[staying together] or taking the easy way out

This article by Cate Russell makes some good points about why people break up:

When I was in college, I was shocked when one of our psychology teachers
told the class he didn't expect his marriage to last. He had concluded that two people just aren't able to stay together forever as they change and grow. I was twenty years old, in love for the first time, and horrified at his defeatist attitude.

I now know from personal experience that it can be really rough going to keep a relationship strong, but I still disagree that marital failure is inevitable. I believe that a relationship is worth the love, energy, time and history which is invested in it, and all avenues to improve it, rather than abandon it, should be taken unless it is abusive or dangerous.

Once the passion and newness of a relationship has died down many disappointments do surface, and they take a lot of effort to come to terms with, and rebuild around. You may not treat each other as tenderly or considerately as you did before. The romance may have died, or the affection may have dwindled. There may be financial pressures, unemployment, sickness, the stresses that the arrival of children bring, or serious problems with other family members.

The internal pressures of realising that Mr Right is Mr Average, and isn't the white knight you thought he was going to be, coupled with the external problems you both face, can lock the greatest love story of all time in a pressure cooker to see how long it can handle boiling point! It is painful. Some couples stay together, and adapt and cope as best they can as a unit. Others become disillusioned and feel robbed. They pull apart and retreat to safer territory.

According to the experts who study relationships, the greatest predictor of divorce is how close the couple feel to each other. This is displayed in black and white when a couple faces conflict. When you watch couples fight, it is like watching a love meter which registers where they are really at. Do they get nasty and try and score points off each other? Do they avoid the problems? Are they defensive or critical? Do they bring up past hurts, whether they have been resolved before or not? If so, that couple could very well be headed for a break up within two years.

The decision to split up doesn't come because of differences in each partner's expectations of the other, domestic annoyances like leaving the cap off the toothpaste, or differences in personality. Splits happen when there is a loss of love, intimate sharing and connection. As human being we all need connection.

This is what holds families and societies together, and what can make or break a marriage. Attacking, criticising and being defensive in conflict, show that the emotional connection between the two parties is lacking. They may not feel loved or valued. Communication on a deep level is often missing, and there is more tension present than togetherness.

Couples that still show consideration for each other, even in a tense, hurtful situation, are far more likely to pull through and find a way to resolve their problems. They may use humour to break the tension. They don't blame and criticise, but rather, they acknowledge each other's viewpoint while not backing down from their feelings, or withdrawing just to escape facing up to what is going wrong.

Using kindness and honesty in a conflict, no matter how much you are hurting, is not only an indicator of an individual's maturity and relationship skills, but also how much they respect and are bonded to the other person. Kindness can prove that they see the relationship as a worthwhile investment, and they want to keep it alive.

So how do you know if you're headed for a break up? If you feel dissatisfied, even if you don't know why. If you don't share things with your partner the way you used to: big and small, daily and life changing decisions included. If you feel like you don't know each other, and are living together as two isolated, separate individuals rather than a unit.

The biggest warning sign is whether you are going ahead making decisions about what you want to do with your life without consulting with, or considering the needs of your partner.

However, just because you are in trouble doesn't mean break up is inevitable, and nothing can be done. If you are willing to work at it, and risk some failures while you are aiming for the successes, you can build a better quality more loving relationship, built on communication, genuine sincerity and trust.

The commitment to stay in a relationship is not just made at the beginning. It is re-evaluated periodically as the value of your loved one and their relevance to your life is reconsidered in tough moments.

Successful long term partners have been studied, and often it was found that they didn't consider splitting up or divorce to be an option. They had made a commitment, and the preciousness of their partner overrode the highs and lows they knew they would face.

All couples experience pain and dissatisfaction with each other at various times. Some days it may seem so intense that breaking up is the only escape. Yet life too throws us the same hand, and we choose to keep trying.

All couples are closer emotionally at some times and not others. There will always be demands on us which will alter our priorities, and conflicts and crisis' will always arise. It's our decision whether to give in and quit, or find a way forward and stay together.

Essentially, whether you break up or not is your decision. It is an act of your own free will, no matter what the circumstances are, or how hopeless and damaged the situation may seem at the time. As the slogan of one Australian bank neatly puts it, "Make It Happen."

Cate Russell, 26th August, 2001

Her point about:

Successful long term partners have been studied, and often it was found that they didn't consider splitting up or divorce to be an option. They had made a commitment, and the preciousness of their partner overrode the highs and lows they knew they would face.

… is an excellent one and reveals the extent to which society today goes for the soft option and the easy way out. However, the article above doesn't take into account some other factors, such as:

1. The global external pressures present today, e.g. internet, alternative youth 'culture', gaming, clubbing, permissiveness, the 'me first' mentality and of course – the economic depression. Money is a major factor in breakups for people fixated on acquisition of material goods.

2. Nagging. This is a word you never read of in articles written by women and yet it is a major factor in break-ups. That shopping list of faults and the sour-faced look do more to drive a man away than almost anything else, under the guise of 'trying to talk' or 'improving him'. In the article above, this does not appear as a prime cause.

In a similar way, non-gender-specifically, one of the killers of a relationship is the partner who says, 'Let's talk,' or 'Let's work together,' by which he/she means, 'Let's agree to do things my way.' The Beatles song We Can Work It Out addresses that directly. 'We' here means that you must see it my way. Why is it that the person who calls for dialogue is often the one less able to accept the other's position?

3. The refusal of boys today to accept responsibility for impregnating girls or even just committing to a partnership and the refusal of girls to say no or to be discerning and by so doing, allowing the boys to refuse to accept responsibility and so on.

A more recent phenomenon is the widespread, parallel refusal of girls to commit and thus the seeds have been sewn for a gomorrah type situation in the not too distant future, ushering in Huxley's Brave New World.

4. Cate Russell makes another good point: 'When you watch couples fight, it is like watching a love meter which registers where they are really at.'

It comes down to why they're together in the first place. Was it because she was pregnant, because they were genuinely in love, both of them, because they were frightened of being alone … what?