Many men assume that if she hasn't left yet, she never will. That's a dangerous illusion — patience accumulates, and one day it simply runs out.
When I consult with a lot of couples and with individuals, I see the mistakes that a huge category of people share.
In particular, I see how many men reason like this: “If she has stayed with me this long and hasn’t left (despite our problems), then she isn’t going to leave at all.”
That’s a big delusion. Everything in a human life accumulates. The good and the bad alike. When a woman spends a long stretch of a relationship unheard, misunderstood, without love and attention, sooner or later her patience runs out.
She will say “I’m leaving you,” and that will be the end of it. Not an attempt to frighten you, not a manipulation along the lines of “hold me back and prove you love me.” She is actually leaving.
At that point a lot of men suddenly switch on and start fixing everything at once: psychologists, sex therapists, consultants, flowers, chocolates, time together, words of repentance — anything that might save the relationship.
Sometimes that effort is no longer enough, because it’s too late. Sometimes the situation can still be saved.
But the main problem is that the woman has already made her decision to leave, because she burned out emotionally and lost hope, while the man has only just woken up and is now getting ready to fix things.
That’s why I believe problems and disagreements in a relationship should be dealt with at an early stage, before they turn into a catastrophe.
Brushing your teeth every day and going to the dentist every six months for a cleaning is far simpler and more sensible than ignoring the habit and then rebuilding your whole mouth for 15,000 dollars.
It works the same way in a family. Keeping a relationship healthy is hundreds of times simpler, cheaper and easier than rescuing a family on the edge of divorce.
Have you ever been in a relationship where it was already too late to fix anything?
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