Relationship or job. The question stays the same.
Nobody tells you that the hardest part isn’t the leaving. It’s the knowing.
After accompanying hundreds through relationship endings, I’ve noticed something peculiar: Most people know it’s over long before they’re willing to admit it.
They don’t come to me asking if they should leave. They come seeking permission for a decision their body made months or years ago – a decision their mind refuses to accept.
Beyond the Checklists
Most articles about “when to leave” offer neat checklists: abuse, addiction, affairs, apathy. As if relationship endings were a simple matter of ticking boxes.
But what about Jessica, who sat across from me last year, in a relationship with a good man who’d never raise his voice, never cheat, never deliberately hurt her – and yet she felt herself dying a quiet death every day she stayed?
Or Marcus, whose partner checked every box on the “keeper” list, whose friends and family adored her, who couldn’t point to a single concrete reason for his growing certainty that something essential was missing?
The truth is messier than checklists allow. Sometimes, the most legitimate reasons to leave are the hardest to justify to others.
The Body Knows Before the Mind
Years before leaving my own past relationship, my body was sending signals my conscious mind refused to interpret:
- A subtle tension that would release the moment my partner left for a trip
- A fleeting sense of relief when plans together got canceled
- A tightness in my chest during conversations about our future
I dismissed these as anxiety, stress, normal relationship fluctuations. I was wrong.
What I’ve since learned both personally and professionally: Your body registers relationship incompatibility long before your mind creates a coherent narrative about it.
The Permission No One Can Give You
Here’s what nobody tells you: No one – not your therapist, your coach, your best friend, or even me – can authoritatively tell you when it’s time to leave.
Even in objectively damaging situations, the decision remains painfully personal. I’ve watched clients stay in relationships that made outsiders wince, and I’ve watched others leave situations that seemed salvageable to everyone but them.
Both were making the right choice for themselves at that moment.
This is why generic advice fails. Your knowing isn’t found in articles or books. It lives in the quiet spaces between your thoughts, in the physical sensations you’ve been trained to ignore, in the dreams that visit just before waking (yes, really).
Beyond the False Binary
We frame the leaving question as binary: stay or go. This obscures the complex truth that most relationship endings are processes, not events.
Consider these less-discussed signs that the process may have already begun:
- The rehearsal mind – You find yourself mentally scripting breakup conversations or imagining life after separation, not as catastrophic fantasies but as planning exercises
- Identity erosion – Not just growing apart, but a gradual awareness that staying requires amputating essential parts of yourself
- The values divergence – Discovering fundamental incompatibilities not in preferences but in core values that guide life decisions
- Future dread – When contemplating your relationship extending indefinitely produces not comfort but a quiet panic
- The emotional transfer – Realizing your deepest self is no longer invested in repairing the relationship but in preparing for its end
The Grief Before the Grief
What complicates this knowing is that it comes with anticipatory grief. You begin mourning the relationship while still in it.
This creates a disorienting experience where you feel simultaneous grief, relief, doubt, clarity, guilt, and certainty. Your emotional system becomes a cacophony of contradictory signals that makes clean decision-making nearly impossible.
It’s why so many stay far longer than their inner knowing suggests they should. The cognitive dissonance becomes too overwhelming to translate into action.
Honouring the Knowing
If any of this resonates, consider these truths:
- Certainty is a myth – You will likely never reach 100% conviction. Most people leave at somewhere between 70-80% certainty, with the remainder being a necessary leap of faith.
- Timing is personal – There’s no universal “right time” to leave. Some need to process while still in the relationship; others need distance to gain clarity.
- Reason isn’t required – “I don’t want this anymore” is sufficient reason, despite our cultural insistence on justifications.
- Grief isn’t wrong – You can deeply grieve leaving something that was wrong for you. Sadness about ending doesn’t mean you’re making a mistake.
- Growth is non-linear – The path out rarely follows a clean trajectory. Expect messiness, doubt, and occasional backsliding as normal parts of the process.
The Liberation of Truth
The most powerful moment in my coaching practice isn’t when someone makes the decision to stay or go. It’s when they grant themselves permission to know what they already know.
When they stop outsourcing their truth to experts, articles, friends, or partners. When they reclaim the authority of their own experience.
Because the question isn’t really “When is it time to leave?” The question is: “When will I honor what I already sense to be true?”
The answer, ideally, is now. Not necessarily the leaving – that has its own timeline – but the knowing. The honest acknowledgment of where you actually stand.
That acknowledgment, painful as it might be, is the first step toward reclaiming your life – whether that ultimately means leaving or choosing to stay with renewed clarity and intention.
If this resonated in uncomfortable ways, join us at Over It Club where we create space for the complex truth of relationship transitions. Because moving forward starts with honoring what you already know.
👉 Book a session here The first one’s free. No pressure. Just space.
