Concerning romantic relationships, I would say there are only four types of relationship problems, which I presented as taxonomic categories in my book The Divine Truths of Love. These categories can shift and overlap - they are:
1) Minor everyday issues: tiny disputes about
domestic preferences, trivial behavioural irritations, things each beloved
needs to work on, etc
2) External life issues: stressors unrelated
to the relationship itself (health, work, grief, living in extreme poverty,
living in a war zone, etc) that indirectly erode relational satisfaction.
3) Fundamental incompatibilities: mismatches
in religious belief, values, physical attraction, wanting children, life goals,
psychological or developmental wounds, etc, that may require dissolution if
they can’t be managed or compromised.
4) Bad beloveds: one or more partner is just
not a good/mature/faithful/honest enough person to sustain a good relationship.
From an economic and rational-choice perspective,
relationships can be modelled as systems of interdependent utility functions.
Category 1 problems (minor everyday issues) represent low-cost inefficiencies
that persist due to limited self-awareness or lack of proper attention and
responsibility. On their own, these should never be the cause of breaking up.
If all your problems are category 1 problems, then with more truthseeking and
effort, your relationship is likely to be sustainable and healthy.
Category 2 problems (external life
issues) act as negative shocks to the relationship’s system - they depress
relational utility without necessarily reflecting intrinsic partner quality or compatibility.
Jack and Jill may be compatible as a couple, but a big stress, crisis or trauma
unrelated to the relationship itself can cause dissolution. However, many
relationships not only survive these but go on to be stronger because of how
the beloveds got through the situation together. Couples ill-equipped to deal
with category 2 problems will likely find that cumulative transaction costs and
emotional debt make optimisation nearly impossible.
Category 3 problems (fundamental incompatibilities) are usually a deal-breaker - and often should be - because they are akin to essential structural mismatches in alignment, where they cannot be mitigated or reconciled. And lastly, category 4 problems (bad beloveds) are usually insurmountable without radical change, because they not only naturally generate lots of category 1 and 3 problems, but bad beloveds constitute agents whose behaviour systematically destroys utility for their partner, necessitating that ‘fail fast’ exit rather than further investment is the dominant and prudent strategy.
I believe that a proper understanding of these categories provides a framework for evaluating relational investment, risk, and potential returns. I also believe that any unmarried, childless couple can work together to assess their relationship in the short-to-medium term, under the above heuristic, and have a judicious stab at whether to invest more in the relationship or dissolve it and (hopefully) part amicably.
