Have You Ever Had to Say This?

It’s the statement we rarely want to have to make and, far more than we’d like to do in our lifetimes, will have to say:

“I love you… and I’m leaving you…”

I saw this in a quote by therapist Ailey Jolie on Instagram and the quote states:

It takes courage. It takes strength. It takes so much bravery. To look towards your beloved and say, “I love you, and I’m leaving you.”

And, yet, there is nothing easy about speaking that truth, especially when there are ties that bind, ties like: years together, shared assets, children together, family ties that you love, a lifetime of memories that you won’t have time to build with anybody else, feelings of regret you’ll have to face when things end and you realize you spent years of your life in something that wasn’t going to last forever. The list goes on and on…

There is nothing easy with choosing yourself when you’ve spent a lifetime deriving your value from choosing everybody BUT yourself…

When your inclination is to self-abandon, choosing YOU feels very, very selfish… and yet, at some point or another, it will become your only option if you’re going to be able to breathe and be and live your one true life.

And I don’t have words of wisdom about how you say the words that are so hard to say (“I love you and I am leaving you…”). I don’t have tips on how you know it’s time to go or on what to say when it’s time to utter those words. I don’t have those answers because the right answers for you will not be the right answers for me.

I cannot tell you what it takes for the switch to flip and for every fiber of your being to say “This is over. It’s time…”

All I can tell you is this:

• You can’t rush the flipping of the switch. I’ve tried. It doesn’t work.
• You can’t run from the pain of ending a relationship you hoped would last forever. No matter when you speak your truth, the pain is real and it will last as long as it lasts.
• PYou can spend your life self-abandoning to avoid having to say the words that will set you free and you can choose to lose your life…