If you’ve been to an engagement party, bridal shower, or wedding, you’ve probably heard a well-meaning relative offer these sage words of wisdom: Marriage is work. Hard work. Persistent work. A lifelong project. The adage is instructive, but it’s also a warning — this relationship will try your patience, and for it to endure, you must be willing to put forth the effort.

This is undeniably true. All relationships require maintenance to survive. No two people will ever see eye-to-eye on everything, will never have enough time to spend together, and will, at some point, feel a gulf of distance between them. Healthy relationships are constant conversations; they require cooperation, give and take. Anything less is just complacency.

But, in today’s culture, relational upkeep is increasingly considered problematic. The rallying cry to “protect your peace” and incessant warnings around “red flags” encourage individuals to part with relationships that require any elbow grease, fine-tuning, or uncomfortable conflict resolution. This is, perhaps, a response to the longstanding expectation that women in heterosexual relationships will overlook, excuse, or attempt to correct bad behavior.

Wouldn’t it be nice, then, if you could pinpoint exactly how much “work” is too much work? If you could identify the number of times you’re supposed to re-tread the same old argument before you can throw in the towel? How do you decide when a rough patch is just reality?

In between the two extremes of “cut them off” and “do anything to make it work” is the goldilocks of romantic labor: enough effort from both parties to ensure the relationship can grow. While everyone maintains a different line for what they consider “too much” work, research supports the idea that people who put effort into their relationships are happier in the long run — and that work might look much more humdrum than you think.

But keeping a partnership afloat shouldn’t come at the expense of your own mental and physical health. As impersonal as it may seem, it helps to think of relationships as another job: Just like dissatisfied employees search for greener pastures, burnt-out couples shouldn’t be ashamed to leave a bad fit behind.

The labor of love

Working to maintain a romantic relationship is a somewhat recent phenomenon. Until the 20th century, people largely got married and stayed married — “and they didn’t really talk about their relationships in terms of this work analogy,” says Kristin Celello, an associate professor of history at Queens College, City University of New York and author of Making Marriage Work: A History of Marriage and Divorce in the Twentieth-Century United States.

But by the end of the 19th century and early 20th century, with divorce rates climbing, a hodgepodge........

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