What do you do when your lover is saying that they’re going to leave. They’re packing their stuff and are ready to move out. How do you stop the breakup from happening?

How do you get things back to the way they were? How do you get your loved one to unpack their bags at home instead of somewhere else? There are lots of ways to deal with such a situation—a lot of things you should do, and some things you definitely shouldn’t do.

1) The “Shouldn’ts”

Don’t beg them to stay! I can remember, in minute detail (unfortunately), the way I begged my ex to not leave. I literally got down on my knees and grabbed him to stop him from leaving.

Did you notice I said “ex”? The first time I did this, it worked. We talked through our differences and were able to stay together for another couple of months. Then, it happened again. So, once again, I begged him to stay but he left anyway.

Our relationship was officially over. Your first instinct may be to beg and plead, but it just makes you look desperate and needy, and generally doesn’t work on your loved one.

Don’t try to make your loved one jealous. Some people go out and make new “friends” in an effort to make their significant other jealous enough to not leave. Most of the time, this doesn’t work, either. Instead of making the spouse jealous, it may give them the final push they need to leave for good. A slight bit of jealousy can give a solid relationship a spark, but not if it’s already on a downswing.

2) The “Shoulds”

The first thing you should do is step back and breathe. Give them some space. Admittedly, this is hard to do when you feel as though your world will fall apart without them. But, if they feel hemmed in, they’re not going to want to stay with you. Remember the old saying “You catch more flies with honey than vinegar?”

In giving them what they want, you are respecting their time and are giving yourself time to cool down, as well. In the heat of the argument, things are often said aren’t meant by either party. Time alone gives you the chance to regroup and to move onto the next step.

Step two involves figuring out what’s really going on in the relationship. Why does your loved one want to break up? Have you been taking the relationship for granted? Have you been fighting recently? Are all the fights about the same thing, or are they about random things?

If all the fights are about the same thing, then you already know what you have to work on. If they are about random things, there is probably some underlying argument simmering below the surface that hasn’t been discussed. Work on trying to figure out what that is.

The best advice is to ask them what their biggest problem with the relationship is. Sometimes their answer will give you the direction that you should move in next.

3) Ch-ch-ch-changes

Everybody changes; it’s a fact of life! Who you are when you’re a senior in high school is not who you’ll be when you’re 30. Who you are now may not be who you are in a few months.

This is often why relationships start to fall apart: you feel as though you don’t know the person you’re with anymore. Make some time to get to know each other again!

Do things that require that you are both alone together. You could go to a movie, but you really can’t talk well there. The best thing to do is to find something you can do that allows you to communicate with each other.

Open yourself up to your partner. Sometimes we focus so much on what we want that we neglect to think of how our partner is feeling. Once you are able to see their side of the argument, there’s a much better chance you can fix it.

Strong relationships are fixable, and it’s always better to try to stop a breakup before it happens than to try to fix it after it’s been broken. After all, you can always fix a crack in a vase, but putting it back together once it’s been totally smashed is a whole other matter.