Ritter Syndrome
Why it can be toxic when your partner does everything for you
© Vladimir Sukhachev / Shutterstock
At first, the knight’s syndrome works like a fairy tale: you have finally found a partner who can carry you on your hands. But be careful: this can be a toxic relationship pattern.
The knight on the white horse. Like many Disney films and love novels, it has been sketched out for us, its image burned into our retinas and many a heart. Once he * she is there, has found us, yes, then everything will be fine. Then we have reached our happy ending and with it the end of any romance from film and literature. Only that in reality it continues. And we can only advise against white knights.
Perhaps one or the other knows it from their own experience. Sometimes we get to know someone and we feel like we are in rom-com. Because all of a sudden we are dealing with someone who treats us exactly as we only know from fairy tales. The stars are taken from the sky for us, we are literally carried on hands. Cooked when our day was stressful. Calm down when we are sad. Well looked after when we are in a bad way.
Basically, these are wonderful ingredients for a partnership. If two things are assumed: That this very relationship consists of give and take. And that giving is for the right reasons.
The knight syndrome: love with an aftertaste
Because yes: there is also a wrong giving. And then, if it actually only happens to feel good about yourself, yes, more precisely like that knight on the white horse.
Ritter syndrome is a dating, or rather relationship phenomenon, in which one partner obsessively wants to save the other. Often this is already reflected in the choice of partner. When you find yourself in a difficult situation, the knight really blossoms again.
From a psychological point of view, behind the phenomenon there are often long past experiences in which the rescuer had to take care of another person as a child. The loss of a loved one can also trigger the need later.
At the same time, behavior often shows up in narcissistic personality types. Because: First and foremost, you care about other people in order to make yourself look good.
The toxic relationship disguised in selflessness
How do I know if I am dealing with Ritter Syndrome instead of real care? Many people know it from manipulative or even toxic relationships: the stale aftertaste of a romantic gesture, which is noticeable in a diffuse feeling of guilty conscience and sadness.
Because the rescuer does not do his good deeds unconditionally. And here we find the difference to deep connection and love. He * she would like to see recognition for his * her commitment – and this is ultimately more the focus than the rescuer himself.
Long after the good deed, he * she will point out what has been done for you and that you should be happy to have him * her at all. In retrospect, an apparent act of selflessness is used as a manipulation tool to bind the partner to himself.
What remains: the spiral of guilty conscience
The problem: Affected people often feel so ashamed by their negative feelings that they cannot break the toxic relationship pattern. After all, on paper you are dealing with the perfect partner, why, why do you still feel bad? Don’t you have to be grateful? And necessarily return the favor?
This is exactly where the toxic spiral kicks in, on which knights subconsciously speculate – through their good deeds they create a certain dependency in which someone else seems to be constantly owed. That in turn has nothing to do with selfless love.
What helps? Mostly exactly what those affected often shy away from: Talking to others. Today nobody has to maintain the facade of a perfect relationship (it doesn’t exist anyway). So if you have a bad gut feeling because your partner seems to have the world at your feet, which in turn makes you feel ungrateful and stressed, talk to friends about it. They will recognize the knight syndrome because they were already there for you when it got difficult – without asking for anything in return.