You Should Be Allowed to Consider Leaving

https://youtu.be/gVPqgacvdYE?si=B-Ldu8zDCxs601Zv

For a long time, I believed that even thinking about divorce was a problem.

Not just saying it out loud—but allowing the thought to exist at all. If you were in a “good” marriage, you didn’t go there. You stayed committed. You figured it out. You pushed through.

But what I’ve seen—in my work and in my own life—is that refusing to consider leaving doesn’t strengthen a relationship. It often keeps it stagnant. There’s a difference between threatening to leave and allowing yourself to honestly consider whether you want to stay. Most people have already thought about it. Quietly. Privately. Usually in moments of frustration or disconnection. But they shut it down just as quickly. They tell themselves it’s not an option. That they shouldn’t think that way. That something must be wrong with them for even going there. So the thought never gets examined. It just sits in the background, unspoken, shaping how they show up.

When I finally allowed myself to fully consider leaving my own marriage—not dramatically, not impulsively, just honestly—it changed the way I related to it.

I walked it out in my mind. I let myself imagine what life would actually look like. Not the fantasy version, but the real one. The responsibility, the absence, the trade-offs.

And in doing that, I was able to make a decision—not from fear, not from obligation, but from clarity. That’s the shift.

When staying is no longer something you have to do, it becomes something you’re choosing to do.

And that choice carries weight. It creates ownership. It creates responsibility. It creates a different kind of engagement with the relationship because you’re no longer there by default. You’re there because you’ve decided it’s where you want to be.

What I see often is that when divorce is completely off the table, there’s very little pressure to change. The relationship becomes something people assume will continue, regardless of how they show up in it. But when it’s acknowledged—even quietly, even thoughtfully—it introduces a different level of honesty.

Am I willing to do what this relationship requires of me?

Is this something I want to keep building?

Is this working?

Those are uncomfortable questions. But they’re necessary ones. And avoiding them doesn’t protect the relationship. It weakens it. You don’t have to act on the thought. You don’t have to make any immediate decisions. But you should be allowed to consider it.

Because clarity doesn’t come from pretending something isn’t an option. It comes from knowing that it is—and choosing, intentionally, what you want to do with that.