We’ve all been there: Your BFF FaceTimes you out of the blue, waving around a big rock on her ring finger while her balding boyfriend (now fiancé—ick) grins in the background while you think to yourself, “Am I the only one who remembers every time this guy cheated on her?” We’re sorry to tell you, but your bestie might just be stuck in a sunk-cost relationship.

In case you don't know: In investing, the sunk-cost fallacy is “the phenomenon whereby a person is reluctant to abandon a strategy or course of action because they have invested heavily in it, even when it is clear that abandonment would be more beneficial,” according to Oxford Languages. A sunk-cost relationship is much the same—you've invested so much time, money, energy, and work into it that you don't want to let it go, even though it would probably be for the best. Common signs include saying things like, “We’ve been together for 10 years, I don’t want to start over!” even though eight of those 10 have been downright bad. And the longer a couple is together, the harder it can be to break up. Who gets the couch, or the dog, or the apartment?

There can be tons of reasons why people stay in unhealthy relationships, like wanting to have children by a certain age, complicated finances, or years of gaslighting. According to experts, these reasons can even stem from deep-seated and unresolved issues from childhood.

“People often stay too long in unhealthy relationships because they're operating from what we call a ‘core love wound’—a negative pattern of relating to others that springs from painful childhood experiences,” explains love coach Christina McMahon, who works together with her husband, licensed marriage and family therapist Darrin Kagele, on the mental health and mindfulness app Aura. “People tend to repeat these patterns compulsively, so it plays out on the unconscious level. In the present moment, it just feels like an impossible cycle to break. You may also fear that maybe this is as good as it gets, and you get comfortable. Tolerating a bad situation can feel more comfortable than facing the unknown and putting yourself back out there to meet someone new.”

So try to have a little compassion for your friend who’s trying to break this cycle. It can feel terrifying to move on from a relationship, even if everyone around you can attest to the fact that it should've ended forever ago. Your friend may have a lot of un-learning to do. And if any of this sounds a little too familiar to your current situation, consider finding a professional with whom to work through it all, including "your core love wounds and the negative beliefs they instilled in you, such as ‘I’m not enough,’ or ‘I don’t deserve to have my needs met,'" says Kagele. "You’ll need to turn those beliefs around in order to find happiness with love."

But don't just take our word for it. Sometimes, the best advice comes from people who've been there before. We asked nine readers to tell us their tales about leaving behind a sunk-cost relationship. From heartbreaking stories to unbelievable red flags, these stories show that starting over doesn’t have to be scary—it can be freeing.

  1. “Our relationship lasted 12 years. We bought a house and got married, but I didn’t want to be 30 and unhappy. We met in school so it was the only relationship I really knew. He was my first love, first sex partner, first for everything, so it’s very hard to break the cycle even after you fall out of love. I just knew that if I stayed I’d regret it, because nothing was gonna change. You either grow up together or you grow apart, and that’s what we did. At 29, I moved back to my dad’s after 12 years of living away and it was the scariest and most liberating thing I have ever done.” —Meredith*, 30
  2. “I just ended my three-year relationship. We were engaged and shared dogs. Sometimes it’s no one’s fault. When we met, we were both totally different people and instead of growing together, we grew apart. I could easily have married him, that would have been the most ‘logical’ thing to do. But I couldn’t shake my cold feet even after months, and knew I wanted to be single. Making the decision was so hard but I had to remind myself, I’m 28. I can’t settle at this age if I want happiness for the rest of my life.” —Rebecca, 28
  3. “I was in a five-year marriage even though I knew on the wedding day that I didn’t want it, and I knew on the wedding night it was a bad decision, but I had invested so much in the relationship at that point, I thought I could work on it and fix it. And it was that mindset of like, I’ve invested so much so far, that kept me going for years. In hindsight I can see so clearly that I should have moved on sooner, but at the moment I felt so stuck. I finally left the relationship a year ago, and honestly, it was the best decision I've ever made. All that investment wasn’t a waste. I feel like it was an investment in trusting and growing myself.” —Sumayya, 31
  4. “We moved in together as a last-ditch effort to save our relationship, and I knew it was a bad idea. I looked for apartments for six months behind his back, and then I broke up with him. I felt awful lying, but feeling trapped was worse. The conflict of resenting your partner but also resenting yourself is heavy. I’d tell anyone in a similar situation to take it one step at a time and prioritize getting somewhere safe. Dealing with those feelings can come after. If you try to do it all at once, it gets overwhelming quickly. Always be kind to yourself and honor your feelings even if the little voice in your head tells you that what you're doing is wrong. If your first instinct is to leave, then leave. When you are ready, get yourself a great therapist.” —Sandra*, 28
  5. “I went into my freshman year of college dating my high school boyfriend. On the last day of a visit, he began sobbing uncontrollably before confessing that he had cheated on me. He admitted that he had downloaded Grindr, matched with a random guy on the app, went over to his dorm room and proceeded to have anal sex with him. In an attempt to be understanding about his sexuality (and admittedly as a way to rebel against my strict father) I stayed in this relationship for another whole year. At which point, I finally came to terms with the fact that simply looking at his face annoyed me and decided to break things off. I should have realized at the time that it wasn’t my responsibility to help him through his struggles with his sexuality—cheating is cheating.” —Julia, 22
  6. “I was in my relationship for a year when I found out he was emotionally cheating on me—talking to other girls online, and sending/receiving nudes. Because of the length of our relationship, and honestly some insecurity myself around being cheated on, I decided to try to make it work with some rules: He had to tell his mom and his friends what he did (hello accountability), and he needed to start going to therapy to resolve the insecurity issues he had. All the red flags came up through this process—his mom questioned if I was 'taking care of him enough' (yikes), his friends didn’t see the problem with it, and he didn’t take therapy seriously at all. That’s when I decided to get out, and it was the best thing I ever did!” —Meggan, 25
  7. “I lived in Washington DC for a decade and followed my now-ex to Texas. Three months into our lease, I returned to our apartment from a business trip to find long strands of dark hair in our bed—I’m a curly red head. As much as I wanted to leave, I had just said goodbye to all my family and friends, changed jobs, and uprooted my whole life to start this new chapter with him. I gave him too many chances, which resulted in years of emotional abuse and multiple incidents of infidelity. When I finally left him, I realized I was 30, single, and living in Austin, so I decided to make the absolute most of my new chapter and am truly living my best life.” —Rachel, 32
  8. “I liked the attention my ex gave me, but I was never attracted to him. He was extremely manipulative; gaslighting, controlling, even had me co-sign on his car. After a few months in the relationship, the emotional and financial toll was too much and I was planning on ending the relationship. One night, he texted me saying he didn’t feel well. The next morning, I found out he’d been admitted to the hospital for pancreatitis. I stayed in the relationship for two more years after that where I spent most of my time in the hospital with him or taking care of him. I bought him everything since he couldn’t work. I continued to be unhappy in the relationship, but felt I couldn't leave because he was dependent on me. I was also afraid people would judge me for breaking up with someone who was so sick. When I was 22, while I was taking care of him, I found some messages from two of his exes. He was trying to coordinate hooking up with them. That's when I found my out and took it. He ended up stopping the car payments after I ended it and totally ruined my credit—I’m just starting to recover 10 years later. He took the dog. He kept everything I bought him. Honestly, it was a really tough lesson to learn financially, but mostly I’m mad that I wasted all of that time being unhappy because I was afraid of others thinking poorly of me for leaving someone who was critically ill.” —Beth, 31
  9. “He was a friend from college, but we didn’t date until after college. Our friend group from undergrad was amazing and very tight knit. We went on lots of trips together, went to many weddings, etc. I loved that we shared something so special in our friends. Three years into our relationship, after living together, getting a pet, and many family vacations and holidays, the hardest thing I considered losing in the breakup was our friend group. I had a picture in my mind of all of us meeting up for decades, reminiscing on college, sharing inside jokes. It was a bit of a sitcom/rom com concept when I look back. Since the breakup, it’s not the same, but we both get invited on trips and have attended many of the same weddings. I’ve stayed close with those who matter and the people I’ve drifted from…well they certainly weren’t worth getting married to the wrong person!” —Grace, 27

*Name has been changed.