I have been listening to two friends for a while now with relationships ending. It’s sad. The attempts to keep a dying relationship alive. The things they are doing to deny that it’s really over. The last attempts they make to try and recapture what was there in the beginning. The knowing it’s time to let go and move on, but then they don’t. How they both bounced back into the relationship with a shallow promise or self-imposed idea that things would be different, only to be disappointed when that didn’t last long.

One friend is breaking up with a girlfriend. The other with their law firm.

So here’s my advice to them both:

  • Cherish all the good times you’ve had over these years.
  • Take stock and notice what you brought to the relationship, and the influence you had.
  • See how your presence in the relationship changed you, and changed them, for the better.
  • Don’t let fear keep you from taking actions you need to take.
  • Don’t focus on the dysfunction at the end. You stayed too long and you know it. Just don’t feed it.
  • Move forward with grace and dignity.
  • Allow them to move forward with grace and dignity.
  • Know that what you are feeling right now is normal.
  • You have more power than you think right now. It’s called the ability to take action.
  • The next step, and choice, are up to you.
  • Reflect on all that has happened, take an inventory of it all.
  • Decide what you want in a relationship/job moving forward, and commit that to paper.
  • Determine what you can compromise on, and what you cannot. Keep that paper handy as a measuring stick for each new date/job interview.
  • When approaching your next date/job interview view it as a means to determine if you are compatible for a long-term relationship. If not, move on.
  • You are not alone. We have all been there.

Breaking up sucks. It doesn’t matter if it is with a firm, or a significant other. But relationships don’t always last forever. And many that do are really unhealthy, and who would want to live in that.

The last thing I would leave you both with is a quote from one of the only movie lines I can actually remember,

Everything will be all right in the end. If it’s not all right, it is not yet the end.

– The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel