“I beg of you don’t say goodbye
Can’t we give our love another try?
Come on, baby, let’s start anew
‘Cause breaking up is hard to do”
I have experienced my share of heartbreak – including getting dumped. But sometimes instigating a breakup can be just as hard as receiving it. When it comes to breaking up with your partner (or ending any relationship for that matter), how do you know that it’s time? Let me preface this by saying – if you’re in an abusive relationship what I have to say won’t necessarily apply. Sure, there are reasons to get out of an abusive relationship, but I’m talking about relationships where you and your partner just can’t seem to get on the same page. Maybe you’re arguing all the time? Or maybe, fundamentally, you just want different things. At what point should you throw in the towel?
Many of us stay in bad relationships because it’s better than being alone. But if I can impart any wisdom on you, it’s not. No matter what you think about yourself, there is nothing worse than staying in a relationship just because you’re worried about how you’ll feel when you’re alone. In this post, I want to explore some of the things you should ask yourself in order to determine if your relationship is over.
- Deep down, do you feel that your partner is “the one”? And I mean, the one person that you can picture yourself retiring with. I remember thinking about this with my ex-boyfriend, and of course, the answer was no. Now, I look back and realize what kind of dead-end relationship it was.
- If you weren’t able to come up with a definitive answer for that first question, ask yourself is your partner the one for right now, or, as I said – can you see yourself with them long term? There’s a saying is he Mr. Right, or Mr. Right Now? If the answer is the latter then maybe it’s time to think about where this relationship is going. Maybe there’s an opportunity to salvage the relationship to make it work, but if you can’t see him as Mr. Right (or Mrs., I’m not trying to be sexist) then I think you need to come up with an exit plan.
I’m a bit of a nerd, and I can be a linear thinker, so I often write lists. In my last relationship, I made a pros and cons list (in my head) and decided that things weren’t going well and something needed to change. You can do this, but make sure you include things like – can we be happy again? If you’ve never been happy with the person, then I don’t think you should waste much time on trying to get there again.
That’s not to say that all relationships are easy. I know that I’m constantly looking inward in my current relationship to see if there are any ways that I can improve so that our relationship is better and more harmonious. But there are days that all I want to do is sleep and assume that my partner can carry the weight of our relationship. And if I’m being honest, he does his fair share. All that said, being in a relationship means figuring out your own stuff. If you can’t see the relationship getting better, maybe its better to cut your losses, rather than trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.