I was taught growing up: if you don’t learn the lesson the first time, you are destined to repeat it until you do, this holds true for every relationship in your life. You could have a friendship with someone who doesn’t actually mean you any good but you try and try to appease them to keep some semblance of a friendship alive. This person, you believe to be your friend, really isn’t your friend and they’ve proven it time and time again with snide comments, shade thrown, gossip about you, and/or petty arguments to make you feel bad. This person is a lesson but your heart won’t let you learn it out of fear of hurting them by responding to them in the same manner or feeling like you’re judging them and ready to abandon the friend’ship’ because it’s not what you would want done to you. When someone shows you their true colors, believe them because they usually don’t even realize what they’re revealing about themselves, it’s up to you to pay attention. 
Have you ever been in a relationship which you knew you weren’t happy but couldn’t break free of it? Unhappiness in a relationship can stem from so very many things such as: they’ve so little trust in you they check your phone constantly, looking for something they are not truly ready to find; they’re insecure because they’ve been hurt in the past and never healed; they belittle you every chance they get; or they’re even emotionally abusive. When these issues first arise, you tend to blow it off as the need to adjust to being in a new relationship where issues tend to arise, believing it will pass once you both get to know each other’s idiosyncrasies and triggers. Well, 9 times out of 10, it doesn’t pass, it only intensifies over time, making you miserable but unable to leave because you love them and don’t want to abandon them or the relation’ship’, you feel your love can keep you both afloat on this slowly sinking ship.
There will also be times when you stay in a bad relationship for the wrong reasons, whether it be for the children believing they will be eternally damaged if this person they’ve come to know is no longer around, to save face and prove others wrong, out of guilt for cheating and feeling staying is the best way to show gratitude for their forgiveness, or because you think your previous relationship failures were your fault and this time you’re going to do everything differently.
Okay, let’s start with staying for the children and why it never works! First of all, children see, feel and realize more than you could ever give them credit for. When you stay in a bad situation to give your children that 2 parent household, you’re doing it for the wrong reasons because you are not happy, there’s tension in the house and between the 2 of you and the children feel and absorb it. You’re also showing them it’s okay and the standard is to not expect to be happy, therefore, they will never seek and accept the true happiness they, and everyone else, truly deserves.
Now, the saving face part of staying comes from everyone else knowing it’s not going to work and have spoken to you about it, some have been consoling and concerned while others tell you bluntly with no cut cards. Your pride will keep you in a relationship which is not healthy for you or your partner and will damage you more than you could ever realize, it will affect every relationship you have moving forward if you don’t take the time to deal with and heal from it. You stay because you don’t want to give others the satisfaction of being right, refusing to acknowledge the problems, thinking if you focus on what’s left of the good, you can save it but you can’t, that ‘ship’ is going to sink eventually. Put your pride aside and save both of you by understanding and accepting it’s not going to work, let go of that which burns you. 
When you stay out of guilt of cheating and hurting someone, this is also never a good thing. They are hurt and will probably never get over it, no matter how many times they say “I forgive you, we’re good, let’s just move forward”, they are still wondering in the back of their mind if you kissed them like the person you cheated with or when you say you’re going somewhere is that really where you’re going. That trust, which was betrayed, will never ever be the same no matter what you do, no matter how much you communicate with them, no matter how many passwords and access to your life you give them, no matter how much time you spend with them, nothing you do will rebuild that trust to its original state, forgiveness doesn’t equal or restore trust. 
Now for the most self-destructive act of the 4 listed above: doing the 180 out of fear your past relationship failures were your fault and yours alone. I, personally, know people who have had a string of unsuccessful relationships and find someone new and believe they were the issue in the past, never seeing there were some good reasons those relationships didn’t work. When you stop being who you are, you’re not being true to you, your partner or your relationship, you’re letting your representative carry on a relationship and it’s exhausting because the real you is dying to come out and exist but you hold them at bay. When you try to change who you are, you sacrifice your morals and ethics just to appease someone else, a person who doesn’t really even know you, how is that love? How could that ever be successful? Expecting a man to be a man is not a bad thing, it’s a standard no one should ever compromise just to say they’re in a relationship. Your partner sharing your short comings with family and friends to diminish your credibility and tarnish your character is not okay, you shouldn’t accept it this time just as you wouldn’t have accepted it in the past. When we grow and mature, we do see the areas we need to change, we don’t fly off the handle so quickly, we don’t get stank attitudes with wait staff, we don’t have a bratty attitude and throw tantrums when things don’t go exactly how we planned, all that is the shit we should change and let go of, it’s called adulting. 
When you find yourself in a relationship that isn’t working, you try and communicate with your partner and truly believe in your heart your pain is heard and acknowledged and you both will be able to move forward in the relationship together. Well, the reality is this, if they are only changing the things about them that upset you for you, they won’t stick and you’ll soon be right back at square one and even more miserable because you trusted and believed they would change for the better. At some point, you’ll get to the point you’ve had enough and decide it’s over and break up. Now you’re hurting but know it was for the best but your former partner doesn’t see it that way, you’ll find that the more you get yourself together, your mate will try every ploy in the book to make you jealous enough to want them back and, eventually, you cave and are right back in a situation which is more miserable than when you left but you stay, why? This person who claims to love you is verbally abusive, calling you out of your name, making you feel lower than dirt, dating your friends to make you jealous but still you give it another shot. How’s that working out for you? 
In the beginning of a reconciled relationship, everything will be better than before because you are both so happy to once again be united, you both do everything right and are sweeter than sugar. But, alas, that newness wears off and you’re back in a relationship with someone who doesn’t value you and has done no work on themselves. No relationship is perfect because no person walking this earth is, life has its ups and downs, it’s how you handle them as to what dictates your happiness or misery. It’s all about choices.
Sacrificing your morals and self-respect to be in a relationship has nothing to do with growth, it’s nothing more than settling and giving up everything you believe in just to not be alone, regardless of how miserable you may be, you’re content being in a sub-par relationship and now live a life of mediocrity. No relationship will be easy all the time but you also shouldn’t be miserable, questioned, put down, or made to feel less than more than you are happy. The choice is always yours, do you choose to be miserable in a way less than stellar, joy inducing relationship or do you choose yourself and to be happy and healthy? I don’t know about you but