Putting Your Relationship On Probation: Part 2

Evaluating the cost of loss.

By Dr. Diana Kirschner — Written on Feb 15, 2011

The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost.
~G. K. Chesterton

If your Beloved is not growing in his ability to love deeply and commit to you, you may find at some point that you want to leave. In Part 1 I showed you how to have the Probationary Talk with your partner/spouse to give him a heads-up that the relationship was coming to an end.

But maybe it had no real impact on him. Perhaps he stonewalled, became overly defensive, or more distant. If you are in this position, there is a way to take a stand that both protects you from further pain and maximizes the possibility of his realizing how much you really mean to him.

This is the secret I am about to teach you. First a little background.

Research shows that healthy spouses are realistic in considering the costs of losing their relationship.

First is the major cost of a broken heart: the emotional, psychological, and physical pain of loss. There’s also the high stress, depressive spiral, aches and pains, sleeplessness, appetite problems, loss of motivation, and other negative changes in brain chemistry that separation or rejection create. Even the immune system goes downhill.

Second for married couples, there are the economic and other real costs, including a lower standard of living and loss of time with the children. Many researchers believe that these exit costs serve as barriers to separation and therefore are major underpinnings of stability.

But healthy partners do not stay together simply out of fear or need. They have the emotional strength and self-confidence to leave each other, which creates mutual respect. These traits serve as reminders that loss could really occur, and that frightening possibility tends to keep the partners on their toes. Both know that they cannot get away with repeated disrespectful, thoughtless, meanness, or cold treatment of the other. In short, they do not take each other for granted.

While research has focused on how married couples view and use the costs of loss to promote better conduct and stability, the same may also hold true for longer-term unmarrieds. Being able to look ahead and assess the harsh realities a breakup would bring can help a couple to work through issues that inevitably erupt.

Considering the cost of loss also helps them appreciate what they have in each other. I have seen this dynamic work beautifully in couples who have been together for a year or more who are not married. A cost-of-loss stand that shows your Beloved what life will be like without you can be the most powerful step to take when your relationship is draining, painful, and unfulfilling. This stand can propel your boyfriend forward and help him break through his commitment fears.

When to Take a Cost-of-Loss Stand

The following thirteen markers indicate that it may be time to help your Beloved experience the cost of loss:

1. You have been seriously involved and in love with someone for a year or more, only to find that, while you are ready, he simply cannot or will not take that next step into living together or marriage.

2. Your partner does not respond to direct requests to fulfill your most important needs.

3. He does not change his behavior when you have The Talk, use Positive Paranoia, or put the relationship on probation.

4. You feel depressed or beaten down and your self-esteem has taken a hit from being with this man.

5. You are embarrassed about being with him when he has given you so little for so long.

6. He has become emotionally distant and/or stops having sex with you.

7. He says he “just wants to be friends.”

8. He says he doesn’t love you.

9. You have “had it” and are ready to leave.

10. You fight all the time.

11. He is verbally abusive toward you.