Every partnership experiences its share of highs and lows. Nobody’s bond is 100 percent perfect all the time; a little dash of conflict or occasional boredom is totally normal and expected. However, it’s genuinely hard to pinpoint the exact threshold for how much you should tolerate before deciding it’s time to leave. This line between normal struggle and fundamental unhappiness is often blurred by hope. The motivations behind why individuals stay in unsatisfying relationships are diverse and deeply personal. You may simply feel a sense of comfort and security with your partner and the existing routine, prioritizing predictability over genuine happiness. This comfort zone becomes a familiar cage that feels safer than the chaos of the unknown. People often fear the process of rebuilding their lives from scratch. Or maybe there’s an external commitment tying you two together, such as shared children, a mortgage, or a joint rental agreement, that prevents you from acting purely based on your emotions. These practical obligations can impose a heavy, logical veto on your deepest feelings.
My ex and I were together for two and a half years, and within just a few months, subtle uncertainties began to surface about whether I truly wanted to be with him long-term. He did everything right—he was attentive, kind, and reliable—yet my heart just wasn’t fully invested. My feelings for him fluctuated throughout our entire relationship, creating an internal emotional whiplash. Sometimes I was all in, feeling the rush of connection, and other times I was simply present, going through the motions. We were together, and it was certainly pleasant enough, but looking back now, I seriously doubt if I was ever unwaveringly happy. The pleasantness was a comfortable distraction from the lack of true passion. He was, in many ways, my best friend, and I loved being in his company, but that felt different from being deeply in love. If I was truly happy in our relationship, I wouldn’t have been plagued by doubts so often, and I certainly wouldn’t have developed feelings for someone else, which became the ultimate turning point for me. That emotional shift was the undeniable proof that something essential was missing.
Relationships aren’t always as clear-cut and binary as we’d wish, full of defined rights and wrongs, but accepting that complexity is a part of life. I stayed with my ex because he was genuinely good to me, he meant a great deal to me, and we had accumulated countless wonderful memories together. The weight of those positive memories made the unhappiness easier to ignore. I delayed ending things because I genuinely didn’t want to hurt him, especially when there was no catastrophic flaw or betrayal to justify the breakup externally. How do you explain leaving a good person? I was reluctant to destroy the stability we had built, even if it was hollow. These complex feelings—protectiveness, comfort, and inertia—were my reasons for remaining, and they are a surprisingly common mix. Below are the insights and experiences of 11 different individuals from Reddit who shared their own justifications for staying.
Held Captive by a Deep Sense of Obligation
I’m still locked into an unhappy marriage—it’s been almost seven years married, and nine years together overall. The few times I’ve tried to voice my desire to leave, he spirals, insisting he absolutely can’t lose me and pledging that things will be completely different moving forward. These promises feel less like commitment and more like desperation, wearing down my resolve. While we currently have many good external things—two children, stable jobs with a great combined income, and a beautiful house—and share some surface-level common interests, it truly feels like our shared history is the only glue that remains. The primary force keeping me from walking out is a crippling sense of guilt. I honestly don’t have the desire or energy left to work on the marriage and would much prefer the simple peace of being alone. Every fiber of my being yearns for solitude and a fresh start, but the anticipation of his reaction paralyzes me. I just feel like every attempt to finally leave will be met with such desperate pleading to stay, and I know I will relent again out of guilt, perceiving it as the easier path in the moment.
The Slippery Slope of Commitment
I suspected something was fundamentally wrong within the very first month, but I rationalized that if I could just be patient and actively work at things, the relationship would inevitably improve. This initial doubt, left unchecked, became the seed of my misery. Then we took the step of moving in together, locking in a physical commitment, and soon after we got married. The final, irrevocable step was having a child. Each commitment was a successive weight, a new layer of cement, getting me deeper and deeper into an unsustainable situation. Last year, the cumulative pressure finally reached a breaking point, and I finally forced myself to leave him. It was an absolutely awful experience—the most difficult thing I have ever done. He is not a malicious person, but I was profoundly unhappy, and I realized I was equally unable to make him happy. I started to genuinely dislike myself within the context of that relationship, recognizing that we both deserved far better. I simply refused to live out a lifetime trapped in that same pattern of quiet despair.
A Case of Mistaken Identity: Friendship vs. Romance
Approximately a year into our relationship, the painful truth hit me: there was simply no romantic attraction remaining. Intimacy with him became a true chore. I would actively avoid it and postpone it for as long as I possibly could, leading to stretches where we went six months without any physical connection. The lack of desire was a screaming alarm bell I chose to mute. I stayed with him for so long because I had confused the deep love of a best friend for genuine romantic love. The comfort was misleading. I felt incredibly secure and comfortable. He treated me with kindness and respect and was constantly making me laugh, which felt like enough for a long time. He was such a fascinating person, and our emotional bond was incredibly close. The moment I realized it was truly time to break up was when I found myself constantly fantasizing about my life with other guys—not just casual thoughts, but detailed daydreams. It was unimaginably hard to end things because it meant losing my best friend, but my primary fear was hurting him. I knew I had to end it because continuing would be deeply unfair to both him and myself, keeping him tied to someone who was mentally already gone.
The Burden of Shared Family
We absolutely should have initiated the divorce proceedings the very first time we separated. Instead, we decided to work on our issues, reconciled, and had our second child, a decision made under pressure and misguided hope. Following that, we both tried really hard—exhaustingly, desperately hard—to make the marriage function. We went through counseling, read self-help books, and tried every suggested activity, but the effort was ultimately futile. By the end, our cores were simply too incompatible. The misery we felt was obvious and radiating outward to our kids, and I simply couldn’t stand to subject my children to that kind of toxic emotional atmosphere any longer. Seeing their anxiety and confusion became the final motivation. I made the choice that a single-parent home filled with peace was infinitely better than a two-parent home constantly filled with tension. The commitment to their well-being ultimately overruled the commitment to the marriage itself.
An Unwillingness to Be Labeled a Quitter
I think our marriage was thoroughly broken—shattered, in fact—for probably three full years before I could even bring myself to think the word “divorce,” and it took me another two agonizing years to finally find the strength to say, “I want a divorce,” and physically walk out the door. The primary anchor was my internal fear of being a quitter. I felt that leaving meant I had failed at the most important commitment in life. I clung to the idea that true love meant fighting through everything, even when nothing was left to fight for. This pride was incredibly destructive. But eventually, I simply lost all hope, accepting that the reality of our future was another 40 years of the current, painful standstill. I finally realized that I wanted and absolutely deserved better than another four decades of just grinding it out in silent unhappiness. The realization that survival and quitting are two different things finally freed me.
Delaying the Inevitable Pain
When I returned from university, he helped me secure a job where he worked (which, in retrospect, was a terrible idea!) and things rapidly started becoming more serious. It became obvious very quickly that he was far more emotionally invested than I was, and I absolutely should have applied the brakes then and there. But I hesitated, allowing the momentum to carry us forward. I waited until after we had moved in together and got engaged to finally realize that he was an overbearing, pathologically clingy, and paranoid person. His behavior became increasingly controlling. It wasn’t until he really stepped over the mark—he logged into my Facebook and told all my male friends that I wanted nothing to do with them—that the fog cleared. I finally recognized that the only reason I was staying with him was purely because I felt sorry for him and couldn’t bear the thought of crushing his feelings.
We had been together for a year and a half, but I became certain it was failing around December, yet I didn’t break it off until late May. The months of delay were torturous. I think I didn’t leave simply because… it wasn’t actively that bad. He was a decent enough guy, I sort of enjoyed his company, and the thought of causing him distress was unbearable. The complacency was a powerful sedative. I guess it was a mix of a comfortable inertia and a sincere desire not to inflict pain on someone I cared about, even if I no longer loved him romantically.
Riding the Wave of Complacency and Habit
If I had to make an estimate, I would say the first three years were fantastic, with a clear abundance of highs over lows. After that initial period, the emotional temperature started to shift to less intense extremes, becoming a more level and neutral experience. We stopped creating new memories and started living off the memory of old ones. The last year or two, the relationship just was, and we slowly but surely began drifting apart like separate continents. We were simply going through the motions. I had internally accepted that we would likely marry and would endlessly rationalize how great things were because there was no overt reason to complain or seek a change. She was a truly great person, and we had built a stable life together, but stability isn’t passion. It wasn’t until the point where she felt herself becoming attracted to other guys that she called for a break. That external reality check finally forced my hand. I realized that if I didn’t decisively end it then, the agonizing process would just drag out further, so I chose to end the relationship cleanly and quickly.
We were together for a total of nearly eight years, and the first four or five were truly excellent. But eventually, we just became too familiar with one another, and sadly, we lost all genuine respect for each other’s needs and opinions. We still reflexively said “I love you,” but the spark was completely extinguished; it was more out of ingrained habit than out of actual love or esteem. Neither of us wanted to be the one to admit it was a sinking ship, let alone be the first person to jump off and face the fallout. The fear of failure kept us trapped. It wasn’t until we spent more time dreading being around one another than we did enjoying the other’s company that we finally realized that it just… wasn’t working. The negative outweighed the neutral.
Exhausted from Being Kept a Secret
Initially, I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what the core problem was, so I rationalized that I must be fine where I was, telling myself I was overreacting. But a deep, pervasive boredom was setting in. I was bored watching him play video games when I came to visit, feeling like a side-character in his life. I was bored constantly discussing only his interests while mine were dismissed or ignored. I was bored hanging out by myself because he seemingly had more pressing things to do, making me feel like an afterthought. Crucially, he wouldn’t introduce me to his family (I am white, he was Pakistani) and only introduced me to his other white friends (in case his brown friends told his parents he was dating a white girl). The constant need to hide our relationship felt suffocating and disrespectful. I simply wasn’t willing to continue being an accessory that had to be kept tucked away; how could we possibly have a future that way? I realized the only thing we consistently did that felt good was the physical connection; otherwise, we had very little in common to sustain a meaningful partnership.
A Persistent Warning in the Subconscious
I first became deeply concerned about my relationship about four months into it, then again a couple of months later, and pretty much every few months after that for the next four years. The issue was always something different—a new argument, a different insecurity—but there was just always a persistent, nagging feeling in the back of my mind that we were fundamentally not meant to end up together. It was a kind of emotional premonition I couldn’t shake. Towards the end, I developed a huge crush on this other guy and was getting butterflies and that intoxicating youthful excitement just being around him; it was a feeling that had been dormant for years. That intense realization made it terrifyingly clear that I desperately needed to end it and move on. If I could feel such a powerful, visceral connection to someone else, then I absolutely shouldn’t be with my long-term boyfriend. So, I took the difficult but necessary step, and we broke up.
Even though staying in an unhappy relationship may feel like you are doing the right thing, perhaps protecting your partner or the stability of your life, it can ultimately cause you and your partner more harm than good. By staying, you are trapped in something you don’t necessarily want, and they are living under a false assumption that everything is “sunshine and rainbows” when it clearly isn’t, and that fundamental dishonesty isn’t fair to either of you. It’s a disservice to both parties to perpetuate a lie. There is a far better partner out there who may be a perfect fit for you, and a perfect partner out there for your current partner—someone with whom neither of you will ever have to fundamentally question your happiness. Stepping away, though painful, opens the door to that mutual, authentic joy. You will both eventually find them.
