I'm Rebecca Hunter and this is Take Out Therapy. As a private practice therapist, I've helped a lot of people work through some of the most common everyday issues using new tools and greater insight. If you have any interest in doing some personal growth work, this might be the perfect place for you.
In the next 20 minutes, I'll walk you through a commonly explored topic in therapy and provide you with actual tools to deal with it. It's that simple. Obviously, this is not a substitute for therapy, but I think it could be helpful.
Thanks for being here. Hello, friends. Thanks for joining me today.
Here is what I know. Leaving relationships is really, really hard. I don't care if it's a romantic relationship or a friendship or a membership in some sort of club you're in.
Anytime we decide to bail out of a relationship, it is really hard. Actually, what we know through research is that even people in really unhealthy contexts within their relationship, it's brutal to leave the relationship. Let's talk about this.
Let's talk about why ending relationships is so hard. It's a really common place that people get stuck, as I've told you before. People come into therapy a lot of times because they're really unhappy in their relationships and they want to try to make it work.
They're willing to dig in and do some personal growth work in order to see if that could affect some change in their relationship. Here's the bottom line. You get to choose who you allow to be a part of your life and who you don't.
That's the bottom line, you guys. You just get to choose. If you have a friendship in which there are a bunch of problems that aren't getting solved, you can leave that relationship.
If you're in a romantic relationship in which the same is happening, you can break up. You just can. Also, I just want to do a little side note here and say, yes, I totally acknowledge that sometimes the dynamics of relationships are such that it's actually not safe to leave them and those aren't the kind of relationships that I'm talking about today.
The kind of relationships that I'm talking about today are just our everyday relationships, our romantic relationships, our friendships, or even relationships with family members. I'm going to go through this in a couple different ways. One thing that people ask me a lot about is, how do I know when it's time to leave the relationship? I want to kind of talk about that a little bit.
Then I want to talk about, well, how do we do that and not be completely destroyed because it's so hard. Let's talk about this. How do you know when it's time to leave a relationship? Well, first of all, if there are unresolved problems, it might be time to leave a relationship.
But there's things we need to do. Well, we actually don't have to do anything. We can just totally bail out.
It's your choice. But in a long-term relationship in which it's a harder choice to leave the relationship and you're kind of going back and forth, back and forth, one thing that we can do is just start to really identify where the problem areas exist for you. Right? So notice that I said for you, and I want to just put a little asterisk there, because we all have to take accountability for our part in relationships.
Okay? So sometimes there's problems in the relationship and we look to the other person as a reason for the problem. And that's fine as long as you also look to yourself and how you perpetuate the problem or how you support the problem or how you are involved in the problem. Does that make sense? And so when we're identifying the problem, it's really just a great idea to just stick with ourselves.
Like what's happening for me in this relationship? Does that make sense? So now I did that thing where I don't think of an example in advance and I'm going to have to think of it on the fly. Let's see. Well, we've all had friendships that we've moved through.
That's just a fact of life. So many women actually come into therapy because they're breaking up with their best friend or they're breaking up with a good friend or they're breaking up with an entire group of friends. And it's really hard.
Right? And one of the things that it's really important to do is just be very reflective. Be really reflective. Figure out what's not working for you there and then communicate it.
So being in a good relationship with ourself, which is something that I highly recommend if you're involved in personal growth work, is to be in a good relationship with yourself, to be in a healthy, supportive relationship with yourself. That requires us to speak on things. It requires us to stand up for ourselves, basically, because if we don't, then we're just ignoring ourselves.
I don't really like this dynamic in this relationship. Well, we're not going to talk about that. That's not really being in a very respectful relationship with yourself.
So you just want to really come at it from an I standpoint. OK? And so we can also communicate the problem in an effective way and an ineffective way. We can go you, you, you, which is super ineffective and will totally shut people down and there will be no solutions.
Or we can talk about the behavior or the specific actions that we'd like to get some movement around, meaning like, it really bothers me when you don't follow through on things that we have planned. And I want to talk about how we can kind of figure that out between the two of us. It's kind of like, love the person, not their behavior.
Meaning like, this person is probably has no idea or no intention of being malicious within this relationship. Sometimes people are intentionally malicious, but I'm not talking about those relationships. I'm talking about relationships in which people have trouble figuring out the right things to do for the other person and they don't have enough information.
So communicating about problems is actually just exchanging information. Like, hey, dude, I don't really like when you do that. It bothers me.
Right? Can you show up when you say you're going to show up? And so the other thing that I want to point out here is like, scorekeeping never works. So if you have a list of reasons why you're pissed off at somebody and you're eagerly adding things to the list, that's not ever going to lead to solution and isn't very constructive. OK, so scorecards don't work in fixing relationship problems.
OK, I think I'll stop there, but I could go on. You know it. The willingness to compromise, right? If we're talking about kind of how you determine whether you're willing, you're ready to leave a relationship.
Have you explored ideas about compromise around the communicated problem? And how about your boundaries? How are those looking? So if you haven't really put any effort into putting boundaries, and what I mean is actually spoken word boundaries like, hey, I have a boundary here, right? If you haven't been willing to really enforce your own boundaries with like a willingness to leave the relationship, then there's some work you could do right there. Meaning if somebody is always kind of bailing out last minute and you're the person who's like sitting there waiting, maybe that's a boundary for you. And maybe you need to say that.
Maybe you need to just say like, hey, I'm not feeling like really willing to sit and wait anymore. Like, how can we figure this out so this stops happening? Because I'm starting to get to the point where I don't really want to be in the relationship, right? And so you have to have this willingness to kind of work it out or go. Work it out or go, right? So if you've done all those things, and you're still kind of looking at a problem, and it's still really not budging, it might be time to break up, friend.
Break up. Break up. It's a possibility.
Okay? So it's like, you know, when you're in a relationship and you're working really hard at it, and the other person is not, or they don't seem like they're really working on it at all. Ding, ding, ding. It might be time to be willing to go.
Just so you know. You could play around with some ideas, right? A compromise of like, hey, let's work on this together for six months. Or, hey, let me tell you some specific things that I really want out of this relationship in order to stay here.
So those are some kind of ideas. And then after you do all that, right, if nothing changes, then it might be time to break up. It might be time to just get out of the relationship.
And so what I would say is like, you guys, we need to be adults. We just, we need to be grownups. We need to respect ourselves and we need to respect each other.
Respecting ourselves as being willing to say, hey, this is not working for me. And I'm going to stand behind my own values and my own needs in these relationships out loud. Not in shame, not in hiding, but like right here in front of everybody, in front of your face.
Right? So go talk about your relationships in person. I have shifted out of some adult relationships in some pretty functional ways, actually. I've been able to shift my own ability to be in dysfunctional relationships in a way where it's like, I can do it in person.
Like, hey, let's take a little break and kind of regroup and feel like, figure out where we're at on this thing. Right? I've done that with girlfriends over the years sometimes, sometimes in functional ways. And I will say, like, I'm raising my hand over here, like sometimes in super dysfunctional ways.
But listen, we learn as we go, my friends. We get better at things as we go. So be gentle, but be brave.
So if you decide you're going to leave a relationship, try to do it in person. Right? But that's not a make or break rule. You could, you have to decide what the best way for you in your own relationship with yourself is going to be.
Okay? And when we're deciding to leave a relationship, just stand behind yourself. You don't need to emotionally caretake for the other person. A lot of times people don't leave relationships because they actually don't want to hurt the other person.
And what I say to that is, that's not your responsibility. It's not your responsibility to protect somebody else from their own emotions that they need to be able to experience in their life. Disappointment, heartbreak are a couple of them.
Right? And so it's not our responsibility to stay in relationships so that other people don't feel bad. So ditch the emotional caretaking, my friend, because you get to choose. Right? And consider that whether you're super stoked to be out of the relationship or you're pretty bummed out that it didn't work out, it's going to be painful.
And so you might have to have some structure around that. Like a lot of people that break up decide like, I'm going to just take a break altogether. Like I don't want to see you.
I don't want to talk to you kind of thing. I just need to like break. Right? And so that's an option.
So consider how much contact you want to have some with somebody while you're in a grieving process. Once you decide to leave a relationship, stand behind your own knowing, my friend. And it's going to be hard.
That is really hard to do. We've all gone backwards. Right? I know a lot of people who broke up with somebody and then accidentally slept with them a while later.
Right? We all know that. That's really hard because it is hard to let go of relationships that don't work out. And so here's what I would say.
You just get to choose. And sometimes, you guys, it's just not a good fit. And what that means is like a while back when maybe you met, it was a great fit.
And then one or both people did some personal growth work. And then you kind of end up on this on level playing field of sorts. Not that there's a power dynamic, but rather like maybe I'm doing some work around my codependency.
And the other person is very like clueless about codependency. And so they want that to continue. And I'd like for that to stop.
Right? That's one example of a relationship that's probably not going to work out. If my codependency serves another person and they don't see the dysfunction in that, it's not going to be a good fit. So there's this whole thing about like how do we not make a failed relationship a statement about ourselves? And what I would say to that is like, you deserve to be in really good relationships.
You deserve to have people in your life that support you and love you and talk to you nicely and are kind, intentionally partner with you. That's the point. Right? The point is attaching.
The point is like we're humans and we need each other. And it can be really good. It doesn't have to suck to be in relationships.
So if you're banging your head against the wall, trying to make something work that's just not working, you might want to take a step back from it and figure out like, well, first of all, is it sustainable? Do you want to keep going like this? Is it going to work like this? Or is it maybe like time to move on and understand that it's okay? I talk with people a lot about this. And it's like that thing about sometimes people come into our lives to teach us something or sometimes we're in their life to help them learn something. Right? And so, so many people have come in and out of my life over the span of my life.
That have helped me learn something. So many things, right? Those early dating years, we learn all about what we don't want in our relationships. Right? And some of our friendships, we learn as well about what we want in a friend and what is like not going to work for us.
And so it's kind of a more empowered place to come from to understand that you get to have a choice over who is in your life. And it doesn't actually mean anything about you if you decide to leave a relationship except for that you're just kind of moving through life and you're growing and you're changing and that's okay. And that you're willing to push and be uncomfortable in order to have a good experience here.
So give it some thought. Let me know what you think. I'm interested to hear.
This was a topic that a gal messaged me about. She's like, I need to hear about this. And so thanks for listening and thanks for being here and thanks for just inspiring me to create content that people need and care about.
I'm here for you, friend. Let's keep plugging. This episode is sponsored by The Anxiety Course, an online recovery program for people with anxiety.
As an anxiety survivor and a therapist, I've treated a lot of anxious folks, including myself. Let's just say I've done my homework. And here's what I know.
Not everyone needs therapy to deal with stress, anxiety, and overwhelm. I developed this online learning program for people that want a different option to healing. Sign up to get on the wait list at rebeccahuntermsw.com. The link's also in the show notes.
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