A year ago today my partner (40F) sent me this [reddit post](https://www.reddit.com/r/AsOneAfterInfidelity/comments/pq33gx/what_year_23_of_reconciliation_looked_like/) and said she wondered what ours would look like. I (39M) was also curious, so I made myself a quick google form and every morning since I’ve submitted an entry about the previous day’s satisfaction in our relationship.
For additional context, a few weeks prior to that I had proposed, and she said she wasn’t sure. At that point we’d been together for 3 years and had been living together (with my 3 kids and her 2 kids from previous marriages) for 2 years. In those few years we’ve had a handful of topics that consistently lead to arguments. Neither of us wanted to end the relationship, but these arguments were clearly wearing down both of our satisfaction and confidence in the relationship. If we were going to stay together and try to make things work, I thought it would be helpful to see what the trends looked like as time went by and thought the google form would help both of us stay focused on adding good days to our life together.
First is a chart of how many days per month get marked as terrible (big fight that day), meh (smaller arguments or other discontent), average (not much going on between us that day), good (some good experiences to hold on to) or amazing (self-explanatory). Some days get more than one label. I also included how many times per month we have sex since physical intimacy is usually a pretty good indicator that things are going well (or not).
https://preview.redd.it/1mn61oby8go91.png?width=810&format=png&auto=webp&s=e75b531bc34197c54e2c5879fa228ccdbd9b85e5
Second is a chart of total negative days vs positive days per month.
https://preview.redd.it/t4945mr49go91.png?width=927&format=png&auto=webp&s=06c828c05090fb245725680e9251544b8ea36ece
Third is a chart of our rolling 14 day average. The peak 6 months ago is when she said yes and we eloped to Vegas. Since then the peaks have consistently fallen (with the exception of July where we did a lot of family summer vacation stuff). August sucked and September hasn’t been much better so far.
https://preview.redd.it/llgluxma9go91.png?width=1275&format=png&auto=webp&s=7175114111fad7e431b39170e14ce9f1afd76163
Fourth is a chart showing our potential vs reality. In 365 days where there is potential for it to be a good day, my cumulative current total of positive minus negative days is +33. Not sure what a reasonable target for a year would be for most couples, but seems like it should be way more than +33.
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https://preview.redd.it/asj47i9f9go91.png?width=1230&format=png&auto=webp&s=e7e3308863b723968f3fd9df93b23ca5a104ceef
Looking forward to seeing what life in September 2023 looks like…