not possible for love to only happen for perfect people.

2. Trying To Drop Your Standards

You can try to compromise some of the qualities that you are looking for in a partner but you cannot drop your standards. If you are very careful about your finances, you cannot possibly marry someone who is thrifty, especially if you know that they are gonna have a hard time changing their habits for you.

3. Focusing Too Much On The Success Story of Others

Are you coming across a lot of success stories of people finding love on dating apps but you are nowhere close to finding quality men on dating apps, and you think that you have no luck on dating apps and should try harder?

Do not focus too much on how other people found their love and try to emulate their path to success because you have your destiny and you can only possibly learn how to be hopeful like them but you cannot try to make something work for you just like how it worked out for them.

FAQs

What is learned helplessness in toxic relationships?
In toxic relationships, the victim adapts by repeating behaviors that reduce the abuse, rather than trying new actions with uncertain outcomes. They focus on survival instead of finding ways to escape.

What is an example of learned helplessness?
Learned helplessness can be seen in schoolchildren. For instance, if a child consistently struggles with tests despite studying, they might start to believe that studying won’t improve their grades, so they stop trying.

What to do when feeling helpless in a relationship?
Separate your own feelings from your partner’s. Feeling helpless is tough, but your partner may feel the same way. The key is to recognize that helplessness is present and work on finding other ways to foster empathy rather than letting it control your actions.

How to overcome learned helplessness in relationships?
The positive side is that learned behaviors can often be unlearned. You can overcome helplessness by adopting a more optimistic way of thinking, and analyzing the reasons for negative situations more rationally and calmly.