How Do You Stay Without Disappearing?

I am not leaving. I have two children in school, his parents live with us, and on his good days I still like him. Every article I open tells me to pack a bag. Is there anything for someone who is staying?

Gayatri, there is. The psychologist Ramani Durvasula says that the chapter on staying is the reason she wrote Should I Stay or Should I Go? at all. She could have written a shorter book that said only “leave”. She thought that would abandon a great many people. She offers no judgement on your decision, and I will not either.

Stop waiting at this stop

Her advice begins with a phrase she admits is the least romantic you will ever hear. Manage your expectations.

As I read her, she does not mean that bad behaviour is acceptable. She means stop expecting this person to behave differently tomorrow. She compares it to waiting for a bus that does not come to this stop. And to weather. Nobody in a cold city is astonished by a cold morning in February. If you mean to stay, she says, put on a coat.

Every relationship has what she calls a price of admission. In most, the price is small. Here it is steep, and she wants you to name it to yourself and not rediscover it every week.

Three kinds of news

The centre of the chapter is what she calls the three-part rule. It concerns what you bring to your partner, and it sorts your news into good, bad and indifferent.

Good news goes elsewhere first. Think of the last five good things you told him and what came back. If the answer was a shrug or a put-down, stop carrying your best moments to the one person who will spoil them. She asks you to make a list of your “good-news people” and to tell them first. Tell him afterwards, when it has already been celebrated, or not at all. She is most protective of plans and hopes that are still fragile. She compares them to children. You would be careful about who looks after those.

Bad news comes in three sizes. The daily irritations, such as traffic or a difficult colleague, you take to a friend. His indifference is one more irritation and you can do without it. Trouble that affects the household has to be shared, and here she is specific. Skip the long, soothing preamble. It only puts him on edge. Say what happened and what it will cost, in two sentences, with your plan ready. Then let the reaction pass. She says it will come whatever you do.

The gravest news is an illness, a death, or a fear about your own health. For that you go where help is. She says he may manage a day or two of being supportive. Grief and nursing go on far longer. Her image is a dry well. Do not keep lowering the bucket into it.

The indifferent is everything else. The weather, the new flyover, what the neighbours are building. This becomes your safe conversation. Nobody can wound you about the weather.

This is not a tactic

Durvasula is strict on one point. Do not do any of this in order to make him notice and change. Then it is passive aggression, and it will end in the old disappointment. Do it because you have accepted his limits.

She knows how it sounds. People will ask what the point of such a marriage is. Her answer is unsentimental: “Survival rarely looks like a fairy tale.”

Build the rest of your life

The rule only works if you have somewhere else to take your life. Friends, family, a community, a therapist. She describes clients who stayed and did better. Once someone was finally listening to them, they stopped waiting for their husbands to do it. To their surprise, they told her, things at home went better.

She adds a warning that I respect her for including. When you have been unseen for years and someone at last pays attention, you may fall for them. It does not make you a bad person. Notice it, set your own limits, and talk it through with a counsellor.

And at home? Let him talk about himself. Nod. Be kind. You chose to stay, and she asks you to do it as your best self.

This advice is for coldness, neglect and disappointment. It is not for violence or threats. If you or your children are not safe, please contact the police or a domestic violence service near you.