What Causes Long-term Relationship To End?

[iAssistant 1]

When a relationship is already gets that long, it get boring and both become complacent. They do not make any effort anymore to please one another and to add element of surprise and excitement in their relationship because they are already confident that their partner loves them very much and wouldn't leave him/her. The most important thing is not to lose the spark in your relationship and love each other more every year.

[Indego_Media 1]

Relationships get stale, and if your not careful you mistake boredom for falling out of love. the spark that everyone is talking about doesn't just keep its self alight. it takes work and energy from both parties. I do think that there are times when people grow apart, when you have been with some one for some time, you may have changed, you may have decided that the course that you were traveling along no longer is right for you. Unfortunately this often means that couples split up if the other person is not willing to try change or compromise.I do believe that relationships take work, I know from experience how easy it is to let the "Spark" die, I also know how hard it is to keep the spark alive once the relationship has hit a major flat line.In all honestly if you love the person that you are with, and they love you then nothing is impossible, the sad part to that is that when you first fall in love with your special someone it quite often isn't love at all its more then likely to have been lust, and the spark from lust is harder to keep alight. Love is supposedly eternal so the spark from love is somewhat more manageable the that of lust's. the difference between love and lust well lets leave the sex out of it, lust encompasses all the newness and shinny parts of a new relationship, quite often when lust is presence the little things "habits" that people have they either don't notice or the ignore thinking its a little quirky idiosyncrasy that they have, the down side to this is that when it stops being first dates and romantic weekends away, and the day to day happenings kick in, those little quirky features that you tolerated, now start to annoy you beyond belief, this is when you either need to find the things that you Love in your partner or start to have open direct discussions with them. cause brushing it under the rug will only allow it to grow and fester like an infected wound..... and we all know that an infection not treated correctly can kill you.......In short there are most likely X number of reasons for a relationship to break down, and long term it may just be that one day you woke up and realized that your life is not what you want any more...... you owe it to your self to be honest and composed when talking to your partner about your feelings, weather its been 12 months or 12 years, it will still hurt if you can't work it out. You also owe it to you and your partner to make sure that your compromises are not all consuming. you need to know that there is balance in the relationship, that there is trust and genuine belief that you are both wanting the same thing.To grow old together, happy with the life that you have lived. If this is not how you see your life progressing then its time to agree to move on. long term or not it will never be an easy decision.............my thoughts anyway. hugs

[iGuest 3]

Recently, someone I know broke up with their boyfriend of six years. The first thing that came to my mind was "what makes you realise that the relationship is no good after six years, that you couldn't have known at, say, 3, 4 or 5 years?"
Apologies if this is too dumb and open-ended a question, but at my age (19) and lack of life experience, I just can't get my head around it. I'm currently in a year-long relationship, and it's bizarre to think that in 2 years it's possible that we'll hate each other. Excluding the obvious betrayals such as infidelity, what the hell would cause that?

I understand that the responses will be varied, and it's the range of experiences that I'm interested in hearing. The issue(s) that ended the relationship -- did they arise unexpectedly? Or did you always sort of know? I have this morbid curiosity to know what can make something really really good evaporate into nothing.

My friends are too young to help me with this, and I'm too impatient to wait three heartbreaks and a restraining order to find out myself.

Hello... i was actuall looking for answers like your question and i found this site...im 16 and im going out wit this guy for nearly 3 years.....we were perfect....happy loving having fun talking kissing cuddling all the things you do.....hes my best friend well and truly. He has thought me how to love...iv had bad experiences....anyway the point is he went to college at the start of september and now....hes been thinking about breaking up for many reasons....how long weve been together and Where were going....from what iv seen so far we were going the whole way and no i did not ever scare him about that marriage etc talk. W never fight were like2 peas in a pod...i never suffocated him ...him to me either.....Its just the change of scene that brought this on....i still dont know whats going to happen and yes since he said it my world has crashed down on my very unsuspecting head....i well and truly love him...he just wants to experience new things but he has yet to relize its even better to share them with some one and if that person is your best friend then....your sorted and in the right place in life

[k_nitin_r 8]

There are lots of things that cause long-term relationships to end. When people drift apart, such as in long-distance relationships, they tend to forget the good times that they have had together and attempt to fill in the void left in their lives. At other times, it may be a lack of commitment to the relationship. It may even be the realisation that there was nothing between the two but infatuation and a relationship cannot last based on infatuation alone. In a relationship, there is a give and take and when one side feels he/she is being taken advantage of, there's the beginning of the end.A heart break is not necessarily something bad. It gives you the experience that you need to gain maturity. To have maturity means to be the one that works on maintaining and mending the relationship but that too comes with expectations that the other will do the same when the time comes.I would also go as far as to state that if you have never had an argument or a fight in a long relationship, chances are that when you do actually have an argument or a fight, it would take a great deal of understanding from both sides to get through it. A relationships that has gone through the highs and lows is more likely to survive through the challenges than a relationship that has been all roses and goody-goody stuff. Staying together in thick and thin is what makes a relationship between two people worth it.