When to let go

Lets talk about hanging on too long.

I was talking to one of my friends and she mentioned to me that a woman she knows was with a man for several decades and she found out that he was getting married to someone else in a few days. Wow! So that made think about how much is too much? When should a person let go?

I remember several years ago, an older woman told me that if a man hasn't married you, or asked you to marry him in 2 years, he's not ever going to marry you.  Now as a young[er] woman, I didn't really take heed to what she told me.  At that point in my life, being in a relationship for 2 years wasn't a long time.  To be honest, I've probably been in about 2 or 3 relationships that lasted longer than 2 years.  Most of the time, i get tired of people long before 24 months is up.  A lot of the time, the guy i was dating either cheated, constantly lied, or worse... had a baby and I wasn't the mother.  So that meant that I was out like scout on a new route in that relationship.

Sometimes i feel like my "impatience" hasn't been the best thing in my life and relationships.  As I think about it, i could have probably forgiven that man.  I could have tried to give him another another chance.  <-- That's not a typo.  "Another another" chance means that he was already given another chance and he effed up his second chance.  I look back over things and I realize that we were both young[er] and not really making good decisions.  We probably weren't thinking about the future.  We were stuck in the meantime.  If people thought about their future and made decisions based on that, they'd probably make MUCH better decisions regarding their relationships.

So I asked the question, How long should you stay with someone before they ask you to marry them? Someone told me that a piece of paper doesn't matter much.  Another person says 3-5 years.  One woman says that she lived with her ex for years like a married couple, only to come to the conclusion that it was a bad relationship that she was trying to make good.  Another woman gave her BF an ultimatum.  I remember 2 good friends of mine gave their BF's ultimatums back when we were in our early 20's.  Both of them are still married to this day.  They're going on 20 years of marriage.  Both of them. Do ultimatums work? Heck yeah! Either you ultimately live happily ever after or you ultimately end up single lol.

I've never been in a situation where I had to make a serious decision to let go.  Probably because the relationship wasn't THAT serious.  It was easier to walk away from those situations because there wasn't much vested in things.  But how hard is it to walk away from someone who you've been with for YEARS? At some point, you have to learn to live for yourself.  Happiness will come.  Happiness is just a decision away and is waiting for you to grab hold of it and claim it.  The choice is yours.