Should I Stay or Should I Go? Using EMDR Therapy to Clarify Relationship Ambivalence

One of the MOST common and emotionally difficult questions I hear as a therapist is:

“Should I stay in this relationship or walk away?”

This question is rarely just about one moment. It tends to surface slowly, over months or even years, when a client has been carrying the emotional weight of a partnership that feels one-sided, stagnant, or painful.

Often, the partner isn’t abusive, but they’re also not showing up. Maybe they’re emotionally unavailable, dismissive, avoidant, or unwilling to do their own inner work. Clients describe feeling alone in the relationship, responsible for all the emotional labor, and exhausted by hoping someone will change who simply won’t.

And yet—leaving feels just as hard.

This push-pull dynamic is called relationship ambivalence, and it’s incredibly common. What makes it so difficult is that your mind might list all the logical reasons to go, while your nervous system still clings to hope, guilt, fear, or unresolved attachment patterns.

That’s where EMDR therapy can be a powerful tool.

EMDR and Relationship Clarity

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is best known for treating trauma, but its scope is broader than that. EMDR helps clients reprocess painful emotional experiences and unhelpful beliefs stored in the nervous system.

In the context of relationships, EMDR can help clients:

   •   Explore the origin of their patterns (e.g., “Why do I keep choosing emotionally unavailable partners?”)

   •   Shift limiting beliefs like “If I leave, I’ll be alone forever” or “I just need to try harder to make this work”

   •   Reduce the emotional reactivity that clouds decision-making

   •   Connect with a deeper internal truth, rather than cycling between fear, guilt, and fantasy

Clients often discover that their indecision is less about the current relationship, and more about unresolved relational wounds from childhood or past partners. EMDR helps untangle those threads so you can make clearer, more grounded decisions in the present.

What Keeps You Stuck?

If you’re reading this, you might be holding one or more of the following questions:

   •   What if I leave and regret it?

   •   Am I expecting too much?

   •   Would they finally change if I just held on a little longer?

   •   How do I know if it’s fear or intuition that’s telling me to stay?

   •   Why do I feel so responsible for someone else’s healing?

These are not just intellectual questions — they are felt experiences, often rooted in attachment wounds or early emotional conditioning. EMDR offers a way to work with these questions from the inside out, integrating cognitive insight with nervous system healing.

There’s No One “Right” Answer

Therapy isn’t about pushing you to leave or stay — it’s about helping you connect with your own clarity. With EMDR, that clarity doesn’t come from rehearsing pros and cons. It comes from quieting the noise of fear, self-doubt, and old wounds, so you can hear your inner truth more clearly.

Sometimes, that truth leads to leaving. Other times, it helps you see the relationship in a new light — or accept what won’t change and make peace with your decision. Either way, it’s a decision made from agency, not from survival mode.

If You’re Ready to Explore This Work

If you’re feeling stuck in relationship indecision and want a deeper way to work through it, I offer EMDR therapy for women navigating these kinds of emotional crossroads. You don’t have to make the decision overnight. And you don’t have to do it alone.

Reach out to schedule your first session and begin the process of reconnecting to your inner clarity — with compassion, not pressure.