Letting Go of an Unsatisfying Intimate Relationship: Why Many Don’t Have the Courage for & why it is Healthy and Important

At times, letting go is very healthy. Yet there are many who don’t have the courage to let go, and they resort to various reasons and justifications to explain – to themselves and to others – why they stay stuck in a bad relationship. While staying they might be “obsessed” about their partner, constantly lingering what to do, whether to stay or leave, what to expect, how to improve the relationship – if at all possible, trying to figure out what they have done wrong, feeling shame, pain and frustration.

Why many don’t let go of a bad relationship?

The reasons are many, and might intermingle with one another:

* The need for security drives many to stay where they are. To not dare making a change. The feel safe in “the known and familiar”, even if the “known and familiar” isn’t satisfying any more.

* The fear of being alone drives many to stay in an unsatisfying relationship.

* A feeling of shame, which drives them to think “I haven’t succeeded once again?” They have difficulties admitting it – to themselves as well as to others.

* Inability to make decisions. There are those who find it difficult to decide, choose, and act. These are usually the ones who never initiate a relationship but rather tend to jump in with whoever asks to date them. They are also the ones who find it difficult to decide on leaving a relationship, and they’ll wait until their partner leaves.

* Low self-esteem: Those who have a low self-esteem find it difficult to make decisions and initiate. They are often insecure about their own wishes and desires, and insecure about their ability to make the “right” decision. They often ask themselves “what – if” questions, preferring to stay in whichever situation and relationship they are.

* The belief that “letting go” indicates a weakness: Some operate under the belief that “you need to stick to whatever there is and “work” on the issues.” And: “Letting go shows you are not strong enough, that you better run away from a difficult situation rather than stay”.

* The self-conviction that “we still have some good moments together” . They deny the real situation and hang-on to whatever is being left from “the good old days”.

* The belief that “you must make compromises in life” : such a belief is another defence-mechanism some use to convince themselves why it is better to stay than leave an unsatisfying relationship. Since no relationship is perfect, they tell themselves, and you can’t always have everything that you want, you need to compromise with whatever you have.

At times such justifications intermingle with one another and might be correct. Yet, it often happens that those using such “logic” and “rationale” mask their inability to let go. Letting go, they think, is painful, difficult, leading into a grieving process they don’t want to encounter.

Letting go is strength, not weakness

The problem is that those who hang-on to an unsatisfying relationship only because they don’t have the courage (or wisdom) to let go, shoot themselves in the foot. Deep inside they keep struggling, arguing with themselves (and their partners), feeling frustrated, disillusioned, even lonely within the relationship.

At the end of the day they will, eventually, separate from their partner, often due to their partner’s initiation.

Getting up the courage to let go is strength, not weakness. Those who know when and how to do so suffer less in the long run and empower themselves to more quickly find and develop a better relationship.