By Just Ask Maxx

Every fall my inbox fills up with the same question, just wearing different clothes. This year TikTok gave it a name: the October 1st rule.

Here’s the idea. By the first of October, you decide whether the person you’re seeing is coming with you into the holidays. Thanksgiving. Christmas. The family group chat. New Year’s Eve. If they’re not, you let them go now, before the season makes leaving harder.

People laugh about it. I don’t. Because under the joke is a real question most people avoid all year: Am I choosing this person, or am I just afraid of being alone in December?

What the October 1st rule gets right

The holidays magnify everything. A relationship that’s “fine” in August can feel unbearable at your aunt’s dinner table, when everyone asks when you two are getting engaged and you realize you don’t even know if he’s coming to Christmas.

Deciding before that pressure hits is smart. Clear heads make better decisions than lonely ones.

What it misses

A date on a calendar won’t do the work for you. A client of mine, I’ll call her Dana, did her own October check-in last year. She asked herself if she was happy. She said yes. She stayed.

By February she was back in my office. Not because he cheated. Because she’d asked the wrong question. She asked “Am I happy?” when the real question was “Is he showing up the way I need, or am I making excuses because it’s the season to be together?”

Happy is a mood. Showing up is a pattern. Measure the pattern.

How to do your own relationship check-in

We’re two weeks past October 1st. It’s not too late. Answer these with what has actually happened, not what you hope will happen:

• When I needed this person this year, where were they?
• Do I feel calmer or more anxious after we talk?
• Have we talked about the future, or do I avoid the subject so they don’t leave?
• Would I introduce them to the people who love me most, and feel proud?
• If nothing changed for a whole year, would I still want this?

That last one is the one people skip. Don’t skip it.

If the answer is no

Leaving before the holidays will hurt. Staying through them for the photos hurts longer. You don’t owe anyone a plus-one. You owe yourself the truth.

If the answer is yes

Then say so, out loud. Tell them you’re choosing them. Love grows where it’s named.

Need to talk tonight? Relationship Rescue connects you with a Life Coaching Today coach 24/7, no package required. Find your coach here.

Want to work with me? Book a free 15-minute discovery call with Just Ask Maxx.

Read the book: Red Flags: A Woman’s Survival Guide to Dating in the Manosphere by Kiddada Asmara Grey and Georgia Ann Hunter Jones. Get your copy on Amazon.

Just Ask Maxx is the founder of Life Coaching Today, a Master Relationship Coach, Master Hypnotherapist, Certified NLP Practitioner and Certified Divorce Mediator. She writes the weekly Just Ask Maxx column and co-hosts He Said, She Said.