Your Love Is Bittersweet

Relationships that are healthy and satisfying lie at the core of a fulfilled life. But that does not mean that they are easy to come by or to hold on to once we are in one.

Some couples make it so easy to be in a relationship while others spiral in and out of them. How do we decide whether it’s worth staying in a relationship versus moving on?

On-off relationships are distressing

Examining data from 545 individuals in a relationship, assistant professor Kale Monk from University of Missouri and colleagues found an association between on-off relationships and symptoms of anxiety and depression. While there was no significant difference between opposite and same-sex couples, “relationship cycling” had a meaningful negative effect on couples’ mental health.

Monk reminds us that getting back together after a break-up is not necessarily bad. In fact, the break-up period may help partners to re-evaluate their feelings for each other and form a stronger union later on. Research findings show that on-off relationships pose a threat to partners’ mental health when they spiral into a vicious cycle.

Reasons to leave and stay

Professor Samantha Joel from University of Utah and colleagues studied the reasons behind why couples choose to split up. The initial phases of their study revolved around decoding the overarching themes behind staying and leaving. In the first phase study, the researchers asked 135 undergraduate students about potential reasons why people stay or leave a relationship.  Similarly, they asked 137 undergraduates open ended questions about reasons to either stay in or break up their partnerships. The participants in the second phase were actually contemplating about a breakup at the time of the study. In the final phase, individuals who were trying to decide between staying with their partner or to move on were also asked about the reasons for why they might stay or leave.

After decoding the general themes for staying and leaving, the researchers came up with 27 reasons for staying and 23 for leaving. Making a questionnaire out of these results, they asked another group of individuals for their reasons to stay/leave in relation to the decoded themes. The reasons for staying in a relationship included emotional intimacy, investment, feeling a commitment, obligation to their family. The main reasons to leave a relationship, on the other hand, included partner’s personality, breaches of trust (unfaithfulness, deceptiveness) and the partner’s withdrawal of affection and support.

According to Joel, “From an evolutionary perspective, for our ancestors finding a partner may have been more important than finding the right partner. It might be easier to get into relationships, than to get back out of them.”

Ways to improve decision making

Kale Monk offers the following tips to evaluate relationships:

• Following a breakup, partners should think about why they choose to split up and figure out if there are any persistent reasons for why they broke up.
• If getting back together is an option, partners should think about their reasons for why. Monk suggests that if reasons for staying are rooted in obligations and convenience, these might cause distress to partners in the long run.
• Finally, Monk reminds couples that it is perfectly normal to seek counseling even if there are no obvious problems in the relationship.