How Do You Know When It's Time To Break Up?
Many of us don't break up with a significant other when we should, for many different reasons. Some of us are afraid to be alone; others give in to what is called the sunk cost fallacy ("I've already invested so much time and effort in this relationship, I can't give up now"). But most of us just ignore the signs that a relationship is about to break down because it's easier to believe that everything is okay...until it's not. Knowing exactly when a relationship should be ended is a difficult task. It depends on the people involved and on the situation they live in. But there is fairly consistent evidence about the signs of relationship breakdown, unearthed by Dr. John Gottman. When he analyzed data, Gottman found an 83 percent chance of divorce when four behaviors were present between members of a couple, even after watching them talk for only three minutes. Just so you know, psychologists are often satisfied with 20 or 30 percent correlations; 83 pe
