- What does the questionnaire actually cover?
- Fifteen sections, in an order that matters. It opens with how the relationship began, then separates what you gave from what you received, then what you did right from what you did wrong and could not see. The middle covers communication, conflict and repair, emotional and physical intimacy, money and daily life, and family, friends and the outside world. The last sections are the decline, you as you are today, advice for your future, and an open section at the end.
- How long ago does the relationship need to have ended?
- There is no rule. The useful test is whether you can describe a hard moment without needing to win it. Answer too soon and you are mostly recording the grievance, which is real but not yet informative. Years later works too — nothing in it depends on the ending being recent.
- What if I was the one who ended it?
- It works either way. The same 15 sections run whichever of you ended it — what you gave, what you received, what you did right, what you did wrong, the decline. If your account of why it ended has hardened into a few sentences you can deliver without thinking, you will not get through 88 questions on those few sentences.
- Will this help me get back together with them?
- That is not what it is built for, and it is a poor instrument for it. What it produces is a detailed account of a relationship that ended, unflattering in places — closer to a record of what happened than a case for trying again.
- Why does it cover money and household when the relationship is over?
- Because a relationship is lived in those places, and endings are usually explained in terms that never touch them. Money and the running of a household get a section; so do family, friends and the world outside the two of you. A lot of the friction lived there, and the retold version of a breakup tends to leave it out.
- What if the relationship was abusive?
- Then this is not the right tool. If the relationship involved physical violence, ongoing abuse, or anything that required a protective order or a no-contact arrangement, please pause rather than work through it here, and get support first. The National Domestic Violence Hotline is 1-800-799-7233 or thehotline.org, and they help with planning, not only with emergencies. The resources at the foot of this page are there whether or not any of that applies.
- Can I give this questionnaire as a gift?
- Yes. Sign in, open your dashboard and choose "Gift access" on this questionnaire, then enter the person's email address. They get an email with a link to claim it, and it arrives as soon as you have paid, so it is never late. Their answers are theirs: nothing they write is shown to you. Before you can give this one, you answer a few quick yes/no questions, to help make sure a gift is right for the situation.