I was folding laundry on the couch last Tuesday when Ellie climbed up beside me, unusually quiet.
After a few minutes, she said, “Mama, sometimes I still want to play with Chloe even though she’s not very nice to me.”
My hands stilled mid-fold.
Here was my five-year-old, already wrestling with one of life’s hardest lessons: sometimes caring about someone isn’t enough reason to keep them close.
I pulled her onto my lap, breathing in that sweet kid smell of dirt and sunshine, and told her the truth: that even grown-ups struggle with this.
That I’ve stayed in friendships, relationships, and situations long past their expiration date simply because I cared. Because walking away felt like failure or cruelty.
But here’s what I’ve learned through years of therapy, countless conversations with Matt over kitchen counters, and some painful personal reckonings: caring deeply about someone doesn’t obligate you to stay.
Sometimes the most loving thing you can do for both of you is leave.
1) Your needs consistently come last
There’s a difference between occasional compromise and perpetual self-erasure.
I learned this the hard way with a close friend I’ll call Sarah. For three years, I rearranged my schedule around hers, listened to her problems for hours, showed up when she needed me. But when I called struggling with postpartum anxiety after Milo was born? She had fifteen minutes before her yoga class.
The pattern became clear: my needs were always negotiable. Hers never were.
In healthy relationships, whether romantic, platonic, or familial, there’s a natural give and take. Some seasons you give more, some seasons you receive more. But when you’re always the one adjusting, sacrificing, and shrinking yourself to accommodate someone else’s life, something’s broken.
Brené Brown notes that “Compassionate people ask for what they need. They say no when they need to, and when they say yes, they mean it. They’re compassionate because their boundaries keep them out of resentment.”
The reverse is also true: relationships where you can’t express needs or set boundaries aren’t actually compassionate. They’re codependent.
Pay attention to how you feel after spending time with this person. Energized or depleted? Seen or invisible? Your body knows the answer before your mind does.
2) You’re making excuses for behavior you’d never tolerate from anyone else
Matt and I have this thing we do when one of us is talking about someone difficult. The other asks: “Would you accept this from a stranger?”
It’s clarifying.
That friend who cancels plans last-minute repeatedly? You’d stop making plans with an acquaintance who did that. The family member who criticizes your parenting choices? You’d shut down a casual friend who tried it. The partner who dismisses your feelings? You’d leave a first date who showed that pattern.
But because we care, we create elaborate justifications. “They’re going through a hard time.” “That’s just how they are.” “They don’t mean it.” “They had a difficult childhood.”
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: understanding why someone treats you poorly doesn’t make the treatment acceptable.
I’ve caught myself doing this, explaining away hurtful behavior because I understood its origins.
My mother’s anxiety-driven criticism. A friend’s jealousy-fueled passive aggression. Understanding helped me have compassion, but it didn’t make staying healthy for me.
When you find yourself constantly explaining, justifying, or contextualizing someone’s treatment of you to yourself or others, that’s a red flag.
You shouldn’t need a defense attorney for your relationships.
3) The relationship requires you to betray yourself
Some relationships have an unspoken price of admission: be less. Be quieter. Be different. Be smaller.
I faced this with my own parents for years. Their discomfort with my “alternative” parenting choices was palpable.
Every visit involved subtle digs about co-sleeping, comments about Ellie being “too attached,” raised eyebrows at my homemade cleaning products.
I spent so much energy managing their reactions, editing my life, hiding parts of myself to keep the peace.
I was exhausted from being someone I wasn’t just to maintain connection.
The breaking point came during a visit when my mom criticized me for still breastfeeding Milo at eighteen months, in front of him, in my own kitchen.
I realized I was teaching my kids that love means shrinking yourself. That acceptance requires self-betrayal.
We need people to witness us, not curate us.
If being in relationship with someone means consistently hiding your truth, suppressing your values, or pretending to be someone you’re not, the relationship isn’t actually with you.
It’s with a version of you that doesn’t exist.
4) They refuse to acknowledge harm or work toward repair
Everyone messes up. Everyone hurts people they care about. That’s not the relationship dealbreaker.
The dealbreaker is what happens next.
I teach Ellie and Milo that repair is part of relationship. When you hurt someone, even accidentally, you acknowledge it, apologize genuinely, and work to do better.
Not perfectly, but consistently.
But some people can’t do this. They deflect, deny, gaslight, or turn it around so you’re apologizing for bringing it up.
The original hurt never gets addressed because you’re too busy defending yourself for having feelings about it.
As psychologist Harriet Lerner notes in her work on apologies, “the good apology is a gift to the relationship. Two people can feel secure in the knowledge that if they behave badly, even fight terribly, they can repair the disconnection.”
When someone consistently refuses to offer genuine repair, they’re telling you the relationship matters less than their ego.
I stayed too long in a friendship where this dynamic played out repeatedly. I’d express hurt, she’d explain why I was wrong to feel that way, and somehow I’d end up comforting her about how hard it was to be misunderstood. We never actually resolved anything.
Real love, real friendship, real family connection: it all requires the willingness to acknowledge when you’ve caused harm and make genuine attempts to repair.
Without that, you’re just two people repeatedly injuring each other with no healing in between.
5) Your mental or physical health is deteriorating
Your body will tell you what your mind tries to rationalize away.
During my worst period with Sarah, I started getting stress headaches every time her name appeared on my phone.
My stomach would knot before our coffee dates. I’d feel anxious for days after our conversations, replaying interactions and wondering what I’d done wrong this time.
I told myself I was being too sensitive. That I needed to be a better friend. That she needed me.
But my body knew what my mind wouldn’t admit: this relationship was making me sick.
Sometimes the cost of staying is measured in therapy appointments, sleepless nights, stress-induced illness, anxiety spikes, or the slow erosion of your sense of self.
When a relationship consistently leaves you feeling worse, emotionally depleted, physically tense, mentally scattered, that’s not just a rough patch.
That’s your system telling you something’s wrong.
I watch for this now with my kids. When Ellie comes home from a playdate anxious and withdrawn, or when she starts having stomachaches before school on days she’ll see a particular friend, I pay attention. Our bodies hold wisdom our minds often dismiss.
If spending time with someone, or even thinking about them, regularly triggers physical or emotional distress, that relationship is costing you more than it’s giving.
And caring about them doesn’t make that math work.
6) You’re staying out of guilt, obligation, or fear rather than genuine desire
Ask yourself honestly: if this person disappeared from your life tomorrow with no hard feelings, no drama, just a clean mutual understanding that you were moving in different directions, would you feel relieved or devastated?
That answer tells you everything.
I spent two years in a friendship group I’d outgrown because I felt obligated. These were the women who’d supported me through my first pregnancy, who’d brought meals when Ellie was born.
I felt like I owed them continued friendship even though we no longer had much in common and I often left gatherings feeling judged.
The guilt was enormous. How could I walk away from people who’d been there for me? What kind of person abandons friendships just because they’re not fun anymore?
But here’s what I eventually understood: staying in relationships out of guilt doesn’t honor the other person. It’s a form of dishonesty.
They deserve people who genuinely want to be there, not people performing friendship out of obligation.
I recently picked up Rudá Iandê’s book “Laughing in the Face of Chaos”, and one insight hit me hard: “Their happiness is their responsibility, not yours.”
That simple truth freed me from years of guilt. I’m not responsible for managing other people’s feelings about my choices.
I’m responsible for living with integrity and treating people with respect, which sometimes means honest distance rather than resentful presence.
When you stay in relationships out of guilt, fear of confrontation, or obligation rather than genuine care and desire for connection, you’re not actually caring for anyone.
You’re just prolonging an ending and making it messier.
7) You’ve communicated your needs and nothing changes
One difficult conversation doesn’t mean it’s time to walk away. But repeated conversations that go nowhere? That’s different.
I’ve learned to distinguish between “this person can’t meet my needs” and “this person won’t meet my needs.”
Can’t means capacity issues: they’re dealing with their own struggles and don’t have bandwidth. Won’t means priority issues: they could adjust but choose not to.
With family, I’ve had the same conversation about boundaries multiple times. “Please don’t criticize my parenting in front of the kids.” “I need you to trust my choices even if they’re different from yours.” “When you dismiss my concerns, I feel disrespected.”
They hear me. They apologize. Nothing changes.
At some point, continued communication without behavioral change becomes its own form of disrespect.
It means your words matter less than their comfort. Your needs are acknowledged but not prioritized.
This is perhaps the hardest sign because it requires accepting that caring about someone doesn’t mean they’ll grow, change, or meet you halfway.
Sometimes people are exactly who they’ve shown you they are, and no amount of clear communication will alter that reality.
You can love someone and still choose to step back when they consistently demonstrate they’re unwilling or unable to be in healthy relationship with you.
Final thoughts
After my conversation with Ellie about Chloe, we talked about what friendship should feel like. Safe. Kind. Fun. Mutual.
I told her she gets to decide who she shares her beautiful heart with, and that sometimes caring about someone from a distance is the wisest choice.
She thought about this, then said, “Maybe I can still like Chloe but play with other friends more.”
Exactly.
Walking away doesn’t have to mean dramatic endings or burning bridges. Sometimes it’s a quiet stepping back.
A gentle redirect of your energy toward relationships that nourish rather than deplete you.
I’m still learning this. Still working through the guilt, the fear, the voice that says I should try harder or give more chances.
But I’m also more protective of my peace now. More willing to trust my body’s wisdom when it tells me something’s off.
The people who truly care about you want you to thrive, not just survive. They want mutual connection, not one-sided caretaking.
They’re willing to repair, to adjust, to meet you somewhere in the middle of love and boundaries and honest communication.
And the ones who aren’t? You can care about them deeply and still choose yourself. That’s not cruelty. That’s not failure.
That’s honoring the truth that you can’t pour from an empty cup, and some relationships will drain you dry if you let them.
You deserve relationships that feel like coming home, not like constantly proving your worth.
Where caring goes both ways. Where you can be fully yourself and still be fully loved.
Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is walk away, even when you still care.
Especially when you still care enough to recognize that staying is hurting you both.
