When Is It Time To Leave A Relationship?

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In the beginning, it’s always great. You’re in love and on top of the world. You get married and/or move in together. You spend all your time together and there’s not one thing you would change about your partner. Life is good. But life carriers on: you have to work, maybe you have children together, buy a house. Things change.

You settled in. Life can’t be all roses and lollipops. You understand that. But this is different. There is a feeling that things aren’t quite right. You wonder if you made the right choice for a partner. You try to understand what’s wrong. You try really hard to turn things back around, but nothing works. What can you do to improve things? What should you do? Should you stay or should you go? You’re afraid to make a wrong decision, so you make none. You’re invested now and there is a lot at stake.

My children were just a few years old when I first started to have pangs about leaving my first marriage. But I pushed those feelings deep down. I remember I used to get together with one friend regularly. Her mother would always be there and she fancied herself a psychic of sorts. She loved to read Tarot cards. Even though she asked repeatedly, I always turned her down doing my reading. I knew what she was going to say and I didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t want to face it. I wasn’t ready to do anything about it.

“Should you stay or should you go? You are afraid to make a wrong decision, so you make none. “

You see, there wasn’t any abuse in my relationship. Nothing I could point to directly and say “That’s why I want to leave.” I would try to talk to my friends and family about it but I was quickly met with “What’s wrong with you? He’s a good man.” And he was but we had grown apart and the more years that went by, the more evident it was to me that the vision we each had for our future together was vastly different.

It was at least 5 years later that I filed for a separation. I think that is very common for women. The end of a relationship usually happens long before the actual split. Especially if it has been a long relationship or there are children involved. Making the decision to end my marriage is probably one of the hardest things I had ever done.

And yet, everyone around me said that I was taking the easy way out. Believe me, it was not. To stay and carry on would have been easier. I’d done it, for five years. It takes a lot of courage to stand up, admit that you want out, to yourself and your partner. And that’s just the beginning of the hardship.

I must point out that we did give it a good go of things. Thankfully, he was very open to seeing a marriage counselor and we did. We went on dates. We had conversations. We went on vacations without the children. In the end, he could see nothing wrong. He was content but unfortunately, it wasn’t enough for me.

If you are reading this post, I can only assume that the thought has crossed your mind. I can not tell you if you should stay or when the right time is to leave a relationship. It is such a personal choice and depends on so many factors. All I can say is that if you truly want to leave the relationship, the time will come when you are ready to take action.

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