When the question first appears
This is a question I’ve asked myself many times.
Not in moments of chaos or drama, but in the quiet spaces, when nothing is obviously wrong and yet something feels stuck.
Should I stay or should I leave
I’ve asked this with partners, friendships, lovers, even family. It usually comes when I notice that the person in front of me is somehow disconnected from themselves. Same patterns, same behaviours, same conversations looping. And because I can see it, because I’m aware, I start feeling like it’s my responsibility to help them see it too.
That’s usually where things begin to shift in the wrong direction.
Does love quietly becomes responsibility?
Without realising it, love starts turning into responsibility. I become the one who reminds, explains, understands. The emotional anchor. The steady one. Slowly, I stop being a partner or a friend and start becoming a support system.
And at some point, that stops being love.
Not because I care less, but because I’m no longer meeting them as an equal. I’m managing them. Holding things together. Carrying more than what belongs to me.
Safety nets and climbing ropes
I’ve learned there’s a big difference between being a safety net and being a climbing rope.
A safety net catches someone every time they fall. It looks kind. It looks supportive. But it also means they never really learn what falling costs. There’s no urgency to change when the landing is always soft.
A climbing rope doesn’t pull you up. It doesn’t do the work for you. It’s there only if you choose to climb.
If I’m honest, I’ve been a safety net more times than I’d like to admit. I’ve softened consequences. I’ve stayed patient when firmness was needed. I’ve explained the same things again and again, hoping understanding would somehow turn into action.
But understanding alone doesn’t change a life.
The quiet god complex
So I stayed. Because leaving felt harsh. Because I worried about what would happen if I wasn’t there. Because somewhere inside, I believed that without me, they might fall apart.
That’s where the god complex sneaks in. Not loudly. Quietly. The belief that says, If I leave, they won’t survive.
The identity of being needed. The comfort of being the one who holds it together.
Looking back, I can see this clearly now. I wasn’t staying because love was alive. I was staying because I didn’t trust life to teach them without me.
And by staying, I wasn’t helping them grow. I was helping them stay the same.
When hope quietly runs out
Clarity didn’t come when I was hurt. It came when hope slowly ran out.
When the same conversations kept looping. When apologies sounded sincere but nothing really changed. When tears reset the cycle instead of ending it.
That’s when I realised something uncomfortable. My presence had become a cushion.
My understanding had made stagnation comfortable.
As long as I was there to regulate, translate, and soften, there was no real urgency for them to meet themselves fully. And at that point, staying wasn’t kindness anymore.
It was interference.
Remembering when I was the one left
Here’s the part that took me longer to admit.
I’ve also been the one who was left.
Not to punish me. Not to hurt me. But because I couldn’t change while they were there. I was aware. Reflective. I had all the right language. But I was also comfortable. Their presence made it easy to delay. Their patience padded the consequences of my hesitation.
I didn’t grow because they stayed. I grew because they left.
Only later did I understand this. Their leaving didn’t abandon me. It removed the cushion. In their absence, my excuses stopped working. My stories lost their audience. I had to face myself without support or reassurance.
That’s when real change began.
The part we rarely admit
This is the part we don’t like saying out loud.
That sometimes we don’t evolve because we’re being held too gently. That love, when it cushions too much, can delay courage.
Which is why I no longer see myself as the “aware” one leaving the “unaware.”
I’ve been both. The one who stayed too long.
The one who was stayed with too long.
The one who left.
And the one who needed someone gone in order to finally grow.
A different way of asking the question
So now, when the question comes up again, it feels different.
Should I stay or should I leave
Am I staying because love is alive, or because guilt feels like compassion?
Am I offering a climbing rope here, or quietly positioning myself as a safety net?
And honestly, would my absence create more truth than my presence ever could?
Leaving isn’t the withdrawal of love. It’s the withdrawal of access.
Love can remain, however, the role has to end.
When absence becomes an invitation
Sometimes, the most respectful thing we can do for another human being is to step aside and let life speak to them directly.
Absence, when it’s clean, isn’t abandonment, but an invitation.
And maybe the real question was
Who am I becoming if I stay, and who might we both become if I go?