No friendship or relationship is destined to last forever.
At some point, we outgrow the people in our lives, develop different interests, and even in the best circumstances, lose people due to the natural cycle of life and death.
But when is the right time to move on from a relationship that feels doomed? Should we wait it out … should we try to pick up the broken pieces, and if so, for how long? At what point is it acceptable to walk away and never look back?
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Burning bridges is a tough and serious decision to make. When we “burn bridges” we are essentially cutting off all contact with a person and making it impossible to return. If you’re struggling with this decision, there are a few things you might like to know first.
When Burning Bridges is the Wrong Choice
Cutting people off is not always the right decision. As much as we would like to quickly dispose of a person who is causing us trouble, sometimes the problem originates more within us than them.
For instance, burning bridges might be the wrong choice if you’re wanting to dispose of a person due to fear of intimacy and the unwillingness to be vulnerable. Both of these problems will not be solved by cutting a person off, and in fact, making such a decision will exacerbate and deepen your insecurities. If you’re uncomfortable with sharing your entire self with another person in a friendship or relationship, the problem obviously isn’t the other person, but your own internal fears and traumas. In order to work through this problem, be honest with yourself and the person in your life. Explain how you feel. If they truly love you, they will understand and will stop trying to make you open up.
Another example of a wrong time to move on would be in the heat of anger (or another strong emotional reaction). When we are consumed by emotions our logic is overridden and we cannot think or see clearly. So many poor and even fatal decisions are made when our amygdala has gone haywire (bring to mind all the crimes of passion you hear on the news). In order to prevent yourself from making a rash decision, force yourself to breathe in and out for a couple of minutes. Removing yourself from the person or situation also helps your mind and body to settle down.
The final example of a wrong time to move on is when a relationship changes and stops being fun and exciting all the time. So many people tend to mistakenly believe that there’s something “wrong” with their relationship as it matures and grows because it’s no longer filled with the same ecstasy experienced at the beginning. But the reality is that every relationship changes: you will not experience the same dizzy euphoria as you did when you first fell in love. But there will be new emotions to experience as you grow and change with your partner. It is normal to feel a bit of boredom every now and then, but this does not necessarily mean that you need to burn bridges and move on. Obviously, if you’re feeling constantly bored and unfulfilled then you should seriously reconsider your relationship. But don’t make the mistake of hopping from partner to partner in an attempt to find that one person who makes you feel euphoric 100% of the time. It just won’t happen.
12 Signs it’s Time to Move On
So when is it the right time to move on?
At some point in our lives, we all need to make the heart-wrenching choice to sever contact with certain people. For some of us, that might mean burning bridges with our ex-partners or friends, and for others, this might mean cutting off contact with our parents, siblings or even our own children.
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It is unrealistic – and even dangerous – to believe that all relationships can be repaired, no matter what has happened. We cannot change other people, no matter how hard we try. Yes, we might be able to influence them, but the choice to change comes from them, not us. We cannot force others to change. Therefore, sometimes we need to accept that it’s time to let go, move on, and open a new chapter of our lives because no matter what we do, a person will only change if they are interested in changing.
Letting go can even seem cruel to some people, especially if a strong emotional bond is present. But the reality is that we have to take care of ourselves as well. If a person is not a source of comfort or support in your life, then they hang around you like dead weight holding you back from self-fulfillment. It is not selfish to burn bridges when the person on the other end is feeding off your soul. In fact, deliberately moving toxic people from your life is a sign of self-love and respect for your personal needs.
Here are some major signs that it’s time to move on:
1. They don’t show interest in your thoughts, opinions or needs
Your relationship is very lopsided. Even when you try to express your thoughts and needs, you are met with a blank, uninterested wall. Life seems to revolve around the other person, and whenever you try to draw a conversation towards yourself, this person will immediately try to hog attention. In the past, you may have drawn attention to the fact that this person doesn’t show interest in your needs, but nothing changed and they made no effort to pay attention to you. This person has an “ME first, you second” attitude.
2. They emanate constant negativity
No matter what you do or say, the other person is always unhappy. This person might nitpick, whine, criticize, judge, and moan about you or other people all the time. Not only that, but you always seem to go away feeling miserable after spending time with this person. They are like a damp heavy blanket suffocating your soul.
3. They don’t encourage your freedom
A major red flag: if the other person is controlling and authoritative, back away slowly! If you feel trapped and unable to be your true self, it’s most definitely time to move on. Feeling trapped can also be subtle and passive, for example, a partner or parent who tries to keep you dependent on them so that they have power over you.
4. They twist the truth
You struggle to trust this person because they have lied to you so much in the past. Lying is not always active, it can also be passive, for example, withholding information or details that you needed to know. This person has repeatedly broken your trust and is not transparent with you.
5. They don’t prioritize your relationship
The other person doesn’t seem to value your relationship/friendship as much as you do. While you put in so much work to improve your relationship with them, the other person doesn’t seem to care at all. Even when you have asked them to uphold their side of the relationship, they still ended up prioritizing other things over you. For example, they might spend long nights out with their friends at the pub and return at 3am. Or they might forget dates, meetups or agreements and put work or other commitments above you. While busyness is a normal part of life, this person doesn’t seem to have time on their schedule for you at all.
6. They create constant drama
You feel exhausted having to deal with all of the problems and dramas surrounding this person. Even when something goes well for your friend/partner/family member, they quickly find something else to be unhappy about. You have a sense that this person thrives on drama and is empty without it. You’re tired of hearing detailed accounts of their fights, work dramas, relationship tragedies, righteous opinions, ad infinitum.
7. They feed off your energy
This person seems to be fuelled by your attention and emotional reactions. They might enjoy provoking you to elicit a response that makes them feel like they have power over you. You also feel very tired around them, and almost sucked into their gravitational pull. If you feel this way, you’ve likely got an energy vampire on your hands. While I don’t particularly like this term, it accurately describes people who enjoy leeching off our energy.
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8. They’re relentlessly needy
You feel smothered by this other person and like you’re bound to them with a ball and chain. Not only do you have to take care of your needs, but you feel as though you have to take care of their needs as well. This person seems to constantly demand attention, pampering, affection, and favors from you. You’ve tried encouraging this person to stand on their own two feet, but they seem intent on clinging off you. This person seems to be incapable of being self-assured and constantly seeks approval from you.
9. They have physically hurt you
In moments of rage, your friend/partner/family member may have hit you or physically hurt you in some way. While they may have apologized, your trust and confidence around them have been broken. Physical abuse is a crystal clear sign that it’s time to move on and burn bridges, forever.
10. They make you want to hide your true self
You’ve tried being relaxed and open around this person, but you’ve been met with coldness, criticism or judgment. As a result, you may have resorted to hiding your true self and wearing a mask instead. Gradually, you may have even started to forget who you truly are, having become a shell of your former self instead. You feel sick of changing who you are for the other person.
11. They manipulate you
You chronically feel emotionally blackmailed or gaslighted by this person. Sometimes you even feel like you’re the abuser, when in fact, the other is just playing mind games with you.
12. They intentionally hold you back
On the surface it may appear that your friend, partner or family member has “the best intentions for you,” but really, they don’t. They are scared. They don’t want you to change. They don’t want you to reach your full potential, for that will make them feel left behind. They don’t want to see you happy, for that will reflect how unhappy they are. They don’t want you to take risks, for that will force them to reconsider their own life choices. As the old truism goes, “misery loves company.” Unhappy people want to be surrounded by other unhappy people because it gives them some sense of consolation. As a result, you might feel like you have to dim down your lights, blend in, and become a wallflower.
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After reading this list, please know that you don’t have to say “yes” to every sign. Even if you’re experiencing just one or two of these signs, you should seriously consider the possibility that it’s time to move on. While you don’t have to necessarily burn bridges, you might like to create space and distance and see how you feel.
Hopefully these signs can gently awaken you to the possibility that it’s time to open a new chapter of your life. And please know that feeling things like stress, shame, and grief are all normal reactions. Personally, when it was time for me to burn bridges I felt intense emotional and psychological turmoil for many months. In my case, I had to cut ties with my entire family in order to escape their oppressive fundamentalist religion. But to my surprise, I felt so free and liberated that all of the pain of going through separation was worth it.
I hope you can find the same kind of freedom. Your heart and soul are stronger than you may think.
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I can’t tell you when I found this article, or how many times I’ve read it. Daily the last few weeks, and often multiple times/day. THANK YOU.
The clarity of your words and just the existence of this piece has helped me more than I can say. I’m still in a very toxic relationship, but with the help from your site I’m finally ready to take care of myself and let it go. I know it will still be hard-I thought we were soulmates. But I realize now i knew 2 years ago this wasn’t good for me and I was losing myself. So..thank you. I’ve relearned boundaries and am starting to like myself again.
Thank you for this. I just had to cut ties with my family for similar reasons. I decided to talk to my sister out of concern for my niece who just “came out.” I was concerned that she didn’t have any support or understanding in a highly religious family. In turn I was told to worry about my own family and she is apparently very angry at me for leaving my (narcissistic) exhusband. She claims he’s a good guy and I don’t know anything about real relationships and I’m just burning bridges left and right and I’ll end up all alone. I didn’t want it to effect me but now I’m starting to wonder if she’s right. This article helped. Thanks.
Thank you for this.
I wasn’t going to spend Christmas with my family this year because of all the usual chaos and negativity, but changed my mind to see my younger sisters and niece/nephew.
I realize now, how badly I need to stop talking to these people. They are so unhappy and don’t know anything else. It’s so sad, but moving back here, I feel like I’m losing my sanity and am remembering past abuse. It’s time to move on.
Hey, I have been reading your website since 2014 and it has provided me hope. This article reflects what I went through in the last eleven months or so. I relate to every single point except physical abuse. The result of those incidents are so deeply engraved inside me that I feel like I shouldn’t have left them (three ex-friends, we were a group once). After reading this, I feel that I was correct in doing so. I was accusing myself for leaving them but I never thought about the reasons why I left them.
They invaded my personal space. Every day I went out with them, I would return to bed at night crying for no reason. I could not do any self-care. My academic score went down in a semester. These three would criticize each other and they would, personally, come up to me. Each person with a different story was the situation. I tried helping them, adjusting to their needs. They would shush me, wouldn’t let me finish my viewpoint only to have the entire attention shifted to their story. And even if I was done narrating something, it would go unnoticed. It was not the case with only bad events that I had to share, but any good news didn’t seem celebratory in their eyes. For instance, my dad got a promotion and they didn’t even congratulate me. I got a job and I didn’t even feel like sharing it to them. I think, it was a gut feeling all along trying to save me.
My physical and mental health had worsen in their company. I have never been sick so many times in a month. I felt like I had to keep them happy, justify what I did to them (like give a reason of things) etc.
I had to fake a fight to leave them because I was so exhausted.
Since then I have been questioning myself: they will say the same things about me. Me being abusive, manipulative and what-not. That I was the bad person.
It has taken me three months to come to this point that, they will say such things because I was strong and wise enough to take my stance and make such a decision that noone in their right minds would take. That I left them.
This article has given me closure. Thank you for the wise words and guidance you share on internet.
Hi , great article …. but what if you have to move on from someone who you love dearly and they love you too, but there is no future or growth and holding on to that person keeps you stuck … I did not check any of your checklist except for “not prioritizing the relationship” because they “can’t do that anymore because of other responsibilities”? I am moving to another city to pursue other passions because there is not much for me within this relationship other than some caring … and love when I can get it, but it doesn’t feel like enough to sustain me anymore . He doesn’t see a future, but me moving away feels like burning a bridge …though I know things won’t change. I am scared that letting go means you can’t return.
I just finished reading the 12 Signs it’s Time to Move On and Burn All Bridges! I really enjoyed the post! The 12 signs are a great starting point for Soul searching on the subject, or perhaps to use for a Heart to Heart discussion! I just shared your post and my thoughts on my FB page… Lightbeingmessages.com Blessings, Carol
I am processing what I just read and the tension released from my lower back, I have to remove myself from my toxic family I have a narcissistic father, stepmother, and mother….yikes…
Thank you Ms. Luna
I think I don’t have to feel guilty and know I have tried so hard with a big heart to overlook the cruelty and their sickness I can no longer be responsible for.
I can attest to how liberating it is to free ourselves of toxic frenemies, once we deal with the shame and pain that a loyal person experiences when they face the awful truth of burning bridges. I still suffer remorse over wishing things had worked out differently, which is fruitless, but we learnt to let it go again and again until it’s comfortable and integrated. And the freedom of becoming closer and closer to living my authentic life brings glimpses of joy that surpass the pain of cutting ties.
Just as relationships are not permanent, burnt bridges are not necessarily permanent either. We can’t know if we might reconnect in a healthy way in the future. But if people are pushing your head down while you’re drowning, the choice is clear. And the freedom liberating in the end.
Thank you for affirming what was written in this article, Nicki. And yes, it is always possible to rekindle relationships/friendships, even after burning bridges. The question is whether it is healthy to do that or not, so careful consideration is recommended.
Mouth gaping, thinking to myself, oh my gawd, they do most of those. I learnt from early on in life that what I had to say was invalid. Whenever I spoke, they either ignored me, laughed at me or mocked me. After years of trying to be accepted by those I admired and loved, I began to stay silent or if I did speak up, they pretended to not hear me and continued talking and laughing to each other. So often I ended up in tears after family gatherings as I felt like I didn’t matter. Well, I guess, the hard honest truth is, in their eyes, I don’t. I took it upon myself to self-learn through books. Virtues / values and any self help derived around love. I attended numerous courses to learn about self healing / sense of belonging, Chakras, meditation, power of the mind, assertiveness etc but in the end no matter how kind and polite I was towards them, they continued to bully me. As I look back now, all the signs of me being their scapegoat rings true. My mum was my best friend, full of unconditional love and when she passed over, it’s as though my sense of self within a family network ended. A couple months before mum passed over she told me a secret she said she’d held onto her entire life, that my twin never ever says anything nice about me in my absence. Although that hurt to hear, I already suspected ‘same. I did always wonder why her friends didn’t appear to like me and I guess the answer is she bad mouthed me to them all so they wouldn’t like me. All my friends liked her = why? because I always spoke highly of my sister. I’ve since, let go of those friendships where they were my friends but then my sister started contacting them and spending time with them which made them act different towards me. (Seriously, I feel like, deep down she hates me and doesn’t want me to be happy) Did she purposely take my friends? She has said a few times that she was jealous of me growing up which I do not know why as she was the one who received all the attention. These days, my twin cannot look me in the eye when I speak and usually looks at her mobile phone or starts speaking over top of me. In other words, she doesn’t seem interested or even listen. It’s so rude. If I speak up to how I feel, she yells at me to just F*&K off, stands up and walks away. No one can approach her towards her feelings. She’s the kind of person that makes jokes about everything and towards others which makes people laugh. She’s always center of attention and people seem to flock towards her. I do love her as she is my twin but whenever I leave from being in her company, I feel drained and it takes days of meditation / energy work to feel like myself again. I hear her criticize and be mean towards her own friends behind their back then is nice as pie to their face but I stay out of the drama. She’s probably portrayed me to be someone I’m not to them already so they’d most probably not hear me when I told them how she is. I’ve noticed that if I’m feeling down, ‘they’ seem on top of the world but if I’m feeling happy, they constantly nitpick and cause drama or direct hints towards me, like a private joke which makes them all laugh in my face, which leaves my energy feeling dragged down. I’m tired of feeling like I’m nobody around them. I’m the kind of person who use to skip everywhere as a child and smile / say hello to everyone I walked past. It’s how my mum was so I learnt to be a kind gentle soul from her. But i’m tired of being some peoples’ door mat.
Nessa, “they pretended to not hear me”
It’s a mystery to me that people really do that when just talking around the table for instance. One evening I was attempting to say a word on the subject at hand. The people, family, kept ignoring me, finally I just said “Shut UP.” That got their attention.
One of the problems is my step-son could not believe that I have had some experience in life. Have you ever rescued a sailing yacht which lost all power as it was entering the harbor? Not everyone has done that but I, along with our Sea Scout crew were rowing out there in our Whale Boat when we approached the yacht and rendered assistance. We pulled them to their slip and we were applauded by the bystanders watching for the sailing ships to come in, it was a large crowd and we got into the newspaper and it was fun.
The point is I’ve had some experience in life but this kid would accuse me of making up stories. I stopped because I wouldn’t allow myself to give him any more ammo. What’s he done? Gone through drug rehab, and a HVAC school. That’s his life experience.
Other point is don’t let those dim wits bother you. They just may be jealous of what you have to say. whoknows
I’ve had to do it with an adult daughter. It is devestatingly hard, but easier than dealing with all the above except physical abuse.