When Your Relationship Isn't Working - or Has Ended: How to Move Forward?
Relationships can leave us feeling stuck both while we're in them and long after they're over.
Perhaps you're still together but something hasn't felt right for a long time. You don't feel heard or understood and you've tried talking about it, but nothing really changes. Perhaps you're wondering whether to leave.
Or perhaps the relationship ended months or even years ago and on paper, you're supposed to have "moved on"? But somehow you haven't.
You might still be trying to understand what happened. Still angry, missing them or wondering whether you made the right decision?
These can look like very different situations, but underneath them are often some surprisingly similar questions: What actually happened between us? What was my part in it - and what wasn't? What can I change, and what can't I change? What do I want now? And perhaps most importantly: How do I move forward from here?
When you know something isn't right
Sometimes there's been an obvious rupture: an affair, a betrayal, a discovery you can't get past.
Sometimes it's much less dramatic. You don't feel listened to. You've become more like housemates. You feel invisible or taken for granted. You may have spent years looking after other people, organising everybody's lives or keeping things going, and started wondering whether your partner values you or mainly what you provide.
Maybe you've been putting up with things for years and have reached the point where you simply can't anymore. Or perhaps you're looking back after the relationship has ended and wondering why you accepted things that now seem so obviously wrong. Either way, knowing something isn't right doesn't necessarily mean you understand what's happening.
What is actually happening between you?
When somebody says, "My partner doesn't listen to me," I'm interested in what that actually looks like. What happens when you raise something difficult? How do you say it? What do they do? And what happens inside you next?
Relationships can develop patterns that become so familiar we barely notice them. One person pushes harder for a response while the other withdraws. The withdrawal makes the first person feel even less heard, so they push harder. The other retreats further. Perhaps one avoids conflict and accommodates everybody until years of resentment eventually erupt. Or criticism becomes an attempt to get some engagement, while the other person hears only criticism.
The subject of the argument changes but the dynamic doesn't.
If the relationship has already ended, we can look at the same thing retrospectively. What happened when one of you was upset? Who pursued and who withdrew? What happened after an argument? What did you keep doing even though it wasn't working?
Understanding the dynamic can help if you're deciding what to do now. It can also help when the relationship is over but you're still asking what on earth happened between us?
Is any of this familiar?
Sometimes it helps to look backwards. What were relationships like when you were growing up? What happened when people disagreed? Did people talk about feelings, or avoid them? Did you learn to keep everybody happy? Withdraw? Become self-sufficient? Work harder for somebody's attention? Ignore your own needs?
Then there is the beginning of this relationship. What attracted you to this person? What excited you? Who were you when you met them? What was the relationship like before life became more complicated? Sometimes the qualities we were initially attracted to are even connected to the things that later frustrate us.
And if the relationship has ended, these aren't questions designed to keep you living in the past. Understanding why a relationship felt so powerful - and why certain patterns developed within it - can help you recognise what you might want to carry forward and what you don't want to repeat.
What if you're the only person who thinks something needs to change?
You may have spent months or years saying: I'm unhappy. We need to do something differently.
And your partner's response, explicitly or otherwise, is: I don't see the problem.
Perhaps you've tried different conversations, sent them things to read or suggested counselling. You keep hoping that if you can just find the right words, your partner will finally understand.
Sometimes changing how we communicate really does make a difference. But there is a difficult limit. You can influence a relationship but you can't make another person change.
And if the relationship has already ended, you may still be trying to solve the same puzzle: Why couldn't I get through to them? What else could I have done?
Sometimes part of moving forward is accepting that there may never have been a version of the conversation that would have produced the response you wanted.
What happens if you do something differently?
If you're still in the relationship, you don't necessarily have to make a final stay-or-leave decision before you try something different. First, you can start noticing what happens within you. The urge to chase. Withdraw. Rescue. Attack. Give in. Do it yourself. Keep the peace. Say nothing and quietly accumulate resentment.
Then perhaps you experiment. Have the conversation when you're calm rather than furious. Say what you need rather than hoping they'll work it out. Set a boundary. Stop doing something you resent doing. Be vulnerable rather than attacking. Create more of a life of your own. Own something you've previously blamed entirely on them.
Then notice what happens. What does it feel like for you to behave differently? Does your partner respond differently? Does your vulnerability allow them to become more vulnerable? Can you have a different kind of conversation? Are they willing to meet you somewhere in the middle?
Sometimes changing one part of a relationship changes the whole dynamic.
Sometimes you discover that you can change your part but your partner has little interest in changing theirs. That is information too.
You don't necessarily have to decide today
When you're desperately unhappy, it can feel as though you need an immediate answer: Stay or leave? But sometimes there is useful space between the two.
If the relationship is safe, you might decide that for a defined period you're going to choose to stay for now, rather than reconsidering the whole relationship every day. And during that time, genuinely try something different. Have the conversations you've avoided. Look at your own part. Set some boundaries. Ask clearly for what you need. Develop more separateness. Perhaps revisit some of what brought you together in the first place. Then see what happens.
This isn't about putting a relationship on endless probation or endlessly changing yourself in the hope that somebody else eventually will. It's about having better information on which to base your decision.
How good does a relationship need to be?
There isn't a formula. We can expect an enormous amount from a partner: love, friendship, emotional connection, sex, security, excitement, intellectual stimulation, shared interests, fun and support. Perhaps one person can't provide all of that.
Some perfectly legitimate needs can be met outside the relationship. Friends can provide conversations your partner doesn't. Interests can provide excitement and stimulation. Having a separate life can sometimes make the relationship itself healthier.
But accepting that your partner can't be everything isn't the same as persuading yourself that something fundamental doesn't matter. You can love somebody and still decide that the relationship isn't enough for you. You can also recognise someone's limitations and consciously decide that what you have together is worth accepting them for.
Perhaps the question isn't: Is this relationship good enough? But: Is what I gain from this relationship enough for me to accept what I don't get from it?
What if somebody else makes you feel alive?
This can happen before or after a relationship ends. After years of feeling ignored, unwanted or taken for granted, suddenly somebody listens. They notice you. They find you attractive. You laugh again. You feel like a version of yourself that had disappeared.
That experience matters. But it can be useful to get curious about what it means. Do I want this person - or do I want the way I feel when I'm with them? What am I discovering that I've been missing? What do I actually know about them? What feels wonderfully different from my partner or ex? Does anything about them also feel strangely familiar?
After a relationship ends, being intensely wanted can be especially powerful. Perhaps this new relationship really will be wonderful. But sometimes we're drawn strongly towards somebody who seems the complete opposite of our ex, only to discover that the opposite brings its own difficulties.
I don't think there's a prescribed length of time you need to wait before meeting somebody, but I do think it's useful to remain curious enough to ask: Am I choosing this person - or am I desperately trying not to feel alone? The grass genuinely can be greener but it's still worth looking at the grass quite closely before moving house.
What would you lose - and what might you gain?
Leaving isn't simply choosing between this partner and no partner. You're making a decision about a whole life. There may be children, a home, finances, friendships and years of shared history involved. So sometimes the questions need to become very practical. Where would you live? What would your financial position be? Who would support you? What would you gain? What would you lose? Some questions won't have answers.
You cannot know whether you'll meet somebody else. You cannot know exactly how you'll feel in a year's time. You cannot know whether leaving will ultimately make you happier.
At some point, there is a void. No amount of thinking can give you certainty about a future that hasn't happened yet.
And what if the relationship has already ended?
The decision being made doesn't necessarily end the psychological work. If you've been left, people may expect you to be devastated.
What can be less understood is how difficult it can also be when you were the person who chose to go. You can know something wasn't working and still miss the person enormously. You can feel relief and grief; freedom and loneliness; and certainty and doubt. Making a choice doesn't remove the loss attached to what you didn't choose.
And sometimes moving towards a life that fits you better means being prepared to go through a period when life actually feels worse. A kind of dark night of the soul. Not because suffering is necessary or noble, but because avoiding all pain can sometimes keep us tied to something we've already decided isn't right for us.
You can lose more than the relationship
I've experienced something of this myself. What surprised me wasn't simply the loss of the relationship. It was how much else could change around it.
A shared social world doesn't necessarily know what to do when the couple at the centre of it no longer exists. People can react in ways you don't expect. Some take sides. Others don't know what to say. The group can seemingly carry on while you suddenly feel outside it.
And you can discover that people you enjoy spending time with aren't necessarily people who know how to support you when things become emotionally difficult. For me, that was incredibly hard.
It also taught me something about gradually creating relationships and parts of a life that are your own. There can be something particularly valuable about meeting people who never knew your ex - people with whom you don't have to be one half of the old couple. Not replacements for what you've lost, something new.
Why am I still not over it?
There isn't a point at which you're officially supposed to be fine.
You can understand intellectually that a relationship wasn't healthy and still miss the person. You can know they treated you badly and still want them to call. You can build a perfectly functional life while some part of you remains caught in the old one.
Moving forward doesn't require deciding that your ex was terrible or that the relationship meant nothing.
Sometimes it means developing a fuller understanding of what happened. What was good? What wasn't? What did I contribute? What belonged to them? What did I tolerate? What would I recognise sooner now? What might I do differently in another relationship?
And perhaps: What do I want to take from this relationship rather than continuing to live inside it?
How counselling can help
I work with individuals rather than couples. My role isn't to save your relationship, persuade you to leave it or decide whether your partner or ex is the problem. And you don't have to arrive knowing what you want.
My approach combines counselling and coaching, which means we can look at the past, what's happening now and what comes next.
Sometimes looking backwards helps us understand the relationships and experiences that have shaped you, and the patterns you may have learnt without consciously choosing them. We also pay attention to the present: what you're thinking and feeling, the dynamics you're caught in, what happens when you try something different, what you need, and what you're prepared to accept. And we can look forward.
If you're still together, that might mean exploring what you could try, what conversations need to happen, where your boundaries are, or what staying or leaving might actually involve.
If the relationship has ended, the work may be about making sense of what happened, rebuilding confidence, discovering who you are outside the relationship and beginning to create something that belongs to you.
Sometimes we need to stay with difficult feelings rather than immediately trying to fix them. Sometimes it helps to think practically about what you might do next. Often we need both.
A note about abuse
There is an important exception to much of what I've written here. If somebody is abusing or controlling you, looking for ways you can change your side of the relationship is not the appropriate response to their abusive behaviour. Nor is better communication a way to make abuse stop.
Safety becomes the priority, and leaving an abusive relationship can itself require careful planning and specialist support. That is different from two people who are both safe but caught in a difficult or unhealthy relationship pattern.
What might moving forward look like?
Moving forward doesn't have to mean one particular outcome.
If you stay, it might mean understanding the relationship more clearly, doing some things differently, strengthening your boundaries and becoming more accepting of what your partner can - and cannot - give you. Staying doesn't necessarily mean nothing changed.
If you leave, it might mean reaching a decision after looking at your own contribution, trying what feels reasonable to try and noticing what your partner does in response. Leaving doesn't mean the relationship was a failure or that everything about it was bad.
If you were left, moving forward may involve understanding more about what happened, seeing your part without believing everything was your fault, rebuilding trust in your own judgement and gradually discovering possibilities in a life you didn't originally choose.
Some relationships matter enormously even when they don't last. The aim doesn't have to be reaching a point where you never think about your ex or regret anything. It may be about knowing yourself better, recognising unhealthy dynamics sooner, having clearer boundaries and taking responsibility for your part without taking responsibility for somebody else's.
Moving forward doesn't have to mean forgetting somebody or deciding the relationship didn't matter. It can mean that the relationship is no longer making your choices for you.
Struggling with a relationship - or finding it difficult to move forward after one has ended?
I'm Nicki Wakefield, an integrative counsellor and coach based in Eastbourne. I work with individual adults who want to understand what is happening in their relationships, make sense of what has happened, or think about what they want next.
I offer counselling and coaching face-to-face in Eastbourne and online across the UK.
