Your relationship isn’t worth repairing
Have things hit a nasty halt in your relationship? It may be time to admit that your relationship isn’t worth repairing.
by: E.B. Johnson
When our relationships take a wrong turn, most of us jump into action to get things on track again. While noble, this isn’t always the best course of action — especially if we haven’t taken time to really think about where we’re at and what’s going wrong. Has your relationship fallen off a cliff of sorts? Are you trying to piece things back together, but having no luck? It may be time to admit that you need to let go. Your relationship isn’t worth repairing.
When work becomes wasted energy.
Have you been fighting to fix a relationship that’s not working? Do all your efforts go ignored by your partner? Or do they fail disastrously no matter how hard you both try to make them fit? Sometimes, pouring ourselves into a broken relationship is a waste. We can fix, and fix, and fix, and it won’t change a thing. Our relationships don’t always work out. That’s the nature of life. What truly defines us is how we handle what comes next, which takes a lot of conscious and intentional mindfulness.
Once a relationship has failed, your work becomes wasted energy.
Pouring yourself into a broken relationship is wasted effort. You can cry and scream and change everything about yourself — that won’t make an abusive relationship happy, and it won’t create peace where conflict is at the heart of every major issue. While it might strike you to the core, you and your partner have to be brutally honest with one another. Have you come to the end of the road as a couple? Is it time to admit that your relationship is causing more pain than love? Look out for the signs and accept the action you have to take.
Signs your relationship isn’t worth repairing.
Are you looking at a partnership that’s circling the drain? Before you go all-in on making it work, ensure you’re being honest about the quality of your life and the quality of your love. Can these issues really be fixed? Or are you looking at a relationship that isn’t worth repairing?
Aspects of abuse
Abuse — whether that occurs mentally, financially, or physically — is unacceptable. No relationship filled with abuse is worth salvaging. An abusive person won’t change their behavior simply because you love them, and certainly not because you “hold on long enough”. Rather than putting yourself in greater danger, you have to admit that an abusive relationship is not worth working on.
Sitting at the bottom
Are you are the last priority to your partner ? Do they put anyone and anything happy before they even consider what it is you need from them? What’s worse, do they make sure you know you’re their last priority? This might appear to be “putting you in your place” or ignoring you altogether. Either way, it’s toxic and shows a partner who isn’t willing to be honest.
Conflict as communication
There is no relationship warning flag quite like conflict. While conflict and arguments are a normal part of relationships, big fights with an emotional toll are not. Have you and your partner or spouse started fighting more than ever? When the only communication is fighting, you need to take a step back and seriously think about where you’re at and where you’re going.
Zero give-and-take
Would you describe your relationship as a fair one? Does your partner give as much as they take from you? What about you? Are you able to be there and be present for them when it counts? Good partnerships have an equal give-and-take. While these balances may fluctuate from time-to-time, in general they hold true throughout the length of the relationship. Partners who love us want to give back just as much as they get from us.
All the spark is gone
Has the spark evaporated from your relationship? Healthy romances come with an inherent aspect of passion. While we’re not always hungrily or obsessively drawn to one another, there should be some strong current of chemistry that comes back around to you both when it really matters. If you don’t desire anything to do with them, even intimately, then there is a good chance that the spark has entirely left your relationship.
Endless infidelity
No matter what your partner may try to tell you, infidelity is not a sign of true love. We don’t cheat on people that we love. There may be temptation to cheat, there may be the desire to cheat — genuine love, however, stays the hand of the lover before it acts beyond its commitments. If there’s someone else in your life, or your partner’s life, it needs to be addressed honestly. Do you want to explore what could happen with the other person more than you want to repair what you have? If so, your relationship may not be worth saving.
Worse for wear
Our relationships are meant to benefit us, and they are meant to help us grow as individuals. Does your relationship foster deep personal growth? Or does it inhibit it in every way? You and your partner may rub off on one another and find that you make each other worse simply for being in proximity to one another. Maybe you’ve become more coarse, callous, untrusting. If you or your partner are becoming worse people than you were before the relationship came together — it may be time to admit it’s not worth the effort.
What you need to do next.
Realizing your relationship has failed is a brave first step. That courage must not waver, though, as there is so much more to come. Waking up to the calamity your partnership has been thrown into, you’ve got to give yourself some time to process, focus on what you want, and then act on getting things right for yourself.
1. Take a step back to process
You won’t be able to accept (peacefully) the dissolution of your relationship overnight…nor should you. We build relationships over time, and their ending likewise has to take some time. The first step in that journey has to be looking inward. You need to take time to process your emotions and figure out how you — on an individual level — want to move forward.
Take a step back and give yourself time to process what’s happening. To lose a relationship is to experience a major shift in reality. Everything you planned for yourself is about to change. Allow yourself to react to that and don’t bury or hide from your emotions.
Question them. Let them come up to the surface in your daily journaling practice, or in a rant with trusted friends. Do what you have to do, but take time to process before you react or lash into action against your partner. How you feel today will not be the same as the way you will feel tomorrow. Give yourself time to really examine your relationship for what it
2. Surround yourself with love
Even if you’ve fallen out of love with your partner, the journey to letting go is painful. Our partners form an integral part of our lives, and we suffer emotionally when they are removed from us. Although this pain is unavoidable (and the change equally so) we don’t have to go through it alone. We can surround ourselves with loved ones and make the process easier by sharing it in love with those we trust.
Surround yourself with a handful of close friends or family. Make sure you can trust them, then open up about what’s going on in your relationship. Be honest, candid, and clear. Don’t mince your words and don’t try to hide your experiences.
If you don’t feel ready to open up to your close loved ones, then look for a mental health or relationships expert you can reach out to. These are people with experience and compassion, who listen to your needs and help you come up with solutions that work for you. It doesn’t matter who you open up to; you share with someone who wants the best for you. Surround yourself with love as you transition to the next stage of your relationship and allow that to be a comfort.
3. Distract yourself with positivity
Distractions can go a long way in helping us confront and process a failing partnership. Although we’ve learned to treat distractions like a bad thing, they’re actually a gift — helping us to deal with our emotions from a distance in a way that helps prevent overwhelm. Rather than obsessing about everything that’s going wrong, give yourself some time to decompress and focus on what’s still going right in your life.
Engage in some positive activities or pastimes that can double as distractions. “Positive” simply means something that brings you entertainment and joy. If it also adds the benefit of an added skill or passion to your life — that’s a plus.
Deep dive into things that you love with people that you love. Round up the friend group and hit the town for a night out. Visit a spa. Have a stay-cation in and watch your favorite movies. There’s really no right or wrong way to distract ourselves. What matters is that we create sunny spaces for us to process what we’re going through, without directly overwhelming ourselves with all the unpleasant emotions that are going on.
4. Have a heart-to-heart
You will not escape a failed relationship without confronting your issues through dialogue at some point. If you want any hope of resolution — any hope of peace — then it’s crucial that you and your partner have a heart-to-heart. That doesn’t mean you blow up at one another and punish each other with your words. It means that you approach one another with compassion and figure out what steps are going to lead to true happiness for you both in the future.
Sit your partner down and have a heart-to-heart. Lay it all out on the table for one another and look at your relationship for what it really is. Be brutally honest (but communicate with compassion). Name your mistakes and claim them. Take accountability for what went wrong and make the right decisions for what comes next.
If you’ve come to the end of your relationship, then there’s no point in hiding the truth anymore. Explain how you’re feeling and compassionately detail what you want to do next. When you’ve said everything you need to say, leave room for your partner to do the same. Avoid escalating the conflict, though. This will only create deeper wounds and make it harder for you to untangle the threads you need to unwind.
5. Allow yourself to move on
Moving on is the only way to get past a failing relationship. If you and your partner have agreed that the best thing to do is end your partnership, then you have to get focused on the future and what you want to do next. It’s the healthiest thing to do, and the only option you have. After all, it shuts the door on the love you once shared. There’s no going back. Only forward.
Allow yourself to move on. Allow yourself to grieve, feel your loss, and then look to the future with a renewed sense of optimism. Don’t look back and don’t allow yourself to backslide. That only brings heartache back into the picture.
Holding on to a broken relationship won’t suddenly bring you the fairy tale ending, you think that it will. Who your partner is now may very well who they are 20 or 30 years from now. Is that a life you’re willing to settle for? Look at your future. Imagine all the future relationships and all the future happiness that’s out there waiting for you. There’s only a limited amount of space in our lives. For the right people to come in, we have to show the wrong people the door.
Putting it all together…
Relationships falter and flounder sometimes, no matter what we do to make them work. Try as we might, we find that things can continue to get worse. Or, we notice ourselves getting worse as we fight for a partnership that just isn’t working. Instead of settling for a relationship that’s bringing us nothing but pain, we have to admit the truth: The life we’ve built with this other person just isn’t worth fighting for anymore. It’s time for you to stand up and move on mindfully.
Take a step back from the situation first and give yourself time to process. Look at your relationship for what it really is and then consider the future of love that you want for yourself. Surround yourself with friends and family you can trust. Lean into them for support. Distract yourself with positive pastimes and passions that remind you what it means to build a life of your own. Facing the end of a relationship doesn’t have to signal the end of our happiness. As a matter of fact, it’s a beginning. When you’re ready, have a heart-to-heart with your partner and work as a team to address (with honesty) what’s going on and what comes next. Once everything is settled, take action and allow yourselves to move on in compassion and respect.
- Britzman, M., & Sauerheber, J. (2014). Preparing Couples for an Enriched Marriage. The Family Journal, 22(4), 428–436. doi: 10.1177/1066480714547185
