We start up the study of the stability of general graph pairs. This notion is a generalization of the concept of the stability of graphs. We say that a pair of graphs $(Γ,Σ)$ is stable if $Aut(Γ\timesΣ) \cong Aut(Γ)\times Aut(Σ)$ and unstable otherwise, where $Γ\timesΣ$ is the direct product of $Γ$ and $Σ$. An unstable graph pair $(Γ,Σ)$ is said to be a nontrivially unstable graph pair if $Γ$ and $Σ$ are connected coprime graphs, at least one of them is non-bipartite, and each of them has the property that different vertices have distinct neighbourhoods. We obtain necessary conditions for a pair of graphs to be stable. We also give a characterization of a pair of graphs $(Γ, Σ)$ to be nontrivially unstable in the case when both graphs are connected and regular with coprime valencies and $Σ$ is vertex-transitive. This characterization is given in terms of the $Σ$-automorphisms of $Γ$, which are a new concept introduced in this paper as a generalization of both automorphisms and two-fold automorphisms of a graph.