When You Know It's Time To Leave A Relationship But You're Too Attached

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A perfect marriage or relationship is an illusion; there's no universal playbook for making them work. What's effective for one couple may not apply to another. Nevertheless, I've come to understand that there's always a solution to be found. Half a decade ago, my wife and I faced such trials in our marriage that divorce seemed inevitable. Yet, through perseverance and determination, we navigated through the rough waters and emerged stronger, reunited, and more resilient

Dang, the part about insecure attachment operating “strategically” and then having regrets about what if they’d used a different strategy vs. Secure attachment operating cleanly/genuinely/ laying all their cards out and feeling clear (yet sad) about a breakup is such an aha.

After many, many years of ambivalence, suffering, and uncertainty, I finally ended a 12 year relationship with my high school sweetheart, and mere hours later, you post this video THE EXACT SAME DAY. Everything in this video is so spot-on. In all areas of my life, I have always felt alone, dysfunctional, dysregulated, irrational, disconnected, lost. In your videos-especially this one-I have never felt so seen in my entire life. Heidi, you must be a guardian angel or something. Thank you.

This is so completely spot on. My man was an avoidant and I was anxious. But through hard work,therapy,devotion and love we survived. And are now thriving. I'm so glad we didn't give up. But we're so secure now we could leave without it being the end of the world. Although I don't see that happening. He's my dream man now ❤

Heidi Priebe should be declared a world wonder. ✨️😂 thank you for all the work that you do. 🙏🏼

I love that you haven’t followed the formula for daily/regular videos or videos of a certain length and your channel has still quadrupled in subscribers in a year. Shows how valuable what you’re doing is

"Strategy mode" sounds like a term that could be useful. All these years, I have been so sick and tired of *something* about my relationship dynamics; all of that trying, doing, hoping, being amazing, jumping through hoops, and looking for ways to get noticed, and all those maybes, coulds, what-ifs and if-onlys. And now I have a word for it.

15:29 “you might have an anxious-leaning partner, who just tells you over and over again that you’re their favorite person in the world, that they can’t imagine life without you. But it also feels like they’re chronically kind of angry at you, or actually really displeased with your priorities and values that they’re claiming they like.” I’m listening to this line on repeat.

I ended a relationship that I was still very much wanting to stay in a few weeks ago... I just couldn't take the avoidance anymore. I tried so hard to be patient and understanding, but got nothing back in return and felt taken for granted. Yet for some reason, I still feel attached. I'll be listening to this on my drive to work tomorrow.

It’s crazy how we want to escape ourselves.

Your videos have helped facilitate a lot of healing and growth. And it's so generous of you to share your learning and insight with us gratis. Thank you thank you. (Please don't respond; it'll feel like I'm buying a reply. In the same way that you share what you have with us for free, this is what I have to share right now, with no expectation in return. Wish it could be more, you certainly deserve it.)

The concept of self care being a social responsibility rang like a bell in my consciousness.

I finally let him go after 2 weeks of him ghosting me. Sent him a message telling him that I love him too much but it's not what he wanted and that I needed to heal. I became too attached to him and it suffocated him. I made him my saviour. I lost myself in the relationship and valued myself based on how he treated me. I am slowly healing but it only happened when I finally sent him that final message.

Only KZheadrs, who's videos i watch in 0.5X to get the details right and then re-listen to absorb properly. Heidi is genuinely God sent 🙏

Heidi you CANNOT call me out like this right now. PLEASE let me flounder in uncertainty a little bit more 😭

As an avoidant person struggling to accept my decision to end my relationship with a man I am still in love with. Heidi's advice has made me feel like I can survive this heartbreak aslong as I keep focused on this whole process. 3 months after breaking up, I have been rethinking my decision, but this has just reassured me. Thankyou 🙏🏻

Girl, i needed this years ago 😅 but I did ultimately leave my husband a few months ago and WOW! I have never felt so good. It feels like it's the first time in my life I've truly been living. Everyone can see the difference in my spirit and say that I'm ✨glowing ✨ I cannot believe how much I was letting myself suffer by staying in the relationship!!

Crazy the timing of this video. Literally going through this right now

Heidi your channel has been probably the biggest factor in completely changing my life over the last 3 months and assisting me through the darkest period of my life. Thank you.

I have often noticed I start grieving a relationship before it even ends. It’s a weird, confusing state to be in like one foot out the door but my heart still in. It’s probably part of being FA but I’ve had secure/stable relationships as well. It takes two to tango and sometimes it’s better to cut our efforts. My brain almost always perceives this and I can’t not act on it after a while - but it still takes time to disentangle the heart. Thanks for this video! Best wishes to everyone else here !

I would love if you could make a follow up video about strengthening these areas in yourself after a break up. When I chose to end my relationship, I felt very secure in these areas. Then over time as I grieved the loss of this person being in my life, I started abandoning these areas one by one. I’m now feeling nostalgic for the relationship even tho I know it was not as healthy one because I’m associating success in these areas with my ex partner. Almost as if I don’t believe I can maintain them outside of a relationship.

At the end of August last year, my girlfriend broke up with me after a relationship that lasted about eight months. Ever since then, people have been trying to help me, but I never feel understood at all. I feel like I have not made a single step away from that relationship mentally, and I want nothing more than be with her again. Everyone has been telling me that time will heal my wounds. That I will be able to move on, that the pain will get better. Half a year has passed since then, and now I just feel worse if anything. It's at least a little validating to learn that it's normal for a breakup like mine to be so fucked up.

Dang it Heidi, how do you always do this to me?! After being unhappy for years, I separated from my wife last month. I am super interested to hear what you have to say on the topic! Thank you for continuing to make your videos, they (along with therapy) have helped me come so far in the last year!

Heidi, you've helped me so much over the last 6 months. Thank you for sharing your knowledge. Lot's of love!

Unbelievably timely. My ex ghosted me 4 weeks ago and we finally talked yesterday. I’m FA and I’ve been in my avoidant strategy but I knew this conversation would flip me over to anxious. Boy did it.

Omg this brings new meaning to complex grief. It can happen without any stereotypically complex deaths or losses. It’s about attachment!

I've always said I have a DETACHMENT DISORDER rather than an Insecure Attachment Disorder.... feeling validated . TY

Not what the video is intended for but this is also helping me understand the grief I feel when I lose a job (and all the people connected to it). No matter what the job was like, it's always very, very painful, and I never get a chance to share that pain with anyone, so that I can have it mirrored back to me.

Im a FA leaning anxious. What i don't understand is how do people stay years and years in these relationships. 4 months feeling miserable and i end it. I can't endure pain for to long. My last boyfriend left me hanging on my birthday to be with his friends, after i told him that was important for me. I ended it right there because there was no reasoning with him. I know it wasn't important for him, but in my mind when it's important for the person we love, its important for us. He couldn't understand this (or he didn't want to) so i ended it.

Grief creeps up little bit sometimes

Concise and actionable information. All of your videos are this way. You have a remarkable gift. It’s not just “advice” you’re teaching us how to ACTUALLY change, grow, heal and love ourselves.

Well, Fuck. Heidi, you make it seriously hard to shift the blame anymore. This video did it. I get it. If I needed signposts that I'm doin' it wrong, you gave them! Do I try to use strategies to work around my husband? Yup! Check. Could I imagine breaking things off with him and not "bleeding out?" No. Check. (Not literally, just I couldn't walk away without my life crumbling.) It points to poor sense of self and other relational issues. Attachment problems, confirmed. Check. So, it seems to me you have laid out my marching orders. Discover what gives me a sense of purpose. Get to know myself, my needs, my joys, and get comfortable being fully present. Through exploring my purpose, strengthen my friend connections and my sense of self-worth and self-trust and self-reliance. And, stop strategizing in dealing (or not dealing) with my husband. Have direct conversations and get curious. I have not felt safe to try this fully, because we each take things said personally and are in reactions to the stories we tell ourselves. I have to express my needs and wants and dreams. If after all the cards are on the table, we can't be people who become each other's havens and support each other to grow, then we should leave each other's company and trust we will heal. Now I just need to take some consistent action for myself to keep going on this learning curve. Looking at the amount of work I need to do has me in shock. I actually fell asleep during your video. It is absolutely not boring! I was not tired. My brain covered it's birdie cage to go to sleep and so I would not see. I rewound your video and watched it to the end. I am learning to recognize my emotional shut downs and stick with things even when it is hard. Tip of my hat to you!! You get all the credit there. I am so grateful to you Heidi! (Even when the brilliant things you say make me want to scream out my back door, throw my phone out a window, or crawl back into bed.) Instead, I will pull out a notebook and start exploring. (After I self-regulate by singing at the top of my lungs in the car.) Writing! Tomorrow.

I needed this last year, grateful I finally had the courage to end it for good.. I hope there’s a second part about finding yourself again after being so enmeshed

Your channel is some of the very best content on KZhead. Thank you.

I tried to give my ex the opportunity to grow and a safe space for her to be vulnerable but our dynamic was her always trying to manipulate me to do what she wanted to by withholding affection and using other people to make me jealous so I let her go and now she's desperately trying to win me back but I don't want to go back. Despite that I'm still attached(probably trauma bonded) and although I do a good job deflecting her, it's still difficult to say no. Not just because of a bond but because I don't like hurting people.

Heidi, you are the most insightful person I've ever heard speak on human psychology. You are brilliant, and a gift. I listen to your videos over and over again, studying them, and get more and more from them the more I listen. Thank you so much for this. I wish I could have you as a therapist.

Thank you because I am sure I'm not the only one who needs this. It's funny this came up just after I was looking at prices from Boston to Nebraska 🎉 My life not going anywhere with these people and I've worked so hard to turn my life around the last 4 years. Anyone going through similar, you are loved, you are needed, and you belong in happiness xoxoxoxo

The timing of this video is amazing… thank you Heidi! You describe things so so so well

Heidi - just wanna say I'm super happy to see your channel growing so much - I see more and more comments on every videos expressing gratitude for your content and I can totally relate to every one of them! Keep it coming, you're making huge waves - and you've changed my life massively (I'm so much healthier now because of you). X

Thank you so much for this! I can see how far I've come in healing my anxious style. I also see what is left to be healed. Not beating myself up, just lovin myself through healing. You're wonderful ❤

This is the greatest resource on this topic and it is helping so many people. Thank you Heidi, from the bottom of my heart❤

Thank you for your videoes, this really couldn't have been more opportune for me as today was the day I finally made the choice to break away from someone I'd allowed in my life for too long, made excuses for, tried to love, both romantically and platonically, for too long and been prepared to invest so much of my self in. But I can't go on denying what every sense is telling me, has been screaming at me, I need to get away from them. Wish me luck.

Heidi, thank you. Thank you thank you thank you. Endlessly thankful for all the work you put out. You have helped me SO much you have no idea

I’ve been enlightened in at least one way or more each time I watch one of your videos…. I learned probably five or six new & helpful things from this one. Thank you

this video is god sent, thank you so much + everyone who has the strength to end a relationship even though it literally feels like death - im so proud of you, please go ahead & treat yourself with something nice because you did a very good & important job ... I wish I would have broke n up with him because I wanted to do so everyday but I did not have the strength. which resulted in me suffering more than necessary & at the end he pulled the trigger

One of the best videos on relationships. Thank you

Great video thank you! I've recently been trying to balance making decisions from a mixture of emotions and logic, rather than swinging from all of one, to all of the other!

Thank you! This is so helpful, validating and actionable particularly covering the differences between securely attached versus anxiously attached relationship especially when CPTSD is involved. Thank you also for speaking more slowly. Some of your past videos are much much faster. When you speak slowly and clearly it is so much easier to hear and integrate the information. Thank you for specifically covering this in depth.

Thank you Heidi. This is pure genius. I'll be referring to it regularly 🌼

This is packed with really helpful suggestions and insight. Thank you! ❤🙏

thank you so much for this video!! I have a long-term friendship where myself and the other person care about each other deeply but can’t seem to work through our conflicts no matter how sincerely we try to talk them out together, and we’ve considered going our separate ways / taking an extended break from the friendship several times but have never been able to actually follow through on that idea for more than a few months. a day or two after I watched this, my friend approached me to suggest another attempt at a break, and this time I’m hopeful I have a better understanding of what it’ll actually take to make it stick and why such a break is important to me in the first place. I want to get my inner child out from underneath that boulder

Thank you so much for this. It's helping me process my very recent breakup in ways I hadn't been able to work out on my own.

Your content is insanely helpful and healing for me, thank you so so much really, it feels like you can hear our needs and just deliver a perfect video!

Thank you so much for framing how it looks for securely attached vs insecurely attached. It really makes a difference being able to understand what it should look and feel like. Your work is incredibly helpful! 🙏

Man... this is very healty and mature. The road for me to understand everything you're saying was long and challenging. Now, the road continue to live by those values that I hold. So much clarity. Thank you and be safe.

wow... just wow Heidi. Thank you so much. Im going through a breakup right now and this has really helped.

Heidi , you’re so insightful, clear and amazing. Can’t thank you enough…I envy your own partner😊

Thank you Heidi. Wish I knew this 8 years ago. I self amputated over a year ago now. You make everything make so much sense.

Aw man I really could've used this. Unfortunately it's too little too late. She pulled the cord on us last week. I wish I had had the strength to end it months ago, the pain I'm going through right now would've been much easier to bear. I just hope there's still some salvageable part of me left in there somewhere to reconnect with...

Love your videos and how they bring me new perspectives. Thank you!

Some people stay in relationships because they can't financially afford to leave.

Heidi you are the best! Even though I already broke up 3 months ago and just happened to watch this video it really helps me with processing the break up. I keep villainizing my ex because his words didn't match his actions and it makes me feel like I have basically been abused by him I also see my part of working with strategies to make him show up in a way that I needed. And after the break up I thought a lot about the ways how I could have done things better or how things would have been better if he actually did do some work I now can accept: this person didn't keep their word and didn't act in favor of the relationship and this is enough data for me to walk away. Thank you!

I'm only 6 minutes into this video and AMAZED at how well you're articulating the exact situation I'm presently in! It's as if the universe is offering me the specific tools i need to extricate myself from a dynamic which is destroying me. Thank you for taking the time to make this video; i feel so understood, grateful for guidance, and hopeful that i can make it through this!

Dear Heidi. Im watching this video for the 2nd time and 🤷‍♀️ idk why I didn't catch it the 1st time but what you described in the 1st 6 min about how we are showing up in a relationship and having our jou de vive taken away is exactly how I felt in a relationship I left a month ago. It was hard to leave and it hurts but Im healing. Ive been beating myself up thinking I made a mistake because he is a really kind and generous person and why didnt i feel good inside the relationship. Im going to stop beating myself up now. I didn't feel good inside the relationship and that has to be enough for me. Thank you for all your videos. Your like therapy for me and I can actually see how far ive cine in healing ❤

I love that you have books displayed because I can see what you’ve read even when you are not recommending any books in a video

Very well broken down. I’m actually getting along by myself after 16 years of marriage. Was very co dependent and forgot who I was. We were both toxic and brought all we knew to bring to the relationship but because we had messed up childhoods… it was a ship wreck! Finally after much time and research and hitting rock bottom… I’m learning to be happy in my own skin again and believe it or not… I can even handle rejection much better now. Cuz honestly, I also feel as tho… this person may not be WHAT I NEED either

This has been so, so helpful with the intense grief that I've felt ending a relationship this weekend. Thank you.

The note to yourself toward the end of this video was so, so helpful. Loved this video!

This is brilliant. So clear. So many points I hadn't considered before - especially that 'strategy' approach. Countless times I've wondered - maybe I could/could've done this or that. Or the partner being your coregulation person! Yikes, how entangled that obviously is! Thank you.

Needed this. Thanks Heidi!

Thank you, Heidi 🙏🏿

Thank you. I feel so validated watching your videos.. I’m so in need at the moment for it. Thank you for your empathetic clarity!!

Thank you so so much for making this video. I've had such an intense heartbreak recently which has been so difficult on me. I've always found solace in learning about things which scare me and that i find difficult and emotions around a difficult breakup can definitely be scary. I am looking forward to watching more of your videos and I am so grateful for the time you've taken to give us hope for development as well as understanding our relationships in order to live better. Thank you again. 🥰

Hey Heidi! You have been such a valuable influence in my life. Thank you for all your help :)

I really wish I discovered your channel 6 months ago. Either way you have been a great well of knowledge for me the past 5 months. Thank you for sharing these videos.

Thank you so much for your insight. Can’t tell you how much this helps ❤

She has verbalized what I needed to hear. I will keep listening

Experiencing most of what you talked about. Makes a lot of sense. Thank you Heidi.

One thing I'm trying is to remember prior lovers who i had to walk away from. Once it felt like i would never be "over" them and would never want anyone else and yet.... I did. Again and again. So this current person will one day join their ranks.

So yes this resonates and I’ve been forced to “amputate” relationships in the past. However I’m having this experience now with my own adult children-dealing with struggles with addictions and mental health problems. Crisis and trauma along with cutoffs, blame and rage directed towards me. I feel like I’ve been treading water forever and cannot relax or breathe long enough to do much of anything else positive. Retired now but I’m definitely not appreciating life. The other shoe IS always dropping…for years now. I think there’s progress then Wham something comes out of left field and I’m again left not knowing what happened. The one experiencing the issues is worrying and the reaction of others to that behavior often results in judging my response or deciding not to engage. My extended family are not interested other than as their audience and subject myself to their silencing, judging, ridiculing, criticizing, ignoring and shaming me. Heaping shame on is unnecessary-I already do not share my experiences and worries with people I know because they have an entirely different experience of parents, family and their adult children. The little bit I have shared with friends or coworkers has been met with frowns, kind of blank stares and silence. I fervently wish I could share the family experiences and milestones that they value and enjoy, but it is not to be. The pain, grief and loss is relentless as time continues to fly by. I’m not young and a lot of milestones are already behind me. How do I leave my own grown children. -as they randomly come and go often with resentment, hurtful jibes, words and behaviors directed towards me. Minimal communication and requests to engage being respectful of their busy schedules, of theirs and/or their partners and grandchildren who are nearly grown now, often met with irritation like making time for me is a burden-not valued. I have taken care of myself and am generous with them. I’m the only parent who prepared an inheritance for them. I do not point that out other than to indicate I have a Trust in the event anything unexpected happens to me. Their dads left them nothing. Their dad’s new partners and children cared for instead. Certain adult children tend to show up randomly with a problem or hurt to process, then simply disappear again. Their fathers are no longer living. I feel like I am blamed for everything that upset or hurt them throughout their lives. extended family tends to perceive me and treat me dismissively or with blame and criticism. They do not make space or include me. There are issues around values which have been amplified over the past several years. Though I haven’t confronted them directly they are aware of my opinions and professional history. They tend to talk about me and poke at my ideas and opinions together. No matter how benign I attempt to be around them. Neglect, avoidance and abandonment is the rule. They occasionally ask for a favor-like dog sitting but that’s it. No genuine connection or contact . Lots of trauma addictions including codependency has been passed on intergenerationally. I am aware of my Complex Trauma I can’t speak for any of them. The extended family brush this concept off as weak and weird and circle the wagons-again. Painful. Healing efforts❤️‍🩹 constantly interrupted by more trauma and abandonment.😢 Thank you for sharing the information with clarity that offers a validation of much of my lived experience. I have a counselor-have for most my life. Some good and some harmful. Hope and energy battery is very low these days. I’ve chased purpose and meaning but it has eluded me. I saved babies lives for a living but don’t feel I matter to anyone other than 2 cats who are attached to my presence in a way people never have been. 😽

Stop sending me videos that I need to see! I'm perfectly happy being oblivious and miserable, thank you very much!

Listening to this the 2nd time was so informative and I could understand it to a deeper level. I love listening to your analytical mind on this topic of relationships and attachment theory.

Summary/Overview: 00:00 Intro. 157 movie from 2010, emotional amputation. 08:10 Step 1: Contextualizing the situation properly for yourself 12:10 Secure/Simple vs Insecure/Complex breakup 26:15 Bok recommendation: How We Change (and 10 Reasons Why We Don't), 2020, Dr Ross Ellenhorn ~27:30 Focus shift, from amputation to injury, strengthening the muscles around it instead. ~26:00 Step 2 28:40 Connection to partner 29:50 Connection to self 33:00 Connection to resource 33:55 Connection to social networks 36:50 Connection to purpose 42:00 Step 3: Recovery plan from the exit/ breakup 48:40 Conclusion

Reverend Heidi strikes again! You're the best Heidi...helping so many people across the globe. Also, for those interested I've been using Meta ai and Gemini for help with this and both me and my partner have been deeply impressed with its ability to support and mediate conversations. It's a new dawn

Your videos have helped me so much since I discovered your channel about six months ago… When this video popped up as the first recommended video on my feed, I kind of laughed lol A sign. All the things I needed to hear in this moment. Thank you so much.

This is an unbelievably smart discussion - so helpful!

I'm deeply grateful for your content! In this video I struggled a bit, when you adviced to lean to a support group. Well if I had to, I would, but I dont have assess to one. Finding a therapist or a group is very hard with a FA attachment style. I'm also not sure, how to let go of my relationship now, but it helped me very much that you pointed out that there are reasons or needs that get met by the person I love and therefor its important to get these meets met in another way. Also found the book recommendation about reasons why we change and why we dont interesting. So I wanna find out what prevents me from changing and I think that information gonna help me. Thank you!

Right on Heidi! Yup. This pretty much sums it all up. Be free, feel free and you have all the right to remove yourself from any situation that is stagnating for you.

The content is always so helpful and constructive, and this video is particularly amazing! I also wonder how she can talk like this. Either she is a master reader or a master speaker. There is a fluency in this that makes it easy to follow. Thanks, Heidi, for sorting out our lives and loves!🙂

I went through a complex break up of a 28yr relationship a year and few months ago..Actually it feels like I am still going through that break up. This video tells me the areas that I haved worked on and the ones I still need to work on. I truly appreciate the work you do. I like how you talk to me. With patience love, compassion and care. We need more of you in this society. ❤

Keep up the good work, your talent for expressing the knowledge you've accumulated is a gift.

You are so wonderful and wise. You have a very clear way of sharing knowledge and focus on the most important things in life. Thank you so much.

heidi, im going through this right now, and i just want to say thank you. i think you just saved my life

I wish I had that video last fall before my breakup 😂 but this video helped me a lot to understand more stuff retrospectively and helped me in my therapy process, thank you

Very helpful discussion. Thank you 🙏

Oh I see you universe! You uploaded this at the same time I asked the universe for guidance. Wow✨✨

I wish I had found your podcast 5 month's, no a year and 5 months ago! That would have saved me this painful letting go I'm stuck in. I'm optimistic your clearly explained strategies will get me unstuck and except I Loved him and leave with a 'friendship' we were going to leave on instead I sabotaged and shut the door so he couldn't come back when I did not mean to do grrrrrr and that's why it's soo painful as I lost my playmate and it's like a grief I can't resolve... Until I found your podcast yay!

Phenonemal video..thank you, brought a lot of personal understanding.

I like to thank you very much, for speaking out the words that seemed to float unknowingly in my hart and mind.