Should my partner and I take a "break" from our relationship?

Alison Taylor has discovered that gut feelings don't lie about second chances

As is often the way with deals made in relationships, a break tends to suit one party more than the other. Depending who you talk to, it will either give you the space and time to work out how you feel – you know, without that person hanging around being annoyingly themselves – or it will give you the space and time to find the guts to end the relationship, without that person hanging around being annoyingly themselves. Either way, you don't want that annoying person around.

Recently, I heard about somebody I vaguely know being in a break situation and, in Carrie Bradshaw style, it got me thinking. More than that, it got me feeling. I would describe the feeling as a tightening in my stomach, the sort you get when you're backed into a corner, literally or figuratively, and you don't quite know how to get out. The feeling of being stifled and anxious. I was transported back to the time I played the break card when I was desperately unhappy in a relationship, in my late twenties.

We agreed to a break, he left the flat that we shared (though I paid for) and suddenly that tightness in my stomach disappeared. Then he came back when the two weeks were up, and so did the tightness. You see where this is going? I wish I could have tuned into that tightness back then and saved myself the ball-ache (I mean heartache) of agreeing to "give it another go", but I couldn't. So the relationship became even more messy and drawn-out than it had already been.

And that's the heartbreaking thing about breaks. Really, deep down, you know, don't you? For whatever reason you don't want that person to be around any more. You feel relieved when they're not. De-stifled. Free.

Take a minute, now, to imagine that person back, the one you sent off on a break. See?

@lovefoolforever