There are two dilemmas… that rattle the human skull. How do you hold onto someone who won’t stay? And how do you get rid of someone who won’t go? — War of the Roses

The calculus of knowing when to end a relationship is rarely simple, at least to the people on the inside of it.  A third party may look at it and see abuse, neglect, infidelity, or worse.  But to those who are entangled in it, they can still remember the good times, the first glances across a room, the first kiss, the birth of children.  The bruises, both visible, and invisible, are easy to overlook when you can still taste the first meal she made for you, or his smile the first time you danced.  The problem was, to me, that those good times were all that I had to go on, and eventually we both became indifferent to the present because we were lost in the past.  Things finally fell apart when one of us woke up from that dream and realized how nightmarish things had become.