How do you know it's time to split up?

[Tenerife2015]

As above..

Dunno, but I know I dread coming home when he's here.

Why do you ask? Is it a new thing, something that's happened, or a festering heap of daily crap?

Any of the below, really:

When neither of you wants to fight for it anymore.
When neither of you enhances the other's life in some way.
When the relationship is damaging towards at least one party.

A relationship should make your life better, not worse. If it's dragging you down, time to examine why and if that's fixable. Sometimes it's not.

I don't know, we keep having minor arguments and they're just wearing me down... It goes from zero to shouting pretty quickly and we don't seem to have patience with each other anymore

Er the fact your asking means you want to split.

When I got a black eye would have been a good indicator, but it took a long time after that.

I think a helpful yardstick can be: if your friend was telling you about your situation as theirs and your advice would be to leave. I have been in many situations where my advice to a friend would be to walk, if it were the same, but in the past I've not done it - good to have learned.

There's no DV, we just seem to rub each other up the wrong way. During arguments he twists what I'm saying then calls me crazy when I blow! I'm losing the will to keep trying!

I don't want to be with him, but I don't want to be without him either

Do you have DC? Would counselling help? Are you happy, ever? Life is short but divorce is hard...

This book helped me:

www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B002RI937Y/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1&tag=mumsnetforum-21

Yes we have a DC whose 9 months. We are happy a lot of the time but argue every few days. When in the middle of arguing I just want him gone, I start imaging life just me and DC and how we'd cope. Then he cries, begs for us to be ok again and I can't say no. I don't want to hurt him.

....when you post the question on MN....

Generally as above, but if you have a new baby and have not much sleep it's easy to stop being so kind to each other - are you happy generally with how he looks after the baby and his attitude to you?
I know for the first few years after kids we were just too knackered to properly communicate but I did recognize the fundamental decency in my Dp which made it worth putting the extra effort in to keep our relationship ticking over until it got easier - the kids slept more and we learnt to be parents

What are you arguing about?

The first year of DD's life was really hard with tiredness and there was some other stuff going on.

9 months is hard. Oh so very hard.

It gets easier. Much much easier.

Then you can start living each other again. Or not if the rot is too deep.

I'd suggest if there is nothing in particular, just a sense of unhappiness of rubbing each other up the wrong way you wait it out. If you can talk it through with your oh sensibly without sniping (bearing in mind you will both feel awful right now so may not respond elegantly about the problems you are both causing each other) that is better than just being it.

But this stage is the pits