Should I Stay or Should I Go? You’re Asking the Wrong Question

After betrayal, almost everyone asks the same thing:

Should I stay or should I go?

It’s the question that keeps you awake at night, looping through every possible outcome. But after years of working with couples and individuals, I’ve realized that’s not the real question.The real question is:

“How do I stay?” or “How do I go?”

When You Ask “Should I Stay or Go” You’re Asking From FearThe word should pulls you into pressure.It makes you search for the “right” answer, as if there is one.It activates the logical brain, the part that wants to plan, fix, and control.

But betrayal doesn’t live in logic.

It lives in the body — in heartbreak, confusion, fear, and grief.

So the should question keeps you in your head, trying to reason your way out of an emotional wound.

When You Ask “How” You Begin to Heal

When you shift from should to how, you stop debating and start discovering.

“How do I stay?” opens an entirely new world:

How do I stay and heal?

How do I stay and move forward?

How do I stay and rebuild safety?

How do I stay and get myself back?

And if you realize you can’t stay or don’t want to, then “How do I go?” becomes the bridge to your next life.

How do I go and start again?

How do I go and release the future I thought I’d have?

How do I go and learn to be with myself, alone but whole and safe in the world?

Both questions — how do I stay and how do I go — are rooted in agency.

They move you out of paralysis and into possibility.

Whether You Stay or Go There Will Be Grief

Here’s what most people don’t realize: no matter what you choose, there will be loss.

If you stay, there may always be a quiet part of you that wonders,

What if I had left?

What kind of life could I have created?

What version of me would have emerged?

If you go, there may be moments when you wonder,

What if I had stayed?

Would things have gotten better?

Did I make the right choice?

Either way, grief will find you.

Because both staying and going require letting go of something.

It may be the dream of what was, the fantasy of what could have been, or the certainty of who you were before everything changed.

But when you can name that grief, you can honor it.And when you can honor it, you can move through it.

Grief doesn’t mean you chose wrong.

It means you cared deeply.

Photo by Eduardo Goody on Unsplash

The Power of Asking Better Questions

Healing doesn’t come from having the right answers.

It comes from asking the right questions…the ones that help you meet your own fear with compassion instead of judgment.

So if you find yourself sitting in the uncertainty, torn between two futures, try this reframe:

Instead of Should I stay or should I go, ask:

“How do I stay? or How do I go?”

And remember, either way, there will be grief.But that grief, when faced with honesty and grace, is what will set you free.