TO STAY OR TO GO AWAY

There comes a point in most modern relationships when times get incredibly difficult. This challenging stretch can often be the pivotal point in which one or both of you decide that it's either worth it to stick it through and fight for what you have together, or you discover that no matter how painful and difficult breaking up may be, you are just no longer vested enough to endure the rough patch, especially not knowing how long it will drag on.

Unfortunately, a crystal ball or a window into the future does not exist, and it's often very challenging to figure out if the relationship has run its course and the frequent fighting and stretches where you just can't see eye to eye will remain a permanent fixture between you. Each person seems obsessed with pointing out the other’s faults while at a loss to remember all the amazing things they fell in love with the other for in the first place.

Is your relationship receiving a universal shove toward greener pastures as individuals again, or is this the opportunity for the two of you to dig down deep into the love you share and pool all of your resources to fight for your love’s survival? Sometimes it's very hard to tell.

Gathering clues from others might not serve you well either. Your friend whom you often unload on in total frustration when times are bad would have a quite different opinion on what you should do—stay or go away—than perhaps your mother, who not only thinks your partner has the soul of a saint but is also always at the ready to point out just how difficult you can be at times.

Now is the time to do some deep reflection, to step back from the trenches you've been wallowing in and take a more macro point of view. Examine the relationship from several angles that may be unique or that you just haven't explored in quite a while. Giving yourself the space and focus to really consider what you have created together and determine if it is still serving the both of you physically, emotionally, psychologically and even financially.

Questions To Ask

Within the relationship, to what extent are your needs being met, and most importantly, is the bond between you two energizing and motivating you toward being the best person you can be or is it dragging you down and depleting your precious energy sources? By objectively assessing the relationship’s current health, as well as a consideration of how it actually serves your ability to grow together and individually, you can determine if your union is really designed to withstand a marathon through many life storms, or if it was really only meant to be a sprint.

The best way to evaluate what’s happening is to start with a broad, general perspective and then drill down to some of the finer details specific to you as a couple.

Here are ten general questions to consider. Answer them as “TRUE” or “FALSE”.

When you hear your partner pulling in after work, you regularly feel a surge of joy because you simply enjoy their presence.
When you meet up with another couple or a group of people, you often glance at your partner and think, “Wow, is he/she a nice reflection on me. Everyone must really think I’m something if I’m with him/her!”
Every couple argues, but you and your partner have probably argued less than you’d expect most couples would if added up over the last year.
Your children/friends/parents have indicated to you that they really enjoy you and your partner together.
You have a difficult time sleeping if your partner isn’t next to you.
Although you and your partner have your own share of problems, in general you would describe your relationship as one that contains a great deal of joy as well as passion.
If only one person that you know personally could be the influence over your child, you would choose your partner to be that person.
You and your partner still generally see eye to eye on money, fidelity and how you will bring up your children.
When you both experience tremendous stress, your partner is still able to provide you with at least a certain amount of comfort.
If you had the chance to go to your ideal vacation spot free of cost for two weeks and do whatever your heart desired, you would be missing your partner to the point of it bugging you after the first week passed.

Then consider these specific questions to your relationship. Again, please answer “TRUE” or “FALSE” to the following questions:

If asked individually, you both would say you feel respected by your partner.
The fighting that has been going on recently has been plaguing you for less than three or four months.
The issues you fight about seem to remain the same core issues.
Despite your tempers, lack of sleep and mountains of stress, you manage to keep your fighting in check so that you don’t throw demeaning insults, call each other names or go for each other’s jugulars during an argument.
Despite your jobs, kids, friends, house and all other responsibilities, you and your partner still try to carve out time alone together either during a fight or during good times.
When you are alone and a person of the opposite sex flirts with you and approaches you, you feel mildly flattered but beyond that, you have no interest in interacting with the person and swiftly move away.
The problems that you are having seem solvable with time and work; none of them seem chronic or impossible to overcome.
Neither of you have an addiction to either drugs, alcohol or gambling that is currently adversely affecting your lives.
On average, you spend at least one night a week together by choice, not because of habit or necessity.
In general, you and your partner have the same outlook on life. You are both optimists, both pessimists, or if you are different, you both are somewhat close to the middle of the spectrum instead of all the way at the most extreme ends.

While each relationship is different and can therefore withstand more stress than another, or needs more nurturing and consideration, this is an exercise designed to get you to step back and think about what’s working and what’s not. If you got at least 6 out of 10 “TRUE” responses in the first section as well as for the second session, totaling twelve or more “TRUE” responses overall, your relationship is likely stronger than you think.

Pride and Desire

Growing excited or becoming more “alive” or stimulated when your boyfriend’s or girlfriend’s car pulls up to the house is a strong indicator that you are still desirous of them. Desire is a key element in keeping your relationship on the constant upswing.

Pride, as well, is important. If you feel proud of your partner when you two go out and are around other people, hopefully for what they say or do and not just what they look like, this is indicating that you still recognize and value some of each other’s core strengths. Often couples grow stagnant and fail to realize it. Being proud of each other indicates that there is still value to each of you in not only the other person but also the relationship itself. Equally, if you and your partner consider your relationship slightly healthier than the average coupling, you are demonstrating a positive perception of the relationship in general. This is often self-manifesting: if you believe your relationship is healthy, that goes a long way to actually dictating how healthy the relationship will be.

Outside Opinion

How the rest of the world sees your pairing and then conversely how you perceive this

opinion to generally be can be an indicator of relationship health. If you believe that your pairing is received well in general by others and that they enjoy being around you as a couple, this indicates that the relationship has balance and a significant level of harmony within it that makes it pleasant for others to be around you—often a strong indicator of relationship health.

Health, Comfort and Support

If you find you just sleep better with your partner beside you, you miss them when you are apart for a couple of days and generally feel more supported when they are near, then you are receiving comfort and support from each other and thereby receiving a positive health benefit from the union as well.

Trust and Respect

The most significant and important task we have as a species is the raising of our future

generations. From a very primal perspective, this ability alone plays a huge role in the survival of the species. That said, if you would choose your partner to look after your most precious cargo—your child—then you trust and respect them at a core level.

Avoiding the Big Threes

When you consider what you argue or disagree about most of the time within your relationship, ask if the issues are regularly fidelity, money or how you are rearing your children. If you discover that these are typically not the issues that pop up for you, feel lucky. These three issues are the leading cause of break-ups when couples cannot see eye to eye on them. Clearly their importance influences this, but also, these three tend to create issues so large and significant, that they often will threaten the relationship’s survival if the couple cannot figure out a way to agree on them.

Length of Your Discord

If your troubles have been rather recent, this is another good sign that you should hang in there. However, if you discover that you’ve been bickering and going rounds about the same couple of issues for longer than 3 or even 4 months with no resolve, it is possible you have one or more chronic issues that without serious intervention and a certain reinvention of the couple that you are, you might be unable to keep the relationship healthy.

However, it is possible that a couple will continue to fight over the same core issues for even longer than three or four months simply because they don’t have the tools necessary to solve them. This is where a couple’s therapist could come in and give you both a fresh perspective on these issues as well as a new, effective solution.

Keeping It Decent

Another indicator of whether your relationship is in good psychological shape is how you fight. If you both avoid going for the other’s jugular, or the part of them where they are most vulnerable and subject to the damage that just the right sequence of well-directed, cruel words can cause, you keep your arguments as decent as possible without name calling or degrading each other, you have a much better chance at keeping a healthy, long term relationship going.

Free From Addiction

If you both have avoided some of life’s biggest burdens, specifically addiction to anything like drugs, alcohol or gambling, your chances of long term success with your pairing is much more likely. A serious, health threatening addiction can take a dangerous toll even on those couples who have a tremendous amount of love for each other.