Or should you break up and end the relationship? - sometimes a request sounds. When a crisis period occurs in a relationship, such a question can arise and even be painful. It is difficult for one of the couple to cope with feelings of guilt, pity, shame and leave. And for others it is a painful experience of rejection, abandonment and the need to finally get back on their feet and grow up. It happens that both partners, maintaining an unsatisfactory relationship, live in a depressed state for years. Or they implement repeating patterns according to the option of leaving and returning, reflecting the internal ambivalence of relations with the world. And the world sometimes narrows down to one person. When going for a consultation with a psychologist, it is important to understand that the specialist will not make a choice for you, will not push you to make this or that decision, give assessments of what is right and what is wrong, will not persuade and convince the initiator of the separation not to do this, give lectures and give instructions. (The Internet is full of lectures and advice) After all, everyone bears responsibility for the choice themselves, and deals with the consequences of the choice themselves: No one will feel guilty for you when you leave the relationship. You may have to face the fact that your friends will judge you, and someone will stop communicating altogether. No one will live for you regrets and impulses to return, bumping into closed doors, bans and protection from the other side during such attempts, because they will be perceived as an invasion. No one can live through the feeling of rejection and abandonment for you, even if you have all kinds of support. You just have to get over it. Even if you hear recommendations to “break up” from someone significant to you. All consequences will still fall on your shoulders, heart and soul. And no one will do anything differently for you, giving recommendations to “strengthen relationships” and “start from scratch”: No one will get out of the emotional hole for you and begin to take care of you the way you want And no one except You will not be able to be sensitive, accepting, interesting to another. No one will be able to be brave for you and survive your risks in getting closer to another person. You will have to do this on your own. Support in this case means support, not magic. I have repeatedly encountered the fact that a couple brings several requests to a consultation under the general “save the relationship or end it?” With the expectation of getting a resolution to a situation that has been created for years, or even dozens of years, in one visit. It happens that one strives to occupy all the space and almost demands to save the marriage, as if he sets tasks for his subordinates, and with all his behavior he “screams” from pain and powerlessness to change anything on your own. And the other at this time reports that he came only to confirm his decision to leave, but he is also in a position of helplessness, since he is unable to gather himself and somehow convey this to his partner on his own. When I ask at the end of the consultation what resonated most with each of the couple, what they think, if any ideas have arisen, over and over again I heard “nothing new” in response and also felt powerless and helpless. This feeling arises in countertransference - that is, this is what the couple brought with them and non-verbally “handed” to me. I definitely don’t have a magic pill for these cases. But I have questions that concern everyone, aimed at existing life experiences, your own or those that are known: How do you cope with this powerlessness, what could support you, or what once supported you in such an experience? What makes you feel valuable, despite the desires and actions of other people? What, besides the actions and desires of other people, could help reduce your emotional stress? What can help soothe your despair? What self-support and self-regulation skills do you have? Because the ability to cope with the feeling of helplessness creates the opportunity to stop throwing from side to side and finally establish yourself in your choice.