So, Can You Leave?

Sometimes after working their way through ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go?' a client will decide that it's time to leave. I coached Mary for 3 months and having explored her options from every angle she decided that she could no longer pretend that her relationship was going to improve. 'Goodbye my love' is so much harder to say than 'Hello stranger'; I worked with her on making it as painless as possible.

Mary was having nightmares - literally. The kind where she wanted to run away but he just couldn't get her legs to work. These are called anxiety dreams and can be really scary. They tend to occur around situations that we feel we're not strong enough to deal with. It's almost as if our subconscious is letting us know that we're not truly ready for the challenge.

The truth is, it's essential that you don't stay in a relationship because you're scared, this will just kill any passion that may have been present. The fear of leaving, for whatever reason, is one of the more predictable ways of turning off your partner. When a relationship is not growing, it's dying. When you put the relationship in a state of limbo, while you decide if you want it, the relationship suffers. For this reason, I urge you to complete the exercises I've given you in this book and work toward a decision.

In my work with couples over the years, it's become obvious that there's a phenomenon that occurs in the longer term which will kill passion, and therefore attraction, but it's so subtle that people rarely understand what has happened. I first read about it in The New Couple by Taylor and McGee; they talk about the ten new laws of love which cover things like equality, sexual chemistry and making the relationship a priority. Hopefully these things are not such a surprise to you now that you've read the rest of this workbook.

The ninth law they call ‘Walking' and it's very enlightening. They state that it:

“…involves addressing the primary insecurities that plague all partners. Emotional and financial dependencies can result in the slow death of respect, trust and passion. When intimates are willing and able to leave the relationship if they need to, it's their best insurance that they won't.”

In a world where commitment is king, that might seem a little counter intuitive, but let me explain. It's all about keeping your neediness to a minimum by getting those needs met appropriately.

If you are in a relationship, it's easy to get so caught up in the idea of commitment that we forget that dependency is just not sexy. You must be able and willing to walk away if necessary! That way you are staying based on desire as opposed to desperation. Maintaining a level of independence is how you prevent your lover from becoming your parent or child.

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Stay Or Go?