[Excerpt from “Changes”]

I was asking my desk-partner at work, Kim about her husband. She was always talking bad about her husband-how bad he treats her and how unromantic he is. The romance just fizzled out of their relationship. She’s been with him for 5 1/2 years, they have a 4 year old daughter together, and she’s only 20 years old. From what she’s told me about him, he’s a big 25 year old brat who just can’t take care of himself.

I asked her, “Kim, if you don’t mind me asking, and believe me, you don’t have to answer, do you still love your husband?”

As quickly as I got done—or even before the question mark ended my sentence, she replied nonchalantly, “No.”

I asked her why she was staying with him. She said that he’s been given another chance to change. So far he’s done what she’s asked- got a job, went back to school, etc. But she said that he’s still annoying and unromantic. I asked her how many chances is he going to get, and how long was she going to give for him to change his ways. It’s not that I was promoting her to leave her husband. I told her that, even. I told her that I’m promoting her happiness, and it in all honesty doesn’t sound like she’s happy.

I told her from personal experience that being stuck in a relationship longer than you have to isn’t necessary. I think I stuck with [him] as long as I did even after I fell out of “love” with him just because it was something I knew and something I was used to. I think I was scared of change. I was scared to do it.

I feel sometimes that I’m this advocate of breaking up, because in my mind, I also think that […] and her boyfriend need to break up. I think that staying in their relationship is prolonging the inevitable. I just have that general feeling that they are headed that way. It’s something that I know that even time won’t change between them.

It’s not that I’m purposely going around telling people to break up or anything. I just think that there’s this lack of confidence. There’s this insecurity that everything will be all right after it’s done.

Perhaps many people are like me, in that they focus on the ending—the ending of their relationship, instead of the beginning of their life after they are out of it.