My last (failed) relationship, it turns out, is a psychological cliché, which is disheartening but at least it gives me plenty of company. If you’d peeked through my windows, you would have seen me—imploring with tears in my eyes or angry with my voice raised—demanding that we address the problems we were having. You’d also have seen my partner, his arms folded across his chest, silent and unresponsive, a dismissive look on his face.

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Does being a “cat person” or a “dog person” (or neither or both) reveal your true personality? There’s a body of research that says it does, and suggests that we’re probably giving the question short shrift when we’re scouting out prospective dates or deciding whom to marry; hiring an employee or a nanny; choosing a therapist, dentist or lawyer; or meeting someone new.

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When it comes to resilience, the playing field isn’t level: One person fails at a venture and goes down for the count, while another immediately starts planning a comeback. A divorce proves to be impossible for one person to recover from while, for someone else, it becomes just a small but telling detail in a larger, and fuller, life story.

A setback is framed as inspiration in one scenario, and a slide down the slope in another.

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Most people, understandably, will do almost anything to avoid going to court for any number of reasons, including the financial cost, the loss of privacy, the inevitable calcification of antagonism between you and someone you married, the pain it causes children and other family members, and the fear of putting your life in the hands of a complete stranger, sitting on a bench at the front of a courtroom. (Not to mention all those movies—think Kramer vs. Kramer, The War of the Roses, or The Squid and the Whale—that act as cautionary tales, the horror stories bounced around the Internet, and those of people you know.)

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Source: Photograph by Sebastian Pichler. Copyright free. Unsplash.com

One of the questions I asked myself again and again, especially during my protracted divorce, was how I managed to choose such a person as a partner and how did I not see who he was. It’s not exactly an original question since the 20/20 hindsight you acquire after a relationship is over—the field of red flags that look like poppies in late spring, the click of the puzzle pieces as they fall in to place, the recall of the oh-so-obvious behaviors—is enough to make any thinking woman or man descend into self-blame.

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