In some relationships, people are unhappy, dissatisfied but still refuse to call it off for one reason or another.

I believe this happens most often in long term relationships (at least 10 years?). Are they afraid of being alone? Not having someone by their side? Is it cause of convenience? Are they scared to have to go through such a big change?

If you're unhappy, why don't you call it off?

I think emotions and memories make things so complicated. Imagine being with someone for 9 years happy, and only maybe 3 years after, you start to get into huge fights, start to feel miserable. How do you just cut someone off after say... 12 years? You might have that few years of "bad" but there was 9 years of memories, smiles, laughter, joy.

Originally I thought, maybe people are really "scared to be lonely", scared to have nobody to turn to when they've had a rough day. No hugs, kisses and cuddles anytime when you need it. Well y'know, all the relationship perks. But when I thought about it a little deeper and tried to imagine. I realised that MAYBE we're afraid of these happy and precious memories fading into nothing. You spent say 12 years creating those memories with that person, everywhere you go you remember something silly you've done, and if you were to leave it becomes nothing. I think for most people, they believe they can find someone else, there's always someone else out there that can be compatible with you. But the memories you had with this person probably makes it difficult to leave. You think of the bad, the mess you're in but you will almost always flashback to when things were happy, light and simple.

How do you walk away from such a big part of your life?

Relationships only exist in the now, we can only live right now. But how do you look back and not let the past and memories you had with the person affect you? If you had less emotions, less of an ability to feel it might be easier?

People, thoughts, feelings, relationships are so complicated. Just when you think you understand everything, you suddenly realise that you only understand a small part of whatever you thought you did.