meaning of the event.
Seven years together made the situation more painful.
Walking away from a new relationship after discovering a serious incompatibility can be difficult.
Reconsidering seven years feels completely different.
Seven years contain memories.
They contain shared traditions.
They contain relationships with each other’s families.
They contain vacations, birthdays, ordinary mornings, illnesses, celebrations, arguments, and plans.
The amount of time invested can create a powerful temptation to protect the relationship simply because so much has already been given to it.
Psychologists and economists often describe a related idea as the sunk-cost effect: people can become reluctant to leave a situation because of resources already invested, even when those past investments cannot be recovered.
Relationships are obviously more emotionally complicated than economic decisions, but the underlying temptation can still appear.
She had spent seven years with him.
That did not automatically mean year eight had to happen.
Time already
