Graphing our relationships, are we all heading in the same direction?

[Should I stay or...]

Math is an absolute and our emotions are not, so let's graph our relationships with our Bp partners to see where we would be in our futures: upward climb or downward spiral... .

I wish I could draw the graph for you on this site but I can't, so let me walk you through this exercise... .

Get a pencil and paper, draw a vertical line, Y axis, and label it Happiness! scale of 1-10... .1,2,3... .to 10

on the bottom of the page, draw a horizontal line, and label it months or years in your relationship 1,2,

3,4,5, etc.

So, at the first month of your relationship, on the Y axis, what would you give it; a 10? Place a dot here! Second month, a 10, place a dot here... .so on... .6 months out, one year out, what would you give it, 8, 7?Place a dot here... .and so on, until you have placed a dot for each year or month of your relationship.

Tell me what your graphs looks like... .upwards line or downward line? If we all look the same what would you conclude?

                                 

[C.Stein]

One would expect a downward trend within the first 2 years of any relationship.  The important aspect to examine is what happens to the graph at 1 or 2 years.  In a healthy relationship you would expect the graph to approach steady state, a consistent level of happiness without extreme highs and lows.  Even then, some extremes are to be expected, but if they can be safely discarded as outliers then they have little impact on the long term trend of the relationship.

Keep in mind, with relatively equal highs and lows of similar magnitude your trend will still be more or less constant, but who wants to live on that type of emotional roller coaster ... .I don't.