Is it time to end your relationship?

Infidelity is a huge slap in the face to anyone who has met its acquaintance. If you have meet with infidelity in your relationship, you will be faced with this frightening question: Should we break up?

Let’s ask the relationship experts when is the best time to end a relationship:

1. “Am I looking at the entire relationship from an objective perspective or am I reacting emotionally to an event that has left me hurt?”

Lesli Doares, a couples coach and author of Blueprint for a Lasting Marriage: How to Create Your Happily Ever After With More Intention, Less Work, says “life-altering decisions should be made in a “place of a calmness and clarity, not in the heat of the moment.” She suggests you take time to step back and fairly “assess how your relationship meets your overall needs and expectations.”

2. “Are you expecting your partner to fill a void only you can?”

According to Rhonda Richards-Smith, a psychotherapist and relationship expert, there is an unfair and unhealthy tendency to expect your partner to supply you with your all your emotional needs. “If there is any chance your partner is being wrongly accused for your unhappiness, examine the state of your own personal satisfaction before pulling the plug,” she says. She also points to a recent study which found a positive correlation between individual self-esteem and achieving relationship satisfaction.

3. “What do you need to be happy and what can you do to bring that into your relationship?”

There’s a belief in society that “if something doesn’t make you feel good, then you ‘should’ move on to something else. The truth is “your happiness is not dependent on others [and if it is] then it’s not real happiness.”

To answer this question, Dr. Michele Kerulis, a clinical lecturer at Northwestern University, recommends imagining what life might look like if you were single. Ask yourself the following questions:

• What would be better?
• What would be challenging?
• What you would miss about being with your partner?

If you are daydreaming about being single and doing things on your own, it might be time to end the relationship.”

4. “Does he add to me or subtract from me?”

For Jan Smith, a professional lifestyle coach, honestly answering this question has helped her leave toxic relationships. On one side of a piece of paper, she listed “what being with him added to me” and on the other side, “what being with him subtracted from me.” This exercise helped her see that the subtractions far outweighed the additions.

“If you had a son or daughter who you deeply loved, would you want them to be in a relationship with someone like the person you are with right now?”

It’s a powerful reality check, says Dr. Gary Brown, a licensed therapist who has worked with couples for more than 25 years. “If you wouldn’t want your child to be with someone like this, why would YOU be with someone like this?”

5. “Is our relationship mostly positive”

Dr. Savannah Ellis, founder of the Infidelity Recovery Institute asks clients not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. “The emotional response from an individual in a traumatized state, is not logical nor accurate, ” Dr. Ellis says. The Pareto principle (also known as the 80–20 rule, the law of the vital few, and the principle of factor sparsity) states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. “If couples focus on fixing the 20% of the relationship they don’t like, and remember and cherish the 80% of the relationship they do like, they will keep the negative affair events in perspective.”

6. “Have I given this relationship my best effort? Have I been half-hearted and ambivalent?“

“Relationships require both a commitment to the merger of the “WE” and also a commitment to the sovereignty of the I, ” says Joe Whitcomb, co-author of the best selling relationship book, Reboot Your Relationship, and licensed Psychotherapist.

“The balance between connection (devotion) and separateness (freedom). A relationship will fail eventually if you’re not all in or there is ambivalence. It will become more about performing for love. Don’t blame your partner for the disintegration of a romance if you haven’t given your best energy to the relationship. If you’re hesitant to end the relationship, try throwing yourself back into the partnership, with an ALL IN attitude. If you still care, don’t let love be extinguished without a fight for connection.”

Can you think of questions to ask yourself before you end your relationship?