This text might be the most important one on the topic of “When Should You Let Go or Fight in a Relationship?” Among all other guides, this one encompasses everything and can be sufficient to decide whether to stay in a relationship or leave.
However, these posts can also help guide your thoughts:
Along with all the articles I wrote on this topic, one perspective is the most important to mention. And that perspective is: What do we truly want from our lives?
Despite all the advice, common sense, and emotional considerations, our desires remain at the end of the day.
Our desires come from our inner emotional-psychological world, known as the subconscious and unconscious. This world contains a wealth of information we constantly process (like a computer). We also process it when we fall in love, desire someone, feel passion, become attached to someone, etc.
The decision to break up with someone and stick to it comes from our consciousness. Love for someone on the other side, often comes from our conscious part.
In any case, deciding to let go of your relationship or fight for it will significantly depend on your inner emotional-psychological world.
In this blog post we will try to take it into account, but we will also use real parameters to decide whether to break up or fight for the relationship.
Let’s put it this way: We will try to manage our inner world to satisfy both real and emotional-psychological needs.
Therefore, the questions you need to answer for yourself are:
- What do you want from your life?
- What does this person bring to you?
- What are you willing to invest in this relationship?
Why Break Up Is So Hard To Bear: Real Reasons
What Do You Want From Your Life?
Not from this person. From your life. Is it most important to you to have this person? Can you imagine your life without this person? Can you find some perspective without them? The answers to all these questions lie in your character and inner world. Who knows why it is essential for you to be with this person? Whom do they remind you of? What do they give you, and what void do they fill? What kind of connection has been established between you? How long has it lasted? Can you live without this person?
It would help if you answered these questions for yourself. If you have more answers that push you towards this person, you have your answer. You have your answer if you have more answers that push you away from them.
Now, I assume you are reading this text because things with your partner are not as you would like them to be. So, at least one thing speaks in favor of ending that relationship.
Therefore, the next round of your answers should determine whether these things within you are changeable
(you can discuss this alone or with your therapist/consultant).
What do I mean: If you tell yourself that the most essential thing in the world is to have this person, is that changeable? If you tell yourself that you cannot imagine life without this person – is that changeable?
The third set of questions to ask yourself is:
What Does This Person Bring to You?
Emotionally, psychologically, and materially. Are you able to obtain what this person gives you from somewhere else?
Perhaps you have never considered what this person brings to you.
Maybe you are just following your heart, as they say. You want this person, you have a problem with them, and your focus is on overcoming that problem. When you overcome it, moments of happiness come, then a new problem arises, and so on in a cycle.
Maybe you really have never sat down and thought about what this person brings to you due to the turbulent relationship and concentration on it.
Why Am I Holding Onto Someone Who Doesn’t Want Me?
What Are You Willing to Invest In this Relationship?
Some people choose one person and invest everything they have in them, while others discard someone without investing anything.
We are diverse and function differently, and as I said, our choices depend on our inner world.
In movies and literature, you have examples of people investing their entire lives in one person. For some reason, that person was the most important person in the world to them, and on an emotional level, they decided to dedicate their life to them. They gave up all other attempts at love for that person (Ricardo, The Bad Girl; Mario Vargas Llosa), sometimes halted their lives (Miss Havisham in Great Expectations; Charles Dickens), and sometimes did everything to win that person over (Jay Gatsby, The Great Gatsby; F. Scott Fitzgerald).
In my practice, I have met all these profiles.
It’s up to you to think about what you are willing to invest in this relationship. How many years? How much effort? How much sacrifice?
When you think about your life, how will it look to dedicate another month, a year, five years, or more to this person?
- I once had a client who dedicated 13 years of her life to her partner before they became an official couple. In the meantime, he married two other women, had a child with each other, and finally ended up with my client (as far as I know, the relationship is now happy).
But let’s get back to the topic: What are you willing to invest in this relationship?
The answers to all these questions can help you clarify the situation. Sometimes, with the help of these answers, you will consciously decide whether you want to dedicate your life to fighting for this relationship. And sometimes, your emotional-psychological world will tell you: Despite all the answers, I like this person, and I will do everything to make them mine.
Why We Are In Love With Someone – Psychological Explanation
Essentially, Your Decision Will Prevail
Now, why is this text important? Because up until this point, your inner world—including your desire for that partner, the suffering you feel when you’re apart or fighting, your hopes, any injustices you might be experiencing, etc.—may have served as your guide.
So, it could be said that you are being led by things beyond your control. You are also “deciding” whether to stay with that partner without too much power over your desires and fears.
After you give yourself answers, you will have some direction. You will incorporate rational thinking into your emotional-psychological “decisions” and finally get your result.
And let me tell you: it’s okay for either to win. Let the better one win, as they say.
The essence is that with this combination, you will finally know which path you want to take and make a final decision. But an actual decision (without quotation marks 😉).
You will have all the necessary data and can tell yourself: I want this, or I am giving up on this.
And then, best of all, with the decision made, you will start investing all your energy into what you have decided. Energy, actions, thoughts… Instead of wasting it on thoughts: should I fight for this relationship or give it up?
I hope this text has been helpful to you. Dee
