Unhappy Relationship Quotes & Sayings

If your partner is consistently unhappy, it won't matter if they're incredibly sexy, wildly funny, impressively successful, adorably charismatic - your relationship will be weighed down under the heaviness of their moods. — Karen Salmansohn

My pastor has a saying that leads us all back to this point of surrender. Whenever we, as a staff, feel overwhelmed by the needs we can't meet, the complaints we can't soothe, or the people we can't appease, he reminds us, "There's a Lord for that." When the relationship fails, there's a Lord for that. When my child is unhappy at school, there's a Lord for that. When tragedy strikes, there's a Lord for that. When discouragement clouds, there's a Lord for that. — Nicole Unice

Julia's unhappy relationship with the Inland Revenue was due to her omission, during four years of modestly successful practice at the Bar, to pay any income tax. The truth is, I think, that she did not, in her heart of hearts, really believe in income tax. It was a subject which she had studied for examinations and on which she had thereafter advised a number of clients: she naturally did not suppose, in these circumstances, that it had anything to do with real life. — Sarah Caudwell

If you're still in a relationship, remember that just because you can get along with anyone doesn't mean you have to. If you're unhappy after having tried every way to make things work, chances are that you should move on. It's in your best interest to end a dysfunctional relationship rather than get stuck forever with the wrong person just because you're secure. — Amir Levine

It seems to me that if you place music (and books, probably, and films, and plays, and anything that makes you feel) at the center of your being, then you can't afford to sort out your love life, start to think of it as the finished product. You've got to pick at it, keep it alive and in turmoil, you've got to pick at it and unravel it until it all comes apart and you're compelled to start all over again. Maybe we all live life at too high a pitch, those of us who absorb emotional things all day, and as a consequence we can never feel merely content: we have to be unhappy, or ecstatically, head-over-heels happy, and those states are difficult to achieve within a stable, solid relationship. Maybe Al Green is directly responsible for more than I ever realized. — Nick Hornby

It takes three to make love, not two: you, your spouse, and God. Without God people only succeed in bringing out the worst in one another. Lovers who have nothing else to do but love each other soon find there is nothing else. Without a central loyalty life is unfinished. — Fulton J. Sheen

Why does anyone stay in an unhappy relationship? Because people do. They do it all the time. And the truth is, when you're in it, when you're up to your neck in the everyday part of life with another human being, sometimes you don't exactly notice how bad things really are. It's not always as apparent as it would seem. Unhappiness, when it involves another person, can be like that line from The Sun Also Rises about going bankrupt, how it happens two ways: gradually, and then suddenly. — Sarah Dunn

Are you a victim or volunteer in your unhappy, failing relationship. — Joanne Williams

Sometimes you could be in an unhappy relationship; you are very much in love with someone, but it's making you unhappy and you think things can change and you can work it out. — Vanessa Paradis

My therapist told me that I over-analyze everything. I explained to him that he only thinks this because of his unhappy relationship with his mother. — Michel Templet

Arik and Cadie always knew they wouldn't be one of those couples that let problems between them fester. They would immediately address any issues that arose, bring them out into the open, discuss them until they reached a mutually satisfactory conclusion. They felt bad for some of the Founders who they believed had unhappy marriages - couples who were not strong enough to be truthful and open with each other, and even worse, with themselves — Christian Cantrell

When I was a kid if I was unhappy, I'd stroke my dog. I was into bringing injured birds into the house, RSPCA activities. And the relationship that you have with animals, you can get that from your children: that unquestioning love and adoration and equal need. — Steve McFadden

There is no worse parent than an unhappy parent! — Rossana Condoleo

The trouble with anyone when they're unhappy or in a relationship they recognize is not working but don't know what to do about is that they can't see farther out than that. If the relationship is not working, if what was there isn't there anymore, you have to do something about it. — Penelope Wilton

There were the studies, beginning in 2007, which found that the suicide rate among women who had received breast implants were twice the suicide rate of the general population. So there's an alarming relationship between being deeply unhappy, being unhappy with your body, and having liquid-filled plastic bags surgically inserted into your body that kind of contradicts the whole "boost your self-esteem" line about the real reasons to have cosmetic surgery. — Susan J. Douglas

At home, the puppy Rose played with balls, struggled with the stairs, and slept behind my knees while we watched in adoration. It's not that I was unhappy in what I now think of as "the dogless years," but I suspected things could be better. What I never could have imagined was how much better they would be. Whatever holes I had in my life, in my character, were suddenly filled. I had entered into my first adult relationship of mutual, unconditional love. — Ann Patchett

It is a strange thing how sometimes merely to talk honestly of God, even if it is only to articulate our feelings of separation and confusion, can bring peace to our spirits. You thought you were unhappy because this or that was off in your relationship, this or that was wrong in your job, but the reality is that your sadness stemmed from your aversion to, your stalwart avoidance of, God. The other problems may very well be true, and you will have to address them, but what you feel when releasing yourself to speak of the deepest needs of your spirit is the fact that no other needs could be spoken of outside of that context. You cannot work on the structure of your life if the ground of your being in unsure. — Christian Wiman

Sometimes we have to put our foot down, ... but before we deliberately make children unhappy in order to get them to get into the car, or to do their homework or whatever, we need to weigh whether what we're doing to make it happen is worth the possible strain on our relationship with them. — Alfie Kohn

I once knew of a girl whose story forms the substance of the diary. Whether he has seduced others I do not know ... we learn of his desire for something altogether arbitrary. With the help of his mental gifts he knew how to tempt a girl to draw her to him without caring to possess her in any stricter sense.
I can imagine him able to bring a girl to the point where he was sure she would sacrifice all then he would leave without a word let a lone a declaration a promise.
The unhappy girl would retain the consciousness of it with double bitterness because there was not the slightest thing she could appeal to. She could only be constantly tossed about in a terrible witches' dance at one moment reproaching herself forgiving him at another reproaching him and then since the relationship would only have been actual in a figurative sense she would constantly have to contend with the doubt that the whole thing might only have been an imagination. — Soren Kierkegaard

If we are unhappy without a relationship, we'll probably be unhappy with one as well. A relationship doesn't begin our life; a relationship doesn't become our life. A relationship is a continuation of life. — Melody Beattie

Okay." Chase paused for a beat. "But can I give you a word of advice?"
"No."
Chase grinned and went on. "If you make Bridget unhappy, you're gonna make Maddie unhappy. And that's going to make me very unhappy. — J. Lynn

Because no one can make another person happy," said George. "He was happy when he was with me, but otherwise he wasn't. That's not enough. I mean, in a relationship, you have your ups and downs, sure, and you help each other through, but if a person is genuinely unhappy, it won't work. No amount of love or laughter from the other person can fix that. Each person has to love and laugh on their own. They need to feel it for real, deep down, in here. — Anonymous

As many conventionally unhappy parents did in the 1950s, my parents stayed together for the sake of the children - they divorced after my youngest brother left home for college. I only wish they had known that modeling their dysfunctional relationship was far more damaging to their children than their separation would have been. — Bruce H. Lipton

And I know, with the newfuond clarity of being in a relationship myself, that my own parents were never happy together, and probably never would have been, whatever the circumstances — Christina Baker Kline

[When I was with the wrong man], it felt like our relationship was a gigantic puzzle - a huge existential and emotional quiz that, if I applied myself to enough, I would solve and gain the result of True Love. After all, the ingredients for us to be the perfect couple were there ... The problem was just that he was unhappy. I knew that. I knew it in my bones. When I found the way the way to make him happy, everything would be fine. He was broken, and I was going to fix him - then the good bit of our relationship would start to happen. We were just in the tricky, early bit of love, where I'd undo all the bad stuff and let him finally be who he was, secretly, inside. Secretly, inside, he did love me. My steadfastness would provide it. If it didn't work, it was simply because I hadn't tried hard enough. — Caitlin Moran

I always say I'd rather be miserable by myself than unhappy in a relationship. — Graham Norton

Maybe we all live life at too high a pitch, those of us who absorb emotional things all day, and as mere consequence we can never feel merely content: we have to be unhappy, or ecstatically, head-over-heels happy, and those states are difficult to achieve within a stable, solid relationship. — Nick Hornby

It is easier with the right person. A good test of a relationship is how well you both deal with challenges. If one person is more invested, it shows. If you're with the wrong person, it feels like too much work. But if you're unhappy more than you're happy, it's not the right relationship for you. — Susane Colasanti

No, Miss Wright didn't want to meet her kid. To her, that relationship was just as important, just as ideal and impossible as it would be to the child. She'd expect that young man to be perfect, smart, and talented, everything to compensate for all the mistakes that she'd made. The whole wasted, unhappy mess of her life. — Chuck Palahniuk

She forced herself to ... turn and face him. It was easier with the width of the room between them. "I wanted to be able to take this relationship at face value, to enjoy it for what it was ... And I wanted to be sure I could walk away when it was over, completely unscathed. The problem is I can't. When you walked in this morning, all I could think was how much I'd wanted to see you, how much I'd missed you, how unhappy I'd because we were angry at each other."
She stopped, straightened her shoulders. He was grinning at her, rocking back and forth on his heels. In a minute she was sure he'd be whistling. "I'd appreciate it if you'd take that smug look off your face. This isn't -"
"I love you, Julia. — Nora Roberts

Things, relationship, and ideas are so transparently impermanent, we are ever made unhappy by them ... Things are impermanent, they wear out and are lost; relationship is constant friction and death awaits; ideas and beliefs have no stability, no permanency. We seek happiness in them and yet do not realize their impermanency. So sorrow becomes our constant companion and overcoming it our problem. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

You're going to give up everything you've established here - the stability of your job, your friends, the option of a normal relationship with a man you can count on who will make sure your happiness comes first. And you're going to do that for some flyboy kid who wouldn't commit to you in the first place. You'll end up sorry. Unhappy and full of regrets. He let you down before and he'll let you down again." Ah. — Robyn Carr

The central attitudes driving the Demand Man are:
It's your job to do things for me, including taking care of my responsibilities if I drop the ball on them. If I'm unhappy about
any aspect of my life, whether it has to do with our relationship or not, it's your fault.
You should not place demands on me at all. You should be grateful for whatever I choose to give.
I am above criticism.
I am a very loving and giving partner. You're lucky to have me. — Lundy Bancroft

If you're unhappy in a relationship, I think you just don't trust yourself for getting into another one. — Marian Seldes

Couples counseling gets many couples back together. But not all, and not always. For your own sake and that of your children, however, I recommend it - I almost insist on it - as the first step for anyone unhappy in a relationship. — Laura Wasser

Never speak of marriage as an achievement. Find ways to make clear to her that marriage is not an achievement, nor is it what she should aspire to. A marriage can be happy or unhappy, but it is not an achievement. We condition girls to aspire to marriage and we do not condition boys to aspire to marriage, and so there is already a terrible imbalance at the start. The girls will grow up to be women preoccupied with marriage. The boys will grow up to be men who are not preoccupied with marriage. The women marry those men. The relationship is automatically uneven because the institution matters more to one than the other. — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

You can't hold on and let go to (at the sametime) of you worthless, unhappy, failing relationship — Joanne Williams

No matter who causes you grief, take your complaints to the meditation room, where your real friend is. In addition to your husband or wife, you should have a friend - and that friend should be God. Even if your husband or wife makes you unhappy, tell that to God, and not to anyone else. If your neighbor picks a fight with you, go to the meditation room and complain, 'Why did you let him treat me like that? Weren't you with me?' Open your heart and tell God everything. Then it becomes a satsang. — Mata Amritanandamayi

Here's the truth: It is not Grown to expect a relationship to provide what you are not committed to providing for yourself. The capacity for others to love you can never exceed the love you demonstrate for yourself. Furthermore, you don't attract what you want in relationships, but what you are. So if you want financial security in a relationship, you need to commit to providing that for yourself. If tender, loving treatment is what you desire, then you should be giving that to yourself as a single person. If you seek forgiveness, compassion and emotional safety in a relationship, you must be committed to requiring that of yourself in single life. If you want a relationship rich with fun, joy and adventure, then that is exactly the life you should be pursuing as a single person. On the other hand, if you are desperate and unhappy as a single person, you are neither qualified nor prepared for a healthy relationship and you will attract and choose anything but. — Zara D. Green