Thoughts From Guys On Our IM: How Long Should You Fight To Save A Struggling Relationship?

par3
wrote on March 4 2009 @ 01:38 pm: [report]

i’m euro so i can’t follow the bach. but this post is painfully relevant to my current situation. just 3 measly weeks ago i was on the brink of a destroyed engagement. i fought the ‘good fight’ and now it’s better than ever. i think you have to compromise when fighting, and sometimes start from scratch. fighting shouldn’t be finalizing, it should be constructive. sometimes a crisis can lead to new found togetherness. i think sometimes people give up too fast, and are quick to run away from problems deeming them unworkable. we’ll see…

Perceptible
wrote on March 4 2009 @ 02:29 pm: [report]

I dunno. My ex husband tried to leave several times and each time I convinced him we should work on it. After 10 years of marriage he finally left for good and I have never been happier. I wish I had let him go sooner! If one person isn’t happy, neither person can be happy. You have to both want it equally. I never would have left my marriage, but I am SOOOOOO glad he did! It was for the best. I never realized how bad he was for me until he was gone. After I recovered it was like I was breathing clean air for the first time in a decade. And four years later I met the real man of my dreams.

EastCoastMale
wrote on March 4 2009 @ 02:30 pm: [report]

I definitely dont agree that not liking someone without them having a major flaw and not wanting to have a protracted effort put into “fixing things” is a pansy way out. Some aspects in a relationship can be worked on and resolved when one or both parties are interested in doing so, that being said, other aspects COULD be worked on but dont always necessarily need to be. Say there was an instance where a couple were madly in love and have bene dating or living together for years but he or she wanted to be able to hang out with someone with which they had a past and the other party didnt approve, I consider it totally reasonable to up and walk away from things if the person knew it bothered their partner. This is assuming that a problem had already been discussed, however even if something hadnt been, maybe a trait of the significant other and the partner decided to spring it on them at the breakfast table that is life. Closure is wanted by some and even needed as an absolute by others, the reasons why, the “what went through your mind” questions answered but that should not be considered a given standard because life isnt always fair and no matter how bad a situation sucks, you cant always resolve it by talking about it. If someone is fed up with another or has lost their attraction, there doesnt always need to be a sit down meeting about it, although it would be nice, but ultimately that need is for the person on the receiving end. I am pretty sure there are women who have not told a man everything because they felt guilty or didnt want to seem a certain way, just as there are men who have done the same, this is a smaller version of being totally honest and communicating in my opinion and the offending party doesnt have to explain themselves in every instance.

Basically, some things work, some things can be worked on, some people stick it out and some don’t.

EastCoastMale
wrote on March 4 2009 @ 02:40 pm: [report]

Perceptible

I am curious as to why you say that you would have never left but are glad he did. Is there an aspect to elaving a marriage that you didnt want on your conscious or to be projected on you that you would rather he take?

Perceptible
wrote on March 4 2009 @ 03:06 pm: [report]

@EastCoastMale, it wasn’t that I didn’t want it on my conscience or didn’t want to be perceived as the “bad guy”, at that time in my life I believed in my vows and would have stayed, with the exception of adultery. I now believe that it was faulty thinking on my part, I believed in my vows more than I believed in my ex, or in us. (Plus we had a 1-year old.) I definitely accept my role in the breakdown of the relationship and have thanked him for being the one to leave, as crazy as that sounds. We both agree we’re better off now.

EastCoastMale
wrote on March 4 2009 @ 03:14 pm: [report]

I guess that is the part that I dont understand, about the vows. I understand that you believed in them and that meant trying to stay together but was it just that you didnt want to break them and were ok if he did? or in doing so, this shows that you stuck to the concepts embodied in them and he is the one that didnt…

I get the reasonings for wanting to stay together but dont understand why you say you would have never ended it but were glad he did, other than the fact that it freed both of you. What was different from one person leaving to another…

IrishErin
wrote on March 4 2009 @ 04:39 pm: [report]

I will stick by the mantra that my breakup saved my relationship. He pulled that wham-bam outta nowhere “I can’t do this anymore” after 1.5 years. It was like being slapped in the face with a brick. There were ZERO warning signs. And then after 6 weeks apart, trying to piece things back together, we accidentally became “us” again. This time around we decided to spend more time apart, give each other more space and work on fostering new friendships outside the relationship. We now get along better than ever (though we never, ever fought) and our relationship is more grounded in reality. More effective communication and less repressed emotion. We’ll have 3 years together this summer.

Lynn
wrote on March 4 2009 @ 04:47 pm: [report]

I agree with most of the guys. Except in a marriage, I don’t think people have an obligation to include the other person in the break-up decision. I’ve blind-sided guys with breakups, and I know that if we had talked about it, they would have begged me to stay and “work on it.” But I didn’t want to. And I really don’t agree that a breakup need be a joint decision. They rarely are. It sucks to be on the receiving end and maybe it’s even easier to blame them for not “warning” you soon enough or not giving you a chance to “work on it,” but most breakups aren’t mutual. If I want out of my relationship and my guy wants to stick together, where does that leave us? If there is something so fundamentally incompatible about us that *I* don’t want to “work on it” then I don’t know what he could ever do to make me want to.

Alison Wonderland
wrote on March 4 2009 @ 06:23 pm: [report]

@IrishErin: I think ‘never fighting’ can prove problematic in the long run. I’m also in a relationship that is fairly drama free. On my part, I tend not to bring things up on the basis that fighting over them seems pointless considering the issue will probably blow over, and usually does. But do we ultimately hold back too much? If it eventually comes back around as an even bigger issue would it have been easier to address in smaller bits? I don’t know yet…

I think the need for discussion truly depends on WHY the relationship isn’t working. If the problem is that one person just isn’t feeling it anymore, that person can try to stay on their own accord and see if it will work, but it’s usually fruitless if the other person asks them to do the same. Emotions are difficult to control to say the least, but impossible to persuade. If it’s a situational issue, no matter how much two people put in if the logistics of the relationship just aren’t working then sometimes the ‘what are we doing’ discussion should come up. In any case, salvagable or not, I agree with Amelia that if the person means enough to you the effort should be made to communicate.

retro chic
wrote on March 5 2009 @ 12:18 am: [report]

Some people are the “down with the ship”-ers.
Others are the rats that jump first.

Sometimes hanging in there just to see how it all ends is fun just in case trashy novel-writing is in your future.

But better to talk, married or not, kinda like an exit interview. It may reveal a whole new unexpected chapter.

Emiline
wrote on March 5 2009 @ 08:40 am: [report]

I think the most cowardly thing a person can possibly do in a relationship is to “check out” and act as if they are not involved anymore. A relationship, even in good times, takes work to thrive. The minute one person decides it’s over, and doens’t give you the time of day, is only a matter of time before the other speaks up and says “I deserve better”. Having had this happen to me twice now, I recognized it so much faster the second time and bailed asap! There is no way I am going to be sad over a person who isn’t there for me in any way. There are plenty of people out there who are interested in knowing you and being close to your heart. Don’t waste time feeling that you have nothing to offer, when it’s the other person who wants nothing to do with you. Poor communicators suck!

EastCoastMale
wrote on March 5 2009 @ 08:41 am: [report]

@Lynn

I think you expressed how I feel about this more concisely than I did. Time in a relationship does not equal parallel time that needs to be spent on a breakup, boyfriend of two weeks or marriage of thrity years, one does not automatically dictate needing closure and answers more than the other just because the person being told wants that. A decision in life can be one sided like it or not and if one person doesnt want to be with another then thats a plain fact.

EastCoastMale
wrote on March 5 2009 @ 08:43 am: [report]

@IrishErin

I am also Irish and have the male spelling of your name. Just thought I’d throw that out there. Not a pickup line I promise.

Lynn
wrote on March 5 2009 @ 11:52 am: [report]

@ ECM I think we’re pretty much on the same page here In the example you brought up if someone is hanging out with an ex boyfriend or something - well, that’s something that can be talked about and “worked on.” But things can’t always be worked on, and even if they can it’s not always worth it. I broke up with a guy who wanted to marry me because, although he was a nice guy, there were just things about who he was and what he wanted out of life that were so wildly different from who I am and what I wanted. They weren’t wrong or bad, but no amount of “working on it” was going to correct the fact that we were too different to have a happy life together. I knew we’d both be better off looking for someone who could make us even happier. I don’t have to apologize for recognizing that I wasn’t the best thing for him, and he wasn’t the best thing for me. I think I owed him an explanation, and I gave him one. But I didn’t owe him any more effort.