No relationship is perfect, there are moments of disagreement, annoyance and conflict. Even the couples with the happiest and healthiest partnerships go through rough patches every so often. The challenge is when the relationship becomes a collection of rough patches with a few splashes of happy times. How do you know it’s time to give up? When do you actually know that the relationship is no longer worth saving? Do you go to a therapist or do you head into divorce court?

According to Mark Rees Law, a divorce attorney in Jonesboro, “Marriages end for a multitude of reasons, and whether it’s due to something traumatic like infidelity, or irreconcilable differences. In every case, each party should be heard and come to a resolution.” This is the purpose of therapy too, it’s to make sure that you and your partner get to speak to each other, open up and resolve the issues.

In this article, we’ll talk about figuring this out for yourself. We’ll share with you if the right decision is to try to rescue your relationship or just let it go and move on. Here are few questions you should ask yourself to get the answer.

Do You Just Need to Reconnect?

Between all the responsibilities of having kids, having jobs and obligations, you and your partner can start to feel like two ships passing through the night. A lack of couple time can actually do a lot of harm to your connection and make you feel emotionally distant. Minor annoyances can be amplified in this moment of weakness. All it takes to fix this is to start carving time out for each other, and start doing really thoughtful things for one another.

Commit to a weekly date night where you get dressed up, get away from the kids for a bit, go out on the town and enjoy each other. Remember the reasons you fell in love and show that you appreciate each other, flowers, coffee or their favorite magazine will do wonders.

Have You Changed?

The challenging thing about relationships is that people change, and sometimes they don’t change together, and go in different directions. This is not to say that you can’t be together anymore, but you have to give each other space to change and communicate with each other. The big issue is if the things you want out of the relationship are now too different, and there’s no room for compromise. This is when it might be time to let it go.

Was There a Betrayal?

The really challenging part of repairing a relationship is in the case of infidelity, or any other kind of betrayal or lie. If your partner had an affair, or they gambled away your life savings or lied about something really big, it can be hard to see beyond that and the resentment that comes from it. The real test is if you and your partner can get past it together. You’ll definitely the insight of a relationship therapist, so that you can open up about it and work toward forgiveness if it’s possible.

Diagnose the Issue

At the base of everything, you have to know what the issue you and your spouse are facing. Is it communication, attraction, money or betrayal. If you know what the problem is, you can talk about it and you can actually work toward a solution together.

The couples that we all admire for staying together and actually being happy, didn’t get there by chance, it happened through hard work and commitment. At the end of the day, they’ve also had to go through some difficult times. Ultimately, the thing that determines whether you can make it is you both being committed to the work, and being willing to let go of some of the resentment you might hold toward each other. If it feels like too much damage has been done, or you’re really tired of being with each other and there’s no amount of date nights and couples therapy that can change it, it might be too late to save the marriage. That doesn’t make it a total failure, it just means that a new season of your life is coming, and if you haven’t been happy for a while, you will find joy again.