Why do so many of us stay where we know we’ll remain miserable?

By David McElroy · March 6, 2021

I talked with a friend tonight who’s been miserable for years. If she ever loved the man she married, the love died quickly. He’s abusive and dysfunctional. He’s cut her off from her friends and made her life into a nightmare.

I no longer even ask her why she doesn’t leave him. For a long time, I thought she was ready to escape. I sometimes fear for her safety and I always fear for her sanity. But for reasons she can’t explain, this strong and decisive woman hasn’t been able to walk away.

I have no idea why she refuses to fix what she could easily fix.

Earlier this week, a woman moved into a house that she just rented from me. She is extremely happy and satisfied with her new home, even though she’s worked hard all week moving out of the house where she had lived for the last seven years.

I visited the house from which she just moved and I was stunned that she had been paying almost as much to rent that rundown house as she was now paying to rent a nice house that I manage. We talked about how terrible the old house was and how she had been overcharged for the place.

“I’ve realized this week that I’m angry with myself,” she told me. “I knew I was unhappy, but I hate change, so I just ignored how bad everything was. I just don’t understand why I put up with it.”

Why do we put up with what makes us miserable? I don’t really know.

I used to think that only weak or stupid people would do such a thing, but I know better now. My friend who hasn’t left her abusive husband is bright and she’s always been very strong and decisive. Nobody would have predicted this behavior from her. The woman who just moved into one of our rental houses is a mature and responsible professional. She manages other people. Nobody would suspect her of being anything but fully in charge of her own life.

It’s easy for me to look at others and wonder why they’re doing such things — and it’s easy for me to judge them, of course — but the truth is that I can see the same behavior at times in my own life. And I have no idea why I’ve done it, either.

I’ve stayed in relationships that needed to end. I’ve stayed in jobs that made me miserable, even when I knew I was talented enough and experienced enough to go where I would be happier. I’ve gotten stuck in bad situations and done nothing to lift myself out of my misery.

I hide my unhappiness well. I have a lot of experience at it, so I fake a happy persona very nicely. I don’t think about it. That’s just my social face.

Earlier this week, I talked with a local Walmart employee who’s been friendly with me ever since I moved to this suburb nearly six years ago. She was telling me that so many people she saw in the store were unhappy and she related some unhappiness that’s gone on recently in the lives of people she’s known. And then she shifted the subject.

“But you’re always happy,” she said. “You have so much joy every time I see you that it makes me feel better myself. How do you stay so happy all the time?”

I didn’t want to burst her bubble, so I didn’t correct her assumption. I was briefly surprised, but then I remembered that I learned at an early age to hide my unhappiness — so people rarely know when I’m unhappy. I can’t decide whether that’s a good thing or not.

I don’t know why I hide my unhappiness. And I don’t know why I don’t change certain things in my life when I need to do so. I really don’t.

I don’t know why my friend won’t escape her abuser. (There are no pragmatic reasons to stay, unlike those in some such cases.) I don’t know why my new tenant stayed in a situation in which she was unhappy with her home and she was paying way too much for what she was getting. (She didn’t move until the house was being sold and she was forced to move.)

I just know that this seems to be a pattern with human beings. I see almost everybody do it, even those who are normally quite good at hiding their feelings and those who are outwardly seen as quite forcefully in charge of their own lives.

I sometimes think that my life could be better if certain people knew I was unhappy. I have this silly fantasy that if this person or that person knew just how miserable I was at times, well, maybe he or she would do something to help.

And then I realize I’m being ridiculous.

Yes, it would be nice for someone to “rescue” me. At least sometimes. It would be fantastic to find the things in someone else that I need. But ultimately, there are some things that only I can change. And that’s true for you, too.

If you know you’re unhappy, hasn’t the time come to do something about it? Isn’t it time to stop making excuses — for yourself and for other people — and take decisive action to change what’s making you so unhappy?

My experience is that change in my life is always sudden. I might know for months or years that I need to change something — and then I suddenly make a change one day.

Maybe that’s true for you, too — and maybe today is the day for you to take the action you’ve been putting off for ages. Until you take that first step, nothing will ever get better.

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I’m seeing a lot of simplistic and dishonest explanations right now for the current rioting in France. Those on the populist far right claim it’s all about Muslim immigrants to France disrupting the culture. Their message is that this sort of thing is going to happen in the U.S. unless “we defend the border.” On the far left, socialists and their fellow travelers claim the riots are all about wealthy people in France not paying enough taxes, resulting in cuts to government services. The truth is far more complicated, but it’s rooted in the decline of population growth in Europe. There simply aren’t enough young workers paying into the tax system anymore, so cuts in social services were inevitable. There is genuine cultural tension as more and more people immigrate from other countries, but government cuts to education and other services are even more important to what’s happening. The situation is complicated, so don’t let dishonest people with U.S. political agendas tell you that it happens to support whatever they were already promoting for partisan reasons.

Here’s another reason to appreciate the cats in your life: New research involving 93 countries found that places with more cats per person also tended to have happier people. The researchers say the finding fits with previous evidence that living with pets can reduce loneliness and stress while providing companionship, emotional attachment and social support. The study doesn’t prove that cats cause greater happiness, but it certainly adds to the evidence that sharing your home — and your life — with a cat might be good for you.

The company that owns Facebook and Instagram is heavily promoting its new AI-based software assistant called Muse, but people who are using it as it was designed are incredibly foolish. An early adopter of the software discovered that a few days ago when he advertised an item for sale on Facebook Marketplace — and he inadvertently gave Muse full authority to act on his behalf. The software agreed to a lowball offer made by another Facebook user and then gave that man the home address of the man for whom he was an agent. The software told the buyer that the seller was home and waiting for him. When the buyer showed up and waited angrily, the would-be buyer left an angry review for the man. And this angry man had the seller’s home address. It was only well after that that the software reported what it had done and admitted it had made a mistake. I won’t be putting that much power into the hands of any software. I think anyone who agrees to such terms is a fool. And the software’s user agreement says you’re responsible for purchases the software makes in your name. Nope.

Meet my new girlfriend. Her name is Meg. And she’s my little sweetheart. A couple of months ago, a neighbor across the street told me about a new stray in the neighborhood that she and I were both soon feeding. The cat had been very skittish about contact and she had a lot of scabs and parasites in her fur, but a trip to the vet last week revealed that she was otherwise in good health. The vet estimates her to be 1 to 2 years old. I named her for Meg Murry, the 13-year-old protagonist of Madeleine L’Engle’s wonderful book, “A Wrinkle in Time.” (Please read the book. Don’t watch the horrible movie.) Since we lost Lucy almost a year ago, it seems appropriate that we finally have a new little girl to join the household. She’s already captured my heart, but Alex, Oliver and Sam aren’t there quite yet.

There’s nothing socially acceptable that’s as dangerous as drinking alcohol. Most people grow up being told to “drink responsibly” — and all of us see people abusing this drug in one way or another — but the truth is that drinking alcohol is always a terrible risk. The alcohol in these drinks is toxic and the human liver has to work hard to filter the toxins out. What most people don’t realize is that alcohol is classified as a known carcinogen by the World Health Organization — because of the well-established connection between imbibing and various cancers. Many people have taken refuge behind the idea that light or moderate drinking might be safe, but a new study shows that drinking even one drink a day increases the risks of 10 types of cancer. When I was a teen-ager, I looked around and saw the negative effects that this behavior had on a lot of people and decided not to start drinking, so I’ve never even tried this poison. The evidence keeps piling up that I was lucky to have come to that conclusion early.

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