Advice: When should you fight for love and when should you let go?

Dear Ishmael,

We know that relationships take work, but what is the difference between the work you put into a relationship and when a relationship just isn’t working and we’re forcing something that we want to let go of because of its difficulties and challenges?

— Life after love at Lincoln Square

Dear life after love,

My mother always told me (perhaps to reassure herself), “Your father may be a drinker, but he’s a drinker who gets up in the morning to go to work. Not everyone can say that.”

This may be a bit extreme and perhaps not the healthiest example, but this was my example of what it takes to make a relationship work: showing a willingness to improve yourself in the areas where you fall short as a partner. It sounds simple, but it isn’t.

Whether you’re learning to live with your partner’s vices, trying to reach a compromise after realizing you have different goals in life, or simply tired of the way your partner handles disagreements, everyone has a different tolerance, and sometimes love doesn’t help you get there.

To gain more insight into modern relationships, I asked friends (in their late 20s and late 30s) to dig through their relationship traumas and triumphs and share their wisdom. What made them leave and what made them stay?

Arrived at the crossroads of the relationship

At some point, the disagreements will turn ugly, and your emotional fight-or-flight instinct will kick in.

“You can literally feel it in your body when things just aren’t working and your body is rejecting everything you try,” says a friend, describing a case where she was trying to make it work with a long-term partner.

But we don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves.

Before a decision is made, it must be clearly communicated what the problem is and what is making the relationship challenging. How you and your partner handle these disagreements is evidence of how healthy or dysfunctional the relationship is and should determine whether the relationship should move forward.

“When someone gets angry and starts lashing out at the other person, it’s a sign that they don’t want a functioning relationship, that they feel wronged and want revenge,” said another friend.

When we confront our less pleasant character traits, egos must be put aside and each individual must be willing to find a solution to their problems.

Procedure and details

While we work on a relationship, we can also work on ourselves.

Maybe we never realized we could chew loudly and now we’re trying to be more conscious about not annoying our partner. Maybe our temper makes our partner uncomfortable, so we’re now trying to be more in control of our emotions. Or maybe you’ve just moved to a new city with your partner and you’re realizing that you’re finding it very difficult to be away from your family and your partner isn’t enough to make you happy.

A friend told me, “In addition to love, commitment is important. (We can show this by) not only being loyal and not cheating, but also committing to making real changes in ourselves to make the relationship work.”

How much are you willing to give in order to make the relationship work? How much patience do you have for the person to go through this change?

As many lovers have proven for centuries, it is possible for it to work. It is entirely possible for people to change for the better.

However, it is also possible that no positive changes occur during the time they spend with you.

Sometimes we are just collateral damage in someone’s quest to find the best version of themselves.

Write to Someone in Chicago at [email protected].