I’m so sick of watching all my friends go through crappy relationship after crappy relationship.

In fact, I am sick of watching everyone on my social media go through it because it seems to be the #1 thing the social world loves to broadcast. All I want to do is scream “OMG JUST MOVE ON ALREADY!” but, out of good human decency and compassion I do not.

So let me try and break this lovely life experience advice down for all of you. Take it or leave it, it must be said.

1. If You Are Sounding Like A Broken Record- Ding! Ding! Ding! The biggest, most obvious red flag of all. If you are constantly making and breaking up, whether it be over the exact same thing or constantly crossing lines over something, MOVE ON! If you can go through your timeline and see a pattern of constant complaining over your relationship, not just a little spat, I mean the ones that leave people asking if you are okay or what happened this time. Just go, run, right now just leave and DO NOT look back.
2. “If They Want It To Happen It Will Happen”- One of my favorite quotes from the movie “He’s Just Not That Into You” and can be applied to literally anyone. I have friends “dating” these people who are the biggest non-committers. You know, the ones who aren’t ready for “labels”, That is a polite way of telling you that you are a booty call. Don’t believe me? Well, do you ever know if plans are ever really going to stick or not? Or does “something” almost always come up. Be realistic, yes sometimes things happen but, if that’s the excuse 80%-90% of the time, MOVE ON! My current boyfriend, in the pursuit of me, would drive 2 hours out of his way just to spend time with me (and my infant child that’s not his) for a bit before driving all the way back. Where as a guy I had chased for 2 years couldn’t even be bothered to say hi when he was in town. My point is If they really want it to happen, they WILL make it happen.

3. When YOU Start Making Their Excuses For Them- This one kills me. I have to listen to people and friends spout the crappy lies they have been fed when someone tries to confront them about the OBVIOUS issue. “Well, they just got out of a serious relationship a year ago”, “I’m not a booty call, we are a thing, we just don’t want to put a label on it”. I watch as people sacrifice what they know they deserve and believe in. Just to appease this other person. If you have to hide your voice because heaven forbid you contradict their “excuse” of truth, ahem, MOVE ON! Now we are entering toxic relationship territory, that's an article for another day. Back to the first excuse, if they aren’t ready for a serious relationship and you have any expectations of changing that, run, because you will be very disappointed when you realize you are giving your time and energy to a person who has no true intentions of making things work. RUN.

4. If You Are Left With More Negative Emotions By The End Of The Day- This one you’d think would be super uncomfortable and ask yourself how anyone could live like that but, they do. If you cannot comfortably lay your head down at night because you become face to face with the reality of your relationship in the silent darkness of the night, MOVE ON! Relationships take trust, if you can’t trust, that’s it. There will be that crack in the foundation and eventually it will begin to erode wider and wider until everything falls back to the source of what broke that trust. If you can’t confront it together to try and mend the divide. Be strong and go.

5. Now What Do You Do? -I know a lot of this is easier said than done but, you have to be strong and say when enough is enough. I have fought tooth and nail to escape the pattern of unhealthy relationships. There are days that the damage haunts me and I do second guess myself. Looking back and looking at the progress I have made, I am certain I have made the right choices in leaving past relationships. Especially when I look at the relationship I have now. It is incredibly healthy and was worth the wait. I spent a lot of time working on myself and he found me, I didn’t have to chase him, he pursued me while still respecting my space and what I was going through. We communicate everything, we trust, and we go to bed each night knowing that we are solid. There is no price for that, and I’m so glad I moved on from my patterns and waited for what I truly wanted and deserved. I hope you do the same.