Intermittent Reinforcement
Why hope becomes addictive in toxic relationships
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Introduction
Why do people cling to relationships that cause them pain? Why does hope, which in essence can be a source of strength, turn into a chain that binds us to destructive patterns?
A key to this riddle lies in the psychological principle of intermittent reinforcement. The mechanism is simple: positive signals such as love, affection and affirmation are not given consistently, but irregularly and unpredictably. At one moment there is warmth, closeness and promise — the next, distance, coldness or criticism. It is precisely this unpredictability that makes the dynamic so addictive.
Behavioral research shows that what is rewarded unpredictably is maintained most strongly. The principle behind slot machines, lotteries and social media is the same: dopamine is released most powerfully in conditions of uncertainty. The question “when will the next reward come?” keeps us trapped in anticipation. In intimate relationships, this mechanism works on an even deeper level. The reward is not money or status, but love — and love touches our most existential longing: to be seen and acknowledged.
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In toxic relationships, this dynamic becomes a trap. Moments of warmth and idealization spark hope: “see, it can be good, maybe it will truly get better.” But that same hope is constantly interrupted by periods of rejection, silence or reproach. Pain and reward become so entangled that breaking free feels almost impossible. The beloved becomes both the wound and the balm.
In this essay, I will show how intermittent reinforcement operates in relationships, why it is addictive and how hope shifts from a source of strength to a chain of captivity. I will do so by connecting psychological insights to concrete examples from lived experience and then turn to the philosophical question:
What becomes of the essence of love when hope is no longer carried by recognition, but by unpredictability and conditioning?
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Psychological analysis
Intermittent reinforcement has its roots in the learning theory and behavioral research of B.F. Skinner. Where consistent reward or punishment produces predictable patterns, it is precisely the unpredictable reward schedule that proves most powerful. A slot machine is the best-known example: once someone pulls the lever and occasionally wins, they continue to try, even when losses far outweigh the gains.
In relationships, the mechanism unfolds more subtly, yet no less powerfully. The reward here is not money or points, but attention, affection and love. It is about receiving affirmation — sometimes in the form of words, sometimes through closeness, sometimes through sexuality. Because this affirmation is not consistently available but offered sporadically and erratically, a pattern emerges in which one partner works ever harder to secure the reward. The longing for love fuses with uncertainty and it is precisely this tension that keeps the bond alive.
From a psychological perspective, this becomes addictive for several reasons:
Neurobiologically
The dopamine system in the brain responds not only to the reward itself but especially to the expectation of it. Uncertainty about the timing of affirmation heightens dopamine release, intensifying craving.
Attachment
On the level of attachment, unpredictable availability stirs anxiety, driving one to greater effort to regain closeness. It is precisely the pain of rejection that intensifies the moments when love is given.
Conditioning
The alternating pattern of warmth and cold teaches the psyche not to release hope, because every negative episode carries the hidden promise that something positive might soon follow.
The function within toxic relationships is clear. For the one maintaining the pattern, intermittent reinforcement offers power and control: by deciding when love, warmth or attention is available, a subtle system of dominance arises. For the one caught in the pattern, hope becomes an anchor: the promise that tomorrow things can/may be better, that love can/may return.
In lived reality, this pattern often unfolds in small, recognizable scenes. A night ending in very harsh words may be softened the next morning with a casual “let’s forget about it,” as if the wound never really occurred. A period of blame and distance can suddenly be interrupted by a theatrical declaration of love, even a marriage proposal, making yesterday’s pain dissolve in a flood of hope. Sometimes, after a rejection in intimacy, comes a sudden apology, with the promise that it was not truly meant that way. The wound that had just been laid bare is instantly bandaged by the very hand that caused it.
It is precisely this alternation that makes the bond so strong. It is not the steady stream of love that secures attachment, but the shock of rejection followed by the unexpected gift of closeness. The partner becomes at once the one who wounds and the one who heals. And that is what makes it so difficult to let go: the hope of the next moment of warmth overshadows everything else.
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Philosophical reflection
What becomes of love when it is no longer sustained by continuity, but by unpredictability? When the other sometimes appears as a source of warmth and nearness, and then again disappears into coldness and silence? It is precisely in that oscillation that we encounter the difference Martin Buber described between an I–Thou relationship and an I–It relationship.
In those rare moments of loving presence — an unexpected declaration of love after days of distance, a poetic ode that suddenly falls from the sky — the other appears as Thou: as a unique, living presence in which true encounter seems possible. But as soon as that same other withdraws, rejects or dismisses with a cold “forget it,” the person is again reduced to an object. The Thou turns into It: an instrument of power, a screen onto which fears and desires are projected.
Emmanuel Levinas would say that in the face of the Other there is always a call to responsibility. In healthy relationships, that call summons us to respond, to care, to honor the other’s vulnerability. In toxic relationships, however, this call is distorted. The demand for recognition remains, but it is wielded as leverage: not to create mutuality, but to instill guilt and tighten the bond. When after a night of rejection the morning begins with apologies and the words “just forget about it,” responsibility is not shared but claimed.
Hope is the core here. Hope can carry the human being, especially in moments of crisis, because it opens us to the future. But in a relationship marked by intermittent reinforcement, hope loses its sustaining power. It becomes a trap, an addictive expectation. Hope is no longer rooted in trust but in conditioning. The longing for genuine recognition becomes chained to the unpredictable smile, the sudden touch, the unexpected declaration of love that momentarily seems to make everything right. This raises the question:
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Is this still love?
Or is it a mirror-image of love, in which one is not truly seen, but held captive in a game of promise and withdrawal?
Erich Fromm described love as an art that cannot be reduced to desire or the gratification of needs. Love, he argued, is rooted in the capacity to give: care, responsibility, respect and knowledge. In a dynamic of intermittent reinforcement, however, this capacity is hollowed out. Love becomes reduced to a commodity — something conditional, sporadically dispensed. Hope then clings not to the freedom of giving, but to the dependence of receiving. The contrast with Fromm’s ideal makes painfully clear that where love loses its character as art, only a mirror remains — a play of promise and denial that masquerades as love, but is in truth a form of dependency.
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Conclusion
Hope is one of the most essential forces in human existence. It lifts us across boundaries, enables us to endure when everything is dark, and opens a window onto a future that would otherwise be unthinkable. But hope is fragile: it can also be misled, twisted into a cage.
In relationships marked by intermittent reinforcement, hope shifts from a sustaining power to an addictive mechanism. Every rejection prepares the ground for the next reward, and every reward erases the pain that came before. Hope no longer provides the soil in which trust can grow, but becomes the chain that keeps one bound, against one’s better knowing.
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The love that emerges from such a cycle is not love in the sense Buber, Levinas or Fromm would recognize. It lacks the continuity of the I–Thou, it lacks the call to genuine responsibility and the recognition that love entails more the only lust and longing. What remains is a mirror of love: the illusion of closeness, alternated with the emptiness of denial.
And yet, hope can also be a guide. For the awareness that hope can be misused opens the possibility of asking anew what love truly is: not the oscillation between coldness and warmth, but the steady recognition of the other as Thou. In that recognition lies the freedom to choose a connectedness that does not enslave, but liberates.
