Denial, on the other hand, leaves people feeling disempowered and helpless. The more they deny, the more powerless they feel until they become hopelessly trapped in an abusive situation. Emerging Methods in Mental Health Outcomes Research like it.
There are other ways in which people are in relationship denial. Many unhappily married people are too afraid to admit that their marriage isn't working. These individuals deny their frustration because they don't want to deal with their problems any more than those in abusive relationships do.
Denial of marital unhappiness makes being in a mediocre marriage appear to be the acceptable norm. If friends of a couple in relationship denial are also suffering from marital malaise, they could learn from this example not to make a fuss. Rather than being able to improve their relationships - many of which could be helped with just a little effort - all of these couples remain unhappily in denial.
Money is another area where people engage in denial. This is evidenced by the epidemic of credit card debt. In my practice, I've encountered people earning 30 or 40 thousand dollars a year who'd accumulated credit card debt of 60 and 80 thousand dollars. The Social Media Privacy Model: Privacy and Communication in the Light of Social Media Affordances link.
In exploring the psychology underlying this problem, it's clear that denial plays a major part in it. These people didn't want to acknowledge how much money they actually had and instead, were pretending that they could afford their extravagant or excessive purchases. They were living caviar lifestyles on macaroni budgets, and ignoring where this spending was heading.
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