Are You Falling For the Sunk Cost Fallacy in Your Relationship?

Posted on by stilllearning2b
sunk cost

I love learning about how our brains operate and how they often fool us. We tend to think of ourselves as rational creatures when the reality is often anything but. There are many fallacies that we fall prey to, but there is one in particular that plays a dominant role in relationships.

The sunk cost fallacy.

This fallacy relates to costs (financial, time, energy) that have already been invested and cannot be recovered. What has occurred is done. Over. It should not have any bearing on our decision going forward.

And yet it often does.

A non-relationship example of the sunk cost fallacy would be the money paid up front for a monthly membership to a class. You go to two classes and decide you hate the course and find the instructor particularly grating. If you were paying per class, you obviously would simply stop going. However, because you paid up front, you view the money as wasted if you do not attend, so you continue to show up, hating every minute.

Pretty silly, huh? I mean, the money is gone regardless of if you turn up at the class or use that time to perfect your soap whittling skills (something which I assume is preferable to the class in question). You would be best served by writing off the money spent and using your time for something beneficial. It may not feel like money well spent, but at least it would be time well spent. And both have value.

In a relationship, the sunk cost fallacy can keep people together even when they may be better apart. The years (or even weeks or months) of time and emotional investment have already occurred and cannot be recovered. As such, they should not be considered in the decision of whether or not to continue the relationship. Moving forward because of sunk costs won’t make you happier. Energy invested in the past doesn’t promise a return in the future. When deciding if a relationship should continue, look at the value it brings to the present and the predicted value in the future, not the investments already made. Those costs are already sunk. Sinking more ships won’t make the first ones rise.

What has passed, is past.

And the past shouldn’t dictate your future.

So, if the relationship still has an intact hull, let it sail on its own merits.

If the hull is breached beyond repair, let it sink.

And then whittle that block of soap into a sculpture:)

Sunk

Posted on by stilllearning2b

I love learning about how our brains operate and how they often fool us. We tend to think of ourselves as rational creatures when the reality is often anything but. There are many fallacies that we fall prey to, but there is one in particular that plays a dominant role in relationships.

The sunk cost fallacy.

This fallacy relates to costs (financial, time, energy) that have already been invested and cannot be recovered. What has occurred is done. Over. It should not have any bearing on our decision going forward.

And yet it often does.

A non-relationship example of the sunk cost fallacy would be the money paid up front for a monthly membership to a class. You go to two classes and decide you hate the course and find the instructor particularly grating. If you were paying per class, you obviously would simply stop going. However, because you paid up front, you view the money as wasted if you do not attend, so you continue to show up, hating every minute.

Pretty silly, huh? I mean, the money is gone regardless of if you turn up at the class or use that time to perfect your soap whittling skills (something which I assume is preferable to the class in question). You would be best served by writing off the money spent and using your time for something beneficial. It may not feel like money well spent, but at least it would be time well spent. And both have value.

In a relationship, the sunk cost fallacy can keep people together even when they may be better apart. The years (or even weeks or months) of time and emotional investment have already occurred and cannot be recovered. As such, they should not be considered in the decision of whether or not to continue the relationship. Moving forward because of sunk costs won’t make you happier. Energy invested in the past doesn’t promise a return in the future. When deciding if a relationship should continue, look at the value it brings to the present and the predicted value in the future, not the investments already made. Those costs are already sunk. Sinking more ships won’t make the first ones rise.

What has passed, is past.

And the past shouldn’t dictate your future.

So, if the relationship still has an intact hull, let it sail on its own merits.

If the hull is breached beyond repair, let it sink.

And then whittle that block of soap into a sculpture:)

 

Black Ice

Posted on by stilllearning2b

One of the worst car accidents I’ve ever seen happened on black ice. It was several years ago, in front of the school where I used to work. It was a cold morning, well below freezing, but there had been no precipitation for days and so there was no expectation of ice. It turned out that an in ground sprinkler system at the front of a neighborhood had ruptured, spilling water out onto the road in the predawn hours. The water soon froze in the frigid air, becoming an unseen sheet of ice under the shadow of trees. The location was particularly treacherous, as it was not only on a hill, but also an area where people braked hard to turn into the school.

From my vantage point at a red light a block away, I saw one car after another cross the slick terrain, lose control and barrel into oncoming traffic. The engines were revving faster than reaction times so the ping-pong actions of the cars went through several iterations before traffic came to a standstill. Thankfully, on the morning in question, there were no serious injuries, yet the damage was severe. Dozens of cars were totaled. A power line was down. An overturned milk truck’s spilled contents added to the icy mess. And the road was blocked for hours.

Yet nobody involved left their house that morning afraid of the roads. No one took precautions for potential ice. It was business as usual. Until it wasn’t.

I just returned from a walk around my area of iced-locked Atlanta. The roads are still covered in 1/4″ thick sheets of glassy ice, their sides (and sometimes centers) littered with abandoned cars and even school buses. But there is some traffic moving today, the cars carefully maintaining a steady speed and avoiding sudden turns. The folks out today knew to be cautious, the ice is a known danger and they are implementing proper precautions. There are certainly accidents occurring, but few of the severity of the one I witnessed years ago.

Life’s challenges often have this distinction. Some are unanticipated and unforeseeable while others are more easily anticipated. We often berate ourselves when faced with a challenge we did not forecast. I know I did that with my divorce, wasted energy wishing that I had seen it coming so that I could prepare my bug-out bag.

But would it really have been better if I had anticipated it?

Sometimes, even when we know a challenge is coming, we can not prevent it or, like the politicians in Atlanta this week, we take a gamble and choose to not implement those preventative measures. Just the knowledge that my marriage was ending may not have been enough to change the outcome. Or, perhaps I would have gambled on things working out and chosen not to prepare.

Regardless, like the drivers on the roads today, I would have been scared, aware of the potential dangers around every bend. I would have been wary of every step, armed with the knowledge that each one taken could be one that sweeps out my life from under me. Hell, let’s be honest. If I had known that the end of the marriage was in sight, I probably would have been so scared that I would have been frozen in place. Iced in.

Black ice is treacherous because of its ability to hide. Yet its rarity means that we don’t walk around fearing its danger.

It’s funny. I used to view the tsunami nature of the end as one of the worst parts. Now? I’m thankful for it. It was a helluva wreck, but at least I wasn’t scared to drive. And even though the damages were great, there were no fatalities.

Thankful to be warm and home after an adventurous trek home from work yesterday that included a three hour drive followed by a three hour hike (and an awesome husband that met me halfway on my walk with hiking boots and hot coffee!). Many in the metro were not so lucky and spent the night in stranded cars, schools or in emergency shelters. Even though the surrounding cities screwed this up, the stories of the individuals stepping up to help others is amazing. Challenges are so much easier when we have help.

Reframing Fair

Posted on by stilllearning2b

Life’s not fair.

You probably first heard those words back in elementary school when a classmate’s misdeeds resulted in mass discipline or some slight against you went unpunished. If you’re anything like me, those words only served to salt the wound, as the brain kicked up reasons that this was different. That this time, the scales of justice must find balance.

As we grow, we read and watch stories that have an inherent fairness to them, the good guy usually gets the girl and the bad guy has to face the consequences of his actions. There is certainly suffering, but agony is tempered with some sort of retribution. We find comfort in that cause and effect. It seems right, somehow, that if you do good, you get good and if you propagate bad, it boomerangs as well.

As we grow, we also get better at weaving stories, tales told with ourselves as the good guy at the center. We use our inherent sense of fairness and the stories we learn from books and movies to craft these narratives. We strive to find greater purpose and balance, even if we have to build it from scratch. We have learned that the bad guy will be punished before the end. And so we seek that justice for the wrongs in our own lives before we are ready to turn the page on that chapter.

But those are just stories, narratives with black and white, good and bad. We’re not that simple and life is not that fair.

And sometimes fair doesn’t exist at all.

I think one of the reasons that divorce is so devastating is that it destroys our narrative of ourselves. We, the good guy in the story of course, get the girl. But then at some point, the girl wasn’t as expected and, in some cases, turns out to be the bad guy, pulling off the mask like a character in Scooby Doo. Our brains stutter to correct this wrong; they want justice for the perceived misdeeds, both to reestablish fair and the secure one’s own position in the good guy role.

So, we turn to the divorce courts with much the same intent as a child tattling on a classmate that threw a surreptitious blow.

But the divorce courts aren’t set up to punish individual misdeeds. They punish the entire class.

I, like many others, approached court looking for justice. I carefully spelled out his wrongdoings. I gathered evidence that secured my role as the good guy and painted him as the bad. I was hurt and anger and confused by his choices. They were painful. And I wanted him punished.

And the system was only too happy to play along.

Requests for information traveled back and forth through emails. Thick stacks of legal papers filled my mailbox, seemingly alternating with thinner, but more pointed envelopes containing bills for legal fees. Every step of the process felt like wading through chest-deep mud. The only lifeline keeping me from sinking was the vision of the court ordered consequences.

The system also used fear as a trap. In my case, it was fear for my financial future. I had understood that I needed this process and documentation to try to avoid some of his financial infidelities. In many other cases, the fear is tied to the children, the preferred pawn of the courts. The system uses children like dog racing uses a fake rabbit lure to entice the dogs to run. When you’re chasing something, you’re too focused to see the bigger picture.

We come to family court with our emotions raw, sick and sad with the loss of the marriage and the future we evisioned.

We come to family court angry that we have been wronged and wanting to lash out.

We come to family court confused at where we are, convinced that our life story has been misread.

We come to family court scared, clinging on to anything after experiencing the pain of losing everything.

We come to family court desperate, looking for something, anything, to make it okay.

We want it to be fair.

But that’s not what the courts are about.

 

My new husband asked me if I wish I had done my divorce differently. I thought back to the months filled with unanswered depositions, false and outlandish claims and sick days taken to talk to lawyers. I thought back to the three foot stack of files that had been paid for with over half my annual salary. I thought back to the day in court where, instead of taking the stand and being able to tell my side of the story, I sat alone in a hallway awaiting the decisions of the attorneys and the judge. I thought back to the decree, my relief when I saw justice in black and white and my despair when soon after, I learned that it wasn’t really enforceable.

My eventual response was that I didn’t know if I could have done it any differently. At least not at the time.

The thing about divorce court is that you only know how the game is played after the cards have been put away.

My now-husband probed further, asking what I got out of the divorce. That answer was easier. I got a divorce. The rest – the hours on the phone, the piles of paper, the carefully worded questions and allegations – were just noise.

 

I went into the divorce process looking for the system to establish fairness. I had convinced myself that I needed that judgement in order to heal and move on. I gave the courts the power to determine if I was going to be okay.

But the courts punish everybody involved.

My $30,000 divorce decree was ultimately only good for changing my name.

It was up to me to change my life.

 

I found a way to turn the pain and anger into something positive, using my story and my writing to help others through the desolate wastelands of the end of a marriage. I found justice, not by punishing his misdeeds, but by taking ownership of my own life and striving to do better. I worked to find acceptance and peace despite the perceived lack of consequences.

 

So I learned to reframe fair.

Divorce is not fair.

Looking for fairness within the system is a snipe hunt, with frustration and disappointment the only outcomes.

But justice can come from within.

You can balance the scales in your own life so that you can find peace.

You can choose to let go of what is causing you suffering.

You can find acceptance rather than struggle.

That’s fair.

And no lawyers are needed.

 

Divorce Corp, a movie about the  $50 billion a year divorce industry, is opening in select cities this weekend. The goal of the filmmakers is to expose and then reform the divorce process so that individuals and families can make the best decisions possible through a difficult time. Check here to see when it will be showing near you.

And then let your voice be heard.

 

 

 

 

Don’t Take Your Divorce Personally

Posted on by stilllearning2b

As a homework assignment for girl’s weekend this past summer, I was asked to read The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. I was fully willing, but somewhat skeptical, since as the only child of a counselor, I was raised on a steady diet of self-help. I think I overdosed.

After the first few pages, my skepticism was replaced with excitement and understanding. This was one book that made sense to me.

The premise is straightforward: four agreements that, if followed, will change your life. The book is short and the agreements are extremely simple, but nowhere near easy. They are applicable to every area of life and manage to be general and still useful all at once. They are interconnected, one always leading to another.

As part of my own work with The Four Agreements, I am drilling down and applying them to various areas of life. I’ve already explored The Four Agreements in marriage and The Four Agreements in wellness. Those were easy applications. After all, those are areas where your intention is to be honest and you want to be your best.

Now, for the hard one — The Four Agreements in divorce. How can these covenants help you navigate such an awful time with more dignity and awareness? Can these promises actually hold true while in midst of a life disintegration? Can they help to provide support and focus intention in those darkest of days?

I think they can.

Read how.

It can change the way you view your ex and your divorce. And it can help you find peace through the pain.