The decision points

There is no clean moment when you decide. There is a series of small moments, over months, that add up to a direction. Then one day you notice you've been walking that way for a while.

When to keep going

Markers at the six-month mark:

• Both partners are doing the work. If only one of you is in therapy, the marriage is on a slow drift.
• The conversations are getting easier, not harder.
• The bedroom is moving, even slowly. Total intimacy stasis at six months is information.
• You can name three things you actually like about her, fresh, this week. Specifics from the last seven days.
• She can do the same about you.

When to separate

Mirror image. Markers that point the other way:

• One of you has been performing the work, not doing it.
• The same fight keeps happening, with the same words.
• Contempt has settled into the bones.
• Foundational misalignment that isn't going to budge.
• Ongoing dishonesty.
• A safety issue.

Neither list is a verdict. Both are descriptions of the data.

What good looks like in either direction

What good looks like in staying:

• A marriage that's been in real conversation, not papered-over conversation.
• An honest reckoning with what each of you brought to the trouble.
• The kids see two adults working at the thing instead of pretending.
• The friendship is recovered, slowly.

What good looks like in leaving:

• A separation handled with civility and care, especially if there are kids.
• A clean financial settlement, both of you advised separately.
• A version of you that walks out without the patterns you walked in with.
• A co-parenting arrangement that survives the first two years.
• A future relationship that doesn't replicate this one.

The shape is not "winning". The shape is leaving the marriage, in either direction, with your integrity and her integrity intact.

The "six months from now" test

Imagine yourself six months from today, having continued exactly the path you're on.

1. Can you live with that version?
2. Is she also continuing the work, or is the path "you trying alone"?
3. What does the version of you in six months tell the version of you now?

Run the test once a fortnight.

Recognising when you're staying for the wrong reasons

• The kids. Real concern. Wrong primary reason. Kids do not benefit from two parents performing a marriage.
• The money. Real factor. Wrong primary reason.
• The fear. Of being alone, of dating in your forties, of what your parents will say.
• The history. "We've been through so much together." Reason to handle the ending well, if it ends.
• Identity drag.

Recognising when you're staying for the right reasons

• A salvageable relationship that's actually salvaging.
• Real change visible in the room. Not promised. Visible.
• Friendship returning. The single best signal.
• A shared future that's both of you would actively choose.

The "trial separation" question

Honestly: trial separations rarely return to a stronger marriage. Living apart removes the friction that was driving the work.

Exceptions are narrow. A trial separation can work when:

• It's structured. A defined length (typically 8-12 weeks), with rules.
• Both of you are continuing therapy.
• It has a defined outcome conversation at the end.

If those three are in place, sometimes useful. If not, what you have is a slow drift the kids will feel.

The frame, finally

Some marriages survive this work. Some don't. Both outcomes can be the right answer for the right man, and the work is the same in both directions until the decision point.

If you've done the work in the previous five modules, the decision point doesn't arrive as a cliff. It arrives as a clearing.

Choose with eyes open. Choose without ambush. Choose, once, and live with it.

Further watching

• Rethinking Infidelity ... a talk for anyone who has ever loved | Esther Perel | TED
• The 5 Signs Your Relationship Is Over | Mel Robbins