The Difference Between Humans And Human Relationships

A relationship between persons is just literally how the two humans relate: how they feel about each other if they have interacted and the kind of immaterial bond their minds have.  Relationships hinge on people, not the other way around.  What this in no way necessitates is that to end a relationship or scale it back is always a denial of someone else's humanity or of any potential moral obligations towards them.  To reject humans is to reject relationships with the them, or at least positive ones, but to reject relationships with certain people is not at all automatically the rejection of humans or concern for them.

If all people have some baseline level of value and at least certain inherent rights by virtue of being human (Biblically, examples would include those addressed directly and by extension in the likes of Exodus 21:26-27, 22:25, Leviticus 19:13, and Deuteronomy 19:15), then they have that value no matter what they have done or how you feel about them.  This is not the same as a romantic or non-romantic relationship with them, whether they are your parent or child or spouse or anyone else, having this same level of importance.  

Accordingly, there is no demonstrable reason why anyone should take relationships so seriously that they persistently endanger or erode their mental or physical wellbeing for the sake of preserving a flawed relationship--what I have seen people believe the contrary about this (that one should sacrifice oneself for others and that this is knowable) most often has to do with marriage.  It would not follow by logical necessity from the existence of inherent human value, however, that relationships should not be tossed aside for the sake of self-preservation or general self-benefit.

For instance, a dating relationship that due to relational stress interferes with the observable health of either party is not as important as the people in it, if people have genuine moral value and thus rights.  Leaving the relationship is not the same as disregarding the other party as a human.  People might matter one and all, or perhaps nothing has moral value (it is impossible to know because either is logically possible).  Either way, there is no moral necessity in prioritizing relationships with other people, including immediate biological family members or significant others, and subjective emotional preferences are of course of no metaphysical relevance here.

One can truly love a person or forgive them for a legitimate offense and then break away from a relationship with them.  Again, a person and a relationship with that person, in the form of a romantic or platonic bond, are obviously not the same.  This has not stopped many people I know from acting as if it would be required by the former having extreme significance that the latter must be fought for practically no matter what.  Such a thing is objectively untrue; since humans are not interpersonal relationships among humans, though the latter metaphysically depends on the former, one of these can certainly be fled from without truly dismissing the other, and it is not humans themselves!