103. Why You Stay Pt 1: Time
Meet the Host
Five years ago, after achieving my degrees and teaching as a professor, I was feeling proud that I had checked everything off my life list. But, I wasn’t satisfied in my marriage.
Today, I’m a relationship coach on a mission to resurrect the side of you that got lost in your relationship and responsibilities teaching you how to stop arguing and have more sex. Millions of people around the world soak up my content for advice on how to have a more satisfying relationship.
Welcome to our new podcast series - Why You Stay.
In this 3 part series, I share the top 3 reasons why you are staying in your current relationship, and why you need to start asking yourself some questions about it.
In Part 1, we focus on time and the reasons you stay in your relationship that are related to time.
Time is one of the biggest reasons why people remain in relationships, and if this is your situation, I have 3 questions that I want you to ask yourself.
In this episode, I reference Episode 85, Spring Cleaning Your Relationship Part 1: Am I Still The One?
Click the link to listen below and email me back with your thoughts, I want to hear from you!
If this episode resonated with you and you're ready to work with me during this season of your life, then I invite you to book a call for us to connect and chat.
During this call, you will share what is going on in your life, what you have tried so far, and I will share how I can help. I can't wait to meet you.
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Episode Transcript:
Karina: Amigos, como están? Welcome back to Relationships. You Understand? podcast hosted by me, relationship expert, speaker, and podcast host of this dope podcast. Today we start our series called Why You Stay. This is going to be a three -part series in which as a relationship expert, having worked with many clients that are going through this specific and have gone through this specific situation, I wanna break down to you the top three reasons why you stay in this relationship and why you need to start asking yourself some questions about it. You understand?
As always, I promise you that these episodes are short and to the point because I usually record them when I have to get my kids ready for school right before that or take them to school. So I wanna thank you once again for coming back to this podcast and let's get to it.
Okay, why you stay, part one, we're going to focus on time, okay? Time is one of the biggest reasons why people remain in relationships, right? And I had a series called, Spring Cleaning Your Relationship, and I think part one is called, Am I Still the One? And why I bring this up is because plenty of times people in relationships that remain and stay due to time, are because they're continuing to ask the question, you still love me? Or they're continuing to tell yourselves, well, I still love this person. And in that series, which we will put in the show notes called, Spring Cleaning Your Relationship, I go over why asking your partner, do you still love me? Or even asking yourself, do I still love this person is the wrong question. Instead, I want you to ask yourself, ask each other, am I still the one? Which is more so like, I know you love me, but do you like me? Right?
And so people that are in relationships for time have a lot of these thoughts are like, well, I still love them. The other thing is they don't want to start over. This is huge for people who stay in relationships because of time. They feel this heavy sense of not just loyalty, but burden or future weight that is to come. Like they've seen how much this relationship has caused or even taken from them time, energy. And for them, their mind is in the sense of like, I've invested so much time in this relationship that I don't wanna start over, that I'm having trouble thinking that what it would look like to start over. And this is, I'm telling you, like, especially people who stay in relationships for time, this is huge, like just not wanting to start all over again.
I'll give you the example of a client that I have whose partner cheated on him multiple times and they have a beautiful family together and have built and done many things together. But somewhere along the way and specifically in the beginning of their marriage, there was just a clear, it was just clear that the values didn't align.
You know, they love this person and really want to start to make it work. Now, one of the biggest reasons why he was having difficulty moving on or even making a decision or even entertaining the decision, entertaining the thought of, could we not be together one day is because they had been married for over 15 years. And so for him, he was kind of like, I don't know. I had another client and he was having difficulty with it. had another client that had been married previously. And this was, if not his second marriage, his third marriage. And so for him, he was kind of like, I've put so much time into these relationships and this marriage, like, I don't want to have to start all over again. So you see where that theme kind of comes into play in both scenarios, right?
The other thought that you may have because you're in this relationship for time is, this relationship will work as long as my partner does this. Like you're selling yourself on the fantasy of the future, right? You're not staying in the present. You're staying yourself. You're sticking yourself in the fantasy of the future of like, well, maybe if this person just realizes this and changes, then we would just be better off, right? So time is a big, big, big factor as to why you stay in this relationship.
And the fact of the matter is that you're willing to put yourself through, you're willing to put, excuse me, you're willing to put yourself through a lot, your body through a lot, your partner through a lot, and this relationship through a lot just to make it work. And the reality is there's only two outcomes, either it works or it doesn't, right? You're willing to sacrifice your money. You're willing to sacrifice know, promotions at your job, you're willing to sacrifice the children in the sense of creating a healthy environment, you're willing to sacrifice your mental health, you're willing to sacrifice your physical health just for this relationship because so much time has already gone into it. Your thought process is you would much rather remain loyal than look back at this story and say that you were a quitter, that you were a failure.
And what I wanna remind you of as a relationship expert is that you are not a quitter if you move on and neither am I promoting that you just leave, but I am challenging you to ask yourself difficult questions.
These are the three questions that I want you to ask yourself if you are staying in this relationship for time. Number one, I want you to ask yourself, am I truly happy or am I staying and settling out of comfortability and out of familiarity. And what this looks like for you is, I staying in this relationship because we have a routine, we have certain habit, things just work for the children, the bills are getting paid, we have a roof over our heads, like things are just flowing, I just don't really like them anymore and I really don't think our values align anymore but we're amazing managers, right? We're amazing at getting things done, but I'm not truly happy. That's the question I want you to ask yourself. Are you truly happy in this relationship or are you settling because it's comfortable? Are you settling because it's familiar? Instead, I need you to ask yourself, does this relationship bring me joy? Does this relationship fulfill me? Am I growing in this relationship? Or am I just staying in it and as a default becoming stagnant? And listen, you know if you shouldn't be in this relationship, you know if you should start to ask yourself certain questions, you know.
The second question I want you to ask yourself is, what would my life look like if I started over? This is for you in your mind, a dangerous question to ask yourself. But I don't need you to ask yourself this question when you are enraged, when you are full of resentment, and when you are rushing to just get out of this relationship, I need you to ask yourself this question now. Am I in this relationship and nervous about asking myself what the future would look like? What would it look like? Fantasize a little bit. Is the fear of the unknown really keeping you here? Are you better off in your mind being in an unknown hell, or would you rather, excuse me, are you telling yourself in your mind that you would rather stay in a known hell or are you open to opening up the doors to unknown heavens? You understand me?
And the last question that I want you to ask yourself is, am I holding on to the past so much that it's keeping me from seeing
What's right in front of my face? Is it keeping me from seeing the present? Am I so married and focused to the fantasies of the past, of the fun that was in the past, that I'm thinking to myself, okay, I can become attached to the potential of this relationship instead of looking at the present patterns. I talked about this episode before in many episodes that I have. I think it's like episode 65 or 73. You can DM me and I'll share it with you, which is I don't want you to be with potential. I want you to be with patterns. You understand me? Plenty of times you are going to gravitate in your relationship to what is known, what is habitual, what has been there for a long time that you won't even entertain, right? You won't even entertain anything else. Because for you, it's very difficult to move on and move forward because you are so focused on what could be or what was. You understand me?
And this is exactly the work that I do with my clients. Listen, I love my podcast because it's free and I love my podcast because it's helped so many people. But I'll tell you right now, there are so many things that listening to each of these podcast episodes will do, but it's only when you take that additional step, to work with me. If this message, if this episode resonated with you, you need to work with me. If you are in this relationship right now, clearly due to just time and investment of time and you feeling like you don't feel like starting over, you feel so loyal, you're so exhausted, you need to work with me. I'm going to come up, I'm going to help you come up with the exact strategies and questions it's going to take for you to decide on what to do, if you should leave or you should stay. You understand me?
I've helped several clients get through this process. Clients have come to me when they don't know what they should do in their relationship and they're still in it. Clients have come to me when they've decided to separate. Couples have come to me when they've decided to separate and not sure what they should do. I'm telling you that this is going to be one of the most pivotal decisions that you've ever made in your life. It can literally change the trajectory of your life, this decision about your relationship. And I wanna be able to guide you to make the decision that you feel is best for you. You understand me? I want you go to the link in my bio right now and book a sales call so we can talk about everything that's happened so far, what you tried and how I can help. This is a very sensitive thing to talk about, but my hope is that with this series of why you should stay, that it will bring light and shed light on the fact that it's time for you to make a decision. All right? All right, let's pray, because I gotta take my kids to school.
Father God. Thank you so much for this day. You know, before this episode started, I thanked you for reminding us that we're humans and that we drift far from you and we drift left and right, but you love us regardless. And the only thing that you say if we want to get close to you is to call on your name. And so Father God, in this moment, I ask that everybody that has a blockage or that has veered off from being next to you, that they be reminded that the only thing that they must do is call on your name. Protect our children, protect our finances, protect our families, protect our hearts. Allow us to be pure about the decisions that we make and allow us to know that no matter what decision we make, you will be there to catch us. You will be there to hold us. You will be there to keep us safe, no matter what. In Jesus' name, amen.
Okay, I gotta go. My name is Karina F. Daves. I'm a relationship expert, speaker, and podcast host at this dope podcast. If you listened to this podcast and really enjoyed it, please share it, subscribe to it, and send it to all of your amigos. If you have any relationship questions, all right, any questions about this podcast episode, I want you to DM me or I want you to email me. If you're not subscribed to my emails and my email newsletter called Release Your Relationship where I share with you weekly gems on how to navigate your relationship, I want you to go to the link in my bio and subscribe to my email newsletter right now, okay? I love you so, so, so much and I can't wait to meet you because I know one day I will. All right, bye.
