How do you know if your relationship is going through a hard season — or if you’ve simply stayed too long?
In Season 3, Episode 4 of Before It Breaks, Gabriella Pomare explores one of the hardest questions people ask themselves inside a struggling relationship: should I stay or should I leave?
We hear a lot about people giving up too quickly. About commitment. About doing the work. But there is another side to that conversation: staying long after a relationship has become emotionally disconnected, resentful, lonely or stuck.
Gabriella looks at the difference between staying and trying, and why remaining in a relationship is not the same as actively repairing it.
This episode explores emotional disconnection, resentment, contempt, loss of attraction, relationship burnout, staying together for the kids, sunk cost, and the quieter signs that can appear long before a relationship officially ends.
Gabriella also unpacks her Love, Fear, Guilt or Habit framework — a way of asking what is actually keeping you in the relationship.
Are you staying because there is still love and a genuine desire to rebuild?
Or because leaving feels too frightening?
Are you staying because repair is possible?
Or because history, children, guilt or habit make it difficult to imagine another life?
At the centre of the episode is one important question:
If nothing changed in the next five years, would you still choose this relationship?
This is not an episode telling people to stay. It is not an episode telling people to leave. It is about becoming honest enough to understand the difference between a difficult season and a deeper pattern.
Plus, Gabriella answers anonymous Dear Gabriella dilemmas and shares a Don’t Do What I Did story about confusing staying with trying.
Before It Breaks with Gabriella Pomare is a podcast about modern love, real relationships and the conversations people often have too late.
Instagram: @thegabriellapomare
Website: gabriellapomare.com
For general information and discussion only. This podcast is not legal advice, psychological advice, counselling or therapy.
Chapters:
00:00 Should I Stay or Leave?
03:10 Are We Giving Up Too Soon or Staying Too Long?
07:25 Hard Season or Bigger Pattern?
12:10 Staying Is Not the Same as Trying
16:40 Love, Fear, Guilt or Habit?
21:20 Dear Gabriella: Nothing Is Wrong, But I Feel Nothing
27:15 Resentment, Contempt & Emotional Disconnection
32:05 What If You’ve Lost Attraction?
36:30 Are You Leaving the Relationship or Escaping Your Life?
41:10 Staying Together for the Kids
46:00 Dear Gabriella: I Stayed for the Kids
50:40 The Sunk-Cost Problem
54:20 Don’t Do What I Did
58:10 The Question to Ask Yourself
1:01:30 When Leaving Can Be an Act of Honesty
1:04:00 So, Should You Stay or Leave?
