7 Signs It’s Time To Break Up

Photo by Elia Pellegrini on Unsplash

None of us enter a relationship hoping it won’t work out; we intend to know this person, to love them, to do life with them. But sometimes, despite our best intentions and efforts, the relationship just isn’t working out, and we start to wonder: is there anything else we can do, or is it time to end things?

Breaking up isn’t ever the conclusion we hope to come to, but sometimes it’s necessary. Below, find 7 signs that it may be time to break things off.

01 | It feels like you’re always fighting.

Even the best of relationships will go through its rough patches and stormy seasons, where it feels like so much of what we’re doing is quarreling rather than anything else. Normally, not for lack of effort, things will even out and get back to normal.

But we also shouldn’t feel as though all we do is fight. If we’ve been getting into spats with our significant other and not much more beyond that despite our efforts, it might be a sign that we’ve lost one of the most important ingredients in a relationship: affection. If fighting has become a more common occurrence than anything else, it may be time to reconsider the relationship’s health, and if it can go on.

02 | You can’t trust them.

One of the most important, necessary aspects of a relationship is mutual trust — to be able to trust our significant other means we’re able to see a future with them, and feel able to share our inner world with them freely, as well as have faith in them and their actions.

If trusting our significant other has become a persisting issue, this means we’re attempting to move forward with a relationship that’s missing its foundation — and before long, it will collapse. If we’re not able to trust our significant other due to something of their doing, being in a healthy relationship with them will be impossible.

03 | You’ve broken up & gotten back together multiple times.

Sometimes, even when a relationship is “right”, we need some time apart, for whatever reason — we might be needing space to reevaluate the relationship’s direction, or to think about what we want out of life, or even just to work on ourselves. Breaking up once and getting back together isn’t at all a death sentence.

Where it could be an issue is if it becomes a pattern in our relationship: we end things, only to reconcile a few months later, only to part ways again another few months later, just to repeat the whole process again. If this has become the norm for the relationship, it’s just showing us its instability over and over again, so it’s safe to say we haven’t found the one.

04 | You’re the only one making sacrifices.

No relationship, even good ones, should require zero sacrifice on either end; being in love with someone and caring about their best often means giving up what would’ve been “easier” for us, or even just preferable in favor of loving our person more fully. Sacrifices are an expected part of every relationship.

But sacrifices also only work when both parties are willing to make them — if we find that the sacrifice game is one that only we are expected to play, it may be time to reevaluate our relationship.

05 | Your values don’t align anymore.

Our values directly affect the way we live out our lives and what we believe about the world around us. There’s no working around them or ignoring them in the context of a romantic relationship, especially if we’re looking to have a family one day.

If we find that our values simply don’t align with our significant other’s anymore, there are few clearer signs that the long run of the relationship will only prove to be frustrating, painful, and unsuccessful. If our partner’s values don’t line us with ours, we’ll have a hard time respecting their decisions and opinions, and vice versa.

06 | You’ve grown apart.

Sometimes a relationship begins to feel off-kilter and distant, like there’s just less to talk about, less we’re excited about, and we find ourselves wishing we enjoyed our time with our significant other more than we do.

The end of a relationship doesn’t have to be dramatic and heartbreaking; there are times when two people simply grow in different directions, and keeping the relationship afloat becomes more of a challenge as both people are forced to revert to a prior version of themselves in order to connect the way they once did. If the distance between us and our significant other has been growing, it’s time to think about whether or not the relationship can or should be.

07 | There’s been abuse.

We wish it weren’t a reality, but abuse, whether physical, financial, sexual, or verbal/emotional, within romantic relationships is a boat far too many have found themselves in. But even when clear-cut abuse has occurred and continues to occur, many find it difficult to leave.

Even so, there’s no clearer sign that the relationship isn’t healthy in the least bit and can’t go on. A significant other that’s repeatedly subjected us to abuse isn’t able to be in any kind of committed relationship — and we can’t take it upon ourselves to change that for them, but instead, need to put ourselves and our safety first.