Marriage or an Experiment? The Question That Determines the Fate of Your Relationship

It happens to almost all couples. Over time, a vague feeling can begin to emerge that causes one to question if they are with the right person.

This feeling is legitimate. Like anything in life, routine can carry hidden dangers for the continued health of a relationship.

However, in order to rediscover the spark and revive the relationship, it is first essential to engage with a deeper, more fundamental question: What led me to enter this relationship in the first place?

As the saying goes, “He who has a why to live for, can bear almost any how.”If we choose to enter a relationship not out of personal interests or the need to fill inner voids (as often happens in the early stages of a relationship), but rather out of a desire to give, then we are truly in a meaningful marriage.

With this approach, I continuously commit myself to nurturing the relationship, and ensuring its healthy continuation. I am aware that this requires serious and demanding inner work, and that the process will not always be easy — especially because complete agreement is a limited resource in marriage. And yet, I mobilize all my efforts toward this goal. Through this process, I rise within the relationship, strengthen my inner structure, grow another layer of personal maturity, and continuously refine my emotional traits.

If however I entered the relationship in order to benefit from what I believe the other person can give me — if I entered with myself at the center, seeing the other as existing solely to meet my needs, whose role is merely to align with me — then, without even realizing it, I have placed myself in an experiment. I am essentially in a kind of emotional laboratory, testing the likelihood that my wishes and desires will be fulfilled. I am merely “trying it out” (certainly not growing through it). If it works, I stay, while if it doesn’t, I leave.

It follows, then, that the reason I entered the relationship is what will determine my willingness to remain in it — despite the crises and difficulties it inevitably brings.

Every decision to act is preceded by a thought and driven by an inner impulse, along with a narrative we tell ourselves about what we stand to gain from the action. This narrative determines both how we act and our willingness to remain committed to the action over time.

This is true for every decision in life, from the simplest ones to the decision to enter a committed relationship. Therefore, what truly determines whether I am in a marriage or in an experiment is my answer to the question: What is my purpose here? What did I tell myself I would gain by entering this relationship?

“Marriage” or “experiment” will also define my position within the relationship — whether I am in it as someone who grows and rises, or merely as someone who is testing.

To those who are already married: you are invited to continue growing and rising, because that is the original purpose of the institution of marriage. If the relationship isn’t responding as you hoped, give it another chance.

To those who have not yet entered such a relationship, do not “test” the system. Enter it only after allowing yourselves to understand and internalize that this is a system whose entire purpose is to help you grow, rise, and become more fully yourselves.

Inbal Elhayani, M.A., is a certified therapist in NLP, mindfulness, and guided imagery.