How to Know When a Relationship is Over

Series Summary

A relationship breakup, also known simply as a breakup, refers to the ending of a relationship, typically a romantic one. A breakup can vary from casual to emotionally traumatic. Breakups can occur for innumerable reasons, including conflicts in personality, lifestyle changes, breaches in spoken or unspoken codes of conduct, or attraction to a different person. A breakup that is decided upon by only one person is commonly referred to as dumping. In this free video series on relationships, a psychotherapist and grief counselor explains how to deal with breakups. Get tips on how to break up with someone and how to move on from a breakup. Learn the nicest way to break up and how to handle breaking up long-term relationships. Discover the stages of a breakup and how to get over someone with help from these free videos.

Video Transcript

"Hi I'm Beth Patterson, Psychotherapist and grief counselor and we are going to talk about how to know when a relationship is over. It's a hard question and you have to be honest with yourself. One thing that could be helpful actually is taking out a piece of paper and writing out the pluses and minuses. Well what do I gain by staying in this relationship as opposed to what do I lose by staying in this relationship. And really be honest with yourself about it and you might surprise yourself. You might actually find things about this person that you love. That are really beneficial to you and you decide to stay with them and to work on the relationship. Sometimes people end relationships too soon, because relationships are hard. They bring out the best and the worst in us. They bring out all of our vulnerabilities. So I think taking a good honest appraisal will really help you see whether you should stay in this relationship or not. If it's work you actually need to do on yourself to stay in the relationship. On the other hand, certainly if you are being abused you probably should get out of the relationship and get some professional guidance a long those lines if need be. Because you know it's not going to be helpful to you to be abused. That's for sure. So if you are being abused nine times out of ten I would say yes, it's time to leave that relationship. And also see you know just really take a really good honest look, are you getting more out of it or not. It's hard, it's hard work to access these things and you really would be doing a self assessment more then anything else. Seeing what you are bringing to the relationship as well as what the other person is or is not bringing to the relationship. And writing it down is a really, really good way to evaluate that and to be really honest. So I hope that advice has been helpful to you, best of luck moving forward."