Reconcile or Move On, How to Decide

Should I Reconcile? You are older and wiser now, with experience, and a decision to make.

Your desire to reconcile is often a desire to live a dream. To revive your passions and the hopes you lived in the beginning. To return to Go and start over with a new chance.

Purhaps reconciliation is not only your desire, but forced upon you by others. Forced upon you by silent and sullen children. Forced upon you by a repentant spouse, full of promises and needs greater than your own. Forced upon you by family, religion, and tradition of the day.

Should I reconcile? Should I accept the hurt, the pain, and call it a day? Can I face the unknown, or is there more comfort in this familiar but battered arena? Yes, you are older and wiser now, with a decision to make.

How do you Decide?

On a blank piece of paper, across the top draw a single line, and down the center draw another line. At the top on one side write the word STAY. The other side put MOVE ON.

There is no secret or trick to this; simply write down every reason or excuse for saving or ending your marriage. Writing down one reason leads to another and another, the list can reach several reasons in no time. The point is to jot down the pros and cons. Your list might take a life of its own, growing hour by hour, day by day.

At least three things will happen.
- You will come to a decision.
- You will have realization of the issues.
- You have the start of a plan of action

Staying means taking action and making one more commitment to your marriage. That commitment is not yours alone. You both have issues to resolve. It is not advisable to take the easy way out by ignoring the issues. Face them head on.

Pay the price of hard work and honest communication. Without it, couples often fall back into old habits. A recommendable course of action is joint marriage counseling, and in many cases joint financial counseling.

Moving on means acceptance, and closes the option of going back into the marriage. While it may be sad, it also frees you to look to your future without the complications of all the "what if's".

Moving on can be like passing Go and collecting $200, knowing the next trip around the block might be better than the last.

In the game of romance, few things are ever black and white. Most of the points above are assumptions based on commonly used techniques. There is room for interpretations and misunderstandings but all this can make you wonder if everything is all right and discuss the problems you have.