“He used and dumped me after everything I suffered with him.”
This statement carries emotional weight that demands examination, not dismissal. Sometimes it reflects genuine exploitation. At other times, it reveals something equally important but less dramatic: a profound misunderstanding about what mutual support actually requires and who bears responsibility when relationships fail.
Was there deliberate deception? Was there financial manipulation? Or was there a consensual relationship between two adults navigating shared circumstances which simply ended when compatibility proved insufficient? These situations are not equivalent, yet they are described with identical language.
A relationship that ends is not automatically exploitation. Two people at similar economic stages enduring similar hardships are experiencing shared circumstance, not one person’s sacrifice for the other. This distinction matters because the language we use shapes the lessons we learn. If every disappointment becomes victimhood and every shared struggle becomes debt owed, we prevent the honest examination required for healthier future relationships.
Shared Circumstance Is Not Automatic Sacrifice
The first uncomfortable truth: being poor together is not the same as sacrificing for each other.
If two young adults are both financially unstable, living in modest accommodation, eating basic meals, and navigating uncertainty together, they are experiencing shared circumstance. This may feel like suffering, but it is not necessarily sacrifice. It is simply two people at the same economic stage of life.
Real sacrifice involves cost. It involves giving up something you possessed, not enduring what you already lacked.
If someone with financial stability invests capital into a partner’s business or materially sustains them whilst they build capacity, that represents measurable sacrifice. They had resources and chose to channel them into the other person’s development. If both partners are equally struggling because neither can afford better, this is companionship through hardship. It is valuable, but it is not sacrifice because neither partner is forgoing alternatives they actually possessed.
The confusion arises when partners mistake the first scenario for the second. Simply being poor together does not create debt. What creates legitimate expectation is deliberate sacrifice made on behalf of another person or the relationship’s future.
This confusion intensifies in cultural contexts where expectations around financial provision run high. In Nigerian dating culture, for instance, men face pressure to cover dates, provide gifts, and demonstrate economic readiness for family responsibilities. This creates pressure to spend resources they may not have. Women may accept support that creates unspoken obligations. Both partners can misinterpret whether shared modest living represents one person’s sacrifice or simply parallel circumstances at the same economic stage.
If resources are being consumed rather than invested in building capacity, neither partner is genuinely investing in growth. Both are simply surviving together, which creates companionship but not necessarily the kind of mutual investment that builds lasting partnership.
Emotional Dependency Disguised as Loyalty
Perhaps the most common pattern in relationships that end with feelings of being “used” is not financial exploitation but identity loss masquerading as devotion.
One partner becomes entirely absorbed in the other’s trajectory. They wait. They anticipate. They imagine a future that will begin once the other “makes it”. Meanwhile, their own development pauses. Friendships narrow. Ambitions shrink. Everything becomes centred on the relationship.
This is not loyalty. It is self-abandonment.
The pain that follows when such relationships end feels like betrayal because the abandoned partner experiences catastrophic vacuum. But the catastrophe is not only the breakup. It is the realisation that one no longer recognises oneself outside the person. That is not love. That is fusion.
Healthy partnership means two individuals building simultaneously. You do not wait for someone else’s breakthrough to justify your own progress. Romance should complement identity, not consume it.
Relationship research consistently shows that partners who maintain individual identities, pursue personal goals, and develop independent capabilities whilst remaining emotionally connected report higher satisfaction than those who abandon individual pursuits for relationship unity. If one person grows whilst the other remains stagnant, imbalance follows. Eventually, separation becomes inevitable.
The partner who continued developing may not have deliberately used the other. They may simply have outgrown a relationship built on fusion rather than genuine partnership.
What Genuine Mutual Support Requires
Physical intimacy is easy. Strategic partnership is rare.
Genuine mutual support involves shared responsibility for maintaining the relationship through communication and conflict resolution, not one person pursuing whilst the other remains passive. Both partners must be able to disclose needs without fear of judgment, creating mutual vulnerability that strengthens rather than weakens the bond. This requires mutual attunement to each other’s emotional states and changing circumstances, alongside shared influence in decisions where neither partner consistently dominates.
Supporting someone’s dream means engaging intellectually with their vision, asking challenging questions, offering ideas, connecting them with opportunities, and building your own competence in parallel. It also means assessing whether the dream is credible. Blind loyalty is not a virtue. Discernment is essential.
These elements distinguish partnerships built on reciprocal investment from those characterised by one partner giving whilst the other takes, or by both partners struggling in parallel without actually supporting each other’s development.
The Investment Question
Understanding what keeps relationships intact requires examining what constitutes genuine investment. There are two types: resources put directly into the relationship (time, money, emotional disclosure) and things created because of the relationship (shared property, children, mutual friendships).
Both types increase commitment because partners fear losing what they have built. However, experiencing poverty alongside a partner is not the same as investing in their growth or the relationship’s future.
The critical question becomes: were resources being channelled toward building something, or merely consumed in surviving together?
If a couple spends limited income on expensive dates and gifts to maintain appearances, this is consumption. If the same couple channels resources into education, business development, or building assets that will benefit both parties long term, this represents genuine investment even if it provides less immediate gratification.
This explains why some people feel profoundly used when relationships end. They invested heavily according to their understanding, but their investment took forms that created commitment in themselves without creating equivalent commitment in their partner.
Physical intimacy, for instance, represents significant investment for many people, particularly in cultural contexts where sexual exclusivity carries moral weight. However, if partners view the same intimacy differently—one as profound investment deserving reciprocal commitment and the other as mutual enjoyment creating no particular obligation—incompatibility follows.
The solution is not to avoid investment but to ensure reciprocity. Both partners should invest in forms recognisable and valued by the other, and both should maintain individual development alongside relationship investment.
When Relationships End
When relationships end after shared hardship, feelings of being used are common and painful. These feelings deserve acknowledgment. However, they do not automatically indicate exploitation.
Commitment increases with investment size, meaning people who invest heavily feel more committed regardless of whether the relationship is actually satisfying. This creates situations where one partner feels deeply committed whilst the other, having invested less, feels free to leave.
Several factors influence whether someone will feel used: whether their investment was recognised and appreciated during the relationship, whether both partners invested proportionally, and whether the relationship ended due to external factors or one partner’s choice to pursue better alternatives.
Perhaps most importantly, feelings of exploitation increase when one partner sacrificed individual development for the relationship whilst the other continued growing. This pattern appears frequently where someone feels they supported a partner through education only to be left once that partner succeeded. The supporting partner channelled resources into the other person’s growth rather than their own, creating increasing asymmetry.
However, even this pattern does not automatically constitute exploitation unless the developing partner encouraged the sacrifice under false pretences. If both partners made choices freely, the pain is the consequence of imbalanced choice rather than deliberate betrayal.
Moving Forward
Adults share responsibility for the agreements they accept and the development they choose to postpone.
If you give emotional labour, time, physical intimacy, and financial support without clarity about direction, you are making a choice. If you avoid conversations about future intentions because you fear losing the person, you are choosing comfort over clarity. If you pause your own development waiting for someone else’s momentum, you are choosing dependency over agency.
Silence is also a decision. Passivity is also a choice.
This is not victim-blaming. Genuine exploitation exists. Manipulation is real. In such cases, the language of being used is accurate and the exploiter bears full moral responsibility. But conflating every failed relationship with exploitation dilutes the meaning of abuse and prevents the self-reflection required for better choices.
Growth requires honest questions: Did I ignore warning signs? Did I avoid difficult conversations about expectations? Did I abandon my own development for someone else’s? Did I remain because of conviction or because of fear?
Building healthier partnerships during economic pressure requires maintaining individual growth alongside partnership development, ensuring reciprocity in investment even when contributions differ in form, and developing explicit agreements about financial support and future plans. Economic pressure tests relationships without determining their fate. Relationship maintenance behaviours and mutual decision-making predict whether couples grow closer or drift apart.
Commitment requires shared vision, not just shared circumstances. Partners building something together maintain connection through changing circumstances. Partners whose main commonality is current difficulty may find that success dissolves their bond.
Conclusion
When relationships end after shared hardship, it is natural to feel that effort was wasted, loyalty was exploited, sacrifice went unappreciated. These feelings deserve acknowledgment.
However, time spent in relationships is not inherently wasted even when those relationships do not last. The experience teaches what one wants from partnership and provides opportunity to develop relationship skills.
What truly wastes time is repeating the same patterns without learning their lessons. If every relationship follows the same trajectory, the pattern needs examination.
Ask yourself: Do I choose partners from clarity or desperation? Am I maintaining my own development? Do I define expectations early or avoid difficult conversations? Am I building my own trajectory or waiting for someone else’s?
There is dignity in recognising your own agency. You choose who you date. You choose what you tolerate. You choose how you develop. You choose whether you grow alongside someone or dissolve into them.
Genuine mutual support is two capable individuals choosing partnership from strength rather than need. It is both partners investing in growth. It is reciprocal vulnerability, attunement, responsibility, and influence. It is building something together whilst maintaining individual identity.
Romance should complement identity, not consume it. Stand beside, not beneath.
That is how relationships move from survival to strength.
