You did the weekend workshop, the date nights, the counselor, the trial month apart. Things were easier for a while after each one. You are both tired, and one of you has started saying maybe this is just who we are. We can look up everything there is to read about it. I can't tell if that's helping us or hurting us.
This page is for both of you. It does not say whether to keep going.
01
What the list shows
A list of what you tried can be read for what each thing was aimed at.
The date nights were aimed at time together. The counselor, perhaps, at how you talk. The workshop at closeness. The month apart at space.
Each was a fair guess at the problem. They were different guesses. If the same thing ran under all of them, each attempt may have improved its own topic and left the rest alone.
Project Gina puts it this way: couples don't have a hundred fights, they have one loop with a hundred topics.
02
Why adding more may not help
You are not short of effort. Two people who have tried this much are not lazy and are not careless about each other.
Another technique is one more thing for two tired people to remember. Project Gina's way of saying it is that every tool sits on top of the loop. When a hard week comes, the techniques tend to drop away, and what was under them is where it was.
03
One example
A couple has an agreement about arguments, a weekly check-in and a shared calendar. All three work. They still have the same Sunday night.
Looked at closely, the Sunday night might have an order to it. One of them starts listing what is not done. The other goes silent and starts doing it.
The listing may sit on Ahead, where the fear is that if you stop managing, something goes wrong again, or on Output, where the fear is that without achievement you don't matter. Is the problem that you're not producing, or that you're not covered? Not producing is the Output answer. Not covered is the Ahead answer. Other rules could be under the listing too. The silence on the other side would have its own candidates and its own question.
None of the three tools was aimed at that. It may also be that Sunday night is only the end of a long week, and then nothing is under it.
04
What subtraction would look at
Subtraction removes explanations before it adds anything. For a couple, that means finding out whether there is one loop, and what each of you is protecting in it.
It may find that there is not enough to tell. It may find that the difficulty is plain and practical. Both are results.
05
What this page can't tell you
Whether to stay. That belongs to the two of you, and nothing here leans either way.
If trying everything has left either of you close to something heavier, licensed mental-health care is the right door.If tonight is an emergency, call or text 988 (US). This library is not that door.
What it is like to consider one more attempt is on Hoping Again After Being Let Down Before.