I watched my mother's parents be like this. blows my mind folks, idk. I don't understand the whys, well, I do, but, why live and stay in misery? Fear?

Maybe after all these comments, I understand what the original context means (in some way), but that is not funny, it's sad. Like I said, my mother's parents hated eachother, always bickered, yet always stayed together. When my grandfather passed away, my grandmother became a wholley different person, in a good way. It was like years of burden were lifted, leaving her spirit lighter. Why not give yourself that gift earlier than old age? She spent her whole life with someone she didnt like, and who didnt like her, why? Because jane down the street will talk gossip? Because you may have to sit alone with yourself for a time?

You free your partner too, to find someone else better fitting, as well as for yourself. "if you love them let them go" and all that. It's not even all selfish to sever a connection with a person not right for you. It is good for both parties.

When one door closes, you get oppourtunity for many other doors. Maybe because I have faced death a few times early, I dont carry these feelings. I am still a bit co dependent to be honest, but not in this way. Life is too short to stay in situations that dont serve your own peace. Hope, you dont hope for a person to change, you hope you yourself can, and move foward to something new, and better fitting.

Its like keeping a pair of jeans that fit you when you were 20, and "one day they will fit me again" meanwhile, youve not lost any weight, or became any smaller in the decades youve held on. Just give the pants to someone they will fit, so they can still have life, if even not with your ass in them, but someone elses. Instead, you hold on, until the jeans are eaten by moths in the draw, and the stitching weakens, and the pants wont ever see life again. Its selfish to stay in this way