Why do Relationships Fail? 251

Why do Relationships Fail?

What Happens In relationships?

It’s easy to fall in love. But it’s a lot harder to stay in love. We all want love to last. We all want to live happily ever after. No one decides to get married and say to his or her partner: "Hey, honey, I’ve been thinking. Let’s get married and have a wonderful two or three years together. Then, let’s get tired of each other and get divorced –what do you say? Or "darling, let’s live together and have a great sex life for four or five years, then let’s start fighting, feel resentful, have some extramarital affairs and then split up." No one falls in love and plans to fall out of love. But it happens, and when it happens, it hurts.

What Is The Norm?

Approximately one out of every two marriages in the United States ends in divorce. We are living in a divorce culture. Out of the couples who do remain married, it’s certain that a good number are no longer happy or in love, despite the fact they aren’t officially divorced.

These statistics are not encouraging. Their real message to you is that if you plan to get married, you have a fifty-fifty chance of getting divorced. (If you are reading this and are already married or just in a relationship with someone, the same unpleasant forecast applies to you). You don’t have to be a gambler to see that these are terrible odds. You probably wouldn’t invest your money in a business deal if you were told you had a fifty- percent chance of losing it. Yet, like most people, you continue to get involved in relationships without thinking much about how to avoid joining the ranks of the fifty- percent that don’t make it.
There is no way to definitely insure that any relationship will last, but you can at least learn to preserve the love that you had.

Let’s take a closer look at the fifty-percent of relationships that "succeed." Stop right now and ask yourself these questions: "How many couple do I know whom I admire, whose relationship seems like one I would like to have for myself? If you are like most people,, you will have a hard time coming up with many examples of "good relationships." Between forty and seventy percent of married couples aren’t satisfied with their partners and have had outside affairs. One recent survey showed that the greater the household income, the more affairs the couples had. It’s obvious from these statistics that money is not the solution for marital happiness. The American Dream of a house, two cars and a happy family has ended in divorce all too many times.

Many people who stick it out in relationships aren’t even able to look at their problems and admit to themselves and their partner that they aren’t satisfied. They pretend to be happy when they are really feeling resentful, sad or numb. They must pretend because it would hurt too much to look at the truth. They are afraid to look at their problems because they don’t have a solution. So they keep up the appearance of a relationship while all the time they are dying inside. Sometimes the loneliest people place in the world is lying next to someone who doesn’t love you any more or someone you have stopped loving. How many times have you felt surprised when you heard friends of yours where getting a divorce or splitting up? On the surface everything looked great but the love was dead.

links: digg this    del.icio.us    technorati    reddit