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Topics: Science, Sex and Relationships
Britt Jones
Psychologists have identified two significant moments which can predict the end of your partnership.
When a relationship ends, there is usually one person who saw it coming a long way off, and the other who is apparently blindsided by the sudden change of heart.
However, we all know that it was never sudden.
In fact, there are two important stages in a troubled relationship: one in which there's still a chance to salvage things and another where the end is inevitable.
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Research from psychology professors Janina Bühler from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and Ulrich Orth from the University of Bern, shows that the satisfaction within a relationship declines well before the breakup.
"In order to better understand dissolving relationships, we examined them from the point of view of time-to-separation. To do this, we applied a concept that is in general use in other fields of psychology," Bühler said in the study.
From the time things starts to sour, it can be years before the split - one to two, to be exact.
Once this happens, the level of dissatisfaction speeds up until the eventual end.
“Couples in question then move towards separation,” Bühler said.
The researchers found this information after studying data from 11,295 individuals, and they tracked their relationship periods from 12 to 21 years.
From this huge amount of analysis, the researchers found there were two key moments of a relationship’s decline.
The first is known as the ‘preterminal phase’ which occurs early in the decline and can last for several years.
At this point, it shows a gradual decline in the satisfaction of a relationship.
The second is known as the ‘terminal phase’ which is when a couple hits the ‘transition point’ where satisfaction levels dramatically drop.
This can last anywhere from seven to 28 months before the relationship comes to an end.
“Once this terminal phase is reached, the relationship is doomed to come to an end,” Bühler said. “This is apparent from the fact that only the individuals in the separation group go through this terminal phase, not the control group.”
However, those in the relationship don’t typically experience the two phases at the same time, and the one who breaks up with the other, has probably experienced the decline for a longer period.
“Partners pass through various phases,” Bühler explained. “They do not normally separate from one day to the next, and the way these phases impact on the two partners differs.”
In the terminal phase, working on yourself is futile - the relationship will end anyway.
"It is thus important to be aware of these relationship patterns. Initiating measures in the preterminal phase of a relationship, i.e., before it begins to go rapidly downhill, may thus be more effective and even contribute to preserving the relationship,” the researcher concluded.
So, if you start to notice these feelings in yourself or your partner, it might be time to come up with a plan together, to change and grow together, or to separate before the inevitable occurs.