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The Quiet Exit: Leaving a Relationship Gently When You Know Your Worth · Reflect Reclaim & Liberate - with Sallyanne Hartnell

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Reflect, Reclaim and Liberate, a podcast covering all things relationships, separation and divorce.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: How to create healthy, happy, fulfilling relationships without sacrificing any part of yourself.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Supporting anyone feeling challenged in their relationship or marriage, these are confidential conversations for you if you're navigating separation, divorce or reorganising life afterwards.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Decide whether to stay or leave a relationship or marriage, divorce with less drama, and consciously choose what's next for you.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which this podcast is recorded, the Warrentry people of the Kulin Nation, and pay my respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: I acknowledge them as the original storytellers of this land.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, hello, and welcome to this week's episode of Reflect, Reclaim and Liberate.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Today I want to talk about a very specific moment and a specific moment in a woman's life.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: A moment that often goes unseen or misunderstood, missed, even misrepresented, mislabelled.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: And it's the moment you finally realize you can't.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: You can't anymore.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: You can't keep holding a relationship together on your own.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: And this moment often does not come loudly, dramatically.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it might, but what I'm talking about today doesn't land or arrive or arise with drama or yelling argument.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't come with slammed doors, it doesn't come with emotionally charged threats or last chances or last ditch effort.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: It just rises quietly.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you've been living inside that quiet shift.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's still coming for you.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you've been the one asking, inviting, creating space for growth and change and shift.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: You've done your therapy, you've done your inner work, you've done your healing, you've done a whole lot of late-night thinking, overfunctioning, and endless attempts to hold things steady, to hold things together, and as I said, to open up that space for growth.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe now, maybe now something in you has shifted, something in you has changed.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: And if you feel this, if you know this, if you are or were this woman, then this episode is for you.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think there's something that is missed in how relationships end.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: People assume that it's dramatic, it's sudden that women leave suddenly that you checked out overnight, and there's a story, a narrative that rolls out about that.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: But you and I both know that that's not true because there's been a lot of effort gone into holding this together.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know, maybe there's excuses made, you've excused behaviours, you've excused forgotten conversations, missed calls, the way perhaps your feelings, wants, needs, hopes, desires took maybe a back seat.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: You believed in the potential, in the potential of him, in the idea of him, in the version of love and relationship and connection he could offer.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: But believing in that without seeing, feeling, experiencing a shift or a change becomes almost like burnout.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: So you don't become distant overnight.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: You gradually, incrementally, become more honest with yourself.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe across time, you know, your boundaries weren't honored or respected, maybe they were it was implied that, you know, you having boundaries was too much, it was wrong, it was attitude.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um you might have been cold cold or cruel or harsh when you stopped catering and holding space for the relationship.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: But really what was happening is it's you reclaiming, right?
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's you reclaiming those boundaries as okay for yourself, it's you reclaiming your worthiness to take up space within the relationship, and this is what healing looks like, right?
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: Less tolerance for emotional immaturity or connection or just being fed sort of crumbs in a relationship, and it's more clarity about your worthiness, right?
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe, maybe you didn't stop loving him, maybe you haven't stopped loving this person, but you just started loving yourself more, honoring yourself more, knowing that you're worthy of more, and that didn't happen overnight, none of that happened overnight, none of it happens overnight, but you already know that, we already know that.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: If you stop believing in potential and have accepted the reality, the truth, then you understand that if he wanted to, he could.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: If he wanted to, he could have.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: And if he suddenly steps up now that you've told him that you're leaving, or when you tell him that you're leaving, or that the relationship is over and needs to shift and change, that's evidence, right?
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: He could have, he has always been able to, he has had the capacity and the ability to step up to meet you, to meet your needs, to meet you in the relationship, to help you define that container and hold space for you in that relationship.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: He was able to, he could have, he just didn't.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: So hope we hope for change, right?
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: We hang on and we hold on and we hope for change and we do our own inner work, but hoping without seeing action becomes a trap, a cage, it holds us, right?
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: So hoping without movement, hope without being met is not enough.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: Leaning into the potential of what this could be is not enough, and the moment that you realize you're done isn't always loud, it doesn't come with a dramatic declaration, it doesn't necessarily come with a betrayal or a or a huge event, it can just be that quiet knowing in within.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: It can be a quiet voice in your head, and it's just I can't.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: I can't keep doing this, I can't keep doing all the work for both of us, I can't keep re-explaining things, I can't keep re-asking for things, I can't be the only one carrying this, I can't do the work and stay hopeful for the two of us.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: I can't, I am done.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: And once that lands inside you, something really shifts, and your hope stops pulling you forward or sucking you back into the vortex of this relationship, and your body stops leaning in and your heart stops reaching out, right?
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: You become really still and clear and grounded.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: And this is not about punishing, blaming, or being dramatic.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's just a recognition that you're done.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: You are done.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: You're tired, tired of waiting, tired of asking, exhausted, done, checked out.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: And really, what it is is that you're tired of pretending you're okay.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: You're tired of pretending that you're okay with the bare minimum coming back at you from someone.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, even if you still love the other person.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: You're tired of overfunctioning to someone else's underfunctioning, you're tired of stepping forward to that person's retreat or shutdown, avoidance or inability to meet you.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: And people might say, but you don't seem upset or things seemed fine from the outside, but what they don't understand is that it's it's been a long time coming.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's death by a thousand cuts, right?
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: It is a slow erosion and a quiet ending, but it has been coming for a really long time, and the grief and processing has also sometimes happened long before you call time on the relationship.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you're listening to this and you can feel it in your body, or part of you is whispering, oh my god, this is me.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about what comes next.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: Because this moment, this quiet moment, realization, internal clarity, isn't actually the end, right?
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's the beginning, it's the beginning of some big shifts and changes, but it's also the beginning of you returning to yourself.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: So, firstly, you need to honor the truth that you've been avoiding, not who he could be, not what the relationship could become, but what it actually is.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: And when you do that, when you honor the truth that you've been avoiding, you stop bargaining with potential and begin to accept the reality, the truth.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: Secondly, you stop taking all the responsibility, you stop taking responsibility for his potential, his growth, his healing.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: You actually realize and acknowledge that you can't grow him, you can't grow for him, you can't drag someone forward, you can't pull someone into healing or emotional maturity or whatever it is that they need to do.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: That you can't do the work for them and you can't build both halves of a relationship, you can't do that alone, you can't do relationship alone, right?
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: So you get to put down a whole lot of stuff that was actually never yours to carry.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: You stop taking responsibility or all the responsibility, and then you get to ask yourself, what would I choose if I wasn't afraid?
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever it is you're afraid of, because there is always fear in this, right?
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: Are you afraid of hurting him?
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: Are you afraid of hurting your kids?
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: Are you afraid of breaking up the family?
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: Are you afraid of judgment?
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: Are you afraid of whatever starting again?
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: Are you afraid of the financial and logistical for that?
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: Because they're real, right?
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: They are real.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: But when you remove fear from your equation, your decision, your truth becomes really evident, unmistakable, and you can't unsee what you've seen, what you've acknowledged once you strip out the fear.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not saying that this is easy to do, but it's that question of if I wasn't afraid, what would I choose?
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: And the answer to that can be really eye-opening, really enlightening.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: If I wasn't afraid, what would I choose?
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then you begin this process, this internal exit, right?
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: Long before you say the words out loud, long before you even acknowledge it to yourself.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because women, and we're talking women here, um leave emotionally, shut down, check out, leave a relationship emotionally long before they make any physical move or have the conversations they need to have, and very often get their ducks in a row before they have that conversation.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: And this is the part that I spoke about at the very opening of this episode that almost no one sees, and often your partner won't recognise or see it either.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: And ironically, it's the part that sort of matters the most, right?
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: This internal exit that begins so quietly with a gradual, subtle withdrawal, withdrawal of energy.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: You're not putting that energy into the relationship.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: At first, you know, you stop explaining yourself, you stop expecting, you stop exact, you stop asking, you stop asking for help, support needs to be met, whatever it is, and you realize that there's there's nothing else to say.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: You've said everything you need to say, probably multiple times in many, many, many ways, and nothing changes.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: So you stop the overfunction overfunctioning, you stop managing the space between the two of you, you stop rushing in to fix or soothe or interpret or rescue or soften the dynamic.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: You as I said earlier, you just can't.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's I can't.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: Your body just won't allow you to do it anymore.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: Your nervous system shifts from you know leaning in, being on alert to create connection, to heal things between you, and you lean back, you lean out, and at some point you recognize what you're doing, and that's when you recognize that you're checking out, you recognize that you're leaning out instead of leaning in.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: You're not fixing or creating connection between the two of you anymore, and that's when your focus then shifts again and turns inward, turns towards yourself, toward your truth, your knowing, and toward what you've been avoiding or tolerating or carrying, right?
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: You start to see things really clearly, not through that lens of potential, not through that lens of hope or the belief or fantasy of what the relationship could become, but through the lens of what it actually is.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: And you become more observant, you become an observer of your own life, detached, present, but no longer invested in fixing, healing, saving, or carrying both of you.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: So you do stop, you stop negotiating for your needs, you stop minimizing your pain, you stop pretending that that whatever this relationship is is enough for you.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: Emotionally, you say, I'm done.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: And even if your mouth hasn't said the words out loud yet, you do begin choosing and behaving differently.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: You choose yourself.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: Small things at first, you might take longer to respond, you might not respond immediately to a text that pops in a request.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: You stop over-explaining yourself or explaining your feelings, your thoughts, your needs, you slow down your giving or you stop it entirely.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: And often this is when you start imagining, you start dreaming into and imagining your life in a different shape.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: And you tend to start reclaiming pockets of space just for yourself, and whether that is a weekend away with the girls or long runs or long showers, whatever it is, you reclaim pockets of space for yourself, and this is part of the emotional separation, the psychological leaving when you shift your inner world so that it starts aligning with the truth, even if nothing has actually changed on the outside yet.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's not impulsive, it's not reactive, it's not dramatic, it just is a slow rising or shifting where it slowly becomes more conscious, more intentional, more measured, and it's actually self-protective, it's deeply self-protective.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: We do this to protect our hearts, ourselves, our inner self.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: We gradually check out so that by the time you have the conversation, by the time you physically leave the relationship, by the time you declare it's over, you've already done some of the hard parts, which is why sometimes a partner feels blindsided, even though you've been asking for shift and change for a really long time, and why sometimes outsiders are surprised.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: The next step, and I talked about this, getting your ducks in a row, is that you prepare emotionally, practically, financially, and you don't necessarily do this secretly, but there's also self-protection here too, right?
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: You gather support, you talk to someone who can help you and hold this with you.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: You make plans that honor your safety and your future that are smart and strategic.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: You look at logistics, you gain knowledge, understanding, clarity so that you can take empowered action and decide on what's next for you.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: And some of this is emotional and psychological, some of it's practical, objective, logistical stuff.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: It might be money, it might be getting all the visibility that you need on the finances, it might be looking at accommodation options, but it's also about the inner work, the mental and emotional stuff, so that you're not driven by fear, that you're grounded.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: And this is really about you stepping back into your personal power, taking radical responsibility for your own life and stepping into your personal power.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then what happens then?
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: You come home to yourself, and this is the part that I love, and I love working with clients through this part.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: You actually come home to yourself, you reclaim parts of yourself, the pieces of you that are sort of waiting over there in the corner.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: You start to really hear your own voice again and you start to reconnect to your own inner knowing and start to really trust yourself again.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's not that you've simply overnight dramatically fallen out of love.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's not what happened here, right?
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's you falling back into yourself, it's you coming home to yourself, it's you realizing that there are parts of you that you've put down, let go of, minimized, and you get to reclaim them for yourself.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: You're reclaiming, you're rising, you're liberating yourself.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's really important to say that longevity should not be a marker of a successful marriage or relationship, right?
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: You're not failing by ending a relationship, you're not failing by walking away, leaving a relationship.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: You're not giving up, you're not breaking something that could have been fixed because fixing healing, growing into something different requires the effort of two people.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: Leaving a relationship where you've been the only one willing, able, capable of doing the work is not abandonment.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: Staying in that relationship when evidence shows you that nothing is going to change is actually self-abandonment.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: So the leaving is healing.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's you protecting your heart, your potential, the person, the version of you that you can become, it's you stepping into clarity, you're not being or asking too much, you're honoring yourself and the person, the version of you that you are becoming.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're listening to this and you feel the beginnings of that quiet shift, if you realize that you've been carrying more of the relationship, holding more space for the relationship, carrying more than your share, and that is not shifting or changing, that's not just a seasonal variation, right?
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because relationships go through seasons where one of you will carry more, but this is a pattern, a thread that is woven right through the relationship.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: If you've been holding out for hope or holding out for and hoping for, sorry, change that is just not coming, you are not too much.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: You are not asking for too much, you are just someone who has reached the limit.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: You are done.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: You reached that limit, and you can do that with kindness, compassion, respect, dignity, even love, right?
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: You are refusing to abandon yourself any longer and rising back into your own knowing, your own clarity, your own strength, your own truth, right?
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: You're a woman standing at the threshold of your next chapter, and you don't need to burn it all down, you don't need to leave loudly to leave in an empowered way.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: So whatever comes next for you, whether that's deeper clarity, a separation, reconnection, beginning again, you get to walk this at your own pace in your own time and with your own strength.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you've hit that quiet quitting wall, if you've hit the quiet exit, you already know you've done enough, you've done more than enough, you've tried hard enough, long enough, and now you get to choose yourself.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: And if you recognize any part of this as your lived experience and you would like deeper support for what's next, what you can create for yourself next, I invite you to book an intro call and talk to me about what that can look like.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: There's a link in the show notes as always to book that call.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: Also, if you know someone, if you know someone who's shared with you that they're in this phase or they're heading towards this phase, they're getting close to a quiet quit, please share this episode with them.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: We don't talk about it enough.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: And there is such power and healing and strength when we can share lived experience or resources that help one another to get to the quiet quit or the quiet exit faster and to know just how common it is.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: As always, thank you for being here.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you've taken something out of today's episode.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: Until next week, bye for now.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Sally Ann Hartnell, divorce coach and strategist, and you've been listening to Reflect, Reclaim and Liberate.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: You can follow me on Instagram at Reflect Coaching, and if you can think of anyone who would love or benefit from listening to this episode, please share it with them.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'd also be so grateful if you would follow and review the podcast so we can get it in the ears of a whole lot more people just like you who are ready to reclaim and liberate themselves in life and love.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you'll join me next week for another episode of Reflect, Reclaim and Liberate.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: Until then.