When To Make Things Work or Not Work In A Relationship

What do Relationships Look Like Today?

Here are the cold hard facts: In the U.S., Over half of the couple population over the age of 18 prefer cohabiting over marriage, The divorce rate to marriage is around 42% with 1 in 5 marriages ending within the first five years.

With the pandemic, these statistics are expected to rise, as financial, occupational, and mental health limitations become exposed.

Whether you are looking to start a long-term relationship, take the next step in an existing one, or prevent one from adding to these statistics, you should be aware of the things that influence the rise and fall of these statistics. In other words, what makes a happy relationship and an unhappy one.

H.A.P.P.Y Relationships

Leo Tolstoy, world renowned author and commentator of societal practices, observed, "Happy families (aka relationships) are all alike; every unhappy family (aka relationship) is unhappy in its own way." Many relationships take time to find a good balance of adapting to each element of differences. It is likely, in any case, that in order to build a happy and long-lasting relationship, you should follow what other happy couples are doing. Here is an acronym that can be helpful to remember what happy couples do in order to stay happy: H.A.P.P.Y.

H is Honor your Partner. Make sure that you are exclusive with your partner. To honor your partner is to keep your promises that you made with that person. Be clear to yourself and your partner what they mean to you and respect them with a promise to be true. If you haven't made promises to anyone yet, consider what that would look like if you did, and try to carry that perspective amongst the people you are dating. It could make all the difference in finding that special someone.

A is Answer your partner with love. A lot of seasoned relationships may have forgotten the feelings they had when answered a few important questions: "Will you have a have a cup of coffee with me?", "Will you be my girlfriend?" "Will you be my wife?" "Will you take out the garbage?" Ok. The last one was a little 'trashy' to some, but to others asking it for the first time to someone they just began living with; it was probably answered with love. Love is a language that is spoken differently by everyone, yet happy couples recognize that their partner is always trying to communicate something and whatever it is, they return their answer with love.

The next is for both P's. Patience and Patience. You can keep on going by adding P's for patience to make H.A.P.P.Y go on forever. The more patience you have in your relationship the better it becomes. Just like putting a seed in the ground, even doing little things for it here and there, you still need to wait for it to grow. Some grow faster than others, it's true, but typically the stronger something is is determined by how long it takes for it to grow. If you hope to get something good from your relationship, you can't expect immediate results, no matter how determined your union is to grow. Just make sure you keeping feeding it.

Y is Yearn for Each Other. In contrast to patience, yearning is more of an active approach in maintaining a happy relationship. Whereas patience is not interfering with the growth process of the relationship, yearning is developing the direction you want your relationship to go. Sort of like the stilts preventing a young sapling from bending to an unwanted position. When you yearn for someone, it should be more than just wanting them to be with you and nowhere else, it should be genuinely enjoying their presence after a long productive day of being away from them. Planning meaningful activities when you are together can be a helpful way to yearn for each other.

M.I.S.E.R.Y In A Relationship

As mentioned, one of the toughest part of relationships is that not all of them are guaranteed to work. Often, it seems like people may get stuck in a miserable predicament where one person wants to make a relationship work, yet another person is not at all H.A.P.P.Y. This is where Tolstoy says things get complicated. It may seem to the 'responsible' party in the relationship that they just need to be more patient and then it will work out. Yet, if you don't have the H, A, or the Y in the relationship, then you are just 'P'ing on yourself. Patience will only work if you have made and received the commitments necessary to have a relationship and then patience is key; but until you have planted the seed, there is no need waiting for it to grow. Here is an acronym to help you remember when a relationship is miserable: M.I.S.E.R.Y

M is Making Excuses. Is your partner consistently making excuses not to be H.A.P.P.Y with you? Have they started to spend more time with other things and less time with you as they used to? If you invite your partner to do an activity with you is it mostly a 'not today' response?

I is Impatience. To further emphasize the importance of patience, the lack of patience is an object of M.I.S.E.R.Y. Does your partner get angry at you for not performing well or on time in a supposed role? Do you feel like there is a disconnect in your expectations of your partner and their expectations of you? Do you feel like your partner considers you as a hinderance more than a person? Do they feel you will never change?

S is for Silence. Communication is crucial for any relationship to work. It is the "answer" portion to be H.A.P.P.Y. When communication stops, relationships can start to be cold and resenting. Just like putting something in the freezer and hoping that it will be fresh when it de-thaws, relationships will never improve or be the same if there is no energy of communication in the relationship. Silence is not simply when your partner decides to stop talking to you. It means not displaying any type of affection or action of love. Key things to look out for: Does your partner seem more distant to you when you try to engage? Was the last special thing they did for you within the last few days? Last few weeks? Do they avoid fighting when important things are addressed?

E is for Exhausting. Do you feel drained when you are with your partner, as if there is a small vacuum around them sucking out your energy? Do you feel like every time you try to connect, they make it is as hard as possible to do so? Are they a killjoy when you finally get them to engage with you? Does it seem they always get to choose the activities, and doesn't try to include you in those activities?

R is for Reactive. Is your partner easily offended by most things you do? Do they have a thin threshold for insult or your sense of humor? Do they bring most of their frustrations out on you? Is it difficult to hold a decent conversation with your partner without it spurring an argument? This section of M.I.S.E.R.Y can be one of the most important to watch out for, because it may lead to verbal or physical abuse. Be aware of local help if you are experiencing high levels of these types of reactions.

Y is for Yearning to Be Right. It is very human to want to be right. Every relationship, good or bad, will have different positions on most things. To yearn to be right is taking this to the next level. Instead of 'wanting' to be right it is 'having' to be right. Does your partner go out of their way to make sure you accept their point of view, no matter what the issue is? Do they have a score card where they will bring up reasons why your position is wrong? Do they belittle your opinions, especially if they go against theirs?

H.A.P.P.Y and M.I.S.E.R.Y can be helpful tools to look out for toxicity and health in a relationship, but it is not the complete guide. As each relationship has its own acronyms to be accounted for, it is important to know that just because you recognize some of these behaviors in your partner or yourself, it hopefully doesn't mean you are completely miserable or happy. It just means that you have a new perspective to try with your partner to hopefully make your relationship better.

Making the Right Decision

For those that understand investments with money, relationships can be defined under those terms as well. With money, keeping your money in a company long term can be risky, because you never know if the company will go south or even continue to grow. On the other hand, those who hold on to their investments, even when a drop occurs, often gain an opportunity for a larger return in the end. Relationships are very similar and they are one of the most important investment you can make. Sometimes things in relationships may cause a fear that you and your partner are heading for a permanent negative direction and often it is tempting to "cut your losses" and run, however, if this decision to leave is rash and poorly thought out, it can lead to missing out on a potential great return.

In short, the 'richest' people in relationships are often those that 'stuck out' as much as they could even when everyone else was scared. Not to say it will always be healthy if you 'stick it out', but love never was a safe bet, just a promising one.

The Million Dollar Question

Reading this, you might have been expecting the perfect answer to any relationship problem that will ever arise. Unfortunately, there is no magic ball or fortune cookie that can foresee what your relationship will look like by taking the next steps. Many times, the best way to know if something works or not is by trial and error. Hopefully that doesn’t mean getting married and divorced over and over again, but as long as you take those lessons and continue to want to be happy, it really doesn’t matter how long the road was to get there. As long as you get there.

William Shakespeare said, "Nothing is good or bad, but thinking makes it so." Ultimately, it is up to you how happy or miserable you want to be in your relationship. If you find yourself in the M.I.S.E.R.Y. category more often than the H.A.P.P.Y. category, then are there things that you can change? Are there things you want to change? Whatever your answers are to those questions. You are right.