Reader’s Question

I’m an 18-year-old female starting my second semester of college. Last year I started hooking up with a guy I’ve actually been in love with since I was 4 years old. Our families have always been close, and growing up it became increasingly clear that it would be difficult for us to get together because of our families.

My boyfriend is in the Marines and his base is nearby, so he gets to come home on the weekends most of the time. Our relationship became “official” the first of this year. But I already feel as if he doesn’t treat me the way I know I deserve to be treated. It seems as if I don’t really matter to him all that much. His main goal on the weekends is to get drunk and party, and that’s not me. I have promised that I would wait for him, but most of the time I regret this because of the way he treats me.

What should I do? There’s a lot more that concerns me, but when you get right to it, it’s just really hard to give up on someone I’ve been in love with so long.

Our Clinical Psychologist’s Reply

Actually, you describe a situation that is much like a syndrome I discuss in my first book, In Sheep's Clothing [Amazon-US | Amazon-UK], called “The Slot Machine Syndrome.” That syndrome describes why people sometimes stay in abusive or neglectful relationships. What happens is that one person invests a good deal of emotional energy and time over the years trying to make things work (much like a person who feeds a slot machine with coins, hoping for an eventual “payoff”). Every now and then (just like with a slot machine), there are some small rewards experienced, and this keeps the person investing. The problem comes when it becomes clear that you’re actually being maltreated. What you face then is not simply walking away from a losing situation, but rather walking away from your investment with nothing to show for it.

You appear to have been investing emotional energy in this relationship since you were a very young child. Recently, you’ve also gotten the payoff of actually being able to hook up. But you also realize that you’re being maltreated. You have to decide if you will let your fear (and possibly anger) over having invested so much entrap you into remaining in a situation until you’re completely wiped out. It takes strength, self-respect, and resolve to cut your losses and walk.