5 Misleading Beliefs That Stop You from Ending the Relationship and Moving On

The nagging feeling in my gut had been right.

I spent six long months battling my intuition. And one fine morning, I had caught my boyfriend of five years cheating. I could deny it no longer. My perfect relationship had imploded.

That was it.

A relationship that took years to build was over in less than an hour. As I flew back to my hometown less than two hours after calling him a dick, I felt relieved.

Finding concrete evidence had lifted a weight off my shoulders. I had not been crazy.

Along with the relief came anger. At myself. Why the hell had I been so blind? He had been acting sketchy for months, and though the little voice in my head grew louder every day, I had not believed it.

I had refused to admit it. This was over. It had been for quite some time.

The denial of my intuition had led to six months of overthinking and driving myself crazy, trying to keep together a relationship that no longer added any value to my life.

But I couldn't let go. Not when I had invested so much of myself into it. All it did was prolong my suffering.

Here are the thought patterns that prevented me from ending things and moving on.

Hoping They Will Change Their Mind

The signs had been there.

We had been in a long-distance relationship for about a year. When we finally met, things were off.

He was a lot more critical of my appearance, commenting on my weight or adding snide remarks into the conversation. He lied to his friends about my job — I was a dentist earning a lot abroad (I was really unemployed at the time). He introduced me as his friend and not his girlfriend.

Clearly, having an unemployed, not-so-attractive girlfriend was embarrassing.

I knew he was flirting with other women. I knew all this, and yet I stayed, hoping I could change his mind. I was the safe option — the one he could bring home to his mother.

And if he wasn’t attracted to me now, I could change that. Or rather, change myself. I used to be hot; I just had to work out. I was unemployed, but I could find a job.

And so I did all that, and guess what? It changed nothing.

Many of us remain stuck in terrible relationships because we hope our partners will change. That they will go back to the person we fell in love with, and things will be better.

Sometimes it doesn’t get better. Sometimes, things are just over. The love is no longer there, the warmth and affection have waned, the feelings have died.

You cannot change or control anyone’s feelings except your own. It takes effort from two to keep the boat moving. And without one partner, no amount of hope on your part can make things better.

Believing This Is the Best You Will Get

My relationship was perfect. We had everything going in our favor. He checked all the boxes on my dream partner list.

Or so I thought.

I believed I would not find another lover. I was a hopeless romantic who believed in the one true love and happily ever afters. He was my happily ever after for five years. Until one day, he wasn't.

I believed I wouldn’t find someone who would love me like I deserved to be loved. And so, I accepted what little effort and attention I received from my partner.

In the movie, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, when Charlie asks Mr. Anderson why nice people choose the wrong people to date, he replies, we accept the love we think we deserve.

This couldn’t be more true.

I didn’t think I was worthy of the love I dreamed of. The kind they show in Hallmark movies where the man brings flowers for no reason. I wanted it but didn’t think it was something that could happen to me.

I had a scarcity mindset regarding love.

I believed genuine love is hard to come by when, in reality, there is an abundance of love all around us. There will always be someone better who will enter our lives at the right time.

There are a lot of amazing people out there who want the same meaningful love you do and will put in the effort to become brilliant partners.

Thinking about your partner as the best option puts you in a position of accepting the bare minimum and settling for less. Remember, there is no shortage of love in the world.

Giving Them “The One” Position

I was 21 years old when I met my ex-boyfriend.

I was young, naïve, and a believer in romantic fairytales and Prince Charming. It didn’t take me a long time to brand him as “The One”.

In the early stages of young love, it made perfect sense. We were each other’s one and only.

Five years later, this same position I had awarded him at the beginning of our relationship stopped me from walking away.

He was the one, wasn’t he? There couldn’t be another.

Two years later, I found someone else. Another one. Though this time, I didn’t give him that title. He was everything I had dreamed of, and we had the healthiest relationship I had ever been in.

He is still not the one because there is no “One”.

There is no one person you are meant to be with forever. We meet many potential ones throughout our lives. As we grow, our needs change, and the partners we choose reflect our growth.

At 21, I found a guy and believed him to be my one. If I met him now at 29, I wouldn’t even consider him as a potential partner.

We all have many potential partners who come in and out of our lives at different times. Who stays and who leaves depends on where we are on our individual journeys at that point in time.

Believing Love Is Enough to Survive

My boyfriend wanted me to change my naturally curly hair to straight. And I did because it made him happy. I didn't feel like myself, but at the moment, it didn’t matter.

He was embarrassed of me in front of his friends. Yet, I shoved down the feeling of discomfort and anger.

We loved each other, didn’t we?

If he didn’t, I did. Love should be enough to get through anything, right?

There was a time when I believed love was enough to sustain a relationship. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Years later, when we broke up, I realized love was just the starting point. A few more years and a healthy relationship later, I learned about respect, trust, honesty, vulnerability, intimacy, authenticity, acceptance, and freedom.

A healthy, meaningful relationship can never survive on love alone. The foundation needs many pillars, and love is just one of them. It took the complete disintegration of what I thought was a perfect relationship to learn what it truly takes to maintain one.

Believing love is enough not only kept me clinging on to a crumbling relationship, but it also had me accepting the bare minimum. For the sake of love.

It took some time to learn that love overcomes all was a concept of the movies. It does not work in real life without the other building blocks of a relationship.

Placing Your Self Worth on Their Actions

Every time my boyfriend commented on my weight, my flabby arms, or my general lack of interest in wearing sexy clothes, I brushed it off as him wanting to help me be better.

Deep down, all these little remarks were chipping away at my self-esteem and confidence.

Each time I would try to please him. From changing my hair to putting myself in uncomfortable clothes, his approval seemed to be where I used up most of my energy.

And it was utterly exhausting. It sucked. It was a one-way ticket to unhappiness.

His validation became something I desperately needed to prove to myself that I was worthy of love. In my mind, ending things and walking away would confirm what I thought of myself.

That I didn't deserve to be loved.

It is easy to forget that our self-worth does not come from external factors but from within ourselves. It is never based on what others think of you, but sometimes, understanding that can be difficult, especially when the opinions involved come from a loved one.

I learned this the hard way.

I tried to seek approval so often I forgot who I was and what I valued. In the end, I barely recognized the person I had become.

Walking away or choosing yourself does not mean you are a failure or not worthy of love. You get to decide your worth and no one else.

It took a deteriorating relationship, a cheating boyfriend, and a messy breakup to learn the reason I couldn't end it and walk away.

Even when I knew I was unhappy.

Even when I could sense something was off.

Knowing my thought patterns and false beliefs could have easily saved me from months of heartache and tears. I was staying for the wrong reasons, and it cost me.

One of the most important abilities to learn in life is the art of letting go. It takes strength to hold on and stick with something. But it takes immense courage to recognize what isn’t working for you and move on.

And sometimes, that is exactly what you need to do.