15 vital questions you should ask and answer before ending a long-term relationship.
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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.
Getting professional help can help you break the cycle of negativity or to accept that it is time to move on. Let me know what you think and how you feel.
- Were there times you stayed too long?
- Were there times you left too soon?
- How are things for you now?
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Photo Credit: wwward0 / flickr
I’m currently on the fence about what to do about my 6yr relationship. We are engaged & both came into the relationship w/a child & a year ago we had one together. We live together be moved in with me in the beginning of our relationship so my daughter could live with me. He did then he could not help financially, but eventually could. 6 years later I still get no help financially even when I ask. We were in a very bad place before I got pregnant. We were partying a lot, but he lost his job & was… Read more »
I have been struggling with this same question for about a year. Our “story of us” started out on a bad note and I was pretty blind until many years had past. Here’s the deal, now we have three beautiful children together. And while I feel like I lack a true partner, I do feel like he loves me more than he has ever loved anyone. I feel that he is putting effort into being a good man and father to our kids and towards me. Currently, the issues we have are the same issue that every other couple fights… Read more »
Angel, that sounds like classic codependence.
Most books you will read on the subject are very negative in that they are really written for those people that are in a different place than you are, not ones that want to maintain their relationships, but the core of it is still valid.
I recommend a relationship therapist asap. Failing to take it serioulsy will end your relationship (likely by your own hand).
I know this from experiance. Ther comes a point when you can’t undo the damage. I miss my wife daily.
the relationship that I am in right now feels mostly negative. Everything is all about my partner or that is what it seems like. I’m always doing something to help them but I never get anything in return besides “affection,” that isn’t even there. It just seems like I’m not that important and can just be replaced.
Note that I haven’t experienced much of depression but I do get a lot of anxiety episodes.
I am going through this exact situation right now. Most of my answers to these questions are negative, except for feeling unsafe, unloved, and unappreciated. We do argue about the same things such as his drinking habits. The recent argument was a big one for me. I felt very disrespected, ganged up on, and all I heard were insults and gas-lighting. But like the article says, it is possible that I am falling into the negative view of our relationship and I feel like his recent actions towards me will only get worse with time. That’s the issue I am… Read more »
Dulce,
As you recognize, taking care of yourself and getting back to a positive balance in your own life is the first step to getting more positive about the relationship. Getting help for yourself, if you need additional support, can go a long way to stabilizing your own life. I work with people all the time in these kind of situations and there’s hope for the relationship once you feel good about you.
Thank you!