When Is It Time?
Questions to gauge when it’s time to move on from a relationship
Remember the psychological thriller Sleeping with the Enemy that had us on the edge of our seats and asking why in the world did she stay so long?
The main character, Laura Burney, was married to her husband, Martin, for 3 ½ years. She was mentally, emotionally, and physically abused by him. Then, in a recurring pattern, he apologetically showers her with flowers and gifts to compensate for her suffering.
I wonder, after a night of her husband’s ranting and physical abuse, if she ever lay there with her pain wondering what would have happened if she had left the first time he crossed the line.
I wonder if the first line was a seemingly small infraction with a surprise burst of anger that was easily excused as stress, overwork, or fatigue. It’s so easy to excuse bad behavior when you’re in love.
I wonder if she had any lines?
By lines, I mean a boundary that was a deal breaker for her in the relationship. A deal breaker isn’t something that is unforgivable, but rather, a behavior that you will not tolerate and ends the relationship.
While Laura Burney’s journey is hopefully more extreme than most, I have found that many women wrestle with the question, “When is enough, enough?”
In an article published on Oprahdaily.com by Eleni N. Gage entitled, Questions To Ask Yourself Before Calling It, she addresses the elephant in the room that so many of us are afraid to acknowledge. We ignore the massive beast because addressing it could be the end of a relationship for which we had high hopes.
Honestly, I wish as a young woman I had been told that divorce was not the end of the world. I wish I had been told that my emotional and mental health was more valuable than the institution of marriage.
The only guideline I had was from my grandmother. She said, “If he ever hits you — leave.”
He never hit me, so I stayed in a mentally and emotionally turbulent relationship in which I lost myself and my ability to reason clearly. I lived in a constant state of confusion, anxiety, shame, guilt, and powerlessness mixed with over-compliance and emotional numbness.
In my fundamental Christian mind, there was no way out of marriage unless physical abuse or infidelity existed. Because of low self-esteem, it was easy to blame myself and keep trying to be perfect.
I wish someone had sat me down and explained, not just that all relationships are hard, but how to know when enough is enough.
When do you call it quits and give up on hope? When do you accept that you married potential and not a person?
According to the article, there are three questions we should ask ourselves if we are in doubt.
The first question is really more of a series of questions. Basically, questions that help a person understand where a boundary should be placed. Psychotherapist, Genesis Games, suggests that if you answer “no” to any of the sub-questions, it’s time to move on” (Gage).
If you have never been in a relationship with a narcissist, or if you can remember a time when you were not under the influence of narcissistic abuse, the questions will probably be helpful.
When I think back to my 20-year-old self, I know that the questions would have fallen on deaf ears because I was born into narcissism. So, I reframed the questions in such a way that, at the very least, a seed of understanding could have been planted.
I am not a mental health professional, so I am drawing on my own experience.
The three questions and sub-questions posed in the article
Question #1:
- Where do I draw the line?
Sub-questions:
- Do I feel safe voicing my thoughts and feelings in this relationship? If not, have I felt this way before? Do I want to feel that way again?
- If trust is an issue, can it be rebuilt?
- If my partner did not change a thing about themselves, could I be happy with them?
My thoughts about Question #1: Where do I draw the line?
For those of us who were never allowed to be autonomous or establish healthy boundaries, the question becomes: How do you know which lines to draw much less where? If you’re like me, I didn’t know I was allowed to have lines (boundaries).
Looking back, I think we should all have certain behaviors that are deal breakers. This is a hard question because the answers are subjective and personal.
I wouldn’t have understood sub-question 2: “Do I feel safe voicing my thoughts and feelings?” The way I felt didn’t matter. My job was to keep the other person happy.
With that in mind, the second and third sub-questions, If not, have I felt this way before?, and “Do I want to feel that way again?” also become moot points because I would not be able to recognize if I felt unsafe.
Reframing the questions
The question that might have touched me pre-awareness is: “Do I feel loved and cared for?”
This question has problems of its own as, just like the ability to understand boundaries, because we only know what we have lived. I didn’t learn until much later in life what love looks like. I thought love was critical and transactional.
Often, I would choose a friend or significant other that was not as nice as another because I thought the kinder person wasn’t being authentic. When someone told me how great I was, I saw them as a dishonest person — not a kind one.
Even as early as my first year of marriage, I recognized when I didn’t feel loved and appreciated — at least by my own definition. A question that required proof would have potentially resonated in my abuse-addled brain.
For example, if my younger self had answered, “Yes, I feel loved and appreciated.” I would then ask, “In what ways does he make you feel loved and appreciated?”
For that, I would not have had an answer.
Sub-question #1: If trust is an issue, can it be rebuilt?
This is an intensely personal question that only you can answer. Often, I would “suspect” that there was cheating of some sort going on, but when I questioned him, he would turn it on me.
For example, because my father had cheated on my mother, my ex-husband said that I would always suspect him of cheating as well. He went so far as to say that he was paying for my father’s sins. I now know this is called gaslighting.
If you are being gaslighted, it is incredibly easy to be manipulated and to begin to believe that you are the problem in the relationship. If you recognize this as part of your life, you probably have trust issues. What might surprise you is not that you don’t trust others, but that you do not trust yourself.
A question that might have gotten me thinking is, “Does he make you feel better about yourself or worse?”
Sub-question #2: If my partner did not change a thing about themselves, could I be happy with them?
I remember the exact place that I was standing in our tiny one-bedroom apartment when I realized that if our marriage was going to work, someone would have to change. That person was me.
I had to flex and accept and adjust in small ways every day to keep peace and sanity. Over time, small changes become big ones, and soon, you don’t even know who you are.
Coming from a Bible-based cult, as teens, we were told not to go into a marriage thinking we could change a man. They harped on the fact that men can’t be changed, and that we should be dating someone who was “husband material”.
Ironically, after I was married, I was told that I could change my husband. In the words of Peter, “Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives; While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear.”
I’m sure Peter meant well, but it didn’t work for me.
So, if I were being honest with myself as a young married woman, I would have answered this question “No”, and looking back, the answer is still “No”.
Sub-question #3: If I knew we could get the right help, would that even matter to me?
Then, I think it would have mattered. Unfortunately, I believed I was the problem.
I remember he and his mother insisting that I get psychiatric help at one point. So, I did. I enjoyed talking to the therapist and felt I had made great progress. The therapist wanted to meet my husband at one point, and to my shock, my ex-husband came in complaining about everything I did. I was so embarrassed that I sat there saying nothing. I don’t even think I addressed it later. And that was the way of things, change until he is happy.
So, while I wanted to stay married and be happy, it takes two happy and whole people to make that happen.
The other two questions
After I reflected on the first question and sub-questions, the other two seemed easy to answer.
Question 2: “Is this a relationship issue or a roommate issue?”
This one is pretty self-explanatory. We all know that none of us are perfect, so we may struggle with that partner who forgets to take out the trash, never does laundry, or makes the bed.
If your man or woman has a good and kind heart, find a way to deal with the small stuff. Hire someone, put your things away, or compromise in some way.
On the other hand, continually ignoring your partner's requests is a lack of respect. For whatever reason, you do not feel that what they ask for deserves attention or resolution. If you don’t respect them, you don’t love them.
Be self-aware enough to know if it is a roommate problem or a respect issue.
Question 3: “Have I asked for what I need?”
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Over and over and over.
Face it people, they either care, or they don’t.
Conclusion
Deciding when or if to end a relationship is not a decision to be taken lightly, especially if you have invested a significant amount of time and energy into it.
Sometimes hard decisions have to be made for our own mental, physical, or emotional well-being. Even when we know with our whole being that it is the right move, it is still very difficult and often painful.
The questions are guidelines that can help you gauge where you are in the relationship. Are you like Laura Burney? Do you lie in your pain every night wondering how you arrived at this point?
Indecision is normal, and waiting for the right time is wise, but if you are ambivalent, you are likely ruminating and causing yourself and the relationship more harm by stewing in your self-doubt and inner conflict. If this is where you are, a choice one way or another will be helpful.
The questions will help. However, only you can say when.
