Why Am I Staying? The SNAP Method for the Relationship You Cannot Walk Away From Yet

Sep 22

5 min read

Updated: 7 days ago

Woman alone at a window at night reflecting on a hard relationship.

Erica Anderson Rooney is an ex-CPO turned executive coach and AI educator on a mission to get more women into positions of power and keep them there. She is the author of The AI Gap (2026), host of the Glass Ceilings & Sticky Floors and AI Voice or Victim podcasts, and NC Chapter Lead for Women Applying AI. Her SNAP and AI Continuum frameworks are taught to thousands of women through CHIEF, WICT, and Fortune 500 leadership programs. She is the sought-after speaker at the intersection of women, AI, and leadership.

He got sober. She got broken.

That line stopped me cold when I first heard it. It sums up twenty-five years in six words, and it belongs to my friend Dana Killion, who spent decades quietly disappearing inside a marriage to a high-functioning alcoholic while her career, her kids, and her whole life kept moving on the surface like nothing was wrong.

Dana's story looks nothing like what most of us picture when we hear the word alcoholism. It did not affect his job. Their kids never knew. It was controlled, decades long, and getting worse so slowly that she could not point to the moment it started. By the time she realized she was the one who needed saving, she had lost so much of herself that she did not fully recognize where she was standing.

Trauma can look like this: quiet, chronic, and easy to call something else. Dana did not think of her marriage as trauma for years. She called it managing. Coping. Being the strong one.

That is exactly why I want to walk through the SNAP Method today, because Dana's story maps onto it almost step for step, even though she never called it that herself.

Stop: Notice the Moment You Disappeared

You know that moment when you realize the life you built is built around someone else's chaos. When you have been the strong one, the loyal one, the one who holds it all together, and somewhere along the way you completely disappeared.

For Dana, that moment arrived slowly, underneath decades of keeping him alive, keeping the kids out of the car when he wrecked it, keeping the family functioning while she quietly stopped existing. A Stop can be a gut punch. It can also be the slow realization that you have not checked in with yourself in years.

Woman sitting quietly on the edge of a bed, noticing how she feels.

Name: Call It Trauma Even When It Does Not Look Like the Textbook Version

Dana did not name what was happening to her as trauma for a long time. When she found out about her husband's secret sexual behavior, she saw that as trauma right away, because it was sudden and sharp. The twenty years of managing his addiction before it felt like a marriage.

Most of us picture trauma as a single event. Pain you sit with for years counts too, whether or not it fits the version you have seen in movies. Naming it, even privately, even if you never say the word to anyone else, is what lets you start taking agency over it instead of managing around it.

Open journal with handwriting used to name a difficult experience.

Ask: Why Am I Staying?

This is the question Dana kept coming back to, and she had to answer it more than once. Some days she wanted to run out the door. Some days she did, and then walked back in. She filed for divorce once and pulled the papers back.

The honest question underneath "should I stay or should I go" was "why am I staying." Am I staying out of fear, which she came to believe was unlikely to lead anywhere emotionally healthy? Or am I staying because I believe in doing the harder work, built on values I can stand behind? Those are two completely different answers, and most of us never separate them enough to tell which one we are living inside of.

Pivot: Refuse to Stay Broken

Here is the line Dana said to herself over and over in the middle of the worst of it. I will not let this man destroy me.

That determination became the tool she carried into every hard thing that came after, including losing both of her parents, a cross-country move, and eventually the death of her son. Each trauma taught her something, and she took the tool from one into the next. Her pivot was a refusal to settle into the emptiness, whichever way the marriage went, because emptiness left unattended spreads to the people around you too.

Woman walking forward on a sunlit path with purpose.

What I Want You to Take From This

There is no single right way to handle a situation like Dana's. Some people will tell you to stay and do the harder work. Some people will tell you to get out. What matters is that you do not get stuck in the pain, whichever path you choose.

If part of you has been managing someone else's chaos so long that you forgot to check in with yourself, that is worth naming today, not someday. You are entitled to speak. You are entitled to have wants and needs. Speaking is rarely as scary as we think it will be.

If you want to hear Dana's full story, including what came after and how she turned each trauma into the next tool, listen to the full episode here.

This is exactly why HER Collective exists. Naming what is happening out loud, in a room full of women who have been there too, is how you stop managing and start living again. We saved you a seat.

Women supporting each other in a warm, safe circle.

I am cheering you on.

Erica

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the SNAP Method?

SNAP is a four-step framework for moving through hard or uncertain moments: Stop and notice what is happening, Name the feeling or the situation honestly even if it does not fit the version you expected, Ask the deeper question underneath the obvious one, and Pivot into refusing to stay stuck.

How do I know if what I am experiencing counts as trauma?

Most of us picture trauma as one sudden, dramatic event. It can also be chronic and live under the surface for years before it gets named. If you have been sitting with pain for a long stretch of time, it belongs in the trauma bucket, even if it looks different from what you have seen portrayed elsewhere.

How do you decide whether to stay in or leave a painful relationship?

There is no universal answer. What matters most is understanding why you are staying, whether it is out of fear or out of values you can stand behind, and making sure you do not get stuck in the pain whichever path you choose.