Here's Why You Stayed So Damn Long in Your Last Relationship

There comes a time in every breakup where you ask yourself, “why the HELL did I stay so damn long?!”

This usually surfaces when you’re recounting the events of your relationship to your friend; you can feel yourself embarrassed yet mortified that what’s coming out of your mouth is actually your reality.

Trust me, I know that exact feeling.

Before I met my fiance, I had found myself in a situationship (we’ll call it) where I somehow managed to dismiss all the red flags (like his rudeness, covert racism, and the fact he still lived with his mother).

I was shocked and appalled at myself for not just getting myself in the situationship, but staying even when I felt “off” about what I was looking at.

I often compensated by rationalizing my way out of it and making excuses.

“He just got back into down. Maybe he doesn’t know he’s being rude...”

I’m sure you know where I’m going here…

You sense the red flag, but you’re not sure what to do with that feeling, so you tuck it under the rug...

…Then another red flag shows up, and this time it “seems” like a different context, so you tuck it under the rug, again.

Next thing you know you’ve made a relationship with this person and all you have to show for it is your very large pile of red flags to sort through once it’s over.

And none of it seems to make any sense because you thought you had higher self-esteem than what you’re now witnessing as you share your story with others.

Like I said, I get it.

So today, I’m here to tell you why you might have stayed so damn long.

As a conscious breakup coach, I’m going to be sharing my take on it, and pull from my own experience and my clients’ to hopefully guide you to see what you need to see in order to move on.

Let’s jump in.

So, first things first: I believe we all know deep down what we want in a healthy and conscious relationship.

The only problem? Most of us weren’t modelled what healthy or conscious relationships look like, so we settle for partners who feel familiar.

Familiar to our parents’ relationship dynamics.

Familiar to what we believe based on what we witnessed and experienced growing up.

On the surface you’re not even thinking about the role your dad or mom played in your dating life….

But on an unconscious level, these dynamics and beliefs are playing out without your knowing.

Here’s an example that many of us can relate to: maybe you had a dad who wasn’t present in your life (emotionally or physically) and now you unconsciously seek partners who are only half in the relationship (commitment issues, not being fully emotionally intimate with you, etc), and you wonder why?

Because what’s familiar on a deep level is a program running in your mind saying, “full-time love doesn’t exist because you’ve never seen that, so seek what you know which is absent love.”

Of course, each person’s program sounds different—this was just an example. You’ll want to work 1:1 with a therapist or coach to go deeper. This is what I love to uncover and work through with my clients.

Okay, so now that you know there’s unconscious stuff happening, the second thing to look at is self-esteem (or self-love): if we thought we could get who we truly wanted (not just on a physical level, but soul level) we wouldn’t put up with staying so long.

If we really knew who we were capable of being loved by, we would never settle for someone who displayed such big red flags from the get-go.

At least, this was the uncomfortable truth I needed to accept so I could actually break this pattern.

(And trust me…I denied it. I denied til the cows came home.)

I was attracting people who matched (or reinforced) my self-esteem and beliefs about myself.

On an unconscious level, I didn’t think I was worthy of great love.

I tried to tell myself I was: “I’m good looking, fun, cool… who wouldn’t wanna be with this gal right here!” but deep down my self-esteem was so low.

When I look at how my relationship is to my father, and some of the ways he treated me or the things he said to me growing up, it’s no wonder why I sought men who barely gave me what I needed emotionally, or stayed for as long as I did.

It’s hard to write this, even now. Because it’s a tough reality and most of us don’t want to look at that. But I’m writing this because most of us are scared to admit it, but it can be so freeing.

We have parents who definitely tried their best with what they had (and I do love my mom and dad to absolute bits and have a newfound appreciation for them), but we all have childhood trauma to work through (and yes, even if we had great parents).

When you courageously take a look at how your self-esteem landed here, you liberate yourself from the painful relationship patterns you don’t realize you’ve found yourself in until now.

When you keep asking yourself, “why did I keep staying?!…”

When you keep staying, it’s not because you aren’t smart, or don’t have your life together, no.

I hear this all the time from successful and intelligent people who aren’t sure why every aspect of their life is great except their romantic relationships.

It’s because:

The relationships you attract are based on your self-esteem, which was created from what you were unconsciously taught to feel about yourself, or your earliest childhood experiences.

You can be amazing at your accounting job, but that doesn’t mean the numbers are going to add up in your relationships.

Wow, that came out almost too naturally. (I had to squeeze some humor into this article.)

In short: your self-esteem is playing matchmaker.

The light at the end of the tunnel

Okay, so this was a bit of a heavy article to read, and you want to know where you go from here.

I’m here to tell you there is a very happy ending to this story.

The fact that you read up to this point says you’re ready to let go of these attachments that don’t suit the new (authentic) way to have a relationship.

Right? You wouldn’t have clicked into or read this entire article if it wasn’t time to heal and actually look at this honestly.

In order to move forward, you first get to see where things just aren’t going where you want them to, in order for you to redirect and get on the path to where you’re meant be.

And when you’re at rock bottom (and in my case, when I realized I had stayed too damn long in the wrong relationship) there’s only going up from there.

Studying my unhealthy attachments, my childhood traumas, and being honest about myself about where my self-esteem was (not where I pretended it was) IS the reason I’m in a healthy, loving and conscious relationship today.

Did I not want to feel the massive discomfort of honesty? Sure.

Did I need it in order to proceed in a healthy direction? 10000% percent.

I couldn’t be here today without those days I asked myself, “why in the name of all that is holy‚did I stay so damn long?!”

My answer: because it taught me what I needed to learn in order to find myself, and find the love I actually deserved.

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If you appreciated this article and would like to work through your relationship patterns and begin your healing process, feel free to book a session here.

Ready to take a journey to heal from your ex? Check out my 21-Day Journey to Heal Yourself After a Breakup