Robert* knew it was over at a party. “I found myself watching the way she interacted with everyone,” he recalls of his then partner of seven years. “Her eyes lit up, and she smiled at people in a way that I hadn’t seen directed at me in as long as I could remember. That was the moment I realised the love had gone.” Robert stayed in that relationship for another year, trying to make things work. “I had convinced myself this was because I was so in love with her, but the truth was that I was actually just scared to be alone.”
Staying in an unhappy relationship might sound like a fate worse than death. You’re lonely but horny. Exhausted but argumentative. Emotionally drained but armed for your next WhatsApp battle. And yet, it’s remarkably common. In his 2012 book, You Can Be Right or You Can Be Married, author Dana Adam Shapiro wrote that just 17 per cent of couples are content with their partner. Meanwhile, in 2015, research claimed that 20 per cent of married people felt “trapped” in their relationship, while a quarter admitted that they were no longer in love with their spouse. More recently, a survey in 2021 found that almost half of married couples are only still together because of their children, while one-sixth said their relationship is only hanging on because they can’t afford to be single.
