It’s Never Too Late To Leave

It’s extremely hard to figure out the right time to leave. When will it be enough for you to realize that it’s time to pack your bags and leave?

When we get to a certain age, we’re so consumed by the thought of settling down. We forget to look for all the red flags we face.

So when we do get the chance to see those red flags for ourselves, we think that it’s too late to leave.

My previous relationship went on for way too long if you ask me. I was fresh out of college and marriage was kind of the next step, right?

Society made this timeline for all of us that we think we have to stick to. The variations are not too different.

Some get married a little bit earlier and others may take a little bit longer. But it’s very often around the same time period.

When you’re older, more and more people start questioning you about when you’re going to settle down. They remind you that because you’re a woman, the clock is ticking so you have to get married as soon as possible.

However, those questions don’t happen as often when you’re dating someone. They just assume that at this age, you’re not going to just break up with him; you’re going to stay and you’re going to get married.

In all this social pressure, we forget to take care of ourselves. We forget that we aren’t supposed to endure emotional or mental abuse just to have someone in our life.

So when you’re in a relationship for so long, you think that you’re obligated to work things through. Everything can be figured out in a relationship, right?

Everyone says that relationships are supposed to be hard work.

You have to work on things and you have to communicate. Arguments are healthy and if it hurts, it means that you’re scared to lose each other…

That’s complete baloney. Let me tell you now that those people have no clue what they’re talking about.

A mindset like that only makes you vulnerable and completely dependent on the man in your life. Because when you’re single at the tender age of 25 or above, you’re questioned on very weird topics.

Everyone looks at you like they pity you. Like there’s something wrong with you for leaving such a long relationship when in actuality, you’re happy being alone.

They say that it’s too late to leave once you’ve spent years with that someone. What they don’t know is that you’re trying to save the last bits of sanity you’re left with.

Your heart is breaking under the pressure but you don’t know how to escape. Everyone makes it seem as if leaving for your own good is so extremely selfish, like you’re not allowed to leave him when certain things happen.

For example, a woman who leaves her husband after having kids with him is seen as a traitor. As if leaving wasn’t an option at that stage, as if she wasted her chance to leave and now she’s stuck with him.

Let me tell you again that it’s never too late to leave.

Even when the entire world is against you, even when you have children with this man, you’re allowed to leave.

If you can’t handle that for the rest of your life, you shouldn’t have to. A man who doesn’t know how to treat you right doesn’t deserve to be there even if you’ve already said your vows.

In my previous relationship, I heard from so many people that it was absolutely unacceptable to leave him just because I didn’t feel loved anymore. Like my standards were too high and I didn’t have the right to that.

What I realized was that the people who tell you this are the ones who wanted to leave multiple times but never got around to actually doing so.

So now they’re stuck, their own mind doesn’t let them think beyond society’s standards. They want you to suffer with them instead of supporting you to do the things they failed at.

I left my last relationship just a few months after we got engaged. We were together for five years and he was an abusive boyfriend who didn’t know that his words were like poison.

He would degrade me and tell me that I was too opinionated, too fat, and even stupid. But he would disguise it in his sweet voice, trying to tell me that he was only saying it because he loved me so much.

He’d say such offensive things from time to time that I knew that he didn’t love me. He loved that I loved him.

So at some point, I realized that I didn’t love him anymore. I was so obsessed with him and with the fact that our friends looked up to us that I forgot how to be independent.

I didn’t know how to think for myself. So the very moment I realized that I didn’t love him anymore, I thought about whether I wanted to leave him or not.

Just know that I started to think about this months or maybe even more than an entire year before I actually did it. I even got engaged to him not knowing whether I was able to leave him.

I was so disgusted with myself but I also thought that I didn’t want to leave for good. There were days when I would convince myself that he could change, that he could be different.

That’s why I listened to the people around me. They constantly told me that if I just waited it out, he’d change, that he loved me even though I only saw it on special occasions.

However, the very moment I left him, I felt like I’d taken a breath of fresh air. Like I hadn’t breathed for so long that I could finally fill my lungs with air.

He had been choking me with his words and with the prison he had put me in. He never loved me as much as he loved being adored by me, because he thought that his love was a privilege that he didn’t even want to give to anyone.

Even though I thought that it was too late for me to leave back then, now I know that it was exactly the right time.

We meet people for a reason and he taught me a very valuable lesson.

He taught me that love shouldn’t hurt and that relationships shouldn’t require you to lose yourself completely. You should be able to be who you want to be and still be loved and appreciated.

So if you don’t have that – leave! Walk away!

It’s never too late to leave a manipulating, abusive narcissist! Even if you think that he’s going to change, don’t wait around to see it.

Because it’s so much better to be single at age 30 or 40 (or older) than it is to stay with someone who obviously doesn’t know how to treat you right.