How Do You Know It Is Over?
A young married woman sits in front of her computer typing a question into a website. She explains that she’s fallen out of love with her husband so, along with her three kids, she is thinking she should get him to leave and she wants anyone who is listening in cyberspace to advise her.
Is this what she should do? What would you do in her position?
Relationships are fragile, they need nurturing to avoid becoming irreparably broken. Has this woman fallen out of love? Or has she become so caught up in the day to day routines of working, managing her household and getting kids dressed and off to school each morning that she has simply grown tired and has run out of the energy to be bothered making the effort to nurture her relationship?
(Of course, complacency might be as much her husband’s contribution to the state of the relationship too – it generally takes two people to tango.)
So how do you know when a relationship is over? Well, a relationship is over whenever you want it to be over. The question to ask is should it be over?
If you are compatible with your partner, so you share the same goals, priorities, values and aspirations and you want the same things as each other, the chances are good that your relationship should not be over.
Like the young woman typing her question into the Internet, it might be that with some nurturing, romance and care, your relationship can grow stronger and more fulfilling for both of you.
Of course, in instances of abuse, it is time to leave (and quickly). Abuse takes many forms – you do not have to punch someone to be abusive, you can mentally, sexually or emotionally abuse your partner too. But if you think you’re in danger – or your children are in danger – you should immediately remove you and the children from the environment that presents the risk.
No relationship is perfect, not even the very good ones.
You live in fairyland if you are waiting for the perfect relationship. Either that or you have watched too many Disney princess movies. The bottom line is that no relationship is perfect. Even the very good, strong relationships have their bumps and scrapes as two people come together and try to harmoniously co-exist as one couple with their differences.
If you are waiting for perfection, you will wait for a very long time, and you will have many separations along the way. Be aware of yourself. Are you afraid of commitment? Do you drive potentially good partners away because you have expectations of them that it is impossible for them to meet?
Good couples get cross with one another, they argue because they have a difference of opinion, they forget important dates… just like everyone else. The difference is that they share important values, priorities and attitudes in common and they are both willing to invest in making the relationship work over the long haul.
Everything changes when children are involved.
With children involved, as there were in the young woman’s case, you owe it to your children to be sure that you have exhausted all means of fixing your relationship problems. Why? Because it is the children that often bear the emotional scar of a split between their parents and they may carry this scar for their whole lifetime.
Exhausting all means may mean undergoing some counseling (either alone or as a couple) or making a personal commitment to each other that you will both work at the relationship to see if you can get it back on track.
If this doesn’t work, the question that decides the stay or go outcome of the relationship is whether you and your partner are setting the right example for your children.
A couple can continue to live as a couple with no arguments, but with no fulfilling relationship either. Is this what you want your children to accept is normal? Do you want them to aspire to have a relationship just like yours? You both serve as their role models and you must take this responsibility very seriously.
The one thing you should never do is stay together for the sake of the children. If you are parents, you should be mature and realize that your relationship woes are not about your children – they are about you, the two grown-ups. There is little room for martyrs and they send the wrong messages to your children too.
Life’s too short
If you do not have children, the pain of separating is not necessarily any less, but time and space helps people heal and it tends to be easier to move on since you do not need to keep in regular contact with your former partner because of your kids.
Life is too short to waste on the wrong person. Every day should be a day that you live your life to the fullest in every way you can imagine. It is too short to be wasted on too many tears, too many fights, too many low points. And the world is an immensely big place and there are a great many people in it that you can meet. One of whom may be just the person you have been waiting for.
Remind yourself over and over – if you look back, you will roll back.
It is so important to focus on the future not on the past. You can heal by forcing yourself to talk about other subjects when you meet up with your friends, and not just focus on how you feel, your separation or your pain. You can heal by forcing yourself to smile at someone new and say hello each day.
And you will find that, with time, each day gets better and better. Make yourself little to do lists that include tasks for you to complete such as washing the car or walking to the local stores because keeping yourself busy and active all helps.
And what if you think you’ve made a mistake?
The funny thing about human nature is that often we do not know what we have lost until it is gone. This can be a harsh reality when you end a relationship and afterwards realize that ending it was a mistake.
There are many theories about what you can do to win back your ex and they range from handcuffing them to your car (not really recommended) to playing aloof so that they desperately want to win you back too.
I think winning back a former partner is far more complex than this because there were problems in your relationship that led to the relationship ending and these problems need to be resolved before you think about any reconciliation or you will find yourself back at the divorce court at some point.
Problems need resolution, and that might take time, and it might take even more time if the relationship breakdown was painful or acrimonious.
The one common piece of ground that you will both need is a commitment that you will both work on the relationship because, if you do not have this, it will be doomed from the start.
Final Thoughts
Many, many people make decisions about the future of their relationships every day. You need to be mature about relationships and understand why you are in this position to begin with. This also includes examining your own contribution to where the relationship is at.
If children are involved, make sure you are making the right decision because your decision will affect them – whether or not you stay or go.
And if you think you have made a mistake ending a relationship when you should have worked harder at it, you may be able to win your partner back but the long term success of your relationship will depend on being compatible, resolving your problems, and having both of you commit to working on the relationship to create stronger bonds between you.
Fiona Mackenzie is the author of How To Know: When To Separate, a practical eBook that deals with the relationship topic of how to know when it is over. How To Know: When To Separate includes tips, strategies and techniques used by the author to manage the end of her relationship and learn how to be happy once more.
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