How do you know when it’s time to stop your relationship with someone and leave them? In this episode, Frederic Gobeil and Christy Whitman talk about how to become more conscious in your relationships and address the issue most of us face when it comes to relationships – knowing when to let go. Should you stay or should you go? Dive in as they share their insights on this very important issue.
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Below is a transcript of the video and audio above. The paragraphs and sections are alternated between bold / not bold for ease of reading along with the video or audio.
Should You Stay Or Should You Go?: How To Know When It’s Time To Leave
We obviously are here to help all of you that are reading this find more connection, more love, become more conscious in your relationships, be able to sustain your relationships and grow them. There might be some of you out there that are like, “I don’t know if it’s time to leave or if this relationship can grow, can prosper and can be what I want it to be.” We wanted to address this issue of how do you know, “Should I stay or should I go?” How do you know if it is time to leave?
How do you know if it’s worth the effort to put in? How do you know if you’re committed to yourself and to your relationship to do what it takes in order to continue on that path?
How do you know if there’s still love there? I was telling Frederic as we were preparing for this particular show, I was in a previous marriage and relationship. I was in a relationship with a great guy. It’s an eight-year relationship. We were married for five years.
You’re Ready To Leave When You Feel Almost Neutral
I remember about two years into the marriage, I was talking with my friend, she was a co-author on my book, Taming Your Alpha Bitch. I remember speaking with Rebecca. I was frustrated and I felt angry because we had gotten into an argument or we had some issue. I said to her, “I’m ready to be done with this relationship.”
She said, “No, you’re not. Here’s why.” She said, “You have way too much emotion.” It was interesting when she said that. She goes, “There’s so much anger there. There’s so much frustration. You know when you’re ready to leave, when you feel almost neutral. It’s like whatever. If you stay together, whatever, but there’s no emotion like this big anger that you’re feeling right now.”
I took that to heart and I thought, “She’s right. There’s still some emotional stuff to work out here and this emotion isn’t within me.” It was about four and a half years into the marriage, there was a particular situation that happened where we got into an argument. I told him what I wanted and what I would prefer in the relationship.
I was saying to him, “I want someone that’s going to contribute to all aspects of my marriage whether it’s financially or in conversation, energy-wise to be able to help me, be with me and contribute to be able to receive my love and to be able to give love.” He got mad and he stormed off. That happened on a Friday night.
We spent that entire weekend and I was like, “I am committed to myself. We are still in the same house. I’m committed to making myself feel joy. I would read. I went and worked out.” I was taking care of myself that weekend. On Sunday night, I had walked up to him because we weren’t speaking at all. He was not speaking to me at all.
When To Leave Relationships: If you’re trying to constantly change your partner, it’s never going to work.
He was sleeping in a different room and everything like that. I’m thinking to myself, “This is crazy.” We’ve got to work this out because we can’t live like this. In my choice of words, I walked up to him and I said, “This isn’t working.” He took off his wedding ring and he threw it at me and he goes, “Fine, I’ll give you a divorce.” In that moment, it was like the skies parted. I was like, “Let’s do that.”
I literally sat with myself and I went, “That’s brilliant.” I didn’t feel angry about it. I wasn’t crying about it. I didn’t feel like, “What am I going to do without him?” It was like, “Yes.” He even came back to me the next day, “Sorry, I said that.” I go, “No, this is good. You had a good idea.”
I felt neutral and it reminded me of what Rebecca had told me all those years ago. I didn’t have any anger. I didn’t have overamplification of emotions. It wasn’t even like numb. I wasn’t numb to it. I felt like that was the next logical step. For me, it’s all about self-awareness and how you’re feeling. There are some things that you could look at. I want you to speak obviously.
I have a question for you. What made you decide to not move ahead with maybe couples counseling or some couple’s work?
When You’ve Done Everything That You’ve Done
We’ve already done that. That was my next point is that if you’ve done everything that you’ve done, if you know that you’ve already done the couple’s work, you’ve looked at yourself in the mirror and all those kinds of things. One of the things I want to say is that for me in that realization when I had met him, I was eight years younger. I didn’t know what I wanted in a relationship.
This particular eight-year relationship helped me discover what I wanted and what I didn’t want. For me, as I was in this relationship for eight years, I got clear on who I wanted to be with. I wanted to be with Frederic. I wanted to be with a man like Frederic. What I was describing to people that were like, “What? Why are you getting a divorce?” I was like, “He is a duck.” The best way to describe it is he’s a duck, but I don’t want a duck. I want a cat. To try to make a duck into a cat, it doesn’t work.
I’m going to sit there and try to want him to be someone he’s not. If I’m trying to constantly change him, it’s never going to work. I’m not going to be happy. He’s not going to be happy. I know the qualities I want in a person. I want someone that’s very spiritually connected, not someone that when I come to him and start talking about these revelations I’m having, he takes a nap for three hours.
I want someone who’s going to be engaged in a conversation spiritually. I want to be engaged with someone that’s willing to do their inner work. I had a conversation about what I wanted and we didn’t talk for three days. He told me we had to get a divorce. For me to be able to say, “This is who I am and this is what I want.” I want a partner who’s going to stand next to me and go, “I hear you. This is what I want too, how can we work it together?”
For me, it was when you have a realization that you’re with someone. Do you look at them and say, “I do love this person?” Do you look at their positive aspects and go, “This is who I want to be with. I liked their stories. I enjoy how they are with other people. I enjoy our time together?” I was at a place where it’s like I wasn’t enjoying dinners out. I wasn’t enjoying conversations.
I was inside of my head rolling my eyes when he was telling the same stories he would tell. I’d be like, “Am I going to have to hear this story for the rest of my life?” I was not stimulated in any aspect of our relationship. He was wonderful. I have much love for him. He’s a wonderful man but he’s a duck and I don’t want a duck. I wanted a cat. I’m not saying that Frederic is a cat, but it’s an analogy.
Everyone experiences low points in their relationship. That’s very normal. It’s supposed to be that way. It’s all about growth. Some couples don’t go through as highs and lows. Some people have maintenance of, “Everything is okay. This works for us.” That’s great.
If you’re in a place where you’re no longer getting what you want in your relationship and you can’t communicate either. Even though you’re trying to communicate in a more positive, conscious way, they’re not there to communicate with you in that way.
You’re no longer wanting to compromise anymore because sometimes there’s compromise or differences if not to say compromise. You no longer wish to see the differences.
You no longer are looking forward to spending time. You’re regretting or you’re anticipating spending time with this person and you don’t want to. It causes resistance. Spending time with your partner is important obviously. When you feel there’s constant criticism back and forth, you both can’t find the good in each other.
You’re comparing yourself constantly to other people or to your best friend’s partner and how great he is. You’re trying to change your partner. You’re not laughing and having fun. It feels more like a prison sentence than enjoyment. If you don’t see that crack of light in that relationship, if you feel like you’re doing all the giving and there’s nothing coming back, that’s where I was, where I’m like, I know it’s time to leave because I feel like I’m giving and giving and nothing’s coming back.
That which we shared on the last episode, our story, it cracked a light of hope and a light of love. It cracked a light of willingness in our relationship and we took that and ran with it. If there are no cracks, if you’re giving and giving, you’re asking for what you want. You’re not getting it. You feel like it’s going to be like this for the rest of your life and you’re not willing to do that and you no longer feel good about yourself. Your partner is berating you or making you feel bad about yourself.
In your own willingness to not feel bad about yourself anymore and to do your own inner work and not be around someone that makes you feel bad. If there are destructive behaviors, if someone is addicted, abusive, verbally, mentally, emotionally, all those ways, these are things that you obviously have to think about for yourself.
When To Leave Relationships: There are times when all good things must come to an end and it is time to leave a relationship.
We do couples coaching together. I also do work with couples and individuals. I had a woman that came to me and said, “I think I might want to leave my marriage and we’ve been together for 25 years. I’d love some help in getting clarity around this.” That’s something I do. It’s something I bring in, the beautiful messengers.
I get to be a messenger for the spiritual teachers, the Council of Light. That’s something that I can help you get clarity on if it’s something that is something going on within you or is it the couple and maybe it’s time to dissolve the relationship. We are not here to tout divorce. We are not here to tout breakups. We’re here to create more people that are connected, conscious and loving.
There Are Times When All Good Things Must Come To An End
There are times where all good things must come to an end sometimes, where it is time to leave a relationship. For me, because I have been through that and I went through my first marriage when I said I did, I meant I did. It was time for me to leave because there was more waiting for me. I’m grateful that I did.
I’m grateful for that time spent with him, but I’m also grateful that I was able to leave and transition out of that when I did because I did create the relationship that I want. I got the man that had all the qualities that I wanted on my list.
At the same time, it’s not Superman that she met even though I’m pretty awesome. I still had to do my own growth. There were definitely some issues that had to be discussed, had to be put on the table. Those are also boundaries that need to be set in a relationship. Where are we willing to go together? What are the things that all of a sudden make us say, “I’m not comfortable with this?” Where are these buttons being pushed inside of each one of us?
Have a talk about these things and be honest with each other. I was talking about compromise, but where is it that you’re willing to see inside that it’s not working, but I’m willing to deviate from it a little bit as long as we’re both okay with that.
What’s the point where you’re saying, “That’s enough. I can’t deal with that anymore?” That communication and in every aspect of our lives, it could be financial, emotional, sexual. In all of these aspects of life, what are these things that we are expecting from each other?
If you feel like you’ve communicated on your own, maybe you’ve gone through therapy, but you haven’t had us as couples’ coaches or you want some more help in that area, you may want some more inner work for yourself first before you make a decision. We are happy to help in whatever way we can, either one-on-one, doing group coaching, if that’s what you want to do or two-on-two with your partner.
We have From Drama to Love that will definitely help you in any relationship that you’re in, that will help you get out of the drama triangle and into the circle of love. If you stay or if you go, you at least are feeling good about yourself and your decision that you make along the way. Hopefully, we’ve given some clarity and we want you to feel good because life is supposed to feel good.
Our relationships are divinely designed to be loving and supportive. It all starts inside of ourselves. If you’re starting to find a deeper connection with yourself and you’re finding that you’re more loving and supportive with yourself. If your outer reality relationships are not reflecting it, sometimes the relationships will dissolve on their own as it did with mine.
I said, “This isn’t working out.” He threw his ring at me and said, “Fine, I’ll give you a divorce.” I was like, “Thank you, Law of Attraction,” because it worked itself out for me. As you are committed to your own centeredness, if you’re connected to your own loving and supportive way of being within yourself, your answers will come to you.
In the meantime, if you need more help and more clarity, we are here to help you in any way we can. In the next episode, we are talking about the first rule of a relationship. One of the rules of relationship is that if it’s true for me, it’s true for you.
See you on our next episode.
