.
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Not a day goes by that someone doesn’t ask me this question in one form or another.
Why? Because few things in life involve more gut-wrenching second-guessing than deciding when to quit a relationship.
With heightened emotions and conflicting intuitions, it’s no wonder this situation gives our hearts and minds disorienting whiplash . . . all while wasting our most precious resource: time.
Today’s new video could end up saving you months or even years of pain by providing you with the questions you should be asking when making this big decision.
Transcript provided by YouTube:
00:00
i was uh training the other day and the
00:02
person i was training with said to me
00:04
you know matt why is it that
00:07
people
00:08
tend to
00:09
hold on to relationships longer than
00:11
they should
00:13
and
00:14
why
00:15
so often to those people when they leave
00:17
a relationship
00:19
immediately
00:20
jump into another one like there’s this
00:23
uncanny ability to
00:26
find someone
00:27
weeks within weeks of your breakup
00:30
and then jump straight into another
00:33
relationship what are you how do you see
00:35
this
00:36
there i think i’ve heard it called
00:38
before a long time ago monkey branching
00:41
where where you don’t want to let go of
00:43
well i suppose that’s the the idea of
00:45
not letting go of the existing branch
00:47
until you have another one lined up so i
00:49
suppose monkey branching might be
00:52
a little more referential of the idea of
00:55
literally teeing someone else up before
00:58
you
00:59
leave but there’s a similar concept
01:01
going on there what do you think’s
01:02
happening
01:04
with the people who just jump into one
01:05
in relationship from another let’s start
01:07
with why why do you think someone won’t
01:09
let go of a relationship
01:11
i think the won’t letting go one is
01:13
more common in a way because i think we
01:15
as human beings struggle to let go of
01:18
things when we should there’s a famous
01:21
psychological bias called the sunk cost
01:23
fallacy or the uh what is it loss
01:26
aversion effect right it’s uh endowment
01:29
effect they call it where the things we
01:31
have are hard to let go of even when
01:34
they’re bad for us that could be a job
01:35
you should quit it can be a relationship
01:38
it can be possessions
01:40
it’s we instinctively
01:42
feel the pain of the thing we have if we
01:45
lose it
01:46
oh no maybe that thing was essential to
01:48
my survival maybe that was a terrible
01:50
decision and i can’t get it back and
01:53
you know when you’re in a relationship i
01:55
think a comedian made this joke once
01:56
like
01:58
no one leaves a relationship at the
01:59
moment the relationship is actually goes
02:02
terrible everyone waits another six
02:05
months at least
02:06
until they finally
02:08
pack it in and um well let’s just let’s
02:11
just pause on that for a moment because
02:13
i suppose the counter argument to that
02:16
would be
02:17
if i left the moment things were bad
02:22
then
02:23
i’m
02:24
the kind of person that
02:26
doesn’t try to get through difficult
02:27
times in a relationship
02:29
you know
02:30
if every if every relationship is going
02:32
to go through difficult times
02:34
and i leave as soon as it’s bad
02:38
then
02:38
i’m i’m a runner i’m a quitter so then
02:41
it brings up the question
02:43
how long should it be bad for before you
02:47
leave hey
02:48
here i am matthew interrupting my own
02:51
video it’s better than it’s better than
02:53
an advertisement for dove
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instead i’ve got something that could
02:56
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02:58
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03:00
it’s a virtual retreat it’s a three
03:02
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03:05
that i take people through personally
03:07
live wherever you are in the world you
03:09
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03:11
home but it’s a program that i’ve been
03:13
running for over 15 years now and it’s
03:16
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03:18
relationship with your emotions your
03:20
confidence your self-love and your
03:23
direction in life to find out more just
03:26
go to mhvirtualretreat.com
03:30
and now back to me well that’s it right
03:33
i think it’s more that people don’t
03:35
leave when they realize there’s no
03:37
repair for this relationship when people
03:40
have even accepted or they think i don’t
03:42
think this thing is going to change or
03:44
this has gone on too long
03:46
they we still drag it out a bit longer
03:49
um what’s too long though
03:52
well because we might think there’s no
03:53
way to actually be happy in this
03:55
relationship or there’s no way to get my
03:57
needs met
03:58
and we still kind of dither on making
04:01
the painful choice
04:03
sometimes that’s just because we know
04:05
that’s going to go horribly
04:06
as a and the conversation is going to be
04:08
horrible sometimes it’s because we
04:11
secretly
04:12
are just scared that we’re making a bad
04:16
decision or we’re we’re frightened of
04:19
how we will
04:20
now figure out our lives and identity
04:23
without this person because there’s
04:24
there’s a whole rebuilding that goes on
04:26
and it’s like it’s like preparing for
04:29
you know it’s like preparing for a big
04:31
dive or something you gotta like i gotta
04:33
strap my oxygen tank on i gotta be ready
04:35
i gotta be prepped and trained because
04:37
once i go down there i’m i’m not gonna
04:40
come back up for a while so i got to be
04:41
ready
04:42
or you might be telling yourself they’re
04:43
going to change or the situation is
04:45
going to change and i think a big
04:48
question on a lot of people’s minds is
04:51
am i being crazy for thinking this is
04:53
going to change
04:55
and at what point do i give up on the
04:57
idea that that this is gonna change
05:00
you know when is the right time to
05:01
decide this is not gonna change or when
05:03
is the right time to decide to throw in
05:05
the towel on a relationship that you’re
05:07
trying to
05:09
fix it’s hard it’s a hard decision um
05:14
i have to say more often i see people
05:16
though
05:18
who struggle because they can’t leave
05:20
rather than people leaving too early
05:23
more common is people staying too long
05:25
than leaving but if you think about it
05:27
when people stay too long a part of that
05:30
is because of the justification
05:32
they’re doing in their mind where
05:34
they’re saying
05:35
they’re continuing to convince
05:37
themselves that this might change
05:40
there’s a you know they’re
05:42
they’re looking at it as it’s as if it’s
05:44
still a question mark
05:47
and i’m fascinated by that because
05:50
it’s
05:52
whether it’s with partners
05:55
or with family members
05:57
or friends
05:59
there are always going to be
06:03
things that we
06:04
really don’t like or wish were different
06:08
or
06:09
you know
06:12
that create arguments that create
06:13
friction
06:16
and
06:19
we have to almost start from the place
06:22
of saying our relationship with a person
06:25
is the relationship we have today not
06:27
the relationship we have in the future
06:31
and there’s a series of questions we
06:33
have to
06:34
kind of ask ourselves which is
06:37
is it bearable as it is today
06:41
if the answer is no something has to
06:43
change immediately
06:46
if it’s livable unbearable but it’s not
06:49
it’s not meeting my needs in the way
06:51
that i would need it to long term
06:54
then the question becomes
06:57
is this about to change
07:00
is this something that can change
07:02
and is going to change anytime soon
07:07
and that’s the part where p most people
07:09
are not honest with themselves
07:13
right i had a
07:14
really interesting situation where
07:19
someone said to me
07:21
they were they were talking about how
07:24
their ex
07:26
they felt like their ex was right for
07:27
them but they’d just broken up the week
07:30
before
07:31
and
07:32
and i was saying to this person i see no
07:35
reason why he’s gonna change
07:38
like what what indication has he given
07:40
you that he’s gonna
07:42
change and my friend said well
07:45
well i just
07:47
you know
07:48
we we argue about this stuff i said but
07:50
has he actually has he actually
07:52
acknowledged these things
07:55
that
07:56
you have a problem with has he
07:57
acknowledged them and showed a genuine
07:59
commitment to changing them
08:02
and she said well
08:04
he
08:05
no he but you know like he he he’s so
08:08
many of the things that i want and so on
08:10
i said okay so firstly there’s no
08:12
there’s not even evidence from his side
08:15
that he wants to change
08:17
or is willing to or is making a plan to
08:19
change is committed to change
08:22
and change is really really hard right
08:24
there’s that jacob and broad quote
08:25
consider how hard it is to change
08:26
yourself and you realize how foolish it
08:28
is to think you can change
08:30
other people
08:31
it’s hard to change ourselves so
08:33
expecting that somebody else is going to
08:35
change especially when they’re not even
08:37
motivated to especially when they’re not
08:39
even committed to that change is is
08:42
fallacy
08:44
and
08:45
and then i said look this person’s not
08:47
showing any signs they want to change
08:49
and even right now
08:51
in the breakup
08:54
he’s not rushing back to you saying oh
08:56
my god i want to change this i want to
08:57
change that and let’s try this again
09:00
and by the way in that case you’d still
09:02
have reason to be suspicious
09:05
because you haven’t seen the change yet
09:07
it’s not proven this might just be a
09:09
panic
09:11
because he thinks he’s losing you and
09:12
he’s now saying all the right things to
09:14
get you back now you might give him
09:15
another chance but
09:17
it doesn’t mean that he’s actually going
09:19
to change it just means you’re giving
09:21
him another chance
09:23
that you feel like okay there’s a
09:24
certain level of certainty in his voice
09:27
there’s a certain level of
09:29
of commitment in the plan that he’s
09:31
given me
09:32
about how he’s going to change or what
09:34
how you know how he’s going to address
09:35
these things in the relationship
09:37
there’s enough there for me to say i’ll
09:39
give this a shot
09:41
and then i’m going to watch carefully to
09:42
see if that’s backed up by real action
09:45
and real change
09:47
but
09:48
he’s not doing that and it was so funny
09:50
because she said to me
09:53
so matt like in us in situations in your
09:55
past
09:56
where
09:58
you know
09:58
there’s someone you really wanted to be
10:00
with but you broke up if they came
10:02
running back to you and saying
10:05
like i really want i really want this
10:08
you wouldn’t be back with them
10:10
and what here’s what here’s what’s
10:12
really telling i said to her
10:15
but he’s not even doing that
10:18
you’re literally giving me a
10:19
hypothetical right now as a way to con
10:22
yourself
10:24
into going back to this person
10:27
by
10:28
you for the hypothetical you’ve had to
10:30
say this person is rushing back to you
10:32
wanting you back
10:34
he’s not even doing that
10:37
and you’re coming up with this
10:38
hypothetical
10:39
so
10:40
it’s it’s indicative
10:43
of how people con themselves how people
10:46
create a reality in their mind
10:49
that’s not actually happening in
10:50
happening in real life as a way to
10:53
justify
10:54
giving someone
10:56
more time and energy
10:58
right yeah i spoke to someone recently
11:00
who was doing a similar thing and
11:02
talking about a guy who clearly had no
11:04
intentions of changing at all and and
11:06
she was saying like well what should i
11:08
say to him then to
11:10
you know
11:11
get us back together and you know we
11:14
talked it through and it was clear like
11:16
she was doing all the
11:18
work here and this guy had shown no
11:20
intention that he even thought these
11:22
behaviors were a problem but it was her
11:24
saying well i said these were a problem
11:25
so what do we do you know what do i do
11:27
now to
11:29
keep him i want people to consider
11:31
especially anyone who’s been through
11:34
therapy
11:35
or
11:36
intensive coaching
11:38
or has been on our retreat program
11:42
i want
11:44
anyone
11:45
to consider when you’ve been through a
11:47
process like that
11:49
just how much it took on your part
11:54
to actually change even though you’d
11:56
committed to a process
11:59
even though you’d paid money down for a
12:00
process
12:02
that it was still it’s required you to
12:05
really show up
12:08
and give your all to that process in
12:09
order for it to work
12:12
so
12:14
then you imagine the mountain
12:17
that you have to climb
12:19
for someone to who you’re with
12:22
to not be showing that they that they
12:25
firstly they even have a deep awareness
12:27
of what’s going
12:28
wrong of
12:30
what’s bothering you a true
12:32
understanding and then
12:35
not saying i’m sorry and i want to
12:38
change and here’s what i’m going to do
12:41
to change and then following that plan
12:45
if you’re in the stage of just arguing
12:47
with someone about something that’s
12:48
wrong
12:49
and none of those things have happened
12:51
yet all your work is ahead of you in
12:54
fact all the work is ahead of you if
12:57
someone says that they would like to
12:59
change and are willing to do what it
13:00
takes
13:01
still the work is ahead of you if
13:03
someone isn’t even doing that it’s
13:06
science fiction the idea that they’re
13:08
going to change
13:09
it’s a that is a made-up story
13:12
so that you can continue to hold on to
13:15
something that is terrifying to lose for
13:18
whatever reason whether you’re afraid of
13:19
being alone whether you’ve convinced
13:21
yourself you’ll never find anybody else
13:23
or more specifically you’ve convinced
13:25
yourself you’ll never find anybody else
13:26
with these qualities
13:29
or you feel like you can’t handle the
13:32
pain
13:33
of losing this person
13:35
and that’s one thing we do right we
13:37
think the qualities are amazing and
13:40
that’s the real truth is people think
13:42
there’s there’s enough good things in
13:44
this person
13:45
and then they try and sell themselves on
13:49
the
13:49
toxic behavior or the behavior that they
13:51
know they hate
13:53
they try and keep reselling themselves
13:55
or maybe that’s all right maybe
13:57
maybe i’m being too much or maybe that’s
14:00
it’s okay because they think
14:02
they’re smart they have this i’m
14:04
attracted to them i
14:06
have a good relationship with their
14:07
friends and
14:08
you know it adds up and it’s like oh
14:10
this is too painful to walk away with
14:12
maybe i can just live with this
14:14
uh really
14:16
bad thing that doesn’t meet my needs see
14:19
i’m
14:21
i have come to believe that
14:26
we
14:28
our emotions get very heavily involved
14:30
in the people close to us whether it’s
14:33
the person we’re dating or in love with
14:36
whether it’s our
14:38
siblings our parents
14:41
our best friend
14:44
even our boss
14:47
we
14:49
and even sometimes the people we employ
14:54
there are things that
14:56
that we may deeply want to change
15:00
and and may even get to the point of
15:01
saying i i need to change this or i
15:03
can’t have a relationship with this
15:05
person
15:07
but
15:10
there gets to be a point in life
15:13
where we’ve communicated calmly and in a
15:16
neutral way
15:19
what it is we would like to change about
15:21
the dynamic
15:22
where we have given
15:24
many opportunities for that change to
15:26
happen and space for that change to
15:28
happen
15:30
and
15:31
where we’re we have it confirmed over
15:34
and over and over again that this change
15:36
just appears to be too big of a shift
15:38
for this person
15:40
either the shift never happens at all or
15:43
it it’s never sustainable it’s
15:45
a five-minute shift
15:47
and then they always end up snapping
15:48
back into their default position
15:52
and behavior
15:54
and when that happens
15:57
we have hard decisions to make
16:00
we can either say
16:03
i have to remove this person from
16:06
my life or from
16:08
the level of proximity
16:11
to me at the very least that is making
16:13
me this unhappy you know maybe they
16:16
can’t be in my inner circle maybe they
16:17
can stay in me out my outer circle and i
16:20
can choose to have them as someone who’s
16:22
in my life but who i don’t rely on or
16:24
who i don’t have such an intimate
16:25
connection with
16:27
but they can’t stay where they are now
16:30
or
16:32
you can say
16:34
i am going to make peace with this part
16:36
of this person
16:38
because
16:41
i am continuing to complain about
16:43
something
16:44
that i knew about i have known about for
16:47
quite some time
16:49
and is not changing
16:52
and i’m still here
16:54
which means
16:56
the
16:57
the kind of
17:00
the the
17:02
the point of the problem has shifted
17:05
over from them to me
17:08
there’s always a tr there’s a truth of
17:10
any relationship there’s a point at
17:12
which
17:13
the source of the problem actually shut
17:16
it
17:16
jumps it transfers
17:19
from that person to us
17:22
because
17:23
that person is who they’ve been yeah
17:26
that should no longer surprise us
17:29
they are who they’ve been
17:32
we’re now the person who’s continuing to
17:34
complain about old information
17:38
and we have to then look at ourselves
17:41
and say
17:42
what’s what’s going on with me
17:46
that i either can’t leave this person
17:50
and
17:52
can’t seem to shift my or
17:54
can’t stay with this person and shift my
17:57
expectation of them
18:00
if we stay with someone who won’t change
18:03
and we’re unwilling to shift our
18:05
expectation
18:07
then
18:07
we become the reason we’re complaining
18:10
which isn’t excusing their behavior
18:13
in fact it’s just
18:15
you know
18:16
they could be a they could be a terrible
18:19
person
18:21
but why is it we haven’t adjusted our
18:23
expectation
18:25
of this person what’s going on with us
18:28
that we’re unwilling to revise our image
18:32
of this person and of this relationship
18:35
that we have with them
18:37
why have we not lowered our expectation
18:40
why do we still have
18:42
speculative expectations
18:46
that are entirely speculative
18:49
because
18:50
they’ve
18:51
we’ve never we’ve never had those
18:53
expectations met in the past not
18:55
sustainably
18:56
so we still speculate on their
18:59
expect on the expectation of what they
19:01
can be
19:02
yeah yeah and that’s when we have to
19:04
look at our ourselves and say i’ve look
19:07
i’ve only got three options in life it’s
19:10
either that they change
19:13
to be more of what i need
19:15
or i leave
19:16
or i stay and i revise my
19:19
expectations
19:21
of this relationship in this person
19:24
people
19:26
stay unhappy
19:28
because they don’t leave
19:31
they don’t revise their expectations
19:35
and that person doesn’t change
19:39
so now they find themselves
19:41
lodged
19:43
in a state of unhappy
19:45
paralysis
19:48
that’s not designed to be a prescriptive
19:52
kind of rant to anybody
19:54
but more a way to look at
19:56
every or all of us should be analyzing
19:58
our relationships
20:00
and going where am i unhappy because
20:02
i’ve expected a change and continue to
20:05
expect to change that’s not forthcoming
20:08
but i’m not willing to leave
20:10
or distance myself and i’m not willing
20:12
to revise my expectations
20:14
of this relationship
20:16
that’s a recipe for going mad
20:18
yeah
20:19
so anyone listening right now who feels
20:20
like they’re going mad in a relationship
20:24
my guess is this will provide some light
20:27
some
20:28
some understanding of that situation
20:31
and email us by the way if this is you
20:33
and you you know maybe we can read a
20:35
couple of stories about this next time
20:37
and if you’ve had a an epiphany
20:39
listening to this
20:40
email us
20:41
at podcast matthewhussey.com
20:45
and tell us
20:46
tell us what the epiphany moment was for
20:48
you
20:49
in listening to this
20:51
by the way
20:52
we have
20:54
well there’s a couple of things to
20:55
mention firstly there’s a virtual
20:58
retreat our final virtual retreat of the
21:00
year coming up
21:02
and you can go and learn about that at
21:04
mhvirtualretreat.com
21:08
that’s mhvirtualretreat.com
21:12
we are filling up fast on this virtual
21:15
retreat steve that there we’ve had we
21:17
had yesterday we did a webinar
21:20
and we had
21:22
500 people apply for an appointment to
21:25
talk about the virtual retreat
21:27
wow
21:28
500 in a day
21:31
apply just to to speak on the phone
21:34
about the virtual retreat our team has
21:36
been well and truly log jammed
21:39
with appointments we don’t have 500
21:42
people to take take all those support
21:45
all those calls so no they’ll be on the
21:47
phones all day we’re a close-knit family
21:50
unit
21:51
so it’s uh we have our cousin billy who
21:54
speaks to people we have emma we have
21:56
charlotte
21:57
all beautiful kind people um but uh go
22:01
to mhvirtualretreat.com
22:03
and by the time this podcast comes out
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it should have that should have put a
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and this this podcast right now so you
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have a shot at going and getting an
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by reserving your one-on-one call with
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one of our retreat specialists these
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consultations are free but availability
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is limited get started now by clicking
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below
—
This post was previously published on YouTube.
***
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