Relationship Problems Don’t Cause Breakups

I admit that my job has made me biased.

I’m aware that I tend to make outrageous proclamations on the socials and in my writing, like good relationships are 5 percent finding the right person and 95 percent what you co-create.

No, I didn’t do a meta-analysis of 43 longitudinal studies and come up with that number. Based on my personal and professional experience, it feels about in the ballpark.

I post stuff like this if I think it’s helpful. That one, about finding the perfect person vs. crafting the ideal relationship, has enabled various people to:

• break the habit of dismissively saying “I picked the wrong person again,”
• open up to learning and practicing better relationship habits,
• maybe work things through with the person they’re with,
• confront their own emotional struggles and relationship blocks,
• see a therapist if needed,
• start to dismantle patterns of blame…

Most importantly it’s helped them stop thinking of relationships as a search optimization problem, and start treating it like a how to build something great with another human being problem.

And it’s helped them tenaciously hold the mindset that they’re on the same team, while leaning into self-responsibility and accountability.

Funny thing is, it turns out I wasn’t far off with those numbers. Because someone did do a meta-analysis of 43 longitudinal studies, looking for predictors of relationship happiness, and found that in the end, individual traits (personality, etc.) accounted for only about 12% of overall happiness. The authors themselves wrote, “When it comes to a satisfying relationship, the partnership you build is more important than the partner you pick.”¹

I bring all this up because when it comes to breakups, I have another outrageous proclamation.

People don’t break up because of the bad. They break up because the good isn’t good enough to make it worth it.

I said above that my work has made me biased. I help couples work through issues they were convinced were dealbreakers. Given how poorly our society equips us to have healthy, fulfilling, resilient, long-lasting relationships, their doubt is understandable. My sense of what’s totally resolvable is skewed toward what is resolvable in the context of working with an experienced relationship coach, or having uncommon relationship skills—skills that weren’t modeled for us or taught to us.

But change can be hard. Working with a coach isn’t like hiring a done-for-you web designer. I can help them understand what it would take to craft the relationship they say they want, and then support them to do it. If it was easy, that’s it, we’d be done.

Sometimes though the task is starkly clear, simple on paper, and makes sense to them, but it’s just very different from how they’ve been doing things. And those pathways are deeply entrenched from years of use.

So they have to have real skin in the game.

It has to be worth it.

It’s palpable when one partner is fighting for the relationship, and the other is going through the motions. They both say they want the relationship to work, they want it to be better, they want coaching, but one person’s heart isn’t in it.

What comes through most is how much they dread the prospect of breaking up. What I can’t feel from them, though, is what it is about the relationship that is worth fighting for.

The good that initially brought them together has been missing for so long, they’re basically checked out, they’re done. Even if they don’t say it or know it themselves.

Not to be cliche but it’s like the light has left their eyes. Any coaching we do would be little more than due diligence on their part, so they can check off that they tried all the things. It’s not a tool they’re going to wield like a mutherfucker to bring about desperately needed change in the relationship. It’s just not worth it anymore, and hasn’t been for a long time.

Now this — this does dampen my hope for the future of their partnership. Coaching can help them get clarity on what they’re feeling, and support them to take aligned action… but it’s powerless to get them to care about the relationship more than they do.

Fact is, they have to bring a whole lot of caring to the process to make change. Otherwise coaching is basically a fully equipped all-terrain vehicle with no gas.

And this is what I mean when I say, relationship problems generally don’t doom a relationship, even if they’re serious, but the good not being good enough, generally does.

(Caveat: this post is about the coachability of problems that can seem unresolvable, vs. the uncoachability of disinterest or having given up. There are of course other things that can render a person or situation uncoachable, such as the presence of diagnosable personality adaptations like NPD, SPD, BPD, Dark Triad, etc.)

If you’ve been together for 1–5 years but still feel hesitant, indecisive, or in disagreement about life partnership, I’d love to interview you. I’m researching for a program I’m designing for couples; this isn’t a sales call. I’d love to ask you a few questions about your experience to help guide the design of my program. Schedule here.

References:

1. https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/29/us/what-makes-a-relationship-successful-study-wellness-trnd/index.html

—

This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

***

You Might Also Like These From The Good Men Project

Compliments Men Want to Hear More Often

Relationships Aren’t Easy, But They’re Worth It

The One Thing Men Want More Than Sex

..A Man’s Kiss Tells You Everything

—

Photo credit: iStock.com