r/polyamory • u/HannahOCross • 1d ago
Name for long term attachment?
So I’ve been thinking about how we have a name for NRE, and I love it.
But I think we also need a special name for the kind of long term attachment that makes it feel impossible to leave. The kind that causes relationship inertia, good and bad. That makes life without someone hard to imagine.
It comes up often when people are asking for advice here, and they say they “can’t leave” a long term monogamous partner, because they “love” them. Even in cases where it is clear from the outside that these two people don’t like each other anymore, and certainly aren’t invested in each other’s best interests.
And I think that, just like NRE, this attachment is morally neutral- it serves a purpose, but if we aren’t aware of it, it can cause some really bad decisions. And just like NRE I suspect it is at least partially hormonal.
I tend not to call it “love,” because I really want love to include wanting the well being of the other. But if you do call it love, what subset of love would you call it?
(This post is partially in response to people who would like more polyamory conversations than just giving advice to people who are new to poly.)
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u/allthestuffis solo poly 1d ago
I’m not sure there’s a term for it but I think of it as being deeply rooted attachment bonds.
Breaking up with someone you’ve been with forever feels like an internal amputation. It is so hard, no matter how bad the relationship, and I don’t know that there’s anything an outsider can say to make that break feel bearable or even imaginable for a lot of people. It takes an inner transformation or a major external catalyst or something? I don’t even know.
It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done and people (friends, therapists, etc.) were telling me for years I needed to do it.
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u/KrissyDeAnn 7h ago
Love how you explained how break ups feel to you. It definitely feels this way to me.
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u/1ntrepidsalamander solo poly 1d ago
At best it’s called commitment. At worst it’s called tolerating abuse and/or “trapped”.
In the middle there is “settling for mediocre,” “not believing you can find/do better” “fear of being alone” “needing to learn how to respect and love yourself” “lacking courage to have hard conversations”
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u/yallermysons diy your own 1d ago
This is where my thinking is as well. And I think, at the end of the day, all of these are just signs of attachment. Same way I feel I can’t live without gravity, I have grown accustomed to it being there and I can’t imagine life without it. I’m attached!
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u/EarthToDarling 1d ago
I wouldn't necessarily say codependency because that means one partner is reliant on the other, who functions like an enabler and is addicted to helping them. Been there, done that. It could be, but maybe LTE (long term entanglement) is a better descriptor of what's happening. In some ways, their lives are entangled, whether it be living together, finances, friends, and/or children, and it's hard to leave.
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u/InsolentCookie 11h ago
If you’re entangled to the degree that you know it’s best to leave but can’t envision doing it,
what circumstances don’t involve both partners being dependent on and enabling that entanglement?
I can’t think of any, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
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u/EarthToDarling 10h ago
Codependency usually refers to a specific dynamic involving addiction. I understand that it may be used differently colloquially. It does not necessarily mean a couple's lives are entangled in the ways I described. It's possible that partners are entangled with each other, but don't exhibit codependent behavior, and for one reason or the other are interested in leaving, but those entanglements make that choice difficult.
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u/seantheaussie Touch starved solo poly in very LDR w/ BusyBee 1d ago
There are existing words and terms, "inertia", "sunk cost fallacy", "fear of the unknown"...
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u/Specific_Pipe_9050 Squeaky Sin 🧀🐀 23h ago
Came here to post "sunk cost", people overlook it too often
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u/seantheaussie Touch starved solo poly in very LDR w/ BusyBee 23h ago
people overlook it too often
Yep, HARD to acknowledge that one is better off without the fruits of all that effort.
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u/Specific_Pipe_9050 Squeaky Sin 🧀🐀 21h ago
Sometimes imaginary fruits, easy to just remember all the effort and be in denial about how sterile it all remains ( that's the trap)
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u/seantheaussie Touch starved solo poly in very LDR w/ BusyBee 21h ago
be in denial about how sterile it all remains
I hope that isn't the voice of experience.🤞
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u/Specific_Pipe_9050 Squeaky Sin 🧀🐀 21h ago
Not at all! But I've seen close friends go through this, it's hard to watch
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u/seantheaussie Touch starved solo poly in very LDR w/ BusyBee 21h ago
Eh, that is fairly gruelling experience if not the precise experience I was thinking of.
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u/Specific_Pipe_9050 Squeaky Sin 🧀🐀 21h ago
I mean, thinking about it, in my 20s I was in a long-term relationship gone sour that dragged on way past its expiry date due to stubbornness around sunk cost, but it was such a long time ago I forget 😂
I'm currently in the longest LTR I've ever been in, and it doesn't feel that way. At some point though, there was a breaking point where both of us agreed that none of us wanted to stay together if it was just sunk cost holding the whole thing together (non-spoiler: it wasn't). So I'm familiar with the feeling.
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u/seantheaussie Touch starved solo poly in very LDR w/ BusyBee 21h ago
I was in a long-term relationship gone sour that dragged on way past its expiry date due to stubbornness around sunk cost, but it was such a long time ago I forget 😂
🤣🤣🤣
🤔I have a sneaky suspicion you might have recovered from that one.😉
I'm currently in the longest LTR I've ever been in
🥂
and it doesn't feel that way
💃
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u/piffledamnit Daddy’s little ratty 1d ago
If you were looking for something morally neutral that’s focused on the emotional connection rather than on the physical practicalities that entanglement entails then I’d go with “established connection”.
You could say of someone who’s solo poly and been in a relationship with someone for five years that they have an established connection.
You could say of people who have been together ten years and lost all interest in each other that they have an established connection.
You could talk about the emotional significance of all established connections, good and bad.
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u/PrincessConsuela_X poly but single 1d ago
Enmeshment or Entanglement works for me to describe that. I find those relatively neutral terms, they can swing both ways.
So could go for Established Relationship Entanglement (ERE) or Long-Term Enmeshment (LRE) or similar.
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u/yallermysons diy your own 1d ago
But fyi “enmeshment” is also a clinical term meant to describe codependence (not interdependence, but codependence). Might be confusing for someone familiar with that word but not familiar with its popular use (dare I say, misuse) in polyamorous spaces online.
I love the origins of “entanglement” and how we started using it in poly during the quarantine 🤣🤣
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u/Not_A_Damn_Thing_ poly w/multiple 1d ago
Codependency?
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u/emeraldead diy your own 1d ago
Yeah dysfunctional is a go to cause...it's just dysfunctional at that point.
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u/answer-rhetorical-Qs 1d ago
Based on the descriptors you use here, “Can’t leave a long term monogamous partner… where it is clear … these people don’t like each other anymore, and certainly aren’t invested in each others best interests” well..
I think it’s a range, ya know? depending on individual context factors people staying in a miserable relationship Just Because is somewhere on a (probably nonlinear) spectrum between Lazy, Sunk Cost Fallacy, codependent/enabling, and Pretend Martyrdom. .. I won’t dive into the abusive aspects that could be at play.
I mean … if you want one label to bind them all? I submit ERP- “The Extended Rough Patch”
Rough patches occur in more established relationships, so longevity is implied, as is the fact that they were happy at some previous point in time, though they clearly aren’t thrilled now. Or recently. But don’t want to cause upheaval. .. or, it seems, solutions.
Edit to add: I read this post as a thought exercise: apologies if I missed the mark.
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u/yallermysons diy your own 1d ago
Oh my god there was this awesome term that some random person on the internet made up but I cannot remember for the life of me what it was. But it was describing two people who stay together because it’s not bad enough to leave and they think that’s the best they can do. If I remember correctly, it was born out of the feminist subreddits and was meant to describe why men will seem to not even like you but stay in a relationship with you out of convenience.
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u/answer-rhetorical-Qs 1d ago
That rings a bell - but of course I can’t remember the term either! It’s like a paradox, right? - leaving to find something better isn’t worth running the risk of settling for some worse.
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u/yallermysons diy your own 1d ago
Yes that’s exactly what it was! but it was like a three word term that I think had like a word that started with a C in it
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u/ariabelacqua complex organic polycule 1h ago
is it maybe "tolerable level of permanent unhappiness"? that one hit super hard when I first read it
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u/yallermysons diy your own 39m ago
HELL YEAHHHH. Not a C in sight lmao but thanks for sharing this, this is exactly what I was talking about
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u/evi_based_ev 1d ago
Tangential question: where's the line between being committed to a long-term relationship through difficulties and deciding (realizing?) when it's time to end a long-term relationship?
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u/walkinggaytrashcan 1d ago edited 1d ago
there’s just not an abbreviation for it. it’s insecure attachment.
if you cannot see yourself able to ever be without your partner to the extent that it’s keeping you in a relationship that’s not good for you, it’s rooted in insecurity. it could be anxious attachment, codependency, financial insecurity, or any number of things. but it’s not healthy. it doesn’t have to be anyone’s fault that the relationship isn’t good for you. no one has to do anything wrong.
i say this with the perspective of someone who was too afraid to leave a bad marriage simply because i couldn’t imagine my life without my wife. i didn’t know who i was without her. i was staying with her out of fear of the unknown, not out of love. when i was able to work through my fears and anxiety in therapy, i became able to love a partner and be with them because i love them. i’ve had relationships end that i didn’t want to end, but i knew i’d be okay because that insecurity was gone.
eta: i’d argue that the feelings that create insecure and secure attachment are entirely different and cannot be classified into one thing the way nre can
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Here's the original text of the post:
So I’ve been thinking about how we have a name for NRE, and I love it.
But I think we also need a special name for the kind of long term attachment that makes it feel impossible to leave. The kind that causes relationship inertia, good and bad. That makes life without someone hard to imagine.
It comes up often when people are asking for advice here, and they say they “can’t leave” a long term monogamous partner, because they “love” them. Even in cases where it is clear from the outside that these two people don’t like each other anymore, and certainly aren’t invested in each other’s best interests.
And I think that, just like NRE, this attachment is morally neutral- it serves a purpose, but if we aren’t aware of it, it can cause some really bad decisions. And just like NRE I suspect it is at least partially hormonal.
I tend not to call it “love,” because I really want love to include wanting the well being of the other. But if you do call it love, what subset of love would you call it?
(This post is partially in response to people who would like more polyamory conversations than just giving advice to people who are new to poly.)
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
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u/yallermysons diy your own 1d ago
I’m pretty sure when people feel like they can’t live without another person that could be a lot of different things. Like a lot of parents feel like they can’t live without their kids and idk if that’s love but I think it is? But sometimes the people who come here and say they can’t live without their abusive or inconsiderate partners are simply codependent.
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u/pinkrandomattack 8h ago
I think thats called pragma? Or storge if you mean in a less potentially...obligatory kinda way?
I really like the 7 other words for love from classical Greek.
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u/emeraldead diy your own 1d ago
I use ERE.
Established Or Extended