Why do smart, emotionally aware people stay in relationships that are clearly destroying them? Drew and I dug into the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard marriage, to walk through the seven psychological mechanisms that quietly lock people inside bad relationships and make leaving feel impossible.

If you have ever watched someone you love stay in a relationship that is destroying them, or if you have been that person yourself, this episode will shine a lot of light on what is really going on under the hood.

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Chapters:

0:00:00 CHAPTER 1: Why Smart People Stay in Bad Relationships

0:04:00 CHAPTER 2: The Johnny Depp and Amber Heard Backstory

0:14:30 CHAPTER 3: Mechanism 1 — Normalization

0:27:00 CHAPTER 4: Mechanism 2 — The Identity Trap

0:41:30 CHAPTER 5: Mechanism 3 — The Slot Machine Effect

0:51:30 CHAPTER 6: Mechanism 4 — Cognitive Dissonance

1:01:30 CHAPTER 7: Mechanism 5 — The Sunk Cost Fallacy

1:10:30 CHAPTER 8: Mechanism 6 — The Guilt Cage

1:16:00 CHAPTER 9: Mechanism 7 — The Terror of the Void

1:24:00 CHAPTER 10: The Aftermath of Johnny and Amber

1:30:00 CHAPTER 11: How to Counteract Each Mechanism

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