This content was created by Amber Hollingsworth. This content was uploaded by Amber Hollingsworth. This is a YouTube video titled "Everyone Says ‘Just Leave’ But What If They’re Wrong?" (uploaded June 2, 2026) featuring Amber Hollingsworth delivering a single-speaker psychological/relationship guidance monologue. Amber — a clinician who references 20+ years of clinical experience — addresses people stuck in painful but not physically unsafe relationships, exploring the "should I stay or go" dilemma. She contrasts being with a genuinely toxic person (narcissism, lack of empathy) versus being trapped in a toxic pattern where two partners trigger each other’s worst traits, describes common responses from friends/family/therapists, warns that defensiveness obscures the real issue, and promises a multi-video framework and practical approaches to bypass defensiveness and assess whether change is possible. The excerpt includes a safety caveat about abuse, a call-to-action to subscribe, and an invitation to a paid/real-time challenge linked in the description.
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When you're in a relationship that just keeps hitting the same wall, you love the person. Things are good a lot of the time, but you keep ending up in the exact same place, and it is absolutely maddening. At some point when you're in that situation, you have to start asking yourself, is this fixable, or do I just need to cut ties and move on? But what do you do when you're in this kind of situation? There's a problem and you can't solve it on your own. Naturally, what do you do when you're in this kind of situation? You go to the people you trust, your friends, your family, or hey, maybe you prefer a bunch of internet strangers because you think they're more objective. Or maybe you get a therapist and you explain what's going on, hoping to get some perspective. And if you're completely honest with yourself, maybe a little validation for your side of things too. But everywhere you go, everybody just keeps telling you the same thing. Leave. They may say something like, that's avoidant attachment. He's never going to change. That's a trauma response. It's not your job to fix it. Set a boundary. If she can't respect it, you have your answer. Run. That's a narcissist. On one hand, it's validating to have someone who sees how serious the problem is. But on the other hand, it feels like they've jumped to conclusions, or sometimes maybe they're just projecting their own stuff onto you. And the bigger problem is now that you've told them and they've said leave, you start feeling guilty if you don't leave, but you're still not sure they're right because you know this person and you know that underneath it all, there's something specific that's driving this whole problem. Maybe your partner has an anxiety problem they won't deal with. Or it's an insecurity that shows up as jealousy. Or maybe they drink too much and everybody's tiptoeing around it. Maybe their family's always in your business and your partner just refuses to set limits with them. Whatever it is, you can see it clearly, and you know that if they would just address this one little thing, everything would be different. But for whatever reason, they won't. They minimize it, they flip it back on you, they admit there's a problem, and then nothing changes. So you're stuck trying to figure out how long do you keep waiting for someone to deal with something they refuse used to look at. I've spent over 20 years working with people in this exact situation. You try everything you can think of. You bring it up not so calmly. You give ultimatums. You back off. You try being more supportive. You try being less available. And it always goes back to the same pattern. Eventually, you have to face the question, is this fixable, or have I been waiting on something that's never going to happen? That's the whole should I stay or go dilemma. And if you're watching this right now, I'm going to guess you've been sitting on that question for a while now. So you do what most people do in these kind of situations. You go looking for answers. But the moment you describe your problem to someone who loves you, a friend, a family member, a therapist, and then they hear your side of the story, because that's the side that you have, those people who love you, they want to protect you. So they do the thing that feels protective. They diagnose your partner. They tell you exactly what's wrong with them. Maybe it's narcissist, it's avoidant, it's codependent, it's emotionally unavailable, toxic. I'm not saying throw out your therapist, but the thing is, when you're only hearing one side of the story, when 2 people get trapped in a defensive cycle, they show the worst Parts of themselves— defensiveness, desperation, anger, shutdown— and that's all you're seeing. When that kind of thing is happening, it can look like a number of character problems. A person can look selfish, cold, or like they just don't care about anybody but themselves. And then those qualities bring out the worst in the other person too. And that's how 2 people who actually love each other end up locked in a loop where they're both acting like someone they're not. Now, before I go further into this, if you're in a relationship where you feel physically unsafe, Where there's abuse, control, or fear, this video isn't for you. Please reach out for support. What I'm talking about is something different. I'm talking about when relationships are stuck or painful or difficult, but not dangerous. Where you love this person and you can see something in them worth fighting for, but you just can't seem to get through to them. If you're trying to figure out, should I stay or should I go? What you actually need to be figuring out is whether what you're dealing with is Are you in a relationship with a toxic person who's never going to change, or are you 2 people who are triggering the worst traits in each other? Because those 2 things are different situations. If you're genuinely dealing with a narcissist or someone with no empathy, no capacity to look at themselves, and no interest in anything except getting what they want, get out. Seriously, get the heck out of there. Now, the best way to know which one you're actually dealing with is to learn how to approach them without triggering defensiveness. Because when you take defensiveness out of the equation, You get a much clearer picture. If they actually hear you when you do this and something starts to shift, you're probably dealing with a pattern, something that can be worked on. But if you approach it right and they still can't look at it, now you know it's a character problem, and that's a different decision. Either way, you have the answer, and that's what this series is all about. I spent my whole career working with people in the most extreme forms of denial and resistance that you can imagine— addiction. And over all those years of dealing with people in a defensive state, I figured out ways of getting around those defenses, ways to get people to look at hard things, for approaching difficult subjects in a way that people can actually hear. I've helped thousands of people work through situations that initially look completely hopeless, and the biggest part of it almost every time is not what you're dealing with, it's how you're approaching it. If you're in a relationship with someone who won't look at a problem, whether that's drinking, anxiety, insecurity, whatever it is for you, and you feel like you've tried everything and nothing works, but you're not ready to give up yet, let's look at a different approach, one that bypasses defensiveness And actually gets to the heart of the problem. Now I'll warn you, this stuff is gonna feel counterintuitive. It's gonna go against every instinct you have, but it works. And even if your partner never budges, you're gonna like who you are in the process of trying. You'll know you did everything you could and you did it right. And whatever you decide, stay or go, you want to make that decision from a place of strength, not exhaustion, not defeat. Over the next several videos, I'm going to give you a real framework to figure out what you're actually dealing with, how to the difference between a toxic person and a toxic pattern. Why the harder you try, the worse it sometimes gets. Why you can't leave even when part of you knows that you should. And we're going to talk about what actually works when a relationship is broken and you're not sure if it's worth fixing. If that's where you are right now, subscribe. I made this series exactly for you. I made this series for that exact thing. And if you're sitting here wondering whether your situation has a chance, Stay with me because the answer is not as simple as the people in your life are making it sound. And if you don't want to wait on that, I've got a challenge coming up soon where we can work together in real time, and that link is in the description. I'll see you in the next one.
