No one gets into a relationship with the hope that it will someday fail. Quite the opposite — early romance is typically filled with optimism and excitement, as well as dreams of how the future might look with this new person in your life. Unfortunately, even relationships that are built on love and respect don’t always last.
“Through the course of a long-term relationship, ideally people are growing and changing. In some relationships, people grow together or in ways that are tolerable to one another, and in other relationships, people grow apart,” says Bonnie Scott, a licensed professional counselor in San Antonio, Texas, who specializes in relationship counseling. This is not necessarily right or wrong, good or bad, it’s just the reality of relationships, she says.
Even marriage — the societal marker for long-term commitment — is notoriously fragile. The likelihood of a marriage lasting “‘till death do us part” varies significantly, according to U.S. Census data, depending on things like the age of the partners, the length of the marriage, and whether it’s a first or subsequent marriage. While divorce rates are falling overall, most of us have friends or family members who are divorced, or we have been through it ourselves.
The data show that about half of people who got married for the first time in the early ’70s made it to at least their 35th anniversary. But there’s no way to tell whether any given relationship will last. “There is no typical length of a relationship, as it varies greatly depending on the individuals involved and the circ*mstances of the relationship,” says Martha Tara Lee, a relationship counselor based in Singapore who has a doctorate in human sexuality.
But what’s clear is that abuse, infidelity, or “toxic” communication aren’t the only reasons relationships end. Sometimes people just fall out of love. Here are nine reasons why that happens, according to psychologists and relationship therapists.
1. Fear of Commitment
It’s certainly not unusual for one person in a relationship to be ready for the “next step,” while the other person, for whatever reason, isn’t quite there yet. “In a relationship, one party is usually more interested in getting married than the other. When the one person does not feel ready or is not sure they want to spend the rest of their life with the other person, this usually leads to a breakup. Many couples break up because they can’t agree on the issue of marriage,” says Aura de los Santos, a clinical psychologist based in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
Fear of commitment isn’t limited to the issue of marriage. When one person is ready to make a change in a relationship that signifies a deeper commitment, whether that’s meeting the parents, moving in together, getting married, or starting a family, and the other person isn’t, there’s likely to be friction that could ultimately end the relationship.
2. Different Life Goals
When a relationship is just getting started, it’s easy to imagine that the differences that exist between the two peoples’ goals or values will be easy to resolve. Maybe one person has always wanted to move to the country and start a farm, while the other is committed to a career that requires living in a big city. “Couples may end a relationship because they have different life projects and are unable to agree on them. Neither want to make certain sacrifices for the other person’s dreams,” explains de los Santos. “When they cannot agree on the future, the relationship usually ends.”
3. Different Values or Beliefs
In the same vein, cultural, political, or religious differences that don’t seem like a big deal early on in a relationship may start leading to disagreements over time. For instance, things like religion can become a major sticking point once kids come along, if the partners have different ideas about how to raise them.
“There are couples who come from different backgrounds, and while they may love each other, they are unable to agree on the prevailing values and beliefs. At first, they often say that they will respect each others’ differences, but the cultural clashes that later occur reach the point where one or both cannot deal with it, leading to the end of the relationship,” de los Santos says.
4. Long Distance Relationships (Physically or Emotionally)
As much as it’s nice to believe that absence makes the heart grow fonder, it’s sometimes simply untrue. While not every long-distance relationship is destined to fail, they’re certainly harder to sustain. And some — even those that started strong — may just not have staying power. “The distance leads to a lot of stress for not being together, for not sharing important moments, and when they do not set a date for the distance to end, ending the relationship becomes one of the first solutions,” says de los Santos.
And distance doesn’t only relate to a physical separation measured in miles. Sometimes a couple may live together or in close proximity, but their schedules create distance through pure unavailability. “In the U.S., people tend to work a lot, and that gets in the way of the time and energy needed for maintaining a relationship. Partners tend to feel abandoned or annoyed when their partner is working a lot more than allows for connecting,” says Dr. Lee.
5. Personal Changes or Issues
People are complicated, and relationships are often challenged by the normal life stressors that everyone faces. Work changes, health challenges, and family issues can’t be isolated from the intricacies of a personal relationship. Sometimes, weathering storms together can bring a couple closer, but that isn’t always the case.
For example, if one person in a relationship is battling depression or just lost a parent and is carrying the weight of their grief, the relationship may suffer. “Sometimes one of the members of the relationship is going through a difficult situation and this prevents them from being able to give the best in their relationship. They don’t neglect the relationship because they want to, but their personal problems often take away their energy,” says de los Santos.
On the other side of that, if the person dealing with extra stress or adversity doesn’t think they’re getting adequate support and understanding from their partner, resentment could build and lead to a break. These types of relationship challenges are hard to navigate because unless a couple has faced a difficult situation before, it’s almost impossible to know exactly how each person will respond.
6. Disagreements Over Day-to-Day Routines
Most of life, and most relationships, are anchored in the mundane — getting up, going to work, caring for kids, making dinner, cleaning the house, and running errands. Even people who appear to have the most exciting relationships still have to vacuum, wash the dishes, and get groceries.
Disagreements over these seemingly small issues may seem navigable at first. But if after several years there’s still a fight every night about whether the dinner dishes can stay in the sink or should be washed before bed, the little issues may start to loom larger. “This is one of the main issues I hear about in couples counseling,” says Scott. “So much negotiation goes into making this a balance that works, and it also has to be revisited and reworked reasonably often. People get really tired of it.”
7. Growing Apart and Losing Interest
The reality is, people change. The pre-kids “you” that you were at 23 — just starting your professional career, enjoying an active nightlife, and traveling whenever you could — is not the same as the 45-year-old you — well into your career (maybe even your second or third) with a couple of kids and a few big life losses under your belt. If you start a relationship when you’re young, the changes you and your partner go through over the years are bound to affect how you see and feel about each other. “As people change and grow, they may find they are no longer compatible with their partner,” says Lee.
What you once found interesting about your partner (and vice versa), may no longer keep you engaged, and you both may find you stop working on maintaining this interest. “When people first meet, they are so excited to learn about a new person and make all kinds of discoveries, and they are working to be interesting to the other person. Over time, we lose that curiosity, but also, people stop trying to be interesting. People get bored. Boredom becomes annoyance really quick,” Scott says.
8. Sexual Incompatibility
It may not be talked about or considered as often as it should, but if you or your partner’s sexual needs or wants aren’t being met, it doesn’t bode well for your relationship. And just as people change, people’s sexual needs may change. What was once a satisfying sex life could turn into a disappointing point of friction for one or both of you. “If partners have different sexual needs or preferences, it can lead to frustration and dissatisfaction in the relationship,” notes Lee.
9. Different Approach to Money
Money management is another one of those sticking points that may seem like it should be easy enough to navigate, but rarely turns out that way. This is because money, and how it’s spent or saved, tends to be a sign of priorities and needs. If one person is a spender and the other is a saver, and those inclinations are tied to lifelong values, finding a way to compromise isn’t always easy.
“Money is a key piece of building a life with someone else. We all have some weird relationship with it, and often discussions about money are difficult to keep civil and productive. Over time, that stress wears on a relationship,” says Scott.
Can These Issues Be Overcome?
While many of the challenges in a relationship can be identified and discussed before it gets very far along, not everything is predictable. It’s impossible to know if someone will lose a job or be faced with an illness that could significantly alter their life. It’s also impossible to foresee all the ways two people will change over time.
That said, there are some ways to safeguard against these issues. “It’s important to have a good communication pattern where people can talk about these things when they need to,” says Scott. “Most issues in a long-term relationship are perpetual and will cycle back around at some point, and successful relationships have a framework for managing conflict instead of solving it.”
It’s also important to remember that relationships take work. Expecting everything to be fine without taking the time to maintain the relationship will rarely work out. “It takes a different set of skills to start a relationship than it takes to maintain one,” says Scott. If you’re not investing time in your relationship and working together to stay strong, the relationship may eventually come to an end, even if there’s nothing inherently “wrong.”
