Honestly, I got curious about this whole “spotting a dying relationship fast” thing myself. Saw some stuff online, felt kinda skeptical but also worried. Relationships are tricky. So I thought, “Hell, ten minutes a day? Let’s give this a shot for real.” Started two weeks back.
Setting Up the Ten Minutes
First thing? Picked the time. Late evening, after dinner cleanup but before zoning out with the phone. My spot? The kinda quiet corner in the living room, not the bedroom. Less… loaded feeling. Just needed a pen and my regular planner, the one with the notes section. No fancy apps or journals.
- Minute 1-2: Shut my eyes. Seriously, just shut ’em. Focused on my breathing. Not deep meditation crap, just slowing down my brain from the day’s noise. Needed to actually see things, not just react.
- Minute 3-5: Started replaying the last 24 hours with my partner. Mentally fast-forwarding like a crappy movie. Ate breakfast? Yeah, mostly silent. Texted about dinner? Yeah, one-word replies. Watched that show? Sat at opposite ends of the couch. Didn’t even share the blanket. Felt… cold.
- Minute 6-7: Pulled out the planner. Jotted down simple stuff I remembered:
Example Notes:- No morning kiss. He grabbed toast and ran.
- My “how’d your meeting go?” text got “fine.” That’s it.
- Talked to the cat more than to each other during dinner.
- His “goodnight” was his back turned.
Didn’t write essays. Just bullet points of what happened (or didn’t happen).
- Minute 8-9: Didn’t jump to “OMG WE’RE DOOMED!” Instead, I looked at the list. I looked for patterns. What word kept popping into my head looking at those bullets? Distance. Physical, emotional. That cold feeling? It wasn’t just me.
- Minute 10: Closed the planner. Took one more deep breath. No solutions needed right then. Just… acknowledged it. “Okay. This is what today felt like.” Felt kinda heavy, yeah, but also weirdly focused.
The Realization Kicked In
After maybe five days of this? The planner page started looking like a broken record. Same damn patterns over and over:
- Zero Initiation: Who asks how the other’s day was? Nada.
- The Avoidance Tango: Both actively finding excuses not to be in the same room together.
- Future Talk Vanished: “We should try that new place” turned into just… silence about anything beyond tomorrow.
Constant Criticism: Snide comments replacing actual conversation.
Wasn’t rocket science anymore. It was right there, scribbled in my messy handwriting. Day after day. These weren’t just bad moods. It was a steady slide downhill, obvious when I forced myself to just observe for ten minutes.
Where It Leaves Me Now
So, did it magically fix things? Hell no. Relationships don’t work like that. But this dumb little ten-minute habit? It ripped off the blindfold. Completely.
It shifted me from just feeling vague dread to seeing the real, actual stuff draining the life out of us. Patterns. Specific, repeatable things I could point to in my notebook. That “distance” feeling had concrete evidence.
It sucks facing it, sure. But ignoring it? That was way worse. Now I know what I’m actually dealing with. No more pretending everything’s okay. That ten minutes forced me to get honest. Brutally, boringly, bullet-point honest.
What next? No idea yet. But at least I’m not lying to myself every night anymore. That alone feels like a step, even if it’s just towards understanding how broken it really is.
