How to tell when you’ve had enough

Is your relationship coming apart at the seams? This could be the sign that you’ve finally had enough.

by: E.B. Johnson

No relationship is easy, but some relationships become more heartache than they’re worth. When things hit a dead-end, our partner become a burden that tears our lives apart — we have to be honest with ourselves and honest about our state of peace and happiness. Have you had enough of your relationship? Have you had enough of the distance and the pain? It’s time to make some serious decisions and face the cracks that are showing in your partnership.

Everyone has their limits.

Everyone wants different things from their relationships, and that’s okay. The things we want and need from a partner change over time, though, and that’s okay too. We all move through this life in the aim of becoming something better than we were. That means moving in different directions sometimes, however, which can cause serious friction in a romantic relationship.

You have to be the first one to admit when you’ve had enough.

Have you and your partner started fighting more than ever before? Is all the work and all the effort turning out few changes? If you’ve started drifting emotionally, or you’re being dismissed or abused, the time might have come where you’re ready to walk away. Have you had enough? Are you ready to end things once and for all? Getting to the root of the answer requires some radical bravery and the willingness to face the signs that surround you.

Signs you’ve had enough in your relationship.

When you’re fed up in your relationship, the cracks begin to show everywhere. From increased hostility, to a complete loss of emotional attachment — the further we move from our partners, the bigger the problems become.

Emotional detachment

Have you become emotionally distant from your relationship or your partner? Maybe you feel like you don’t care about your partner, or you don’t really care what happens in the relationship. On the hand, perhaps you’ve become dismissive and emotionally walled off. These are all resulting symptoms of emotional detachment, and an increased distance in the emotional bond you and your partner share (Dresden & Legg, PhD, 2020).

Not getting what you want

Relationships have to be a balance in which both partners get what they need. Make no mistake, the happiest relationships all contain such a business element of sorts. If neither one of you is getting what you want or need from the partnership, cracks are going to show. You’re going to be tempted into better endeavors and eventually forced to take action in order to save yourself. In good relationships, we get a (willing) return on the mental, emotional, and physical investments we make in our partners.

Looking outward

Have you or your partner started straying outside of your relationship? Do you think about straying outside of the relationship more than you should? Falling for someone else is always a sign that you’re looking for something that’s not being fulfilled somewhere in your life. While this can certainly be from an internal deficiency, you may not be getting what you want from your partner either. When you start growing away from one another in all the ways that matter, it’s time to consider when enough is enough.

More work than it’s worth

Does your relationship feel like it’s more work than it’s worth? Does it drain you mentally and emotionally, with no real positive returns? If you have to put in more emotional and mental worse than you are willing to give, then it can signal a potential ending. Maybe problems with family, money, work, values, and needs have become an all-encompassing ordeal. If you don’t want to fix things, or are dripping with apathy — it’s time to reassess.

Nothing’s working

You can’t really know whether or not your relationship is over until you’ve attempted to work things out. Sometimes, we just have to remind ourselves of the changes that are ongoing and the best ways to manage them together. When you’ve tried to work things out for a year or more, though, and nothing is working out — it’s time to take a deeper look at things. If you still resent one another, resent your relationship, or otherwise feel worse for being connected to one another or sharing a life together, you need to make more serious considerations.

Expanding abuse

Abuse — in any form — is never acceptable in a relationship. If abusive behavior is becoming commonplace and expansive in your partnership, it’s time for you to make some serious plans. Make no mistake, your abuser will not release you willingly. If you want to be happy, you have to take action to free yourself. At some point, you have to take a stand and decide that you’ve had enough.

What you need to do next.

Have you finally admitted that you’ve had enough? If it’s time to make a change in your relationship, you have to center yourself in reality, figure out a course of action, and open up to your partner. Moving on isn’t easy, but it’s often the best choice we can make for everyone involved.

1. Center yourself in reality

Admitting that our relationship has failed isn’t easy, and it’s not something we can often do all at once. Before we can get ourselves on the right track, we have to figure out where we’re at and where we want to go. All of that comes down to centering yourself in reality and treating yourself with a dose of radical honesty when it comes to where you’re at with your partner and your partnership.

Be honest about how you’re feeling and what’s going on. Be honest, too, about what you want from the person you decide to build your life with. Until you center yourself in this reality, you’re going to struggle to ever find a happiness that isn’t fleeting.

Accept that moving on is going to hurt and understand that it may be necessary. Accept to that you and your partner both deserve something more than a permanent unhappiness with someone who isn’t going the same way. Admit that you’ve had enough and face the reasons behind it. Process your emotions, process your memories, and begin the long journey of deciding where you want to go from here.

2. Reach out to your support system

As you struggle to make a decision (or sense of your feelings) reaching out to your support system can be a life-saving act. The people we trust most can be an invaluable sounding board and a source of motivation when it comes to making a decision that’s right for us. If you don’t know which way to turn, turn to someone who genuinely wants the best for you outside of your relationship.

Reach out to your support system and ask them for help. Open up to one or two people you trust, but try to leave any mutual friends out of it. Sharing how you feel with them (whether intended or not) puts them in an awkward place and risks your peace of mind.

Explain how you’re feeling and ask them for advice. We’ve all been through breakups, and we all know what it feels like to be in a relationship that feels like a bad fit. Ask your trusted loved ones how they conducted themselves in similar situations and formulate your own perspective based around your experiences and their advice. Allow them to support you emotionally and motivate you to take the right action for your peace of mind.

3. Figure out a course of action

Before you deep-dive into any dramatic conversations or explanations, you need to take some time to plan out what you want to do. Generally, relationships don’t happen overnight. They’re a gradual build-up of two people who took time to figure one another out. Ending a relationship is no different. You need to take time making sure you know what you want and then committing to getting it.

Stop waiting for things to change and commit to changing them for the better, yourself. All the talking and all the effort hasn’t paid off. Look at the big picture. If you’re not happy, then you have to take action that will make things better for both you and your partner.

Figure out what action you’re going to take and commit to it. You deserve to be happy, and your partner deserves to be with someone who’s a better fit for their needs. It’s time for you to do the right thing, but that’s going to take you stepping up to the plate and putting effort behind your conviction. You’ve got to tell your partner how you feel and take steps to actively end the relationship you’ve had enough of.

4. Have an honest conversation

After deciding that you’ve had enough and planning a course of action, you have to sit your partner down and be open and honest with them. While you have made the decision to walk away, you are still engaged in a commitment to them. You owe them an explanation and a chance to explain how they feel and see themselves within the relationship.

Once you know what you want (and what you want to do) you have to sit your partner down and have an honest conversation. The next phase is moving on, but before you do that, you have to let them know that your part in their life is about to change dramatically.

Find a comfortable place where you can talk openly and have enough respect for them to deliver the news in person. Pick your time wisely and try not to end things when you’re both especially raw from the stress and pressure of your lives. Tell them how you’re feeling and why. Express what you’ve decided and explain how you want to move forward. Speak slow, kindly, and without blame. Then, once you’ve said what you need to say — give them space to do the same.

5. Move forward with compassion

In order to move forward and find a new relationship, you actually have to move forward. Stop looking backward for your partner and everything that was. If you decided it wasn’t what you wanted, you have to let it go. Be kind to your partner, but be kind to yourself too. The road ahead is not going to be easy. Be nice to yourself and allow yourself to feel what you need to feel.

You’ve got to move forward with grace and compassion. Don’t allow yourself to backslide and don’t allow yourself to lash out or seek revenge for any resentment that you hold on to. Instead of focusing on the person who was in your life, get focused on your own future and the happiness you want to attract.

Be kind to yourself and understanding of your partner. Breakups are a painful process, and everyone goes through them differently. Allow yourselves to ride the ups and downs of your emotions, but don’t allow yourselves to fall into rumination. Set time limits on your grieving sessions and make sure you’re spending more time engaging in positive experiences than you are in negative thoughts and questions of “what was”.

Putting it all together…

Happy relationships require a lot of work, but they also require the right partners. Are you and your partner diabolically matched? Are you fed up with their poor behavior, or the level of unhappiness you’re both being forced to operate at? When you’ve had enough, it’s up to you to admit it to yourself and your partner. That’s a process that takes times, however, as well as facing up to a number of alarming signs.

Embrace your current reality for what it is and be radically honest about your relationship and what it is and isn’t giving you. Consider what you truly want and what you truly need. Reach out to your support networks and let them know that you’re hurting and in need of help. While the process of moving on is painful, we have to consider what we want and then create a plan of action to get it. Although we may love someone, being with them may be a greater pain for everyone involved. You both deserve to be happy, so sit down with them and have an honest conversation. Let them know that things are changing and allow them room to say what they need to say. Stand strong beside your conviction, though, and do what needs to be done. Move forward with compassion toward your true happiness.

• Dresden, D., & Legg, PhD, T. (2020). Emotional detachment: Symptoms, causes, and treatment. Retrieved 16 February 2021, from https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/emotional-detachment