very relationship has highs and lows. Nobody’s bond is 100 percent perfect all the time; a little dash of conflict and boredom is totally normal. But it’s hard to tell exactly how much you should put up with before you leave. The reasons why people stay in unhappy relationships vary. You may simply be comfortable with your partner and your relationship, without genuinely being happy with them. Or maybe there’s something tying you two together, like a child or a rental agreement, that can keep you from being able to act just based on your feelings.

My ex and I were together for two and a half years, and a few months into our relationship, I had already started having mild doubts about whether or not I really wanted to be with him. He did everything right, but my heart just wasn’t in it. My feelings for him fluctuated throughout our entire relationship. Sometimes I was all in, and other times I was just in. We were together, and it was nice, but looking back now, I don’t know if I was unfalteringly happy. He was my best friend, and I loved being with him. But if I was truly happy in our relationship, I wouldn’t have had doubts about it as often as I did, and I wouldn’t have developed feelings for someone else, like I did.

Relationships aren’t as black and white as we’d wish sometimes, but that’s a part of life. I stayed with my ex because he was good to me, he meant a lot to me, and we had a lot of great times together. I put off ending things because I didn’t want to hurt him, especially if there wasn’t anything particularly wrong with the relationship. Those were my reasons to stay, and here are 11 Reddit users’ reasons, too.

She Stays Out Of Guilt
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I’m still in my unhappy marriage (almost 7 years married, 9 together). The couple of times I have tried to say that I wanted to leave, he goes on about how he doesn’t want to lose me and things will be different. While we have a lot of good things together right now – two kids, steady jobs with great combined income, a house – and have some things in common, it feels like history is the only thing we share anymore and that I don’t feel anything more than guilt keeping me tied to the relationship any longer. I don’t have any desire to work on the marriage and would rather be alone. I just feel like every attempt to leave will be met with desperate begging to stay, and I’ll do it out of guilt and because it’s easier in a way.
— u/dee_eye_three

She Dug Herself Too Deep
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I knew within the first month but I kept thinking that if I were patient and worked at things that it would get better. Then we moved in together, then we got married, then we had a kid. I just kept getting myself in deeper and deeper. Last year it all came to a head and I left him. It was awful. The hardest thing I’ve ever done. He’s not a bad guy, but I wasn’t happy. And I couldn’t make him happy. I just didn’t like myself anymore in that relationship and I thought we both deserved better. I did not want to live a lifetime like that.
— u/start_again

A Common Mixup Of Friendship Love Versus Relationship Love
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About 1 year into our relationship I realized there wasn’t any romantic attraction to him. Having sex with him was a chore. I would put it off as long as a could, and we could go 6 months at a time without it.
I stayed with him because I confused friendship love for romantic love. I was very comfortable. He treated me very well, and had me laughing all. the. time. He was an interesting person and we were so close to each other.
I realized it was time to break up when I found myself constantly fantasizing about my life with other guys. It was incredibly hard to break it off because I was going to lose my best friend, but mostly because I did not want to hurt him. I knew I had to end it because it wasn’t fair to him or myself.