Dear readers,

we are still continuing our discourse on whether you should stay or leave when the relationship is no longer no longer working. Many women have told me that when the relationship is no longer working they make a conscious effort to stay because of their children or because of financial constraints or even because they still love their husbands and feel that there is no need investing time and energy into another relationship.

Many have said that it costs too much to plunge into a new relationship and some say that they neither have the zeal nor the age to invest in a new relationship. Yet there are others that tell me that they will not waste another day in a relationship that is clearly not working.

I have asked several women how they come to terms with the reality of a failing or failed relationship and they tell me that there are indicators. So I found out that these indicators have to do with a lack of interest in the other person’s affairs. Period.

“He has stopped caring,” one woman told me. “He no longer looks at me or sees me. I am just a part of the furniture in the home and he has no use for me. We rarely talk, eat or laugh together,” another said.

“The children are all grown and out of the house. During thanksgiving, we all pretend to be one big happy family but it is a sham and even a stranger could see through it,” confided another woman. I asked her how long this had been going on and why she continued to stay in an unhappy home and marriage. The woman told me that it had been at least five years since her husband touched her, made love to her, or looked at her. She said they had been sleeping in separate rooms and just stayed on for the children’s sake. At the time, their 13-year-old was the only one at home. With the child having gone off to college, she told me she was afraid he could suffocate her at night and that was the reason she was thinking of moving out of the home.

Another woman told me that she had never thought of moving out because she put in her sweat in building the six bedroom mansion they leave in and that unless they go to court to put up the house for sale she would never leave. “We hate each other with the same passion that we loved each other in the past but we also hate to see the other benefit from our hard work. So what keeps us apart also keeps us together,” she said. I thought she was crazy to satisfy her happiness for material stuff.

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One man I talked to gave me a very different perspective of the whole issue. He said that in his case he feels victimized by the wife. He said that his wife makes more than him and that he would be darned if he allowed her to enjoy herself with other men. Hear him: “I will be a thorn in her flesh, I will not grant her a divorce and even if I do, I will seek alimony and custody of all our six kids, she will work till she drops to pay me child support and alimony.”

I was chilled to my bones. Such hatred and such burden to carry. I felt very disgusted with the thought of this man wielding a big stick over his wife. How can she bear this? Wouldn’t it be better to pay the alimony and child support and be free from this monster of a man?

I have come to realize that many couples are in a rut but I wonder why they remain and sacrifice joy and happiness for material stuff. I don’t get it. Why do these women think that money and material gain is better than peace, joy and freedom?  Many of them are bitter and feel that they are failures. Well, I don’t think that they are failures but the truth is that if you allow money to control you then you actually lose your soul and sometimes it is hard to find it.

As far as I know, when something stops working, try something else. Find your joy, find your peace and move on. Life is way too precious to allow negative energy to weigh you down.

Readers, you decide. Is the relationship worth salvaging? Is it worth your happiness? If it is not working then make a decision that favours you first. Do not be a slave to a bad relationship. It will eat you up and you will lose your joy. Nothing is worth losing your laughter, joy and happiness for.

ν Dr. NJ