How to recognise when your relationship may be in trouble.

There are four stages that a relationship goes through when it starts to go wrong and by recognising what they are you are more able to make changes to what’s going on and be able to do something about it before it’s too late.

1. Disillusionment / discontentment

The honeymoon period is over and things start to settle down into a more regular routine, the cracks begin to show, initially they may be small things that you may not have noticed about your partner before or they could be things that you noticed but thought they didn’t really matter and now they are starting to wear you down, whichever way it starts; try and address issues now when they first begin to bother you rather than to allow them to fester and turn into something bigger that is harder to overcome. By being able to discuss issues that are bothering you, and looking for ways to improve the situation you will find that you are more likely to be able to work things through and deal with bigger differences.

2. Deterioration

This is when those cracks turn in chasms and previous discontentment’s can turn into resentment and things really start to deteriorate. Arguments and disagreements can start over nothing because underneath all the little things everything has become a mixture of unhappiness. Relationships need nurturing and working on constantly to enable people to be able to live together and stay together for any length of time. There will always be differences of opinion as you are still two individuals as well as part of a couple. If you don’t work at being part of a couple that decline in the way that you think about the other person can only get worse over time.

3. Detachment / indifference

It is inevitable that after a while you will start to become more and more detached from the other person and start to look outside of the relationship to have your needs met. This does not mean that everyone will have an affair but simply that you are likely to put your attention and emotions elsewhere, whether that is with work, friends, family or other outside activities, and indifference to the other person will settle in and you may even find that you just feel more comfortable when you are not in their company. You stop doing things together and develop other interests. Things that may have been really important to you or that you may have really enjoyed about that other person you are now indifferent to.

4. Separation.

The final stage is when for whatever reason either one of you or both of you decide that you don’t want to be in the relationship anymore and you breakup. This could be by having a trial separation or a complete break. Which ever way it is there will then follow a period of mourning / getting over the relationship. Separation can feel like hard work and feel painful, but if the relationship really wasn’t working, once you come to terms with the fact that the relationship is over, building a new and exciting life is the next step.


If you have gone through a breakup or if you are deciding at the moment whether you want to stay in a relationship, you can probably recognise the various stages above and fit your own experiences to each stage.

Whether you want to look at ways to improve your existing relationship, decide whether you want to separate or are currently getting over a breakup and feel like you need help to create some clarity and understanding, why not contact me for a free consultation, where you can discover what it is you really want