Why is it so hard for women to let go of men that mean them no good?

Love is blind.

Sometimes women are convinced that they can be “The One” that makes a jerk turn around and realize the error of their ways. They are convinced that they will be the blinding love that is transformational for the person.

For the most part..if a guy is good looking, They don’t care. They just want to be seen with them and let the world..(her friends) know…he is hers. That’s why so many guys get what they wont with any woman they want. All they got to be is GOOD LOOKING.

In my younger days when I went through beauty collage and then worked in the industry once women get to know you and get comfortable with you they treat you like a man would his barkeep, they tell you lots of stuff you never asked to know. One of the main reason I found why women keep or even chase down these douche bag men is that women don’t handle alone well, they need someone there to chat back with and their g/f are not always available. So what is better? Someone you can talk to and get a good blinking and maybe some Southern lip service when his face is not between some other lass legs.

Look at it like this, when a woman don’t have a man she is like a girl without a dog. When she gets together with her gal pals they are all talking about what their dogs (men) did, Spot did this cute thing, Barky learned to fetch, Rover brings me my slippers. She has no dog so she is left out of much of that conversation, when they go out all the others have a dog on the leash but she has nothing. She spies a busted up, mangy, junkyard dog she knows is a bad ideal to take home but it is the only dog she can get at the moment so she brings it home. Then she is unhappy with how it destroys the kitchen every night, chews up her best shoes and leaves a nice smelly “love package” on the floor by the door. She complains but she don’t want to get rid of the dog because she don’t know when she will get another; so the fear of loss is more than her desire to gain. She has only 3 choices; keep the dog away from the kitchen at night, lock her shoes away and buy a carpet cleaner. Get the dog trained not to do those things or accept that the dog is un-trainable and kick that mutt (man) to the curb; it takes most a good long while to get to the kicking to the curb part. When they are out with some douche bag bad boys they say it is more exciting because you never know what these loose cannons will do, they are more volatile and spontaneous than the geekish guy with a better job. In a nutshell that is why they will stay; they fear losing a douche bag over the desire to gain a decent man.

Lack of self-esteem. Lack of belief that they can do better.

What @Bellatrix said. Low self-esteem.

Some people, men and women both, feel that being with someone sucky is better than being alone. Those people are wrong, by the way.

Because they are afraid of the pain they will go through during the break up. Even break ups with horrible people can feel like a huge loss and there can be a grieving period.

They are insecure.

They are afraid to be alone.

They focus on the good things, and there are always good things. The thing is when the bad things are really really bad, that is what should matter. Almost everyone has good things about their personality, when in a relationship it is the bad we have to decide if we can tolerate. Is the bad leaving the toilette seat up? Is it that they hit you? Is it that they don’t want you to communicate with your friends anymore? The bad is how you decide if you can be with someone forever, it is just as important as the good, if not more.

Better the devil you know than the one you don’t? : )

because she is insecure and has a low self esteem and maybe defines her selfworth by whether she has a boyfriend or not.

Alot of women think being single is some sort of curse.

Also maybe she doesn’t have many friends and therefore feels like she will be lonely without him.

If you say you are her friend, be a true friend and be honest with her about breaking up with him and let her know you will always be there for her!

The last four answers nailed it. She probably has low self-esteem, and so she feels that having a boyfriend is better than being alone. Also, maybe there’s some emotional abuse going on. He may be putting her down and making her feel that no one else will ever want to date her, causing her to stay in the relationship despite the mistreatment. This is an extremely advantageous tactic for him because it allows him to keep her on standby if he tires of these other women.

@Hypocrisy_Central Exactly. I’ve observed the same behaviour too from my numerous female friends. Apt and funny dog-boyfriend metaphor! : )

Because as children these women were not able to develop ‘secure attachment’ to their parent or other familiar caregiver. See

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attachment_in_children#Attachment_patterns

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attachment_theory

My, my, my. Aren’t we all so smart. We know better than the woman in question what’s best for her.

What if she likes the guy? What if she doesn’t care who he fucks? What if he gives her a lot of whatever it is she is looking for?

Society has a lot of harsh judgments about both men who cheat and women who stay with their cheating men. People see this as a sign of low self-esteem. A fear of loneliness. An inability to get along without a man.

You could be right, but you are not necessarily right and I would caution you about these kinds of attitudes. There are good men who have other lovers. There are strong women who could easily be independent, but they don’t want to be, and they trust their man to come home at the end of the day and to take proper precautions.

Maybe it’s hard to let go because you like the guy and you don’t have a problem with what he is doing.

@wundayatta The OP said the woman was hurt, I took that to mean unhappy. If she is fine in the situation, or is accepting of it, no judgment from me. If she is staying in a situation that tortures her and brings her a tremendous amount of sadness, amd drives her crazy because she doesn’t want it to be true, I would question it.

@wundayatta, if the woman was truly okay with it, other people wouldn’t know that he was sleeping around, lying about his age and taking advantage of her. If a woman is talking about it, she’s not okay with it.

@wundayatta A “good man” does not have other lovers in a monogamous relationship. If that’s what you need to tell yourself, fine, but it’s not true.

I agree with some of the others about this; the girl probably has low self-esteem, or has experienced seeing other people in her family tolerate that type of behavior and sees it as normal.

My wife, Vicky, says that she prayed God would send her “just one good man,” and then I showed up. I’m not real sure about all that, but we sure have been good for one another. I honestly wish that everyone on the planet could have the same thing we have. It’s for sure there would be a lot less conflict and sorrow.

Speaking for myself only, it’s because not that many people want to date me. I spend most of my time single, hoping to meet people to date and whatnot, but I have ZERO luck. It’s like a joke of the universe at this point.

So, what happens is that, after like 2 years single, someone will come along who is interested in me. I’m so shocked and floored and flattered that anyone would like me, that I just go with it. Sadly for me, most of them turn out to be real jerks. But.. I don’t want to be single and I think about all those lonely, single nights and I worry that no one else will want me.

So, historically, I stay waaaaaaay past the time any normal person would be like ‘fuck this, I’m out’.

Not anymore, though, hopefully. I think I’m done with that and I would rather be single than put up with abusive bullshit.

Women in our society are conditioned to believe that they must have a boyfriend or must have a husband to be a complete person. Women are also generally more apt to be romantic and want to be loved (rather than to just be someone’s sex partner). Unfortunately, some women, are so desperate to be loved that they will take any situation, that comes their way that appears to be love and hang onto it, no matter how much damage that situation, with that person is doing to them.

Women also tend (more so than men) to have the idea that they can take a bad situation and fix it. Unfortuntately, the fixing has to come from two places. First the other person, who is causing the damage (by lying, cheating, being an abuser or whatever) has to decide to fix himself, but that rarely happens. The second person that needs fixing is the woman herself, she needs to realize that she doesn’t need to stay with a person just because she loves him, that is not a good enough reason to stay with someone. If he’s not good to her or good for her, she needs to leave, but that often doesn’t happen either.

And part of the problem is that for some women, if they leave, even if it’s an abusive or ugly relationship, they would have to admit that they did something stupid or wrong by being with that person in the first place. And if they leave, they face the prospect of potentially being alone forever and never finding anyone to love them. This is especially true with women who have not had a lot of luck in the love department before. Maybe they’ve only had one relationship in their entire life, maybe they’re older and haven’t had many (or any other) relationships, maybe they are less than average in the looks department in a world where looks are apparently extremely important in attracting men. All of this, combined with society’s view about women needing a man to be complete is sometimes overwhelming.

@JLeslie The OP said, “Why does she allow herself to be hurt like this?” As presented, it is the OP’s conclusion that she is being hurt. We do not know what the woman thinks. I think it is a mistake to take for granted that she thinks she is being hurt. It may be likely, but we don’t know for sure.

@BarnacleBill Again, we don’t know if she is hurt by it just because she is confiding in a friend. I think it is normal to confide in friends, and maybe she is just trying to sort things out in her head. Most women I know like to talk through things.

@Facade Hmmm. How to say this. You are making a judgement which you act as if it is objective. Your notions of good and bad are not universal. You don’t know the man in question. You have no idea what the circumstances are. To judge him bad based on the details you know is prejudicial and foolish in my opinion.

In fact, it sounds like the kind of judgment that comes from personal experience more than it sounds like the kind of thing that an impartial adviser would say. This is fine. No one has to be impartial and everyone should use personal experience as a basis for their advice.

However every case is unique, and I don’t think rehashing standard prejudices is really helpful in most cases. It’s more about letting everyone know that we share the same values than it is about giving useful advice, I think. I think it is worth looking deeper before pronouncing a judgment. You might well be right. But it’s still worth making sure of that before pronouncing the verdict.

@wundayatta Cheating is bad is pretty universal…

@wundayatta Society has a lot of harsh judgments about both men who cheat and women who stay with their cheating men. It sadly comes down to character. When a man or even a woman I almost always filter down to who that person really is, and cheating appears just that, dishonest, shady. A lot of people get maligned when maybe they shouldn’t, but as you say, that is society.

@CaptainHarley Back straight and saluting you crisply

@Kardamom And part of the problem is that for some women, if they leave, even if it’s an abusive or ugly relationship, they would have to admit that they did something stupid or wrong by being with that person in the first place. If I were given a $10 spot for every time that I seen that I would have enough for a big screen, and plasma to boot.

Maybe they’ve only had one relationship in their entire life, maybe they’re older and haven’t had many (or any other) relationships, maybe they are less than average in the looks department in a world where looks are apparently extremely important in attracting men. But we can’t say that, to say she could not get a man because she didn’t look like a Hollywood make people shallow because they only went off her looks and didn’t see her personality.

@wundayatta If the OP is only assuming, then I agree we don’t know enough. Well, no matter what we don’t really know enough. Only the two people in the relationship know their relationship, it is impossible fo us to know all that happens behind closed doors.

For whatever reason, at that point in the woman’s life she feels that man is the best she can get that will be reciprocal to her needs… if he’d just straighten up!~

When I dated a cheater I did not think he was the best I could get. Men flirted with me all of the time. I had been with him for so long, it was hard to not have him, and his family for that matter, in my life.

@JLeslie: You have a point there. It’s tough to think about letting go the mutual friendships, extended family and stuff even if the guy isn’t the best you’d like.

@wundayatta If the woman is truly ok with it, then it’s not cheating.