How Do You Know When To Call It Quits?

So my relationship is spinning out of control.  When it is good, it is so good, but when it is bad, I just want to throw in the towel.  I think to myself, is it worth this much heart ache and pain?  I mean I love him, but when is love just not enough?  Love is not going to pay the bills, and love is not going to stop the fighting.

A really great friend of mine once told me a way to know when to call it quits.  It is called the 60/40 rule.  Basically, if you are happy sixty percent of the time, and fighting forty percent worth, then you are okay, and should proceed with caution.  However, if it ever tilts to a 50/50 split, its time to call it off.

Right now we are 60/40… exactly, just on the border.  Maybe it is just me, and my negative outlook on my personal life.  I tend to focus on the bad things, and they end up consuming me.  This is dangerous, because I have lost the good things in my mind.  The more I think about the bad, the worse things seem to be.  Is it up to me, do I have the power to change my relationship, just by changing my attitude?

Things have changed so much in the last four years.  I remeber the way he talked to me, and looked at me.  Now we say mean and hurtful thigns to eachother, and then pretend we never said them.  I think about those things everyay of my life now.  They come out when we fight, and then get buried in our minds until the next time we argue.  How did we get so mean?  Why is it okay for us to say things to each other that four years ago we would have never dreamed of saying?

I have put so much time and effort into this relationship that it would be a shame to end it now.  I know we love each other, but we have lost something sacred.  I do not know how to get it back, but I hope we will be able to figure it out before it is too late.  The longer I stay, the more time goes by, and so when do we know when over really means over.

We have talked about breaking up, and it just seems like the easy way out.  If two people really love each other then why are we talking about breaking up.  Should we not be able to realize our feelings, and put the past behind us.  Should we not be growing closer, and not farther away?

I have made so many mistakes in this relationship, but at least I am willing to admit them. Perhaps we should go to some sort of counselling.  Maybe it will do the trick.  I am just not willing to give up yet.  I love him too much to give up. All I do know is that as long as I am happy 60 percent of the time, I am going to stay.  If things do not get better soon then perhaps we should just accept the inevitable.