4 Real Signs It’s Time to Break Up

I have experienced some amazingly good, love supreme kind of loves in my lifetime. I’m grateful that my arms have been long enough to hold that kind of love and that my heart has been strong enough to return it. Still, sometimes even when there’s great love and great reasons to stay, there are even greater reasons to leave.

We rarely ever want to leave a love relationship, even if we know that leaving is the best thing. We hate leaving because it demands change; it necessitates starting over and removing ourselves from spaces that have become comfortable—even when that comfort is painful.

What I believe to be worse than starting over is starting over five, 10 or 20 years later while wishing I’d followed my first mind and intuition. Wishing that, although no time we spend loving is wasted, I would’ve spent those years doing other more joyful things—like loving myself more or writing that book whose spirit keeps haunting me

To ensure we don’t look back on those years we spent in a relationship with regrets, here are four signs that it’s time to leave now:

The relationship has become one long argument. Y’all can’t agree on sh*t. Like, you aren’t even arguing about what you think you’re arguing about at this point. The fact that he was 15 minutes late for your dinner date speaks squarely to the fact that he’s unable to fully commit to taking the relationship to the next level. You both behave ridiculously. In moments where one partner should yield (because yielding is absolutely required in a healthy relationship), you go at each other like you’re training for the UFC.

Regarding the art of yielding, writer Thomas Fiffer asserts, “There’s something to be said for the maxim of never going to bed angry. If neither partner can be the bigger person, give up the need to be right, and approach conflict in a conciliatory fashion, there’s no point in continuing.” Disagreements in relationships are necessary, healthy even; but if all you do is fight, it’s time to keep it moving.

The trust is gone. We lose trust in relationships for reasons too many to name. Often trust erodes because of infidelity or other serious betrayals. Sometimes it diminishes because of our partner’s inability to meet us “on the bridge” (as poet Nayyirah Waheed has written). Losing trust doesn’t have to mean the end of a relationship. With hard, dedicated, intentional work, we can learn to trust again. But sometimes trusting again just isn’t possible even if we desire to do so, and in those cases we have to let our partners go. If you can’t forgive and move forward with your significant other in joy, you aren’t behaving any better than he or she did when your trust was betrayed.  Go.

Sometimes even when there’s great love and great reasons to stay, there are even greater reasons to leave.

The relationship is significantly less passionate. Every relationship has its honeymoon stage, which most often ends. When we become comfortable, and we begin to view our relationship as more permanent, we say goodbye to passion and focus on things we decide are more important.

Clinical psychologist and author Frances Cohen Praver believes in a theory that argues, “We unwittingly degrade romance and passionate sex, place it in the background, and bring security and safety into the foreground.” This is a common issue in relationships, but it doesn’t mean the end. It’s when we consciously reject and have lost desire for our partners—when we are closed sexually, romantically and emotionally to them—that we need to consider letting go. That loss of passion can be attributed to many things, but if it is lasting, we should free ourselves to find that thing (or person) that will set our soul on fire.

You look for comfort outside the relationship. When we begin to withdraw mentally and physically in a relationship, we often seek to fill that void. When speaking of affairs in relationships, we habitually discuss how awful physical infidelity is, but we rarely focus on its forerunner—emotional infidelity.

Psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Gail Saltz writes that few look to engage in emotional cheating, but succumb to it because they accept that what they’re missing in their relationship can’t be salvaged. “So while they aren’t consciously in the market, they are ripe for an affair of the heart: hungry for attention, craving excitement, and eager for someone to fill the emptiness they feel inside.” 

When we start looking outside of our relationships for what we should be getting inside it, we set the stage for actually replacing our significant other. It’s best to end it before things get really ugly.

-Ebony

I Married for Money

First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby with the baby carriage.”

That pot of lies is the foundation for the dreams most little girls live by, the problem is those little girls grow into women who quickly end up realizing that real life is far from fantasy.  The first problem with their little fantasy is that sure love comes first, but it often comes broke as hell and unfortunately all that “all you need is love” crap doesn’t pay Con Edison.  Millions of couples each year realize, as they argue over everything from the rent to retirement, that maybe money should’ve been the leader of the pack.

My parents married for love and even though they have been married over 30 years, they’ve always had a mistress in between them and her name was money.   Watching them fight day after day, year after year about money helped me to see early on that love comes with a price.  When I was 16 and finally allowed to date I had no shortage of suitors, but I wasn’t about going dutch or covering your train fare with my allowance because you were short, so I made sure the senior with the Altima and the part time job was the one who caught my “heart.”  In college, I met a man who made me rethink my ideas of financial love.  His name as Justin and I fell for him hard. I didn’t mind being in broke college student love with him, in the beginning, but when we started arguing constantly about not being able to afford simple date nights or cell phone bills, I realized it was time to get back on the money train. 

I was on a “Not Gon’ Cry” mini vacation with my girls when Shawn walked into my life.  After watching the scene and doing a little intel I learned that not only was he handsome, but he was an entrepreneur who came from a very wealthy family, had no kids, no known drug habits and was quite the ladies man.  I made it my mission to be the only lady on that man’s mind before the weekend was up.  During our short time together Shawn wined and dined me, and even my friends.  It wasn’t love at first sight...but it was definitely love at the first sight of his bank account.  After dating for awhile, I can’t say I fell in love with Shawn, but I did develop feelings for him.  Unlike my parents and countless others who I’ve watched argue time and time again about money, Shawn and I lived relatively argument free and I loved it.  That’s why when he dropped to one knee on our two year anniversary and asked me to marry him I said yes.

Now please understand that I wasn’t planning to live entirely off of him, I do have dreams.  I finished my degree and started a very successful career in marketing that I love. And no, when I walked down the aisle towards my future husband I was not in love, but I was in security and that meant a lot to me.  In my mind, marriages face enough obstacles, the last one it needs is one revolving around money.  I don’t want to go to bed stressed and angry at my husband because money is tight and creditors are calling.  I don’t want to deny my children things that will enhance their lives because mommy didn’t get that big promotion or bonus at work.  I want to be able to focus on loving my man and my family and with Shawn’s money keeping us secure I can do just that.

Some may call me a gold digger, opportunist or whatever other negative word they can find to describe my choice, and that’s fine with me.  Marrying for love is admirable and brave, it’s the stuff fairytales are made of, but like I said before, life isn’t a fairytale.  While those people who married for love are arguing over rent and school fees and others are planning divorces they can barely afford to pay for, I’m living comfortably.

It’s almost 6 years and one bubbly baby girl later and though our marriage hasn’t been perfect, I have managed to live my own personal fairytale.  I may not have loved Shawn in the beginning, but over the years I have fallen so deep in love I can’t see straight some days and watching him love on our daughter brings me such amazing joy.  These are the moments that get lost in the fighting and the arguing over money and with that stress and burden off my back I can live every day confident that marrying for money was the right choice and I wouldn’t change it for all the love in the world.

-Ebony Magazine