Olalekan Adebumiti
When I first moved to England in 2019, I bought my first car here. A Honda Civic hatchback. £400.
It was not a dream car, but I needed one for survival. It was what I could afford for the family at the time, and that alone made it feel like a win.
The air conditioning barely worked, but it was manageable.
Then came the first MOT. £330.
Painful, but manageable. I told myself it was normal. Cars need maintenance, right?
A few months later, all four tyres needed changing. Another £200. Then shortly after, the brakes failed. I got a quote for over £250.
At that point, the car was no longer transporting my family, but my money straight into a pit.
You already know what I did. I scrapped the car for £375. Thankfully.
The real source of my headache was my limited understanding of cars.
I didn’t realise how much internal damage there already was. I was fixing visible problems without understanding the bigger picture. And the moment it became clear that things would keep failing, one after the other, I let it go.
Not because I hated the car. But because it was bought for constant repair.
It was working except for the break, but it needed to go! Watch the video below.
Now let’s talk about relationships.
Sometimes you enter one naively. Sometimes you are inexperienced. Sometimes you are hopeful. And sometimes, if we are being honest, you are slightly tricked. Not maliciously, but enough to keep you invested longer than you should be.
At first, the fixes feel reasonable.
A conversation here.
A compromise there.
A second chance.
A little more patience.
But at some point, the parts keep falling off.
And even if you were immature at the start, there comes a moment when you can no longer claim ignorance. You can see clearly that this thing is not going anywhere. Not forward. Just back to the repair shop again and again.
Maybe this is the last sign you need.
Not every relationship is broken.
Some are simply built on repair, not partnership.
And knowing when to let go is not failure. It is mechanical wisdom, and you can thank me for that.
Are you still here?
I would expect that by now you already have some of the answers you need from my analogy. But sometimes, clarity needs reinforcement. The signs below help further, not to rush your decision, but to steady it.
They are not dramatic. They are not loud. They are practical. And once you see them, you cannot unsee them.
1. It Was Too Cheap to Be True
There were other cars in the same price range. Some even looked cleaner on the outside. Better paint. Fewer scratches. Less obvious issues.
But what I did not understand at the time was that cheap cars often hide expensive problems.
The real cost does not show up at purchase but later in parts, labour, stress, and time.
You will agree that relationships work this same way.
Good relationships usually cost a lot. Not in money. Not in status. Not in what someone earns or owns.
But in the quality of a person’s inner life. Their emotional maturity. Their self-awareness. The work they have done on their patterns, their wounds, and their responsibility.
When a relationship feels unusually easy to enter but endlessly hard to maintain, that is not luck. That is deferred cost.
You were not getting a bargain. You were inheriting unfinished work.
And love that is built on potential rather than preparation will always require constant fixing.
2. Every New Phase Required Another Major Fix
With that car, it was never one issue. It was always the next thing.
Fix the MOT. Then the tyres. Then the brakes. And each time, you hoped that would be the last repair.
Some relationships follow the same exhausting pattern.
You get past one crisis and immediately brace for the next.
A conversation fixes things, but only temporarily. A promise resets the tone, but not the behaviour. Progress always feels conditional.
The relationship never stabilises. It only survives in phases of repair.
That is not a partnership because a partnership has rhythm. It has maintenance, yes, but also reliability. You are not constantly asking, “What will break next?”
When the relationship requires a major fix at every new stage, it is deteriorating in slow motion, instead of evolving.
3. You Became the Mechanic, Not the Passenger
At some point, you stopped enjoying the ride.
You were listening for strange noises. Watching warning lights. Preparing for the next breakdown before it happens.
You researched. You explained. You coached. You reassured. You carried the emotional toolkit while the other person waited for the next repair.
This is where many people get stuck. They confuse effort with love.
But if one person is always under the hood while the other stays in the driver’s seat, something is fundamentally off. You are not building together but compensating alone.
A relationship should not make you feel responsible for keeping it alive by yourself.
4. You Kept Fixing It Because You Had Already Invested So Much
By the time the problems became obvious, you were already in deep.
Time had been spent. Emotions invested. Sacrifices made. You had adjusted your life, your expectations, your plans. Walking away no longer felt like a clean decision. It felt like admitting loss.
So you kept going.
Not because things were improving, but because stopping felt wasteful. You told yourself it would make sense eventually. That all this effort would pay off. That one final fix would finally stabilise things.
This is where many people get trapped. Not by love, but by sunk cost.
The problem is this: past investment does not guarantee future value. In cars or in relationships. Sometimes, the wisest move is recognising that continuing will only cost more.
Letting go is not quitting. It is refusing to keep paying for something that is no longer serving you.
5. The Warning Signs Were There, But You Learned to Ignore Them
The car did not fail overnight.
There were signs. Small ones at first. A strange sound. A delay. A feeling that something was off, even if you could not name it yet.
Relationships are the same.
You noticed inconsistencies early on. Moments where words and actions did not align. Patterns that made you uneasy. Feelings you pushed down because you wanted things to work.
Over time, you became skilled at overriding your own instincts. You reframed discomfort as patience. You labelled concern as overthinking. You trusted explanations over evidence.
That is not because you were foolish. It is because hope is persuasive.
But when you have to silence yourself repeatedly just to keep something going, that is not love asking for understanding. That is a system training you to ignore reality.
6. The Damage Was Underneath, Not on the Surface
One of the most deceptive things about that car was that it didn’t look terrible from the outside.
The body was acceptable. Nothing dramatic was hanging off. If you didn’t know cars, you could easily convince yourself that it just needed a few fixes.
But underneath, rust was doing its work quietly.
Rust doesn’t announce itself. It spreads where you are not looking, weakening the structure, while keeping the appearance intact for a moment. And by the time it becomes obvious, the integrity is already compromised.
Some relationships are like that.
On the surface, things look fine. You still laugh sometimes. You still show up together. You can even point to good moments when asked.
But underneath, resentment is building. Trust is thinning. Respect is corroding. Conversations avoid depth because depth exposes weakness. Issues are patched, not resolved.
This is the most dangerous stage. Because you are fixing symptoms while the foundation quietly gives way.
And no amount of surface repair can save something whose structure is already compromised.
7. You Were Fighting Rust With Paint
This is where exhaustion sets in.
You weren’t just fixing problems anymore. You were disguising them. Making things look better than they actually were. Convincing yourself and sometimes others that progress was happening.
Painting over rust always looks good at first.
Until it bubbles.
Until it peels.
Until the truth resurfaces.
In relationships, this looks like forced optimism. Over-explaining your partner’s behaviour. Rebranding neglect as “they’re just stressed”. Calling emotional absence “their personality”.
You spend more time maintaining the image of the relationship than living inside something solid.
That is not a partnership. Let us boldly call it damage control.
And deep down, you know it. Because you are tired in a way that rest doesn’t fix. You are drained in a way encouragement doesn’t touch.
Rust cannot be negotiated with. It cannot be loved away. It requires dismantling, not decorating.
8. You Confused Hope With Progress
Hope is powerful. It keeps people going in conditions that would otherwise be unbearable.
In this relationship, hope became the fuel. Not evidence. Not a consistent change. Just the belief that things could improve if you stayed patient enough, loving enough, flexible enough.
You measured progress by intention, not outcome.
By apologies, not patterns.
By what they meant to do, not what actually changed.
Each small improvement felt like proof that the relationship was finally turning a corner. But the corner kept moving.
Hope without structural change is a delay. And delay has a cost. It consumes time, energy, and self-trust.
Eventually, you are not waiting because things are getting better, but you are afraid of what it would mean if they don’t.
9. Starting Over Felt Scarier Than Staying Broken
This is the quiet truth behind many long goodbyes.
You stayed not because the relationship was working, but because the idea of starting again felt overwhelming. New conversations. New vulnerability. New uncertainty. The fear of making another wrong choice.
Staying feels familiar. Even if it hurts.
Broken systems often feel safer than unknown freedom. At least you know where the cracks are. At least you know how to manage the damage.
But familiarity is not the same as safety.
When fear of starting over becomes the reason you stay, the relationship has already stopped being about love. It has become about avoidance.
And no partnership can thrive when its foundation is fear.
10. You Finally Realised It Would Never Become What You Needed
There is a moment that doesn’t feel loud or emotional.
It feels quiet.
You stop arguing.
You stop pushing.
You stop hoping for a version of the relationship that requires someone else to fundamentally change.
Not because you are numb, but because you see clearly.
You understand that even if you kept fixing things, the relationship would only ever function in repair mode. It would survive, but never settle. Move, but never arrive.
This is not about blame. Some things are not broken by accident. They are built this way.
And once you see that, staying no longer feels loyal. It feels self-neglect.
Knowing When to Scrap the Car
When I scrapped that car, it wasn’t dramatic.
I didn’t hate it.
I didn’t regret buying it.
I didn’t feel foolish.
I simply understood something I didn’t understand before.
The cost of keeping it would always be higher than the value it could give back.
Some relationships reach that point, too.
Not because you didn’t try hard enough. Not because you failed to love properly. But because you were investing in something that was never designed to run smoothly long-term.
Letting go is not admitting defeat.
It’s finally realising that a system is running on constant repair, not shared movement.
And wisdom, in cars and in relationships, is not about how long you can keep fixing something.
It is about knowing when to stop.
