There’s definitely something about making a choice and recognizing it *as* a choice and then embracing it as such. I think part of my problem has been that I was actively making choices but for complicated reasons not embracing them, as such. I was not being left at the alter, I was usually the one leaving in those really early, formative relationships. So my feeling left behind wasn’t accurate, and yet there sat that feeling. I think now what I’m learning to do is see that there’s no “happy pill,” be it in the form of career success, romantic partnership, whatever. There’s just challenging yourself, engaging in life, and being open and curious and loving and rolling with what comes even as you make choices and stick to them. This is all a long way of saying that your friend can’t know he’d be happier if he’d dropped the relationship and stuck to career, BUT I think he can know that he wouldn’t be “complete,” in any scenario, right? Like there isn’t a single, correct path to fulfillment that he has to walk or miss out on everything.