Bay Area CBT Center · Worksheet
Couples Values Tracker
This worksheet is for anyone stuck on the question should I stay or should I go? It separates two things that are almost impossible to tell apart from the inside: whether the relationship isn’t working, and whether your own behavior is part of why it isn’t working. You answer that by tracking your own consistency with your values first — and only then looking at your partner’s.
Directions — follow these in order
- Write down your values. Not goals, not what you want from your partner — how you want to show up in this relationship. Honest, kind, considerate, assertive, reliable, collaborative, consistent, playful, affectionate. Write down a lot of them, more than feels necessary.
- Rate how important each one is, 0 to 10. Here’s the rule: you can’t make everything a 10. If all of them are 9s and 10s, you haven’t chosen anything. Use decimals to force yourself to discriminate — 9.8, 9.5, 9.2, 8.7. Being discerning here is the whole point; it tells you which values you’d fight for and which ones you’d trade.
- Pick your rhythm: daily or weekly. If daily, rate at the end of each day. If weekly, rate for the whole week.
- Rate yourself, 0 to 100%, on each value. How consistent were you with that value over the period? Not how you felt — how you behaved.
- Then rate your partner, 0 to 100%, on the same values. Same question, their behavior.
- Last, rate your satisfaction with the relationship, 0 to 100%, for that period.
The rule that makes this work: get yourself to 70% or above first
Your job is not to catch your partner. Your job is to get every one of your own numbers to 70% or higher, and to keep them there. Until you’ve done that, you cannot answer the question you’re actually asking.
Here’s why. If you’re honest at 30%, considerate at 40%, assertive at 30%, kind at 40% — you’ll never know whether the relationship is failing because you’re with the wrong person or because of how you’re behaving in it. Those two look identical from the inside. So you take your own behavior off the table first.
Once you’re at 70% or above across the board, you look at your partner’s column with curiosity rather than a case to prove. Very often it simply changes on its own: when you change your behavior, a willing partner moves with you.
And if it doesn’t — if you’re sitting at 70s, 80s and 90s week after week and your partner is still at 50s and below — that’s information you couldn’t have gotten any other way, and it makes the decision to leave much clearer and much less agonizing. Either the relationship gets better, or it gets clearer that it isn’t working. Both are progress.
Step 1Your values, and how much each one matters
List the values you want to live by in this relationship, then rate how important each one is from 0 to 10. Decimals are encouraged. If everything lands on the same number, you haven’t ranked anything — go back and split the ties.
| Value | Importance 0–10, decimals fine | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | |||
| 2 | |||
| 3 | |||
| 4 | |||
| 5 | |||
| 6 |
Common ones — tap to add, then edit the wording to fit you:
Step 2Rate each period
Rate yourself first, then your partner, on the same values — behavior, not intention. Then rate your satisfaction with the relationship for the period. Anything under 70% in your own column is where your work is.
Day 1
| Value | Importance | Me 0–100% | Partner 0–100% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | — | |||
| 2 | — | |||
| 3 | — | |||
| 4 | — | |||
| 5 | — | |||
| 6 | — |
Fill in your own column first. Your numbers are the ones you can do something about.
Your privacy. Everything you type stays in your own browser. Nothing is sent to Bay Area CBT Center and nothing is stored on our servers. Your entries are saved on this device only, so you can keep tracking over time — use Clear all to erase them. If you email yourself a copy, that email travels through your own mail provider. This worksheet is an educational tool and is not therapy, a diagnosis, or a substitute for care.