HEINZESIGHT: Questionable relationship investments

Hey, Brent.

I’ve been dating this guy for quite a while and I’m really torn. I see so much potential in him as a possible boyfriend, but he continually lets me down and does things that cause me to want to run away. When things are good, they’re really great. When things are bad, they’re absolutely terrible. We can keep working on issues that cause conflict with us, but I’m not sure it will be worth it in the long run. We seem to have the same types of arguments over and over. How do I decide if working on our issues is worthwhile?

Many of us welcome people into our lives for a variety of benefits. Some are there to increase feelings of connection by offering friendship, camaraderie, and activity partners, while others offer romantic or sexual frivolity and the potential for a committed relationship. Depending on what outcomes we desire, the amount of crap we put up with may vary. The more we convince ourselves that we really want something, we risk pushing ourselves past where we’re comfortable to get it.

Think about the ridiculous notion of continuing to feed money into a Skittles dispenser that only gives you a few pieces of candy instead of a handful. It’s frustrating because we want more. Hopefully, you’ll realize that you’re feeding change into this malfunctioning machine and hope it will spontaneously start working correctly. Your time may be better spent sticking your money somewhere else to get more candy.

One of the more confusing situations in any type of relationship is when it works well part of the time, but your success doesn’t come as often as you want. The payoffs can be great when it works, but there are many times where you’re left feeling cheated and disappointed. You have the option of continuing to work on getting more of what you want and struggle with the desire to give up on this one to move on to someone else that has a higher potential for success.

It can be difficult to walk away when we feel a large investment of time or money has been placed into people or situations. You may also struggle with feelings of failure by cutting your losses and moving on to something else. It is important to recognize when your investment is not working out in the ways you desired and consider moving on to another opportunity. Although difficult, it may be in your best interest. Chalking these types of experiences up to a learning opportunity can be beneficial, but also difficult to stomach.

Some lessons are more expensive than others to learn. Any good financial advisor will warn us to do our research before investing in something, no matter how attractive their description or portfolio seems. After a while, their performance may not live up to what you were told and promises of improvement may seem more of a fantasy than reality. After you complete your analysis of your investment, you may decide to continue pumping resources into it or decide to dump it and sell, sell, sell!

Take some time and consider if the good things about your situation outweigh the concerning aspects. Remember that change can be slow going and may not happen fast enough for you. Be careful not to give up too soon, but aware enough to know when you’re sinking your funds into a crappy investment.