HOW TO END AN UNHAPPILY AFFAIR

If life ran like a storybook, the person we fall in love would not be the person who broke us. Sadly, we humans tend to be a bit more human than that. We fall in love, we commit, we get hurt – over and over – and we stay.  People need people, but sometimes the cost is a heavy one. When it’s a toxic relationship, the breakage can be far-reaching.

Love is addictive. So is the hope of love. All relationships can be likened to an addiction, but sometimes the power of this can be self-destructive. When relationships become loveless, hostile, stingy or dangerous, you would think they would be easy to leave, but they can be the hardest ones to walk away from because  a bad relationship isn’t about being on the downward slide of the usual relationship ups and downs. 

It is one that consistently steals your joy and follows you around with that undeniable  glamour that this isn’t how it’s meant to be.

Knowing when to let go:

Sometimes the signs are clear  emotional and physical abuse, constant criticism, lying, cheating, emotional starvation. Sometimes there is nothing outstandingly obvious , it just doesn’t feel right. Perhaps it did once but that ended long ago. The signs might lie in the loneliness, a gentle but constant heartache, a lack of security, connection or intimacy or the distance between you both. 

Whatever it involves, there are important needs that stay hungry, for one of both people in the relationship. The relationship exists but that’s all it does, and sometimes barely even that. It doesn’t thrive and it doesn’t nurture. It is maintained, not through love and connection, but through habit. 

Sometimes there are circumstances that make leaving difficult. While most times  there’s nothing in your way except you. Some of the signs that you might be addicted to the relationship are:

-You know it’s bad, but you stay.

- want more for yourself, but you stay.

-There are important needs in you that are so hungry for intimacy, connection, friendship, love, security, respect and you know in this relationship they’ll stay that way. But you stay. 

-You have tried ending the relationship before, but the pain of being on your own always brings you back.

What to do when leaving feels as bad as staying:

Be present:  The pull to live in the past ,the way it was, the way I was or in the future OR it will get better ,I just need to find the switch can be spectacular, but the energy to move forward exists fully in the present. It’s always there, but you have to be in the present to access it.

Keep track: Keep a record of how you feel in the relationship, the good and bad. This can help to see your experience in the relationship for what it is – stripped of the filters and the softening that comes with time. 

Be aware of what is happening in your body:: The connection between the mind and the body is a powerful one. If you shut down the messages that are coming from your mind, your body will take over. There will be signs in the way you hold yourself, the sensations in your body , the heaviness, heartache, tension and the way it works.

Leaving any relationship is difficult. Leaving a bad one isn’t necessarily any easier. The shift from powerless to empowered is a gentle one, but lies in the way you experience the relationship. It often takes as much resourcefulness, energy and strength to stay in a bad relationship as it does to leave. With a shift in mindset, experience and expectation, the resources you use to stay and to blind out the seething hopelessness of it  can at the same time be used to propel you forward.

 

BY STEPHANIE E. HEMEN