Break up your long term relationship or not?

15 vital questions you should ask and answer before ending a long-term relationship.

–––

No one says, “I’m in love with you and want to spend the rest of my life with you” and then bales out when the first storm hits. But too many people feel battered by relationships that started out good, but changed over time. Sometimes we blame ourselves. Other times we blame our partner. Some people stay in a dead-end relationship long after they should have left. Others leave too soon and give up on themselves and their partner without fully understanding what they were doing.

I’ve been working with couples for more than 40 years. They often come to me when things are going badly and need help understanding what is going on and whether they should stay or leave. Here are some questions you should ask and answer before making a decision that will likely impact your own future as well as your partner’s future, and your children’s future. 

John Gottman is one of the world’s experts on how to have a successful marriage and how to determine if one is in trouble. In his book, What Makes Love Last? How to Build Trust and Avoid Betrayal, he describes a way to tell when a relationship has reached the end of the line. He says it comes down to the “Story of Us Switch.” 

We all have our ups and downs, but over time we develop either a mostly positive or a mostly negative view of our relationship. Once the negative gets locked in, it’s difficult to change. As Gottman says, 

“I term this indicator a switch rather than, say, a dial because I rarely see gradations in what people recall about their romantic history. They either have joyful memories or—click—bitter ones.”

I’ve found it’s like those illusions we learned about in psychology class. What do you see here?

In one view we see an old woman with a big nose. In another we see a young woman with her head turned away from us. We don’t see gradations in good or bad. It’s one, click, or the other. Here are some of the questions to ask to see if you have clicked off to your partner or if your partner has clicked off to you:

• Looking back on our relationship, do I remember mostly bad times?
• Have our lives become chaotic and full of turmoil with very little peaceful time?
• Do I feel that my partner doesn’t empathize with my feelings, but blames or shames me?
• Does my partner focus mostly on their own needs rather than on what I may need?
• Do I often feel alone, even when we’re together?
• Does the relationship cause me so much stress it actually makes me sick?
• Do I feel like we’re pulling in opposite directions rather than operating as a team?
• Do I feel that my partner doesn’t really understand me or care about my needs?
• Do I feel we’re more like separate individuals, more focused on me than we?
• Do we argue about the same things over and over, but never really improve things?
• Do I feel deep down that my partner no longer loves, accepts, and appreciates me?
• Do I feel unsafe and insecure physically and emotionally when I’m with my partner?
• Do I feel disrespected by my partner?
• Do we have different values and a different sense of right and wrong?
• Does one or both of us often feel angry and irritated or cold and distant?

When we build up a negative story of us, we see our partner as “out to get us” rather than as a person who loves us, but may at times do things that cause us pain. We often become anxious, depressed, and irritable and this makes it more difficult to see the positive in our relationship. The negative story feeds on itself. The more we see the negative, the more we expect to see the negative, and the more we see what we don’t want. It’s as though we look at our relationship through dark lenses and can’t see any of the life-supporting light.

Compliments of Jed Diamond, thegoodmenproject.com

Awwww..... it's a tough one..... hugs. 

Blessings,

Chatgirl