Couple gives each other 'performance improvement plan' to fix their relationship, sparking debate

Several creators out there make videos giving out relationship advice and hacks on different social media platforms and there are times when their advice or stories are controversial. One such story has emerged from TikTok where a woman has taken up a rather controversial way to fix her fragile relationship with her boyfriend. Nadeen Hui (@nadeenhui on TikTok) posted a video that has raised questions and eyebrows. The woman says in the video that she and her boyfriend gave each other "performance improvement plans" and this task has seemingly saved their failing relationship.

In general, a performance improvement plan is something that your boss might give you in the office when you are about to be fired. Hui possibly decided to choose this method as a last straw to save her relationship. She explained that in the beginning, she and her boyfriend started having a lot of issues to the point that Hui began to suspect that they were simply not compatible and was ready to call it quits. 

But she decided to take some lessons from her engineer boyfriend's mindset and decided to introduce a structure in their living space which transformed their relationship for the better. "We decided to do a performance improvement plan and before you come at me, I know it’s kind of harsh to some of you but he’s an engineer and sometimes it’s really hard to communicate with him without using something that he can already relate to," she explains. "Plus he kind of liked it." So, they shared notes with daily and weekly tasks they needed to do and a set of things that they needed to work on and Hui claimed that it worked out really well.

"Like, even now, for our household chores, things that he’s responsible for, we use a kanban board," Hui continued. Hui concluded the video by saying that they also do weekly retrospectives to check in on how they’re both doing, which is her favorite part. Regardless of the woman getting a successful result from the little experiment she did, most people on the internet weren't too supportive of this idea. Hui received a lot of backlash on her original video and she felt like it was necessary to make up a follow-up video to explain things in a better way.

"Some of y’all in my comments, especially the men, think when I said that I PIP'd my boyfriend that it was really toxic and wondering why I didn’t get PIP’d, too," she said in the second video. She reminded people that she was also PIP'd by her boyfriend and that the PIP was not an "ultimatum" or a "manipulation tactic."

The comments fellow TikTok users left on her video, were polarizing but most of them supported Hui's idea. @kirinvsworld wrote, "Relationships take a lot of time and effort from both parties. I’m glad you found a method that worked for your relationship!" @madebyth commented, "I think it was brilliant that you took a system that he understands and applied it to your relationship. I don't see it as a problem." 

@blukai__ noted, "I wish my ex made it this easy when we were going through problems. I would have loved a checklist of things I needed to work on." @talkingvegas wondered, "So what did you do on your end of the PIP or did your ex just accept that he is 100% the problem in that relationship?" @bellyy018 remarked, "Dont mind them these are the men that are manipulative and narcissistic that's why. This is for mature people who choose what they want in life."

You can follow Nadeen Hui (@nadeenhui) on TikTok for more videos on relationships and lifestyle.