In any relationship, there are moments of doubt. There are moments (or days, perhaps, maybe weeks and months) of questioning commitment, questioning sanity, questioning every emotion that led you to the brink of what can seem like an uncrossable chasm. Whether friendship or romance or family member, no relationship skates through a human life without moments of questionability.

Therapists and counselors over the years have carefully deconstructed successful and unsuccessful relationships to discover the things that cause breakdown and the things that create stability, like respect, common values, good communication and emotional maturity. But even if this deck is stacked and you’ve found what seems like a fool-proof match, there will come moments of doubt.

When I hit these relational walls, I make a list of pros and cons. Reasons why this relationship is important, the good things it brings to me, what I get out of it and appreciate about it, and reasons why it sucks. The irony of this list is that each sucky thing is usually rooted deeply in the twisting of one of the pros. The other irony of this list is that it’s very hard to come up with pros when you’re just flat pissed at somebody. The con list comes pretty easy. So I have learned to try to pause for a bit. Step back and look at the big picture and measure my discontent and angst against my overall mental well-being within the setting of this interpersonal connection.

It’s not like all of a sudden the common values you had parted ways and now you’re on different shores of the ocean. I mean, that happens, but in human growth and evolution it’s usually fairly gradual and you can see it coming a mile away. Respect is hard won and unfortunately, lost easily. But it can be earned back. There’s a definite possibility that even the best of communicators have a temporary lapse in both listening and in successfully delivering a message, but it’s unlikely that good communication skills are lost permanently, unless it’s intentional. Emotional maturity is also something that can be suspended momentarily, especially when good communication goes bad and certain triggers get, well, triggered.

It’s these moments of weakened defenses that can lead to destruction. Pros go from a list of positives to a cleverly worded protest against the other party (i.e. “their insecurity is adorable”) and cons become just a listed confirmation bias about all of their clear and present flaws. Sometimes though, writing the list can provide the tactical pause while your brain works to clear the air and when you get to the other end, you’re surprised by the results.

Either way, whether it’s a pause-then-list, or the listing is the pause, it’s a strategy I’ve adopted that has kept me from going completely apeshit and blowing things up that didn’t need to be. And I am writing now to remind myself. Even if the pros list is just a reminder that at the end of the day that you have those three vital pieces of a survivable relationship, it’s usually enough to outweigh a laundry list of petty grudges.