# 365. Should You Stay or Leave Your Relationship? Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/relationships-made-easy-1024411/365-should-you-stay-or-leave-your-relationship Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/relationships-made-easy-1024411/365-should-you-stay-or-leave-your-relationship.md Podcast: [Relationships Made Easy](https://stenobird.com/podcast/relationships-made-easy-1024411) Published: 2026-01-13T00:00:00+00:00 Episode link: https://abbymedcalf.com/how-to-self-advocate Audio file: https://audio4.redcircle.com/episodes/35caa884-3023-40a3-8463-8907362bbd0a/stream.mp3 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/relationships-made-easy-1024411/episodes/365-should-you-stay-or-leave-your-relationship Duration seconds: 3370 ## Resource How do you know when it’s time to stop trying in a relationship? I get asked this question a lot. How do you know if you’re giving up too soon? How do you know if a relationship still deserves more effort? How do you know if you’ll regret leaving?   These questions show up after you’ve already tried. After the conversations, the compromises, the therapy, the books, and the waiting. What makes this decision especially hard is that, by the time you’re asking it, you’re often not just confused. You’re likely self- gaslighting. While this isn’t a clinical diagnosis, it’s a pattern I see all the time. It’s when you talk yourself out of your own experience in order to avoid discomfort, loss, or a hard truth.   Today, you’ll learn why this decision feels so hard even when you’ve been unhappy for a long time, what psychological and biological forces keep you stuck, and how to assess what you actually need in a relationship so you can decide what to do next without panic, self-blame, or regret. ____________________________ Full blog and show notes: https://abbymedcalf.com/how-to-know-when-to-stop-trying-in-a-relationship 👉  Get the Relationship Clarity Worksheet. It walks you through identifying your non-negotiables, rating consistency, naming non-tolerables, and answering the long-term question in a grounded way:   https://abbymedcalf.com/relationship-clarity-worksheet   Join my online community, One Love Collective, on Substack: https://abbymedcalf.com/substack   You'll get... ✨ Early drops + ad-free podcast episodes ✨ Worksheets, journal prompts, downloads, and guided visualizations ✨ Community chats and live Q&A calls with Abby   Subscribe to the Love Letter and get my little messages each week!  https://abbymedcalf.com/loveletter… ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/relationships-made-easy-1024411/episodes/365-should-you-stay-or-leave-your-relationship/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/relationships-made-easy-1024411/365-should-you-stay-or-leave-your-relationship.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.