Feeling stuck is life’s ultimate compulsion; forcing us to live a life that knowingly makes us barely satisfied or knowingly makes us unhappy, inevitably challenging our emotions to the brink of rash decisions or abject moral imprisonment. Feeling stuck is not a good thing, especially in relationships. Any positive connotation one may try to pair with the word stuck will always imply that there could be something better. “I am stuck in/with (insert happy thought here),” will always suggest to your audience that you are trapped and might be looking for a way out. The careers we lead, the academic paths we choose, the places we reside, and the lifestyles we live are sustained relative to the amount of risk, time, effort, and commitment we are individually complacent with. In a relationship, this level of complacency along with the degree of love a person has for someone will determine whether that person is going to make a change, come to their senses, or remain stuck.
Disastrous relationships don’t make people feel stuck. A person would have to be a complete fool to feel stuck in a relationship that is imprisoning, abusive, negative, or all of the above. Those relationship types are easy to fix; just leave. It is when a relationship doesn’t have negative signs that a person is likely to feel stuck. A significant other can be the most positive person in the world, the most caring, the most loyal, the most thoughtful and the most loving; but can be perceived to hinder individual progression, which in return could make a person feel trapped. So what does that mean? It means that at some point during the relationship the person who feels stuck decided to blame their unhappiness on the person who has loved them most in the world. The relationship teeters on the sacrifice of happiness for one person or the other; defying the meaning of a relationship altogether. The struggle of terminating the relationship or waiting for the feeling of being stuck to pass becomes the excuse and theme of the person exhibiting these feelings.
When you enter into a relationship, you enter into a partnership where two people progress or digress together. If two people love each other, they will openly experience both paths. There is no blame, or feeling sorry for yourself, or denying responsibility for your unhappiness or feeling stuck. If love exists, no one should feel stuck. If you are feeling stuck and are at a point where you are blaming your significant other for your unhappiness, then it is time to leave the relationship, because you no longer love that person. I am sure I will get the “But I do love him/her” whines from the proud, but if you did truly love him/her why did you just break his/her heart? Love is selfless and feeling stuck is the first identifier to diagnosing someone as egocentric. When you feel stuck, you automatically separate yourself from your significant other, indirectly proclaiming your importance over the relationship’s unity. You somehow believe that through all their love and lack of faults, you are held back from bigger and better things and your life would be “this way” if they somehow weren’t in it.
Feel stuck all you want. Feel like there is something better. You will find that all you will do is end up in the same situation, gambling whether or not the new person loves you more than the last. Another person cannot make you happy; you control that fate. Feeling stuck is a precursor to selfishness and if you have any love for the person you are with, you will leave and never look back. At some point you looked in the other person’s eyes and made a promise, an oath or a vow proclaiming some sort of eternal longevity to the love at hand. If you feel stuck under those pretenses, then it is time to unstuck yourself from your significant other and find someone who won’t sway your oaths.