I hope you are sitting down. I am going to teach you a CRAZY concept that you are going to hate. Everyone hates it when they first hear it.

If you have any challenging relationships in your life, listen up. This post is for you.

This applies to ANY type of relationship, but for the sake of simplification we are going to take an example of a woman ready to leave her husband.

My client really wanted her family life to be great, but early on in her marriage things weren't going exactly as she had expected. The couple continued trying to work through things. They had a couple of kids, a few moves, and a few job changes. After more than ten years of trying this, that, and everything under the sun to improve the relationship, she was at the end of her rope.

She felt disrespected, unloved and unhappy. She was also extremely frustrated with the relationship dynamics between the kids and their father. She decided she no longer wanted what her marriage had to offer, and she was FINISHED.

After presenting so much evidence that this was the best thing for her, she was less than thrilled with me when I told her she needed to LOVE HER HUSBAND before she could leave him.

Wait, what? Yes. If you are ready to leave your husband, quit your job or end a friendship - FIRST, love them unconditionally.

I know what you might be thinking. If I love them, why would I leave them? Well, there are a lot of reasons. You don't have to hate a person or a job in order to decide they are not good for you.

Let's take my client. Pretend she leaves her husband while she is angry and frustrated. Will she ever resolve her issues with him? Does she want to have contempt for the father of her children?

Wouldn't it be better if she felt compassion and love for him so she could have positive interactions with him?

Like her, you may be thinking, "It's not possible for me to love this person (or job), and I don't want to anyway."

Here is what I want to offer you:

1. Yes, it is possible for you to LOVE anyone. You may not particularly like someone's personality, but unconditional love - the kind that offers compassion and understanding - is always an option.

2. Making peace with a contentious situation is the BEST way to leave a situation. When you are making a decision from a place of peace rather than frustration, you will have CLARITY in your decision. Most importantly, you will feel certainty and have no regrets.

3. Relationships tend to repeat. The dynamics in your current relationship are likely to be repeated. If you can resolve those issues now and work through them before moving on with your life, you are on the road to a better and more fulfilling relationship or job in the future.

So, if you are ready to leave 'em, first you need to love 'em. While it can be a challenging process, it's one that is worth it.

Maybe you'll end up staying, and maybe you will go. Either way, you will have resolved things with peace and clarity. Isn't that the best way to lead your life?