How to Know When It’s Time to Let Go of Your Relationship

There’s a point in many relationships where you start to wonder: Should I keep trying… or is it time to let go?

It’s one of the hardest questions a person can face, especially when you’ve invested years — maybe decades — of your life, your love, and your hope into someone. You may feel torn between loyalty and exhaustion, love and pain, commitment and self-preservation.

As a psychologist, I’ve walked with hundreds of couples through that uncertain middle ground — the place between “we’re trying” and “we’re done.” What I’ve learned, and what research from John and Julie Gottman also shows, is that the decision to stop trying rarely comes from a single event. It comes from a pattern — a pattern of disconnection, contempt, and emotional unavailability that slowly erodes the foundation of love.

Here are some of the signs that it may be time to stop trying to repair, and instead start focusing on your own healing.

1. When There’s Persistent Emotional or Physical Harm

If your relationship involves emotional, verbal, or physical abuse, or if you live in fear of your partner’s reactions, the first priority must always be safety — not repair. The Gottmans have been clear: relationships cannot heal while abuse is still happening. There can be no intimacy without safety.

You deserve to live in peace, without fear, control, or humiliation. Leaving such a situation isn’t giving up — it’s protecting your wellbeing.

2. When Contempt Has Taken Root

In Gottman’s research, contempt — eye-rolling, sarcasm, mockery, or belittling — is the single greatest predictor of relationship failure. When contempt replaces respect, it signals the loss of empathy and admiration.

You can work through anger and disappointment, but you can’t repair love when contempt has taken over. Contempt corrodes the bond that makes repair possible.

“When contempt is high and partners see each other with disgust instead of admiration, the relationship is in serious trouble.” — John Gottman

3. When Repair Attempts Fail

Healthy couples fight — often passionately — but they also make and receive repair attempts. These are the small moments where one person reaches out and says, “Can we start over?”, or uses humor or affection to soften tension.

Gottman found that couples who stay together aren’t those who never fight — they’re the ones who respond positively to repair attempts. When one or both partners repeatedly reject or ignore those attempts, the emotional bridge collapses.

“It’s not the presence of conflict, but the failure of repair that predicts divorce.” — Gottman Institute

If you’ve tried everything — calm conversations, therapy, vulnerability, accountability — and your partner continues to dismiss, deny, or minimize, it may be time to step back.

4. When There’s No Accountability or Empathy

Rebuilding a relationship requires empathy, remorse, and accountability. If one partner refuses to acknowledge harm or continually blames you for your own pain, healing cannot occur.

In betrayal recovery especially, this is where many relationships reach their limit. You can forgive what someone did; you cannot heal while they continue to deny, justify, or minimize it.

“You can’t build trust without accountability. You can’t create safety without honesty.” — Julie Gottman

If your partner cannot take responsibility or engage in repair with empathy, it may be time to let go — not because you stopped loving them, but because you finally started loving yourself enough to stop hurting.

5. When Emotional Disengagement Has Set In

In Gottman’s long-term studies, emotional disengagement was one of the last stages before the end of a marriage. It often looks like indifference — no more anger, no more fighting, just distance. The physiological signs of conflict disappear not because peace has been found, but because emotional investment is gone.

“The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.” — John Gottman

If the emotional pulse of your relationship has gone flat — if one or both of you have stopped caring enough to fight, talk, or reach out — that may be a sign it’s over.

6. When There’s No Shared Vision for the Future

A healthy relationship requires two people rowing in the same direction. If you each have fundamentally different goals, values, or visions for your lives, the effort to keep rowing together becomes exhausting.

If you find yourself constantly compromising your own values, suppressing your voice, or reshaping yourself just to stay, it may be time to acknowledge that the relationship you wish existed is not the one you’re in.

7. When You’ve Tried Everything — and It’s Still Not Enough

Sometimes you do the work: therapy, books, workshops, conversations, self-reflection, change. You give everything you can — and it still isn’t enough to make the relationship safe, mutual, or nurturing.

That’s not failure. That’s reality.

You can stop trying when continuing to try means losing yourself.

“Love is not enough if it costs you your self-respect.” — Julie Gottman

When the Relationship Feels Like a Prison

When your relationship feels like a prison — a cold, dark, painful place where there is little joy and almost no sunlight — it’s time to let go.

A good, healthy relationship brings out the best in us. It makes us feel safe, loved, and free to be complete and authentically ourselves.

If you feel numb, shut down, cold, afraid, or unaccepted, and you’ve tried to make meaningful changes, there’s no shame in saying that things have run their course. Sometimes the most loving thing we can do is to see things with our eyes wide open and say to our partner that we want more for them and for ourselves.

There is no prize for suffering. The prize is peace.

Letting Go with Compassion

Ending a relationship — or deciding to stop fighting for one — can be one of the most courageous choices you’ll ever make. It’s not about blame; it’s about clarity.

You can grieve what could have been and still stand firm in what must be. You can honor your love for someone and still protect your peace.

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