How You Know It's Time to Break Up

How do you know when it’s time to break up?

We spend countless hours and days drowning in these thoughts. Running the same pros and cons over and over. Just to conclude that even in your misery, fear of the unknown makes it worth staying. It makes it easier.

That’s the hard part. Deciding if this crossroad, is just another checkpoint that requires commitment, decisions, hard work and perseverance. Or if it’s a sign of incompatibility. That this really isn’t going to work no matter what.  

I’m not sure if we ever know, or if we just make peace with our decisions. I think this question--is one of the hardest, like many relationship questions. Because we are human, we are individuals. What is right for me, may not be right for you.

I’m someone who believes in working it out till the end. I truly do. I always will. And even so, I am someone who has been left, and has left. 

I never knew I could be the one to do it. Never imagined it in my dreams, couldn’t see it in my heart. I always have been the one left behind. In friendships, and in relationships. I hated people who would leave, who can leave without looking back, and who can just continue on like nothing happened, like we never happened. Who didn’t need time as soon as we’re apart. And because I knew this loneliness, this hurt, this fear, and I knew how hard it was to find someone--I was always the one to stay.

But when you’re broken so many times, scarred deeper than you could show the world, you will learn what the end means…for you.

The end--is if you’ve communicated everything that has hurt you; and you have listened to everything that has hurt them, and you are willing and have done everything to be better. But you are answered with reasons why they can’t do the same.

The end--is when the one standing in front of you, won’t say they will leave, and won’t act like they will choose you.

The end my love--is when you know they don’t love you, won’t love you, will only see and remember you as a nuisance, as wasted time, wasted money—a chore. When they refuse to stop looking at you through the lens of resentment. No matter how badly you do better, communicate, and want a chance to love and be loved in every new stage of learning.

When you’ve loved in all the ways you’ve ever known, ever wished for, and even in all the ways you have learned they best received, and are still to blame for their misery. 

When you can’t persuade them of what they can’t see. When you run out of ways of pleading with them that you still have so much more love to give, so much more growth to do, so much better you can be. When you look them in the eyes and you know, you just know, they don’t see you for all that you are, they never have. And they never will.

When you find yourself crying that you just want to be loved too. That you want and need their help to love them right too. That your love starts out carefully, when their’s start in full chase. That yours grows with time, when their love fades. 

Darling, how can you be the one for someone, who seems to not know what they are looking for? If we don’t know ourselves, we won’t know what we need. But our spirit, heart and body just always knows something isn’t right.

Sometimes, leaving after you’ve tried it all, is the last act of love you can give. To let the other find themselves and be who they are meant to be, to do what is best for them--even if it’s not you. Because in some way shape or form, you are both hurting, you have both hurt, you are both seeking to be loved, and both feeling unloved. And you will find that the more you hold on, the more it hurts the both of you.

And that in itself, is an act of self-love to you, to open space to heal, to detox, unlearn self-sabotaging habits, and open the opportunity for someone who is meant to walk your pace. For you, to walk side by side, with you.

Life will always be hard, and the right one, will still be there trying and choosing you no matter how life is. And no matter how life is, choosing the right one, shouldn’t hurt more than letting them go.

The end--will always look differently. 

You can be broken, even as the one leaving. You can be broken, as the one left. 

But with time, you will better understand why. If it was just because you needed to try, or if you just truly weren’t right. 

And with time, you will see clearly, all the hunches and things you were second guessing, when you knew you were hurting. 

And at the end, is when you will see them, for exactly and what they truly are—the good, the bad.

And do not be afraid when you see you; flaws and beauty, as long as you know you fought, you tried, you believed, you loved as you knew and thought love to be, and you already held on for as long as you can.

The uncertainty of the unknown, may be better than the tears of the known.