You find yourself wondering what happened to the once picture-perfect relationship you had and why despite trying everything imaginable, the two of you can’t seem to get that loving feeling back. You and your partner have started to live more separate lives and those cute little yellow sticky love notes they used to leave you on the bathroom counter or on your car windshield seem like a distant memory. You start to realize you’re settling and kidding yourself that there is any hope of a future

You stay because you fear you won’t find someone else. Time for a reality check. Think of all the people you know who have been through a necessary break-up. Okay, now out of those people, tally how many of them have NEVER went on to meet someone else. Exactly! And out of all those people who found someone new, ask them if they’re actually thankful in retrospect that the relationship ended. My bet is most, if not all of them would answer with a big “hell yes!”

You stay because you have spent time with your partner and invested precious emotional energy. You have shared memories and some of them are darn good ones too. Your heart wants to keep you in the game and you don’t want to feel like a failure. After all you’ve invested a fair amount of time in the relationship. But as the old saying goes “it’s not wise to keep throwing good money after bad money” hoping for a return on your diminishing investment.

You stay because you want to delay the inevitable pain of the break-up. When you settle, you not only cheat yourself out of the potential rewarding opportunities that await you. You betray yourself since your mind and heart are not in alignment. As a result, your self-worth starts to plunge because you end up feeling weak for not having the courage to listen to your inner wisdom and put an end your despair. Life is too short to play it safe and settle for a life less than the one you dreamed of.