The Real Reason Women Stay

Married, Single, or It’s Complicated…

So many of US women (and yes myself included) have fell in that “it’s complicated” bucket once or twice in our lifetime. We’ve answered yes I’m in a relationship, while internally asking ourselves why don’t we just leave.

The truth… we’re lazy and starting over isn’t easy. We stay in unhappy relationships for the same reason people stay at unhappy jobs. We fear starting over, we fear being single, and we fear the unknown. The unknown being what happens next; will I find someone else, what if I don’t, financially am I ready to be on my own, what if he moves on quicker than me and most importantly… I didn’t put in all this work for someone else to enjoy my man.

Reality check - until a person (man or women) checks themselves, they will never be a valuable contributor in a relationship.  If you’ve left a relationship broken and immediately jumped into another relationship, YOU’RE STILL BROKEN.  You don’t magically heal the minute your status changes from “in a relationship” to “single”.  In addition to being broken, you will negatively effect the person you’re in a relationship with. 

It took me years to understand this. A rebound relationship is not my cup of tea. When dating, I’m asking how long since your last relationship and I want to know if you’ve healed and are ready to move on. Don’t be fooled by the length of time either, because the length of a relationship has nothing to do with the strength of a relationship. A relationship may have ended years ago and still have an impact on a person’s life. These two questions are equally important and the answers you receive, will allow you to make an informed decision on whether you’d like to continue dating this person, or not.

SO… I don’t know who needs to hear this, but HEAL.  Heal before you jump into another relationship.  Heal before you decide to take up anyone else’s time.  Heal because no one should have to clean up a mess that isn’t their own OR feel like your behavior is their fault.   

Whatever your relationship status is, I hope that you’re internally happy because “fronting for the gram” means nobody wins.  You ain’t winning, your partner ain’t winning and the people that look to your relationship as “#goals” ain’t winning either.  Self-care and finding time to self-reflect is important in all phases of life.  You can’t make nobody else happy, if you’re unhappy.  Put YOU first and everything else will seamlessly fall into place.