Fourteen months old, the world’s greatest, most romantic and closest relationship ever (according to Bethany) has encountered unexpected difficulties as of late. The movie nights just aren’t hitting the same, the communication is breaking down as much as the world’s climate, and David is constantly ‘busy at work’ nowadays on Friday nights. Sooner or later Bethany would need to make a decision. A decision so complicated that she would have to use a problem-solving method used for the toughest legal disputes.

Issue, rule, application, conclusion. Creating the beloved acronym IRAC. The structure Bethany so dearly loves using. And judging by her marks last semester, a structure Bethany needs more practice using. It was perfect for this ‘legal’ problem.

‘The issue is whether the current status of my relationship with David satisfies the conditions needed for a breakup’, wrote Bethany, happy with the verbose sentence to pick up on any additional marks.

‘The rule is that the issue in the relationship must not be able to be resolved with working things out, as established by Indigo v Harry. If the issue or multiple issues – such as the passion in a relationship being unable to be reignited or the partner being as loyal as a certain “high-profile Queensland man” – are unable to be resolved, then not ending the relationship soon suggests you are a coward (Jessica v Dylan).’ That was one of Bethany’s best paragraphs in law school yet.

For the application section, she wrote ‘Unlike in Indigo v Harry, where Harry was willing to work through any relationship issues with Indigo, David is as unwilling to negotiate for any compromise as a certain US president. As the chemistry with David has officially reached the level of a D-tier 1970s romcom, Jessica v Dylan suggests that the time to end the relationship is now’.

Now for the conclusion to a rigorous problem. ‘It is thus likely that the relationship will be considered to be in the “we need to talk” stage’.

The work was done. The topic of ending ‘the world’s greatest, most romantic and closest relationship ever’ was somehow less emotionally damaging than the average law school exam.

No more to come.