You're in a relationship that died and you can't leave

I left everything — palace, marriage, family — when the love that mattered called me elsewhere, so I will speak to you plainly and without judgment. You already know; you are only afraid to know it — the not-leaving is rarely because the answer is unclear but because it is clear and terrible, and staying lets you postpone the grief, so let yourself know what you already know, and listen to the first answer, before all the reasons. What keeps you is often fear, not love — of being alone, of starting over, of the funeral of the years — and these fears are real, but name them for what they are rather than mistaking dread for devotion. And a love that is over deserves an honest ending, not a slow rot — either a true wholehearted attempt to revive it or a clean ending that honors what it was, for the cruelest thing is the lingering half-life. Give the love, in its death, the dignity you gave it in its life. What do you already know, underneath?