Just as it's hard to discern the signs of experiencing love, it's hard to discern when it's time to let love go. There are no true determinants that will tell us when it's better to separate or how to deal with the loss of a partnership. The feeling is internal, and like falling and being in love, falling out of love is a stage you may only be able to understand if/when you experience it.
One way to decide if you're in a hopeless relationship, is to try to remember what you initially found endearing in your mate. How did you feel when you first met and began to fall in love? What traits in that person did you attract to, and how did you feel about him/her? If you have difficulty remembering such feelings, or if the current negative feelings outweigh or hinder your ability to recall the good times, it's most likely best to call it quits.
It's in the best interest of both partners to split when you essentially feel distraught, unhappy, confused, reserved, stuck, or hopeless about the relationship. In such a frame, it's time to step back and reevaluate the situation. Sure, all couples have tough times, argue, disagree, feel sad or longing for more in their relationship, but when that becomes the norm, when you seem to have negative feelings about the bond more so than not, something is definitely wrong. The longer a bad situation is left to fester, clearly the harder it becomes to repair and the less conviction there is to want to fix things. You begin to feel resentment toward each other, the love gets so deeply buried that all you can see is the pain and unhappiness. That leads to turbulent break ups, ones that leave both partners angry, hurt, and scarred unnecessarily.
