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People supply strange rationales for staying together long after they've intellectually, emotionally and sometimes physically checked out of the relationship. Some people would rather be dumped than dump. A lot of writers on this subject say that men do this a lot. I know women who pull this one, too.
Don't.
If you know you want out of a relationship, get out of the relationship. If the other party wants to do something to make it work out, say no. You want out. Get out. Give them closure. They have earned it. You deserve it. If you wanted to make it work, you would feel that, not a desire to get out. If you can't tell the difference between these feelings, or you oscillate wildly, it is brutally unfair to subject another person to this state, much less someone you supposedly care about. Get out, get help. You can then try to get back together again if you decide that's what you want to do. Don't tell them that's what you are doing. Make it completely clear this relationship is over. Go through with the divorce. This may sound unpleasant, and indeed, it will be unpleasant, but if you do even a little research in how relationships are resuscitated after one party just wants out (or is oscillating wildly between wanting out and wanting to work on the relationship), I think you will decide this advice is at least not bad advice.
If you want to get out, but you don't want to want to get out (if you've never experienced this feeling before, take a moment to express your gratitude to whoever you think you owe it to), you may want to seek assistance in dealing with your desire to get out. Probably just squashing down on it internally isn't doing you much good or you wouldn't be reading this now. If you think the relationship needs work, but you have this unwanted desire to get out, you will probably sabotage everyone's efforts to improve the situation. Get help separately with your unwanted desire to get out. You may or may not choose to inform your partner of your feelings and of what you are doing to deal with them. You cannot require of your partner that they make you feel like you want to stay.
Other rationales for sticking with a relationship that one doesn't want to be in include the following:
Family court exists to help you deal with a lot of these, especially the kids, shared property and your desire to mooch. Shelters exist of the other person will be doing something psycho to you. The police can be called if you think they're going to do something psycho to themselves or shared property. If you want to delay a breakup by weeks or even months due to some huge event, that may be for the best. You should communicate something to your partner, however, and it should convey a substantial portion of the truth. Staying in a relationship decreases the likelihood of finding your next partner, for the most part. Chronic illness is often the result of an unhappy relationship; you may have to stick around forever, and they may never get well if you let this one keep you around. I'm sure you can think of something extra vicious to do that will make up for them not having fallen in love with you at the time you dumped them. See? Easy! Okay, not easy. You've got a million excuses for sticking around even though you want to leave. Try working through Too Good to Leave, Too Bad to Stay by Mira Kirshenbaum. If you get through the whole thing, and can't justify leaving to yourself, this is your cue to start working like mad to improve yourself as an individual, and to lobby your partner like crazy to improve the relationship. Something will probably give in relatively short order. Should the relationship survive, yippee. Should the relationship end because the process triggers someone's deal breakers, you'll be well through the rebound process and ready for a better relationship in short order.
You may have checked out of the relationship intellectually, emotionally or physically without ever experiencing a conscious desire to get out. Heck, you may not have experienced any desire to get out at all. If so, reading Kirshenbaum will probably convince you to stick it out, which, all else being equal, is the correct decision. All else does not have to be equal. If you are detached from your relationship or relationships but not experiencing a desire to terminate them, you probably believe that you cannot do as well or better elsewhere. This may be objectively true (and that is part of what Keeping Up with the Joneses is intended to help you detect). It may be objectively true now (ditto, and your cue to improve yourself in a relevant way). It may not be accurate at all. The last chapter of this work contains some advice that will help. The short form is, if you continue to meet new people, get to know them, interact with them and their friends and loved ones, and to experience meaningful intimacy with them, if you are a part of their lives, your relationships in general will benefit. You will learn from other people. You will better appreciate those you love and who love you. Your expectations from others will be more realistic.
If you think that, objectively speaking, you are involved with appropriate people, in appropriate ways, but are unable to feel involved with, or committed to, these people, the problem which remains to be addressed is your feelings, or rather lack thereof. Your feelings matter. You deserve to have all of them. If you are missing out on some, especially if you are missing out on a lot of them, you are missing out on a lot of the truly wonderful parts of being alive. You owe it to yourself to address this problem. Physical regimes, such as yoga, which reconnect you with your body may help. If you are recreationally using any mind-altering substances (including alcohol and caffeine), you may want to cut back or stop to see if they might be responsible for your feelings (or lack thereof). If you are on any prescription drugs, you should check with your health care practitioner to find out if they could be responsible. Hypnosis, self-hypnosis or meditation may help. It will be hard to keep a therapist focused on this as a problem. They will want to find out what caused your disconnect. They will be tempted to attribute your disconnect to something currently present in your life. If you want to go fishing with them, feel free; if you are absolutely certain that whatever got you to this state is over and done with and you just want to get back to normal, you will have to be extremely careful in selecting a therapist, and you'll have to be prepared to stand your ground.
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Copyright Rebecca Allen, 2002.
Created February 9, 2002 Updated November 19, 2003