Sometimes it takes meeting someone new that excites you to give you the impetus to end a relationship that you want out of. People will often stay in a stale relationship because they feel the alternative, being alone, is worse. Women are chronic monkey-branchers. Women will claim to want honesty, but that honesty stings. There's no painless way to end a 9-year relationship. Women love to play victim in break-up scenarios.
"The best kind of pride is that which compels a man to do his best when no one is watching."