6 Times You’ll Want To End Your Relationship (But Really Shouldn’t)

1. During a fight at 2am

Nothing productive or good happens after 2am. This is a fact of life that should be respected. If you’re up at 2am fighting with your significant other, then chances are you’ve been knocking back drinks and are lubricated enough to be saying some shit you do not want to be saying. It’ll be 1:59am, it’s last call, and you’re that couple waiting for a cab screaming at each other, “IT’S OVER FOR REAL THIS TIME!”

Yeah, you, me, and your significant other know it’s not over. After the hangover wears off, you’ll both look at each other and laugh and hope to god nobody caught your antics on camera.

2. During the holiday season

Man, emotions run high come November. It’s like the holiday season hits and all of a sudden, the people around you turn into monsters on the hunt for discounted televisions. Relationships are especially tested during this time. It must be the impending new year that compels couples to reevaluate their entire lives, including the person they’re sleeping with. Now, you may feel like you 100% know your relationship is over, but I’d push you to evaluate how you feel come January 2nd when the excitement of the holidays have worn off and you realize, once again, that the start of a new year feels like every other day before it. You’ll probably end up happy you didn’t ditch your significant other.

Then again, if the new year rolls around and you’re like, “What’s this person still doing in my bed?” then, by all means, get your break up on.

3. In the middle of moving

Moving could potentially be one of the most stressful situations. It starts out innocently enough. You think, it’s just boxes and some furniture, how hard could a move be? Then, about two days before you need to be out of your current residence, it’s like you suddenly turn into a monster that can’t understand human emotion. Every aspect of moving becomes a point against your significant other. This box looks like it was packed by a five year old! How can I possibly be with someone that puts wine glasses on the bottom of a box? You have how many pairs of shoes that you can’t ever in your life part with? You really want to keep that lamp?

Not to mention the actual moving. Hire professional movers or forever hold your peace. Your relationship cannot withstand the amount of mental fortitude it will take to not scream, “HOW COULD I EVER LOVE YOU!!!!” as you’re bringing a couch up two flights of stairs while the person you otherwise love is telling you to pivot the couch into a space that’s already too small and your fingers are about to be smashed and you’re like, “THIS IS SO OVER!”

Stick it out for a few days and once the last box is unpacked, you’ll look at each and be like, “We did it, I love you so much!” and the hell of moving will be a distant memory… until you have to move again.

4. During a hard time for either or both of you

Relationships ebb and flow like anything else. However, sometimes we can feel tension and distance from the other person when they are going through a tough time or, even, when we are. What we can internalize as a rift between our relationship is sometimes just as simple as the person we love being deep in their own emotional hole. While we would love if our significant other would share and open up about their tough time, sometimes it doesn’t work out that way and we need to weather the storm for a bit.

A lot of times we’re not aware that when we’re so deeply connected to another person that, often, we can feel their emotions as intensely as they are feeling them. This can make us feel incredibly helpless, since there’s nothing we can do except say to them, “I’m here if you need me.” It’s definitely not a time to break up, because this type of experience can oftentimes lead to a deeper and truer understanding of each other.

5. On a vacation

It has taken me a long time to understand why couples fight while on vacation. It’s supposed to be this wonderful, relaxing, special time that a couple shares together, but many times you find yourself in the middle of a fight in the most beautiful place you’ve been, which only makes the fight doubly frustrating. You’ll be fighting while also thinking, “Fuck, we shouldn’t be fighting right now. We should be having hot hotel sex!”

My theory is that vacations hype up expectations of this perfect, romantic time that’s all hotel sex and kissing under moonlight and delicious meals over candlelight. While a vacation can certainly be all of those things, our expectations of them cause this sort of pressure to make the vacation as amazing as possible, which then leads to wanting everything perfect, including the other person’s behavior.

Probably the best thing you can do is tamper your expectations of the vacation from the beginning. Go into it with an open mind to have playtime and fun with your significant other and then you can enjoy with a lot less pressure for it to be World’s Best Vacation Ever.

6. Putting together IKEA furniture

So many of us in a relationship naively believe that putting together something from IKEA will be an enriching activity to foster closeness. We could not be more wrong. For the sake of your relationship, hire the IKEA people to put together your furniture. It’s not worth the emotional turmoil of spending five hours working on a desk only to find out the left side was put on backwards and you’ve been left with ten screws and you’re yelling at the top of your lungs, “YOU TOLD ME THAT’S WHERE THE LEFT DRAWER WAS SUPPOSED TO GO!! I’M DONE!”

Take it from me, you can’t put a price on how much you want to avoid a situation where you’re storming out of your apartment frantically swinging around that weird IKEA tool while irrationally setting fire to your entire relationship. Just spend the $90 to have the professionals come over and build the thing. The fate of your love life will thank you.

Bottom line: breaking up is difficult even when it’s mutual. But, breaking up during high stress or highly emotional situations will only cause you to regret and wonder “what if” down the line. Calling it off with someone you love is a big deal and you’ll want to feel as good as you can about the decision. Once stress and big emotions wear off, you can see clearly as to whether or not you’re for real done and then you can, at the very least, feel at peace with your decision, rather than looking back and being like, “Well, if we had just hired movers, maybe we would still be together!”