Do You Really Love Each other or Is the Sunk-Cost Fallacy Keeping You Together?
5 questions from psychology to help you break the unhappiness cycle.
Last month I went to the beach with my friend Rayyan who is an Economics Major. We were talking about how some couples have chemistry even after decades of togetherness, while others seem like they have zero conversations when they’re left alone by themselves.
He said something in that discussion that made me think hard. He said in business investments, he asks this all the time before pulling the plug on projects: “It all comes down to whether you really love each other or if it’s the sunk-cost fallacy keeping you together.”
What this means is that after spending a certain amount of time together, we often start looking at relationships backwards. We no longer think of what our relationship adds to our day or where it’s taking us in the future. Instead, we focus on the time, effort, financial and emotional investment that went into the relationship in the past. We trick ourselves into thinking that with every coming day; we are increasing our chances of being in love. But really, we all know that’s not how love usually works.
Here’s a secret. Just like the question asked, the answer to whether you really love someone has to be given in the present tense. If you’re wondering which one it is for you, here are 5 questions that can help you figure it out.
Do you measure how much you have given up for the relationship to remind yourself of the value of the relationship?
Forget about the past, that’s “sunk-cost.” What is the present predicament telling you about the state of your relationship? What is the present feeling and atmosphere around the person you claim to love? What’s your attitude right now?
This also relates to the opportunity cost of a relationship in which people constantly recall all the things they have foregone to be in a relationship. Somehow your relationship’s value becomes interchangeable with the value of everything you could have had if you weren’t in the relationship.
“Results revealed a sunk time effect, that is, participants were willing to invest more time in a relationship in which a lot of time had already been invested,” claimed Rego and Arentes in a research in Current Psychology Journal.
In an ideal situation, “sunk-costs” should be irrelevant when keeping you from happiness in the present. It’s not about what you’re trying to achieve in the future, and definitely not about how you started off. Ask yourself if there’s an active contribution of emotional labor and investment from both sides? Are you taking mindful steps to keep the romance alive every day? Or are you keeping a lazy average on these things only to compound where a major chunk of your past was spent?
If you find yourself thinking of the past when asked what this relationship really adds to your life — it might be that missed opportunities and “sunk” time are all you are trying to account for by staying with the same person.
Is your relationship depleting your present assets and mental well-being?
Rayyan reminded me of a time when he was dating someone for multiple years and while they had newly found differences — they stayed together 2 more years for the sake of all the time they had spent together. Any time Rayyan would think of calling it quits because they no longer fit in with each others’ our future plans; he would start mentally accounting for the stuff and effort he had vested into this relationship.
When presented with an unhappy relationship, and given the choice to stay or end the relationship, research found something similar. The likelihood of participants staying in relationships was higher when money and effort, but not time, had been previously invested in that relationship.
When you pretend you could magically compromise or find a middle ground because throwing away the past seems like such a daunting prospect — you are depleting your capacity to be an honest person in relationships. Every day will be a mental struggle because you are not compounding present time with the good times in the past anymore. It's actually going to a separate pile.
In business, persistence and sticking to failing endeavors results in people seeing “cost-overrun” all the time. In your relationship, it could mean “overrunning” the energy, time and efforts needed despite not seeing an improvement in circumstances.
Does it make you try harder every time you suffer in the relationship?
In behavioral sciences, they call this effect “Escalation of Commitment”. How this happens is that when you suffer a loss or have previously made an investment into something, the fear of it going away can make you spend even more.
Think of the time when in your relationship you felt like you might lose the other person. It’s what makes you suddenly jump into action and try the hardest you’ve ever tried. This escalation of commitment comes because you want to avert your loss. You can’t bear to lose the time, efforts and emotions that went into your relationship — with all that on the line, it is possible that you only are mistaking it for love?
In reality, this phenomenon happens all the time. Like when your gym membership prompts you to go to the gym once a month or Amazon membership makes you order extra stuff that you don’t need. Consumer markets use this to hook buyers.
You know you’re not in love with the gym or Amazon and only breaking-even the cost of membership. Then why, when threatened with the prospect of losing a partner who you’re no longer aligned with — you double down on the effort and time — but also call it “love”?
Is the familiarity of the journey fogging up your ability to see the destination?
Human beings are creatures of habit. We are stuck in our routines and in our own obstinate ways — even if all we are committed to being bad at commitments. We all have a certain vision for our life and for our future. And sometimes, when our relationships aren’t working for us — deep down we know we are headed for disaster. Instead of being logical, here we often fall into an overestimation probability bias.
“Participants that gave estimates before an investment decision manifested higher estimates, suggesting that the inflated estimate is a consequence of the decision to invest,” found Arkes and Hutzel in their research.
Psychology says, a part of us tells us that the more we invest in a certain thing, the higher our chances of having the odds go our way. This is why so many people buy lottery tickets. But you can’t bet your life and your only chance at love away by spending more time in a relationship that’s not right for you.
A related “plan continuation bias” also comes into play, which forces people to stick to their course of action despite noticing “red flags” in the journey. In fact, it is such a prevalent phenomenon that in outer-space, nearly 50% of accidents happen because crew members refuse to change their plan despite chances of fatal disasters.
Are you afraid of being seen as a failure more than you are afraid of seeing your relationship fail?
Here’s a neat little thing I read on Reddit regarding social identity and sunk-cost fallacy. Believe it or not, people are willing to suck it up and put up with a lot more just because others are watching.
“A ticket-buyer who purchases a ticket in advance to an event, they eventually turn out not to enjoy, makes a semi-public commitment to watching it. To leave early is to make this lapse of judgment manifest to strangers, an appearance they might otherwise choose to avoid. As well, the person may not want to leave the event, because they have already paid, so they may feel that leaving would waste their expenditure.”
So ask yourself whether it is your fear of having lost a chunk of your precious past or the fear of judgement by others that’s keeping you idle.
Truth be told, love has no one set-in-stone definition. It is expressed and accepted in wildly different forms. It means different things to different people.
But the psychology behind commitment to endless cycles of unhappiness exists because of extensive studies on the human mind. We are free to reject it if it doesn’t fit our story, but that won’t make it any less true.
If, despite saying yes to all the questions above, you find you are happy and this version of love is enough for you — welcome it in your life with open arms.
