A brief first-person account (from Mike Andes) about relationship strain caused by business-related stress and his partner's unemployment after she quit to join him. The couple chose a four-month separation—agreeing she would live at the one apartment he had—as a deliberate test to either save the relationship or confirm they preferred being apart.
Michelle and I split because I was not a happy person to be around and she wasn't working at the time. She had quit her job to come with me. I was like, oh, everything's gonna be great. You know, that got so stressful and I was so stressed. Like we were apart for four months. So we made the decision to try to save the relationship. It was, you know what? I'm not a happy person to be around because of what's happening in business. She wasn't happy because she wasn't working. So the two together just was real bad. So we agreed that she'd go live at the one apartment that I had. So. So we were four months apart and I knew that was either going to save the relationship or it was going to let us know, like, hey, we actually like being apart. So you go your way, I'll go my way.
