Ten questions to ask yourself before you decide

I wrote my version of these questions on the back of a Bunnings receipt at 11pm in a parked car. Not because I had a system, but because the kitchen had become a place where I couldn't think straight. The car was quiet. The receipt was the only paper.

If you're at the stage where the question of ending it is louder than the question of fixing it, you don't need more advice. You need better questions, asked of yourself, with no audience.

Here are ten. They are in rough order. Sit with each one for a day if you can. Don't write fast answers. Write slow ones. The fast answers are what your defended self wants to be true. The slow answers are what the rest of you knows.

1. Have I named the actual problem, out loud, to anyone?

Most men carry the shape of the problem for years before they describe it. Naming it (to a therapist, a friend, a journal, a voice memo at 2am) is the first separation between feeling and decision. If you can't name the problem in one sentence, you're not ready to decide. You're ready to talk to someone who can help you name it. Vague problems produce vague decisions. Specific problems produce specific options.

2. Have we genuinely tried to fix it, or have I just been waiting for it to fix itself?

Counselling once, badly, with a counsellor neither of you liked, doesn't count. Three or four sessions with someone who challenges both of you counts. So does an honest conversation about what's not working, repeated more than once, with action items both of you held to. If neither has happened, the marriage hasn't been tried, it's been endured. Different problem.

The follow-up question is harder. If we tried, how seriously did I show up? Marriages aren't fixed by one person doing the work. But they're not undone by one person either. Audit your own contribution to the trying.

3. Am I staying because I want to, or because I'm afraid?

Fear is real. Fear of being alone, fear of hurting the kids, fear of the financial hit, fear of being a man in his forties starting again. None of those fears are stupid. But they're not reasons to stay in a marriage. They're reasons to plan carefully before you leave one. Distinguish the reason from the strategy.

The same question runs the other way. Am I considering leaving because I genuinely want a different life, or because I'm afraid of the slow boring work of staying? Both fears are common. Neither is the right driver of the decision.

4. Do I still respect them?

Love is allowed to ebb. Respect is harder. If you find yourself rolling your eyes at things they say in front of other people, or describing them to friends in language you wouldn't say to their face, the respect has gone, and respect is the floor under everything else. Without it, the rest is performance.

5. Do they still respect me?

Same question, the other way. Be honest. The clue is in the small things. Are you spoken about with affection or with fatigue? Are your suggestions taken seriously, or treated as something to manage? Disrespect can be subtle (a sigh, an eye-flick to a friend) or loud (contempt, sarcasm, public correction). Both corrode the foundation.

If you can't answer this one honestly, ask a sibling who's seen you both at family dinners. They've been watching. They have a view.

6. What does the next ten years look like if nothing changes?

Imagine nothing changes. Same dynamics. Same conversations. Same sleeping arrangement. Same level of physical and emotional connection. Same Tuesday night. Now you are 10 years older. Are you all right with that picture? If you flinch hard, that is data. If you shrug, that is also data.

Run the same exercise the other way. Imagine a separation. Same kids, same job, but living in a different house, seeing the kids on a schedule, dating again at some point. Are you all right with that picture? Does it terrify you, or does some part of you feel a strange relief? Both answers are useful. Neither is the decision.

7. Am I confusing the marriage with the season of life?

Small kids and demanding jobs flatten most marriages for a stretch. Separation rates spike when the youngest hits five or six, partly because that's when the fog lifts and people realise they've been roommates for years. Ask yourself whether the problem is the relationship, or the relationship's current load. The answers are different. The decisions are too.

If the load is the issue, the answer might be a year of deliberate work on the load (less work, more childcare help, regular nights out, a therapist, a holiday without the kids) before any decision about the marriage. If the load lifts and the connection doesn't return, that's information. If the load lifts and you find each other again, that's also information.

8. What's my honest financial picture if I leave?

Not catastrophising. Not spreadsheet-bro confident. Honest. In Australia, the typical s79 property settlement gives a roughly equal split adjusted for contributions and future needs, but the legal costs (mediation $3-8k, lawyer-led $20-30k, contested $80k+) eat real money. Run the numbers cold. If they work, that's information. If they don't, that's also information. Neither is a reason to stay or go. Both are inputs.

A useful exercise: build a one-page post-separation budget for yourself. Rent, utilities, groceries, kids' costs, your own car, your own super contributions. Compare it to your post-tax income. The number you land on is not the decision. It's the planning baseline. Most men either over- or under-estimate this number by 30 percent. Run it twice, with someone else looking at it.

9. What are the kids actually seeing?

Children read the temperature of a house better than the parents do. They can't always articulate it, but they show it (sleep, school, mood). Ask yourself, with no defensiveness, what your kids are absorbing right now. A bad marriage held together "for the kids" can be more damaging than a clean separation done well. Both can be true. Neither is automatic.

The research is mixed and contextual. What's consistent is that high-conflict marriages and high-conflict separations both damage kids. Low-conflict separations, done with care, do less damage than commonly assumed. The variable that matters most isn't married vs separated. It's the level of ongoing conflict the kids witness.

10. If a friend told me what I'm telling myself, what would I tell him?

This is the killer question. Strip it of your own situation. Imagine a mate sat across from you and described his marriage in exactly the words you'd describe yours. What would you say to him? Probably something blunter than what you've allowed yourself to think. That gap between what you'd advise a friend and what you're tolerating yourself is worth a long, sober look.

A note before you take the answers anywhere

These ten questions are not exhaustive and they are not in stone. Your version may include questions about faith, about extended family, about a specific thing that has happened that's not anyone else's business. Add them. The point is the slow honest sit-down with yourself, not the precise wording of the questions.

What to do with the answers

Don't make a decision yet. Take the answers and do three things:

• Show them to a therapist or a trusted person who is not invested in the outcome.
• Sit with them for a fortnight without acting.
• Re-read them in two weeks and see if anything has shifted.

The answers are not the decision. They are the ground the decision will eventually stand on. Most men who decide too fast regret the speed. Most who decide too slowly regret the years. The middle path is sober, witnessed, and slow.

The Bunnings receipt is in a drawer somewhere. I never threw it out. The questions on it took six months to answer properly. The decision took another three. That's about right.

Ask. Wait. Choose.