[One sound of the bell.]

Dear Thay, I was once in a relationship for many years that became very abusive. I tried my best at the time to understand the man I felt I loved. In the end, we parted. You spoke a few days back about not leaving relationships when they become challenging. I wonder if you see a limit for this. When are both partners so unhappy that they can only increase each other's pain?

When a relationship becomes difficult, you have the tendency to quit. That's natural, that's human. But you can do better than that.

The question is whether we have done our best yet, we have tried our best yet. The tendency is to blame the other person for one-hundred percent of the difficulty. It's natural also.

But we should ask about our part of responsibility. We are responsible to some extent. And the question asked is whether we have done our best in order to to remove the part of our responsibility, have we changed our way? We don't wait for the other person to change in order to change our way. But having changed our way, really we become different. We become easier to be with and that will change the other person. If you believe that he is one-hundred percent responsible for the situation, then you can leave him, you just leave him.

But I doubt that you really think like that. I think you know that you are responsible somehow, to some extent, of the situation. The Buddha will propose that you do your part first. You try to change your way, the negative way first. And if you have really done your part, and if the situation does not change, then the Buddha will say: "OK, you can do it." But not before that. But I believe, am convinced that if you have changed your way, he will change at least to some extent and the situation becomes easier. I'm not saying that you should not divorce. I'm just saying that don't give up too early. Try your best.