Read this before you end an important relationship
If you’ve been struggling with a romantic partner, co-founder, or close friend, is it really the end—or did you just forget about the fundamentals?
When it comes to an important but challenging relationship, how do you know when it’s over?
In my coaching practice, I often observe that when people are experiencing ongoing conflict or stagnation in a close, long-term relationship, they assume that the relationship isn’t working anymore.
We tend to jump to the conclusion that it’s over. But in my experience, the truth is more often that we’ve fallen out of step with the fundamentals of a healthy relationship—or we never had them in place to begin with.
Whether it’s a co-founder, spouse, friend, or family member, when we lose the fundamentals of healthy relating, it’s only a matter of time before we start asking ourselves if it’s time to throw in the towel. Sometimes, the answer is yes. More often, it’s not.
As I’ve said many times, our relationships are the most precious resource we have in life. They’re worth investing in. So if you’re going to end an important relationship, you’d better be sure about it, because once the relationship is over, there’s likely no going back.
Before pulling the plug on any meaningful relationship, ask yourself: Have we had a structure in place for maintaining and repairing our relationship so it stays healthy over the years? Or are we missing the fundamentals?
So what are the fundamentals of relationship maintenance and repair?
Communication: Open, honest communication is the bedrock of any relationship. You need to speak frequently and candidly and have a structure to air your grievances with each other directly and work through challenges.
Willingness to change: Both parties need to be willing to work on the relationship, and to work on themselves and any unhealthy patterns or harmful behaviors they might be bringing into the relationship. They need to be willing to do the solo work, and then come back to each other to work things out.
External support: In times of ongoing conflict or seemingly insurmountable problems, it’s essential to have a third party that both people trust. You need a space where you can get support in working things out when the challenges get too difficult to solve on your own. This could be a friend, family member, therapist, or coach.
These three elements are essential for the health of any long-term relationship. When you hit a bump in the road, you want to have these buffers in place—because without them, your relationship is unlikely to survive. It’s like keeping your car in good shape: if you ignore the flashing light for long enough, your car is going to break down. If you don’t take good care of it, it’s going to fall apart before it should. But if you take good care of it and do the necessary maintenance before a problem becomes an emergency, it’ll last you for decades.
The Cost of Not Taking Care of Your Relationships
I’ve experienced on several occasions the way a relationship can go south over time when the fundamentals are missing. Looking back, it was the downfall of my partnership with my first co-founder and best friend.
He and I started out as close friends and bandmates, and then eventually became co-founders. We were inseparable for many years and did all kinds of awesome things together. We had a band. We started a successful business. We had lots of good times. And then over the years, we stopped communicating honestly, we started to have our own friends and began to silo. When challenges arose (which they always do with co-founders), we would validate our own views about the other person without coming to each other and speaking candidly and honestly. We lacked any kind of structure where we could work things out together, man-to-man. As a result, unspoken conflicts festered and eventually ruptured. It was a rough experience for both of us, and something we both wish we could go back and redo. We were young and we lacked the tools and wisdom necessary to navigate all the challenges we were facing. Fortunately, we have since apologized and repaired the issues, and I’m proud to be an investor in his latest company.
The pain of that experience woke me up to the necessity of ongoing maintenance and repair when it comes to important, long-term relationships. I never wanted that to happen again. I vowed to myself that I wouldn’t let relationships I cared about deeply fail because I wasn’t taking care of them.
Almost all of us have experienced some version of this, whether with a friend, a business partner, or a romantic partner. When two people are energized by the excitement of a new relationship, things tend to go great for a while. But as the relationship progresses, we get stagnant and stop communicating honestly. Inevitably, challenges arise—that’s life, that’s part of being human. If you don’t have a mechanism in place to work through those challenges, keeping the relationship in good shape becomes very difficult.
Without addressing the problems, things fester, and intimacy and trust deteriorate. It’s like water damage in a house: over time, it weakens the foundation. Then, both parties begin to silo themselves. We go to our 1-on-1 therapist, or another family member or friend to seek out validation for our side of the story. We want to feel like we’re right and they’re wrong. We start to build our case for why they are an idiot or crazy or a selfish asshole. And it’s usually very easy to get that validation. Maybe we start to wonder if we really want this person in our lives anymore. But most of the time, it’s the conflict and discomfort we want out of our lives, not the person.
This is the beginning of the end. And it’s such a shame because it’s avoidable and we are about to lose something so important to our well-being and enjoyment of this life.
When both parties do this, the issue doesn’t have a real opportunity to ‘come to the mat’ and get worked out. We are not providing the environment necessary for the issue to be resolved. To resolve the issue, both parties need to be in the same room, eye to eye, talking it out candidly. Then, and only then, can the relationship move forward.
Do the Work, Reap the Rewards
If you’re in a struggling business partnership or co-founder relationship, I hope this post makes you pause and think first. Before you pull the plug, consider what’s really at stake—and ask yourself if you might be willing to come to the table and do the work of repair and maintenance.
Recently, one of my clients—the co-founder of a startup worth several billion—came to me at the end of his rope, ready to end his relationship with his co-founder. They’d blown up at each other in an important meeting with the whole leadership team present, unleashing years’ worth of pent-up frustration. Was this the beginning of the end? After all these years, were they just not a fit anymore?
We dug deeper and discovered that over the last couple of years, the relationship had become stagnant. They had stopped being candid with each other. They let issues fester. Sure, they had their weekly one-on-one, but they got lazy around bringing the honesty that’s required in these conversations. Their talks shifted to ‘surface-level’ content and the real issues got buried.
My client committed to getting candid again in their conversations—to really ‘go there’ and also to express to his co-founder that he wanted him to step up his candor as well. Making this move is uncomfortable. It takes courage. But it works (for the vast majority of cases). Within a matter of weeks, they were back in sync, enjoying a depth and fluency that they hadn’t experienced in years.
Before you conclude that your relationship is done, pause and check in to see if the relationship is actually done, or if you’ve simply been missing out on the fundamentals. Do you have the pieces in place to keep the relationship healthy over the long term? My guess is that if there is a willingness from both parties to work on things, then the relationship is usually salvageable. But there has to be a willingness.
If you think it’s divorce time, but your partner is willing to work on things and to be candid with you, you might be just around the corner from thriving again. You and your best friend may have the best days of your friendship still ahead of you. Or you and your business partner may be right on the brink of a new level of success. You might be amazed at the magic that’s possible when we continue to turn toward each other.