When Is It Time to End This Relationship?

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This is a very tough but very important blog post to write. I would be intimidated by the weight of the topic, but I reassure myself no one is going to make up their minds based solely on what I write here. With that reassurance, I want to share my perspective on this question, based on my own 43-year marriage and 35 years working with couples.

First, let me acknowledge my bias. I worry too many people end their relationships far too impulsively or quickly, without doing enough work or having enough outside expertise before making such a far-reaching decision. You wouldn’t decide to junk your car if it broke down by the side of the road without consulting a reputable mechanic. Why would you consider ending a marriage or long-term relationship without getting a first and possibly a second outside opinion?

So, let’s say you’ve gone to couple’s therapy and it feels like a grind even though you’re pretty sure you have a good therapist. You’re not sure you’re getting anywhere; it feels like so much work for so little obvious reward. How can you know if you’re trying to fix something that isn’t fixable, on the one hand, or if you’re just before a major breakthrough if only you stay the course, on the other? In other words, when is enough enough? Or how can you know if what’s called for is persistence and commitment?

These are very important and very tough questions to answer, and I want to address them, not answer them. Here are some basic guidelines I follow when working with couples:

1. Fighting vs. indifference: I don’t worry so much about lots of fighting. I worry more about indifference. If you’re stuck in cycles of fighting, chances are you still care. If one or both of you are indifferent for an extended period, I would be more concerned about the ability for a relationship ember to get re-ignited.
2. Substance abuse: If one of you is sober and the other won’t or can’t get sober, there may be no good future here. If you are the sober one and you’ve done your own 12-step work through Codependents Anonymous or Al-Anon and your partner promises sobriety but repeatedly backslides, I think it’s perfectly legitimate—and it may be best for your partner, too—for you to say “enough.”
3. Physical violence: When the toxicity in the relationship gets birthed into the physical realm—or in simpler terms, if you’re being physically violent with each other and it’s a cycle that keeps repeating, it may make sense for you to call it quits before someone gets hurt or your children get traumatized by witnessing what you’re doing to each other.
4. Growth vs. stagnation: This is a tougher one to quantify, but there are relationships that go along at a certain level for years, or even decades, until one of the partners has some kind of awakening. It can be a spiritual awakening, it can be going to school and getting turned on by life, it can be some kind of radical departure from the old norm that the other partner doesn’t know how to assimilate or match. That in and of itself doesn’t have to mean splitting up. But if the growth of Person A is threatening to Person B and Person B tries to stifle it, squelch it, or diminish it, there is a limit to what Person A needs to tolerate. I think Person A will have to let go of a lot of the old ways of life that became obviated by growth, and Person B could be part of what needs to be let go of.

With all that said, my advice is that it is better to err in the direction of more time and more work, not less. You want to be sure you have done everything you possibly can before you pull the plug. And you want to ask yourself the following questions: (a) How sure am I that my life will be better without this person? (b) Even if I don’t like the state of my marriage, am I growing as a result of the struggle? Am I learning more about my own part and my own unfinished business? And, perhaps most important of all: (c) Is the struggle in this marriage or long-term relationship a familiar pattern I’ve seen in previous relationships or with other people in my life? Am I part of the problem I’m trying to jettison? If so, what’s to keep me from bringing this very same problem to any future relationship?

I hope these general principles can help you take stock. If you’re grappling with these questions, please look inward toward yourself at least as much as you are looking outward to other people for guidance. Good luck.