Relationships are among the most complex aspects of our lives, particularly long-term relationships like marriage. Your relationships can lift you to new heights or drag you down to the dumps.
But what if you’re somewhere in the middle?
What if your relationship is pretty good, like a 7 on a scale of 1 to 10? Should you stay, openly committing yourself to that relationship for life? Or should you go and find something better, something that could be even better?
This is the terrible state of ambivalence. You’re just not sure one way or the other. Maybe what you have is good enough and you would be a fool to abandon it in search of a new relationship that you may never find. Or maybe you are seriously preventing yourself from finding a truly satisfying relationship that will serve you well for the rest of your life. Difficult call.
Fortunately, there is an excellent book that provides a clever process for overcoming ambivalence in relationships. It’s called Too Good to Go, Too Bad to Stay, by Mira Kirshenbaum. I read this book many years ago and it completely changed the way I think about long-term relationships.
First, the book points out the wrong way to make this decision. The wrong way is to use a scales approach, trying to weigh the pros and cons of staying vs. departure. Of course, that’s what everyone does. Weighing the pros and cons seems logical, but it doesn’t give you the right kind of information you need to make this decision. There will be pros and cons to every relationship, so how do you know if yours is lousy, tolerable, or even wonderful? The cons tell you to go, while the pros tell you to stay. Also, you need to predict the future pros and cons, so how are you going to predict the future of your relationship? Who can tell if your problems are temporary or permanent?
Kirshenbaum’s solution is to ditch the balance approach and use a diagnostic approach instead. Diagnose the true state of your relationship instead of trying to weigh it on a scale. This will give you the information you need to make an intelligent decision and to know precisely why you are making it. If you are ambivalent, it means that your relationship is sick. So discovering the precise nature of the disease seems like a smart place to start.
To make a relationship diagnosis, the author offers a series of 36 yes/no questions to ask yourself. Each question is explained in great detail with several pages of text. In fact, the diagnostic procedure is essentially the entire book.
Each question is like putting your relationship through a filter. If it passes the filter, it goes to the next question. If it doesn’t pass the filter, then the recommendation is that you end your relationship. In order to achieve the recommendation that they should stay together, they must go through all 36 filters. If you are hooked even if it is a filter, the recommendation is that you leave.
However, this is not as brutal as it sounds because most of these filters will be very easy to get past. I’m guessing that of the 36 questions, less than a third will require much thought. Hopefully you can pass filters like, “Does your partner hit you?” and “Is your partner leaving the country forever without you?” without much trouble. If not, you don’t need a book to tell you that your relationship is going downhill.
The author’s recommendations are based on observation of the post-decision experiences of multiple couples who remained together or separated after experiencing a state of ambivalence related to one of the 36 questions. The author then looked at how those long-term relationships turned out. Did the person who made the decision to stay or go feel like they made the right decision years later? If the couple stayed together, did the relationship turn into something great or did it turn into resentment? And if they did break up, did they find new happiness or experience eternal regret for leaving?
I found this concept extremely valuable, like being able to turn the page of time to see what might happen. The recommendations are based on the author’s observations and her professional opinion, so I do not recommend that you blindly follow her advice. However, I personally found all of her conclusions to be absolutely sensible of hers and found no surprises. I doubt you’ll be too surprised to read that a relationship with a drug user is virtually doomed. But what about a relationship with someone you don’t respect? How about a long distance relationship? Or a relationship with a workaholic who earns 10 times your income? Would you like to know how such relationships tend to work if the couple stays together vs. if they separate?
Kirshenbaum explains that when a breakup is recommended, it’s because most of the people who chose to stay together in that situation weren’t happy, while most of the people who left were happier about it. Therefore, long-term happiness is the key criterion used, that is, the happiness of the individual making the decision to stay or go, not the (former) partner.
If you’re faced with a “too good to go, too bad to stay” dilemma, I highly recommend this book. You’ll quickly go through most of the filters, but you’ll probably find a few that will hook you and really make you think. But I recommend this book not only for people who are unsure of the state of their relationship, but also for those with healthy relationships who want to make them even better. This book will help you diagnose the weak points in your relationship that could lead to a breakup and allow you to consciously address them.
Here are some diagnostic points from the book that you might find valuable (these are my summaries, not the exact words of the author):
1. If God or some divine being told you that it was okay to leave your relationship, would you feel relieved that you could finally leave? If your religion is the only reason you’re still together, your relationship is long dead. Drop the beliefs that torture yourself and choose happiness. Living together physically but not in your heart isn’t going to fool any divine being anyway, nor is it likely to fool anyone else around you. Leave hypocrisy behind and take off.
2. Are you able to meet your needs in the relationship without too much difficulty? If it takes too much effort to satisfy your needs, then your relationship is doing you more harm than good. Quit.
3. Do you really like your partner and does your partner seem to really like you? If you don’t like each other, you don’t belong together.
4. Do you feel a unique sexual attraction to your partner? If there is no spark, there is no point in staying.
5. Does your partner exhibit any behavior that makes the relationship too difficult for you and you find your partner unwilling or unable to change? Results matter much more than intentions. If your partner behaves in a way that is intolerable to you, then permanent change is a must or you must leave. Example: “Stop smoking permanently in 30 days or I’m out.” Trying to tolerate the intolerable will only erode your self-esteem and make you look stronger in the past than in the present.
6. Do you see yourself when you look your partner in the eye? A metaphor… if you don’t feel strong compatibility with your partner, you’re better off with someone else.
7. Do you and your partner respect each other as individuals? No mutual respect = time to go.
8. Is your partner an important resource to you in a way that matters to you? If your partner does little to improve your life and you wouldn’t lose anything important by leaving, then walk away. You will gain from being alone, and you will gain greatly from finding another person who is a resource to you.
9. Does your relationship have the demonstrated capacity for forgiveness? If they cannot forgive each other’s transgressions, resentment will gradually replace love. Quit.
10. Do you and your partner have fun together? A relationship that isn’t fun is dead. Quit.
11. Do you and your partner have mutual goals and dreams for your future together? If they don’t plan to spend their future together, something is terribly wrong. Take off.
These questions drive home the point that a relationship should enhance your life, not exhaust it. At the very least, you should be happier in the relationship than out of it. Even if a breakup leads to a messy divorce with complex custody arrangements, Kirshenbaum points out that in many situations, that can still lead to long-term happiness, while staying in a defunct relationship almost certainly prevents it.
Some of the diagnostic points may seem too harsh in terms of recommending giving up in situations you might find salvageable. A relationship, however, requires effort and commitment from both partners. One person cannot carry it alone. Although you may achieve a miraculous salvation (such as changing an abusive relationship), such attempts are usually doomed to failure, and even when they are successful, they can come at such a tremendous cost that you ultimately feel like they weren’t. Worth the effort. You could be much happier in a new relationship (or living alone) instead of spending so much time trying to salvage a relationship that’s dragging you down. You will do a lot more good by giving yourself to someone who is more receptive to what you have to offer and truly appreciates you for it. If you spend your relationship fighting resistance more than sharing love, you’re probably better off letting it go and adopting a relationship that gives you more mutual rewards for less work.
You may find it revealing to apply these diagnostic questions to a broader set of human relationships, such as your relationships with your bosses and co-workers. Maybe you can skip the sexual attraction…but mutual respect, fun, shared goals, tolerable behavior, getting your needs met, etc. all apply perfectly to career-oriented relationships. For example, if your boss avoids you when he tries to discuss his future with the company, he would say that is a very bad sign for one of you.
Don’t confuse the question of whether or not you should leave your current relationship with how you might find a new one. If it’s clear that your current relationship needs to end, then end it. Once you are single again, you will be able to (re)develop the skills necessary to attract a new partner. It’s unlikely that you’ll be in a place to assess your chances of starting a new relationship while you’re still in one. For one, everyone around you will perceive that you’re unavailable while you’re still in a relationship, so you won’t be able to have a clear idea of where you stand until you’re free of that.
A proper diagnosis can also convince you that your relationship is too good to leave. That situation can last your whole life, or it can change at some point. You cannot control all variables. But at least you will have a method to decide if you can commit to your relationship in the present moment or if you should make plans to end it.
In any relationship, choose to at least reach your own happiness.