A Single Reason Why Most Relationships Fail

I was reading some relationship advice from Dr. Jordan Peterson and found an intriguing statement I wanted to understand better.

Source: severina.eu
He claimed that when you see leaving as an option, you are not actually married. “If you argue that your marriage just wasn’t a success,” he continued, “perhaps you were never married. Because the rule is: ‘You don’t get to leave.’ And there’s a reason for that rule.”

My mind sensed there was something off with that statement. But Peterson then explained that certain situations require exceptions. Although, that was not his point.

There are games, he concluded, you don’t get to play unless you’re ALL IN.

What??? What the heck are you talking about? I thought for a second, but then a familiar quote that haunted me for the past few days, hit me.

“I’ve never met a strong person with an easy past.” — unknown

Does that hold true for relationships? Of course, that’s it! I played a bit with that recognized pattern.

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You have to display commitment, perseverance, and intention toward your goals. The bigger the challenges you face, the stronger you get out.

Although, not everyone is fit to solve any challenge. And I can see the same holds true for (any kind of, not just romantic) relationships.

To build a strong relationship, you must face some real challenges. Generally, building trust with another person requires you to overcome some common challenges. And the bigger the challenges your relationship overcomes, the stronger it becomes.

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We all are familiar with many radiant ‘fairy-like’ relationships that suddenly crash spectacularly.

A whole industry lives on analyzing and solving them. Consultants often rush to instruct the involved parties on how to save and improve their relationship.

Most of such solutions work but are (merely) tactical by nature. Which means they provide a solution to how to ‘put out the fire.’

So, where is the problem with that tactical approach? It works…

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That depends. To put it in more ‘medical’ terms — fires are only the symptoms of some root cause (not symptom-specific) in the back. Putting out the fire does not usually eliminate the root cause. One needs to ask themself a more strategic question — why (that fire appeared in the first place).

Knowing how to extinguish the fire only to continue putting out repeating ‘everyday fires’ is not considered an optimal productive solution. Sooner or later, you will run out of resources — ‘firemen,’ water, time, motivation, …

Let’s return to marriage, for example. When you’re ALL IN and do not consider leaving as an option, you are better equipped to do your best in trying to solve challenges instead of flee.

Peterson was right: leaving is not an option. If you want a relationship to work (and grow personally), you need skin in the game.

A friend of mine added a statement:

The problem is that people lean towards instant gratification and do not want to put in ‘too much’ (an extremely subjective term) effort to make the right choices. It’s like most medicine — mostly a favorable easy instant solution solely to eliminate the symptoms.

But even here, the statement from Claude Frederic Bastiat, a French economist from the 19th century, was spot on:

(Why) Favorable Immediate Consequence Turn to Fatal Ultimate Ones

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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