Should I stay or Should I go? Knowing when to 'call the fight'

So I was thinking today about turning points. You know the moment in which something can go one way or another and you choose to make a change.

I read an excerpt of a book in Esquire back in High School that was quite intriguing. It was about a writer and an artist that cheat on their spouses together in this torrid affair in his studio. The thing that I've taken with me from this piece was the thing called "the hate click".

You see, they always want to talk about the moment you first fell in love like you clicked on a light switch. But what about the moment you realize that you can no longer stand the person you used to love. You find yourself hating the little things just as you found yourself loving them. You hate the way they comb their hair, you hate the way they eat their food, you hate the way they breathe!

But what about that moment in between? In all of my failed relationships, I can look back on a painful end to a relationship that probably had no chance of survival. I can see the clear moments when things started to change. It was certainly long before the relationship ended, but my idealism kept me from looking at the red flags. I ignored one thing because it was just one small thing. I let things add up until I was saturated and quite frankly admittedly was probably saturating the other person as well. Sometimes, there seems to be far too much baggage to end it, far to many people would be hurt, far too much invested and promised. We wait until we are too afraid to break someone's heart or throw away the time we've invested. We all can look back and say, man, if I had just ended it then when I first got that gut feeling something wasn't right......

I would have saved myself and others a world of hurt. So what are the warning signs? If you hear someone say early on that they can't stand kids and you really want them, why can't you just ask the person if you two can figure out a comprimise and discuss whether it's worth even wasting time. Wouldn't it be nice if we could tell the one we are dating that we need more attention like sweet observations about your choice of seafood, an occasional "you look pretty today" or "I really like how you told that driver off, that made me hot!" Why can't we tell the other person that they smother and stifle us, they scare us, they hurt us when they are curt. Why can't we say we think they might be the right one and see if they feel the same. If they don't feel the same, it's so much easier to know in the beginning, not the end. Instead of wondering if things will change and the communication or the sex will get better or we may see eye to eye politically someday, we could just ask the person and they could just tell us and we could make the decision to accept or back out. Why can't we be true to ourselves enough to ask honestly for what we need? it seems fair, doesn't it? Why do people freak out when you try to establish things up front so that you two can just have fun with each other (or get to steppin'). Why is this a pushy thing? Why can't we work out the details like a healthy business negotiation when it comes to love so that we can make a smarter decision. I sincerely think that more marriages would work out and there would be less unplanned pregnancies if we could just figure out the turning points and really get a chance to make an informed decision.

I don't ever want to be that person again that looks back and says "I wish I had left when I could because now I can't." or "I wasted so much of my life." I want to be the one that says "You and I were great, I'll always feel a special place for you. I want you to find a better fit for you so you can truly be happy and so can I."

As ever, the idealist...