Chapter 1 : When to walk away… and when not…

In my experience, if someone was able to arrive at an algorithm to solve this one question – there would be many many takers for it. Unlike professional ones, personal relationships are much more of a self-investment zone. This means that I have possibly invested not just my heart but also a part of my soul in this relationship. Can I just walk away? Will I ever be whole again? How will I even breathe let alone build a ‘happy’ life?

And I am not even getting into the entire space of what will ‘they’ think of me. The ‘they’ here could be anyone ranging from family, friends to even strangers we’ve never even met.

Over the years of being single after my divorce, I have had this conversation with many others who’ve either already gone through it or are flirting with the idea of going through it - “What made you take the final step?”

I believe that a spousal relationship is built on 4 pillars of support – Physical intimacy, Emotional, Financial and Intellectual support. After going through a couple of years of utter anxiety over taking the final step – this framework gave me the strength to evaluate and then decide whether it was worth it or not for me. Obviously the proportions between these 4 will be different for different people as per their own expectations from life and their partner. Also what

comprises of each of these pillars will also be very individual – but broadly speaking it is fairly robust.

I believe that bringing in this framework helped me separate out pure emotional reactions to events and move to a ‘big picture’ based decision making. I think in retrospect this turned out to be the most crucial aspect of decision-making as whatever else I went through in terms of emotional turmoil, insecurity, self-loathing even – the one thing I did not have to live with was regret about the direction of my decision.

So my very first piece of advice – Separate out the short-term emotions from a long-term choice of whether or not the relationship works for you.

Looking back I can think of instances where the person now single – regretted the decision as the anger had calmed down and practical life beseeched. I don’t believe in holding up a moral meter of any sort for anyone as it’s the most personal thing possible and in many cases – especially infidelity – the hurt is deeply personal and damaging as well. But I would strongly advise to be sure that you don’t walk out with any kind of regrets.

This is also what gets me to the part where I end up insisting on a truck-load of introspection.

“Are you sure you’ve tried everything you could have to make it work?” The brutally honest answer to this question will end up governing not just the quality of sleep for many many of those seemingly long and lonely nights you’ll have – but also in many ways pave the way for the next relationship you enter, even the one you have with yourself.

I find a lot of people having trouble in having a tough conversation in a calm manner. This is one skill that is the most under-rated I feel in people in general as well. Losing our temper, raising our voice, using words you don’t really mean and in some cases gestures and actual actions – all end up acting as simple deviators from the real issue at hand. I am very far away from having reached this nirvana-level skill myself – but being conscious of this has helped me in tremendously varied ways. I calm down faster, usually am able to separate out reactions vs the real reason and at times am able to get over the hurt almost immediately.

The reason this skill got a special mention here is because its important to verbalize what’s not working for you with your partner. DO NOT ASSUME. Mind reading does not exist as far as we know yet . It is NOT someone else’s job to know EXACTLY whats bothering you. And trust me – the more time you spend

in trying to figure out exactly what you want to tell them, the more it clears up things for you in your own mind as well. At times, you will find finding your calm within you with just this bit. Could be that what was seeming very large to you in a moment, was actually not that big once you spent 15 minutes trying to think about how to explain it to someone else. Or that you are better able to pinpoint a larger issue rather than focusing on an isolated incident which hurt you.

One big mistake I’ve made and seen others make as well is that once we verbalized our troubles – we automatically assume that now they will be solved / never repeated. Think of the times it takes for you to comprehend a new emotion and then amend your behavior as per that new emotion as well. It cannot be an overnight solution – if it is then you should be suspicious of how long it’ll last anyways! So its equally important to give it time to sink in – might need a repeat or so of course… but then if it is something that important to you, then isn’t it worth the effort anyways?

I have to say that surprisingly so – I found many of my married friends envying my status as a single person. To the extent that more than once I was asked why I would ever want to get into the whole ‘mess’ again. When this happened the first time, I put it down to that friend’s own frustrations with her ‘still-single-in-my-mind’ spouse who wanted them both to join a gym post work, rather than come back home to their 1 year old kid. But when this curiosity came my way again and again over the years – I realized it was a matter of grass being greener on the other side. Just like I still harbored the romantic notions of a partner and a family to come home to, there were others who envied the footloose and fancy free life they saw me enjoying. So in your introspection time, do be sure that this is something which you’re not suffering from. Each and every person around us has their own set of grief and relief factors in their lives. There’s no point in lusting after the what-ifs and if-only’s. Your life could very well be the cause of envy in many others and you don’t even realise it.

If after all this – you find that your relationship is not what you want – please decide. Don’t keep it hanging once your mind is made up. I’ve yet to come across a single person who did this and emerged without major scars rendered just in this phase. The kind of bitterness that rages inside you if you feel stuck for any reason is just not worth it. To me.

In a nut shell – do take a long and hard look at your role in your relationship and then decide if it works for you or not. Something my mom taught me – The  

only thing in this world you can change is yourself. Don’t count on others changing to make your life better. Ever.