Search here

Choosing to end a long term relationship or marriage

Should I end this relationship? Are we better off apart? Is it time to move on?

Ending long term relationships:
Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Choosing to end a relationship can be one of the toughest decisions anyone ever has to make. Besides the immature relationships many may have at the start of their dating careers (ones that aren’t really serious and mostly just flings – throughout high school etc.) when it comes to long term relationships many struggle when they find themselves faced with the possibility of having to it.
When put in this position many things may cross your mind and you may doubt ending it for various reasons.
What about the children?
Many people have as their major concern and reason for staying in a relationship or doubting leaving it, the children. You might worry that a break up or divorce will affect them negatively. For some people it’s a case of the person they’re contemplating leaving is their children’s biological parent and breaking away from them will leave their children mother or father less.
break-ups and children:
Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net
For other people it may not be that the other person is the children’s biological parent but yet they still feel that due to attachments the child may have made with the other person the child will have a hard time dealing with the break up. Others worry about the fact that they may not be able to support their children and run the family as a household without the support (especially financially) of the other person. Still others may consider staying in a relationship in fear that leaving would result in them not being able to see their children anymore.
All of these thoughts can make it extremely hard for any parent to consider leaving a possibly contaminated relationship. Many people stay out of selflessness while putting the needs and considerations of their children before their own.
What many don’t think about though is that maybe the break from the relationship would in fact affect the children more positively then staying would.
Assessing the situation more carefully, and depending on the situation you may be in, would it be better for the children to live with a single parent who loves and cares for them or to be in a family with both their parents where on most days they are forced to watch their one parent be abused or belittled by the other? It’s obvious to see what the choice should be in this relationship. Whenever abuse is a factor one should never consider staying in a relationship especially if it doesn’t seem like the other person is making an effort to change or in any way doing so.
The most powerful role model in a child's life is the same-sex parent. In other words a little girl watching her mother or a little boy watching his father tells him or her a great deal about how they should act in similar situations. It would be extremely unhealthy for children to be in an abusive relationship especially for the reason that they will see that ‘daddy abused mommy and mommy stayed so it must be okay to treat your wife like that’.
Furthermore staying in a loveless relationship in thinking that it would benefit the children could actually be to their detriment for all the same reasons.
Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net
He / she might change
Many people wrongly stay in a relationship or prolong their stay inevitably with the idea in their heads that the other person will stay. If you’re in an abusive relationship, once again or your partner is involved in substance abuse and is clearly not in any way changing, telling yourself that maybe, hopefully, one day they will change is just hopeful thinking. If they haven’t changed, they’re never going to. You need to consider the extremities of the relationship and make the best decision for you and all involved.
It’s been so many years; I can’t just walk away now...
Some people struggle with the thought of leaving a relationship when they feel that they may have invested so much time and effort into it already. They feel that it would be much better to just stick it out or try and fix a broken situation then it would be to just cut your losses and move on. In some cases, depending on the situation and the reasons for considering a breakup in the first place this might be the right mind-set but in others where a relationship is clearly going nowhere or I abusive or anything on those levels then it is better to just move on.
Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Many feel that due to the fact that they are in a long term relationship, may have never been with anyone else that long or are still with their very first love that no matter what may happen or how downhill the relationship may go, due to all the effort and time they may have invested in the relationship they’re stuck in it and forced to stay no matter what.
This is not the way to think. No one should ever be in any kind of relationship because they feel that they’re forced into it by circumstance, feel like there is no other way or that they’ve gone too far along the line now to turn back. You can always make a change.
The only thing worse than wasting eight years of your life is wasting eight years and one day. Every step you take further into a relationship that is clearly not working out could have been taken closer to a relationship that was meant to be. You need to be brave enough to make the move.
You alone know whether it would be better if you stayed or left the relationship you're currently in and you alone can make that decission. You need to measure the advantages and disadvantages and make the best decision you can possibly make.

You might also want to read:
Get Free Email Updates

0 comments:

What's on your mind?

Comment here!