4 Ways to Know if It Is Time To End Your Relationship (When the Signs Are Not Clear and Things are Not Bad)

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1:32It means loneliness. It means weekends and evenings alone. It means having that uncomfortable, awkward conversation that we don't want to have. The number one health and wellness podcast. Jay Shetty. Jay Shetty. The one, the only Jay Shetty. Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the place you come to listen, learn and grow. Thank you to everyone who's subscribed. Thanks to everyone who's left a review. It's incredible to have our community continue to grow. If you haven't already, make sure you've downloaded all the latest episodes because I don't want you to miss out on any of our amazing conversations or solos.

2:15We've had some phenomenal guests lately, so many more coming up. Make sure you don't miss out. Now, today's episode is all about the ways to know if it's time to end your relationship. Now, sometimes it's not as clear. Sometimes it's not that bad. Sometimes it's not the end of the world yet. and often we'll find that people in our life and maybe even you have had moments where you end a relationship and then you realize it ended 12 months ago. It ended 24 months ago, right? How many times have you left a job, left a relationship, maybe even a friendship and then when you reflected on it, you realize, wait a minute, that was over such a long time ago and I've just wasted time.

3:09This is to help you get that head start. It's to help you save time. This episode is dedicated to anyone who's been going back and forth in their mind thinking, I deserve better. Am I settling? Is this the right person for me? How do I know? Now, I want to start by saying one thing. I think today, because we live in a world of what seems like infinite choice and what seems like available love. I think we actually make bad decisions, right? The studies have always shown that the more choice we have, the less good our decisions are as humans. We struggle to pick cereal in the cereal aisle. We struggle to pick the right pickle or whatever else it may be, because we're exposed to so many choices.

4:00And now that the dating world has caught up with the consumer world, that's the same experience we have. We all believe there's plenty more fish in the sea. We believe that there's someone else who tick nine out of 10 boxes if someone that we currently are with is seven out of 10. And so a lot of us don't think about building, growing relationships. We think about finding and discovering. And that language in and of itself is such a big challenge, right? When you're thinking, I'm going to find my person. I'm just going to find them. They're going to be ready made. They're going to be as they are, rather than the truth that we're probably going to have to build with someone or grow with someone.

4:40See, the truth is relationships get harder, not easier. People put in less effort, not more. People get lazier, not smarter. And people change. They rarely stay the same. So knowing that this is the reality of relationships, when we want to be in a long-term committed, loyal relationship, what we're saying is, I'm willing to build, I'm willing to grow, and I'm willing to learn. That's actually what we're signing up for. And I think the reason why so many of us want to move is because we feel we're not building anymore, we're not growing anymore, we're not learning anymore, we never did. And so today I want to answer that question.

5:27Is it really time to leave? Do you have real reason to leave and move on? Or is it really just a part of us that doesn't want to put in the effort? We just want to enjoy the six months honeymoon period. We just want to enjoy the good times. But we're not really ready for a long-term committed, loyal relationship. Now, I was looking at a study and researchers asked people considering whether to end their relationship, what factors someone in their shoes might weigh when making the decision. Respondents came up with a number of reasons which researchers classified into 50 common themes. But here are the top 10 pros and cons people suggested.

6:12So these were the top 10 reasons people said that they would stay in a relationship. Number one, emotional intimacy. If you felt emotional intimacy, then that was a good reason to stay. Now let's talk about what emotional intimacy is. Emotional intimacy, I also describe often as emotional availability. when you want to share your feelings, when you want to share your thoughts, is the other person available? Are they able to listen, recognize, understand, and comprehend what you're feeling? Intimacy emotionally is a sense of closeness. You feel like the other person gets you and understands you.

7:03Now, of course, not all the time and not when they're under stress and not when there's lots of other stuff going on, but overall you feel that they get you. They understand you. They're willing to go there with you emotionally. The second reason to stay was emotional investment. Notice how the word emotional has already come up twice out of two in a list of 10. Are you feeling emotionally invested in this relationship? do you feel like the person cares about how you feel? This is one of the most important questions. Does this person care about how you feel, right? Do they care that you feel good or feel bad?

7:53Do they care that you're struggling or you're doing well? And a lot of the times we don't ask this question, do we care? Are we always the one trying to get this person to change and be different? Or do we have the capacity also to emotionally invest in them? The third reason people said to stay was family duty. Now, this one's a tough one, because everyone has different values around this. I recently had a great conversation with Dr. Daniel Amen around how to raise children and the scientific reasons as to whether people should stay together or move apart. And what was very, very clear was all about the quality of the relationship.

8:35I think one thing we don't recognize is I often say to people that life is shorter than you think, but longer than you think as well, right? It's shorter in the sense that we need to make the most of our time, but it's longer when you don't make the most of your time and now you're in a bad position for 10, 20, 30 years. So family duty is a double-edged sword. Number four, reasons to say, partner's personality. Do you actually like them? Or are you always trying to mold them? Are you always trying to shift them? Are you always wanting them to be better? What is your partner's personality like?

9:16Are you always thinking, oh gosh, I wish they didn't say that in that public setting. Are you always feeling awkward or uncomfortable around them in their behavior towards you and others? Or is that something you always knew and it was quirky and something you liked about them? Number five is enjoyment. Notice how as relationships grow, enjoyment has gone down, right? Having a good time would have been top of the pile back in the day, but now it's halfway through. Now, a lot of people think that's because the spark's gone. And a lot of people think that's because it's not fun anymore. The truth is that long-term relationships give us very different things from short-term relationships.

9:58Long-term relationships give us that emotional intimacy, that emotional investment. And what number six is emotional security. That becomes far more meaningful and valuable to us as individuals as relationships grow. Now, I'm not saying that you can't still have enjoyment or have fun. Of course you can. But what I'm saying is that different things become more important as time goes on. When you're emotionally secure, you feel that the other person won't use your emotional expression against you. That's what emotional security means. You feel that the secrets you've shared, the flaws you've shown, the issues, concerns that you've raised will not be used against you.

10:47If you feel that they're going to be used against you, that means you feel emotionally insecure. You don't trust that someone actually values what you're experiencing and going through. Now, I want to draw a line here because I think for a lot of us, a lot of us can feel that, but then our partners may actually say something like, but I don't know where you got that from, right? I'm not sure. I feel like I'm showing you that we're emotionally secure. we have to really differentiate between whether what we're feeling is based on a past insecurity or whether it's based on a present insecurity. Listen to this carefully.

11:30Is your emotional insecurity based on past experiences or is it based on this individual? The way to understand this is to ask yourself the question, has this person done things independent of what I've been through in the past that have made me feel emotionally insecure? Or actually, do I have an insecurity that I have been carrying from relationship to relationship to relationship that continues to have a stronghold in my life? Number seven is physical intimacy, feeling like there still is a space to explore that to express that there's an excitement from both sides number eight reason to stay was financial benefits this is something that's unspoken about but marriage and relationships were built on the idea that it would be easier to rent a bigger space together it would be easier to split the costs of the grocery bill right there were financial needs that needed to be met number nine is compatibility and number 10 is concern for partner right do you feel a sense of concern now that one again can be a double-edged sword because I know a lot of people that I've spoken to who felt that they were staying in the relationship because it positively benefited their partner even if it negatively affected them So you think if I leave this relationship, that person's going to fall apart.

13:04But you're falling apart in the relationship trying to keep them together. Think about that for a second. So often you stay in a relationship because you don't want someone else to fall apart. Not realizing that you're falling apart while you're trying to keep them together. If you fall apart while you're trying to keep someone else together, then it's a losing battle. And so sometimes your concern for your partner can be false compassion. Right? False compassion is this belief that we can solve, fix, figure out someone else's problems and that if we're in their life, then they'll be okay, even if that means we're not okay.

13:52And I know people right now who are going through breakups and divorces, who have tried to do that for 10 years and the sad and most horrific part of it is that the people who've been negatively affected are then. Parking shouldn't slow you down. ParkWiz gives every driver a shortcut. Book ahead, save up to 50 % and skip the hassle of circling the block. Park smarter, park faster. ParkWiz. Download the ParkWiz app today and save every time you park.

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14:50Have you ever brought your magic to Walt Disney World like, hey, we came to play. Did you tip your tiara to a Creole princess or get goofy officially? Step up like a boss and save the day or see what life's like under the tree of light? Did you? If you could, would you? When we come through, it's true magic because we came to play. Bring the magic at Walt Disney World Resort. now in the same study the top 10 reasons to leave listen to this this is what people considering whether to end their relationship these were the top 10 reasons they gave to leave i'm hoping that as you're hearing this you're not on your own i'm hoping that as you're listening you're thinking gosh that is why i'm staying and that's a good reason or that is why i'm staying and i'm not sure that that may be not the best reason to stay because the truth is it's a subjective choice.

15:47It's not about whether I think it's good for you to leave or move on. It's important for you to weigh up what's valuable to you. Some of you may be able to live a life of complete sacrifice and feel that that's your value and that's okay. And some of you will think, I don't want to sacrifice any more time on this. I need to move. So reasons to leave top 10. The first one was partner's personality. If you didn't like your partner's personality, it was time to leave. It was time to move on because that's a personality that you'll be living with for a long time. Number two, pretty obvious one, breach of trust felt like a good enough reason to leave.

16:30I think with this one, what's important is recognizing whether you're willing to live with the consequences of the breach of trust or whether you can't, whether you're willing to forgive and move on and not keep making it an important factor or whether you're saying to yourself, no, this was make or break for me. Third, a reason to leave was partner withdrawal. This one's a hard one again to gauge, but an important one to note. Sometimes we see our partner's disinterest and apathy as withdrawal. And the truth is, everyone is kind of going in that direction. The more time you spend with someone, it's likely that there is an apathy, there's a neutrality that develops over time.

17:19And really what it is, is comfort. We get comfortable with someone and therefore we get apathetic, we get neutral, we become disinterested, right? What should we have for dinner? Oh, whatever you want. Oh, should we fix the shed or the garage? Oh yeah, whatever you want, right? There's a kind of like, oh, I don't care about that. And because someone doesn't care about something, that doesn't mean they don't care about us. But what we've started to say is that I care about this. I care about redecorating the house. I care about fixing this part of the home, whatever it may be. And if you don't care about it, then you don't care about me.

17:56What we've done is we've outsourced how we see caring for us. And the problem with that is someone could very well say to you, no, I do care about you. I just don't care about that. And I think it's really important that we reintegrate ourselves into our definition of care. How does someone behave with us? How does someone care about us as opposed to the things that we care about as a priority of how they show care for us? Is there another way they can show care? Is there another way they do show care? number four was an external reason, number five was physical distance, ready reasons to leave, number six was conflict, I think if you're fighting again and again and again, if it's always back and forth, that's a reason to leave, I think a lot of people also go through this period of we make up then we break up, we make up then we break up, we make up then we break up, you're always thinking about breaking up, you're always thinking about how to break up but you don't know how, that's a good reason to leave.

18:58I think a lot of us are scared to break up because of what it means. It means loneliness. It means weekends and evenings alone. It means having that uncomfortable, awkward conversation that we don't want to have, right? All of these conflicts and the conflict we're feeling in our mind can be a good reason to leave. Number eight was emotional distance. Number nine was lack of validation. This one's a big one. I think a lot of people, the more and more people I meet, I've realized most people don't get validated at work or at home. And all of us want validation, but we're scared to ask for it. It's a really interesting paradox, right?

19:45We all want to get validated. We're a bit nervous to ask for it because it makes us look weak. And no one ever gets validated. So what I want you to do with the validation point is I want you to take an opportunity to validate your partner, to validate that person for something genuine. I think sometimes we also validate on like superficial flattery and that never lands with that person. We validate on something really arbitrary and random and it just doesn't land with that person. I want you to validate them for something really meaningful, something that was important to them. And I want you to see if you can start building that validation culture inside your relationship.

20:28I think it's really important to build a validation culture and system in your relationship, but you often have to lead it. And it has to be around something genuine and sincere. And number 10 reason to leave was lack of financial benefits. Now, I want to break down for you a couple of ways to know whether it's time to leave or whether there's still room to work on something. I remember learning during my time as a monk about the three cancers of the mind. And we were taught that they were complaining, comparing and criticizing. And I found that these three are very true in a relationship. we feel like leaving a relationship when there's a lot of complaining comparing and criticizing complaining is like you never do this you always do that you're never around you're always late and often we complain to people who are not even our partners right you've got friends over for dinner and they say oh yeah what time does Jeff usually get home oh we don't talk about that in this house.

21:32We don't talk about that in this house. It's complaining. It's almost passive aggressive. And what that does is it chips away. Complaining chips away. Venting to each other is fine. And the question I want to ask you is, can you grow from complaining to communicating? So instead of using passive aggressive statements to tell your partner how you feel, could you take a moment and say I feel that when you come home late it makes me feel this way but I wanted to understand why you choose to come home late or what's your reasoning for coming home late what's your reasoning for working hard recognizing that maybe that's their identity maybe that's conditioning they have often when we feel we're healed we think we can see other people's conditioning, but we can't see the way we feel is our conditioning.

22:27So I often ask couples, can you move from complaining to communicating? If we continue to complain, we just keep pushing each other further and further away, right? When you see the dishes aren't done, you don't say to them, hey, can you get the dishes done today? Because you've said that too many times. It now becomes you wait a week and then you go, well, the dishes are always left there. It's complaining. how do we communicate how do we set systems because sometimes we've over communicated but we haven't created systems of how things run in the household we haven't created commitments to overcome complaining another big one for when it's time to move on is comparing I think a lot of people live through this but it's really hard to stomach oh did you know so and so drops his kids to school every morning oh did you know oh have you seen what she's been doing building her business?

23:23Oh my gosh. Oh my God. Have you seen what he's done? Oh, look at him. He was on the front cover of that magazine or whatever it is, right? Oh, did you see what she's been up to? Oh my gosh. Like, yeah, she just got a promotion. Comparing. Comparing is so painful and creates so much emotional distance because here's what you've done with comparing. When you compare your partner to someone else, you've not only made them emotionally distant from you, you've made them feel emotionally distant from the person you compared them with. They now start to dislike that person. So you've now created an emotional distance from them there.

24:06And of course, when you're comparing them, they're now feeling distant from you. And the question is, can you collaborate? Is there still room to collaborate? Can you say to your partner, hey, you know what, I know that this is your goal. Can I help you with it? Hey, you know, this is something I'm struggling with. Can you help me with it? Hey, can we collaborate? Because when we're comparing, what we're saying is someone else is collaborating better. Can we use language that motivates, inspires, and encourages our partners rather than degrades, makes them feel downtrodden, makes them feel disrespected.

24:43So much of our language with our partners is demanding, degrading, and disrespectful. How is someone going to change if you're being demanding, disrespectful, or degrading? I don't understand which human psychology that works in. So instead of comparing, comparing is the lowest form of disrespect. It makes someone else feel small, makes someone else you know feel big, which makes them feel you like that person. Whether you like them sexually or intimately, it makes them feel like you find someone else attractive. Comparing if it's ongoing, repetitive, and especially if it gets very disrespectful, is a reason for people to leave.

25:27Now, criticizing. Criticizing is something that has many different levels. There's banter, and then there's real criticism. And there's criticism that you believe. And I would encourage you all to ask, is there room to celebrate your partner? Is there something worth celebrating in them? Now, I'm not saying any of this is to make you overcome or ignore toxic behavior by a partner. If you're experiencing a toxic behavior pattern, if you're experiencing a repetitive pattern, this isn't about you thinking you can solve it or making better. It's asking you the question, is there room for celebration or has the criticism gone too far?

26:06It's time to leave when you don't respect their values and they don't respect yours. What that means is if you want them to change, if you're thinking, if they change, I can stay with them. If you're thinking, if they don't change, then I can't be with them, then it's time to leave because chances are they are that person. Now, of course they change. People grow and change all the time. But if you're asking for a big change, like they're not ambitious, you want them to be driven. They're super organized and career driven, and you want them to be laid back. Often we want our partners to be the exact opposites of who they are.

26:45If you want your partner to be the exact opposite of who they are, ask yourself, could you be the exact opposite of who you are? Could you change 180? Your behaviors, your patterns, your actions, your values, your goals, could you change them? If you're career driven, could you completely let go of them? If you're laid back, could you get really focused and driven? We want to be with people that respect our values and we need to be people who respect their values. Now I want to give you one last tool that I think will be really helpful. Often in our relationships, what we do is we like to keep score.

27:28I clean the dishes last three nights in a row. I took the trash out every time for the last month. I dropped the kids to school every single day. Right. We keep this score. And the interesting thing is our score is based on our scorecard. So if your scorecard is money, I pay all the bills, then that's the scorecard you use. Now, if your partner's scorecard is family, which I consider to be more emotional, then they're measuring it on that scorecard. And if you've really got to a point, I don't like keeping score, but sometimes this activity has been really helpful for people I've tested it with, expand your scorecard.

28:13The scorecard is now not only financial, it's physical, mental, financial, emotional, spiritual. Ask yourself in your relationship, who is leading the way in different parts of the relationship? Physically, who takes care of the home? Physically, who takes care of the groceries? Physically, who takes care of the kids and the family? Physically, who is doing that physical work? Give them one point. Now mental, who is mentally supporting the relationship? Who helps you push through tough times? Who stays in a positive attitude? Who's the person who stays resilient? Now financial, who's taking care of the bills?

29:02Now emotional, who's always emotionally available? Who's always there? Who always picks up the phone? who always checks in and spiritual who's guiding you spiritually who's helping you with your faith who's helping you with the practices and habits that make you feel better now if you're looking at all five of these scorecards and you're doing four out of the five fair enough chances are you'll find most relationships are more equally divided and maybe there's a three over two, but what we don't recognize is it's hard to weigh these equally. But I can honestly say that my wife emotionally manages the relationship.