Want To End Your Relationship? Try These 3 Steps Before You Make Any Moves

You’ve been struggling with disillusion in your relationship for some time. The thrill is long-gone. So is the joy. The stress is high, the pain is deep. You’re worn out, and you feel like things will never change. You’ve reached the point where you think, Things just can’t go on like this.

So you ask yourself, Should I leave? Is that the answer? Is this the end of a love that once seemed so right?

My answer? Don’t decide, at least not yet.

Ironically, the times when you feel the most intense uncertainty and pain, when you’re at low ebb and in misery, are not the times to make a major decision.

Instead of reacting to the pain, respond with these three essential actions (or non-actions) from a longtime marital therapist:

1. Slow down, and don't let the knee-jerk reaction rule you.

When you feel the intense urge to react in a moment of pain, it’s important to just be still and rest for a while. If you take it easy and go slow, your needs and desires will have time to register within you, and you will be in a better place to recognize and understand them.

For example, sometimes we think we want to leave a person when what we really want is to escape from the pain in a stuck dynamic in the relationship. If we can comfort and soothe ourselves long enough to regain some sense of calm on our own terms, we can begin to assess if there’s something to salvage from the wreckage of what we’ve built together.

Sometimes we know that, above all, we want out of the feeling of being stuck or uninspired. And from there, of course it's easy to attribute our misery to the relationship when it may be much more about ourselves. But taking the time to gain clarity and space from volatile emotions will help understand what is really making you unhappy.

2. Educate yourself.

Don’t seek advice (and definitely don’t take advice) from friends and family. Often, the people who love you the most will see only your side of things, which may make you feel good and righteous but won’t shed new light on where you are now in life and what you need to do next.

Find a trustworthy mentor figure — whether it be a therapist, or a coach, minister, priest, or rabbi, instead. Talk to them about the dilemma and decision you’re struggling with. If your partner is willing to join you in a counseling session, you must find a counselor that you BOTH trust. Sometimes the most impossible relationships can transform into something wonderful, given support and insight from the right source.

Particularly if you are married, or you and your partner have made a serious commitment, seek out a financial adviser, a couples’ counselor, or another trusted third party that can inform you of the legal and financial ramifications of your options: separation, divorce, or even a sabbatical from marriage.

Sometimes we learn more from a knowledgeable person that offers no advice but reflects our words back to us. What we hear may surprise us, as if the words and thoughts were brand-new. For the first time in a long time, we may feel our more vulnerable selves emerge from beneath the defensive scar tissue. That’s when we will begin to see who we are, where we are, and what we need to do next.

3. Move your focus away from avoiding discomfort or being "nice"

If you do decide that ending the relationship is the right decision acknowledge that you will need to confront discomfort directly. You will ultimately need to go through the breakup in the most courageous way, which is face-to-face, and it won't be comfortable.

Don’t use text or email (or worse, social media!) to give your lover the news, and stay away from Breakup Butler, who gives the message to your partner “nice” and “not so nice.”

Even though the conversation may be awkward and uncomfortable, you will feel a surge in self-respect once you finish what you came to say, because you had the courage and the consideration to meet in person. When you talk, acknowledge what you valued in your relationship, even as you say the connection between you doesn’t work anymore. Take time to be absolutely clear. Don’t give your partner false hope with expressions like, “for the moment I feel,” or “maybe in time it will change.”

Afterward, give yourself time to grieve, but don’t look back. Don’t torment each other with prolonged goodbyes and false, mixed messages. Don’t call, don’t write, and don’t toy with them on social media. Definitely don’t drive by your ex’s house to try and figure out if they’re with someone else. That kind of behavior feeds the drama but will only end in more misery, whatever you discover. If they’re with someone else, you feel bad. If they’re all alone, you feel guilty.