“When to give up on a relationship” is the first in a series I’ve tagged “Break up Series.”

It has become a norm for unmarried couples who are supposedly in love to maintain relationships even when there are obvious red flags that has proven over time that the relationship is heading everywhere but the altar.

Ladies who have attained that age when parents, friends, colleagues, church members and possibly the elders in their entire village start asking questions about their future are most guilty of this heinous crime of seeking the face of the lord in a relationship where they need no soothsayer to tell them it is being monitored and programmed by the forces of evil.

We’ve also seen instances where abled bodied men keep up the faith in relationships with ladies who obviously use them as a means to a fatal end or just see them as cash cows. These men are mostly guilty of inferior complex especially when they are in relationships with girls who can sell them into slavery even in this 21^st century. This is common with guys who have never really been in a relationship where the lady does not date them out of pity.

I see and read about this ugly trend day in, day out and it wouldn’t have been any business of mine not even in a recessed economy, if I didn’t find out recently that my neighbour is also in that kind of relationship. I would have loved to share the dude’s experience with his yahoo girlfriend here if not that he narrated his ordeal with me in confidence. You know me now, such tales no they hard me talk about.

It is common knowledge that love takes a whole lot of work; just forget that thing about love at first sight oh! This our present generation don miss road gan! Many of us don’t know what it takes to truly love anymore. No be all that paparazzi wey we dey form for social media. If you are in a relationship that comes too easy, aswear if you find out well, na set up. Just Kontinu claiming love at first sight because Lucifer just free you for some time to go attend to more pressing issues.

Lemme not digress jare, na wetin my eye see this evening make me bring that yan…

Back to the matter:

See, with the way the devil and his cohorts are running riot across our solar plexus, it has become really difficult to maintain a long standing relationship which ultimately should lead to the altar, not even when we can now see the intimate details of most relationships on the various social media sites. These days self how many people go into a relationship with marriage in mind? The common line is; let’s take it one step at a time because no matter how hard we try at it, “what will be will be” (Que sera sera). They forget that our destinies in the true sense of it lie in our very own hands.

People waste valuable time in a relationship only to realize too late that they’ve been on a wild goose chase from the very day the relationship saw the light of day. In fact to put it mildly they were never in a relationship, what they had was a relationshit!

That brings us to the big question; when does it become paramount we give up on a relationship or at what point do we stop fighting to keep that relationship?

Before I make an attempt to answer that question, I must first say unapologetically that anyone that cowers the moment a major challenge rears its ugly head in their relationship is a learner. Every relationship has its peculiarities, just because your friend’s relationship is firing on all cylinders doesn’t mean it’s gonna last longer than yours. All gold glitters but not all that glitters is gold. Just like life, relationships can be complicated, and may not necessarily be a bed of roses. In the real sense, it takes an enormous amount of visible and non-visible work to make any relationship stand the test of time.

One of the reasons couples occasionally experience stumbling blocks in their relationship is because they get way too comfortable in the relationship and forget too early that before they became an item, they were first separate individuals with different background, mindset and attitudinal dispositions. Getting too comfortable in a relationship is the most silent killer in a relationship in the sense that you completely forget that making a relationship work or staying in love is a continuous process. It is a never-ending game because the moment it ends your relationship stops, whether you are still in it or not.

But of course there is usually a window period or that space of time when you can redeem the love in your relationship after you’ve observed that it’s heading for the rocks. Now, how well both of you communicate during that period will determine the validity period of the relationship. But the problem is, even when a couple realize one of them has given up on the relationship, they still keep up the charade just because they still see each other often and worse still, have sex.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying you should jump off the wagon at the slightest chance oh! Okay, let me make a final attempt at making these as clear as possible, couples in a relationship should accept early enough that it’s a long row to hoe. Invariably, a relationship deserves a lot of test to hold forth no matter the amount of failures. What however would be seen as a red herring is if you got no more tests to write yet no grades to even qualify you to move to the next level.  If you are still waiting for Jesus to come and set the final test in such relationship, my guy you are on a long thing. By the time you see Jesus, it won’t be to revive your failing relationship, it will be to give a report on how you spent your life on earth.

A lot of promising relationships have crashed not because the couples were not destined to love each other, but because they took very critical decisions when their emotions were dabbing on a busy highway. No good decision has even been made in anger or frustration. The best time to end a relationship is not when the Nigerian Army and Boko haram fighters are engaged in a duel in your heart. At that point your heart is not even yours anymore so careless words you may likely regret later just comes flying like arrows out of your loose buccal cavity with no holds barred. I will advise you wait till the army chases the insurgents out of ‘Sambisa forest’ before you decide what you want to do with your rampaging relationship.

Yes! Wait till you are calm and thinking straight. Only then will you be able to analyze the immediate cause of the dispute and tug of war that ensued, hence make a decision whether to go forward or probably it’s time the parties involved go their separate ways.

There is also one vital question we need to ask ourselves whenever going forward in a tumultuous relationship seems as deadly as ending it. Take a long moment to look at the future; in your minds ‘eye do you really see a future with your partner despite the storm you are experiencing in your relationship? Where and how do you see both of you three decades from present time?

Within 6 months in a relationship you really should know where you stand with your partner or how far you guys are going with it except na play both of una they play sha o!

And if despite the hurdles you’ve crossed in the course of your relationship you still can’t see the finish line even from a distance, babe swerve! If you continue then your village people are involved.

If the excitement in your relationship begins to wane and all efforts to re-ignite that which made you guys the envy of all is lost, then I think it’s time you call it quits. No particular man was designed for a woman, time and chance happens to us all

However, if you are breaking up with a partner when you already have another bitch or nigga waiting by the flanks, all I will tell you is, well done sir! That is the most demonic time to break up because you don settle the matter regardless of the problem inherent in your relationship.

Even when there is a solution to that problem staring at you eye ball to eye ball… Hello bae! Aswear you will never see that solution. If you leave on this note, trust me you will soon realize why they say, Karma is a bitch!

Lekan Linkin ‘Lofinji

Relationship Afficionado