Healthy relationships are fulfilling, enjoyable, and based on mutual trust, understanding, and respect. They should meet your basic needs, according to psychologist Will Meek, of “companionship, affection, and emotional support,” and both partners should take interest in fostering this type of relationship. But, whether you’ve realized your relationship is unhealthy, or you’re in one of the healthiest relationships, sometimes it’s just time to move on. Here are 8 signs that you need to break up.
1. Violence of any kind.
It doesn’t matter how lightly or small a push or a shove was. If your significant other becomes violent with you in an argument, it’s time to move on. It may, however, be difficult to walk away from a relationship that involves violence because you fear retaliation. In those cases, reach out for support from a friend and try to devise an exit plan.
2. You’re just not interested anymore, or you never were to begin with.
Sometimes people keep on going with their relationships out of a sense of obligation to their partners, or to meet expectations from their parents, peers, or family. If you’re not interested in your partner, however, it’s going to end up showing in one way or another. This will inevitably build resentment and tension, and at the end of the day just isn’t fair to the other person. So if you’re not interested, do yourself and your partner a favor and break things off now and move on.
3. Your basic needs aren’t being met.
Your needs are defined by your expectations of your partner and what the relationship should look like. While compromise is certainly important, if you feel yourself compromising on every single issue, it’s time to move on. You’re entitled to ask for things in relationships, within reason, and you’re entitled to make a decision to walk away when those thing are not provided. For instance, if your partner is not as physically affectionate as you would like, and you’ve spoken about it repeatedly with them, but there hasn’t been any effort on their part to improve, or they just simply cannot provide that to you, you may decide that it’s time to look elsewhere for it.
4. Your partner keeps cheating on you.
It’s safe to assume if you’ve agreed to a monogamous relationship, and you’re partner keeps violating that agreement that it’s time to move on. Second chances are one thing, third and fourth chances are out of the question. In this case you can either reassess and decide that the terms of your relationship need to change, or drop everything altogether.
5. You’re dying for alone time, but your partner is a stage 5 clinger.
Every time you want to put some space or distance between yourself and your partner, your partner just ups the ante and smothers you even more. This type of behavior is not only annoying as hell, it’s also unhealthy. If you’ve asked your partner for space and they refuse to respect that demand, they aren’t respecting your boundaries.
6. There’s someone else you wish you could date.
We don’t always fall in love at the right time, and falling in love while you’re in a relationship could be an example of the worst timing ever. Apparently Kim and Kanye experienced this over the years. According to Kim, when they first met years ago back in 2004, “there was definitely a spark,” but the two were involved in other relationships at the time. If you find yourself falling for someone else though, it’s always the right time to be fair to yourself, and your current boo, and end things as soon as possible. While you can’t control your feelings, you can control your decisions about them.
7. You are not really a part of your partner’s life.
You know they have friends, but you’ve never met them. He/she doesn’t speak to anyone he knows about your relationship, and they even try to get you to keep quiet about it as well. If your partner is hiding your relationship and keeping you isolated, it’s a huge red flag. Can you really see yourself building anything real with someone who refuses to acknowledge you even have a relationship? Walk away.
8. You can’t be yourself.
If you’re altering your interests, personality, needs, and desires to conform to your partner’s idea of you rather than who you actually are, it’s a sign that in this relationship you don’t feel free to be yourself. If you don’t feel like you can be your authentic, whole self, it’s going to end up putting a strain on you in the long run. No relationship is worth altering who you are for.