Learn English – Idiom request for recommending someone to end their toxic relationship/ friendship with somebody

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​​Is there any idiom or proverb for recommending someone to end their relationship/ friendship/ partnership with somebody whose behaviors or actions seem toxic, harmful, and thus really intolerable?

Like a relationship in which:

  • the wife is paranoid and controls her husband continuously and makes
    the life miserable for him.
  • the man is jobless and a drug addict who beats his partner once in a
    while and asks her to give him money to buy the drugs.

We Iranians use a (figurative) proverb that says:

"(Just) pull out the tooth that aches and throw it away"

It implies that there is no need to tolerate this pain, (if you have tried all the ways for reducing or removing that pain, but they haven't worked,) just get rid of it; even though that "tooth" is part of your body (so you like it and thus it is hard for you to lose it).

We use this proverb when we want to recommend someone to end a painful, harmful, and useless relationship or friendship and not to tolerate it any more. Like :

Why don't you break up with him? He is just a pain on your neck and sooner or later would ruin your life; as the proverb says you'd better just pull out the tooth that aches (= this painful relationship) and throw it away (=end it). There is no use in putting up with this relationship.

I have found
"better cut the shoe than pinch the foot" in some "Persian to English" books as the equivalent for this proverb;
does it have the same connotation with that Persian proverb?

Best Answer

You might say,

She/he isn't your cross to bear. Ditch him/her/Cut all ties with him/her now or you might regret it for the rest of your life.

bear one's cross and carry one's cross

Fig. to handle or cope with one's burden; to endure one's difficulties. (This is a biblical theme. It is always used figuratively except in the biblical context.) It's a very painful disease, but I'll bear my cross. I can't help you with it. You'll just have to carry your own cross. McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs

ditch

: to stop having or using (something you no longer want or need) : to get rid of (something)

: to end a relationship with (someone)

: to get away from (someone you do not want to be with) without saying that you are leaving

(Merriam-Webster)

cut/break (all) ties with (someone)

To end or discontinue a relationship—romantic or otherwise—with someone or some group. Mary cut all ties with her family when she moved to New York City. The government began cutting ties with the war-torn country after its human rights atrocities came to light. Farlex Dictionary of Idioms

[leave] that guy/girl before he/she spells trouble for you

spell trouble

To be the cause of possible problems in the future (often + for)

Cambridge Idioms Dictionary, 2nd ed.

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