All relationships require an effort. They require persistence. And they require unwavering commitment towards the person you’re with. But all of this can only be done up till a certain limit. Sometimes, you need to know when to stop letting your feelings for a person overpower your objective judgement, when to realize that the connection you once shared is long gone, and when to accept that the relationship you’re always fighting for just isn’t worth it anymore.
Here are 7 signs to know when it’s time to finally let go:
The relationship seems to harm you more than it keeps you happy
Do you know what’s even worse than being single? Staying in a relationship that constantly makes you feel lonely and incomplete! I know you love him. I know you really want to make it work. I know you want to get that connection back. But you just can’t do it alone. If your relationship has reached a point where you feel like you’re the only one who is putting in all the effort, then you’re just setting out to make yourself feel more miserable than happy.
Whether it’s the fact that he seems to be absent from your life most of the time or the fact that he doesn’t even realize the ways in which he keeps hurting you, you need to remember NEVER to settle for a person who takes more than they are ready to give back. It’s true that no relationship can ever be perfect so we’re not asking you to look for perfection! Just try to determine if your relationship is consistently bringing you more misery than true happiness.
Your partner is abusive
Abuse and aggression in a relationship can be physical as well as verbal. Whatever form this abuse may take, it gives you a clear warning that you are not with the right person and not in the right relationship.
The most important point about abuse that needs to be understood is that once it starts, once it surfaces in your relationship, there is no going back from there! This isn’t just an honest mistake. They won’t just stop doing it from next time. In the majority of relationships, you’ll watch it persist and even advance to higher levels eventually. And it will leave you feeling degraded, demoralized, and extremely unsafe.
If your partner makes you scared for your life on the smallest of things, if you are never sure about what kind of reaction they’ll give to most situations, and if you feel like you’re being constantly manipulated into doing things their way, then it’s time to start reconsidering your options. This life is too short to be wasted on someone else’s bullshit. If your partner doesn’t respect you, if they don’t appreciate the things you do, and if they don’t love you enough to treat you the right way, then you are definitely better off without them.
Your partner is excessively possessive
It’s normal to be a little possessive about your significant other. But when this possessive behavior begins to verge on pure manipulation, then you’ve got a problem. This behavior might even precede abuse in some relationships. And while violence enters your life suddenly and with full force, a controlling and possessive partner has the potential to take over your entire life very gradually.
It usually starts with declarations of how much they love you, and how much they care about you, along with some mild jealousy. They move on to express their desire to spend more time with you, and to have your complete time and attention reserved for them. And before you know it, you realize how they’re starting to take complete control of your life, questioning you persistently on the places you go to and the people you hang out with, getting extremely jealous without any reason, and disrupting your social, professional, and even family life. This kind of possessiveness can be very detrimental, upsetting, and manipulative.
Your partner is a compulsive liar
Staying honest and truthful to your partner is one of the most essential requirements of any relationship. It’s the one feature that allows you to start trusting your partner, to gain confidence in the relationship you share, and to make you feel positive about life in general.
It doesn’t matter if your partner lies to you about something major or something petty. When someone lies to you out of habit, when they persistently hide stuff from you, and always distort the actual truth, then you won’t be able to stop yourself from wondering whether their feelings and commitment towards you are also just one big lie.
Sure, everyone lies in their life at one time or another. But if you always have trouble in trusting any of the words and promises that come out of your partner’s mouth, then your relationship is clearly not an ideal one.
Your partner has some serious addiction problem
Addiction (in whatever form) tends to change a person’s behavior in various aspects. So it’s not a surprise when this addiction results in changing your partner’s involvement and approach towards the relationship you two share.
An addict has the potential to make your life extremely miserable. They end up doing this by becoming abusive or extremely possessive, or even by becoming a notorious liar when it comes to denial about their addiction or finding any means to fulfill their desire of the substance they’re addicted to.
No matter how much you love your partner, no matter how great they were before the addiction, and no matter how badly you want to help them, an addict will be a person you can’t truly trust, a person you can’t count on, and a person who will be incapable of making you happy.
Sure, you do owe it to them to try to stop this from happening, to help them recover from this illness, and to give them a second chance to mend their life. But if your partner just doesn’t accept the help you give them, if they’re just not willing to change for you or for any other reason, then you need to ultimately let go and move forward with your own life.
Your partner has cheated on you repeatedly
People end up cheating for a number of reasons, which is why not all cheating can be the same. Sometimes, you need to look at the bigger picture. You need to understand the person as well as the couple as a whole to know why it happened and whether it can ever be forgiven.
But if your partner keeps cheating on you over and over again without any shame or guilt, then they don’t deserve another chance. They don’t deserve to be forgiven. And they just don’t deserve the effort you might put in towards rebuilding this broken relationship.
Your partner doesn’t love you back
Love is not easy to define. Every man and every woman on this planet has their own way of loving, which is why you can’t always determine accurately whether the love you’re giving to someone is being reciprocated in equal measure. In fact, you can’t really quantify or measure love at all. But what you can do is determine whether you are happy and satisfied with the kind of love you are getting in a relationship.
If you feel like your partner is with you only for the sake of being in a relationship, if he refuses to make you a priority in his life, if he tends to use you and take you granted in certain situations, and if he has never really given you an actual commitment, then you need to stop trying to force the love out of him.
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